The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 51 - Religion of Peace, Media of Euphemisms

00:00:00.000 Yesterday, a Muslim terrorist, evil loser, to borrow a phrase, and Uzbeki immigrant named Saifulo Saipov drove a Home Depot truck along a bike path near the World Trade Center, killing eight and wounding dozens. 0.99

00:00:13.540 In the wake of this attack, the hack news media focus on the real threat, Islamophobia. We'll analyze where the trouble really lies. 0.99

00:00:20.600 Then, Bradley Devin, Kevin Glass, and his eminence, Paul Bois, join the panel of deplorables to discuss Donald Trump Jr.'s excellent Halloween trolling, more celebrity groping, when will it end? Never.

00:00:33.060 And tax reform. Do you remember tax reform? I remember it. I'm Michael Knowles' The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:37.160 This was pretty bad yesterday. I actually used to live as recently as a few years ago, like six or ten blocks from the attack, from where it happened.

00:00:54.660 Fortunately, none of my pals or family roommates were injured in the attack, but it's another World Trade Center terrorist attack.

00:01:02.620 It's the first one we've seen in a very long time. You know, we know the story. We know what happened.

00:01:09.740 This guy drove a Home Depot truck up the bike path and killed eight people and wounded 11.

00:01:16.940 His name is Saifulo Saipov, and President Trump responded quickly. So he called Saipov an animal.

00:01:24.060 He suggested that we ought to consider sending him to Guantanamo Bay, and he also called on Congress to end the diversity visa program. 0.92

00:01:32.620 I felt this was an excellent response. I thought it hit three very important points, and it was swift.

00:01:38.820 It was, you know, within hours of the incident, and he immediately addressed the attack itself.

00:01:43.840 We saw in previous administrations Barack Obama didn't address the Benghazi terrorist attack, didn't call it a terrorist attack for days,

00:01:50.920 for many days after the attack. So he addressed it itself. He explained what matters about it.

00:01:56.720 Now, he did get political. He blamed Chuck Schumer for making America, quote, import Europe's problems.

00:02:03.800 So forget just identifying it as a Muslim terrorist attack. He's painting a picture. 0.95

00:02:08.440 Donald Trump does this very well with language, and he does it in a way that makes us think that he doesn't know how to string two words together.

00:02:14.920 But he's painting a picture for us. So rather than saying he's an evil terrorist, he's an evil loser even, he's a coward or whatever, 0.98

00:02:23.040 he's saying we're importing Europe's problems because we see Europe. We see what happens in Europe on the news all the time. 0.93

00:02:28.600 We see the epidemics of rape. We see the constant terrorist attacks. We see no-go zones in different European countries.

00:02:35.880 So now we have that image. I thought it was rhetorically really smart to do that.

00:02:38.960 Then he addressed justice for this specific individual. He didn't gloss over the individual.

00:02:44.160 He said he focused on this guy, and he suggested Gitmo. Now, I don't know that we can send this guy to Gitmo.

00:02:50.540 He is a permanent resident. He's got legal status here. However, he's not a citizen.

00:02:56.060 So he came over here because of this 1990 law, the Immigration Act of 1990, and the diversity visa program.

00:03:03.880 So you basically just pick randomly from groups that are not well established in the United States where there aren't a ton of them in the U.S.,

00:03:13.180 and then you have a lottery, and they get to come into the country.

00:03:15.720 So he's pointing to this guy. I don't know. He isn't a citizen. Perhaps we could send him down to Gitmo and have swifter justice.

00:03:22.180 By saying that, he's pointing out the trouble with our criminal justice system.

00:03:25.860 One trouble is it goes on and on and on, and it gets hung up in the courts, and we rarely see justice dispensed.

00:03:32.620 We see this in the death penalty. Plenty of people receive the death penalty.

00:03:36.180 Very few people actually get the penalty itself. They receive the judgment, but they don't get the penalty itself.

00:03:42.000 So then the third thing that leads right into is he addressed a policy suggestion to prevent these attacks from happening.

00:03:49.580 So all the time, whenever some incident occurs, specifically with gun violence and shootings,

00:03:55.280 people on the left call for policies that would not have prevented the shootings.

00:03:59.600 So they say, we need to ban high-capacity rounds of ultra-super-duper assault rifle things because they don't know anything about guns.

00:04:08.200 And then we find out, as Marco Rubio pointed out brilliantly in the 2016 campaign,

00:04:12.280 that none of the gun control proposals that Democrats had proposed would have actually prevented these attacks. 0.94

00:04:18.340 In this case, however, Trump's proposal would have prevented this attack because the guy, the evil loser, the terrorist,

00:04:26.380 made it through because of a 1990 law that Senate Minority Leader, Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted for.

00:04:33.220 So he pins Schumer right on this.

00:04:34.880 He says, you voted for this law.

00:04:36.660 This law allowed this guy into the country. 0.91

00:04:38.520 If we didn't have such a ridiculous law as random lotteries to bring in people for no particular reason, 0.97

00:04:45.060 if we had a merit-based immigration regime, for instance, this would not have happened, or it's likely that this would not have happened.

00:04:51.920 Really smart.

00:04:52.800 Obviously, though, we accuse Democrats of playing politics with tragedies very often.

00:04:59.220 Certainly this is playing politics with the tragedy.

00:05:01.280 But at least in this case, we do see a direct connection between the suggestion and the tragedy,

00:05:06.560 whereas when Democrats politicize gun violence and mass shootings,

00:05:12.440 we see very little relation between the policy proposal and the event itself,

00:05:18.520 largely because short of repealing the Second Amendment, none of those proposals would stop these mass shootings.

00:05:24.380 So Schumer responded, of course.

00:05:26.500 The most dangerous place in the country and the most dangerous place in New York is, of course,

00:05:31.740 the space between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera.

00:05:34.620 So he said, quote,

00:05:36.040 I'm calling on the president to rescind his proposed cuts to this vital anti-terrorism funding immediately, right?

00:05:42.220 He's basically distracting over here a little prestidigitation to use the language of magicians

00:05:48.860 and talking about random funding when really we should be talking about the law

00:05:53.320 that allowed this guy to come into the country that Chuck Schumer voted for.

00:05:57.560 The mainstream media, in typical fashion, they focused on the real threat, Islamophobia.

00:06:05.200 Salon.com ran this headline, quote,

00:06:08.240 After the New York City terror attack, Fox News leans into nationalism and Islamophobia.

00:06:14.840 North Country Public Radio says this headline,

00:06:17.360 Art is a way to resist negative images and Islamophobia.

00:06:21.300 Islamophobia. Splinter News did this. NBC News did this from NBC.

00:06:25.300 Muslim Americans brace for backlash after New York attack.

00:06:29.240 They're bracing. That's the story.

00:06:30.440 Not the attack that just happened, but the bracing that's going to happen

00:06:33.060 for the inevitable backlash that inevitably never happens.

00:06:36.720 Anchors and writers from MSNBC, Teen Vogue, The Guardian, on and on and on,

00:06:42.140 use the same Islamophobia line.

00:06:44.380 New York Times, early reporting on the attack, refused to report the language properly.

00:06:48.360 They wouldn't do it. They would not use the phrase, Allahu Akbar,

00:06:52.360 which is the war cry that the terrorist shouted when he had finished his attack.

00:06:57.000 Instead, the Times used the phrase, God is great,

00:06:59.640 which is an okay sort of mistranslation of that phrase into English.

00:07:03.460 Their news alert headline read,

00:07:04.880 The motorist yelled, God is great in Arabic, officials said.

00:07:10.200 CNN did exactly the same thing.

00:07:12.000 Their lower third reporting on the attack said,

00:07:14.120 Suspect was yelling, God is great in Arabic.

00:07:16.700 The Associated Press did this in April when they reported that a Muslim terrorist yelled,

00:07:20.880 God is great.

00:07:22.480 Best of all, here is former journalist Jake Tapper's take on the jihadi battle cry. 0.97

00:07:27.380 They heard the driver saying, yelling, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar during this incident,

00:07:33.420 which is now leading authorities to believe that this is, as a result,

00:07:37.460 that this is now a terrorism case.

00:07:39.820 And I'm just getting an update now.

00:07:41.360 The FBI is taking over this case because it appears now that this is terrorism.

00:07:46.180 The Arabic chant, Allahu Akbar, God is great.

00:07:49.360 Sometimes said under the most beautiful of circumstances,

00:07:52.620 and too often we hear of it being said in moments like this.

00:07:56.020 It's beautiful, the most beautiful of circumstances.

00:07:59.160 That's the story, right?

00:08:00.240 That's the first thing you should say when reacting to that news.

00:08:03.240 The terrorist screamed a beautiful phrase that has also denoted Muslim holy war for 14 centuries.

00:08:10.120 Look, he said that it was used in bad circumstances too.

00:08:14.420 But the first thing that we should note, the important point here,

00:08:17.580 is that the phrase is also used in nice circumstances sometimes.

00:08:21.080 And sure, that might be true.

00:08:22.560 Contrary to popular belief, the term Allahu Akbar does not appear in the Koran,

00:08:27.240 in the Muslim holy book.

00:08:28.440 Rather, it appears in the Hadith, which reports the actions and sayings of Muhammad.

00:08:32.880 It also doesn't mean God is great.

00:08:34.620 It means God is greater or God is greatest, probably more precisely translated.

00:08:39.440 And sure, it's a phrase used in times of joy.

00:08:41.780 It's used in times of distress, joy, birth, death, holy festivals, on and on.

00:08:46.920 Sort of misses the point, doesn't it?

00:08:48.300 Because Allahu Akbar is the ubiquitous battle cry of Muslim terrorists that we've seen for decades and decades. 1.00

00:08:55.560 In the notes of the terrorists who flew the planes on September 11th, 0.96

00:08:59.280 we're talking about a Muslim terrorist attack here.

00:09:02.500 Here is a relevant appearance of the phrase Allahu Akbar in the Hadith.

00:09:05.840 The prophet set out for Kaibar and reached it at night.

00:09:10.500 He used not to attack if he reached the people at night till the day broke.

00:09:15.020 So, when the day dawned, the Jews came out with their bags and spades. 0.99

00:09:19.220 When they saw the prophet, they said, Muhammad and his army.

00:09:22.040 The prophet said, Allahu Akbar, and Kaibar is ruined.

00:09:26.120 For whenever we approach a nation, it asked an enemy to fight, 0.88

00:09:30.980 then it will be a miserable morning for those who have been warned.

00:09:34.560 End quote.

00:09:35.000 Now, Andrew Klavan, who never gets into Twitter spats, despite my telling him how fun they are,

00:09:40.240 he pointed this out to Jake Tapper on Twitter.

00:09:42.420 He pointed out to Tapper that he was basically saying,

00:09:45.480 there are good people on both sides, aren't there, folks?

00:09:47.700 The thing that the mainstream media excoriated Trump for saying in the wake of Charlottesville.

00:09:51.800 Tapper defended his statement, then he went further and he accused Drew of lying.

00:09:55.660 So, Drew responded, he said,

00:09:57.280 all sorts of things can be said at weddings and births.

00:09:59.840 It's an inane point that purposely begs the question, the nature of our enemy.

00:10:03.660 Tapper unhingedly and bizarrely continued to call Andrew Klavan a liar.

00:10:08.880 But of course he provided no evidence for that accusation,

00:10:11.840 because Jake Tapper is a Democrat hack who plays a journalist on a fictional television program.

00:10:17.700 This does, however, make clear a key factor in the mainstream media's recent self-immolation,

00:10:23.520 which is their abusive language.

00:10:24.700 We're living in an age marked, defined by language that is not clear and direct, but of euphemisms.

00:10:33.380 Words that make harsh things seem mild, bad truths appear good,

00:10:37.320 and they make clear events seem obscure.

00:10:39.700 Democrats just last week ran an ad against Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie

00:10:44.160 depicting a Republican truck mowing down children of ethnic minority.

00:10:48.920 Here it is.

00:10:50.560 Come on! 0.61

00:10:51.600 Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by the American dream?

00:11:09.100 Latino Victory Fund paid for and is responsible for the content of this advertisement.

00:11:14.600 That's the threat, huh?

00:11:15.740 That's what we're worried about.

00:11:16.760 We're worried about Tea Partiers. 0.84

00:11:17.980 We're worrying about the Gadsden flag flying on a truck that's mowing down.

00:11:21.560 After the last two days, Michael, we're going to see an increase on the cool-down period of trucks.

00:11:25.100 That's right.

00:11:27.180 You know, that's what we're seeing, right?

00:11:29.640 That's before our eyes?

00:11:30.800 Not quite. 0.98

00:11:32.100 The American people aren't stupid. 0.97

00:11:34.300 We know that the terrorists didn't scream, God is great. 0.86

00:11:37.080 We know what war looks like.

00:11:38.720 We know what peace looks like.

00:11:40.220 We know which ideas and vessels for those ideas threaten our lives and our civilization.

00:11:45.000 The more the mainstream media insists that our eyes are lying, the less credibility they'll have.

00:11:51.180 Scott Adams has a great piece on language and terrorism today, too, which we'll try to get to later on.

00:11:56.000 Before that, let's bring on our panel to discuss all of this.

00:11:59.160 We have an all-male panel today. 0.77

00:12:01.160 I begged Marshall not to do this to me, but I guess it's my punishment for all of the potpourri yesterday on the show.

00:12:07.240 So let's introduce, of course, his eminence, Paul Bois.

00:12:11.240 We also have Kevin Glass from the Heartland Institute, and we also have Bradley Devlin from the University of Berkeley, the college Republican head up there.

00:12:21.220 Gentlemen, thank you for being here.

00:12:23.520 Bradley, let's begin with you.

00:12:25.160 Should we replace this diversity immigration system with a merit-based system? 0.99

00:12:29.540 Absolutely.

00:12:31.460 I think it's ridiculous that we're talking about a diversity lottery system with really low requirements to enter that lottery.

00:12:39.680 And then once we have all of these low-skilled immigrants from countries that don't historically have a lot of immigrants to the United States, 0.99

00:12:47.980 we're then going to just pick randomly out of that crop to let them into the United States with a rate of 50,000 per year.

00:12:54.860 I think implementing the Rays Act is going to be something that's really important moving forward for the Republican Party and for the well-being of this country.

00:13:02.540 Sadly, the route to passing that doesn't look too good because Trump didn't use political clout with his DACA policy, I think, properly.

00:13:11.680 But hopefully we can make some gains in establishing competition and meritocracy in immigration policy.

00:13:18.380 Fair enough.

00:13:19.040 Kevin, should we send this guy to Gitmo?

00:13:20.800 Can we send this guy to Gitmo?

00:13:22.200 And if we can, should we?

00:13:23.040 I'm not familiar with the legal ramifications here.

00:13:28.180 If we could send him to Gitmo, I don't believe that we should.

00:13:32.860 I think that trying him in the American justice system and showing that our way of life, our legal system, is the best one in the entire world, is the best way to send a message here.

00:13:44.860 Fair enough.

00:13:45.660 This is an argument we heard a lot during the Bush administration.

00:13:48.380 That said, President Trump won because of his insistence that Barack Obama has been weak on terror, that Barack Obama was emptying out Guantanamo Bay, that he gave up generals back to the battlefield because he was so nervous about the implications for alleged American ideals that we have a base where we put illegal combatants in war.

00:14:10.680 I'm not so sure.

00:14:11.440 Your eminence, Mr. Bois, Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, who is like the smartest cartoonist ever, I think.

00:14:18.380 He had a great column today on the language of persuasion.

00:14:21.580 And he argued that it's counterproductive to call these terrorists cowards, to call them terrorists, to lay invective on them because it either plays into their hands and makes them seem fearsome and that they struck terror into our hearts, or it just doesn't ring true.

00:14:38.040 To call them a coward, he isn't a coward. 0.60

00:14:40.000 He might be evil, but he isn't a coward.

00:14:42.240 He risked his life, thought he was going to give up his life for this idea system, this jihad. 0.96

00:14:48.540 So he points out that it's quite effective to call them evil losers, like Donald Trump does, evil losers who are going to hell because then it introduces a little doubt into their system, into their view of what they're doing, and it also accurately portrays them. 0.92

00:15:05.800 There's a little bit of truth there. 0.99

00:15:07.540 There's a lot of truth that these guys are losers and evil. 0.96

00:15:11.360 So my question is, should we be changing our political language in this dialogue from the language we've used for 25 years? 0.96

00:15:19.860 And the harder question is, was it a miscalculation for President Bush to call Islam the, quote, famously quoted, religion of peace?

00:15:28.760 Yes.

00:15:29.260 Well, as Confucius said, Michael, we have to call things by their proper labels.

00:15:33.620 And calling Islam a religion of peace is not calling it by its proper label, in the least.

00:15:39.740 Islam is not, nor has ever been, a religion of peace. 1.00

00:15:43.320 There may be aspects of it that pertain to natural law that create virtue in the individual adherence of Islam.

00:15:51.440 But Islam as a whole, at its very substance, is about violence, is about subjugation, is about domination. 1.00

00:15:56.540 That's been true since the age of Muhammad. 1.00

00:15:58.260 That's very true today.

00:15:59.700 There's really no disputing that at this point.

00:16:03.620 So the question now before us is, what do we refer to Islam as, or the partakers of Islamic terrorism? 0.94

00:16:10.960 Do we call them just evil terrorists? 0.95

00:16:12.340 Do they call them monsters? 1.00

00:16:13.780 Do we call them, as President Trump has postulated, evil losers? 0.92

00:16:17.620 I like to think in this matter, I like to think of screw tape and the nature of how demons and evil has been portrayed throughout literature when it's up in the face of good. 1.00

00:16:28.660 And that is, really, evil, by its very nature, according to the Catholic perspective, is really kind of stupid and pathetic. 1.00

00:16:36.300 And it really does look like a total loser. 1.00

00:16:38.720 It talks a big game. 1.00

00:16:40.420 It puffs itself up.

00:16:41.840 And it's like, we're going to do this.

00:16:43.220 We're going to rebel against the order.

00:16:45.540 We're going to rebel against God. 1.00

00:16:47.600 But it really just looks stupid and pathetic and sad. 1.00

00:16:51.400 And I really do think that Trump is definitely on to something by calling them evil losers. 1.00

00:16:54.840 It takes all the power out of them.

00:16:56.200 They don't look like established individuals who are carrying out something great, who are a potential threat. 0.94

00:17:03.480 They really are just losers, and they will lose in the end. 0.98

00:17:07.320 And hopefully he'll look like an evil loser at Gitmo. 0.99

00:17:09.560 I don't know. 0.97

00:17:10.120 Maybe we'll prosecute him here.

00:17:11.500 On your point of peace, it is true.

00:17:13.020 When I was 14 or 15, I read the Koran because I wanted to—I was skeptical of lefties even then.

00:17:21.960 And they kept saying it's a religion of peace, and Islam means peace, and all of that.

00:17:25.260 And I thought, like, well, I don't know if I totally buy that.

00:17:27.600 Let me see for myself so that I can debate my Democrat friends.

00:17:32.000 And I remember in Surah 2, there's a verse that says,

00:17:35.300 make not Allah's name an oath against—or an excuse against your oaths in doing good or acting rightly or making peace between persons.

00:17:42.840 And I remember that because it sticks out as a passage that calls for peace.

00:17:47.660 But then also there are, like, a gazillion passages that call for war and hacking at people's necks

00:17:51.840 and surprising them while they pray and not being friends with the Jews and the Christians.

00:17:56.160 So, yeah, it certainly isn't—to say Islam is peace or something certainly doesn't tell you the whole story.

00:18:02.320 We have to move on from these unimportant aspects like theology and politics to something more important, which is trolling.

00:18:09.020 Right. That's what we should really be talking about all the time.

00:18:11.340 Donald Trump Jr. is just really becoming the troller-in-chief.

00:18:16.480 He tweeted out a photo yesterday of his little daughter with a bucket of candy, and it said,

00:18:21.680 I am going to take half of Chloe's candy tonight and give it to some kid who sat at home. 0.99

00:18:26.220 It's never too early to teach her about socialism.

00:18:29.360 So, Kevin—this was hilarious, and I loved it—but is it wrong?

00:18:33.060 Is it in bad taste for a politician or a political figure to use their children or a photo of their children to make a point?

00:18:41.660 I'm not sure about that.

00:18:43.360 And also, I'm not sure if—do we consider Donald Trump Jr. to be a politician or a political figure?

00:18:49.820 I mean, he's not elected, obviously.

00:18:52.520 I don't know if he's formally or informally an advisor to any politician.

00:18:58.700 He certainly weighs in on politics a lot.

00:19:00.640 He goes on a lot of political shows.

00:19:01.960 Well, sure, but, like, celebrities do that, you know?

00:19:06.160 True.

00:19:06.440 So, like, Mike Rowe on Twitter might say something funny that's political, and he's not a politician.

00:19:13.780 I don't consider this opening his children up, really, to politics.

00:19:17.960 I do consider it a poor example of the socialism idea in that, you know, Halloween is at its base holiday about going over to your neighbor's houses and asking them for free stuff.

00:19:33.580 And we can consider that work or labor or something like that, but I think, like, you know, you go next door and ask them for Reese's, and that's not labor, and you shouldn't take your kid's candy for that.

00:19:46.900 No, but, Kevin, it's even worse.

00:19:48.080 I'm just picking nits with a silly analogy.

00:19:51.120 It is funny to, obviously, teach your kids good, hard lessons when they're young.

00:19:56.420 But it's even worse, because you're not going over and asking for candy.

00:19:59.240 You're extorting them.

00:20:00.320 You're saying trick or treat, right?

00:20:01.940 That's true.

00:20:02.340 That's an awfully nice house you got there.

00:20:03.980 It should be a shame if something happened to it.

00:20:06.020 So, in that way, I guess it's a lot like socialism.

00:20:07.920 The children are actually like agents of the state.

00:20:10.320 They threaten violence unless you give them something.

00:20:13.240 That's exactly right.

00:20:15.760 You know, I have had a lot of debates with some people on Twitter in the last three seconds about this matter of the taxes.

00:20:25.120 A lot of Democrats seem not to understand not only taxation, but even what private property is.

00:20:30.660 Have Americans, have this many Americans, rather, always been so economically illiterate, or have they been taught this ignorance?

00:20:38.800 Paul Bois.

00:20:39.180 I would say, Michael, that I don't think they necessarily have been taught this ignorance.

00:20:45.260 I mean, they certainly are instilled with it once they get into college and the university system.

00:20:50.260 But I think for the most part, we just haven't really instilled, like, proper values anymore in our education system.

00:20:57.920 So, again, I'm going to go back to screw tape here.

00:21:00.340 It's not necessarily about what they're putting in.

00:21:02.280 It's about what they're taking out.

00:21:03.480 So, they take out the good values, you know, about private property, individual responsibility, and they just sort of leave vague buzzwords there for people like love and peace and tolerance and, you know, and distribution of wealth.

00:21:21.020 And nobody really has an understanding and a concept of it.

00:21:24.580 So, their mind just thinks in terms of these buzzwords without in any way thinking about the weight and shape of anything.

00:21:32.820 True.

00:21:33.200 The 1%. 0.99

00:21:34.060 There's no talk of how the 1% got to be the 1%.

00:21:37.060 Or, you know, they talk about inherited wealth.

00:21:39.580 They don't point out that within two generations, 70% of inherited wealth is gone.

00:21:43.580 And within three, 90% is gone.

00:21:45.520 They just use these terms and then kind of elide over them and try to advance their point.

00:21:50.380 You know, Bradley, I have been having many debates with even my friends on the right, some of the Trump skeptics, some of the people who are overdosing on covfefe.

00:21:59.140 And they are saying that it's wrong for politicians to troll.

00:22:04.120 It's wrong.

00:22:04.900 It's unseemly.

00:22:05.760 It's unpresidential.

00:22:06.660 It's not right even for the family or for senators or whatever to troll their opponents, to troll cultural figures.

00:22:12.520 And I certainly come down on the side of the lulls.

00:22:15.940 But, Bradley, is it wrong for Republican politicians to troll?

00:22:21.640 Absolutely not.

00:22:22.700 But we have to be selective in our trolling.

00:22:24.700 We have to understand that the left will always dominate mainstream media and they will always dominate the terms of discourse. 0.94

00:22:31.640 But we can use those terms against them when they spout foolishness all over Twitter.

00:22:36.720 I think that picking the battles we want to fight, like fighting against people who instantly jump to gun control and trolling those individuals who jump to gun control after the horrific evil deeds that we saw in New York City, is very relevant and important.

00:22:53.600 Because not only it shows the evil of the left, that they will forward their political narrative no matter what, but also we get some laughs in along the way.

00:23:01.320 And I think that we lack a lot of laughs.

00:23:04.340 After everything's been politicized, you know, comedy's even been politicized.

00:23:08.100 I can't even watch late night TV without being told that if I like my guns, I want everyone else to die.

00:23:14.960 Or if I don't want to provide health care for everyone else around me, then I'm some sort of evil bigot. 0.97

00:23:21.660 And you are an evil bigot.

00:23:22.720 It just has nothing to do with that. 0.98

00:23:24.200 That's completely secondary, right.

00:23:27.440 Yeah.

00:23:27.780 So I think restoring that humor inside the political realm a little bit, hopefully it'll bleed over to sports and comedy.

00:23:36.240 And it's terrifically effective.

00:23:37.740 The two presidents in the century who used humor as a political weapon are Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

00:23:45.040 They used it very well.

00:23:46.020 Reagan was always telling jokes.

00:23:48.020 And he seemed good-natured.

00:23:49.360 Well, you know, old grandpa.

00:23:51.480 But really, they were vicious jokes.

00:23:53.460 I mean, some of them were pretty brutal. 1.00

00:23:55.340 He told one about how the democratic platform, you know, is basically a heaping pile of excrement. 0.98

00:24:03.340 And many vicious jokes about the Soviet Union. 0.99

00:24:05.960 Donald Trump, too.

00:24:06.740 He's a funny guy.

00:24:07.940 I think that's why people can take to him.

00:24:11.240 Okay, we have a lot more to talk about.

00:24:12.780 We have a lot of celebrity groping going on.

00:24:15.280 We've got tax reform that we've got to talk about.

00:24:17.600 But if you don't subscribe, you can't see it.

00:24:19.480 I want you to be able to see it.

00:24:20.700 Usually, I try to put up my all-female panel as an incentive to get you to come over in a very, like, Weinstein-y Hollywood way. 0.93

00:24:28.540 But today, obviously, that's not going to work.

00:24:30.220 So instead, I'll let you know, if you go to TheDailyWire.com right now, it's $10 a month, $100 a year for a premium annual membership.

00:24:38.080 And you'll get me.

00:24:39.800 You'll get the Andrew Klavan show.

00:24:41.000 You'll get the Ben Shapiro show.

00:24:42.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:42.680 Whatever.

00:24:42.980 No ads on the website.

00:24:43.820 That's cool.

00:24:44.820 What about that, though?

00:24:45.760 But what about that?

00:24:47.520 What is that?

00:24:48.080 Well, this is the Leftist Tears Tumblr, and I don't know if you're under the misapprehension that Donald Trump is going to shut down his Twitter account.

00:24:55.660 I don't know if you're under—but that won't happen.

00:24:58.360 I don't know if you think Hollywood is going to rebound.

00:25:00.280 It's not.

00:25:01.000 And you're going to drown in Leftist Tears if you don't have this vessel to safely store them.

00:25:06.340 There isn't going to be any fallout, no Leftist Tear radiation.

00:25:09.580 This is a really protective vessel.

00:25:12.480 So go to TheDailyWire.com right now, and then you can store them hot or cold, always salty and delicious.

00:25:17.040 We'll be right back.

00:25:18.080 There is more celebrity groping going on.

00:25:30.500 I don't even know why that's news.

00:25:31.940 I don't think it actually should be included on a news and politics segment.

00:25:36.240 But, alas, we've seen a lot of headlines.

00:25:38.620 More celebrity groping.

00:25:40.080 Kevin Spacey has been accused by more people of being handsy on set, surprising nobody.

00:25:45.400 Dustin Hoffman is now accused of sexual harassment.

00:25:48.080 This time against a female assistant 32 years ago. 1.00

00:25:52.440 Director Brett Ratner has been accused of harassment dating back 25 years.

00:25:56.200 This time by six women.

00:25:57.940 Obviously, Kevin Spacey's accusations are from 30 years ago as well.

00:26:01.580 And the guy who kicked all of this off, Bill Cosby, his accusations are from decades ago as well.

00:26:05.860 Now, some of these accusations are relatively minor.

00:26:09.580 Some are full-on rape.

00:26:11.480 They've been snowballing now since Bill Cosby's story broke.

00:26:14.980 Mr. Bois, why are they all coming out now?

00:26:17.360 The reason why they are all coming out now is because Weinstein revealing him set off a big firestorm.

00:26:27.480 And the reason why it's different between, say, Weinstein and Cosby is because Weinstein is an individual talent.

00:26:33.340 He may have a certain level of power and a certain symbolic status in the culture.

00:26:39.700 But he was not a power player like Weinstein.

00:26:45.280 Weinstein produced, I mean, countless numbers of pop cultural big movies throughout the 90s and was a major player in the Oscars.

00:26:55.220 And there was just a level of corruption that surrounded him that enabled him to get away with all of these crimes.

00:27:03.880 And now that those floodgates are down, it's just it's open season.

00:27:08.240 People are like, okay, we took out one.

00:27:09.120 Unless you're Ben Affleck.

00:27:10.120 He's too powerful.

00:27:10.980 Yeah, he's too powerful.

00:27:11.480 They won't take him down.

00:27:12.440 It's really weird.

00:27:13.820 Yeah, it is strange that they haven't gotten Ben Affleck yet.

00:27:16.640 But, I mean, people feel very now empowered to speak up.

00:27:19.480 They're like, okay, let's go out there.

00:27:20.860 Let's reveal it.

00:27:22.080 And some amazing things are happening as a result.

00:27:24.700 Well, I mean, Kevin Spacey has just been outed as pretty much a full-blown sexual predator from the allegations that are springing forth as of today.

00:27:32.400 So a major change is coming to this industry.

00:27:34.520 And if Hollywood wants to keep this from becoming a witch hunt, which it very quickly can,

00:27:40.560 is they need to assemble basically something like what the Catholic Church assembled in Spain during the Spanish Inquisition

00:27:46.500 and just a good, solid task force of solid investigators, of people who can really look into this and gather evidence

00:27:54.040 and dispel any things like rumors or just, like, false accusations and really get down to the bottom and root out the predators.

00:28:00.440 Where else are you going to see a defense of the Spanish Inquisition on this show, folks?

00:28:04.400 That's where we're going to do it.

00:28:05.780 Now, they won't take out Affleck, though.

00:28:07.220 They won't take him out.

00:28:08.160 Everyone else is allowed to fall.

00:28:09.420 That little low house of cards, that was going to be canceled anyway.

00:28:12.460 But Ben Affleck's a superhero, and he is too valuable to them.

00:28:16.340 So for some reason, those allegations get swept under the rug.

00:28:19.680 Kevin, should the decades that have passed between these alleged incidents and the allegations,

00:28:25.180 should they weigh upon our consideration of them at all?

00:28:29.200 I don't think so.

00:28:31.080 I think it's a very complicated question.

00:28:33.080 Obviously, I'm not going to say that there's no such thing as women who will accuse powerful men of things that they didn't do for a number of reasons.

00:28:46.800 But the stereotype of the gross, creepy producer on the casting couch is a stereotype for a reason,

00:28:54.620 that that's what has happened in the movie industry for decades.

00:29:00.140 And so, you know, it shouldn't just be a thing where we say that's just the price of being in the movie industry,

00:29:07.940 that you have to endure sexual harassment, sexual assault, this casting couch type stuff, the Harvey Weinstein type stuff.

00:29:15.520 We shouldn't have to say that.

00:29:17.400 So while it could be the case that there are going to be false accusations,

00:29:22.820 I think we need to take seriously most of the accusations coming forward.

00:29:27.260 I think we just made a good point here in that Harvey Weinstein going down was incredibly powerful to this moment in the movie industry

00:29:38.980 because he was, if not the most powerful man, one of the most powerful people in the movie industry.

00:29:45.860 And to say that the powerful people who may be abusers, who may be assaulters, are not protected by their power is just wrong.

00:29:54.580 There are many people who are incredibly powerful, and that's why people don't come forward.

00:29:59.860 So, yes, there might be false accusations along the line, but I think taking seriously a lot of what's going on is really important

00:30:07.460 because, you know, this is something that happens in the movie industry, and it's important to break those stereotypes.

00:30:14.600 It's important to end this culture of harassment and assault that has gone on for far too long.

00:30:19.860 You know, really the saddest thing personally that I can think in all this is I've never mattered enough in Hollywood to even be sexually harassed,

00:30:28.280 which actually isn't, that's not even totally true.

00:30:31.220 This town is so creepy that even when you're as obscure an actor as I am, you see it creep in at auditions and at parties and things like that.

00:30:40.380 For example, a person who is as powerful as Terry Crews is, who said that he was approached and groped in a pretty gross way by a male producer.

00:30:52.780 And Terry Crews is someone who you wouldn't expect anyone would be attempting to assault, but it probably happened.

00:30:59.980 That was diplomatic, yeah.

00:31:01.000 We have to move on.

00:31:04.540 We have to, oh, no, there is one actually, one last aspect of this because Woody Allen, when this all broke, he said,

00:31:11.580 Woody Allen of all people, he said, I fear that this will turn into a witch hunt.

00:31:15.880 Woody Allen who married his stepdaughter, you know, and obviously it has.

00:31:19.820 We're in full witch hunt mode, but two things are true. 0.99

00:31:23.360 Hollywood is still filthy, creepy, and weird, but that is the state that the culture is in right now.

00:31:27.560 And we also see this level of awareness and probably hysteria on college campuses. 0.95

00:31:33.820 They allege that there is a massive rape culture, that 25 percent of women who go to college are raped.

00:31:39.520 That statistic, by the way, is totally bogus.

00:31:41.540 Nothing about, you know, the DOJ statistics backs that up at all.

00:31:46.500 But, you know, Bradley, you're on a college campus.

00:31:49.400 You're seeing this firsthand.

00:31:50.820 Is there a moral hazard to this atmosphere in which a person's career can be ruined by decades-old allegations

00:31:58.400 or a person can be expelled from a university without due process?

00:32:04.060 Oh, absolutely.

00:32:04.900 I think Betsy DeVos is absolutely correct in taking back the Obama-era regulations on Title IX, 0.99

00:32:11.660 saying that these universities were going to create kangaroo courts to handle these allegations of sexual harassment or assault.

00:32:18.200 Well, every fraternity has to go through sexual assault and harassment training and how to deal with it.

00:32:24.180 And when they come in, they say, we're going to assemble a panel if anyone's ever accused of sexual harassment,

00:32:29.580 if you are the victim or the perpetrator.

00:32:31.760 And 51 percent of that evidence comes back to where you most likely perpetrated this sexual harassment.

00:32:40.880 You could face expulsion.

00:32:42.480 And I immediately raised my hand and said, what do you mean 51 percent?

00:32:47.140 In the United States, I'm innocent until proven guilty.

00:32:50.120 The burden of proof lies in the prosecution.

00:32:52.300 Instead of setting up these kangaroo courts with bureaucrats who are paid six figures every year,

00:32:57.360 why aren't we providing resources for these students to take it to the criminal justice system? 0.98

00:33:01.540 Why aren't we informing individuals, men and women, how to get to the court system, how to hire a lawyer,

00:33:08.320 how to file these issues with the police, how to file a rape kit? 0.53

00:33:12.540 Why aren't we teaching these individuals how to do that?

00:33:14.820 Instead, we want to handle it bureaucratically and possibly ruin people's lives when the proper burden of proof hasn't been established.

00:33:22.700 Well, because then it would be bad PR for the university, right?

00:33:25.140 If it goes to the criminal justice system, they can't control these kangaroo courts. 0.95

00:33:29.220 And it's so disrespectful because rape is a crime. 0.84

00:33:32.580 It's a very serious crime.

00:33:33.680 It's possibly the most serious crime, certainly in the top two.

00:33:37.300 And to say, well, it's so serious.

00:33:39.480 We take this really seriously.

00:33:40.740 And that's why we're going to let some random professor determine the outcome of this case.

00:33:45.700 It's outrageously offensive to victims and obviously tramples over the constitutional rights of the accused.

00:33:52.760 Let's move on to a topic that always is getting lost.

00:33:56.200 You would think that we would focus on this because it's the main legislative item right now,

00:34:00.520 but no one talks about it because it doesn't fit neatly into Twitter.

00:34:04.320 That is tax reform.

00:34:06.220 The much long-promised tax reform, Republicans control the House, the Senate, the presidency.

00:34:10.940 When do we get our tax reform?

00:34:12.760 Kevin, you've looked at this a lot.

00:34:14.660 Are we going to get it?

00:34:15.840 Are the Republicans unified enough that we're going to get tax reform?

00:34:18.920 And if so, what's it going to look like?

00:34:21.700 Short answer, no.

00:34:23.360 Long answer, maybe.

00:34:24.380 Oh, wow, all right, that's good.

00:34:26.880 I appreciate the bad news first and the better news later.

00:34:29.860 Exactly.

00:34:30.680 You and I must follow different Twitter accounts because I see a lot of people talking about tax reform.

00:34:35.620 At the moment-

00:34:36.280 Yeah, if Covfefe's not in the bio, I don't follow it.

00:34:39.020 I don't.

00:34:39.360 That's not something I'm interested in.

00:34:41.380 The Republicans were supposed to have put out a firm tax legislation today.

00:34:47.880 If you've checked Capitol Hill or checked the newswires, they have not.

00:34:52.780 They've run into a lot of different issues, some of which are frankly astonishing to me as someone who's been following the tax reform discussion going back many, many years, pre-Trump, obviously, pre-Obama.

00:35:05.280 The Republicans can't figure out how to pay for it.

00:35:09.000 And obviously, the Republicans during the Obama years committed to deficit neutrality as kind of a guiding principle for a lot of their legislation.

00:35:18.700 Now they have tax reform, and even under dynamic scoring, which is measuring legislation by the effects produced by tax cuts, obviously, tax cuts grow the economy.

00:35:30.140 So at the end, you're actually going to end up with more tax revenue than you had projected if the economy grows in the way that you project it to.

00:35:37.400 But even under those rules, they're unable to make up the revenue that they're losing from what they want to do, all the tax cuts and the policies that they want to enact.

00:35:48.140 So no one can quite agree on how to pay for it.

00:35:52.560 You know, Ronald Reagan, when asked about cutting – about deficit spending, he said we have to starve the beast.

00:36:00.000 You have to starve the federal government.

00:36:01.420 They're never going to willingly cut their spending.

00:36:03.360 You need to cut off their revenue, and then they'll cut their spending.

00:36:06.260 Why can't we just slash and burn whenever we would go into a government shutdown or sequestration or something?

00:36:12.680 They would say, well, the only government spending now is non-essential spending and – or rather essential spending.

00:36:19.560 And you would say, why do we have non-essential spending?

00:36:21.380 Wait a second.

00:36:22.120 Why don't we get rid of all that non-essential stuff?

00:36:24.820 Is there any way for us to just slash at government spending in a way that Trump would agree with?

00:36:31.440 You know, obviously he's signaled he's not willing to reform entitlements, which are the major driver of the debt and deficit.

00:36:37.000 So are we just between a rock and a hard place?

00:36:40.080 Yeah, this has been a discussion for conservatives and Republicans for a long time.

00:36:45.160 And I think there have been a lot of pretty persuasive cases made by some people on the right that starving the beast doesn't work.

00:36:53.040 We thought that that was a good plan, that the government would be forced to cut spending if they just didn't have the tax revenue.

00:37:01.180 And that's turned out to not be right.

00:37:02.740 Because it's China. 0.63

00:37:03.560 They can just borrow from China.

00:37:05.640 Right.

00:37:05.940 We've been running deficits for years now.

00:37:08.500 We're projected to run deficits forever.

00:37:11.000 And that's not spurring any action.

00:37:13.940 We're not cutting, like you said, non-essential spending in a meaningful way.

00:37:18.800 So the problem that Republicans have right now is that, yes, entitlement reform is obviously the best way to go to cut a lot of the spending.

00:37:28.000 That's what drives a lot of the spending.

00:37:29.740 But you can't pass that with only 50 votes in the Senate because of reconciliation, arcane rules there.

00:37:36.380 You can pass tax reform with 50 votes in the Senate.

00:37:38.760 But if you accept the idea that starving the beast doesn't actually work, you don't want to just slash everything.

00:37:45.980 That would burn the economy to the ground.

00:37:48.320 It would burn the government to the ground.

00:37:49.960 It would put us in Greece territory. 0.96

00:37:51.820 It would put us in territory that has never been seen by a Western economy.

00:37:55.900 I don't like number one, three, or four, but I do not mind number two.

00:37:59.400 That one sounds sort of interesting to me.

00:38:01.280 Go on.

00:38:01.900 Right.

00:38:02.320 So that's the problem that Republicans are facing right now.

00:38:06.120 And any meaningful way to pay for what they want to pay for with tax reform creates massive political opposition.

00:38:12.900 So, for example, cutting certain deductions gets you some money, but then the National Association of Realtors are mad at you.

00:38:19.840 Cutting the state and local tax deduction gets you a certain amount of money, but then the Home Builders Association is mad at you.

00:38:27.020 And a lot of those organizations are large funders of the Republican Party.

00:38:30.980 And some of those ideas have more merit than others, but you have to make enemies if you're going to do what the Republicans are planning on doing.

00:38:40.620 And so far, it doesn't appear like they're willing to.

00:38:43.280 And everybody hates deductions until you try to take away their deductions.

00:38:47.040 Same thing with subsidies.

00:38:48.840 You always hear the left ranting on about how we subsidize the oil industry.

00:38:52.940 And then when you point out to them that a lot of those subsidies are so that poor people can heat their homes, then they say, well, no, I wasn't talking about that.

00:38:59.980 It's all the bad subsidies, all the bad deductions.

00:39:03.520 Your eminence, Mr. Goa.

00:39:04.840 I mean, I hated the mortgage interest deduction until I bought a house.

00:39:09.340 Now it's great.

00:39:10.020 It's amazing.

00:39:10.640 It benefits me impressively.

00:39:12.420 So it's actually still probably a good idea to limit the mortgage interest deduction, even though I am a massive beneficiary of it.

00:39:19.920 But, yes, once you get into kind of what deductions go where, people start getting mad.

00:39:25.140 And, of course, we need the blank book, income tax credit.

00:39:28.140 There are a lot of things that we need to put in retroactively.

00:39:30.480 Your eminence, does Trump need this?

00:39:32.520 Does he need tax reform?

00:39:33.820 I certainly think he needs a legislative victory, Michael.

00:39:37.340 He's not going to get it with, unfortunately, Obamacare, which was a debacle in the legislative Senate and the House.

00:39:46.060 So, I mean, I certainly think tax reform is one of the most, one of the best things that he can get legislatively.

00:39:54.240 And, yes, he needs a legislative win.

00:39:55.980 And tax reform would certainly be the one.

00:39:59.320 But thus far, you know, one of the unfortunate things about Trump's administration thus far is that he has not gotten a big legislative win.

00:40:07.540 It's mostly come from the executive and, of course, foreign policy-wise with what we're dealing with ISIS.

00:40:12.640 So one good, you know, legislative victory would definitely, I think, Trump needs to check off his box.

00:40:20.120 Bradley, you're a college Republican.

00:40:21.840 You're a college Republican chairman.

00:40:23.160 I was, I remember when I was young like you.

00:40:25.940 And at Yale, all of the college Republicans, they didn't really care about social issues.

00:40:31.520 They were economically focused.

00:40:33.500 All they wanted was entitlement reform, tax reform, you know, very, I would say, establishment and establishment conservative Republicans.

00:40:43.280 They didn't want to be social, you know, culture warriors because they wanted to be cool guys.

00:40:47.360 They wanted to fit in and, like, be cool at parties, you know.

00:40:49.680 So, myself included, a lot of college kids there ran that typical line, I'm fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

00:40:56.480 Do you find that that's the case at Berkeley right now or have the culture wars that President Trump has, is exhilarated and is fighting, have they affected college campuses as well?

00:41:09.300 Absolutely, without a doubt.

00:41:11.100 I mean, we've seen a large swing back to social conservatism.

00:41:14.600 I think that it all, it all lies on a pendulum, right?

00:41:17.360 So the pendulum's swinging back towards social conservatism.

00:41:19.760 And if we look at the first reports on the younger generations in the United States, we're seeing that they are the most socially conservative since World War II.

00:41:29.180 I mean, this is, there's a lot to gain here for the Republican Party.

00:41:33.600 Even though a majority of young Republicans are more economically focused and are more socially liberal, they're actually more socially libertarian.

00:41:43.380 They don't care much.

00:41:44.300 They want lower taxes.

00:41:45.740 They want their own property.

00:41:47.000 They want to have their guns.

00:41:48.180 And that's mostly the type of person I am.

00:41:51.940 But we are seeing that shift back because the left keeps doubling down on every culture war we're having.

00:41:56.980 And Trump is choosing culture wars that he can win.

00:41:59.680 And it's smart for him to do so.

00:42:01.180 And I think tax reform is actually something that he can win.

00:42:05.040 I don't think, I don't know if it'll pass, but I think that he can create a story and a narrative behind it that can garner support.

00:42:11.960 And he's going for the Cut, Cut, Cut Act that's being reported today, that he wants to name it the Cut, Cut, Cut Act.

00:42:18.860 And he wants to drastically deregulate small businesses.

00:42:23.660 And if you want America to prosper, you have to support small businesses.

00:42:27.940 And you've got to keep it simple, just like that. 1.00

00:42:30.280 Keep it simple, stupid. 1.00

00:42:31.220 Cut, Cut, Cut. 1.00

00:42:32.360 Well, let's hope it works out.

00:42:33.560 Panel, thank you for being here.

00:42:35.080 Very good discussion.

00:42:36.120 Kevin Glass, first time on the panel of deplorables.

00:42:38.460 Bradley Devlin, UC Berkeley College Republican chairman.

00:42:41.760 And his eminence, Paul Bois.

00:42:43.520 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:42:44.420 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:42:45.500 Get your mailbag questions in so that I can change your life tomorrow.

00:42:48.820 And we'll see you there for the last show of the week.

00:43:18.820 This is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production, copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Michael Knowles Show - November 01, 2017

Ep. 51 - Religion of Peace, Media of Euphemisms

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript