Ep. 710 - It’s Still Trump’s Party
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
176.24597
Summary
Trump's first public appearance since leaving the White House. President Trump takes on rumors that he's going to start a new political party to challenge the Republican Party. CNN's Jim Acosta says it's another sad day in the Acosta household. Raycons is offering 15% off all their products.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
With 20 years reporting on the markets, I know that some industries are built to last,
00:00:03.980
but others are built to lead. John Oelichman here. If you want exposure to what's really
00:00:08.280
shaping our world, think beyond trends. Think defense, healthcare, telecom, real estate,
00:00:13.920
gold, crypto. They're not just headlines, they're foundations. And with GlobalX,
00:00:18.400
one of Canada's largest ETF providers, you can invest in them intelligently. With a range of
00:00:23.660
ETFs designed for long-term growth and steady income opportunities. GlobalX,
00:00:28.120
where innovation meets investing. Brought to you by GlobalX Investments Canada, Inc.
00:00:32.440
For key risk information, please refer to the ETF's prospectus, available at globalx.ca.
00:00:37.840
President Trump addressed CPAC over the weekend. This was his first public appearance since leaving
00:00:44.220
the White House. And President Trump took on rumors head on that he was going to start a new political
00:00:50.380
party to challenge the Republican Party. Trump said that was a bunch of fake news. He doesn't
00:00:55.140
need to start a new party because he already runs one of the major parties in this country.
00:01:00.040
We will do what we've done right from the beginning, which is to win.
00:01:11.240
You know, they kept saying, he's going to start a brand new party.
00:01:15.180
We have the Republican Party. It's going to unite and be stronger than ever before.
00:01:20.520
I am not starting a new party. That was fake news. Fake news. No.
00:01:28.080
Wouldn't that be brilliant? Let's start a new party and let's divide our vote
00:01:31.640
so that you can never win. No, we're not interested in that.
00:01:35.220
No, they're not interested in that whatsoever in the Trump world because,
00:01:39.360
as the CPAC straw poll shows, Trump is still dominating the Republican Party.
00:01:44.920
I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.
00:01:54.160
Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment from Friday is from Cardi O,
00:01:58.700
who says, in honor of their employees completing the critical race theory training,
00:02:02.920
Coca-Cola has come out with a new flavor, less vanilla Coke. That's really progressive of them.
00:02:08.840
I'm so glad that they are doing that. There is actually an update to the Woka-Cola story.
00:02:13.640
It's great stuff. Some might call it cancel culture. I call it absolutely A-OK in my book.
00:02:19.960
You can listen to that just a little bit later in the show. And when you listen,
00:02:23.420
I highly recommend you listen on Raycon wireless earbuds.
00:02:26.820
Whether you're catching up on your favorite news podcast, binging an audio book,
00:02:30.860
or powering through your workout with a pumped up playlist, a pair of Raycons in your ears
00:02:34.900
can make all the difference. No dangling wires or stems to get in the way.
00:02:39.900
Raycons come in a range of stylish colorways. They're always comfortable. They've got a great
00:02:46.440
in-ear fit. It's a more discreet look. Raycons are built to perform anywhere and anytime with
00:02:51.380
water and sweat-resistant construction and Bluetooth that pairs quickly and seamlessly.
00:02:55.700
It's also got enough battery life for six hours of playtime, which means you can unplug for a while.
00:03:00.620
Well, I've tried lots of the competition. I'm just here to tell you Raycons is a superior product
00:03:06.600
in looks, in functionality. It's great. And especially in price because they're not overpriced
00:03:12.020
like some of the competitors. And right now on top of that, Raycons is offering 15% off all their
00:03:16.380
products for my listeners. Here's what you got to do to get it. Go to buyraycon.com slash Knowles.
00:03:20.660
That's it. You'll get 15% off your entire Raycon order. So feel free to grab a pair and a spare.
00:03:25.820
That's 15% off at buyraycon.com slash Knowles. Buyraycon.com slash Knowles. Go check out Raycon
00:03:32.020
now. President Trump is back. He is demonstrating in his words and in public opinion polls that the
00:03:43.240
GOP is still the Trump party and CNN is ecstatically furious. This CPAC with Donald Trump closing it out
00:03:52.880
is a liar palooza. It's a liar palooza. Zing. Yeah. Take that Trump. Yeah. You're a big meanie. Yeah.
00:04:01.240
It's a liar fest. This was the best day that Jim Acosta has had in months. Jim Acosta has gone to his
00:04:08.900
bed every single night since Trump conceded the election and he's, he's written, dear diary.
00:04:15.040
It's another, it's another sad day here in the Acosta household. I miss him. I have nothing to
00:04:20.480
talk about. No one wants to put me on television anymore. No one gives me headlines because my man
00:04:26.460
is gone. Well, Trump is back and the media are, are furious. So Trump's CPAC speech was generally
00:04:36.360
more measured than some people said it would be. And some people said he was going to announce a
00:04:39.600
new political party. Some people said he was going to declare himself the nominee for 2024. Some
00:04:44.000
people said he was going to do all this. It was actually much more measured. He, he reined himself
00:04:50.220
in a little bit, but he still talked about the important issues starting most importantly with
00:04:54.460
election integrity. Another one of the most urgent issues facing the Republican party is that of
00:05:01.600
ensuring fair, honest and secure elections. Such a disgrace. We must pass comprehensive election reforms
00:05:13.600
and we must do it now. The Democrats use the China virus as an excuse to change all of the election
00:05:20.860
rules without the approval of their state legislatures, making it therefore illegal.
00:05:26.600
It had a massive impact on the election. Again, you have to go to the legislatures to get these
00:05:36.380
approvals. This alone would have easily changed the outcome of the election at levels that you
00:05:42.300
wouldn't have even believed. Now people are going to be very upset. Trump is pushing a lie about the
00:05:49.640
election. Show me the lie. Where's the lie? The Democratic election officials exploited the
00:05:56.480
China virus to upend the election systems in the weeks and months before the election, often without
00:06:01.940
the approval of state legislatures, in some cases in direct violation of the state constitutions.
00:06:08.700
So show me the lie. I don't see a lie there, but then notice what Trump says. He doesn't say,
00:06:14.180
and that's why we actually won the election and Biden a hundred percent actually lost. He didn't say
00:06:18.400
that. He said it had a massive impact on the election, which is true. You can at least say,
00:06:24.200
even if you think that the whole rigging of the election systems was illegitimate and terrible,
00:06:29.560
you still can't say for, with a hundred percent certainty, Trump won the election, you know, and
00:06:33.820
the votes that were fraudulent were enough to sway the election. No one actually can say that. People
00:06:39.440
might have a hunch. They might have an intuition, but you can't, but you certainly can say that
00:06:44.100
these election rules were upended in the days and months right before the election. And this did have
00:06:50.240
an impact on the 11th. Of course you can say that. So Trump holds himself there. To me, what this means
00:06:55.620
is Trump does not want to go out with a, you know, huge bang. He doesn't want to go out, you know,
00:07:02.240
with fireworks. He wants to remain in the game and he's willing to play in a certain sense by the rules
00:07:08.400
so that he can have a big influence in 2022 and who knows, maybe 2024. Trump also in, we'll get to
00:07:16.440
2024 in a second. In terms of 2022, he named names. He went after the squishy Republicans who he feels
00:07:25.680
are not standing up for what the Republican base wants. He didn't back off that. He, this is another
00:07:30.840
reason he's not just playing nice and trying to have a nice legacy here. He is calling out the people
00:07:35.640
that he wants to boot out of office as soon as he can. Now more than ever is the time for tough,
00:07:40.940
strong and energetic Republican leaders who have spines of steel. We need strong leadership.
00:07:47.180
Top establishment Republicans in Washington should be spending their energy in opposing Biden,
00:07:54.060
Pelosi, Schumer and the Democrats. I've said to some of them, I said, you know,
00:08:00.700
during the Obama years and now during Biden, if you spent the same energy on attacking them,
00:08:06.700
you'd actually be successful as you do on attacking me. In many cases, the Democrats don't have
00:08:13.900
grandstanders like Mitt Romney, Little Ben Sass, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins,
00:08:21.820
Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, David Valadao. And of course, the warmonger,
00:08:28.460
a person that loves seeing our troops fighting, Liz Cheney. How about that?
00:08:39.740
The good news is in her state, she's been censured and in her state,
00:08:43.980
her poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being I've ever seen.
00:08:49.420
This is Donald Trump's party. I say that not just as someone who likes Trump. When I,
00:08:54.860
when I say this is Donald Trump's party, I'm sort of pleased that I can say that.
00:09:00.140
But even people who hate Trump's guts, even Romney and Liz Cheney and all the rest of them
00:09:06.220
have to admit this is Trump's party. Mitt Romney did admit it the other day. He said,
00:09:09.740
I, Mitt Romney represent a very small sliver of the Republican party. Donald Trump would win
00:09:13.500
the nomination in a landslide if he ran. How strange is it that at CPAC, this is sort of the big
00:09:18.940
conservative conference of the year. The chairman of the House Republican caucus, Liz Cheney,
00:09:26.380
gets booed, overwhelmingly booed on the floor like that. Mitt Romney, who won the CPAC straw poll in
00:09:32.220
2012. Mitt Romney, who used to be pretty popular at CPAC, getting booed because the party is shifting
00:09:39.100
and because politics always does change. It changes according to circumstance. So that's 2022. Obviously,
00:09:45.980
I think Trump is going to try to pick off some of his political opponents. But what about 2024?
00:09:51.580
If Trump's got the party behind him, if Trump's got the conservative base behind him,
00:09:55.260
if Trump's picking off his opponents, is he going to run in 2024? Well, he doesn't say no.
00:10:01.020
But who knows? Who knows? I may even decide to beat them for a third time. Okay?
00:10:09.260
That is a long, long, long round of applause and standing ovation. And Trump does it in the most
00:10:31.180
Trumpian way with such a showman's flourish. He goes, and look, I may even, you're kind of leaning
00:10:35.740
in. Look, I might even decide to beat him for a third time. Boom. And then the crowd opens up.
00:10:41.420
And when he says beat him for a third time, he's obviously suggesting this is, this is the most,
00:10:46.060
I think Trump in his speech went to say that election, you know, a lot of irregularities,
00:10:51.180
a lot of irregularities there. The, the CPAC straw poll is pretty interesting because in terms of the
00:10:59.260
candidates, Trump wins, he walks away with it. He, he got the majority of votes in a field of
00:11:05.980
Trump, DeSantis, Noem, Haley, Pompeo, Trump gets 55% in the CPAC straw poll. So even if all those
00:11:13.180
other candidates were just one other candidate, Trump still wins. DeSantis, no surprise there that
00:11:19.660
he's coming up second by a lot too. It's 55% to 21% for DeSantis. Then when you get to Christy Noem,
00:11:25.100
it's 4%, Nikki Haley, 3%, Mike Pompeo, 2%. Not really surprising numbers. When you take a look at the
00:11:31.740
straw poll without Trump, so let's say Trump decides not to run. Ron DeSantis still crushing
00:11:35.900
it. He's got 43% up there. Christy Noem at 11%, Don Jr. at 8%. Again, just evidence that the Trump
00:11:43.980
family is dominating the party. Even Don Jr., right, who was not the president, still doing pretty well.
00:11:50.540
Pompeo, 7%, Cruz, 7%. The one thing worth noting here is that the straw poll has a kind of 50-50
00:12:00.460
record. So the straw poll was right about the nominee in 1980 and then obviously right in 1984.
00:12:07.420
They probably shouldn't have even held it that year, but Reagan got it again in 84. They were
00:12:12.140
right in 96, 2000, and 2012. But the CPAC straw poll got the nominee wrong in 76, 92, 2008, and 2016.
00:12:21.580
Trump did not come in first or even second in 2016. So these things can change quite a lot.
00:12:26.940
The other thing I would say about Ron DeSantis, he's doing a great job. He's doing everything he
00:12:30.460
should be doing, but it's a long time. It's a long time away from 2024. The people who tend to win this
00:12:37.180
early historically have not actually gotten the nomination later on. So we'll have to see.
00:12:41.980
More interesting even than the candidates are the issues. The top issue for the CPAC audience,
00:12:48.140
election integrity, followed by constitutional rights, followed by immigration, followed by
00:12:52.680
reopening the economy. It was pretty low on the list, followed by the second amendment, followed
00:12:56.180
by taxes, followed by national security, finally followed by pro-life. Pretty interesting. I don't
00:13:01.700
think it's because the CPAC crowd is pro-abortion now. I suspect it's just because they feel that we're
00:13:06.780
at a stalemate and no matter how many judges we get, we still keep losing. The issue here is the
00:13:12.220
corruption. They feel we keep winning these political battles, but we keep losing on these
00:13:15.600
issues. So that's actually my read of why pro-life is so down low. It's people are very demoralized.
00:13:20.000
And I think it's why election integrity is so high because they do not have faith in this system.
00:13:25.340
They don't really have the sort of faith in the institutions that we once had. You've got to root
00:13:29.620
out the corruption before you can solve these sorts of problems. You know, when, when things are kind of
00:13:35.720
chaotic all around the world, one thing that I've always enjoyed investing in, precious metals.
00:13:40.660
You know how the price of gold has been skyrocketing lately. Now there's a new way to buy gold through
00:13:44.900
a company called Acre. Acre lets you subscribe to gold bars for as little as $30 a month. Michael,
00:13:50.580
how is that possible? Gold bars cost more than $30. Well, it's this ingenious way to invest in
00:13:56.060
physical gold. You pay each month. Once your gold stash reaches the price of their gold bars,
00:14:00.860
they discreetly ship Acre gold to your house. Just recently, Acre has introduced a new $100
00:14:05.380
a month subscription to a five gram gold bar. Also check this out. You know how there's a
00:14:10.220
nationwide ammo shortage? Well, Acre is creating a solid gold 24 carat, nine millimeter bullet for
00:14:16.420
you to buy right now. You cannot find anything like this on the internet. They're only making
00:14:21.360
a thousand of these. They're going very fast and I definitely want one. To be clear, I guess I have
00:14:25.680
to say this. They're not shootable bullets unless you're killing a werewolf. They are solid gold.
00:14:29.900
They're very, very cool. Go check it out. I think this company is really changing the game. I've
00:14:34.160
always enjoyed investing in precious metals. Visit getacregold.com slash Michael. Start
00:14:37.800
investing in physical gold today. Make sure you go to this URL because Acre is giving away a gold
00:14:42.120
bar to qualify for that giveaway. Tweet or post why you should be the recipient at get underscore
00:14:47.400
Acre. That is getacregold.com slash Michael. And thank you, Acre Gold, for supporting the show.
00:14:52.120
It is Trump's party, the Republican party. It is Trump's party. And in part that's because of Trump.
00:15:00.260
He is this sort of uniquely talented politician. Even his opponents admit this. Even Mitt Romney
00:15:07.200
admits that Donald Trump just has a political gift. But there's another reason too. Another reason that
00:15:14.420
the GOP became Donald Trump's party and has remained Donald Trump's party is because the left makes no
00:15:21.920
distinction between the moderates in the party or the liberals in the party and the conservatives and
00:15:29.200
the super conservatives and the far right fringy people and the kooky people. The left makes no
00:15:36.720
distinction between any of them. A classic example of this, Congressman Marie Newman. Congressman Marie
00:15:46.000
Newman is a Democrat and she has made transgender ideology one of her central issues. This obviously
00:15:55.180
very important with the passage in the House, not yet in the Senate, of the Equality Act. The Equality
00:16:01.160
Act obliterates the legal distinction between men and women. It is the single most radical piece of
00:16:06.940
legislation ever in American history. It not only would sort of upend American society. It also removes
00:16:19.300
specifically legal protections for women to have, for instance, their own sports leagues, to have
00:16:23.780
their own bathrooms, their own changing rooms. That goes away with the Equality Act. And Marie Newman,
00:16:29.220
very into this, Marie Newman actually put a transgender flag. Can you believe they have a flag?
00:16:34.640
It's a transgender ideology flag outside of her office, leading Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene
00:16:41.440
to put a sign outside of her office, which is right across the hallway, which says there are two
00:16:47.180
genders, men and women. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is called the conspiracy theorist for that. If you
00:16:52.780
believe that men and women are different, you're the crazy conspiracy theorist. If you don't, you're a
00:16:59.140
sort of reasonable person. Marie Newman goes on CNN and says that the reason that the Republicans will
00:17:08.060
not attack Marjorie Taylor Greene for having the sign out there that says men are different than women
00:17:12.680
is that they are, quote, in fear of the QAnon kooks. The QAnon kooks. What is QAnon? I suspect most
00:17:21.940
people listening to this show don't really have any idea what QAnon is. I don't really know what
00:17:27.580
QAnon is. I know I've like Googled it a little bit. I sort of have some kind of idea. Most Republicans,
00:17:34.180
public opinion surveys have borne this out, don't really have any idea what this is.
00:17:39.900
Most Trump supporters don't really have any idea what this is. It's just, it's just a new term
00:17:44.420
to smear the right. They take some sort of minor phenomenon and they smear the right. In the same
00:17:49.180
way that they say the right, they're white supremacists. You think, really? I don't think
00:17:52.920
so. Who are you talking to on the right? But they're not just saying that these very far fringe
00:18:00.480
extreme people are QAnon kooks, whatever that is. It just means bad, right? They're just using QAnon
00:18:07.320
or white supremacist or whatever to mean a bad person who's not a good person. But it's okay.
00:18:12.540
It's not just the fringe that's the QAnon kooks. It's not just conspiracy theorists. They're not just
00:18:18.540
bigots. It's not just this. It's not, it's not even just Trump supporters. It's not even just
00:18:23.580
conservatives. It's not even just the Republican party. It's anybody who believes that men and
00:18:29.240
women are different. Can you imagine that? That is how broadly the Democrats are painting this.
00:18:38.020
And so in that world, when everybody is being lumped in and called the worst possible names,
00:18:44.720
you need a tough guy. You need someone with spines of steel like Donald Trump says. And so I think
00:18:51.560
Republicans and conservatives are willing to make some concessions. Yeah, the tweets are a little
00:18:56.020
mean or whatever. Yeah, he sometimes speaks out of turn. Yeah, he sometimes says things that are
00:19:01.920
slight exaggerations. Yeah, whatever, whatever. If you're in a world where the Democrats are trying
00:19:08.180
to utterly delegitimize anyone, not just even half the country, but people who think men and women are
00:19:14.180
different, right? You're talking now about the majority of the country, I should hope. If you're
00:19:19.640
in that world where common sense is not politically permissible, you need a tough guy. You need a guy
00:19:27.060
with spines of steel. So the right does seem a little bit divided right now between kind of the
00:19:36.720
Trump faction and the, I don't call it the Romney faction or the more squishy faction. It seems a
00:19:42.360
little bit divided. Trump still has control of it for now, but there's a lot of acrimony. Democrats
00:19:46.740
are seeming divided now as well. I actually don't think they are divided, but they give the appearance
00:19:52.720
of it. And I think actually Republicans have a lot to learn from this. Case in point, Andrew Cuomo.
00:19:57.960
Andrew, we call him governor COVID in New York. You know, that leadership genius from COVID-19.
00:20:04.620
You know, the greatest, most admirable, wonderful governor in America who was just basically throwing
00:20:09.760
elderly New Yorkers into disease-ridden nursing homes and then covering it up when the feds started
00:20:15.400
looking into it. So Andrew Cuomo, separate from his actual scandal, which is the COVID stuff,
00:20:22.720
he is being accused of sexual harassment. And it's all sort of vague, but there was one woman who
00:20:28.380
came out and said, yeah, you know, a while ago Cuomo tried to kiss me at a meeting or something.
00:20:33.080
Now a second woman is accusing him of sexual harassment. Charlotte Bennett worked as an assistant
00:20:38.720
of his, and then she left in November. And she said that the harassment began in the spring of 2020.
00:20:45.780
And it's all kind of vague stuff. So it's, you know, he brought up sex, but not, she's not saying
00:20:52.940
he propositioned her necessarily. She's not saying, she's not really bringing the context of it.
00:20:57.780
It sounds, you know, kind of inappropriate, but it's, it's really unclear. Democrats are now coming
00:21:03.860
out against Cuomo. They're now saying, yep, that guy is at the very least, he needs to be investigated.
00:21:09.100
This from our favorite White House press secretary, who is currently the press secretary,
00:21:15.620
Jen Psaki. Governor Cuomo says he never made advances toward Ms. Bennett, but does President
00:21:20.960
Biden believe Governor Cuomo or Charlotte Bennett? Well, first, President Biden has been consistent
00:21:29.000
that he believes that every woman should be heard, should be treated with respect and with dignity.
00:21:34.300
Charlotte should be treated with respect and dignity. So should Lindsay. And there should be an
00:21:38.140
independent review looking into these allegations. And that's certainly something he supports and we
00:21:44.460
believe should move forward as quickly as possible. Nancy Pelosi saying almost the same thing. The
00:21:49.100
women who've come forward with serious and credible charges. So she's calling it credible against
00:21:53.040
Governor Cuomo deserve to be heard and treated with dignity. The independent investigation must have
00:21:57.740
due process and respect for everyone involved. What's really going on here? I don't think that
00:22:04.200
Democrats have finally gotten a conscience on the sexual harassment claims or anything.
00:22:08.140
I think what's really going on is that there were claims like this before against Andrew Cuomo and
00:22:13.900
they completely ignored them and they actually promoted him and they had him speak at their
00:22:17.180
conference and they said he was the greatest leader on COVID-19. Then it came out, they finally
00:22:22.420
couldn't cover it up anymore, that his policies were deadly in COVID-19 and that he knew it and that
00:22:27.720
he covered them up against the federal government. So now just coincidentally, just coincidentally,
00:22:32.960
when his political fortunes are dropping and he's an embarrassment for the Democratic Party,
00:22:36.780
now all of a sudden they're taking the sexual harassment stuff seriously. But it doesn't even
00:22:42.220
stop there because they're taking it seriously enough to say he needs to be investigated.
00:22:46.040
But this is what Democrats do. They're not saying he needs to step down. They're not saying he's
00:22:50.800
unfit for office. They're saying we need an investigation. They do the same thing on reparations.
00:22:55.980
They do the same thing on all sorts of radical policies that they're proposing. They say we need to
00:23:01.740
commit, they do this on statute toppling. They say we need a committee to study and review the issue.
00:23:07.700
And they basically, they slow walk it to buy themselves time and build themselves political
00:23:12.320
consensus. So what's going to happen now, because Cuomo's really, really in a hot water because of
00:23:17.860
his mishandling of COVID and his cover up of, of the COVID issue, is they're going to say, okay,
00:23:24.120
we're going to start threatening you. We're going to start building consensus. So if we have to deal
00:23:29.080
with you, we're going to deal with you. We're also coincidentally going to get COVID out of the
00:23:32.200
news because everyone's just talking about your sex scandal. And then we're going to buy ourselves
00:23:36.040
time. And then once the investigation's over in six months, if you're still in trouble, we'll boot
00:23:40.720
you out if you're an embarrassment for us. But if you're not in trouble, we'll let you come back in.
00:23:44.140
No big deal. It's politically brilliant. And Cuomo, by the way, is handling this in a pretty smart
00:23:48.780
political way too. Cuomo came out and sort of apologized and sort of didn't. Here's his excuse.
00:23:53.400
It's a masterclass in political rhetoric. He says, questions have been, no, I'm not,
00:23:58.160
I'm not going to do my Bulldog Cuomo impression. Questions have been raised about some of my past
00:24:02.360
interactions with people in the office. I never intended to offend anyone or cause any harm. I
00:24:07.100
spend most of my life at work and colleagues are often also personal friends. At work, sometimes I
00:24:12.480
think I'm being playful and make jokes that I think are funny. I do on occasion tease people in what I
00:24:17.880
think is a good natured way. I do it in public and in private. You have seen me do it at briefings
00:24:24.000
hundreds of times. I have teased people about their personal lives, their relationships,
00:24:27.740
relationships about getting married or not getting married. Wow. Wow, man, is this good.
00:24:32.440
He doesn't take on the allegation that he tried to kiss somebody during a meeting. He doesn't take
00:24:36.460
on the allegation that he's moved. I mean, eventually he just sort of denies the idea that he's
00:24:40.240
propositioning people and denying it, but that's not what he's saying here. He's admitting, yeah,
00:24:43.520
I tease people. He says, I do it in public and private. You've seen me do it, right? He's making
00:24:48.620
you sort of accustomed to it. You're saying, oh, I have seen that. It's not, it's a beautiful,
00:24:52.940
politically beautiful way to downplay this sort of thing. And it'll probably help him because
00:24:59.940
when we're talking about that, we're not talking about the other allegations. We're not talking
00:25:05.840
about the real scandal, not the sex. Sex scandal is the best thing that ever happened to Andrew
00:25:10.320
Cuomo because we're not talking about his COVID scandal right now. And we feel a little bit more
00:25:15.740
comfortable with it. The Democrats are just much, much better at this sort of thing than the
00:25:22.700
conservatives are. Ben is going to be talking about this very issue, the end for Cuomo on his
00:25:27.180
show today. So be sure to check that out. Also, you got to check out Ben Shapiro in the Daily Wire's
00:25:31.660
newest series, debunked every Friday. Ben is exposing popular fallacies supported by left-wing
00:25:37.680
activists and politicians. In the first episode, which is now available to Daily Wire members,
00:25:43.780
Ben debunks the myth of minimum wage. I got to go check that out. The myth of minimum wage.
00:25:48.940
Debunked is also available exclusively to Daily Wire members. So go to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:25:55.740
Use code debunked to get 25% off your new membership and stay tuned for this Friday's episode where Ben
00:26:01.180
will break down unions. That is code debunked for 25% off. We'll be right back with a lot more.
00:26:13.780
Andrew Cuomo is not the only Democratic governor in trouble right now. Gavin Newsom is also in
00:26:27.380
trouble. Gavin Newsom is Governor Patrick Bateman from California, Governor American Psycho over there
00:26:33.700
in my old state. And when I say they're in trouble, yes, they're in trouble, but not nearly the sort of
00:26:40.460
trouble they'd be in if they were Republicans and maybe not politically terminal trouble. You know,
00:26:45.540
maybe they'll be able to survive this. What they really do, I find, they just flaunt their power.
00:26:50.040
So Gavin Newsom got in trouble a few months ago because he ordered all these lockdown rules and
00:26:55.220
his mandates and he's shutting down businesses and restaurants. Then what does he do? He shows up
00:26:59.380
with his friends to the French Laundry, a Michelin rated restaurant. These meals for the French Laundry
00:27:06.860
were often thousand dollars a plate, sometimes more. He shows up, he's sitting right next to his
00:27:11.060
friends, looked pretty indoors to me, shoulder to shoulder. No one's wearing masks and they're all
00:27:17.180
laughing and having a good time. And they're all laughing at us because we believe the kind of
00:27:20.280
nonsense that they're spouting about how we need to stay home and social distance and all that stuff
00:27:25.420
that they themselves are not, are not following. So Newsom got in trouble for that, but he survived.
00:27:31.380
Now he posted another video with George Lopez, the sitcom star from the 2000s. You know, he kind of,
00:27:40.600
now all he does is really turn up in political videos and he's, he's inside a restaurant with
00:27:46.160
George Lopez. They're wearing masks, but they're inside a restaurant in an area that is supposed to
00:27:50.620
have closed, no indoor dining. How do I find out if I can get a vaccination? George, you got to go to
00:27:59.480
myturn.ca.gov. Wait a minute. Thank you, governor. It's wonderful to be a service, George.
00:28:08.680
First of all, just 100% pure grade A cringe in the video, right? I mean, that's, that is so,
00:28:15.860
they're like, hello. Hey, fellow TikTokers. Hello. How do you do fellow kids? But beyond that,
00:28:22.740
what are they doing in that restaurant? What are they doing? They're not supposed to be in that
00:28:27.320
restaurant in that County, in that area. So they're inside there. Well, maybe they're just
00:28:31.700
there for a film shoot, right? Well, they were, they were sort of posting some pictures. It looks
00:28:35.040
like they had some food there. I actually, the way I know they had some food there is because when you
00:28:40.380
film anything, you have craft services so that the crew and cast members can eat. So you got Newsom
00:28:46.680
again. I think it is not unfair to infer. He's certainly inside a restaurant, so he's already breaking
00:28:53.720
that rule. And I suspect they might've had a bite or two to eat. I suspect that's what the photos sort
00:28:59.500
of suggest. They just flaunt their power and they know that they're going to not get into any trouble
00:29:06.760
for this. Speaking of the virus, by the way, some good news, sort of, sort of. I guess it's good news,
00:29:13.420
but it's kind of frustrating. It's frustrating because we, we don't know who to trust anymore.
00:29:21.020
Now, the medical experts who've told us that the mitigation efforts for coronavirus, they've
00:29:27.880
failed. We still, we're not wearing our masks enough. We're not locking down enough. We're not
00:29:34.200
social distancing enough. That's why the virus is spreading. That's why we got to keep locking down.
00:29:38.460
If only you rubes had locked down for two weeks, we would have slowed the spread in 15 days. Now we're
00:29:43.400
going on 350 days. So they tell us none of that works. But then we're also told the flu has basically
00:29:50.600
disappeared. Flu season peaks between December and February. The CDC estimates that flu causes up to
00:29:58.620
45 million illnesses each year, up to 810,000 hospitalizations, and up to 61,000 deaths.
00:30:09.080
How many flu cases? I'm not talking about deaths. I'm not talking about hospitalizations. I'm talking
00:30:15.380
about cases. Normally 45 million illnesses. How many cases do you think have been reported of the,
00:30:23.120
from the flu this year? 925, not 925,000. That would, that would be, that would be an amazingly
00:30:35.520
small number, compared to 45 million, right? That's a small number. Not 925 million,
00:30:43.740
925 cases of the flu. According to Johns Hopkins, the flu has basically been eradicated this year.
00:30:50.500
How did this happen? Either there is widespread misdiagnosis
00:30:57.740
of things maybe that were flu and they're diagnosed as COVID. Maybe they're COVID,
00:31:02.280
diagnosed as flu. Maybe they're, who knows? So that's one, and now that's a big claim. I'm not
00:31:07.680
saying there's evidence for that claim. Or you can say that the mitigation, this is what the left
00:31:12.760
is saying. They're saying the mitigation measures that we put in place for COVID stopped the spread
00:31:17.320
of the flu. So no surprise here, of course we got rid of the flu because we're all washing our hands
00:31:21.540
and wearing the stupid masks and we're all social distancing, to use the Orwellian phrase, and that's,
00:31:27.220
that's why there's no flu. Okay. That would make sense, except at the same time that you're telling
00:31:32.640
me that all the mitigation measures stopped the flu, you're telling me that they utterly failed
00:31:36.800
to stop the coronavirus. So which is it? Are they really, I guess they could be different. It seems
00:31:43.140
to me kind of incoherent. It seems to me just like every other aspect of the public health response
00:31:52.680
to the coronavirus, that they are just making this up as they go along and they are contradicting
00:31:57.220
themselves. Sometimes day by day, like Dr. Fauci, who says, don't wear masks. Masks are terrible.
00:32:01.740
They don't do anything. Then two seconds later, he says, yeah, you should have to, you have to wear
00:32:04.880
masks. You must wear masks. And then he's caught on camera, not wearing masks, even though he's next
00:32:09.720
to a lot of people. Then it doesn't matter. Changes day by day. Sometimes it changes within the very
00:32:16.300
same breath while they're explaining the flu thing away. But let's just, let's just take it as it is
00:32:23.060
with the flu. Let's say that we can get rid of the flu every single year. If we do all this stuff,
00:32:27.880
wear the stupid masks and social distance, quote unquote, and don't have Thanksgiving and okay.
00:32:33.320
I don't want to do that. I would rather get the flu than do all of this inhuman anti-constitutional
00:32:41.900
nonsense that we've been doing for over almost a year now. Our freedom and our traditions and our
00:32:48.900
way of life are worth more than not getting the flu. And I think this is true of the Wu flu too.
00:32:58.360
I think this is true. As you know, I, I wear a mask if I have to go on an airplane because that's the
00:33:02.420
one, the one place where they say you can't, you cannot do this if you don't have a mask on.
00:33:07.320
And so I do it in cases where I think it's more important that I go fly, be able to give a speech,
00:33:12.800
be able to go to a political event, be able to talk about how dumb the masks are. I'm making
00:33:16.680
that, that calculation. I think it's worth it. But otherwise, you know, I ignore all this stuff and
00:33:20.520
I, I practically French kiss people when I meet them on the street. So I would rather do that than
00:33:29.240
not get the virus. I'm just not that afraid. I'm taking my risk into account. I understand there's
00:33:34.460
some risks. So don't, I'm not saying I'm invincible, but I'm just taking risk into account.
00:33:39.680
Really what this is, what the whole COVID lockdown thing has been, what some statesmen are calling the
00:33:45.460
rate, the reset, building back better. It's just the green new deal by the back door, right? It's just
00:33:52.580
the same massive political and social upheaval that the left has wanted for decades and decades and
00:34:00.180
decades. They're just getting it this way instead of the other way. Back in the seventies, they said
00:34:05.700
that we're heading to a new ice age. Global cooling is about to take over the world. And that's why you
00:34:10.960
need to give us a lot of power and we need to depopulate the earth. And this is, this is well
00:34:16.580
known. There were books, there were very prominent written about this and you've got very prominent
00:34:21.500
public figures that are still talking about why we need to depopulate, why we need to increase
00:34:26.600
access to abortion, why we need to increase contraception. We need to have fewer children.
00:34:30.320
I'm talking about people like Bill Gates and Al Gore have given speeches on this very topic.
00:34:34.580
So in the seventies, they said it's because of global cooling. Then like five seconds later,
00:34:38.880
they said, no, it's actually because of global warming. And you say, oh good. Well, it sounds
00:34:42.080
like cooling is not a big issue now. We're all good, right? They said, no, we have to do all the
00:34:45.860
same stuff that we asked for before. More, much more government power, much less control of private
00:34:50.620
property. I have fewer children, live less, do less. You say, wait, it's, you're telling me that for the
00:34:56.040
opposite problem, we have the exact same slate of solutions. They say, yes. Then when the warming
00:35:02.460
kind of peters out for a little bit, they say, okay, it's actually climate change. So climate,
00:35:07.240
well, climate's always changing. Yeah, well, it's climate change. Anyway, you got to do all that same
00:35:10.460
stuff. Say, okay, well, it seems a little strange to me. Then they say, yeah. And actually, since you're
00:35:15.960
not going to give us the green new deal and people don't really care about the global warming stuff and
00:35:20.380
they're not afraid of the sun monster, it's actually the virus. Yeah, there's a virus, you know,
00:35:24.480
and that's why you got to give us all the same stuff. You have to much more government control
00:35:28.240
over the economy and we need to rebuild lots of edifices in this country and we can't have that
00:35:34.520
many kids and we got, you know, all the same stuff. Massive redistribution of wealth. You say, hold on,
00:35:39.400
I could sort of follow when you said it was one weather problem and another weather problem and
00:35:43.760
you give me the same answer, but how come now it's a virus and you're giving me the same slate of
00:35:47.500
answers. The reason for this is that these extremely progressive policies are part of an entire
00:35:55.500
politico-religious worldview. This worldview was summed up by no less an intellect last night than
00:36:03.040
Mark Ruffalo at the Zoom Golden Globe Awards. I did not know that the Golden Globe Awards were going on
00:36:09.880
until I saw this stupid Mark Ruffalo headline trending. They didn't really hold the Golden Globes.
00:36:17.060
This was, this actually was just on Zoom. These people just zoomed in from their homes and accepted
00:36:21.700
the award on a little tiny screen. Hypothetic as that. And Ruffalo, one of the most insufferable
00:36:27.620
people in Hollywood, decided to use his acceptance to give a theological diatribe about our filial
00:36:40.800
We have a dying mother, just like the mother in our story. She's Mother Earth. And we must come to
00:36:46.980
balance with her and honor her. And she'll heal too. So let's be courageous together, guys.
00:36:53.440
And let's, let's turn, let's turn the page on the cruel past of this nation. The good news is inclusion
00:37:02.080
and justice and care for Mother Earth is breaking out everywhere. The godly light of decency is breaking
00:37:10.000
through the hideous dark storm we've been living through. We are all in this together. We are the ones we've been
00:37:26.560
Oh, where to begin? First of all, our mother, the earth. The earth is not my mother. The earth is a
00:37:36.380
rock floating in space that I like very much. I really, I love the earth. I think it's great.
00:37:43.320
It provides a very nice home for me. The earth is not my mother. When people say the earth is
00:37:49.660
our mother, they are espousing a religious point of view. Just as I might say that my mother is the
00:37:55.400
holy church. Just as I, I might say in another sense that my mother is Mary, the mother of God.
00:38:01.420
Just as I might say that, so too, some, some crazy lib might say that the earth is our mother.
00:38:09.200
If the earth is our mother, we have a filial responsibility to her. And on the other side of
00:38:16.260
that, if the, if the earth, if we are the children of the earth, then we're just kind of like dirt,
00:38:20.420
right? That's all, that's kind of all we are. We don't really have the higher spiritual faculties
00:38:25.460
that say Christianity or even other theistic religions would put on us. But the religious
00:38:31.560
way he's talking is even more explicit. He says, he keeps coming back to this. He says,
00:38:35.460
the good news is inclusion and diversity. The good news is the good news. The good news is the
00:38:41.440
gospel. Okay. When, when people who don't have this kooky lib religion, when people who have like,
00:38:47.680
who are Christians say the good news is what's the good news. The good news is that the earth,
00:38:52.420
I'm not the child of a rock that, uh, the, I'm actually, uh, uh, a child of God. I'm a man made in
00:38:59.080
the image of God. Uh, God sends his only begotten son, Christ to die for us. And, and, uh, we can be
00:39:06.520
part of the body of Christ and Christ can live in us and redeem mankind. Uh, if we, if we accept him
00:39:14.460
through faith and we under sort of understand this kind of, or we grant this kind of, uh, worldview,
00:39:21.720
this relationship of us to the son of God, who is God in the triune God and the Godhead.
00:39:28.940
And therefore we have a special relationship to creation and to the creator. Okay. Right. That's
00:39:33.200
one version of the good news if you're Christian, but if you don't believe any of that stuff,
00:39:39.880
then what is the good news is diversity and equity and inclusion, which, which is treated as a
00:39:46.000
religion. There's something really, really spooky though. I do need to touch on this. There's a very
00:39:51.440
famous priest by the name of father James Martin. He's a Jesuit who is known for making statements
00:39:57.680
that people widely interpret to be heretical. And, but he's very, very popular, especially with
00:40:03.840
liberals. I think, I think he spoke at the democratic national convention. I know he's
00:40:07.600
friends with very high profile liberals and he, it would seem to me, you know, from my position in
00:40:13.540
the laity seems to often contradict or at least scandalize and confuse, uh, important aspects of the
00:40:20.980
faith. So father James Martin posted yesterday, quote, preaching for the second Sunday of Lent,
00:40:27.220
Vicki McBride reflects on everything that changed last Lent and offers a reflection on allowing God
00:40:32.480
to reveal herself to us. So for as progressive as father Martin is, he seems not to respect God's
00:40:41.960
preferred pronouns. God is pretty clear about which pronouns he prefers. You know, the our father,
00:40:48.280
for instance, uh, the, uh, incarnation of the second person of the Trinity in, uh, as a man
00:40:54.220
named Jesus. It's pretty clear to me that God uses them. The Bible is replete with other examples of
00:41:00.960
this. And, and a very famous priest is now referring to God as her. And he's now to sort of justify it.
00:41:09.440
He's invoking some sort of mystical visions of people like Julian of Norwich or some other people.
00:41:13.980
But James Martin is going much, much further. Father, father Martin is, is making claims here
00:41:20.140
that would seem, uh, very contrary to the church teaching. I, I hope that bishops and I pray that
00:41:25.720
bishops would be able to summon the courage and the compassion to educate father Martin and so many
00:41:31.060
other people who are so confused, even within the church. It's very difficult to educate ourselves
00:41:39.600
these days because we're not being permitted to read great works or important works. We know that
00:41:47.620
in classrooms, great books are being removed from the classroom. They're being removed from curricula
00:41:53.240
either because they're politically incorrect or because they were written by the, that dread
00:41:57.720
character, the red, the dead white man. And so instead we're getting kind of lower quality,
00:42:05.380
modern books pushing ridiculous theories, but it's not just in the classroom. Amazon is banning books.
00:42:15.400
Now we, we know that they were banning our friend Ryan T Anderson's book, uh, when Harry became Sally,
00:42:20.160
great title. Uh, the reason they did this and they've now sort of admitted it is they've removed
00:42:25.660
an exception for books. They, they would remove politically incorrect objects from Amazon in the
00:42:30.780
past, especially when a scandal would come up, but they kept books there. They didn't want to be seen
00:42:34.440
as banning books. Now, now they're doing that. They're, they're, uh, not going to sell. They say,
00:42:39.760
quote, we won't sell certain content, including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes
00:42:44.720
the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia,
00:42:49.000
advocates terrorism or other material that we deem inappropriate or offensive. Uh, all you need to pay
00:42:54.480
attention to here though is the hate speech part because that's going to be used. You know, it is being
00:43:00.740
used specifically to target perfectly anodyne conservative books. Uh, I have a book coming out
00:43:05.900
in June. It is currently listed on Amazon. It's called Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling
00:43:10.600
Minds. If they got rid of Ryan Anderson's book, they, they will get rid of my book. It, uh, it,
00:43:17.500
there is no logical reason why they wouldn't if they're willing to get rid of Anderson's book.
00:43:21.400
So I would encourage you to pre-order it now while you still can. I'm not saying this just
00:43:24.940
to sell books, though. I'd like to do that. I'm saying this because I would like
00:43:28.100
this book to get out there. I think it actually takes on this, this very issue and I do suspect
00:43:34.700
it's going to be suppressed by the big tech companies. So anyway, just a quick plug to
00:43:38.740
order it while you still can. It's obviously not evenly applied. You can still order Mein Kampf
00:43:44.080
on, on Amazon right now. You can order books by Hitler, but you can't order mainstream American
00:43:49.520
conservative books. The reason for this is that Mein Kampf doesn't pose any problem to the dominant
00:43:54.200
liberal regime in America. Nobody is going out and really, I mean, have like three people,
00:43:59.100
no huge number of people are going out buying Mein Kampf and reading it and saying, oh yes,
00:44:04.440
now I'm going to transform my views and become a Nazi. Generally speaking, the people who are
00:44:09.760
reading Mein Kampf are reading it for historical and scholarly purposes. Makes sense. Or if they're
00:44:15.300
reading it because they have an affinity for Hitler, then, you know, they've already got the affinity.
00:44:18.720
If you're searching out Mein Kampf because you really like Hitler, then Mein Kampf is not going to
00:44:22.440
convince you to like Hitler anymore. That's not the same as a conservative book. There are people
00:44:28.200
who, with these issues that are coming up right now, not, not dead issues like Nazism, but issues that
00:44:34.800
are still high right now, like gender ideology. You could pick up a conservative book and change your
00:44:39.580
mind and realize that the narrative that the liberal regime is, is pushing to you is not true.
00:44:44.500
And so that, that is why Ryan Anderson's book or other conservative books too, are much more
00:44:50.000
dangerous to the dominant liberal establishment than anything by Hitler or Mussolini or whatever.
00:44:56.180
That they, they actually don't really care about that because it doesn't threaten them.
00:45:01.860
This is being called cancel culture. I've told you, I don't think cancel culture is a particularly
00:45:06.000
helpful term because I, I don't, I think it's a trap of political correctness. I think that
00:45:12.000
the, the trap that political correctness leads us into is to believe that when they overturn the old
00:45:18.560
standards with their new crazy left wing standards, the only choices we have are either to give in to
00:45:24.400
the new standards or to eschew standards entirely and say, okay, well you can say and do whatever
00:45:29.040
you want. We don't believe in it. I don't think that's true. I think that, yeah, we, we should watch
00:45:33.880
what we say in certain instances. I think that we should enforce laws against obscenity to varying
00:45:40.060
degrees. I'm not saying ban everything outright. I'm just saying we should, in the American tradition
00:45:44.840
of free speech, discourage some, some offensive speech that is actually offensive or that is
00:45:50.980
obscene or that is threatening or that is seditious or any of the other broad swaths of speech that in
00:45:55.700
the American tradition, we have said it is off limits. I think the only way that we're actually
00:46:01.020
going to beat political correctness is by recognizing that it's not a battle between free speech and
00:46:06.400
censorship as the left wants to trick us into believing it is because then either way, either way,
00:46:11.840
the left wins, right? Because if we give in or we eschew standards entirely, either way, the left
00:46:17.840
gets to obliterate the old standards. What we need to realize is political correctness is actually,
00:46:21.500
instead of a battle between free speech and censorship, it's a battle between two competing
00:46:24.820
sets of standards, the old moral codes and the new speech codes. And we need to defend
00:46:29.420
our substantive moral vision. So I don't really use this term cancel culture. And
00:46:35.580
well, I'll give you an example of how cancel culture, though it's not, you know, I don't
00:46:41.820
really use it. Cancel culture can be a good thing if it supports a conservative view. An example of
00:46:48.780
this is LinkedIn. LinkedIn was hosting that Woka Cola, be less white employee diversity training
00:46:54.540
thing. Remember that? So Coca-Cola was accused of themselves putting out this training. What they
00:47:00.360
actually did was they trained their employees to access this other platform, which was on LinkedIn,
00:47:04.780
which included a training by Robin DiAngelo, which said you need to be less white. I think that's
00:47:09.640
bad. I think that's wrong. And I think they should get rid of it. And I don't think that
00:47:13.640
Coca-Cola employees should, should watch that. I don't think they should have to watch that.
00:47:18.500
And I don't think Coca-Cola should be even giving them access to watch that. I think it's just trash
00:47:22.580
and it's terrible for the country and nobody benefits from it. Well, Coca-Cola gave it, or I'm sorry,
00:47:29.220
rather LinkedIn gave it. LinkedIn removed a racist diversity training program that told people to
00:47:35.300
be less white. Isn't that cancel culture? Isn't that censorship? In a way, kind of, but not really.
00:47:41.480
It's just standards. It's just finally for once we pressured corporate America to go back to our good
00:47:50.180
old standards instead of embracing the new radical, wicked, politically correct standards. That's a good
00:47:56.480
thing. So when we use cancel culture as just a technical term, you know, it's fair. People are
00:48:03.240
going to keep using it. I'll probably use it at some point too. But we need to remember that refers
00:48:07.280
to the specific phenomenon of left-wingers destroying the lives and livelihoods of conservatives because
00:48:15.980
the conservatives are, are uttering mainstream points of view. Cancel culture does not, it cannot
00:48:21.880
refer to the consequences for anybody for saying or doing anything because conservatives traditionally,
00:48:31.100
and I think still do, believe that there ought to be consequences for saying and doing certain things.
00:48:36.220
Nobody thinks that if you wear the swastika at your water cooler and start screaming Sig Heil in the
00:48:40.700
office, that you're somehow entitled to a job. Well, likewise, nobody thinks that we need to support
00:48:45.760
these vicious, bigoted, racist trainings and say be less white on LinkedIn. No way. Need to grow a spine.
00:48:54.540
We need to offer a substantive moral vision. And I think if CPAC showed us anything, it's that the GOP
00:49:02.440
is still clamoring for that. Who can give it to him? What's it going to look like in 2022 and 2024?
00:49:09.340
We'll have to wait and see. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. See you tomorrow.
00:49:15.760
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the
00:49:22.560
word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on
00:49:27.740
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the
00:49:33.440
other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt
00:49:38.220
Wall Show. The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies. Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Our
00:49:43.980
technical director is Austin Stevens. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
00:49:49.700
Production manager, Pavel Vidovsky. Editor and associate producer, Danny D'Amico. Audio mixer,
00:49:55.960
Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup by Nika Geneva. And production coordinator, McKenna Waters.
00:50:01.840
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2021.
00:50:06.100
The left detects Nazi symbolism at CPAC. A brave congressman stands up against the mass cultists.
00:50:11.940
Public health officials in Canada recommend solitary confinement for all children exposed
00:50:15.740
to COVID. And LeBron James vows to continue speaking out against all injustices that happen
00:50:19.880
anywhere but in China. All that and much more today on The Matt Wall Show.