Ep. 665 - No News Is Bad News
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
180.41261
Summary
As the president s days in office appear to be dwindling, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is offering the dishonest news media a few more rhetorical beatings for the road. Michael Knowles explains why this is a good thing.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
As the president's days in office appear to be dwindling,
00:00:03.340
press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is offering the dishonest news media
00:00:11.280
Earlier this year, we heard from several news outlets and so-called fact checks
00:00:15.700
that President Trump would need, quote, a miracle to be right.
00:00:24.960
a vaccine will still take more than a year to develop.
00:00:31.600
despite medical researchers' progress, a vaccine, quote, was more than a year away.
00:00:37.400
And National Geographic even told us that achieving a vaccine within, quote,
00:00:41.800
a year to 18 months would be absolutely unprecedented, end quote.
00:00:51.980
President Trump has not only been the optimist, hopeful to achieve a vaccine by year's end,
00:01:05.440
It's hard to imagine that this is all going to go away.
00:01:09.740
If so, things are going to get a lot more boring.
00:01:16.240
If you're a conservative, no news is very, very bad.
00:01:33.940
My favorite comment from yesterday from Thomas Fahey, who says,
00:01:39.600
Land o' lakes removes the Indian but keeps the land.
00:01:43.700
Maybe there's something about this woke leftism that's actually very much in keeping with the
00:01:49.400
American tradition, not a particularly nice American tradition, but an American tradition
00:01:57.400
It's sorry to see that we're returning to normal.
00:02:02.880
The normal type of American government, at least since, gosh, FDR, has been this steadily
00:02:12.840
And there have been a few little blips that pop up every so often.
00:02:17.320
And I think, well, Eisenhower was pretty liberal.
00:02:20.060
You think of Nixon maybe, but they made sure he got out of office pretty quick, even after
00:02:26.820
Reagan, sort of, although Reagan never got to shrink the government, never had any work
00:02:31.280
with Congress that he was able to work out because Tip O'Neill held the Democratic line.
00:02:43.120
They weren't going to let him have another four years, though.
00:02:46.080
Going back to normal, going back to boring is not, that's not conservative.
00:02:52.580
I think there's this idea that conservatives want no news, just lay back, everything's
00:02:57.220
That isn't true when you're in a regime that is extremely liberal and progressive.
00:03:03.040
Donald Trump, most conservative president of the last quarter century, at least, probably
00:03:09.780
The reason it hasn't been boring is because Trump has actually pushed back against the
00:03:15.440
liberal establishment, and the liberal establishment freaked out.
00:03:18.420
That's why CNN has been, their heads have been exploding again and again every day.
00:03:22.600
They explode in the morning, then they regenerate at night, then they explode again the next day.
00:03:26.520
Because Trump is actually challenging that boring liberal regime.
00:03:30.680
And they're getting their parting shots in, by the way, before Kayleigh McEnany has to say
00:03:35.080
goodbye. I wish she did not have to, but there's news that would make it seem almost
00:03:40.700
inevitable at this point. Still, Jim Acosta screaming out a few more insults as she leaves.
00:03:47.000
And good for those who covered what was the story all along and not Russia disinformation.
00:03:51.620
Isn't it ever critical for you to accuse others of disinformation when you spread it every day?
00:03:56.440
Kayleigh, why would you accuse, you're terrible, I hate you.
00:03:59.500
Jim Acosta, CNN, I hate you, Kayleigh. Why are you doing this to us now for the next
00:04:04.480
four years, assuming that Biden does get this, you're going to have questions such as you heard
00:04:11.220
during the Obama administration. One question, Mr. President, what enchants you about the White
00:04:16.520
House? These are serious questions that the media asked him. That's what you're going to get.
00:04:22.760
You're not going to be tuning in. You're not going to get constant press coverage of the White
00:04:26.760
House briefing room or of what's going on in the administrative agencies. It's all going to go
00:04:31.900
back to the background and they're going to continue to slowly destroy our country and erode
00:04:38.220
our constitutional order without any sort of consequence. But CNN, we actually should enjoy
00:04:45.880
these parting shots from CNN and from the press because it means that the conservative government
00:04:52.600
here, the conservative administration is still driving them crazy. I saw an article on CNN
00:04:58.780
yesterday. I'm sorry to report. I saw this tweet come up from CNN. It said, quote, first lady Melania
00:05:05.680
Trump broke stated mask policy at Children's National Hospital when she removed her mask to read a holiday
00:05:14.300
book to children. There is so little to criticize about Melania Trump that the best they can do is to
00:05:24.360
criticize her for going to a children's hospital, reading a book to children at Christmas, but obviously
00:05:31.980
taking the mask off so she can read it because otherwise the book would sound like the teachers in
00:05:38.980
Charlie Brown. That's the best they've got. This woman is so graceful, so flawless that the best
00:05:47.620
they've got is she reads books to children in the hospital. If you are at the Children's National
00:05:54.100
Hospital, you're having a tough time, okay? Coronavirus is not your number one concern. To have a little
00:06:01.480
glimmer of light in that Christmas season of the first lady coming and reading your book, that's very
00:06:05.640
nice. And CNN, they got nothing. So they say, I'm, I'm so angry at Melania Trump because she
00:06:11.140
checks notes, reads books to sick children. Enjoy it now, folks. Enjoy it. I want you to enjoy every
00:06:18.900
single one of these CNN articles. I want you to enjoy every one of Jim Acosta's stupid outbursts
00:06:23.920
because things are about to get very, very boring and boring is very bad. At least with Trump,
00:06:32.760
let's say you're upset because Trump didn't finish building the wall. Trump didn't, I don't know,
00:06:38.080
totally, he did actually revive the economy, but then the, the lockdowns tip the economy back. So
00:06:43.580
he didn't get to revive it again. He, I don't know, he didn't stand up strong enough against the
00:06:47.120
lockdowns, whatever. Donald Trump, just in opposing these sorts of liberal policies, drew so much light
00:06:57.420
to them. We, I mean, even going into the 2016 election, I think most of us, myself included,
00:07:02.880
didn't realize just how corrupt the federal bureaucracy was. We didn't think that the
00:07:08.960
federal bureaucracy would actually spy on a Republican presidential campaign to try to
00:07:15.800
undermine an election. And then after the guy won accidentally, spend years and years trying to wage
00:07:21.520
a bureaucratic coup d'etat. Even I, and I do not have a very high opinion of the deep state or the
00:07:27.100
administrative state. I didn't think they would stoop that low and they did. You saw that kind of
00:07:32.260
corruption. You saw some corruption come to light under Obama because he would, at one minute he
00:07:39.160
would say it'd be unconstitutional to pass executive amnesty. The next minute he'd be passing executive
00:07:43.320
amnesty with a completely straight face. So you would see that a little bit, but it's been the,
00:07:47.420
the pushback from the liberal establishment that's really shown you how bad the situation has gotten.
00:07:53.300
And we're not going to see that assuming Biden becomes president. It's just all going to happen
00:07:59.360
in the background. And CNN is going to smile and talk about something, talk about the weather. I don't
00:08:04.220
know, distract you with something else. And we're not even going to be able to see how bad things are
00:08:10.600
getting. The reason I'm talking in this kind of way, by the way, is that you now have senior
00:08:16.980
members of the government, Republicans who are acknowledging Joe Biden as the president elect.
00:08:24.600
Things are going to get a little tough for us. Things are not going to feel very comfortable
00:08:29.660
over the next four years. The only way things could feel comfortable over the next four years
00:08:34.000
is if you buy buttercloth shirts, which are not stiff and scratchy like typical men's dress shirts.
00:08:39.460
They feel like you're wearing your favorite t-shirt. They have a revolutionary new fabric with 100%
00:08:45.060
long fiber cotton and six way stretch. This is breathable, keeps you warm in the winter. It
00:08:51.340
keeps you cool in the summer. The signature details and tailored fit will make you look amazing. I was
00:08:55.940
very skeptical of buttercloth when they came on the show because I thought, okay, it's a soft shirt.
00:09:01.240
Okay, we've all had soft shirts. Some are stiffer, some are softer. I didn't realize it. It actually,
00:09:04.820
it feels almost like a pajama shirt. It's that soft, but it looks perfectly like some kind of Oxford.
00:09:10.960
So then I thought, well, wait a second. Is this some crazy synthetic weird fabric? No,
00:09:15.380
it's cotton. How do they do it? I don't know. They impressed ABC's hit show Shark Tank in 2018,
00:09:19.920
and they love the show shirts so much rather that they got a quarter million dollar investment.
00:09:25.440
I go to buttercloth now all the time because I prioritize my comfort, especially in these days
00:09:31.980
when things are about to get tough. For a limited time, buttercloth is offering our listeners up to
00:09:35.860
50% off your first purchase. Do not miss out on this deal. Go to buttercloth.com slash Knowles,
00:09:41.280
K-N-W-L-E-S. The discount will be applied at checkout. Makes a great Christmas present too
00:09:45.300
for that guy in your life who doesn't want to wear the uncomfortable Oxford shirts.
00:09:48.740
Go to buttercloth.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S to get 50% off your purchase.
00:09:55.700
The reason I'm talking about this Biden administration at this point basically is an
00:10:00.520
inevitability is because in order to stave it off at this point, after the electoral college has
00:10:07.200
voted, you would need something like you saw in the compromise of 1877, where the Congress goes in,
00:10:13.600
maybe the Congress objects to some of the electoral votes, and then you would have something like an
00:10:18.480
electoral commission, which in the 1870s was made up of five members of the House, five members of
00:10:23.060
the Senate, five members of the court. Already, you know the court's not going to go for giving this
00:10:27.320
to Trump. They've refused to even hear cases that I think were quite legitimate. The House obviously
00:10:32.300
isn't. It's in Democratic control. So your only hope is the Senate and Republican Senate Majority
00:10:37.420
Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday referring to President-elect Joe Biden. But our system of
00:10:45.400
government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January the 20th. The electoral college
00:10:53.880
has spoken. So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden. The president-elect is
00:11:02.260
no stranger to the Senate. He's devoted himself to public service for many years. I also want to
00:11:09.320
congratulate the vice president-elect, our colleague from California, Senator Harris. Beyond our differences,
00:11:15.500
all Americans can take pride that our nation has a female vice president-elect for the very first time.
00:11:21.280
I look forward to finishing out the next 36 days strong with President Trump. Our nation needs us to add
00:11:29.060
another bipartisan chapter to this record of achievement. Not very cocaine vibes. I got to tell you, I was
00:11:38.960
hoping for more Tony Montana from Cocaine Mitch. I wanted to see him just lean down, bury his face in whatever
00:11:46.020
was scattered across his notes, stand up and say, say hello to my little electoral commission to overturn
00:11:52.680
the certification. We didn't get it. We didn't get it. We're not going to get it. Absent some absolutely
00:12:00.240
unexpected turn of events, you know, the Kraken falls down from heaven or something. It's looking like
00:12:08.240
the Biden administration. Everyone believes this to be the case already. The media are feeling
00:12:16.680
emboldened. Big tech in particular is feeling emboldened. Big tech, Twitter, Donald Trump's
00:12:22.500
favorite social media platform. Twitter is already saying that after election day, they may ban
00:12:29.700
President Trump from Twitter. They've wanted to do it while he's in office, but they're in a bit of a
00:12:36.200
bind because they allow the Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran to tweet and talk about the destruction of
00:12:42.240
Israel and whatever he wants. And they don't have any problem with that, but they, death to America,
00:12:47.120
whatever, that's fine. But they realized it would look like a double standard if you allow the Ayatollah
00:12:53.440
to stay on Twitter, but took the duly elected president of the United States off Twitter.
00:12:57.980
So instead, what have they done? You know, you've been seeing this. They just add a fact check to every
00:13:02.860
single one of Trump's tweets at this point. He says, oh, I had a good omelet for breakfast. This
00:13:07.560
claim is disputed. Official sources dispute this claim. Yeah, I had three eggs in my omelet.
00:13:13.240
Jim Acosta says he might've only had two and a half or maybe four. Fact check. So they're going to
00:13:19.780
get rid of it. After January 20th, they say that they will very possibly kick Donald Trump off of
00:13:26.880
Twitter. Why? Because so long as President Trump stays on Twitter, he's the second most followed
00:13:32.040
politician after Barack Obama. Barack Obama was the first president during the age of Twitter
00:13:36.560
and, and personally pretty popular himself. If you allow President Trump to remain on Twitter,
00:13:43.080
then he still has a voice that can break through beyond the mainstream media, beyond the gatekeepers
00:13:48.280
who are now going to try to make everything very, very boring. You're going to see their ratings
00:13:52.720
decline. Trump has been phenomenal for, for the mainstream media's ratings. Doesn't matter.
00:13:56.660
He's undercutting the liberal establishment project. And so they're going to try to cut
00:14:00.660
him out as best they possibly can. I'm sure Twitter makes a fair, I don't really know how
00:14:05.980
Twitter monetizes their platform beyond the advertisements and selling your data, probably
00:14:09.660
to China, but they are, I'm sure Twitter could make more money and have more engagement on their
00:14:16.120
platform if they allowed President Trump to stay on. And still they will oppose it because
00:14:22.640
they want to get back to boring business as usual. But it, it does appear to be coming to an end.
00:14:29.960
You know, I have held out hope longer than just about anybody in conservative politics. I've held
00:14:36.800
it. I don't think we should concede the race early. I don't think we should do any of those. I don't
00:14:42.160
think it's overturning constitutional norms to question the results of an election that obviously
00:14:48.560
had many, many, many, many irregularities and sometimes outright criminal behavior in places.
00:14:54.760
I don't think there's anything wrong about that, but it does appear to be coming to an end. Bill
00:14:59.780
Barr, attorney general, whom I've had the privilege of interviewing, the honey badger is, uh, is leaving
00:15:06.600
the Trump administration. Some people are a little upset with Bill Barr right now because Barr did not
00:15:10.940
come out and overtly challenged the results of the election. Uh, one thing I will say, and I think
00:15:16.920
it's when we're trying to figure out what do we think of the Barr era at the DOJ, President Trump
00:15:22.400
is being very complimentary toward Bill Barr as he leaves. Donald Trump has not always been very
00:15:27.060
complimentary toward his leaving attorneys general. You remember what he did to poor Jeff
00:15:30.940
Sessions and to other cabinet members. But he says, quote, just had a very nice meeting with
00:15:38.160
Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one. He has done
00:15:42.420
an outstanding job. As per Bill's letter, he will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the
00:15:47.880
holidays with his family. Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outstanding person, will become
00:15:52.440
acting Attorney General. Highly respected Richard Donahue will be taking over the duties of Deputy AG.
00:15:57.340
Thank you to all. So he's, he's being very kind to, to Bill Barr. And, and Bill Barr, by the way,
00:16:01.720
in his resignation letter was extraordinarily complimentary to President Trump. He says,
00:16:09.900
I'm greatly honored that you called on me to serve your administration and the American people once
00:16:13.540
again as Attorney General. Don't forget, he'd already been Attorney General during the Bush
00:16:17.200
one administration. I'm proud to have played a role in the many successes and unprecedented
00:16:20.900
achievements you have delivered for the American people. Your record is all the more historic
00:16:24.920
because you accomplished it in the face of the relentless and implacable resistance. Your 2016
00:16:30.160
victory speech in which you reached out to your opponents and called for working together
00:16:33.200
for the benefit of the American people was immediately met with a partisan onslaught against you
00:16:38.080
in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful was out of bounds. That the nadir of
00:16:44.140
this campaign was the effort to cripple, if not oust your administration. This is just,
00:16:48.780
there's a great resignation letter basically saying you are great. Your opponents are dirtbags
00:16:54.580
and I'm sorry it's coming to an end. And so I look at this not as a prescriptive matter. Bill Barr
00:17:01.060
saying, yeah, we need the Trump administration to end, step down, concede. He's basically saying,
00:17:05.020
no, you got done dirty, buddy, but it's over anyway because that's, that's the constitutional
00:17:09.840
system. So you lose guys like Bill Barr who talk about the absolute onslaught of partisan trash that
00:17:17.760
they've heaped on you. You lose people like Kayleigh McEnany who just go out every day with a nice long
00:17:22.360
whip and just start whipping the press with her searing, wonderful rhetoric and facts and logic.
00:17:28.380
Yeah. It's been really enjoyable. Now, what are we getting? Well, president, uh, elect,
00:17:34.600
eh, eh, eh, president elect Joe Biden is naming people to his cabinet. And what are the big exciting
00:17:45.620
picks? What are the ones that are really, oh man, here it comes for good or for ill. Pete Buttigieg
00:17:51.900
as transportation secretary. This news is so boring and lame. I think I'm going to fall asleep
00:17:58.520
just reading it. Uh, if I wanted to have a really good night's sleep, by the way, I'd put my head on
00:18:03.200
MyPillow, which is my absolute favorite pillow I've ever had. Uh, if you don't have a MyPillow,
00:18:07.740
if you know someone who doesn't have a MyPillow, now is the time to buy because Mike Lindell is
00:18:12.240
offering his premium MyPillows. This is the product that started it all for the lowest price ever.
00:18:18.020
You can get a queen size premium MyPillow, which is regularly $69.98 for only $29.98. That is a $40
00:18:25.140
savings. The king size pillows, which I have are only $5 more. If I could have a nine foot by nine
00:18:32.540
foot size bed, I would do that too. I've used a lot of nice pillows. I've used cheap pillows in the
00:18:37.960
past. I've used really expensive pillows. They all collapse. They all get flat. They don't work.
00:18:44.240
They hurt you. I don't know what it is about MyPillow. I don't know how this guy makes it.
00:18:48.500
I don't know what kind of black magic Mike Lindell has accessed to make these pillows.
00:18:52.420
They're the greatest pillows I've ever tried. They don't go flat. You can wash them. You do
00:18:55.960
whatever. They don't go flat. Buy now. And Mike will extend his 60 day money back guarantee to March
00:19:02.600
1st, 2021. Go to MyPillow.com. Click on the radio listener square. There you will find not only this
00:19:08.680
amazing offer, but also deep discounts on all the other MyPillow products, including the Giza Dream
00:19:14.280
bed sheets, the MyPillow mattress topper, and MyPillow towel sets. Call 800-651-1148. If you
00:19:22.400
would prefer to do it by phone, use promo code dailywire. You will not regret it. I promise you.
00:19:28.820
Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary. Why will Pete Buttigieg be the transportation secretary?
00:19:35.460
Does he know anything about transportation? No. Does this matter? No. Some, some conservatives
00:19:42.560
are criticizing him for this. They're saying he doesn't, he has no expertise and it doesn't,
00:19:45.660
it doesn't matter. Well, when Pete Buttigieg was mayor of South Bend, he had potholes in the road.
00:19:51.840
Yeah. Okay, fine. It just doesn't matter. Pete Buttigieg is nothing. Just like Joe Biden is nothing.
00:19:57.420
Pete Buttigieg is nothing. He is an empty avatar. He is a robot built in the deep state factories of
00:20:04.440
Langley by the liberal establishment to just beep, boop, spout whatever talking points the liberal,
00:20:13.560
neoliberal establishment wants. And so sure, he's going to be the transportation secretary. He could
00:20:18.240
be the education secretary. He could be the energy secretary. It doesn't matter. He could be the
00:20:23.420
ambassador to China. He could be the ambassador to Iran. He could be the ambassador to Malta. It just
00:20:27.920
doesn't matter. Pete, I don't know that Pete Buttigieg has ever had an original thought in his
00:20:33.700
entire life. I don't think Pete Buttigieg has ever questioned the establishment in his whole life.
00:20:39.520
And by the way, when I say establishment, I think people feel a little comfortable with that because,
00:20:44.640
you know, that's just the way things are. Just like when I say, we're not going to have any more
00:20:48.660
news, you know, it's not, it's going to get really boring. Maybe boring is a good thing. It's not.
00:20:52.420
It's not. Because doing nothing, allowing the establishment to progress, when that establishment
00:20:59.440
has been veering leftward and accelerating for 70 years, 100 years maybe, that's a recipe for
00:21:09.760
disaster. A guy like Pete Buttigieg to be an establishmentarian and tells you something's going
00:21:15.760
really bad with the establishment. Pete Buttigieg's father was one of the most famous neo-Marxist
00:21:23.040
scholars in the country. He was a founding member and president of the Gramsci Society,
00:21:28.620
the International Gramsci Society. Antonio Gramsci, the head of the Italian Communist Party,
00:21:33.140
one of the most famous Marxist thinkers ever. Gramsci is sort of one of the founders of what you
00:21:39.560
would call cultural Marxism or neo-Marxism. That's Buttigieg's dad. That's the guy who educated
00:21:44.560
Buttigieg. But because, because the establishment has basically embraced all of these guys, all this
00:21:50.400
radicalism, kind of craziness of the 20s and 30s and up, up through into the 60s, all that has just
00:21:55.940
become the norm now. That's political correctness. That's, that is the establishment. That's what we're
00:22:03.480
going to get. Now they're making a big deal about Buttigieg. They're trying to pretend this is anything
00:22:07.820
other than extremely boring because Buttigieg, I don't know if you heard this, Buttigieg is a gay guy.
00:22:12.880
Did you know that? I know. He never talks about it. Nobody ever makes, as though that's a personality.
00:22:18.300
I'm a gay guy. That's, that's, that's a personality. Okay. Interesting. So they're saying
00:22:22.360
that Buttigieg is the first openly gay cabinet secretary in American history. Queerty, which is
00:22:29.640
some LGBT, LMNOP outlet, I suppose. Queerty says, Buttigieg, the first openly gay cabinet official.
00:22:38.760
But he's not. He's not. Actually, Rick Grinnell was the first openly gay cabinet official,
00:22:44.180
acting director of national intelligence under, who was it? Was it Clinton? Was it Obama? Was it,
00:22:49.860
no, it was Donald Trump. That homophobe, that bigot, Donald Trump. Actually it was, yeah,
00:22:57.360
it was a Republican. It was the first one. Doesn't matter. Queerty actually mentioned that at the time,
00:23:01.360
but now they're going to rewrite it. They're going to lie to you. They're going to completely rewrite
00:23:06.240
history and no one's going to say boo about it. One of the few people who has a platform and the
00:23:11.280
chutzpah to do it would be Donald Trump. And they're going to try to kick him off Twitter.
00:23:15.140
So how do we push back against this? The old strategy is not going to work. The live and let
00:23:24.240
live, maybe, you know, no news is good news. Why do we have to focus on all this stuff? That is,
00:23:28.700
I think, the old strategy from the nineties and two thousands. And I don't think it's going to work.
00:23:34.360
You're seeing this return of the liberal establishment is always progressing to the
00:23:37.940
left. And now it's fashionable in some quarters to say that the solution to this is not conservatism,
00:23:43.540
but, but true liberalism. So what they'll say is there's a difference between leftism and
00:23:49.680
liberalism and leftism is bad, but liberalism is good. And, you know, conservatives were the true
00:23:56.080
liberals and the liberal left, you know, they're actually illiberal because, you know, they want to
00:24:01.140
censor you or something like that. Matthew McConaughey, who is increasingly talking about
00:24:06.040
politics and seems like a nice enough guy, you know, he seems somewhat conservative or at least
00:24:10.240
centrist compared to his colleagues in Hollywood. He, he articulated this point on a British morning
00:24:15.780
show. He said that the answer is not conservatives or conservative thought. What we need to do is just
00:24:21.940
all be liberals. You need liberals. What I don't think we need is the ill liberals. And what I don't
00:24:30.860
think that some liberals see is that they're often being cannibalized by the ill liberals. Now, you know,
00:24:40.260
there are extremes on both sides, uh, that I think are unfair, that I don't think are the right place to be.
00:24:47.060
The extreme left and the extreme right completely illegitimize the other side, um, um, the liberal
00:24:55.560
and the conservative side, which we need in certain places. They, the two extremes illegitimize those,
00:25:01.260
those two sides. Um, or they exaggerate that, that side's stance into an irrational state that,
00:25:10.040
that makes no sense. And that's not fair when either side does that. Um, you know, we're, we're,
00:25:15.920
we've the, where, where the waterline is going to land on this freedom of speech, um, and what we
00:25:22.380
allow on what we don't and where this canceled culture goes, where that waterline lands is a
00:25:28.220
very interesting place that we are engaged in right now as a society of trying to figure out because we
00:25:33.740
haven't found the right spot. Okay. Right there. I don't even need to refute Matthew McConaughey's
00:25:41.140
argument because McConaughey refutes it himself. I think this is a good impulse. I don't mean to
00:25:47.940
beat up on Matthew McConaughey. I think he has all good impulses. And I just think this is an,
00:25:53.520
an idea that a lot of people have. I've had this idea myself when they think about politics and it's
00:25:58.620
just half baked. The idea that, look, we don't want conservatives telling people how they ought to
00:26:07.580
behave and we don't want leftists telling people how they ought to behave. And we don't want
00:26:11.400
conservatives telling people that maybe they shouldn't say that thing. And we don't want
00:26:14.480
leftists telling people maybe they shouldn't say that thing. What we need is true liberalism. But
00:26:19.200
then at the very end, he says, and what we need to do in this free speech issue is just figure out
00:26:22.780
exactly what sort of things we're going to tolerate. And we haven't figured out exactly what that is yet.
00:26:26.400
You say, wait a second. I thought you were calling for liberalism. I thought you were calling for
00:26:29.260
let everybody say what they want, let everybody do what they want. But then you're recognizing you need a
00:26:34.420
standard. The reason that this argument that we need to be liberal, not illiberal,
00:26:39.720
that the illiberal right is terrible and the illiberal left is terrible. And we all just need
00:26:44.020
to be able to say and do whatever we want all the time. The problem with that argument is that has
00:26:47.780
never existed anywhere in history and it never will. That is a utopian idea. The idea that there can
00:26:55.620
be no boundaries on what we say or do, and that there are no consequences to people's behavior.
00:27:00.520
And that if you act virtuously or you act viciously, it's all sort of the same and has
00:27:05.300
no political consequence. That is a utopian, ridiculous idea that is meant for freshman year
00:27:10.180
philosophy class or staying up, ripping a bong at three in the morning in your dorm room saying,
00:27:15.580
ha ha man, you know, wouldn't that be cool? If it feels good, do it. That's not how politics
00:27:20.800
actually works. You know, some people now call this kind of idea libertarianism. And I think that
00:27:25.780
does a disservice to serious libertarian thinkers. But in as much as this is libertarianism,
00:27:31.220
it's got the same problem that socialism does. You always hear the socialists say,
00:27:34.520
true socialism has never been tried. True communism has never been tried. Well, true
00:27:38.900
liberalism has never been tried like this because it can't be because you always need some kind of
00:27:45.180
a standard. And I actually give the left credit for recognizing that. Isn't it weird that any,
00:27:50.420
in all liberal societies, every single where in the West where this sort of thing has been tried
00:27:54.300
and even some other places that have adopted liberal societies, they all seem to just always
00:27:59.580
trend toward progressivism and a kind of leftism and there's no way to stop it. Isn't that weird?
00:28:05.580
Is that just like a weird coincidence? But if we just try it one more time, that'll work.
00:28:09.580
No, maybe we need to rethink how we're talking about this. Maybe maximizing individual autonomy
00:28:15.980
is not a totally coherent end goal of politics. You know, someone who showed this to me the other day
00:28:23.180
is Lizzo. I don't know if you remember Lizzo. Lizzo is like a larger pop culture figure.
00:28:29.620
She's sort of famous for being a big girl is the phrase that she used. And she's a singer
00:28:34.900
and talks about body positivity and all this. Lizzo just got in trouble because I kid you not,
00:28:43.460
she went on a diet. You know, people are very concerned with the way that they look,
00:28:51.080
but it's not always in the way that you expect. However, we're all a little concerned with the
00:28:55.680
way we look. Did you know that two out of three guys will experience some form of male pattern
00:28:59.260
baldness by the time they're 35? The best way to prevent hair loss is to do something about it
00:29:04.020
while you still have hair left. You used to have to go to your doctor's office for your hair loss
00:29:08.380
prescription. Now, thanks to Keeps, you can visit a doctor online and get hair loss medication
00:29:13.320
delivered right to your home. They make it easy. They deliver your medication every three months
00:29:18.000
so you can say goodbye to pharmacy checkout lines and awkward doctor visits.
00:29:22.740
Prevention here is the key, okay? Keeps treatments, they're not going to start overnight.
00:29:27.300
Usually it takes about four to six months to see results, so you got to act fast. The sooner you
00:29:31.800
start using Keeps, the more hair you will save. I will tell you this as a guy who has always enjoyed
00:29:38.000
the ladies. You know, back in my single days, I enjoyed chatting up a lady every now and again,
00:29:42.520
but I'm not some hulking Adonis, okay? I'm not some Olympic athlete. One thing I always had going for me,
00:29:47.240
full head of hair. If you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss, go to keeps.com
00:29:52.020
slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S, to receive your first month of treatment for free. That is K-E-E-P-S.com
00:29:57.960
slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. Also got to let you know, Monday, December 21st, the historical
00:30:03.880
docu-series Apollo 11, What We Saw, will be available exclusively at dailywire.com. This takes
00:30:08.800
a detailed look at the Apollo 11 mission to land a man on the moon. It's a terrific series
00:30:12.940
to watch with your loved ones over the Christmas season. Right now, you can get it for 20% off
00:30:17.620
with code WATCH when you become an insider or above member over at dailywire.com slash
00:30:22.000
subscribe. 20% off your membership with code WATCH. Head on over to Daily Wire. We'll be right
00:30:26.480
back with a lot more. The way I think about these three categories, conservatism, liberalism,
00:30:44.120
and leftism or wokeism or whatever, is the conservatism says you should follow the conservative
00:30:51.120
moral standard and respect conservative institutions, the traditional institutions,
00:30:57.080
and maybe have some deference toward your forebears and the founding fathers and your
00:31:02.740
parents and have some loyalty and have some patriotism and recognize your duty in this world.
00:31:07.360
That's kind of the conservative view. Then the leftist view is just like a flip of that,
00:31:11.280
which is you should follow the new leftist, radical, politically correct moral order.
00:31:15.340
You should feel entitlement. You should feel sort of disdain for the past because the past was
00:31:20.840
bad and the future is better. So you should feel really good about yourself and about the future,
00:31:24.640
but you should hate the past and basically have the opposite of patriotism, have disdain for your
00:31:30.060
country because you're going to move into this wonderful future. But they are sort of parallel
00:31:33.960
ideas. They're just a mirror image of one another. And then in the middle, you have liberalism and
00:31:39.460
liberalism says, do what you want, do what you want. If it feels good, do it. If it's not bothering
00:31:45.340
anybody, you know, and it's not affecting the politics and it's just private, then just do whatever you
00:31:50.740
want. Now, the reason that liberalism is unstable is of course, because the things that we do that
00:31:55.600
we sometimes pretend are private do have political effects. A good example of this is if, uh, gender
00:32:00.740
or the gender ideology. I'm a man, but I say I, I now identify as a woman. Okay. That's a private
00:32:06.940
choice, but it has public effect because now I'm going to go use the women's bathroom. Well,
00:32:11.180
am I allowed to do that? Obviously affects other people. Now I'm going to insist that everyone else
00:32:15.380
call me a woman, call me she. Well, now I'm infringing on someone else's private choice,
00:32:21.100
aren't I? But it's my private. So whose private choice gets to win? Obviously these private choices
00:32:24.160
have a public effect. And it's, so it's, it's the liberalism that we're talking about today is
00:32:29.540
pretty incoherent, but it's very, very popular. And it goes off the rails real, real quick. Lizzo,
00:32:35.860
this sort of larger performer went on a diet last month. She is, I'm not in any way making fun of the
00:32:43.420
way she looks or anything, but she is objectively not that healthy. You know, it is not healthy to
00:32:48.900
carry around that much weight. And so if she's going to do something for her, she said she had
00:32:52.340
these physical symptoms that go along with her kind of the way she had been eating. So she decides she
00:32:57.040
wants to just fix those symptoms and feel a little bit better. So she goes on a diet and people were
00:33:03.820
furious because she is supposed to embrace whatever lifestyle she wants. And she, nevermind that she's
00:33:12.560
changed what lifestyle she wants. Now they're saying, no, you, you, you came to fame as the pro-fat,
00:33:19.880
pro-body positivity woman. And so you need to remain fat. You need to pursue your own appetites to their
00:33:27.540
extreme and never even think about changing them. And you know what Lizzo did after she went on this
00:33:32.600
diet? She apologized. I did the 10 day smoothie detox. And as you know, I would normally be so afraid
00:33:41.620
and ashamed to post things like this online because I feel like as a big girl, people just expect if
00:33:48.660
you are doing something for health, you're doing it for like a dramatic weight loss. And that is not the
00:33:54.180
case. Um, in reality, November stressed me the f*** out. I drank a lot. I ate a lot of spicy things and
00:34:00.620
things that f*** my stomach up. And I wanted to reverse it and get back to where I was. I'm so proud of
00:34:07.680
myself. I'm proud of my results. Um, my sleep has improved my hydration, my inner peace, my mental
00:34:14.760
stability, my f***ing body, my f***ing skin, the whites of my eyes. Like I feel and look like a bad
00:34:20.280
b***h. And I think like, that's it. I'm a big girl who did a smoothie detox. And I wanted to share that
00:34:28.360
with you guys. I got exactly what I wanted out of it. And every big girl should do whatever the f***
00:34:33.540
they want with their bodies. This is very confusing because on the one hand, you say the thing I did
00:34:41.080
to get healthier really felt good. And I feel really great about it. But also you should do whatever the
00:34:46.020
f*** you want with your body. Well, if you're saying it makes you feel better and it's good, then why don't
00:34:50.480
you recommend that to other people? And why this confessional approach? I'm sorry. I went on a diet.
00:34:56.560
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, seriously, when, when Catholics, when Catholics confess their sins,
00:35:02.400
they go to a confessional, right? Just like you see in the movies. You go into the confessional
00:35:05.900
and there's the priest there and you say, tell me your sins. One sin that you, when you're making
00:35:10.680
your examination of conscience and you confess, a sin is gluttony. This isn't, gluttony is a sin.
00:35:17.900
Drinking too much is a sin. And if you've been eating a little too much, maybe you're stress eating.
00:35:23.140
I don't know. I've been stress eating a lot. I got a lot going on in the last couple of months.
00:35:26.800
That, that, that can be sinful if you do that willfully. And so you would confess it. And this
00:35:31.880
is just the exact flip of that. It's like the left wing confession. You say, I'm sorry. I did not
00:35:38.040
overeat this month. I'm sorry. My fault, my fault through my most grievous fault. I, I did not over
00:35:44.880
drink. I only drank a little bit this month. I'm sorry. I didn't pursue my appetites to their fullest
00:35:50.680
extent. Now, maybe you're saying, Michael, you're reading too much into Lizzo's.
00:35:56.560
Uh, uh, apology for going on a diet to her fans. I don't think so. She actually had to,
00:36:01.180
to publish a second apology, which was far, uh, she wasn't wearing as much clothing in this one.
00:36:08.200
So it was, you know, maybe just listen to this. I don't know who knows.
00:36:12.400
She had to give this second apology to offer the philosophical basis for the reason she apologized in
00:36:19.320
the first place. Your body is perfectly yours, even if it ain't perfect to anybody else.
00:36:26.660
If you only knew the complexities your body possesses, you would be so proud of it.
00:36:32.140
I'm so proud of you for making it this far in a society that gives us a headstart into self-loathing,
00:36:38.540
that hands us a dysmorphic mirror and leaves us desperate to catch up with who we think we should be.
00:36:43.420
I've spent so much time in this body and I am no different than you. Still struggling to find
00:36:49.300
balance. Still trying to mend my relationship with food, my anxiety, my back fat. It gets easier.
00:36:57.160
I've spent my hardest days trying to love me. If I have any advice, it is to eat, drink, move,
00:37:05.500
rest. Your job is to grow. Your job is to figure it out along the way. Regardless of what I or any so-called
00:37:12.960
expert says, you love you. And I hope you remember that. No, no, no, whatever philosophical view that
00:37:23.740
is. No, not that. You should not hate yourself. You should not hate your body. You should not
00:37:30.540
be proud of your body either. You should not consider your body to be the be all and end all of
00:37:35.580
your life. Both, both of those things are pretty bad. Both of those things can lead to eating disorders,
00:37:41.040
by the way. Obsessing, obsessing all the time about your body, whether that you're too fat or that
00:37:47.220
you're too skinny or whatever. Those can lead to anorexia. They can lead to morbid obesity.
00:37:54.540
The problem with this is this point of view, this liberalism, I guess, tells you to focus above all
00:38:03.300
on yourself, what you want, what your appetites are, how you feel that you want to identify. Frankly,
00:38:09.360
even if it has not talked about another dysmorphic ideology, the idea that your physical body has
00:38:14.480
nothing to do with your true self, which is, you see this expressed most clearly in gender
00:38:18.560
ideology that, you know, you can look like a man, but actually deep down be a woman. And you just keep
00:38:22.240
thinking, what am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I? Me, me, me. I, me, my. I, me, my. The key
00:38:27.080
is not to think more of yourself. It's to, to, it's not to think less of yourself for that matter.
00:38:34.600
It's to think of yourself less. Focus on other things. There are other things out there in the
00:38:41.280
world. And the, the way this breaks down then is when you kind of get out of this childish
00:38:46.120
liberalism, then you can either go the conservative route and say, okay, there's something outside of
00:38:51.320
myself and it looks kind of like this moral order and it's kind of looks like these traditional
00:38:55.480
things and it looks like the seven virtues and, you know, and the vices and don't do the vices and
00:38:59.780
okay, right. And then the other way you can go is the woke view. That, that leftism offers
00:39:05.500
a coherent moral framework. It's, I'm sorry, it's internally consistent. It's objectively
00:39:12.960
incoherent though, right? It's, when you look at it, it's like a completely inverted moral
00:39:17.220
framework. And this, you do you, do whatever you want. If it feels good, do it. Liberalism
00:39:22.220
in the middle, that doesn't make any sense. And, and the conservatives who think, well, let's
00:39:26.640
just go for that. That's stable. That's a truce that it's not. You have to pick a side. And
00:39:32.980
what the, obviously the liberal establishment has trended woke for a hundred years. It's
00:39:39.400
been going on for so long. And if you think that as we're getting a more liberal government
00:39:45.100
again, that, that you're going to fight that by retreating to this lame, meek liberalism,
00:39:51.680
it ain't going to work, buddy. You need to, you need to be able to say things, say moral
00:39:56.260
truths, say political truths, actually have some courage, actually say people should do this
00:40:00.680
sort of thing. They shouldn't do this sort of thing. That's not un-American. That's not
00:40:04.580
illiberal even. That's how politics is and has always been. You know, this stuff gets really wild.
00:40:12.180
If I, if you want to follow liberalism to its logical conclusion, there's this left-wing
00:40:15.760
writer, Noah Berlatsky, who he's got bylines at NBC, the Atlantic, Washington Post, the Guardian,
00:40:21.700
foreign policy, all over the place. This guy tweeted out yesterday, parents are tyrants.
00:40:28.460
Parent is an oppressive class like rich people or white people. There are things you can do to try
00:40:33.480
to minimize the abuse that's endemic to the parent-child relationship, but it's always there.
00:40:39.580
And you can imagine Noah writing this tweet out very angstily when his mother told him no more video
00:40:46.120
games for the 90s. Parents are an oppressor class. They don't let me play Fortnite or whatever. I
00:40:52.340
don't even know what video games are popular now. This view of parents, you know, is, is actually the
00:40:59.820
logical conclusion of liberalism. You see this with actually radical libertarians. There's a radical
00:41:04.940
sort of right-wing libertarian who talks about this all the time, that you should divorce yourself from
00:41:08.760
your parents. We shouldn't have family. Family is an oppressive institution that we're born into.
00:41:13.900
It inhibits our individualism because we have obligations to our mothers and fathers or
00:41:18.400
whatever. And so you should shun your family. Radical libertarians on the right will say that
00:41:23.460
and radical liberals on the left, like Noah Berlatsky, will say that too.
00:41:29.020
It's obviously ridiculous on its face. Okay. When McConaughey said, we just talk about these fringe
00:41:35.020
ideas and that's a bad idea. Sure. You don't want to do it in bad faith, but you do want to be able to
00:41:39.420
follow ideas to their logical conclusion. And the logical conclusion of you do you, all that matters
00:41:44.720
is maximizing your individual autonomy is this craziness from Berlatsky. You know, parents are
00:41:49.260
an oppressor class and we should just do whatever we want all the time. That is not a recipe for
00:41:56.040
flourishing. That is what we've been pursuing for a long time in this country. And it's what has led us
00:42:00.920
to this awful desiccated establishment. We need to push back. We need to push back legally. We need to
00:42:06.400
push back honestly, but we need to push back. There is an effort underway to do that in California.
00:42:11.180
Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a recall effort. Now this has been building very, very slowly for
00:42:18.120
some time now. During the lockdowns, during Newsom completely violating his own lockdowns,
00:42:25.220
this has been picking up steam a ton. The people trying to recall him are now halfway to their effort.
00:42:32.140
They need 3 million signatures. They've already got one, one and a half million and they still have
00:42:37.060
what, like two years to go? No, I'm sorry. They don't have that long. They've got until March though
00:42:41.400
to reach the threshold. It's a long time. They're getting one and a half million already. They just
00:42:46.780
need another one and a half million and they've got three, four months to do it. That's pretty good.
00:42:53.980
I've, I've left California. I'm in Tennessee now. I've taken a look at some videos back in
00:42:58.760
California. People are not happy with this. You got conservatives who are not happy. Even some
00:43:02.360
liberals are realizing this is not a good idea. There was a video that went viral of a guy jumping
00:43:06.260
up at, it looks like a Costco or a Home Depot or something like that, standing on a table, I guess
00:43:11.260
a Walmart, maybe who knows, screaming through a bullhorn about how terrible Gavin Newsom is. Take a
00:43:16.580
listen. You know why we're under this lockdown right now? Because all the information is coming out
00:43:22.120
about COVID and they know it's a farce. You must not do this. If you continue, this is the life that you
00:43:31.940
will have. Just keep going guys. Keep going. Don't tell me I have the right. You know what? Governor
00:43:38.020
Newsom doesn't have the right to shut us down, to make you wear a mask. That's right. All right, people, you know,
00:43:45.560
that's right. We've got to stand out for ourselves because this governor is going to keep us locked
00:43:52.000
down until we do something about it. And I want to know, are you going to let this happen?
00:43:58.760
I like this guy. This is my kind of guy. And the right has a decision to make right now.
00:44:05.720
As we see Mitch McConnell saying Joe Biden's the president elect, basically everybody who has
00:44:11.960
anything to do with this has given up at this point. They've said, okay, it's going to be Joe
00:44:15.820
Biden. I think there are a lot of Republicans who are relieved about that. I think there are a lot
00:44:20.460
of establishmentarian Republicans who sometimes they talk good game about, oh, you know, yeah,
00:44:25.620
abortion's bad. Give me your money. Yeah, no, abortion, it's bad. And yeah, we, and we should stop
00:44:31.520
immigration too. Give me your money, donate, donate, vote for me, vote for me. Then they don't do
00:44:35.060
anything about it. And they don't actually want to upset that establishment at all. They are,
00:44:38.520
to use a phrase I've mentioned on this show a number of times, court jester conservatives.
00:44:42.160
Their, their job is to sort of put on a little show and legitimize the kingdom of liberalism,
00:44:47.680
that establishment. We have a decision to make. We all want perfect candidates. We want them to
00:44:52.040
talk like Reagan and fight like Trump and look like, I don't know, Arnold Schwarzenegger. We want
00:44:57.320
perfect supporters. We want all this. Ask yourself this question. That guy yelling on top of that table
00:45:02.900
with the bullhorn. Are you on that guy's side? I am. I'm on that guy's side. Maybe that guy has some
00:45:11.000
fringe opinions about some things. I don't know. I don't know the guy. Maybe that guy doesn't go to
00:45:16.060
cocktail parties very nicely. Maybe he doesn't have like a really nice fitted suit and a really
00:45:20.260
beautiful silk tie that'll look real. I'm on that guy's side. If you said, Michael, you can right now
00:45:25.960
be friends with Pete Buttigieg who's, look, he's so smart. He's so polished. He's, he's kind of a
00:45:30.920
moderate. So you look, just go, you can, you can be on that guy's side or you can be on the side of
00:45:35.740
that screaming guy at the Costco. I'll take the screaming guy at the Costco. That's my guy.
00:45:42.760
Republicans need to make this decision. Are we, are we going to defend? I see the argument. I said,
00:45:49.060
look, we're conservative and let's just conserve this liberal establishment. Okay. I, I, I'm not
00:45:54.280
interested in that. I don't want to do that at all. I want to conserve something a little deeper
00:45:58.560
and more important than that. And there's, there's going to be a civil war within the Republican
00:46:04.140
party. Are we the party of guys wearing nice suits and billionaires and the party of, yeah,
00:46:12.000
maybe you keep the borders open. That's fine. What, you know, oh, you got to ship some jobs
00:46:15.560
overseas. It's fine. GDP is going to go up. Are we going to be, oh, forget about, come on,
00:46:19.300
the cultural issues and abortion. It's not, we'll talk about it, but it's, we're not going to do
00:46:23.140
anything. Are we going to be that party? Are we going to be the party of the guy screaming on top
00:46:26.940
of the table at Costco? I want to be the party of that guy. That is not going to be boring. You
00:46:35.120
know, it's, it's nice and easy. People make a lot of money when things are boring because you,
00:46:38.900
they're predictable. You, everyone knows their role. It's very efficient. When things are not boring,
00:46:46.040
well, then a lot more is up in the air. You've got some inefficiencies, you got some threats to
00:46:50.020
entrenched interests. I want to be the party of not boring. I want to be the party of making news.
00:46:56.520
I want to be the party of no news is bad news because the progressive left keeps on going
00:47:01.900
further and further. I want to do something. I want to fight back. Republicans are going to have
00:47:06.900
to hold their leaders feet to the flames on this point because I think they, that the established
00:47:13.440
right believes, okay, Trump, well, that was weird, huh? Some weird stuff. Back to normal,
00:47:18.900
back to liberalism. Let's hope not. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. See
00:47:24.460
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the
00:47:35.040
word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on Apple
00:47:40.180
Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other
00:47:45.480
Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro Show, the Andrew Klavan Show, and the Matt Walsh Show.
00:47:50.580
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies, executive producer Jeremy Boring. Our
00:47:55.580
technical director is Austin Stevens, supervising producers Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling,
00:48:01.400
production manager Pavel Vidovsky, editor and associate producer Danny D'Amico, audio mixer Mike
00:48:07.600
Coromina, hair and makeup by Nika Geneva, and production assistant McKenna Waters. The Michael
00:48:13.400
Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
00:48:17.380
You know, the Matt Walsh Show is not just another show about politics. I think there are enough
00:48:22.220
of those already out there. We talk about culture because culture drives politics and it drives
00:48:27.360
everything else. So my main focuses are life, family, faith. Those are fundamental. And that's
00:48:34.680
what this show is about. I hope you'll give it a listen.