The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 490 - Two Visions Of America

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00:00:37.940 This is the Michael Knowles Show. I'm not Michael Knowles. I'm Ted Cruz, and it's 1.30 in the morning.

00:00:45.280 Senator, just because you're the number one podcaster in America does not mean that you

00:00:49.680 can also take my show. Well, enjoy your show, and thanks to everyone who tunes in.

00:00:55.800 All right, I'll see you back here later tonight. You'll go do your real job.

00:00:59.520 Off to work.

00:01:08.620 You know, I don't show up to the Senate and start casting votes, but

00:01:12.400 Senator Cruz will be heading over to the Capitol, and this will be the final day of impeachment.

00:01:17.560 He's going to cast that final vote on whether to acquit the president or to remove him from office.

00:01:23.420 That will all be very exciting, and we will talk about it later on on Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:01:28.880 Before then, though, we have got to talk about much happier news, the State of the Union.

00:01:35.340 The State of the Union, which is usually a boring, terrible speech, was magnificent.

00:01:42.820 President Trump gave, and I think I am not exaggerating when I say this,

00:01:46.420 the greatest State of the Union address in American history.

00:01:51.300 It was wonderful for three distinct reasons.

00:01:55.660 First of all, the stories that he told.

00:01:57.980 He is a master showman, so it's not surprising that he's able to tell really good stories.

00:02:03.200 Ronald Reagan did this very well, too.

00:02:04.960 You saw this with moments with Rush Limbaugh, moments with a number of really beautiful moments.

00:02:11.320 The second reason it was so great is that the Democrats reacted like monsters.

00:02:20.200 I mean, you couldn't have scripted more villainous reactions.

00:02:24.220 They couldn't applaud for low unemployment.

00:02:27.300 They couldn't applaud for anything.

00:02:29.740 Anything that Trump said, they had to oppose.

00:02:32.880 And then the third reason that the State of the Union speech was so good,

00:02:37.440 I think it was truly the best in history, is because it was true.

00:02:42.880 The State of the Union actually is strong.

00:02:45.060 The State of the Union has never been stronger in my lifetime.

00:02:48.040 I mean, I've never watched the State of the Union while the country was doing this well.

00:02:52.460 And there is really no substitute for the truth.

00:02:55.160 So let's jump right into it.

00:02:57.480 The Democrats, I mean, I think the biggest conclusion, the biggest takeaway is the Democrats couldn't clap for anything.

00:03:06.940 Just an example, President Trump running down the list, low unemployment, low black unemployment, low disabled unemployment, low female unemployment.

00:03:15.420 Watch the reaction.

00:03:16.680 Listen.

00:03:16.920 The unemployment rate for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans has reached the lowest levels in history.

00:03:40.060 African-American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low.

00:03:46.920 African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded.

00:04:00.100 The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years.

00:04:05.360 And last year, women filled 72 percent of all new jobs added. 1.00

00:04:11.300 We have to stop it right there because you can see in the House there are these female Congresswomen on the Democratic side wearing all white. 1.00

00:04:26.320 And the white is a symbol of the suffragettes and female activism and women getting the right to vote.

00:04:33.560 And those women who are ostensibly standing up for women's rights, when the president says that we've got record number of women in the workforce, they sit there frowning, angry, all upset.

00:04:45.640 Now, for me, I usually don't tout the female unemployment rate because the female unemployment rate is a different rate than, say, different racial unemployment rates or even age groups because it doesn't take into account women who choose to stay at home.

00:05:01.920 So, I mean, if you have a perfectly low female unemployment rate, then what you're basically saying is women are not able to stay at home and raise their families and be stay-at-home wives. 0.78

00:05:13.000 And I don't think we want to live in a country where women are not allowed to raise their children. 1.00

00:05:16.620 So it's a little bit different.

00:05:18.300 But those female Democratic Congresswomen, they're all for it, right? 1.00

00:05:22.300 That's what they're standing up for, except they can't stand up.

00:05:24.480 They've got to sit down because Donald Trump is actually the guy who accomplished the things that they say that they want to accomplish.

00:05:30.440 But it goes on.

00:05:31.360 He keeps listing all of these achievements, particularly economic achievements, and they just can't smile.

00:05:37.600 They just can't clap.

00:05:39.560 The veterans' unemployment rate dropped to a record low.

00:05:43.900 The unemployment rate for disabled Americans has reached an all-time low.

00:05:57.880 Workers without a high school diploma have achieved the lowest unemployment rate recorded in U.S. history.

00:06:27.880 A record number of young Americans are now employed.

00:06:35.720 There it is.

00:06:36.880 Anything.

00:06:37.540 I mean, he could say that everybody is going to get $50 million for free, and the Republicans would stand up, and the Democrats are sitting down.

00:06:46.080 Because there's always partisan rancor.

00:06:48.980 Obviously, people will sit down when they disagree on some policy position.

00:06:52.760 But this takes it a step further than we've seen in the past.

00:06:55.520 This is truly an example of Democrats refusing to applaud any of the president's accomplishments.

00:07:00.680 It plays very badly on television.

00:07:03.040 It really makes them look anti-American, which in many cases, unfortunately, they are.

00:07:07.620 Then President Trump takes this tactic of getting the Democrats to expose who they are, to expose that they're not really rooting for America.

00:07:16.560 He takes this into the realm of pro-life.

00:07:19.500 So he tells this story of a little girl who was able to survive.

00:07:25.520 She was born very early, and now she's a healthy child.

00:07:28.300 And he says that he is now calling on Congress to finally ban the barbaric practice of late-term abortion.

00:07:36.120 Not first-trimester abortion.

00:07:39.000 Not the morning-after pill.

00:07:40.500 Not all the areas where Democrats and pro-abortion people want to argue the pro-life point.

00:07:48.420 He's talking about the very end stages when the baby looks just like a baby and moves like a baby.

00:07:54.200 And everybody more or less agrees that that's barbaric.

00:07:58.720 And they won't stand for that either.

00:07:59.900 Ella reminds us that every child is a miracle of life.

00:08:05.160 And thanks to modern medical wonders, 50% of very premature babies delivered at the hospital where Ellie was born now survive.

00:08:14.700 It's an incredible thing.

00:08:16.220 Thank you very much.

00:08:21.060 Our goal should be to ensure that every baby has the best chance to thrive and grow just like Ellie. 0.93

00:08:27.840 That is why I'm asking Congress to provide an additional $50 million to fund neonatal research for America's youngest patients.

00:08:38.880 That is why I'm also calling upon members of Congress here tonight to pass legislation finally banning the late-term abortion of babies.

00:08:49.400 This is really an important point because for so long, tactically, pro-lifers and the right lose the abortion argument because the pro-abortion people say,

00:09:05.060 oh, come on, a zygote is not a baby, an embryo is not a baby, a fetus is not a baby.

00:09:11.100 It's a little clump of cells.

00:09:12.200 It looks nothing like a baby.

00:09:14.460 And tactically, it's much wiser for pro-lifers to argue at the later stages of pregnancy where you've got the vast, vast majority of Americans opposing abortion.

00:09:25.900 And President Trump got the Democrats to reveal the logical conclusion of their abortion advocacy because they're not just talking about babies who are one or two weeks old.

00:09:37.940 They're talking about babies who are seven months old, eight months old, nine months old.

00:09:41.600 In the case of the governor of Virginia, he said that the baby could be born and then maybe they'd kill the baby after he was born.

00:09:48.140 In the case of the Democratic governor of New York, Andy Cuomo, change the penal law in New York with his abortion law so that you can kill a baby up until the moment of birth.

00:09:59.040 And if you kill a pregnant mother, you won't be charged with double homicide, just single homicide.

00:10:03.620 Trump got them to expose that.

00:10:05.780 Their hatred of Trump has driven them so crazy that they can't cheer on successes for all sorts of Americans.

00:10:12.640 And they're actually sitting down in support of late-term abortion.

00:10:17.920 And then, as if that didn't tug on the heartstrings enough, President Trump gets to some really personal moments.

00:10:23.200 We will get to that as well.

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00:11:51.240 President Trump moves from the economic questions on to this cultural issues, late-term abortion.

00:11:58.740 Then he gets into some really personal stuff.

00:12:00.680 He gets into stories about parents who have suffered terrible tragedies because of terrorism.

00:12:07.180 Gets into American servicemen who have made big sacrifices.

00:12:11.020 I mean, reuniting families during the State of the Union.

00:12:14.180 And then one story that is particularly important for those of us in the conservative movement, especially those of us in broadcasting, is Rush Limbaugh.

00:12:22.760 Rush Limbaugh, the peerless conservative broadcaster, the pioneer.

00:12:27.280 He invented conservative talk radio.

00:12:29.840 He remains the best political analyst in the history of radio.

00:12:34.960 He's just – there is no number two.

00:12:37.180 There's Rush Limbaugh and then a huge gap and then a bunch of other people below.

00:12:42.520 Rush Limbaugh announces that he has late-stage cancer of the lungs.

00:12:47.920 President Trump immediately invites him to the State of the Union and Rush is sitting next to the First Lady, Melania.

00:12:54.460 President Trump gives him a truly tear-jerking tribute.

00:12:58.340 Here tonight is a special man, beloved by millions of Americans, who just received a stage four advanced cancer diagnosis.

00:13:10.780 This is not good news, but what is good news is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet.

00:13:19.900 Rush Limbaugh, thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country.

00:13:26.260 I am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

00:13:43.080 Rush Limbaugh, thank you for your time.

00:14:13.060 lady of the United States to present you with the honor, please.

00:14:29.200 I dare you to have a dry eye after listening to that. I mean, it was so magnificent.

00:14:39.500 First of all, God bless Rush Limbaugh. Personally, I'm so pleased. I so admire the guy. I'm so

00:14:45.780 pleased that he got that kind of honor. But consider it from the perspective of President

00:14:50.360 Trump. Very often, there are these personal stories. Ronald Reagan actually kind of invented

00:14:55.560 this tradition of inviting individuals from different walks of life and making their personal

00:15:01.040 stories part of the broader narrative of the country. But as with everything President Trump

00:15:06.360 does, he just turns it up to 11. So Rush gets this terrible diagnosis, late stage cancer. So he

00:15:13.280 immediately invites Rush. And then he takes it a step further and announces at the State of the

00:15:19.460 Union that he's going to give Rush the highest civilian honor in the country, the Medal of

00:15:23.060 Freedom. And Rush looked genuinely shocked. I don't think he saw leaked reports about that.

00:15:28.480 And then Trump takes it a step further and has the First Lady sitting next to him present the medal at

00:15:35.200 the State of the Union before a joint session of Congress. It's just incredible. The showmanship,

00:15:40.860 first of all. And beyond that, the honor, the dignity of it. Oh my gosh, it was just beautiful.

00:15:49.700 The State of the Union addresses are boring. They are chloroform on television usually until

00:15:55.220 this presidency. Trump, all of his State of the Union addresses have been good. This one was by far

00:16:02.980 the best. And the Democrats could not have been more furious. At least eight House Democrats boycotted

00:16:10.920 the State of the Union. They were led by AOC. And it was just a bad look. I mean, you had them sitting

00:16:18.120 down. They couldn't cheer for any of the great policies. But you had Nancy Pelosi wouldn't stand 1.00

00:16:22.700 up for Rush Limbaugh. When the guy is being told he's got this awful illness, probably not going to

00:16:29.820 end very well just statistically. Obviously, he's getting this big honor now. And Nancy Pelosi wouldn't

00:16:35.420 applaud, wouldn't stand up. House Democrats wouldn't stand up, wouldn't stand up for a number of these

00:16:42.760 stories, for a number of these achievements. And then at the beginning of the State of the Union,

00:16:48.820 you had Nancy Pelosi break protocol. Because usually when they open up the State of the Union, 0.87

00:16:54.120 the Speaker of the House will say, I have the honor and the privilege of announcing the President of

00:16:59.020 the United States. Nancy Pelosi nixed that. Totally broke from tradition. She just said, 0.99

00:17:04.140 members of Congress, the President of the United States. Seething, furious. And then at the end of

00:17:08.920 the speech, she did something that was so disgusting. The President hands a copy of the speech to the

00:17:15.100 Vice President and to the Speaker of the House. And at the end of the speech, right when President Trump

00:17:19.380 said, you know, our best days are ahead. The best is yet to come. God bless America. She stood up and

00:17:25.140 ripped up the speech, which is obviously offensive to half of the country because she has a different 1.00

00:17:31.960 political point of view than the President. And so it's offensive. She's showing such disrespect for 1.00

00:17:38.000 people who have a different political point of view. But she's showing such disrespect for the office 1.00

00:17:42.560 of the President. She's showing such disrespect for the American people. I mean, he is their elected 1.00

00:17:49.620 representative, right? He is their President. And she's ripping it up. I was under the impression she

00:17:54.340 was ripping up the Constitution. But I realized, no, no, it wasn't that she was actually ripping up the 0.59

00:17:58.640 speech that he had given her. I mean, I guess this plays very well to the AOC crowd. This plays very

00:18:05.680 well to a handful of super woke millennials and blue check marks on Twitter. I don't think this

00:18:13.740 plays well in Peoria. I don't think this plays well in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or any of those

00:18:20.120 battleground states, Michigan, that the Democrats are going to have to win in 2020. And it's being

00:18:27.400 played out in the polling. President Trump's polling has never been better, not just according to right

00:18:32.500 wing poll firms, also according to Gallup polling, which isn't particularly favorable to Trump.

00:18:38.640 And the Democrats polling couldn't be worse. And they really blew it tonight. I mean, they had a

00:18:43.320 chance to move past impeachment. President Trump's so smart, did not bring up impeachment, didn't bring

00:18:48.720 it up even once. Because watching this speech tonight, you realize that all of this impeachment,

00:18:55.000 which makes up all the news cycles, that's all everybody's talking about. That's going to be a

00:18:59.320 punchline in history. That is not going to be what historians talk about. It's going to be a shame

00:19:04.980 for the Democratic Party, a low point and a punchline. What historians are going to talk about

00:19:09.460 are all the things that were mentioned in the State of the Union. He was very wise to leave it out.

00:19:14.120 And if Democrats don't get beyond this angry, frowning, cross your arms, they're certainly not going to do

00:19:21.020 well in November. And we're seeing that in the numbers. We're seeing that in Iowa. We will get to the

00:19:26.940 debacle in Iowa in just a second. We will get to the imminent collapse of the Biden campaign and the

00:19:32.460 surge of Bernie. What that means, too, because we're seeing two visions of America. We're seeing

00:19:37.580 the State of the Union vision that the president gave us. And we're seeing the rising socialist vision

00:19:42.660 of Bernie Sanders. And those two visions could not be more different. But first, I got to tell you

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00:21:10.940 We saw a lot of bad habits in the audience at the State of the Union. We're seeing a lot of bad

00:21:14.600 habits on the campaign trail right now. All of that is boating very well for the president.

00:21:18.740 The president is now polling at 49% according to Gallup poll. Now you might say 49%, that's not

00:21:25.260 good. That's less than 50. True. But it's the best that Gallup has given President Trump at any point

00:21:31.660 in his presidency. And let's not forget, Trump won the election the first time too. He's also beating

00:21:36.300 Barack Obama at this same stage in his presidency. And don't forget, Barack Obama got reelected.

00:21:41.360 It's boating very well for Trump because he's doing the thing, right? He's actually delivering

00:21:50.960 results. The real reason that the State of the Union address was so good is not the flair.

00:21:55.680 It's the fact that it was true. He's really delivering on results. Whereas everything the

00:22:00.240 Democrats are doing is just about a fictional narrative. So they have a ton of investigations

00:22:05.560 about Russian collusion, but Russian collusion wasn't real. They are launching investigations

00:22:10.140 about how he didn't pay his taxes, but we know he did pay his taxes. We saw some of his tax returns.

00:22:14.400 They're launching investigations about a quid pro quo impeachable offense in the Ukraine that

00:22:19.940 didn't happen. It's all just imaginary nonsense. Actually, bringing it back to Rush Limbaugh again,

00:22:26.200 Rush Limbaugh had this beautiful moment in his announcement that he has this illness. And he said,

00:22:30.640 I don't like to talk about myself. And he really doesn't. He tells some jokes about how he's got

00:22:35.160 talent on loan from God. But the reason his show is so good, he's talking about the things that

00:22:41.260 matter to people. He respects his audience and he's really giving them some value. That's what

00:22:47.020 the Trump administration is doing, not just in the State of the Union, but in the Union generally.

00:22:52.020 The Democrats are not doing that. And it shows in the polling. So Trump doing very well in the

00:22:55.920 polling. Democrats collapsing. They can't even conduct their own election. The first state that's voting in

00:23:01.460 the Democratic presidential primary, we still don't have the results. As of this taping, we've got 62%

00:23:09.280 of the results in. And they're pretty dodgy results. And I think everybody is pretty dismayed about this.

00:23:16.340 You know, what we were told going into the 2020 Iowa caucuses is the Democrats are fired up. They can't

00:23:21.800 wait to kick out Trump. They're so excited about this crop of candidates. Actually, the turnout was just

00:23:28.380 as low as it was in 2016. That doesn't even account for population growth in Iowa. It was pretty low.

00:23:35.960 And we still don't have the results. The results we have right now, popular vote. This is the popular

00:23:39.880 vote. This is not going to decide who wins the state, which would be decided by delegates. This is

00:23:44.520 the popular vote. First place, Bernie Sanders. Second place, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Third place,

00:23:52.840 Elizabeth Warren. Fourth place, Joe Biden. A pitiful, a pitiful result for former Vice President Biden.

00:24:01.160 Fifth place, Amy Klobuchar. That's a popular vote in terms of the delegate counts. 0.99

00:24:06.380 Pete Buttigieg is in first place. He didn't win the most votes, but somehow he's winning in the

00:24:12.360 delegate count. Second place, Bernie, then Warren, Biden, and Amy. That's with 62% in.

00:24:18.120 This is a little strange because Pete Buttigieg, when 0% of the vote was in, declared himself the

00:24:25.540 winner in Iowa. It's really strange too because the app that was used to report the results

00:24:32.100 was produced by an ominously named company called Shadow Incorporated, which received a large infusion

00:24:38.100 of cash from the Pete Buttigieg campaign. Very strange because the Democratic Party establishment

00:24:46.440 has tried again and again to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders. I don't like Bernie Sanders.

00:24:53.180 I don't like anything that he stands for. I think that his ideology is wicked and anti-American. We'll

00:24:58.400 get to that in a second. But you got to call a spade a spade. The guy is getting robbed. He got robbed

00:25:05.380 in 2016, and it looks like there might be some shenanigans in play again. Regardless of what happened

00:25:11.600 in Iowa, Bernie and Buttigieg are in a dead heat. Again, it's a little weird because going into the

00:25:18.700 Iowa caucuses, the polls showed Bernie surging. The polls showed Bernie with a lead outside the

00:25:23.420 margin of error. Internal polling seemed to show Bernie with a big lead. Then all of a sudden,

00:25:29.160 Buttigieg swoops in and declares victory. Very odd. Now, compare Buttigieg's reaction, which was all

00:25:36.920 bravado, right? He just says, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious. No evidence of that

00:25:42.160 whatsoever. He said, tonight, an impossible hope became an undeniable reality, which is a meaningless

00:25:49.240 statement. The only meaning you could pull from that is that it's undeniable that Pete Buttigieg

00:25:54.160 won Iowa. And that was very deniable because zero percent of the votes were in at the time.

00:25:59.120 Compare that reaction to the Iowa caucuses to Bernie Sanders's reaction. He was asked, are you going to

00:26:03.900 declare victory? And he said, no, I'm going to wait until the votes come in.

00:26:07.140 What we're declaring is what Jeff just talked about. Based on the information we received from

00:26:14.500 our precinct captains, with about 60 percent of the vote in, we're in pretty good shape.

00:26:20.180 What's your reaction, sir, to Mayor Buttigieg last night declaring victory?

00:26:24.560 I don't know how anybody declares victory before you have an official statement as the election

00:26:29.580 results. So we're not declaring victory. But what we are saying is that at a time when

00:26:36.720 the people of Iowa, the people of America, really want to know what the results is, when

00:26:40.240 they want to see some transparency, and when the Iowa Democratic Party is not providing that

00:26:45.520 for a timely matter, we thought it was inappropriate just to give the results that have come in from

00:26:52.100 our precinct captains.

00:26:53.560 That response from Bernie Sanders is the response of a guy who's confident that he's got the people

00:26:57.700 behind him. Pete Buttigieg's response was the response of a guy who's trying to pull a fast

00:27:02.700 one. Bernie, rather, had some real confidence there. And I think he's got that confidence

00:27:09.040 because regardless of what happens with the Iowa tally, if we ever get the final vote tally,

00:27:13.680 he's got a lot of momentum going into New Hampshire. Same can not be said of Joe Biden.

00:27:17.940 Absolute campaign collapse. Even if Joe Biden wasn't going to win Iowa, and really he should have

00:27:22.820 won Iowa because Joe Biden's entire campaign pitch is that he's electable, particularly electable in

00:27:28.300 these purple states, in the Midwest, in the Rust Belt that are really going to matter. And he lost

00:27:33.380 in one of the states that he probably should have won. And he didn't lose by a little, he lost by a

00:27:37.980 lot, came in fourth place. It's hard to see the argument for his campaign. He's not doing very well

00:27:44.520 in New Hampshire. Maybe he'll be okay in Nevada. And he's losing even his lead in South Carolina,

00:27:50.400 which was the big firewall. Probably the Biden campaign is finished. There was a pro-Biden

00:27:57.640 political action committee that is now planning on spending $900,000 in New Hampshire to boost the

00:28:05.020 campaign. Probably not going anywhere. It's probably too late. So it looks like right now,

00:28:09.080 the momentum remains with Bernie. And then you'll get a Buttigieg or a Bloomberg trying to fill

00:28:14.200 the moderate lane that Biden is quickly losing. So it's coming down to Bernie. This gives us two

00:28:19.940 visions for America. You got the vision of growth, of flourishing, of making America great again that

00:28:29.060 you got from President Trump. I mean, at one point in Trump's State of the Union, he actually used the

00:28:33.080 phrase manifest destiny to refer to our exploration of outer space, our exploration of Mars. When he

00:28:39.860 said rather manifest destiny, I just, I wanted him to go full King Charles II, dissolve Pelosi's

00:28:46.940 Congress. He'll be King until, maybe I didn't want to go quite that far, but I really felt great about

00:28:51.660 it. That's a, that's a thriving, flourishing vision of America. You got that on one hand and you've got

00:28:58.540 Bernie style communism on the other hand. I don't use communism lightly. Bernie Sanders actually has

00:29:06.940 defended communist regimes for his whole freaking career. The man honeymooned in the Soviet Union. 0.89

00:29:15.660 That's all true. Just a quick little rundown of the, of Bernie's record on communism. Bernie Sanders

00:29:21.900 defends breadlines. You know, it's funny. Sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country

00:29:27.220 is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. In other countries, people don't line

00:29:32.920 up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death. Breadlines are a good thing. That's good.

00:29:38.420 Bernie 2020 breadlines are a good thing. Bernie defends Fidel Castro.

00:29:44.660 But I remember for some reason, I've been very excited when, when Fidel Castro made the revolution

00:29:49.780 in Cuba. And I was a kid and I remember reading that and it was just seemed right and appropriate

00:29:54.060 that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people. And I remember again, very distinctly,

00:29:59.780 a very distinct feeling. I was watching the debates. You remember the famous Nixon, Kennedy debates.

00:30:04.440 That was the first time presidential candidates actually debated. Actually, you know, when you

00:30:09.000 read novels, people say there's a sick feeling in your stomach. Usually, I'm sufficiently unemotional

00:30:13.440 not to be sick. But I actually got up in the room and almost left to puke. Because for the first time

00:30:18.560 in my adult life, what I was seeing is the Democrats and Republicans, both of them. And of course,

00:30:23.280 as Rick points out, Kennedy was the flashing young liberal. And what we were seeing right before

00:30:27.340 are my eyes way, way back then. And I didn't know anything about politics, but clearly that there

00:30:31.240 really wasn't a whole lot of difference between the two. He wanted to puke because people were

00:30:38.880 criticizing one of the worst commie thugs in history, Fidel Castro. Bernie defends other horrible 0.98

00:30:47.580 regimes. We'll get to that in a second. And we'll get to the way to really make the argument here,

00:30:52.320 not just the argument for how great America is doing under a conservative vision, but the argument

00:30:55.760 for why we must reject socialism. It's not just about economics. It's about so much more than

00:31:01.380 economics. We'll get to that in a second. First, doesn't it just feel like we're halfway through

00:31:06.200 2020? It does. But the truth is, we haven't even gotten started. The election is just heating up.

00:31:13.840 And because we know that you need to stay up to date, we are giving you 20% off all new memberships.

00:31:19.120 20% off all new memberships when using promo code DW2020. Members get.

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00:32:06.920 with a lot more. Bernie Sanders defends breadlines. Bernie Sanders defends Fidel Castro, said he wanted

00:32:24.120 to puke when American presidents of both parties were condemning that awful dictator. Bernie Sanders

00:32:30.060 doesn't just defend Castro, he defends communists in Nicaragua. How do you find the sincerity of

00:32:35.960 Sandinista leaders? I was impressed. I was impressed by Father Descoto because he is a very gentle,

00:32:42.000 very loving man. Ortega is an impressive guy. Actually, the breadlines are good. Actually,

00:32:48.000 Fidel Castro is good. Actually, the Sandinistas are good. Bernie defends the USSR, the Soviet Union, 0.75

00:32:54.960 the evil empire itself. When we were in Moscow, for example, we're extremely impressed by their

00:33:01.480 public transportation system. The stations themselves were absolutely beautiful. Chandeliers

00:33:06.480 that were beautiful. It was a very, very effective system. Also, I was impressed by the youth programs

00:33:12.320 that they have. But this wasn't all just in the past. It wasn't all just back in the day when Bernie was

00:33:18.220 a young idealist. It's even when Bernie was an ancient communist idealist. Bernie is still defending

00:33:25.340 socialist thugs today, like Maduro in Venezuela. Why have you stopped short of calling Maduro of

00:33:31.700 Venezuela a dictator? Well, he, I think it's, it's fair to say that the last election was undemocratic.

00:33:42.620 Uh, but there are still democratic operations taking place in that country. And it's not just

00:33:49.820 on foreign policy. Bernie Sanders, I remember this more clearly than any other aspect of his 2016

00:33:56.800 campaign. He was asked a question about consumer choice and, and Bernie decided right here at home

00:34:05.160 to emphasize what his style of socialism means. He decided to pull up one of the worst scourges facing

00:34:13.700 the American people that we have too many deodorants to choose from. Bernie Sanders said he goes to the

00:34:20.180 supermarket and he saw so many different types of deodorant and that filled him with rage because

00:34:26.060 consumers should not be able to choose that many different types of deodorant. At the end of the day,

00:34:31.760 you don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or 18 different pairs of sneakers

00:34:38.120 when children are hungry. I have visited Cuba. I've been inside the stores in Cuba. They don't have a

00:34:43.760 lot of different kinds of deodorant in Cuba. They don't have a lot of anything in Cuba. It's all the

00:34:48.500 same government approved brand. It's pretty low quality. It's pretty low quality because consumers

00:34:55.360 don't have a choice. It is not an exaggeration to say that that Cuban style communist vision

00:35:02.240 is Bernie Sanders's vision for America. He said it himself, not 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years

00:35:10.160 ago. He said it the last time he ran for president and he believes it today. All awful. Two visions of

00:35:16.480 America, thriving, flourishing, make America great again. Our best days lie ahead. It's the state of the

00:35:22.360 union vision, the Trump vision. Socialism is the other vision. In another state of the union address,

00:35:28.160 President Trump said, America will never be a socialist country. Got a big round of applause. I hope

00:35:35.080 that's true. There are signs that young people are moving towards socialism. The good news about that,

00:35:40.300 the silver lining is that most of the people who say that don't even know what socialism is.

00:35:44.820 Conservatives go wrong because we argue against socialism from a purely economic perspective,

00:35:51.060 particularly from utility. Often you'll hear, socialism doesn't work. Socialism destroys the

00:35:59.820 economy. Socialism is inefficient. It's not the best way to allocate different goods in the economy.

00:36:06.880 Yeah, that's all true. But the real problem with socialism is not just that it's inefficient,

00:36:12.760 you know, and you can't buy as much stuff with socialism. The real problem with socialism is that it is

00:36:16.740 evil. It's evil. It's wicked. It's inhuman. It's wrong. It's vicious. That's how you got to argue

00:36:24.080 against socialism. Nobody cares if your taxes are going to be a little bit higher and you can't buy

00:36:29.140 as many cheap plastic goods from China. That's not the argument. That's not going to resonate with

00:36:33.420 anybody. The argument against socialism is that it is evil. When you speak in those kind of moral terms,

00:36:40.440 it becomes clear. And you can look at it in the history of Western religion. Pope Leo XIII, one of

00:36:47.300 the great popes, when socialism was getting really popular back 100, 120 years ago, Pope Leo XIII wrote a

00:36:57.200 couple papal encyclicals about this. He referred to socialism not as inefficient and you can't, you know,

00:37:04.780 buy as many things. He referred to it as a plague, a pest, a wicked confederacy stealing the very gospel

00:37:13.100 itself to advance the depraved teachings of the socialists, depraved. He said that it was 0.98

00:37:21.620 empathically unjust. He warned people. He said how intolerable and hateful a slavery

00:37:29.900 citizens would be subjected to under socialism. He said that for all believing Christians,

00:37:36.860 socialism must be utterly rejected. That it, quote, is directly contrary to the natural rights of

00:37:43.500 mankind. That it would be in reality the leveling down of all to a like condition of misery and

00:37:51.880 degradation. That is the problem with socialism. And it wasn't just 100 or 120 years ago that we

00:37:59.880 heard this from people. We heard it from Pope John Paul II, one of the guys who took down

00:38:04.400 communism, one of the great, great men of the 20th century. He said on the utilitarian argument,

00:38:11.280 he said on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the

00:38:15.720 most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. Then he goes on

00:38:22.000 to say the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Not that it's economic

00:38:30.740 in nature. Not that it's just not that efficient. That it actually has to do with who we are as

00:38:36.340 humans. He goes on. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the

00:38:44.120 social organism so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the

00:38:50.440 socio-economic mechanism. And that is evil. That is wicked. That is wrong. That is how we've got to

00:38:57.420 talk about socialism. People are pulled by moral arguments. The left is always trying to make moral

00:39:03.500 arguments. And their moral arguments are completely incoherent. I saw one tonight when President Trump

00:39:10.100 was speaking about the State of the Union. I saw one argument that said on Twitter, the guy said,

00:39:18.480 late term abortion saves many lives. I thought that is the least coherent statement I've ever, late term

00:39:28.680 abortion by definition ends lives. It ends every life that it touches. But that's the kind of argument they

00:39:36.060 make. They say we have to kill all those babies to save people. I mean, it's like out of 1984. It's George 1.00

00:39:42.580 Orwell. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Late term abortion saves many lives. 0.97

00:39:49.520 They're completely false, deceptive arguments. But they are moral arguments. They're making the

00:39:54.780 argument from the perspective. Socialism is going to save people. Socialism is going to make people

00:39:58.720 happier. It's going to make people more fulfilled. That's never been true anywhere in history.

00:40:03.900 Socialism is going to fulfill man's promise. Never has. It's destroyed man's promise.

00:40:07.760 Because it fundamentally misunderstands human nature. Those are the arguments that we have

00:40:12.640 to make. I think President Trump has begun to make those arguments fairly well. We now need to

00:40:18.800 make them too, because the Trump era has been great. The state of our union is strong. When you look

00:40:23.900 forward a couple generations, you see millennials, Gen Z, leaning pretty left wing, leaning into socialism.

00:40:31.420 And if we want to keep the good times going, and I do think that our best days could lie ahead. But if

00:40:37.820 we want to keep those good times going, we need to make clear that stark difference. Now, speaking of

00:40:44.520 morality, I've got to call out Elizabeth Warren for another lie. It's not just enough to point out

00:40:51.660 why the one vision is immoral. We also need to point out how the left doesn't even live up to their

00:40:57.060 own standards. You know, Elizabeth Warren, look, if all we did was focus on the lies that Elizabeth

00:41:03.620 Warren tells on this show, we would never be able to talk about anything else. But Elizabeth Warren was

00:41:07.700 just getting off a plane so that she could go campaign. And she got caught. She got caught with

00:41:14.820 her hand in the cookie jar. She recently answered a question from a reporter about the environmental

00:41:19.880 impact of her career and her campaign. She said, quote, so I've mostly been flying commercial.

00:41:28.040 But we've been trying to look at other ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint. That's everything

00:41:34.640 from the car we drive up and down, blah, blah. We're trying to reduce our footprint. Just take a

00:41:42.020 little listen to this. I will narrate you through this little clip of Elizabeth Warren. She gets off of 1.00

00:41:49.160 this private airplane and there's a reporter there filming, taking pictures. And Elizabeth Warren

00:41:55.060 gets off. No big deal. She got some staffers in front of her. Then you can see Liz Warren sees the 1.00

00:41:59.700 reporter. And what does she do? She hides. She hides right behind one of her staffers. And whenever 1.00

00:42:07.120 the reporter kind of moves, she kind of moves behind too because she knows where the camera line is and 0.99

00:42:10.380 she doesn't want to get caught. They don't want to get caught in their hypocrisy. They don't want to get 0.99

00:42:17.200 caught in the incoherence of the arguments that they're making. And it's our job to point them

00:42:22.100 out. Trump did a great job of that tonight. You can make that in a positive way. You don't need to

00:42:26.940 just dunk on people all the time. You don't need to make it personal. Trump didn't make it personal

00:42:32.440 at all tonight, about himself at least. He didn't make it about this impeachment farce. He didn't make

00:42:38.240 it about how the Democrats done him wrong. He didn't. He just made the positive argument for what

00:42:43.000 what he was doing, why his vision was better than the other vision. It was terribly effective. It

00:42:47.940 was really great. I'll just leave you on this. I have to get to this story before we go. This is

00:42:52.360 from CNN, right? CNN is reporting on this public health crisis in a communist country, China. This

00:43:00.800 is the coronavirus scare that is now claiming multiple lives. It seems to have started because

00:43:06.960 people were eating bat soup, something that I just don't recommend you ever do. Everyone's very 1.00

00:43:12.340 nervous about this. There have been some cases in the United States and in other places. So

00:43:16.440 there's a task force now being assembled by the White House to deal with this so it doesn't become

00:43:20.900 a big problem. How do you think CNN covers that? CNN covers it by tweeting out, quote,

00:43:28.900 coronavirus task force, another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity.

00:43:34.760 That's the big takeaway. That the Trump administration task force to deal with the

00:43:44.100 scary, crazy bat flu that's killing people has too many white guys on it. That's the problem. 0.99

00:43:53.080 Now, I'd like to point out that the Trump administration task force on this coronavirus

00:43:58.640 is exactly as racially diverse as the 2020 Democratic presidential field right now.

00:44:04.840 But that's neither here nor there. Who's counting? The point is, when you're looking at the problems,

00:44:12.300 it doesn't have to be that complicated. I think people in politics, they're always trying to game

00:44:16.800 this out. How can I get the advantage? How can I position myself? How can I make myself look really

00:44:20.540 good and look better than that guy? It's kind of the Pete Buttigieg idea, right? I'm going to use these

00:44:25.140 words in a mealy-mouthed way to pretend like I won Iowa, even though there's no evidence that I won

00:44:29.180 Iowa yet. How am I going to game it over? It can be a lot more simple than that.

00:44:36.180 Tell the truth. Do the things that people want you to do. Mean what you say. Stop making everything

00:44:43.640 about you. Just do your job. That's what the State of the Union was. Beyond all of the good rhetoric,

00:44:52.500 and there was pretty good rhetoric. It wasn't Shakespeare or anything. It was well written. But

00:44:56.540 beyond all of that, the reason it was a good State of the Union is because the guy did what he said

00:45:00.700 he was going to do. Rush Limbaugh, the reason Rush Limbaugh is the peerless broadcaster is because it's

00:45:06.240 just not about him. He just tells the truth as he sees it and he respects his audience. It's not that

00:45:12.420 complicated. The reason that the task force out of the Trump administration is a good idea is because

00:45:18.180 it's going to keep us all from getting this awful illness. Who cares what the people look like on the

00:45:24.040 task force? No one's going to know their names ever. It doesn't matter. I mean, it can be that simple

00:45:30.440 if we just do the thing. I think that's one of the great lessons of the Trump era. There was so much

00:45:37.080 malaise going into 2016. You remember eight years of Obama was so awful. Hillary Clinton had a 99%

00:45:43.780 chance of winning. The country was just doomed. I mean, I just felt bad on election day. I didn't

00:45:49.140 think Trump was going to win necessarily. The polls looked so bad. It's all lost, right? And then it

00:45:54.720 wasn't. And then things are looking really good. The state of our union has never been stronger. And

00:45:59.000 the president says that our best days could lie ahead. They absolutely could. Won't be that complicated.

00:46:06.080 We just have to do those very basic things. We have to lean into our duty. We have to love our country.

00:46:14.780 And we have to try to, regardless of whether half the country is going to sit down and yell at us

00:46:21.020 and be so upset, we just do those basic things. Grow jobs. Treat people with dignity. Don't take

00:46:27.020 away all of their stuff. Don't love America. Make America great again. It's as simple. Who knew that

00:46:32.860 it was as simple as that? That's our show. We've got a lot more to get to. We'll just have to get to

00:46:37.660 that tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you then.

00:46:43.780 If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.

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00:47:42.140 On The Matt Walsh Show, we're not just discussing politics.

00:47:45.240 We're talking culture, faith, family, all of the things that are really important to you.

00:47:50.020 So come join the conversation.

00:47:51.360 The Matt Walsh Show is a Ahö notch.

00:47:59.980 We're talking culture, faith, family, all of the things that are really important to you about.

00:48:03.920 We're talking politics, spirit, bravery, all of the things that are really important to you.

00:48:04.820 We're talking politics, faith, or very important to you.

00:48:06.500 Thank you.

00:48:07.320 Thank you.

00:48:08.520 You're talking politics, let's go from the department of hoping.

00:48:10.760 Do it easy.

00:48:11.180 Do you say hello, dataset, I'm going to pick one an hour.

00:48:14.220 And that one thing you want, if you're talking right from the department

00:48:16.520 Don't hear your specialty, please.

00:48:17.180 You're talking-it-play, let's be quiet!

00:48:18.420 And then you're talking.

00:48:19.240 I've talked to dopo 6.

00:48:19.820 I'm told you anyways, as well.

00:48:20.340 ...

The Michael Knowles Show - February 05, 2020

Ep. 490 - Two Visions Of America

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