Ep. 447 - Can’t Stump Trump(s)
Episode Stats
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179.8201
Summary
Donald Trump Jr takes no prisoners during an appearance on The View. Meanwhile, the smart ex-administration officials stay on the Trump train, and even more Democrats get ready to jump into the presidential race. We will examine why the Teflon Donans keep winning, Nikki Haley blows the whistle on sabotage in President Trump s cabinet, and surveys show conservatives are hotter and more dateable than liberals.
Transcript
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Donald Trump Jr. takes no prisoners during an appearance on The View. Meanwhile, the smart
00:00:05.620
ex-administration officials stay on the Trump train and even more Democrats get ready to jump
00:00:11.340
into the presidential race as the odds of the president's reelection increase. We will examine
00:00:16.460
why the Teflon don, the Teflon dons keep winning. Nikki Haley blows the whistle on sabotage in
00:00:23.240
President Trump's cabinet. Surveys show conservatives are hotter and more dateable
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than liberals. I've been saying it for years. And a young MAGA hat-clad hero, Trolls MSNBC.
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All that and more. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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So much to get to. The Don Jr. clip on The View is one of the most satisfying things I have seen
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on network television in my entire life. I want to get to that. I especially want to get to the story
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Never go to the post office again. Donald Trump Jr. Donald Trump Jr. just, it was so sweet. It was,
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I don't even know how to describe it. So I will give it no introduction other than to say
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The View made a very, very big mistake inviting on Donald Trump Jr. to promote his new book,
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She's talking about lowering the discourse to his level, which is horrible for this country.
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Even if people are working, we don't want to have a country like that. Do you understand that?
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We don't like the vessel of this, but nevertheless, look at the report.
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Okay. So I want it to be clear here. They started the fight. The View started the fight.
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The way this is being portrayed in the media is that Donald Trump Jr. came in there with
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guns blazing, just going out to lob bombs at the hosts, hostesses of The View. That's not what
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happened. Joy Behar started it. And she said, look, I don't care if people are working. I don't care
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if the economy is going great. I don't care if consumer confidence is very high. I don't care
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if all of that is so great. The discourse has been lowered in this country, which is the greatest
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example of a pot calling a kettle black I have ever seen in my life. Joy Behar, a hostess
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of The View, a show that has almost single-handedly degraded discourse in America. I mean, truly
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a, an example of some of the worst discourse in the American public sphere is, is hurling
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this insult at Trump and saying, your father has degraded discourse in America. This shows
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you a key fact about Trump, which I think a lot of Trump's critics misunderstand, especially
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his critics on the right misunderstand this. What we're pointing out so much of the time,
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what is clear so much of the time from the Trump era is not that Donald Trump is the greatest
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guy that ever lived. It's not that Donald Trump is the most eloquent guy or the greatest
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president. It isn't that. It's that Trump is better than his critics. The lesson is that
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the criticisms lobbed by Trump's critics are actually more applicable to the critics themselves.
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It's this total explosion of self-awareness because if you are a hostess on The View accusing
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somebody else of degrading discourse, you have lost the narrative. So Joy Behar starts the attack. She
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says, you've degraded our discourse. Your father's offensive. And John, Don Jr. unloads.
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We've all done things that we regret. I mean, if we're talking about bringing a discourse down,
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Joy, you've worn blackface. Whoopi. You said that Roman Polanski. I have not. I'm sorry. And don't,
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if you do it. You said that Roman Polanski, it wasn't rape, rape when he raped a child. So let's
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talk about serious things. Come on. Let's talk about this. So you want to bring this up?
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The question came up. I did not go in blackface. Please. No, she was not in blackface. Thank you.
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No, sorry. Listen, being black, I recognize blackface. This I can say. Okay.
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So no, apparently she doesn't because Whoopi Goldberg very famously was sitting and laughing
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at a dinner next to her then boyfriend, Ted Danson, who was wearing actual blackface.
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By the way, I'm not attacking Whoopi Goldberg or Ted Danson for this, but clearly Whoopi Goldberg has a
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history here with blackface and it's, you can't use that attack to assault, or you can't use the
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attack of offensiveness to assault Donald Trump or Donald Trump Jr. or any of them. And then
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meanwhile, deny that your friends and your co-hosts have worn blackface and say it never
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happened. It's just gaslighting. We saw it happen. We saw the photo of Ted Danson. And by the way,
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we saw Joy Behar wearing blackface in the 1970s and she didn't just wear it. We didn't just see the
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photo. She actually admitted to it on television. Is that you, Joy? Oh, you know, this picture.
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Joy, is that you? Joy, that is you? Yes. Joy, are you black? No, I know. It was a Halloween
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party. I went as a beautiful African woman. Oh, yes, you ain't black. But that's my hair.
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That's my hair. That is me. Did you have tanning lotion on, Joy? I had makeup that was a little
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bit darker than my skin. A little bit of makeup was a little bit darker. Makeup was just a
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little, okay. So I wore dark makeup to go in a costume as a black person, but that's not blackface
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because it's only blackface when conservatives do it. Even though I can't think of a time that
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conservatives have done it because Justin Trudeau is not a conservative. Ralph Northam is not a
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conservative. Ted Danson is not a conservative. Joy Behar is not a conservative. I could go on and on
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and Billy Crystal is not a conservative when he dressed like Sammy Davis Jr. I mean, we, we would spend
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the whole show talking about left-wingers wearing blackface and I'm not even attacking them for that.
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I'm pointing out the gaslighting because Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar say blackface is terrible.
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You can't wear it. I never wore it. I've never approved of anybody wearing it. Yes, you did.
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You did. So maybe before you start throwing stones at Donald Trump for how offensive he is,
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maybe just take a look at, before you accuse me, take a look at yourself. So Don Jr. flips the script
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on the view. This is a key of the Trump era is that flipping the script. What's good for the goose
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is good for the gander. If the left is going to attack us in a way that some deem unfair, Trump is
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going to attack them in that way. He's not going to unilaterally disarm. And apparently this trade
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applies not just to the father, but also to the son. You've broken this piece of ice because I
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guess this is the fight you want. It's not the fight. Yeah, it is. But if we're talking about
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character, we're talking about these things. Are you questioning my character? I'm not
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questioning your character. I'm talking about, you're questioning my father's character.
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I'm sorry, I didn't question anybody. I simply said that when you're talking about that your father's
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taking more heat than anybody else, that it's not so. Instead- As a president? Yes, as a president.
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It's ridiculous. So she says, this is the fight you wanted, Don Jr. No, it's not. They started the
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fight. This is what the left always does to us. They say, you started it. You want the fight.
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You're bringing it. No, we don't. You know, when we go to college campuses, some of us conservatives
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who go give speeches at college campuses, the left, which becomes often actually physically
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violent, becomes almost always disruptive, accuse us of starting the fight. We're not
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starting the fight. We're giving lectures at college campuses. That's what college campuses
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are for. We're exchanging different ideas on college campuses. That's what college campuses
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are for. The people who are causing the disruption, the people lobbying the attacks, the people who
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are becoming sometimes violent, they're the ones who are starting and they're gaslighting
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us. And for so long, conservatives were cowered by this kind of behavior. We'd say, oh gosh,
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they're calling us. They're saying we're starting the fight on TV. We don't want to seem, because
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like the TV is stacked against us. So they're going to make us look bad and we don't want to
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look bad. And we're trying to appeal to the people that the TV appeals to. So we're just going
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to back down and let the left run roughshod over the culture, not just on TV, but in the
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movies, not just in the movies, but on college campuses. And the thing that people love so
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much about Trump, even more than the mean tweets, even more than some of the policy successes,
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frankly, is that he's fighting back. This is a trait that after Trump is gone, Trump is
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a unique figure in American politics. Once he's gone, you're not going to have candidates
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like him anymore. He's one of a kind, okay? An American original. But we can at least learn
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this one lesson from Trump, which is just, don't take it. Don't lie down and take it.
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Even when you're invited into the lion's den on The View, don't just lie there and take
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it. They start the fight, you finish the fight. Don Jr. then goes nuclear at the end of this.
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He's prompted by a question from Abby Huntsman, whom I love. When, by the way, when I am criticizing
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hosts on The View, just assume that I'm not criticizing Abby Huntsman, who is a friend
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of mine for a while and I like her very much. However, my friendship with Abby does not excuse
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the other women on The View, like Joy Behar, who are just absolutely destroying public discourse.
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So Abby though, Abby pushes back on Don Jr. and says, your father is imperiling the whistleblower.
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Your father is not following the norms on the whistleblower. And it's important that we protect
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whistleblowers and whistleblowers are great. And if you ever reveal the identity of a whistleblower
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or otherwise punish a whistleblower for blowing the whistle, you're really being a bad whistleblowing
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sort of person. Don Jr. flips the script even there. I'm outraged because I care about diplomacy
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in this country. I care about how we protect the people when they see a wrongdoing, that they go
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through the proper political channels and they are protected for doing that. So you can say that
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that whatever outlet released it. Abby, but let's not kid ourselves. The name has been out there
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for five days. But it doesn't make it right. But nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless.
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But Abby, you guys, ABC is right now chasing down a whistleblower about all of the Epstein stuff
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because those stories were killed. So if we're going to have the conversation about the outrage
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about whistleblowers, you work with CBS, you work with CBS to ask a whistleblower who came up with a
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story that's punishating. I'm going to ask one question. This is not CBS. No, but you work with
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them. That broke this morning. Can we stick to what she asked in the question? Just because if we
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start getting off on... No, no, no. Because now, no, because I can... That's what I'm saying.
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So you see what Whoopi does in there. She jumps in the minute that Don Jr. answers Abby's point.
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Whoopi says, no, no, no. We're not talking about the Epstein whistleblower. We're not talking about
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the people at ABC News who leaked video to James O'Keefe of our own hosts talking about how ABC
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News killed the Epstein story. We're not talking about that kind of whistleblower. We're only talking
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about the kind of whistleblower that hurts Trump. You can't talk about... She says, you've got to stay
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on topic. Don Jr. is staying on topic. He's saying, hold on a second. You're casting aspersions
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on my father for... For what? For saying that he has a right to face his accuser? All in the name
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of the whistleblower. Meanwhile, your network that we are currently on is chasing down whistleblowers
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for pointing out actually corrupt behavior from this network. So corrupt that they're actually...
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ABC is working with CBS to chase down this guy who leaked the footage of a host telling the truth
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about how ABC News killed the story about Jeffrey Epstein, who, by the way, did not kill himself.
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Just that's sort of a sidebar. He flips the script entirely. We should learn this lesson all the
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time. Do not accept the left's premises. You know, even I was having a debate in Nashville at Politicon
00:13:55.920
with Clay Aiken. I was supposed to be having a debate with the Democrat Chris Hahn, but it ended up
00:14:00.740
becoming a debate with the moderator, quote unquote, Clay Aiken. And what Clay Aiken kept trying to do
00:14:05.440
was get me to say the exact words that he wanted me to say, by which he would get me to accept his
00:14:14.460
premises and look bad. So one thing he tried to get me to do is he tried to push the same kind of hoax
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about the Charlottesville rally that the mainstream media pushed, which is that Donald Trump defended
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neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville. So he wanted me to say that there weren't very fine
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people on both sides, not very fine people on both sides of the debate over taking down historical
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monuments, but specifically the people who chanted Jews will not replace us. He wanted me to defend
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people chanting Jews will not replace us. And I said, Clay, what a stupid question. What a ridiculous
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question. Nazis are bad. I think we all agree, but he couldn't leave it there because the question he
00:14:53.180
was asking me was more or less, Hey, Michael, when did you stop beating your wife? Either any way you
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answer that question, you look bad. This is what the left always does. Flip that script. Do not accept the
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premises. You don't owe them an answer. Don jr. Doesn't owe an answer on whistleblowers to the
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view on ABC. ABC owes an answer on whistleblowers to us. Don jr. Doesn't owe an answer on degrading
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American discourse to joy Behar. Joy Behar owes an answer on degrading American discourse to us.
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Don't accept the premises. Don't accept this ridiculous idea that you owe people. You owe people on the left
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some kind of answer on, I don't know, on little children. They were, for a while they were saying
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that the Trump administration was imprisoning children, which isn't true. These parents were
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sending their children across the border illegally in violation of the law. And then they obviously
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were being detained and held in custody. You don't owe an answer to the left on that. The left kills
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a million babies a year. The left is now supporting injecting little children with hormones to stop
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them from going through puberty. You don't owe an answer to them. Don jr. Proved it. I love it. I
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think that's a key lesson of the Trump era. You can see how dishonest the people are.
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The website PolitiFact is actually now lying about a video that we all saw with our own eyes. We'll get to
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that in a second. We'll get to what that means, both for the administration in 2020 and for the
00:16:23.380
Democrats running for president, because there's a lot of news on both fronts. First, I've got to
00:16:27.760
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to compare and buy life insurance. I'll just show you how dishonest these people are
00:18:14.660
and why Don Jr. needs to go in there and go nuclear. PolitiFact sent out this tweet,
00:18:21.680
quote, a Trump ad said Democratic presidential candidates, quote, support giving illegal immigrants
00:18:27.180
free health care at our expense. We rated that mostly false. Now a Florida GOP leader made a similar
00:18:33.480
statement. It's still mostly false. So what PolitiFact, an organization that pretends that it
00:18:38.760
exists to fact check politicians, not biased at all, not partisan at all. In reality, it's
00:18:45.240
just a leftist website, but they pretend to be neutral. They pretend to be objective. They
00:18:49.760
say that the statement that Democratic presidential candidates support giving illegal immigrants
00:18:54.940
free health care at our expense is mostly false. But we have the video. We have the video
00:19:02.260
from NBC News from the Democratic presidential debate where the moderator asks, do you support
00:19:07.880
giving health care to illegal aliens? And not just one, not just two, every single candidate's
00:19:13.220
hand, one up. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented
00:19:23.120
So every hand goes up there. How does PolitiFact justify their mostly false rating? They say that
00:19:29.880
the moderator's question did not specify if the health care was free. But it did. It actually
00:19:38.320
did. She said, would your government plan provide health care for illegal immigrants? Provide. The
00:19:47.120
word provide. It's giving. It's bringing it. It's giving it to them. It is actual. Even their
00:19:54.540
BS trying Clintonian sort of twisting the words doesn't work. It's just an out and out lie. That's
00:20:01.900
from PolitiFact. No credibility. The view, no credibility. All of these mainstream outlets just
00:20:10.160
do not command our respect. And it makes you think a little differently about the president who's usually
00:20:17.500
the object of their ire. Even in the administration, you know, we had been told all the really smart
00:20:23.500
people, all the fancy people who wear jackets and ties and live in the beltway. They said, look,
00:20:28.300
Trump might be terrible. I'm talking even about right wingers. I'll say Trump might be terrible,
00:20:32.300
but at least we have responsible people in the administration. Good, serious, responsible people
00:20:37.800
defending the rule of law, defending our institutions and our norms. People like, I don't know, Rex
00:20:44.420
Tillerson, former secretary of state. People like John Kelly, former chief of staff. They're the good
00:20:51.120
guys. They're the one defending our norms and our constitution. Trump is the one destroying it.
00:20:56.200
Except now in a new book, in a new interview, Nikki Haley is saying that it was actually guys like
00:21:02.420
Tillerson and Kelly who were undermining our norms, undermining our institutions, undermining our
00:21:07.480
constitution. Nikki Haley writes in her new book, quote, Kelly and Tillerson confided in me
00:21:13.080
that when they resisted the president, they were not being insubordinate. They were trying to save
00:21:19.100
the country. Here's Nikki Haley. The secretary of state Tillerson went on to tell you the reason he
00:21:23.540
resisted the president's decisions was because if he didn't, people would die. Do you memorialize
00:21:29.820
that conversation? It definitely happened. It absolutely happened. And instead of saying that to
00:21:35.320
me, they should have been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their
00:21:40.360
sidebar plan. It should have been, go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you
00:21:46.500
don't like what he's doing. But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing.
00:21:53.560
And it goes against the constitution and it goes against what the American people want. And it was,
00:21:57.900
was offensive. That's right. That's absolutely right. And this is where I come, this is where I
00:22:04.440
begin when I'm evaluating something that the president has done. I do not begin from the position
00:22:09.960
that Trump is always right. And I love everything he's doing, whether that's on policy, whether that's
00:22:14.560
on executive action, whether that's on his behavior. That's actually not where I begin.
00:22:18.120
And I do have some policy problems with the president. For instance, I didn't like the
00:22:21.520
first step act. I thought that was a mistake. I felt that healthcare could have been handled
00:22:26.740
a little differently. So there are some policy differences. However, where I begin is from
00:22:32.640
position of assuming the best of the president and maybe the corruption of the mainstream media.
00:22:42.160
Why do I assume that? Because that's exactly the opposite of the script that I'm being told
00:22:47.060
by the mainstream media. And I've just been fooled one too many times. The media have told us that
00:22:52.240
Trump colluded with Russia to overturn the 2016 election, that he should be impeached for his tax
00:22:58.300
problems, that he's a racist and a bigot and a Nazi and a terrible person. And they've been lying
00:23:03.100
the whole time. And so I just approach these questions, not even with treating these guys
00:23:08.840
differently. I won't even say that I treat, I begin assuming Trump is really great and the media
00:23:13.520
are really terrible. I just begin with a little skepticism about those claims. And I give a little
00:23:19.340
bit of grace to the president because it's the opposite of what we're getting. And usually that
00:23:23.420
appears to be the right way to go. You can even see this with the ex-Trump administration officials
00:23:28.540
who have done well. The ones who have done well, the ones who have positioned themselves well,
00:23:33.180
are the ones who don't throw him under the bus, like Nikki Haley, or in this case, like
00:23:39.540
Jeff Sessions. So Jeff Sessions, former attorney general, who actually did sort of get done wrong
00:23:44.180
by the president. I mean, he, he was the subject of many mean tweets from the president that could
00:23:49.020
have, one imagines, been handled behind closed doors. Jeff Sessions has not come out and criticized
00:23:54.360
the president. Now he's running for his old Senate seat. And what, what's interesting about this is not
00:23:58.820
that Sessions wants to run for Senate. I thought for months that he would run for Senate.
00:24:01.920
What's interesting about this is that Sessions is running for Senate, not against the president,
00:24:07.900
but on the president's record. Here is the opening ad of his would-be campaign. The opening ad doesn't
00:24:15.040
even talk totally about his record. It talks about the president's record. He, he airs the ad and then
00:24:19.960
he, he talks about it to Tucker Carlson. When I left president Trump's cabinet, did I write a tell-all
00:24:25.460
book? No. Did I go on CNN and attack the president? Nope. Have I said a cross word about our president?
00:24:33.440
Not one time. And I'll tell you why. First, that would be dishonorable. I was there to serve his
00:24:39.960
agenda, not mine. Second, the president's doing a great job for America and Alabama. And he has my
00:24:48.040
strong support. He has your strong support. Do you have his strong support? Well, I hope so. I think
00:24:54.460
he will respect my work. I was there for the Trump agenda every day I was in the Senate. No doubt about
00:25:01.040
it. I was the first Republican, uh, first Senator to endorse him. Yes. Uh, we pushed his immigration
00:25:06.800
agenda, his trade agenda, and began to work to a more realistic foreign policy.
00:25:11.400
I love this answer. The president has my support. Okay. Well, does, do you have the president's
00:25:18.060
support? He goes, I hope I do, but it's not about me. That's the subtext of what Jeff Sessions is
00:25:24.200
saying. He goes, I hope I have the president's support, but my support for the president is not
00:25:29.460
simply some kind of calculation to get him to help me. It's not a quid pro quo, if you will.
00:25:36.300
So my support of the president is for what the president is doing because it's not only is it
00:25:42.160
not about me, it's not even really about Trump. It's about what Trump is doing. This is an important
00:25:48.240
lesson for all of us. When people want to assail the administration, go after them on what they're
00:25:56.120
doing. I mean, go, look, we can have a disagreement about something like the first step act, for instance,
00:25:59.940
but don't go after them for yourself. It's not about you. It's not, look, if you're serving the
00:26:09.320
president as chief of staff, like John Kelly or secretary of state, like Rex Tillerson,
00:26:13.900
if you disagree with the president's agenda, then don't take the job.
00:26:19.960
There's no shame in that. If the president asks you to serve and you say, look, I disagree with what
00:26:23.520
you want to do, so I'm not going to serve. Okay. Fair enough. The worst thing you could do is go in
00:26:28.560
there and then undermine your own boss and to sabotage your own job. That's making it all about
00:26:35.560
you. And a lot of people are doing that these days in politics, not just people working in the
00:26:41.140
administration, but senators and congressmen and even pundits and rank and file voters.
00:26:47.580
They're making it about them. What is this, what is this commentary going to do for me or say about
00:26:53.580
me? What is this time I serve in the administration going to do and say for me, me, me?
00:26:58.560
What does this vote say about me and how will it reflect on me? It's not about you. That's so much
00:27:06.240
of the problem that we're seeing in the country. It's not about you. We are living at a time of
00:27:12.900
intense political narcissism, egotism, and pride. We have a whole month that celebrates pride.
00:27:19.440
We have a whole internet structure now that exists to gratify each of us individually,
00:27:27.260
to accumulate likes, to accumulate views, to sort of worship at the altar of the self. Each and every
00:27:34.240
one of us is the 2006 time person of the year because that year it was you. And we need to push
00:27:41.000
back against this and say, hold on, I'm willing to subdue and restrain my ego and even my own desires
00:27:48.100
to accomplish something outside myself, to accomplish something for the country. That was the Jeff
00:27:54.720
Sessions argument. That's the Jeff Sessions argument going into the Senate race. And I think that's
00:28:00.020
absolutely terrific. Now, it's not just conservatives. It's not just wishful thinking, I think, that is
00:28:09.120
saying that Trump's looking pretty good compared to his critics. I'm always aware of that. I understand,
00:28:14.220
look, I'm a conservative. I vote Republican. I don't want to just get trapped in a little bubble.
00:28:20.800
But I don't think it's just us. I don't think it's just us who thinks Trump is looking good right now.
00:28:25.440
I think the Democrats are terrified that Trump is looking good right now. That's why even in a field
00:28:30.680
that had over 20 candidates or 25 candidates, there are more Democratic candidates about to jump in the
00:28:36.500
race because they do not believe that any of those jokers on the stage are going to beat Donald Trump
00:28:42.060
next November. We will get into which candidates are running and which eternal candidate still will
00:28:49.660
not be able to give it up. I'm talking about the person who totally didn't kill Jeffrey Epstein.
00:28:55.060
I'm just because he killed himself. So obviously I'm not, or did he not? Maybe he didn't kill
00:29:00.580
himself. We'll get to all of that in a second. But first, I've got to say about Facebook and YouTube.
00:29:05.200
Head on over to dailywire.com. $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership. You get me,
00:29:08.820
you get the Andrew Klavan show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get the Matt Walsh show,
00:29:11.780
you get to ask questions in the mailbag coming up on Thursday. You get Another Kingdom, the final
00:29:15.880
and, in my opinion, greatest season yet of a really important story written by Andrew Klavan.
00:29:21.300
And you get the Leftist Tears Tumblr. This is the View edition. It's really,
00:29:27.760
I think it's really good for your voice and helps you really elevate the American discourse.
00:29:32.080
So head on over to dailywire.com. We'll be right back.
00:29:38.820
We may have a new candidate in the Democratic race. I can't say we officially have a new
00:29:52.580
candidate yet because there has not been a formal announcement. But this candidate has
00:29:57.640
officially filed paperwork to run in at least the Alabama primary because there was a campaign
00:30:04.180
deadline. And so this candidate got in there early before that deadline was over.
00:30:10.220
I'm not speaking about Hillary Clinton. We'll get to her in a second. I'm speaking about what,
00:30:15.160
what obviously the Democrats want. You know, in, in 2019, intersectional Democrats,
00:30:20.340
populism, socialism, obviously what the Democrats are clamoring for is one of the richest men in the
00:30:26.520
world, a billionaire from New York, Michael Bloomberg. Mike Bloomberg has been signaling,
00:30:33.420
not just for weeks and months, but years that he wants to run for president. He's been signaling
00:30:38.340
that he wants to run for president since the year 2000 and he's never quite done it. Why not? Because
00:30:45.960
Mike Bloomberg, who, look, I lived in New York when Mike Bloomberg was mayor. Mike Bloomberg ran for
00:30:52.460
mayor of New York as a Republican. No one really thought he was a Republican, but he figured he'd have
00:30:57.980
the easiest time running as a Republican. He runs, he wins. He then quickly became an independent.
00:31:03.400
Then eventually he registers as a Democrat. So what are Mike Bloomberg's politics? Mike Bloomberg is
00:31:08.880
what, what is often referred to as the fiscal conservative social liberal. And I think even
00:31:16.540
those terms are a little silly. What is it to be a fiscal conservative? The history of conservative
00:31:22.120
philosophy encompasses many economic ideas. What does it mean to be a social liberal? What it basically
00:31:28.320
means is that Mike Bloomberg is a greedy Democrat. That's what it means to be a fiscal conservative
00:31:33.320
social liberal. It means I want to redefine marriage. I, I want to have policies that kill
00:31:42.980
babies. I want to support legal infanticide. I want people to do whatever they want. I don't care
00:31:48.260
that much about the culture. It doesn't interest me. I've got my penthouse up here. I can live whatever
00:31:53.920
life I want. And you ruffians on the ground can fend for yourselves. But at the very least,
00:31:59.160
I want to keep more of my money. Greedy Democrats. That's what it is. And this is not a popular
00:32:05.800
position. If you live on the coasts, if you ever go to elite institutions, if you ever go around those
00:32:14.720
nice cocktail parties in Washington, DC, or New York, or San Francisco, or Los Angeles, you will
00:32:21.120
very often hear people say, oh gosh, look, we need to get over this abortion stuff. We need to legalize
00:32:28.120
abortion. Forget about any laws that in any way touch upon what could reasonably be construed as
00:32:34.100
traditional morality. But look, I'm reasonable. I just want to lower taxes. If you could have a
00:32:41.200
candidate who wanted to lower taxes and liberalize all of our social policy, ye would win the whole
00:32:47.880
country. He'd get 90% of the vote. This is what all the coastal people think. This is what all the
00:32:52.320
graduates of fancy colleges think. And they're completely wrong. We know they're completely
00:32:57.460
wrong because there have been polls about this. The people who identify as fiscal, conservative,
00:33:02.140
social, liberal, the people who are Mike Bloomberg in their politics constitute about four and a half
00:33:07.960
percent of the voting population. Four and a half percent. Nobody, nobody wants that. And the fancy
00:33:14.620
people on the coast who graduated from Harvard don't understand how that's possible. The reason
00:33:20.020
that they say the reason that people don't identify as fiscal conservatives and social liberals is they're
00:33:25.600
just not educated enough. No, that's not the problem. The reason that they, people don't identify
00:33:31.260
as fiscal conservatives and social liberals is it doesn't make any sense. Conservative thought
00:33:37.380
has an internal logic to it. If you defend tradition, if you defend our institutions,
00:33:45.260
if you defend property rights in the United States, if you defend these things, they all sort of go
00:33:51.800
together. On the flip side, if you are a radical, if you hate our institutions, if you hate our system
00:33:59.180
of government, if you hate our system of property rights, if you think it's all rotten to the core,
00:34:02.780
there is a sort of internal coherence of leftism. What does not make sense is taking the simplest,
00:34:14.160
most tempting, most alluring, and most self-serving parts of each and smashing them together and saying,
00:34:23.080
well, I'm a complete degenerate on morality, but I'm also greedy. Let's put those together. That doesn't
00:34:29.380
make sense. It's alluring and it's attractive, but it doesn't make any sense, which is why I'm
00:34:33.480
still skeptical that Bloomberg will actually throw his hat in the race. Not because he doesn't want
00:34:37.920
it, not even because he's cowardly, but because he's got very good pollsters, he sees the numbers,
00:34:42.100
and it's probably not going to work out very well for him. I mean, just to give you an example
00:34:46.120
of the kind of moral blindness of people like Mike Bloomberg, listen to an interview he gave just
00:34:52.580
just this year, I believe, with Margaret Hoover of the new version of Firing Line, in which Mike
00:34:59.740
Bloomberg explicitly defends the communist government of China. The United States currently
00:35:04.520
accounts for about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. China accounts for roughly 30% of
00:35:11.000
greenhouse gas emissions. How do we, even if we get to net zero and we're doing our part,
00:35:17.000
how do you account and how do you get China, India, and the other countries to be good partners?
00:35:23.160
China is doing a lot. India is doing some, but I think that China is doing a lot. Yes,
00:35:28.500
they're still building a bunch of coal-fired power plants. And they're still burning coal.
00:35:31.560
Yes, they are, but they are now moving plants away from the cities. The Communist Party wants to stay
00:35:37.640
in power in China, and they listen to the public. When the public says, I can't breathe the air,
00:35:42.860
where, Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents, or he's not going to
00:35:48.540
survive. He's not a dictator? No, he has to. He has a constituency to answer to. He doesn't have
00:35:54.460
a vote. He doesn't have a democracy. He doesn't, he's not held accountable by voters. That doesn't
00:35:57.260
mean he can survive if his advisors gave him... If they check on him just a revolution?
00:36:03.260
You're not going to have a revolution. Nobody, no government survives without the will of the
00:36:07.740
majority of its people. What? So what Mike Bloomberg says is, look, the dictator of China,
00:36:13.320
he's not really a dictator. He's accountable to his people. Margaret Hoover says, how is he
00:36:17.940
accountable? He doesn't have any elections. He doesn't have any serious democratic mechanisms.
00:36:23.660
So are you saying that the only way he's accountable is because there'll be a revolution?
00:36:27.400
And then Bloomberg admits, he says, oh, there's not going to be a revolution. No, no, that guy's got
00:36:31.240
an iron fist. No way are you going to get a revolution in China. So then he's a dictator. But Mike
00:36:36.560
Bloomberg doesn't want to say he's a dictator because all Mike Bloomberg is concerned with
00:36:40.620
in this discussion is that we keep that economic growth going. We keep boosting that GDP and we
00:36:47.040
keep getting those cheap Chinese goods and we keep getting China to buy up our debt. And we keep
00:36:51.700
getting China to be part of this kind of liberal vision of one world market with ever increasing
00:36:59.460
global governance where national ties, bonds of loyalty don't really exist at all. And countries
00:37:04.580
don't stand for anything other than the relentless pursuit of economic growth. By the way, I love
00:37:08.620
economic growth. I think it's a great thing. I think Irving Kristol was largely right when he said
00:37:13.900
that the three pillars of modern conservatism, and it's ironic because people who use the term
00:37:19.340
neoconservatism as a disparaging insult are usually defining conservatism along the very same
00:37:25.360
lines as the neoconservative Irving Kristol. Irving Kristol said the three pillars are religion,
00:37:30.580
economic growth, and nationalism. And what Mike Bloomberg is saying is, yeah, forget that religious
00:37:37.020
stuff. Forget that nationalist stuff. Forget all that kind of cultural and social stuff. It's just
00:37:42.420
about economic growth. Look, if you have enough economic growth, the dictators will be accountable
00:37:49.320
to the people. I mean, this was the line we were told for decades. And then Margaret Hoover asked the
00:37:54.060
question, wait, it doesn't look like he's accountable to the people. And Bloomberg more or less admits,
00:37:57.180
yeah, well, he's not really that accountable. But look at the economic growth. That is not
00:38:02.540
going to sell. It's not going to play in Peoria, not because the voters are so uneducated, but because
00:38:10.020
the worldview doesn't make sense and because it is repugnant. Now, speaking of repugnance,
00:38:15.720
we might have another candidate in the race. Our favorite perennial candidate who spent a lot of time
00:38:23.960
in St. Petersburg when she felt it was time for a change, Hillary Clinton was speaking at a New York
00:38:30.360
Times event. And it's a live event. And she's asked if she's running again. And of course,
00:38:36.860
she can't say no, because she's trying to figure out the easiest way to jump back into this race.
00:38:43.660
I'm sorry, to run? To run. You know, I have always been a very, very slow runner. And,
00:38:52.840
you know, I am embarrassingly slow. I've tried to run races. And I am so far behind that I start to
00:39:03.100
walk acting like that was what the plan was all the time. So I don't know that I'm going to take
00:39:10.120
up competitive running right now. But I think you're asking about something else, aren't you?
00:39:16.900
Well, there's been some teasing and some hinting that maybe you're sitting off to the wings here
00:39:23.100
waiting for some moment. Oh, you know, look, I think I would have been a really good president.
00:39:27.680
I think I could have been a very, I think I could have done a really good job. I think the last
00:39:33.780
election was deeply flawed. And that there were so many unprecedented problems in that election that
00:39:43.340
it's almost hard to make sense of. But, you know, I'm out here traveling around with my daughter and
00:39:51.120
and she's still nursing her newest baby. So we've got our, you know, I've got my grandson with me and,
00:39:56.820
you know, life is pretty good. Life is pretty good. And I'm totally not thinking about running for
00:40:00.900
president or anything. That's why I keep sending my senior advisor on television to float the idea
00:40:05.200
that I could run for president. She's so bad at this. It reminds me when, when her answer on this,
00:40:11.780
are you running? What, what, like running, like, like running a race? It reminds me of that time
00:40:15.760
she was asked why she wiped her email server when the federal government was asking for those records
00:40:21.140
and she just totally bleach bitted the thing. And she gave the same answer where she was trying to
00:40:27.780
be cute. And it totally fell flat. That's all I can say. I'm not, you know, I don't, I have no idea.
00:40:35.980
That's why we turned it over. You were in charge of it. You were the official in charge. Did you wipe
00:40:39.580
the service? What, like with a cloth or something? I don't know. I don't know how it works digitally at
00:40:46.460
all. I do not have any. You did not try. Ed, I know you want to make a point and I can just repeat
00:40:52.960
what I have said. What, what? Did we wipe it? What, what? With a cloth or something? Humming,
00:40:57.140
humming, humming. I don't know. I don't know nothing. I don't know nothing. It's Hillary
00:41:01.920
Clinton's answer. Same thing on running because she does want to run again. The point I saw in
00:41:06.680
all of this though is obviously the Democrats feel that the field is weak, even though the field has
00:41:13.080
just about every candidate out there. What is it? 20, 25 candidates when they began, they feel that
00:41:18.820
it's weak and for all their bluster about impeachment and Trump's going to go and he's a dead man
00:41:22.860
walking. They don't think that. And that's why other candidates are thinking about getting into
00:41:26.640
this race. They think that Joe Biden is a totally weak front runner. He's probably not going to get
00:41:30.180
the nomination. They think Liz Warren is way too radical to win a general election. They feel the
00:41:36.480
same thing about Bernie. Plus you with Bernie, you also have the age issue. They think that he's
00:41:40.580
falling apart. And then on the maybe more substantive matter, the ethical matter of the norms and the
00:41:47.000
trust in our institutions, let's not forget Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election said
00:41:51.280
that people who don't accept the results of elections are a threat to our democracy.
00:41:54.980
Meanwhile, now we're three years after the election and in that very same clip,
00:41:59.460
she's not accepting the results of that election. She says there were so many problems with it. It was
00:42:03.640
unprecedented. It boggles the mind what happened. The implication here being that it was an
00:42:09.480
illegitimate election and she wants a redo. That's what they want. And that's what the president is up
00:42:14.900
against. And that's the stakes of the election. That's the stakes of the political moment that
00:42:22.120
we're in. The answer to this is not to gloss over all the flaws of our own side. We certainly shouldn't
00:42:27.540
do that, but we should be willing to see with clarity the absolute rank corruption and desiccation
00:42:34.140
that we're up against. And then we have to make a choice. And the choice to me seems pretty clear. And
00:42:40.300
the choice is not just a political choice. It can be a romantic choice as well. This is my favorite
00:42:45.020
story out today. There is a new study out by the dating app Lumen, which shows that conservatives
00:42:52.600
are much better at dating than liberals. This company found that right wingers are more direct
00:42:59.440
than their left wing counterparts. You know, we're not that kind of mealy mouthed saying one thing and
00:43:06.580
meaning another and slippery and unctuous and oily. We're just, we tell people what we think.
00:43:11.080
That's what gets us in trouble on campus and at our jobs and on television and in politics.
00:43:16.320
The company found that they clearly state, conservatives clearly state to potential
00:43:19.980
lovers what they're looking for in terms of life and romance and that they also value family and
00:43:25.380
friendships more highly than liberals do. And they have a smaller and more intimate group of friends.
00:43:31.260
They're closer, whereas liberals tend to thrive in larger social groups where they don't really know
00:43:34.340
anybody. Conservatives have friends and intimates and liberals have acquaintances.
00:43:40.320
The liberals, the advantage they found for the liberals in this study is that liberals are more
00:43:43.820
carefree and more fun loving than conservatives. So, you know, when liberals do get a date,
00:43:49.880
it gets a little bit weirder, I guess. But for the conservatives, they care much more about these
00:43:54.480
relationships. They're more direct. Why is this? It seems to me it's the same issue we keep going
00:44:00.580
back to and going back to. Conservatives at our best in our worldview, in our philosophy,
00:44:07.020
look away from ourselves. We look at the world. We find great awe in the world. You know, I forget
00:44:14.320
if it was Chesterton or Lewis who said that we're, I think it was Chesterton who said we're, we're dying.
00:44:19.480
Our culture is in trouble, not from lack of wonders, but from lack of wonder. There's so many wonders in
00:44:27.140
the world. People are so beautiful, so interesting and wonderful to talk to people. But what we're
00:44:31.720
suffering from is a lack of curiosity, a lack of awe from ourselves to even be interested in those
00:44:38.320
other people. It's the, the same kind of view of the sexual revolution. You know, if you look at the
00:44:44.260
consequences of the sexual revolution, ubiquitous high-speed internet pornography, hookup culture,
00:44:50.420
all of the hookup culture is ubiquitous now too. And many people have experienced that,
00:44:55.520
especially in college. But when you look at the consequences of that, it's all essentially about
00:45:01.820
the self. It's about me. Widespread abortion on demand. Abortion itself is all about you. Me,
00:45:08.720
me, me at no regard whatsoever for the other person who is killed as a result of this.
00:45:15.160
All of it, the consequences of this for children, that awful case in Texas where the mother wants to
00:45:20.420
inject her son with hormones and block him from going through puberty because she really wants him to
00:45:24.220
be a daughter. It's all about the self. And that is corrosive. It makes people unhappy. It makes them
00:45:29.880
bad dating partners. And it's why conservatives do better in the dating scene. But it turns out that's
00:45:34.760
not the last thing they discovered. What we've also discovered is that conservatives are hotter than
00:45:41.220
liberals. Science proves it according to these studies. A person's looks apparently affect their
00:45:47.980
politics. And beautiful people lean more toward conservative beliefs, according to a study
00:45:53.320
published by two professors in the Midwest. If you control for socioeconomic status, you find
00:45:58.260
that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy,
00:46:03.320
identify as conservative, and identify as Republicans. This makes sense too. It's not just a joke. I mean,
00:46:07.800
I kind of joke about it a little bit sometimes that conservatives are hotter than liberals. But it does
00:46:13.080
make sense because conservatives tend to be more at peace in the world. Not that they're always happier,
00:46:19.120
but they're more at peace. They're more understanding of reality and the reality of suffering and the
00:46:25.560
brokenness of human nature. And we're not constantly chasing utopias. And we're not constantly falling
00:46:32.020
apart and focusing on our suffering and on ourselves as the center of the universe because we know that
00:46:37.040
isn't true. We're more at peace in the world. And I'm not surprised that people who have some
00:46:43.220
physical advantages also are, uh, are more at peace as well. Just a little nugget to tuck away in there
00:46:49.360
next time you're arguing with your left-wing friends. Before we go, I have to, uh, I have to thank a couple
00:46:55.280
of heroes. One is a cultural hero, a kid on MSNBC who was asked why he supports Trump and he gave the
00:47:01.880
best answer I've ever heard. The three of you told me you voted for the president in 2016, your supporters
00:47:07.060
of his. Why do you like him so much and what policies stand out to you? I would say mainly just the
00:47:14.240
no-nonsense policies and especially since Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. That's awesome. Yeah, it's totally
00:47:21.040
perfect. I'm waiting to see it. Turning back to Alabama, you guys want to tell me a little bit about the Senate race?
00:47:27.120
I noticed you have your buttons on here. What are you looking for in that? Yeah. So what are you
00:47:31.720
to support Trump? Oh, I just think the policies are really good, especially because Jeffrey Epstein
00:47:35.000
didn't kill himself. Total cultural hero. Well done. Also, we have to thank our very literal heroes
00:47:39.680
today, our veterans. Uh, we should thank veterans every day, but at least we have a day for this. The
00:47:45.340
day originally was Armistice Day, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.
00:47:51.320
And then this became a 1954 Veterans Day. There's some confusion. People treat Memorial Day and Veterans
00:47:58.620
Day is the same holidays. They're not Memorial Days for our servicemen who have fallen and made
00:48:05.020
the ultimate sacrifice. Veterans Day is for the veterans that we see all around us. Unfortunately,
00:48:10.180
I think it's something like just 1% of Americans have any connection really to the military,
00:48:15.180
serve in the military. And so it's harder and harder to find them. But when you do find them today,
00:48:19.320
thank them for their service. Thank them for defending this wonderful country that we have,
00:48:23.760
keeping us all safe and defending the liberties that we all enjoy. And I certainly thank all of
00:48:29.280
the veterans who listen to this show. That's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael
00:48:39.320
If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.
00:48:45.060
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subscribe. We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
00:48:55.480
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show,
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The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkiewicz and directed by Mike Joyner.
00:49:07.260
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Senior producer, Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer
00:49:12.420
is Mathis Glover. And our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Assistant director,
00:49:17.420
Pavel Wydowski. Edited by Danny D'Amico. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup is by
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Jesua Olvera. And our production assistant is Nick Sheehan. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire
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production. Copyright Daily Wire 2019. On The Matt Walsh Show, we're not just discussing politics. We're
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talking culture, faith, family, all of the things that are really important to you. So come join the