The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 801 - Donald Trump v. Hipster Rasputin

00:00:00.000 Six months ago, a handful of billionaire oligarchs in Silicon Valley decided to censor and ostracize

00:00:06.280 the duly elected sitting president of the United States. Now, President Trump is fighting back

00:00:12.580 by suing big tech to reinstate his social media accounts.

00:00:17.180 I just want to say that I stand before you this morning to announce a very important

00:00:24.460 and very beautiful, I think, development for our freedom and our freedom of speech.

00:00:31.280 And that goes to all Americans. Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute,

00:00:40.020 I'm filing as the lead class representative a major class action lawsuit against the big tech giants,

00:00:49.060 including Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sander Pooche and Jack Dorsey.

00:01:00.560 Three real nice guys. Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful.

00:01:08.160 It's unconstitutional and it's completely un-American. We all know that. We all know that very, very well. 0.80

00:01:14.500 The squishes hate this lawsuit. I love this lawsuit and it's got a lot more merit than people are giving 0.51

00:01:23.700 President Trump credit for. While you're right to question the political process,

00:01:29.020 you're right even to point out the difference between men and women comes under attack from the big tech censors.

00:01:34.720 All sorts of radical leftist speech is flourishing. A famous gay chorus is singing about its plans to

00:01:41.920 convert your kids. Their words, not mine. The nation's largest teachers union doubles down on 0.55

00:01:47.060 the right to peddle critical race theory in schools. And BLM attacks the American flag. I'm Michael

00:01:52.760 Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:02:01.880 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday from Jenna Janicki, who says,

00:02:05.980 Joe Biden should announce his preferred pronouns are they and them since they is our president. This

00:02:11.980 is a good point. When Biden is there and he says, well, they told me to say, they told me I'm not,

00:02:17.820 I guess they is his pronoun because they, they is governing us. Really, it's enough to give you a

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00:03:37.600 liquidiv.com. Trump is suing the big tech billionaires for censoring him. The question

00:03:44.920 that a lot of people are asking is, is this really a free speech issue? Well, there are really

00:03:50.480 two questions here. Is it a first amendment issue and is it a free speech issue? Is it's

00:03:56.320 not, it's same broad topic, but they're actually different questions. So there are lawyers who

00:04:02.820 are rather expert in this field. I'm thinking of, uh, Alan Dershowitz, former professor emeritus

00:04:09.320 at Harvard Law School. I'm thinking of Eugene Volokh, a really, really prominent lawyer and commentator

00:04:15.840 who say, you know, maybe this lawsuit does have some merit on first amendment grounds.

00:04:20.860 Maybe it's a big, maybe they'll have to prove it in court. Is this a free speech issue? Absolutely.

00:04:28.020 Absolutely. I think the days of build your own Twitter, Google's a private company. They can

00:04:32.500 do whatever they want, build your own Facebook or whatever. That's over. First of all, they won't

00:04:36.280 let us build our own Twitter. We tried to, we've tried to do that several times and they just won't

00:04:40.140 let us do it. Uh, second of all, if you control the speech of a democratic Republic, if you,

00:04:49.800 and let's say two of your buddies in Silicon Valley control, who are the guys? It's, we've got

00:04:55.780 hipster Rasputin, you've got Jack Dorsey, you've got Mark Zuckerberg, and then you've got in

00:05:00.240 President Trump's words, Sundar Pucci. Uh, it's Sundar Pichai. And I love that President Trump did not

00:05:08.520 even take the time to learn his name. He's the head of Google. But if you, if you and your two

00:05:13.260 buddies control the flow of information around the internet, if you control 90% of speech in the 0.95

00:05:19.360 digital realm, which is the public square now, you are by definition engaging in a political act

00:05:25.920 because in a democratic Republic, speech is politics and politics is speech. This is the theme of my book,

00:05:31.340 Speechless, which is available now, as many of you have heard. So you are, even if you're,

00:05:36.780 you don't work for the government, you don't, frankly, Google and Facebook and probably Twitter

00:05:43.560 for that matter, have a cozier relationship with the government than I think many people are aware

00:05:47.780 of. But even if they did not, even if they just pretended to be totally private companies,

00:05:52.220 if you are controlling the speech around a Republic, you are engaged in a political act

00:05:59.240 and the people have a right to have a say in that political process. Like Mitch McConnell said,

00:06:06.700 as establishmentarian a man as Mitch McConnell, he said, a woke corporation can act like a parallel

00:06:13.600 government. And in this case, the, the, those woke corporations in Silicon Valley are even less

00:06:18.780 accountable to the people than, than the jokesters in, in Washington DC. So this absolutely is a free

00:06:25.060 speech issue. This I think is the defining issue of our time. I think it's more important than

00:06:29.340 immigration. I think it's more important than tax cuts. I think it's more important than whatever's

00:06:33.440 going on in Iran and Syria. This is the issue that will, that will determine who rules us and how we 0.65

00:06:41.000 are ruled. So thankfully, even beyond this lawsuit, the house Republicans are doing something good on

00:06:47.140 this front. They rarely do, but they're actually doing something that we hope will be productive.

00:06:51.940 Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and Morris Rogers coming out with a plan to, to rein in big tech.

00:06:59.380 When I sat down with then attorney general, William Barr back, when was that? About a year ago,

00:07:04.900 I guess. Bill Barr said there are three ways to attack big tech. You go after their section 230

00:07:12.020 protections, their, their legal liability protections in the communications decency act,

00:07:16.140 which is a law from the 1990s. You go and it was, it was created actually because the internet was

00:07:23.060 exploding at that time and it just hasn't really been updated. So you got to update that. You can

00:07:27.460 go after them on antitrust. Obviously we just haven't had companies like this before. We took down

00:07:33.020 standard oil when it, when it became monopolistic, but, but we just haven't had a company that controls

00:07:38.340 speech like this before. Okay. And third fraud. And this is an aspect that a lot of people haven't

00:07:43.600 talked about, though Barr did bring it up. He said, these companies built their critical mass

00:07:49.140 on a fraudulent premise that you could follow the people that you wanted to follow. And you could

00:07:55.300 hear from the people you wanted to hear from that you would be able to exchange information. And then

00:07:59.260 with shadow banning, with, with all of the capricious activities at these companies that went out the

00:08:04.020 window. So those three, those are three good ways to go after them. House Republicans begin by going

00:08:09.380 after section 230. This would limit the liability protections for the moderation of speech that is

00:08:15.600 not, not protected by the first amendment. It would preclude big tech from discriminating against

00:08:20.440 Americans based on their political views, namely from discriminating against conservatives. And it

00:08:25.340 would require reauthorization of section 230 so that Congress can, can update the regs. This is really

00:08:31.260 good stuff and probably should have been baked into the cake from the beginning. So let's hope that goes

00:08:36.780 through. Mandates that any big tech content moderation decisions or censorship must be listed

00:08:42.300 with specificity on a publicly available website. One of the issues with these companies, probably the

00:08:47.320 biggest issue is not even that they have rules. Don't forget, I'm a fan of standards. I'm a, I'm a

00:08:52.140 defender of standards. I'm a defender of cancel culture in principle, not the way it's applied, but

00:08:57.320 in principle, of course, every culture has standards and taboos, but the issue with big tech is no one

00:09:03.300 knows what the rules are. We've been joking about how the New York Times keeps snubbing me from its

00:09:07.360 bestseller list because the New York Times bestseller list is not a bestseller list. It does, it does not

00:09:13.040 reflect the books that are selling best in the country. It's a totally opaque process. Well, who

00:09:18.840 cares about the New York Times list? I do care about the public square. I do care about Facebook and

00:09:25.500 Google and Twitter who are controlling our political discourse in many ways. We need to know what those

00:09:29.440 rules are. This would also, this bill would provide an expedited court process with direct appeal to

00:09:37.240 the Supreme Court that would empower state attorneys general to go in after big tech and rein in, rein in

00:09:44.600 their power. And it would require big tech to implement and maintain a reasonable user-friendly

00:09:48.820 appeals process. These are all good changes. I should hope that the Democrats would get behind this.

00:09:54.120 Very likely they won't because don't forget, it's not, the political battle in this country is not

00:09:59.420 the Republicans versus the Democrats. It's the conservatives versus the squishy Republicans,

00:10:08.820 the Democrats, the bureaucrats, big tech, the media, Hollywood, the universities, the lower education,

00:10:16.760 the everything. So it's extremely lopsided and the elected Democrats are on the same side as big tech

00:10:23.220 here. And frankly, some of the Republicans are too. So it's very dubious, I suppose, that this

00:10:29.400 we'll go through, but this, we should keep up the pressure. I think this issue more than any is

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00:11:47.760 So we got good news in terms of reigning in the power of big tech. We got President Trump's lawsuit.

00:11:54.300 We got good news. We got the House Republicans bill that hopefully goes through. We've got even

00:11:58.820 more good. This is so rare to get good news in politics and especially rare on the big tech side.

00:12:05.340 But the sister website to Pornhub is closing up shop. We've talked for a long time and you hear it

00:12:11.380 in the mailbag every week. Young men, not usually women, some women I guess have, but mostly young

00:12:17.100 men writing into this show who are 18, 19 years old who say porn has, has ruined their lives. Some

00:12:23.620 men even are older than them. They'll say porn has ruined their lives. They got hooked on it when they

00:12:26.640 were nine or 10 years old. They can't break it. It's messed up their view of the world. It's messed

00:12:30.040 up their view of themselves. It's cultivated bad habits. And, and yet we're told by the squishes 0.97

00:12:36.160 you can't, you can't ban porn. You can't regulate porn. No, it's a free speech issue, isn't it?

00:12:43.120 No. The idea that high speed internet porn is a sacred American institution protected by the

00:12:49.980 first amendment would cause James Madison and John Adams and all the rest of them to roll over in 0.78

00:12:53.700 their graves. But in recent years, people have come to think this very silly idea. I think the tide 0.89

00:13:00.720 is turning on that. I think the, the conservatives of, I don't know, say the eighties and nineties

00:13:07.140 who are even probably the nineties and two thousands who believe that porn is some,

00:13:12.400 is American as apple pie or something. I think that view is, is really being marginalized. And I think

00:13:18.200 that serious conservatives of an older generation and especially of the younger Gen Z generation,

00:13:23.620 I think they're beginning to realize, no, this is bad stuff. It's like a drug. There's no protection

00:13:27.400 for obscenity. Just get rid of it. It's just poison in the culture. Well, good news is one of

00:13:32.080 these websites is closing up shop. Xtube, which I guess is, I guess it's owned by the same company

00:13:37.200 as Pornhub or it's a sister site. They are going to close. The, the parent company, by the way, is

00:13:43.300 called MindGeek. And I think part of the reason they're going to have to start to batten down some

00:13:48.380 of their properties is because they're now getting increasing scrutiny over sex trafficking,

00:13:53.720 over video of rape on, on the platforms. So Xtube, it only began in 2008. So I guess it's

00:14:00.720 relatively not that old, but they will be disabling video and photo uploads this week. And then by

00:14:07.800 September 5th, the site will be shuttered. This is good stuff. This is good stuff. It would be a win

00:14:12.900 for the American free speech tradition if all these sites went away. It would. And

00:14:18.440 the, the people who are calling for this among the younger generation, it's not the prudes,

00:14:25.940 it's not the scolds, the Bible thumpers. No, it's people who are aware of, of how evil this kind 0.95

00:14:32.240 of thing is. They're aware. What is the good that comes out of that? What, what about Pornhub or any

00:14:40.240 these other websites really permits society to flourish? Nothing, nothing at all. Get rid of

00:14:46.720 it. We can, we can know things folks. We can know that some things are really, but we can have some

00:14:51.200 settled consensus actually. And one of the, when we can team up with the radical feminists, 1.00

00:14:57.560 the traditionalists, the religious right, the, even the public, some people who are concerned with

00:15:04.380 public health, I guess public health is divided on this. Some people really want you to look at porn 0.78

00:15:08.620 all the time. Like the public health agencies told you during the coronavirus lockdowns,

00:15:11.980 but others realize this actually does, this does bad things to your brain. It does bad things to

00:15:14.980 your body. When we can form a coalition like that and say, get rid of this thing, let's do it. Let's

00:15:20.220 take that opportunity. Speaking of creepy sex stuff though, turning to San Francisco, the San Francisco 0.97

00:15:27.500 gay men's chorus has a message for all you Bible thumping, arch conservative, slippery slope, 1.00

00:15:36.540 hysterical alarmists. They are in fact coming for your kids. 0.99

00:15:42.020 You say we all lead lives. You can't respect,

00:15:46.380 but you're just frightened. You think that we'll corrupt your kids. If our agenda goes unchecked,

00:15:58.380 funny, just this once you're correct.

00:16:01.220 We'll convert your children. Happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly, and you will barely notice it.

00:16:14.020 Just like you worried, they'll change their group of friends. You won't approve of where they go at night

00:16:22.300 to protest. Oh, and you'll be disgusted. So gross. When they start finding things online that you've

00:16:30.460 kept far from their sight. We'll convert your children. Yes, we will. Reaching one and all.

00:16:37.980 There's really no escaping it. Cause even grandma likes RuPaul. And the world's getting kinder.

00:16:45.260 Gen Z's gayer than Grindr. We're coming for them. We're coming for your children. 1.00

00:16:56.940 The gay agenda is coming home. The gay agenda is here. 1.00

00:17:05.780 I think the creepiest thing about this video is how talented these guys are. So it actually kind of 0.82

00:17:13.860 sounds good. You're kind of bopping along to it and you think, wait a second. And you're going, and,

00:17:17.700 and this, this video, I believe has since been taken down because it's elicited a little bit of

00:17:23.580 negative press as one might imagine. But the, the pushback against the pushback is, oh, come on guys.

00:17:32.380 Oh, you religious nuts. They're just joking. They're just, come on. It's just a joke. It's a, 1.00

00:17:37.420 it's like, well, is it? I'm, I'm sure that this is in part tongue in cheek. You're making fun of the,

00:17:44.100 the fears over the gay agenda or whatever. But what about this is a joke? We're going to 0.99

00:17:52.860 subtly redefine the standards of the culture. Done. We're going to expose children to

00:17:59.100 unusual sex stuff, especially through the internet. True. That's, that's obviously happening.

00:18:05.880 We're going to encourage them to go out to various protests for these kinds of radical causes. True.

00:18:12.560 That's, that, that is happening, right? So it's, as often as the case in jokes, there is quite a lot

00:18:22.840 of truth here. And, and then the question becomes a political question. For the real political

00:18:31.820 activist radical wing of the homosexual rights movement, I think there is a widespread belief

00:18:39.780 that you should not be able to view any kind of wild sex act with moral opprobrium, with traditional 0.96

00:18:47.860 moral opprobrium, whether that be of Jewish sexual ethics, Muslim sexual ethics, Protestant sexual 0.96

00:18:55.080 ethics, Catholic sexual ethics, even the old, old timey pagan sexual ethics. That no, there's actually, 0.82

00:19:01.820 there is this new sexual ideology with, that pertains to the kind of behaviors you can engage in,

00:19:07.680 your gender identity, whatever you want to call it. And that is the only one that's acceptable. 1.00

00:19:11.600 And if you don't go along with that, you are on the outskirts of society. You should not be tolerated.

00:19:18.700 This reminds me of, there was a piece in the New York post some months ago about how, from a public

00:19:24.120 school teacher in Brooklyn who said that it is now part of a curriculum in a public preschool in Brooklyn

00:19:30.020 that you can choose your own gender. And no one has the right to tell you what gender you are.

00:19:36.320 That is a very rigid sexual morality that your kids are being indoctrinated into.

00:19:43.380 The most arch traditionalist Catholic school in the world does not have the kind of rigidity

00:19:48.980 and, and make this the kind of radical claims that that public school is in Brooklyn or that the

00:19:58.500 gay men's chorus in San Francisco is doing. A joke, but what's, what is the joke? I think the joke is 1.00

00:20:03.880 probably the truth. By the way, also just as a rule to, to any other choirs out there,

00:20:09.280 to any other people making musical videos, pride month is over. I'm not, that doesn't mean that you

00:20:15.380 can't express your sexual views or desires or whatever, but enough of the damn musicals. Okay. 0.99

00:20:21.340 We've had it. We did one month a year. You can make the musical videos and they go all around and,

00:20:26.960 and it, they often sound sort of pretty. That's it. Okay. No more. No,

00:20:31.360 not, I'll see you again next June 1st. Speaking of the craziness that is being taught to your

00:20:37.160 children, the American Federation of Teachers president, Randy Weingarten, just held a conference,

00:20:45.300 the AFT conference, and she insisted, she insisted that critical race theory is not being taught in

00:20:54.300 schools. Critical race theory is not taught in elementary schools or middle schools or high

00:21:03.260 schools. It's a method of examination taught in law school and in college that helps analyze whether

00:21:13.780 systemic racism exists and in particular, whether it has an effect on law and public policy.

00:21:24.300 But culture warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism, or discrimination, SCRT, to try to make

00:21:37.320 it toxic. They are bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history.

00:21:46.860 So what she just said is not true. Very little of what she said is true. Let me rephrase that.

00:21:56.380 Nothing she said is true and there are multiple lies that she told. She says that CRT is an

00:22:02.820 analytical framework to discover whether or not systemic racism affects society. That's not true.

00:22:08.680 Critical race theory assumes, presumes, that structural racism pervades society. That is the lens

00:22:16.220 through which it views society and then it tries to change society accordingly. It did begin in law

00:22:20.500 school. That's a little kernel of truth there, but it has now spread out throughout not just the high

00:22:25.880 schools and the middle schools and elementary schools, but through the military, through the media,

00:22:29.820 through corporate America. If in your school you are taught that whiteness is a problem that pervades

00:22:37.060 society and that America is structurally unjust because of whiteness, your child is being taught

00:22:43.300 through the lens of critical race theory. That's just a fact and no lying teacher union president or anybody else

00:22:51.920 can change that fact. Do not, they keep going back and forth. They defend critical race theory. They deny that

00:22:58.820 critical race theory exists. They defend critical race theory. They deny that critical race theory exists outside of

00:23:03.820 law schools. They go back and forth. Don't let them do it. If your kid is being taught of the evils of whiteness,

00:23:10.080 your kid is being taught through the lens of critical race theory. You know, Ben is going to be

00:23:16.180 talking about the shocking allegation and apparent evidence that Tucker Carlson was spied upon by the

00:23:26.160 NSA. I was on Tucker's show last night. I'll get into a little bit too, but go check out Ben's show today.

00:23:30.620 Also, fellas, really, really pleased to announce Speechless, number one nonfiction bestseller in the

00:23:40.280 whole country. Last week, I was really, really pleased by that, especially because it was the week 0.99

00:23:47.420 going into the 4th of July weekend. So I really, something really American. Thank you to everybody

00:23:51.980 who has bought the book. We've since then sold an unprecedented number of books. The book is

00:23:58.860 available everywhere books are sold, including Amazon in hardcover and Kindle edition and audiobook edition.

00:24:05.260 So you can go get that. I think you may still be able to order a signed first edition over at

00:24:08.820 Premier Collectibles, though I'm not positive. I really, really appreciate everyone who has read the book,

00:24:12.460 who has left a review. Let me know what you think of it. It's really, really terrific, and I love that

00:24:17.440 the libs who are putting together their own best, quote-unquote, bestseller lists have to, even if they

00:24:24.140 can lie about which books sold the most copies. I really like that. We all know the numbers. We all

00:24:30.640 saw the publisher weekly list, and thank you to everyone who's done that. It means no matter how

00:24:34.060 hard that liberal establishment tries to suppress certain messages, still getting out. Gives me some

00:24:39.920 hope for the country. We'll be right back with a lot more. Evil white supremacy is pervading the

00:24:58.260 country, and it's the white racist supremacist. Is that the big problem? Not so sure. Heat crimes are 1.00

00:25:05.180 way up. In New York City right now, they've risen by a reported 139% in 2021. This is according to New

00:25:12.820 York City Police Department data, and so this means that it's got to be those racist whites, right? It's 0.97

00:25:18.360 got to be those, it's MAGA country, right? Those racist Trump-supporting neo-Nazis attacking black 1.00

00:25:26.580 people and others, right? Well, the cops say that they've investigated 320 reports of possible bias 0.99

00:25:33.720 attacks through June 27th. This is up from 134 incidents during the same period in 2020.

00:25:41.000 Offenses against Asians are up 400%, generally not committed by white people, and now it's at 105

00:25:47.900 reported cases compared to 21 last year. Anti-Jewish assaults are up 69%, reaching 113 incidents this year

00:25:57.620 from 67% in 2020. Again, not typically committed by white supremacists. And then attacks on black

00:26:06.160 people are up. The NYPD is reporting 28 attacks on black people this year, compared to last year's 15, 0.86

00:26:14.140 so a little less than double. However, there are also 11 hate crimes against white people, which is up

00:26:21.620 from four people in 2020. Also up on Muslims, Hispanics, and everyone else. I want to point out

00:26:30.100 here, the increase in the number of hate crimes, just as a percentage of what was going on last year,

00:26:38.800 is significantly higher against white people than against black people. I know that you hear a lot

00:26:43.580 about how white supremacy is the greatest threat to the country, and even Merrick Garland, the Attorney

00:26:48.420 General said, it's the greatest terror threat our nation faces. The data do not bear that out.

00:26:54.640 And that might be a comforting lie for liberals, but it's just not true. The data do not bear that.

00:27:01.280 This is just one example we're looking at. Hate crimes in New York City, it just is not true. I think

00:27:07.920 people are really concerned about this stuff. I think people are really concerned with crime spiking

00:27:15.120 everywhere. I mean, I heard a story of a guy minding his own business on a bus in Chicago,

00:27:20.400 caught a stray bullet in the head and died just because bullets were flying in Chicago,

00:27:24.920 because they can't tamp down the crime there, because we've got to defund and abolish the police,

00:27:29.600 because we've got to let more criminals out of prison, according to the left and according to

00:27:33.500 the squishes on the right. I think people are really concerned with the surge in crime. I think

00:27:38.020 people are really concerned with their little four-year-olds being taught to hate themselves on the

00:27:43.320 basis of their race and on the basis of their sex and actually that they should become another sex.

00:27:48.400 I think parents are really concerned about that across races, across demographic groups.

00:27:53.220 And yet, I think I know people are concerned about censorship by the woke oligarchs,

00:27:58.360 because if you say anything to question, for instance, election integrity measures in the 2020

00:28:03.160 election, if you question the efficacy of the vaccines, if you question the threat of COVID to

00:28:09.700 various groups, you could be kicked off of social media. I know people are concerned about

00:28:13.200 free speech. And yet, and yet, what does the GOP believe we need to focus on? What's going to be

00:28:21.120 the winning message in 2022? Well, according to the House GOP conference chair, Elise Stefanik,

00:28:27.480 more tax cuts. Republicans are going to focus on economic growth and focus on how we are the party

00:28:33.980 of tax cuts and not tax hikes. As you pointed out, President Biden has proposed trillions and trillions

00:28:40.820 of dollars of new taxes, whether it's increasing the rate of the deaths tax through the step up,

00:28:45.740 or whether it's getting rid of our tax sovereignty and farming it out to Europeans, which puts American

00:28:50.880 workers and American companies at a disadvantage. It's particularly troubling, Larry, because we're

00:28:56.100 coming out of a pandemic and we still have over 9 million Americans who are unemployed. We need to

00:29:01.860 focus on job creation, not policies such as higher taxes, which will lead to job losses.

00:29:07.200 And I think the polling is quite interesting. This resonates not just with Republicans,

00:29:11.540 but with Democrats and independents as well. I know in my district at this time, particularly as

00:29:16.440 Americans are facing inflation, the highest rate since 2008, the last thing they want is higher taxes.

00:29:23.600 That, yeah, that'll get them. That's going to rouse people. That's going to, that's going to rouse

00:29:28.940 people. Another tax cut. Wow. I expressed some concerns about Elise Stefanik. She replaced Liz Cheney

00:29:39.100 as the, you know, a third in command among Republican leadership in the House. Not a terribly

00:29:44.180 prominent position, but it's still in leadership, House conference chair. I expressed concerns because

00:29:50.000 she actually had a much more liberal voting record than Liz Cheney did. And I thought Liz Cheney 0.99

00:29:54.060 certainly should be out of position because she just took every opportunity to attack Republicans 1.00

00:29:59.520 and to attack Trump and his supporters. So I knew she had to be out. But I said, wait,

00:30:02.820 why are we replacing Liz Cheney with a woman who's more, more liberal than she is? And I think this 0.97

00:30:07.360 shows the problem. I don't think anybody gives a damn about some slight tax increase. I don't. Look,

00:30:16.740 I, you know, I love low taxes as much as the next guy. I truly do. I hate paying more money in taxes.

00:30:22.680 I want to substantially reduce taxes. A political movement is about more than trimming away taxes.

00:30:31.540 By the way, the tax code is so complex. It like doesn't even matter that much. It doesn't because

00:30:36.360 there's so many loopholes. There are so many questions. No one has any idea what they actually

00:30:42.160 owe to the federal government and taxes. Don Rumsfeld famously sent a letter to the IRS when he,

00:30:47.080 when he turned in his taxes. He said, dear IRS, I just want you to know, I have no idea whether or not

00:30:52.240 my tax returns are correct. I'm a fairly intelligent guy with a college degree, and I've got very

00:30:57.640 powerful, expensive accountants, and none of us have any idea because the tax code is so complex.

00:31:05.100 If the right makes arguments from trimming away at the edges and making the liberal establishment a

00:31:14.580 little more efficient and that, let's spend a little bit less and that, and we'll tax a little

00:31:19.200 bit less. They are not offering voters an alternative to the liberal establishment. They're

00:31:26.040 not. They're just, they're, they're saying that they are going to be more efficient liberals. They're

00:31:30.780 going to be more efficient managers or something. The only issue, as far as I can tell, that we've made

00:31:36.300 any progress on whatsoever on the right in the last 50 years is abortion because we've at least held the

00:31:41.260 line. And you'll notice that is maybe the one, and guns a little bit too, actually.

00:31:46.840 Those are the one or two issues where we're not making efficiency arguments. We're not making

00:31:52.940 utilitarian arguments. We're not making managerial, technocratic, egghead spreadsheet arguments.

00:31:57.800 We're making arguments from justice. This is right. This is wrong. This is the way reality is. This is

00:32:02.820 why we're not going to tolerate the destruction of babies in the womb or the curtailment of our clear

00:32:08.720 Second Amendment constitutional rights. Those are the issues we went on because people want

00:32:13.680 justice arguments. They're, we are not primarily motivated by keeping a few extra pennies in our

00:32:19.480 pocket. Why the GOP can't understand that is beyond, it's not beyond me. It's because the GOP

00:32:27.460 lacks a substantive moral vision. It's because the GOP also lacks courage to stand by its convictions,

00:32:33.480 the few convictions it actually does have. Democrats are talking about a lot more

00:32:38.640 than just raising taxes. Okay. Democrats are, have an actual ambitious substantive vision for the

00:32:44.960 country. That includes, by the way, going door to door, knocking on your door and trying to get you

00:32:50.700 jabbed with the experimental drug that is, what am I allowed to, I don't know what, what am I allowed

00:32:56.640 to say in here anymore? Am I allowed to point out that the vast majority of people in this country do

00:33:02.360 not face a particularly grave statistical risk from COVID? Am I allowed to say that? I hope I am.

00:33:07.760 I don't know. I got, sometimes I get pushback. I'm not allowed to say these things.

00:33:11.620 It's obviously true. The CDC admits it's true. All the data admit it's true.

00:33:16.760 Nevertheless, Joe Biden is going to go door to door. Not personally, Joe Biden can't even walk

00:33:22.040 outside his own door, but Joe Biden's thugs are going to go door to door and try to get you and

00:33:25.520 your kids jabbed with this thing. It's not just Jen Psaki saying this, it's, it's Joe Biden himself.

00:33:31.160 In today's briefing, we discussed how our administration is going to devote the remainder

00:33:36.460 of the summer to a special focus on five ways to make gains in getting those of you who are

00:33:43.560 unvaccinated vaccinated. Because here's the deal. We are continuing to wind down the mass vaccination

00:33:51.200 sites that did so much in the spring to rapidly vaccinate those eager to get their first shot

00:33:57.320 and their second shot for that matter, if they needed a second. Now we need to go to community

00:34:02.160 by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftentimes door to door, literally knocking on

00:34:07.180 doors to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus. The virus that's so dangerous that

00:34:14.360 a lot of people don't want the vaccine, the vaccine, which is so great that you've got to go door to

00:34:18.180 door to get people to take it, right? That's what you got to do. Not a really compelling argument.

00:34:21.840 I think there are, there are plenty of people who are probably on the fence about the vaccine.

00:34:26.080 Well, I don't really need it, but maybe I'll get it. I don't know. I'm kind of, I'm this age. Maybe

00:34:30.040 I'll do it. When they hear that government thugs are going to go door to door, I think that's going

00:34:38.000 to make them less likely to get it. And at least some Democrats, by the way, are beginning to realize,

00:34:44.980 huh, maybe we're going a little bit too far. One of the big hobby horses of the Democrats recently

00:34:50.800 has been voter ID. They make this argument that if you have voter ID laws, if you have to prove that

00:34:57.760 you are who you say you are in order to cast a vote, that this is somehow racist because, you know,

00:35:02.520 black people, they're completely unable to get an ID. They just, how, how could you expect black 1.00

00:35:07.360 people to know how to get an identification card? That's, that's so outrageous. They can't do that. 0.98

00:35:12.000 But they're not capable of that, say the Democrats. So James Clyburn, Democrat congressman,

00:35:19.420 majority whip for the Democrats, he is now trying to shift this because it turns out the majority of

00:35:24.600 Americans support voter ID, including, according to some surveys, the majority of black people,

00:35:28.620 no matter how much propaganda shoved down their throats. So Jim Clyburn comes out and he says,

00:35:33.720 hey, by the way, I always supported voter ID. We are always for voter ID. We are never for

00:35:43.820 disproportionate voter ID. When you tell me that you got to have a photo ID and a photo for a student

00:35:51.920 or activity card is not good, but for a hunting license, it is good. That's where the rub is.

00:35:58.960 I don't know of a single person who is against IDing themselves when they go to vote, but we don't

00:36:07.140 want you to tell me my ID is no good because I don't own a gun and I don't go hunting. 0.97

00:36:13.900 Now, this sounds like a stupid argument, but there is actually a sort of cleverness to it. 0.96

00:36:19.660 He's saying, no, I support ID. I just don't think you need to show a picture. 0.98

00:36:23.440 No, I think what if I, you know, I show up, let's say I've got, I've got this piece of paper and then

00:36:29.380 I draw a little guy with some hair and a little Italian nose and a smile and says, Michael, here

00:36:35.520 you go. Here's my ID. Here's my ID. No, there's no photo on it and it's not standardized in any way.

00:36:41.060 And I have no idea if it's an official document or not, but that's one all. We all support that.

00:36:45.900 We all support IDs that you can very easily fake. We just don't support IDs that are trustworthy.

00:36:52.820 That you can rely upon. And his other argument is, well, you don't, according to some of these

00:36:59.620 states, you'll need to show a more official form of ID to vote than you would to buy a gun.

00:37:07.580 Right. Because voting is a more significant act for our electoral system than buying a gun.

00:37:16.100 Right. Because buying a gun is your constitutional rights, right, laid out right there in the second

00:37:21.560 amendment. Whereas voting has always been, throughout American history, significantly,

00:37:26.300 has always involved significantly more regulations. It's a system that is established by the states.

00:37:31.540 There are lots of rules that go along with it and you should have to prove you are who you say. So

00:37:35.800 James Clyburn is admitting that the principle is fair enough. He's actually granting the premise to

00:37:44.780 the conservatives. Yeah, sure. You should be able to prove who you are. But then in practice,

00:37:49.080 he's totally undercutting. He's saying, but you shouldn't have to actually prove who you are.

00:37:53.000 It's a, it's an interesting argument. I wonder if more Democrats are going to pick up on this thing

00:37:57.700 because it, it, it's the same kind of gaslighting. When, when Republicans point out that Democrats are

00:38:03.620 trying to pack the Supreme Court, Democrats just redefine the term, right? They say, no, because you've,

00:38:08.700 you appointed judges to vacancies. So you're packing the court. So that's not what court packing means.

00:38:13.020 Court packing means adding new seats to a, to a court. Well, no, but what if it means this other thing?

00:38:18.440 Hey, yeah, no, we support voter ID. You're, you're the ones who you want disproportionate voter ID.

00:38:25.320 What, what, you don't support voter ID if you don't actually think you need an official document

00:38:29.160 with a picture to prove who you say you are. It's a curious, by the way, James Clyburn, just to

00:38:34.600 show you how disingenuous this is. He has previously said South Carolina's voter ID laws are reminant,

00:38:40.560 quote, reminiscent of post-reconstruction Jim Crow laws, recently called Georgia's election safeguards,

00:38:45.320 quote, the new Jim Crow. He called voter ID laws in 2020 a form of voter suppression. So it's

00:38:50.460 completely disingenuous. He's just, I think he's looking at the polling and saying, ooh,

00:38:54.940 this isn't going to really play very well in, in Peoria. And speaking of ID, speaking of

00:39:02.420 proving you are who you say you are and people knowing who you are, you know, Tucker Carlson

00:39:08.860 made this claim on his show a week or two ago. He said, the NSA is, is spying on me.

00:39:15.820 They have obtained my emails and they are going to leak them in an attempt to take down this show.

00:39:21.240 And the left made fun of him and said it wasn't true. And the squish Republicans said, no, this isn't

00:39:25.440 true. Spoiler alert. The NSA is not spying on Tucker Carlson. Then the NSA came out and issued a fake

00:39:31.640 denial. And the left and the squishes all said, oh, I see, this is proof that the NSA didn't do that.

00:39:36.180 And I said, remember, I read it on the show. I said, read the words of this quote unquote

00:39:40.160 denial. They didn't deny anything. They didn't. They just very cleverly arranged their words

00:39:45.040 to give the impression that they were denying spying on Tucker, but they never actually did it,

00:39:49.720 which by the way is in itself very good evidence that the NSA was spying on Tucker.

00:39:55.100 Well, Tucker has got the receipts. He's got the actual proof now.

00:39:59.000 Tucker Carlson comes with proof last night to his show that the NSA was in fact spying on him. Take

00:40:09.980 a listen. They don't actually have anything on me, but they do have my email. So I knew they were

00:40:14.880 spying on me. And again, to be totally blunt with you as a defensive move, I thought I better say this

00:40:20.720 out loud because I have no, I have no other way to defend myself. I'm just an American citizen. I don't

00:40:25.400 have, you know, any position of official authority, but I do have a megaphone. So I should say this out

00:40:30.920 loud. And I did. And the NSA didn't deny it. Then yesterday I learned that, and this is going to

00:40:39.100 come out soon, that the NSA leaked the contents of my email to journalists in an effort to discredit

00:40:45.780 me. I know because I got a call from one of them saying, oh, this is what your email was about. So

00:40:49.240 it is not in any way a figment of my imagination. It's confirmed. It's true. They're not allowed to

00:40:56.640 spy on American citizens. They are. I think more ominously, they're using the information they

00:41:02.060 gather to put leverage and to threaten opposition journalists, people who criticize the Biden

00:41:08.720 administration. So he makes this point. Tucker actually first teased this on Maria Bartiromo's

00:41:15.060 show on Fox Business. Coincidentally, I happened to be on Tucker Carlson's show last night. We were

00:41:20.160 talking about big tech. We were talking about the manipulation of speech in America. And this is the

00:41:27.120 flip side to that, which is the NSA goes in. They're spying on all of us, but usually we are masked.

00:41:34.740 At least that's in theory. Usually in theory, they can't tell whose information is whose.

00:41:41.080 Then in the case of Tucker Carlson gets unmasked. And the proof is Axios gets a scoop. Tucker Carlson

00:41:49.340 sought Putin interview at time of spying claim. Tucker Carlson was talking to US-based Kremlin

00:41:57.280 intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host

00:42:02.480 accused the National Security Agency of spying on him. Sources familiar with the conversations tell

00:42:08.520 Axios. Sources. Who are the sources? The source, the Kremlin? I don't think so. I think the source

00:42:16.920 is the same people who were spying on Tucker Carlson. There's no question about it. The squishes and the

00:42:23.600 left won't admit that they were wrong. They don't care because they're shilling for the liberal

00:42:27.160 establishment of which the NSA, no such agency, is a part.

00:42:32.580 The reality of our government is really jarring to some people because we are taught in civic,

00:42:41.100 well, now we don't have civics classes, but when we did have civics classes, you're taught that

00:42:44.920 the government works with the three branches of government, the checks and balances and the

00:42:48.160 separation of powers. And I am a bill up on Capitol Hill and I'm, you know, no, that's not how it really

00:42:54.440 works. The NSA doesn't fit into that scheme, does it? You're not really taught about the NSA. You're not

00:43:01.120 talking about mass surveillance on Americans in the fourth and fifth grade. You're taught about

00:43:05.480 creepy sex and how boys are actually girls, but you're not taught about all the rest of that stuff.

00:43:11.860 This is pretty jarring. And now that I, since I went on Tucker's show last night, does that mean

00:43:16.360 they're spying on me now? I hope not. Don't send me any weird emails, guys. That would be a really,

00:43:21.960 really bad idea. Seems like we need to rein that in, not just the private companies on the big tech

00:43:26.600 side. We have to do that too, but also, also the government. John McAfee, another tech pioneer,

00:43:36.600 just got, got suicided in a jail in Spain. Remember he allegedly killed himself, even though he'd said

00:43:44.260 for weeks, I'm not, and months and months, he said, I'm not going to kill myself. People are trying to

00:43:48.560 kill me. If I turn up suicide and don't believe them, people are trying to murder me. And then he 0.99

00:43:53.580 shows up suicided. So John McAfee's wife says, the story of John's suicide was already prepared

00:43:59.220 and presented to the public before I or his attorneys were even notified of his death.

00:44:05.280 Words cannot describe how enraged I am at the fact that I had to hear the news of John's death via a

00:44:09.100 direct message on Twitter. So she wasn't even told. Now it's being conveniently reported. There was a

00:44:13.880 suicide note found in his pocket, something that was not mentioned when I collected John's belongings

00:44:17.580 from the prison and another piece of information the media somehow got a hold of before myself and

00:44:21.320 John's attorneys. The investigation into John's death is still ongoing, but I will share what

00:44:26.020 information I can, when I can. Until then, I do not accept the suicide story that's been spread by

00:44:30.680 the malignant cancer that is the mainstream media. They and their unnamed sources are not to be

00:44:34.680 trusted. Of course that's true. Of course, of course they're not to be trusted. Just shows you,

00:44:40.540 I mean, the fact that none of us really believes that John McAfee killed himself, the fact that none of

00:44:45.140 us believes that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, that is some crazy stuff when you, when it reveals to you

00:44:50.840 how political power actually works in our country and throughout the West. Speaking of potentially

00:44:57.780 being hunted down by agents of the state, Spike Lee, a filmmaker particularly of the black power 0.97

00:45:05.320 variety, Spike Lee wearing a 1619 hat, just lamented at a recent conference, black people are being hunted

00:45:14.180 down by the police. Since you brought up do the right thing. A couple of weeks ago was the 32nd

00:45:21.780 anniversary of the film. That film came out in 1989. I wrote it in 1988. When you see

00:45:34.660 brother Eric Garner, when you see King George Floyd murdered, lynched, I think of Raider Raheem. And you would think and hope that 30-something

00:45:57.260 some motherfucking years later, the black people stopped being hunted down like the animals. 1.00

00:46:05.660 Black people are not hunted down like animals. None of the data show that whatsoever. It's not, 1.00

00:46:10.100 not even close. The idea that black people are being hunted down by police is an absolute farce. 0.99

00:46:14.480 It just doesn't happen. The idea that George Floyd is a king is also suspect. It's just, 0.77

00:46:19.320 we're just living in this bizarre narrative that is so disconnected from reality. Spike Lee might

00:46:25.900 genuinely believe these things. He's wrong. He's hallucinating. He's imagining these things.

00:46:31.180 But that, that is the power of speech in a republic. You know, BLM, BLM of Utah. Didn't know there was a BLM of

00:46:38.900 Utah. Utah, not the blackest state in America, but okay, there's a BLM of Utah. Just came out and said 0.63

00:46:46.580 that the American flag is a symbol of hatred. You know, you know, I hate to say I told you so,

00:46:54.680 but I said this, this is, this is the power of speech and the power of standards. We now have a

00:46:58.600 new national, it's the black national anthem. We now have a new national independence day. It's

00:47:03.060 called Juneteenth. It's right there in the title of the bill. We now have a new origin story of our

00:47:09.600 country. It's not 1776 or 1620, it's 1619. We now have a new sense of ourselves. It's not a good

00:47:14.480 country. It's an evil country. It's a racist country. We're going to have a new flag. We already do sort of 0.97

00:47:18.620 have a new flag because the star-spangled banner is a symbol of hatred. This is the,

00:47:23.820 this is the power of speech. We've got to get a handle on speech and on our narrative or else

00:47:28.760 we're going to have a completely different country if we don't already. I'm Michael Knowles. This

00:47:32.080 Michael Knowles Show. See you tomorrow.

00:47:39.620 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

00:47:44.100 word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on

00:47:49.280 Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out

00:47:54.860 the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show,

00:47:58.840 and The Matt Walsh Show. The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies. Executive producer,

00:48:04.420 Jeremy Boring. Our technical director is Austin Stevens. Supervising producers,

00:48:09.180 Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling. Production manager, Pavel Vidovsky. Editor and associate

00:48:14.520 producer, Danny D'Amico. Audio mixer, Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup by Nika Geneva. And production

00:48:21.400 coordinator, McKenna Waters. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2021.

00:48:27.640 Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, new allegations emerged that Tucker Carlson was caught up in a

00:48:32.920 surveillance sweep and his emails leaked by the deep state. That's today on The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:48:36.780 Give it a listen.

The Michael Knowles Show - July 08, 2021

Ep. 801 - Donald Trump v. Hipster Rasputin

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