The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 64 - And The Fake News Trophy Goes To…the CFPB!

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00:00:37.760 CNN is trying to ban the term fake news.

00:00:41.220 Lol.

00:00:41.840 President Trump has called for a fake news trophy,

00:00:44.540 and an Obama holdover left-wing deep state stooge is trying to subvert democracy 0.74

00:00:48.980 and take over an executive agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

00:00:53.480 In these fake news awards, aren't we all the real winners?

00:00:57.080 Yes, we are.

00:00:57.880 Then, Amanda Presta Giacomo and Aswan Soobsang join the panel of deplorables

00:01:02.360 to discuss a groundbreaking new study out of Yale 0.96

00:01:05.200 that shows indulging ridiculous fantasies makes you more left-wing. 0.96

00:01:09.660 Who would have thought? 0.99

00:01:10.480 Susan Sarandon and John McCain's telling Hillary Clinton to S-T-F-U.

00:01:15.040 I'll let you spell that out.

00:01:16.320 And Denzel Washington drops racist hate facts about personal responsibility and the family.

00:01:21.280 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:30.980 Happy holidays.

00:01:32.160 There are so many holidays that happened in the last four days.

00:01:35.520 We had Thanksgiving.

00:01:36.420 We had Black Friday.

00:01:37.620 We had Evacuation Day.

00:01:39.080 Everyone forgets that holiday, but it's a great one,

00:01:40.980 and I promise you I drank in your stead in Lower Manhattan on it.

00:01:44.960 And Cyber Monday.

00:01:46.100 Cyber Monday is a great day.

00:01:47.300 The main reason it's a great day is because it lets me hawk my products.

00:01:51.680 And that would be reasons to vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide.

00:01:56.080 This is the blank book that started it all,

00:01:58.540 that really intervened in my life in a very positive way.

00:02:01.620 President Trump has endorsed it as a great book for your reading enjoyment.

00:02:05.500 None other than Mr. Ben Shapiro calls it thorough.

00:02:08.320 Dennis Prager read it twice.

00:02:10.240 It goes on and on.

00:02:11.540 Michelle Malkin said, Michael Knowles perfectly documents what's inside the minds of Democrats,

00:02:16.040 a real page-turner.

00:02:17.220 This covers every major topic and gives all of the reasons to vote for Democrats

00:02:22.620 in a total of 250 pages and about 11 words.

00:02:26.320 You've got to go out there and order it right now.

00:02:27.980 This is the indispensable stocking stuffer.

00:02:30.860 You know, this could be the main gift for any Democrat in your life,

00:02:35.260 family, friend, relative.

00:02:37.200 You have to go get it.

00:02:38.580 Reasons to vote for Democrats.

00:02:40.280 I really hope this wins the Pulitzer this year and the National Book Award,

00:02:45.120 but we can't do it without your help.

00:02:46.660 So spread the knowledge and instruct your friends and relatives on real political philosophy.

00:02:53.560 Okay, we have a lot of fake news to get to today.

00:02:57.560 One thing that I'm thankful for, we didn't go over this,

00:02:59.880 what are you thankful for at the Thanksgiving episode?

00:03:02.160 I'm really thankful for President Trump's Twitter account.

00:03:05.660 It's one of the highlights of my news consumption all year.

00:03:08.820 He sent out this beauty this morning, quote,

00:03:11.980 We should have a contest as to which of the networks, plus CNN, but not including Fox,

00:03:17.460 is the most dishonest, corrupt, and or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite president, me.

00:03:23.780 They are all bad. 0.88

00:03:25.160 Winner to receive the fake news trophy.

00:03:27.680 So here is CNN, fake news outlet par excellence, CNN's Brian Stelter discussing the fake news.

00:03:36.240 It's time to retire the term fake news.

00:03:39.400 That's what my next guest says.

00:03:41.980 Claire Wardle is the executive director of First Draft.

00:03:44.520 It's a nonprofit research group, a base of the Harvard Shorenstein Center.

00:03:48.540 Claire, we've talked about this before.

00:03:50.020 I want to share with our viewers.

00:03:51.360 If we never use the term fake news again, what should we say instead?

00:03:54.560 So we should think about what we're actually talking about.

00:03:57.040 So are we talking about misinformation?

00:03:58.600 They're just mistakes that people make.

00:04:00.160 Are we talking about disinformation, when people are actually trying to cause harm,

00:04:03.600 when they are disseminating false information?

00:04:06.080 Or are we talking about malinformation, genuine information that's shared again to cause harm?

00:04:09.840 So that could be revenge porn.

00:04:10.980 It could be a leaked email.

00:04:12.280 So we just need to be much more specific about what we're talking about.

00:04:14.780 And is that because President Trump and others have co-opted the term fake news

00:04:18.060 and basically redefined it?

00:04:19.760 So two reasons.

00:04:20.640 Firstly, a lot of this stuff isn't news.

00:04:22.600 And secondly, it's been co-opted by politicians around the world as a label for things that they don't like.

00:04:27.640 And it's been used as a weapon against organizations like CNN and others.

00:04:31.220 And so when it's been used as a weapon against the news industry and it's just been co-opted,

00:04:35.180 we have to think much more carefully about the power of language.

00:04:37.860 And it's damaging.

00:04:39.240 Oh, is it?

00:04:40.040 No, it's damaging to you.

00:04:41.380 Oh, yeah, it was great when you were using it against right-wing outlets.

00:04:44.380 But now that they're using it against us, we have to stop.

00:04:46.640 By the way, all three versions of fake news that she said, CNN does all of them.

00:04:50.880 But now they want to ban them because they either are being disingenuous or they don't get the point.

00:04:57.300 They want to ban the term.

00:04:58.900 They're the ones who created the term.

00:05:00.360 The term fake news reached a mass audience.

00:05:03.040 People forget this.

00:05:04.240 It reached a mass audience for the first time in the days following Donald Trump's election victory

00:05:08.760 when a left-wing college professor named Melissa Zimdars published a viral Google doc 1.00

00:05:14.040 listing a bunch of conservative news outlets, including our own, including The Daily Wire, as, quote, fake news.

00:05:20.120 The irony, though, the irony which we pointed out is that while outlets like The Daily Wire and others

00:05:25.040 are honest about our point of view, you know where we're coming from.

00:05:27.800 We're not pretending to be somebody we're not.

00:05:29.960 Places like CNN lie about their political slant all the time.

00:05:33.020 They pretend it objectivity.

00:05:34.700 They often spread outright false stories.

00:05:36.960 You know, they do fake news.

00:05:39.480 Here, what are some other examples?

00:05:40.900 MSNBC ran a fake Morning Joe show on Friday.

00:05:43.320 It was pre-taped.

00:05:44.060 They pretended it was live.

00:05:45.260 The New York Times' main reporting on the alleged Trump-Russia collusion was shown to be entirely false.

00:05:50.100 It was so false, actually, that former FBI Director James Comey, under oath, said that the story wasn't true.

00:05:56.620 Also on alleged Trump-Russia collusion, CNN, that Brian Stelter's network, was forced not only to retract a story,

00:06:03.100 but to fire an entire reporting team over false reporting, over a bad story.

00:06:08.260 According to a Media Research Center study, 91% of mainstream news coverage of Donald Trump has been negative.

00:06:15.320 According to Pew Research Center, Trump has received more negative coverage, not only than Democrats like Obama and Clinton, even more than George W. Bush.

00:06:24.920 According to another study, the majority of Americans believe that mainstream news coverage of Donald Trump is too negative.

00:06:31.260 And we're not just talking about the facts of the stories.

00:06:33.140 It's not like the majority of Americans say, stop running reality.

00:06:36.540 It's more which stories are being run, which stories are being harped on, which stories are being completely ignored,

00:06:43.320 or they're harped on for Republicans but ignored for Democrats.

00:06:45.880 Double standards.

00:06:46.680 If the Democrats didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.

00:06:50.140 The fake news trophy, though, we can't give it to Brian Stelter.

00:06:52.700 We can't give it to Jim Acosta.

00:06:53.840 We can't give it to Jake Tapper.

00:06:55.160 We can't give it to any of those guys.

00:06:56.880 The fake news trophy winner this month has to go to Leandra English.

00:07:00.940 She is the Obama holdover bureaucrat who is now, she is pretending to be the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1.00

00:07:09.940 a particularly unaccountable government agency that shouldn't exist in the first place,

00:07:13.620 and was established by Senator Elizabeth Warren of the Massachusetts tribe over Mick Mulvaney,

00:07:18.840 the actual director named by President Donald Trump.

00:07:21.880 For comment, let's turn to Senator Warren.

00:07:23.800 Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn bone?

00:07:29.000 I have not.

00:07:29.500 I have not, Senator Warren.

00:07:30.600 I don't know why you would ask me.

00:07:31.920 CFPB director Richard Cordray, an Obama holdover, just resigned,

00:07:36.500 and he appointed Leandra English, another Obama bureaucrat, as the director of the agency.

00:07:41.920 So far, so good.

00:07:42.880 Only trouble is, he has no authority to do that.

00:07:46.040 And so President Trump named budget director Mick Mulvaney to run the agency.

00:07:50.340 Nevertheless, the Democrats, they love just playing pretend, especially in government.

00:07:54.800 So the woman is just pretending to be the director of this unaccountable agency.

00:07:59.080 Now, on his first day, by the way, Mulvaney brought Dunkin' Donuts to the office,

00:08:03.140 so I think we know who is going to go far and win hearts and minds.

00:08:06.900 But Leandra English, I'm sure, was waiting for somebody else to bring her donuts. 1.00

00:08:10.360 She's entitled to them, obviously.

00:08:11.640 And back to the agency.

00:08:14.320 The agency shouldn't exist.

00:08:16.220 The agency was proposed by Elizabeth Warren before she became a senator, 2007, 2008.

00:08:20.980 It was authorized by the Dodd-Frank Permanent Financial Cronyism Act of 2010.

00:08:25.340 The agency's major accomplishments in its seven years of existence appear to have been enriching trial lawyers and abusing black employees. 0.99

00:08:32.960 One unit was nicknamed the plantation because it comprised all black employees and was subject to a special abuse, specific abuse. 0.51

00:08:41.800 One employee called it a, quote, humiliating experience, said working for the CFPB is, quote, a living hell.

00:08:48.260 It's apparently run by intimidation.

00:08:51.020 And like a dictatorship, there are consequences for disagreeing or disobeying the king.

00:08:56.220 All of their words, not mine.

00:08:57.580 According to a government accountability office report, one quarter, 25 percent of minority employees at the CFPB reported that they have been victims of discrimination.

00:09:07.760 Almost one in ten employees reported that they had been retaliated against by a supervisor for calling attention to the discrimination.

00:09:14.640 Now, none of this is surprising, by the way, because this is one of the major problems baked into the agency.

00:09:21.960 The agency is unaccountable.

00:09:24.820 It's an independent agency.

00:09:26.100 Dennis Scholl, who's a former aide to Barney Frank, that's the law that created the agency, Dodd Frank, he explained in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last week that the CFPB should just be shut down, which it should.

00:09:37.160 The CFPB is uniquely unaccountable, he writes.

00:09:40.140 It's an independent agency with a sole director.

00:09:43.200 The director isn't even accountable to the congressional appropriations process.

00:09:47.440 So there are some independent agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FCC, the FTC.

00:09:52.400 Those are funded by Congress, but the CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve.

00:09:58.180 So that means it has precisely zero congressional oversight.

00:10:01.960 Scholl assails the position of CFPB chief as, quote,

00:10:06.300 a politically biased regulatory dictator and a political stepping stone for its sole director.

00:10:12.200 That is true.

00:10:12.880 His director is now running for governor of God knows where.

00:10:14.820 As an independent agency, the CFPB is supposed to be bipartisan.

00:10:18.700 But while a lot of its employees donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016, not a single one of them donated to President Trump's campaign.

00:10:27.240 Now, what about the agency itself?

00:10:28.740 What has it done?

00:10:29.360 The CFPB has been useless and duplicative of other services, as you might expect.

00:10:33.400 It took credit for other agencies and corporations' work, like when the L.A. Times uncovered fraud at Wells Fargo.

00:10:40.120 It illegally has regulated industries outside of its mandate.

00:10:44.380 It pays significantly higher salaries than other agencies.

00:10:47.240 That's how it got so bloated so quickly.

00:10:49.040 It maintains a slush fund of billions of dollars because its finances lack any oversight.

00:10:54.240 And its proposed rules, which luckily Congress intervened to overrule, would have devastated industries.

00:10:59.780 Even the CFPB's name is propaganda.

00:11:02.040 It's a protection bureau, don't you?

00:11:04.400 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

00:11:06.560 Isn't that nice?

00:11:07.440 Regulatory bureau, government bureau.

00:11:09.520 That just doesn't have the same ring to it.

00:11:12.020 Now the agency is even pretending that a left-wing stooge is its director rather than the presidentially appointed one.

00:11:17.760 That's because, as President Reagan pointed out, one of the many bits of brilliance he's bestowed on us,

00:11:23.480 a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life on earth.

00:11:26.900 Now, the CFPB is particularly egregiously unaccountable.

00:11:29.420 It embodies everything that's wrong with big government bureaucrats. 0.57

00:11:33.160 And so, this is another holiday.

00:11:35.680 This will be the Fake News Trophy Day.

00:11:38.240 Congratulations to the Fake Consumer Financial Fake Protection Bureau Interim Director, Fake Director, Leandra English.

00:11:45.220 You win this month's Fake News Trophy.

00:11:48.860 Now we'll have to bring on our panel to talk about this.

00:11:51.020 But first, do you know how I knew it was time to bring on the panel?

00:11:53.860 Marshall, do you know?

00:11:54.880 I do.

00:11:55.180 How did I know that it was time to bring on our panel?

00:11:58.420 That beautiful watch.

00:11:59.160 There it is, baby.

00:12:00.140 The Movement Watch.

00:12:01.160 That's how I know.

00:12:01.960 Because I am a semi-serious person, at least.

00:12:04.840 So, I wear a watch.

00:12:06.280 I have at least two places that I have to be every day.

00:12:09.200 One of them is at the cigar bar down the street.

00:12:11.160 And the other one is here to do this show.

00:12:12.900 So, how do I keep my schedule in order?

00:12:14.440 I keep a watch.

00:12:15.400 So, I at least don't miss my appointments.

00:12:17.840 Movement Watches is this great company.

00:12:20.760 They've totally disrupted the watch industry.

00:12:23.580 They have sold so far 1 million watches to customers in 160-plus countries around the world.

00:12:30.220 It has solidified itself as the world's fastest-growing watch company.

00:12:34.920 Now, the way they do this, if you go into a department store, you want to get a watch like this, it could cost you $400, $500.

00:12:40.160 But Movement skips all of that because they give it direct to you online.

00:12:44.480 So, you know, they were founded on the belief that style shouldn't break the bank.

00:12:48.440 And they want to change the way that consumers think about fashion.

00:12:51.220 Now, by the way, buying a watch, it's not that big a deal, especially when prices like this make it accessible to people.

00:12:58.880 These watches start at just $95.

00:13:00.960 So, what you should do is buy multiple watches.

00:13:03.680 You know, you can wear Movement Watches with just about anything.

00:13:06.420 They have a new lineup.

00:13:07.720 So, I really like this one.

00:13:08.480 This is the white Chrono 40-millimeter.

00:13:10.160 I really like this, but they just, like, the day I ordered it, they came out with a new line called the Revolver Line, and I really want to get one of those watches, too.

00:13:18.260 So, if these watches were $500, I couldn't do that.

00:13:20.820 I'd have to sell many more blank books.

00:13:22.500 Fortunately, they started under $100, so I think I'll probably just get another one.

00:13:27.900 Holiday shopping can be very tough thanks to Movement.

00:13:30.560 All of that anxiety can disappear with just the press of a button.

00:13:33.680 You know, I'm sure you've got yourself a watch, but you can finish your holiday shopping and get a Movement Watch for somebody on your list.

00:13:42.380 It goes really well with blank books, so you can, whatever you've already bought from this whole show so far, you should get this for your loved ones.

00:13:50.140 You know, they're really, they're just really nice.

00:13:51.900 Very sleek, very minimalist, and it's such great prices.

00:13:57.360 You should get them for anybody on your list.

00:13:59.260 So, the great news is this, Christmas came early for you folks, Evacuation Day came late, Christmas came early, 15% off today, but only for my listeners.

00:14:08.720 With free shipping and free returns, if you go to, what is it?

00:14:12.340 Movement.com, MVMT.com, slash Covfefe.

00:14:18.040 MVMT.com slash Covfefe.

00:14:20.100 C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 1.00

00:14:22.960 The watch has a great design, it makes a great fashion statement.

00:14:25.500 Now is the time to step up your watch game.

00:14:27.380 Don't wait until later, run, do not walk, so that you can type in the greatest promo code in the history of reads,

00:14:34.180 MVMT.com slash Covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E, and join the Movement.

00:14:40.260 Panel, thank you for being here.

00:14:42.580 And you should, I highly recommend you both go out and get Movement Watches.

00:14:46.920 We have Asawin Subsang, and we have Amanda Prestigiacomo.

00:14:51.000 Asawin, should we get rid of- 1.00

00:14:52.800 How's it going?

00:14:53.280 Should we get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

00:14:55.820 Honestly, I don't particularly care right now.

00:15:01.280 It's a situation, right?

00:15:03.620 What I'm more interested in as a reporter, honestly, is the drama that you alluded to at the beginning of the show that's going on right now.

00:15:09.440 It's really, really funny how Mick Mulvaney and Miss English, as you were talking about at the top of this show, are right now warring for the top spot and control over the staff of the CFPB.

00:15:23.380 And it looks like this is going to be tied up potentially in court for at least a little while.

00:15:27.500 But there seems to be a serious, actual fight for control of the CFPB.

00:15:34.020 It sounds like the worst job in the world.

00:15:35.740 Why are these people fighting for it?

00:15:37.140 It seems-

00:15:37.660 Who would ever want to be the head of the CFPB?

00:15:40.900 President Trump himself could solve this right now by nominating someone to be a permanent head of the CFPB.

00:15:46.200 But they don't seem inclined to do that at the moment.

00:15:49.560 Why do you think that is?

00:15:50.380 It's just a very funny, almost bizarre situation.

00:15:52.940 Perhaps doing so would acknowledge that this is something to which you would need to appoint a permanent head to.

00:16:00.900 And as the Trump administration has been very plain about, their position is probably very similar to yours, that this is something that should 100% be on the federal shopping block.

00:16:10.860 Yep, absolutely.

00:16:11.520 That is what I think it is.

00:16:12.920 Because he could just nominate someone right now.

00:16:14.740 I love the idea of Mick Mulvaney, who is the budget director, who famously said that the bureau shouldn't exist at all.

00:16:22.540 And I do like the idea of him strolling in there with Dunkin' Donuts and kicking out this woman who's pretending that she has the job. 1.00

00:16:28.840 But it will be tied up in courts for a bit.

00:16:30.860 I think even left-wing lawyers and legal scholars are saying, clearly the president has the right to name his person.

00:16:38.980 And it might be a weird quirk of the law that there is this loophole right now, but that it probably won't stand up in court.

00:16:45.100 But my question for Amanda is, why does the left love unaccountable bureaucracies so much?

00:16:51.960 Yeah, I mean, they just love the control and power.

00:16:54.000 It's just part of the leftist ideology.

00:16:56.300 So the more bureaucracy they have, the more people are dependent on government.

00:16:59.360 The more the government grows, there's more control.

00:17:01.460 They just, they love it.

00:17:02.660 They love these intricacies and this bureaucracy that holds everything up.

00:17:06.620 So this is just like a product of what they are.

00:17:09.060 And I agree with you.

00:17:09.820 I think we should get rid of it chopping block for sure.

00:17:12.200 It's hard because I think most people don't know anything about the CFPB.

00:17:15.700 So they hear consumer protection.

00:17:17.320 That seems good.

00:17:18.200 I'd like consumer protection.

00:17:19.820 But what is consumer protection?

00:17:21.780 What has the bureau really done?

00:17:24.720 They almost created a brand new industry for trial lawyers.

00:17:29.020 And it doesn't seem they protect consumers terribly much.

00:17:33.060 Do you disagree, Aswan?

00:17:35.560 Well, before I get to that, I would like to address what you were saying earlier about unaccountable bureaucracies.

00:17:42.320 I mean, we could spend the entire day going down the list, both on the left and the right.

00:17:47.020 But I think it's just a function of whoever's in power that they like unaccountable bureaucracies,

00:17:51.740 sometimes in the form of waging war overseas.

00:17:53.820 So I really don't think that is an exclusively liberal thing.

00:17:57.980 You don't think that the left is more inclined toward bureaucracy?

00:18:02.900 Obviously, look, President Bush set up the Department of Homeland Security after the United States was attacked in a major act of war.

00:18:09.120 But nevertheless, that's true.

00:18:10.660 President Reagan wasn't able to cut the government, wasn't able to kill off bureaucracies.

00:18:15.600 But you don't think that it's more of a twitch of the left to expand government, to expand government power.

00:18:21.880 And in the case of the CFPB, to expand unaccountable government power that doesn't have congressional oversight.

00:18:28.840 It honestly really depends which corners of the federal government you're talking about.

00:18:36.000 I mean, I really do believe that.

00:18:37.800 But you would say that the left is...

00:18:40.040 But in terms of financial regulation, which is what we're talking about right now, of course that is more of a tick of the left.

00:18:46.860 That's a thing.

00:18:47.960 They think that's better.

00:18:49.040 You just think that the right is more prone to military strength and so they'll grow the government in that sector.

00:18:55.400 Well, again, I really don't think that's exclusive to either the Republican or Democratic Party.

00:19:04.020 As you were talking about, if we want to talk about Bush era abuses and expansion, the Obama administration certainly was not very, very friendly to the political left, shall we say, in terms of rolling a lot of those back.

00:19:18.140 So I get worried about painting these into exclusively left or right, but that's just me.

00:19:24.620 Perhaps not.

00:19:25.400 And I think it's fair enough to point out that the Bush administration expanded the federal government in many ways.

00:19:31.900 Medicare Part D, for instance, and Barack Obama, while perhaps holding an incoherent foreign policy, nevertheless kept us in Afghanistan for a long time.

00:19:42.140 The vast majority of deaths in Afghanistan occurred under his watch.

00:19:45.180 Nevertheless, even though they're imperfect actors here, is it not fair to say, Amanda, that government expansion per se is a greater facet of leftism than it is of any conservative philosophy in modern America?

00:20:01.800 Yeah, definitely.

00:20:02.720 I mean, I could see the argument for national security reasons where the right might expand bureaucracy in that sense.

00:20:08.700 But aside from that, I mean, it's clearly that's a tick of the left in almost any other area besides maybe national security.

00:20:18.040 Plus, I also have a TSA pre-check now, so I've been the main Bush era expansion.

00:20:23.960 I haven't been groped by in a long time.

00:20:27.560 As we've seen, the Trump administration has been doing a phenomenal job of shrinking the government when it comes weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after undocumented families.

00:20:36.920 They've done a remarkable job.

00:20:38.180 Undocumented.

00:20:38.780 You mean illegal aliens resigning in the country?

00:20:41.920 You mean that he's enforcing the law through his Justice Department, but the euphemism you used was weaponizing an agency to go after undocumented families.

00:20:52.220 But consider the language of that phrase.

00:20:54.580 There are people here who have broken the law, and the law enforcement agency is now finally holding up the law because we are a nation of laws, not a nation simply of men.

00:21:04.040 What's so bad about that?

00:21:04.960 Are you asking me or the other panel?

00:21:08.620 That's you.

00:21:10.940 Well, in terms of enforcing the law, I mean, do you really think the Obama administration, and this is where the Obama administration was actually hit repeatedly by immigration activists on the left for ramping up deportation?

00:21:25.140 By the way, you don't mean immigration activists.

00:21:27.100 You mean illegal immigration activists.

00:21:28.900 Well, people who think, as I do, as long as we're talking about political preferences and opinion, you said at the top of the show, you were very upfront about your political views.

00:21:37.880 I'll do the same with mine.

00:21:39.480 People who wish there was something closer to an open borders policy or people who think a larger level of immigration is better than a lower level of immigration.

00:21:49.180 And this, by the way, I don't mean to cut you off, but I want to hear your opinion in light of this news story because this leads perfectly into the main news story I want to bring on.

00:21:58.840 And, by the way, I appreciate you being honest about your political views, but more than that, I appreciate that you have come on this show.

00:22:04.440 It is so hard to get lefties and Democrats to come on this show.

00:22:08.880 I truly appreciate it.

00:22:11.120 And—

00:22:11.300 I mean, look, I love political debate on his Barrett's, and Michael, you and I go way back.

00:22:15.500 I like you.

00:22:16.180 So, of course—

00:22:16.840 Well, this is the—here's the news story from dear old Yale.

00:22:21.660 Researchers at dear old Yale are now claiming to have cured conservatism.

00:22:26.500 Professor John Barr writes in The Washington Post, quote,

00:22:30.400 No one had ever turned conservatives into liberals until we did.

00:22:34.740 Before conservatives answered survey questions, we had them engage in an intense imagination exercise.

00:22:40.060 They were asked to close their eyes and richly imagine being visited by a genie who granted them a superpower.

00:22:47.220 If they imagined being completely physically safe, the Republicans became significantly more liberal.

00:22:54.120 So if conservatives—in other words, if conservatives are instructed to indulge in ridiculous fantasies, they become more left-wing, which makes perfect sense to me.

00:23:02.460 Now, Asowyn, to you—and please continue on your previous thread as well.

00:23:05.840 These professors appear to be treating conservatism as a strange psychological glitch rather than as a coherent political philosophy or set of philosophies.

00:23:16.480 Now, we're all just pulsing nerve endings according to this idea.

00:23:19.660 We have little conscious control.

00:23:21.240 Is the left, in this case, denying the rational faculties of everybody or just of irrational conservatives?

00:23:28.420 I would honestly—I wish I had a copy of that study you're referring to in front of me.

00:23:33.440 I have not read it.

00:23:34.480 I'm not familiar with the authors you're talking about, and I'm not familiar with the methodology or where they're coming from.

00:23:42.300 And I'm not—I don't feel incredibly comfortable weighing in a study that I haven't read in full.

00:23:48.240 I only use this study as a launching point.

00:23:50.620 My question is—sure, sure, sure.

00:23:52.300 But if you're a macro question is that there is a lot of people in American liberalism or even farther than that on the American political spectrum who see conservatism as a disease, that's what you're getting at, right?

00:24:08.720 Yes.

00:24:09.040 There's certainly—and, again, I hate playing this both sides thing, but, I mean, there's certainly—you wouldn't disagree with me that there certainly is no shortage of that on the American political right and far right.

00:24:23.680 Like, I think saying liberalism is a cancer or a disease, if we Googled around for that, I'm sure you'd find plenty of conservative commentators you know and probably enjoy and respect who go around saying that.

00:24:33.980 In fact—

00:24:34.980 I will make one distinction, though, because we have heard—

00:24:38.040 We have heard versions of this like feminism is cancer or whatever, you know, you hear these things. 1.00

00:24:43.400 But the distinction is I think by saying that leftism is a disease or cancer, you might say that and say that it's really bad for the country and we should convince people to stop thinking those things and become conservatives.

00:24:55.740 But to say that it's a psychological glitch, which I think is what these people are getting at at Yale and I think what a lot of people on the left have said for a while, I think is what the field of political psychology is largely based on.

00:25:07.820 To say that it's just a psychological glitch is to deny our faculties of reason.

00:25:13.000 It's to preclude reasoned argument.

00:25:15.900 So whereas we might have a debate over whether leftism is a cancer on the American body politic, if we accept their premises, what their premises are saying is that we can't have any debate at all because we've arrived at our conclusions not by reasoned thought or discourse, but because, you know, our brain made us do it.

00:25:34.140 And they twitched in a certain way, Amanda, if wishes were fishes, we'd all swim in riches.

00:25:40.620 And if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas.

00:25:43.660 Given the absurdity of the premise of this survey, is there anything worthwhile in the results?

00:25:49.580 Could there be?

00:25:51.820 No, I mean, from what I gathered from the Washington Post piece in the write up we did at Daily Wire, basically, if you just indulge, if you're granted this power by a magical genie,

00:26:03.200 that nothing, you're impervious to any consequences of these policies, then, yeah, you'll think like a liberal.

00:26:09.060 So it kind of proves the opposite, that if you have a rational mind and you're aware of consequences and you're aware of safety risks, for instance, we're talking about immigration, then, yeah, you're going to side on the right because there are real risks.

00:26:21.560 And, by the way, they were talking about immigration.

00:26:23.380 And if you look broad based, there are a lot of people, it's a clear majority who want to put some sort of clamps on immigration.

00:26:32.440 I think it was like 79 percent.

00:26:33.820 And I think it's like 30 percent of those who are polled won't even come out and publicly say that they want to halt immigration.

00:26:39.160 So this is like a big issue across America.

00:26:41.580 It's not just people on the right. 0.92

00:26:44.040 So just all together, the study was really, really ridiculous.

00:26:48.120 But it's at a DRO.

00:26:48.900 Sometimes I think it was this amazing providential moment that when this show launched, Yale was at the center of just every crazy lefty thing in the country because they might have convinced a few people in that study, but not me, everybody.

00:27:05.880 Now, we have much more to talk about.

00:27:07.760 I know you want to hear more from Asowyn.

00:27:09.460 I know you want to hear more from Amanda.

00:27:11.260 But you can't do it unless you go to TheDailyWire.com right now.

00:27:14.980 If you're already a subscriber, thank you very much.

00:27:16.860 You keep Covfefe in my mug.

00:27:18.700 If not, you've got to go over there.

00:27:20.680 We've got to keep the lights on.

00:27:21.760 I think we even pay, Marshall.

00:27:23.680 I've been advocating against this since the beginning, but I think we do, don't we?

00:27:27.420 It's true.

00:27:28.060 Not much, but it's true.

00:27:28.940 Such an outrage.

00:27:30.000 No justice in the world.

00:27:31.240 If you go to DailyWire.com right now, what do you get?

00:27:33.960 You get no ads on the website.

00:27:35.240 That's pretty nice.

00:27:36.080 You get me.

00:27:36.820 You get the Andrew Klaven show.

00:27:37.840 You get the Ben Shapiro show.

00:27:38.840 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:27:40.540 But here it is.

00:27:41.720 Here it is, folks.

00:27:42.700 The leftist tears tumbler.

00:27:45.180 President Trump today referred to Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas during a press conference

00:27:51.420 with Navajo American veterans of World War II.

00:27:55.900 They are going to be pouring out from the ceiling leftist tears here.

00:28:00.080 It's already happening all over Twitter.

00:28:02.120 The CFPB fight is going to result in a deluge of salty and delicious leftist tears.

00:28:06.660 So you have to go to DailyWire.com right now.

00:28:08.820 Have them hot or cold.

00:28:09.700 Always salty and delicious.

00:28:11.600 We will be right back.

00:28:12.320 The left of Lenin actress Susan Sarandon and sort of Republican Hillary pal John McCain

00:28:27.060 are both telling Hillary Clinton to STFU.

00:28:30.660 Those are McCain's words and they're not mine.

00:28:32.520 He said, quote,

00:28:33.560 One of the almost irresistible impulses you have when you lose is to somehow justify why

00:28:38.020 you lost and how you were mistreated.

00:28:40.020 I did the right thing.

00:28:40.920 I did. 0.97

00:28:41.460 The hardest thing to do is to just shut up. 0.97

00:28:43.880 What's the effing point?

00:28:45.680 Keep the fight up.

00:28:46.660 You've got to move on.

00:28:47.960 Susan Sarandon seems to agree.

00:28:49.680 And for her part, she's still defending her vote against Hillary Clinton instead for Jill

00:28:54.260 Stein.

00:28:54.860 Amanda, I actually don't really care about the Hillary angle of this anymore.

00:28:58.140 But I do love the personal responsibility aspect because there is no crying in politics.

00:29:03.880 And yet the Democrats are still crying over the 2000 election.

00:29:06.700 They're still crying over 2016.

00:29:08.900 Why are Democrats in particular always making excuses for their political failures?

00:29:14.080 Yeah, I mean, it's the party with no personal responsibility.

00:29:17.680 We see this in their politics as well.

00:29:19.180 And it's obviously transcended through Hillary. 0.99

00:29:21.560 I mean, she's been on this tour since she lost.

00:29:24.700 And it's I personally I hope she keeps it up and I hope she runs in 2020.

00:29:28.500 But, you know, it hurts their party overall.

00:29:31.840 And it's just a kind of a symptom of of how they view the world.

00:29:36.960 Like it was someone else's fault.

00:29:38.400 It wasn't it wasn't her fault.

00:29:39.720 It wasn't a bad campaign.

00:29:41.040 Wasn't that she skipped states that she should have campaigned in.

00:29:44.300 Wasn't that she was a terrible campaigner that she couldn't relate, that she lied, that 0.69

00:29:47.540 she was a criminal.

00:29:48.160 No, it was somebody else's fault. 1.00

00:29:49.860 It was those darn Macedonian content farmers, whatever the heck she was blaming. 0.99

00:29:54.180 Such an imposing force. 0.99

00:29:55.740 I know it's Macedonians. 0.99

00:29:57.880 Yeah, it's never within themselves.

00:29:59.860 So it's it's not good for the party, but I'm I'm all for it.

00:30:03.680 So I hope she just keeps coming out here and keeps going with it.

00:30:06.480 So when this brings me to a Thanksgiving related question, it was just Thanksgiving.

00:30:11.720 A big difference between the right and the left.

00:30:13.620 To me, it appears seems that the right values personal responsibility more places a greater

00:30:19.200 emphasis on it when we speak, when we explain our vision of the world.

00:30:22.840 While the left insists on grievance and entitlement, the victim mentality, the ever blossoming and

00:30:29.100 flowering intersectional hierarchy of victims.

00:30:32.440 And I'm not even talking about strategic messaging with Obama blaming obstructionist congressional

00:30:37.820 Republicans or Trump blaming obstructionist congressional Republicans while they're in office.

00:30:42.900 I'm talking about Hillary Clinton, Al Gore.

00:30:44.920 These people are out of office.

00:30:46.720 Is there a gratitude deficit among our friends on the left?

00:30:50.740 Well, to directly address Hillary Clinton for a moment, because there's a lot to unpack in

00:30:57.740 what you just said there, when any Republican or Democratic presidential candidate loses, there

00:31:05.640 is a period of mourning.

00:31:07.840 Sometimes it lasts longer than others.

00:31:10.880 Mitt Romney certainly had a I'm likable tour after he failed to defeat Barack Obama in 2012.

00:31:18.740 But with Hillary Clinton, I think for her personally and from what I've gathered talking to people

00:31:25.600 going in and out of her in her circle during and after the 2016 campaign, is that this was a

00:31:31.580 particularly hard blow for her to absorb, in large part because this had been something she'd been

00:31:40.000 working up to for decades of her life.

00:31:43.880 Right, for decades of her life.

00:31:46.080 And to lose to someone who she saw as so unqualified and so vulgar and so demagogic as Donald Trump,

00:31:57.100 who many people, including those in her inner circle, was telling her would be essentially a cakewalk

00:32:02.620 to defeat in a general election, it's for her, it has been something incredibly hard to get over.

00:32:10.080 But I noticed, I mean, sure, Mitt Romney went on his likable tour.

00:32:13.540 He started speaking about politics a little bit more during the 2016 presidential cycle,

00:32:19.040 but he basically disappeared.

00:32:20.440 He would give a couple speeches, he showed up to the White House to shake hands with Barack Obama.

00:32:25.500 But when you look at George H.W. Bush, when he lost in 92, he basically just disappeared and kept his mouth shut.

00:32:31.220 Same thing with Bob Dole, same thing with John McCain, he went back to work.

00:32:37.540 Mitt Romney disappeared for a good while.

00:32:39.480 But these Democrats who have lost, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, blame everybody and their mother for their defeat

00:32:45.260 and then keep harping about political issues over which they have little control as losing candidates.

00:32:53.480 Well, the thing with the Clintons is that since the early 1990s, for better or for worse,

00:33:04.020 they have essentially been the center of power or at least one way or another the center of gravity

00:33:09.400 of the redefined Democratic Party in the wake of its electoral failures post-Reaganism.

00:33:15.480 So I think a big part of the reason why she isn't going away as a lot of people,

00:33:21.200 including a lot of people on the left and center left, would like her to go away,

00:33:25.980 is because she is trying to continue to define herself as a player in the Democratic Party. 0.98

00:33:33.700 And to do that, you have to sustain her relevance.

00:33:36.100 And right now she happens to be doing that in terms of the book tour,

00:33:39.300 to not only establish ongoing commentary and relevance,

00:33:42.340 but to try to tell people her side of what went wrong

00:33:45.340 and why I am not currently a leader of the free world.

00:33:48.860 With Al Gore, I mean, if my memory serves,

00:33:52.940 he did obviously complain about the incredibly narrow 2011.

00:33:57.620 Soon, demanded a recount, won a Nobel Prize for PowerPoint.

00:34:00.900 Right, but pretty soon after that, after Bush became president,

00:34:06.080 he spent a pretty solid period of time redefining himself as a climate change.

00:34:15.280 As the savior of the world.

00:34:17.400 That's the only way he could look in the mirror in the morning.

00:34:20.280 Stuff I'm sure you didn't appreciate,

00:34:22.600 but it wasn't complaining about the election 24-7 per se.

00:34:27.120 He did have a form of moving on.

00:34:30.000 If you can win an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize

00:34:32.700 for a largely inaccurate PowerPoint presentation,

00:34:36.160 I appreciate that.

00:34:37.500 More power to you.

00:34:39.000 Go with God.

00:34:39.800 I wish it were me.

00:34:40.940 And you make an excellent point, too,

00:34:42.620 which is that the Democrats,

00:34:43.680 in the wake of especially Donald Trump,

00:34:46.040 are running on rage.

00:34:48.280 The pink hats and the resistance,

00:34:51.520 they've named the opposition to Trump

00:34:53.240 after the opposition to Nazis.

00:34:55.580 They're running on rage,

00:34:56.760 and she's trying to tap into that.

00:34:58.340 And it's very funny for me to watch,

00:35:00.340 especially as her third cousin once removed.

00:35:02.600 Now, speaking of personal responsibility,

00:35:05.120 Denzel Washington dropped some truly bigoted hate facts over the weekend.

00:35:08.960 While he was promoting his new film,

00:35:10.680 Roman J. Israel Esquire,

00:35:12.480 Denzel said that researching the L.A. criminal court system for the movie

00:35:15.420 did not make him place more blame on the system,

00:35:18.920 or the prison industrial complex,

00:35:20.700 or alleged systemic inequality for problems in the black community. 0.96

00:35:24.180 Instead, he blames, oh, my gosh, runaway fathers. 0.62

00:35:28.640 He blames individuals who make bad choices.

00:35:31.540 He said, quote,

00:35:32.600 It starts at home.

00:35:33.560 I can't blame the system.

00:35:34.940 It starts with how you raise your children.

00:35:37.080 If a young man doesn't have a father figure,

00:35:39.140 he'll go and find a father figure.

00:35:41.420 And Denzel Washington and I actually share the same acting teacher decades apart,

00:35:45.740 and it seems that we share the same opinions, too,

00:35:48.500 though I don't know how he can possibly keep working

00:35:50.780 after making such bigoted and terrible and factually accurate comments as he did.

00:35:55.360 Asawin, almost... 0.77

00:35:56.520 Actually, we just lost him to Amanda real quick.

00:35:57.940 Oh, we lost Asawin, but we'll get him back.

00:35:59.760 Hopefully, he'll come back.

00:36:01.180 Amanda, this is actually the direct question I have with this.

00:36:04.840 How does Denzel get away with contradicting Hollywood leftist orthodoxy?

00:36:08.660 Yeah, I don't know, but he has.

00:36:10.560 He's made comments like this before,

00:36:12.420 and for some reason, he just stays in the game.

00:36:16.120 Maybe it's an identity thing.

00:36:18.180 I'm not sure, but I love Denzel,

00:36:20.580 and what he said was exactly right,

00:36:22.460 but yeah, for some reason, he can make these comments

00:36:25.280 and then keep working, and he's also a fantastic actor.

00:36:28.380 He's a tremendous actor.

00:36:29.660 He is one of the few left who's really prominent

00:36:32.300 who is just an excellent, properly trained...

00:36:35.640 He brings so much to every role, and there are different roles.

00:36:39.220 Asawin, almost three-quarters of black children

00:36:42.600 are born out of wedlock in the United States.

00:36:45.180 So is Denzel right?

00:36:46.880 Are the problems in the black community cultural primarily,

00:36:49.760 or are they primarily the result of some systemic racism?

00:36:55.120 Well, if you...

00:36:58.560 I'm sorry.

00:36:59.780 My connection cut out,

00:37:00.780 so I can only imagine that you're talking about his comments that he made...

00:37:03.140 We're dropping hate facts left and right.

00:37:05.360 Yeah.

00:37:05.540 Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

00:37:07.560 The comments he made in the...

00:37:09.620 They were printed in the New York Daily News.

00:37:10.860 That's right.

00:37:11.300 About it, starting with the family.

00:37:14.880 Well, Denzel Washington,

00:37:16.300 if you know much about his, at least, public political leanings,

00:37:20.300 there isn't too much shocking about him saying that.

00:37:22.680 I mean, he identifies as a political independent.

00:37:24.640 Yes, he supported Barack Obama,

00:37:26.640 but he's never been a raging leftist in his public persona.

00:37:31.160 By Hollywood standards, he's to the right of Attila the Hun.

00:37:34.160 Right.

00:37:34.560 Nah, maybe a little bit more centrist than that.

00:37:38.660 But he did...

00:37:41.820 What he said actually reminded me a lot of something Spike Lee has said multiple times.

00:37:48.800 And Spike Lee is certainly way more to the left and politically outspoken than Mr. Washington.

00:37:53.980 When there were issues of police brutality being talked about by Black Lives Matter activists,

00:38:00.340 Spike Lee was actually pretty firm in saying that,

00:38:04.440 yes, there is police brutality,

00:38:06.440 but we as the Black community or Black communities across the United States

00:38:09.680 have to look more inward onto ourselves instead of just always blaming the police.

00:38:14.380 And he was actually dragged quite a bit for that.

00:38:16.340 So when I read what Denzel Washington said, it actually struck me as kind of...

00:38:22.340 Of course, that's what Denzel Washington would say.

00:38:24.260 A lot of famous African-American individuals.

00:38:28.580 Across the political line, across the political spectrum.

00:38:31.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:38:32.340 It wasn't too shocking a culture war to me.

00:38:34.980 I think his quote was very brief, and it didn't have much political context.

00:38:39.980 He was simply saying that it starts at home, that raise your children right.

00:38:44.940 I don't think there are many people who disagree with that sentiment.

00:38:48.380 The disagreement is whether or not...

00:38:48.980 I think you would never find a white liberal ever say that ever once.

00:38:53.280 I think they would be run out of town on a rail.

00:38:55.880 And I think that for the white liberals and their paternalism,

00:38:58.980 they need to say that people don't have any agency over their own lives.

00:39:03.260 They don't have any cognitive faculties or faculties of determination and perseverance.

00:39:08.400 Rather, you don't have a shot in this country,

00:39:10.600 and you're just being kept down by some invisible force, so don't even try.

00:39:16.340 And apparently we all disagree.

00:39:17.920 You and I, I think, hang out with...

00:39:19.960 I think you and I hang out with different types of white liberals.

00:39:24.780 Maybe. I don't know. I don't know, man.

00:39:26.560 New York, L.A., you dear old Yale.

00:39:28.520 Try hanging out with Asian liberals sometimes.

00:39:30.520 Maybe that's...

00:39:31.420 Listen, nobody could be more irrational than these lefties out here in Hollywood 0.99

00:39:38.580 who are constantly preaching their nonsense. 0.97

00:39:40.600 So, yeah, maybe that's a demographic.

00:39:41.940 We'll just have to bring on more.

00:39:43.180 Speaking of Asian liberals that I enjoy,

00:39:45.720 Subhsang, thank you for being here.

00:39:47.240 Aswin Subhsang, excellent commentary.

00:39:50.560 We appreciate you, and we want to have you back.

00:39:52.520 Amanda Preston-Giacomo...

00:39:53.460 Thank you so much for having me.

00:39:54.240 ...the Daily Wire's very own.

00:39:55.480 Great to have you here.

00:39:57.340 And I'm Michael Knowles.

00:39:58.100 That's the Michael Knowles Show.

00:39:59.280 That's our whole post-five holiday show.

00:40:01.960 Congratulations on the Fake News Trophy winners.

00:40:03.680 We will be back tomorrow, so join us, and we'll do it all again.

00:40:06.560 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.

00:40:15.400 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:40:17.500 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:40:19.420 Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.

00:40:21.760 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:40:24.340 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:40:26.440 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:40:28.680 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:40:30.860 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:40:34.640 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Michael Knowles Show - November 27, 2017

Ep. 64 - And The Fake News Trophy Goes To…the CFPB!

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