Ep. 806 - Save Us, Florida Man!
Episode Stats
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183.54662
Summary
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is selling merch on his campaign website that says, "Don't Faux My Florida." Which is very effective merchandise because all sensible people think that Dr. Joe Fauci is a big jerk who should be exiled to St. Helena.
Transcript
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is now selling merch on his campaign website that says,
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Don't Fauci My Florida, which is very effective merchandise because all sensible people think that
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Dr. Fauci is a big jerk who should be exiled to St. Helena. But it also reveals that Governor
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DeSantis is seeing where the real divide is in America. The real divide in America right now
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is not geographic. It's don't California my Texas or whatever. It's not really that. People leaving
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California to go to Texas generally are extremely conservative. It's not partisan. By the way,
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if you look at the federal government, very often it's Republicans and Democrats pushing the same
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stuff that the majority of Americans really do not support and which actually harms the interests of
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a lot of Americans. The real divide right now in the United States is between the people and the
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technocratic ruling elite, which is symbolized and led by Dr. Fauci, who is the most powerful
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politician in America. That ruling elite right now is, as we're seeing with increasing news reports,
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poisoning people with drugs, censoring people from getting their views out there, and in some cases,
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even prosecuting Americans by a double standard that would make the Founding Fathers roll in their
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raves. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.
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Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday from Christoph Rodriguez, who says,
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Democrats flying to DC, I guess referring to the Texas Democrats flying to DC, is actually the sequel
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to Snakes on a Plane. That's true. And I have had it with these. I won't say it's a family show. I won't,
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I won't say the entire line. It's a family show. And sometimes, you know, when you're with the
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family, you're kicking back in the summer. It's very nice to have a nice glass of wine. It's why
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I would strongly recommend First Leaf. First Leaf is a wine club that curates and ships you wine based
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on your preferences. So I was very skeptical. I've been a member of other wine clubs and the wine's no
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good in a lot of other wine clubs. And it's very, we, a lot of us have had that experience and I'll just
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be blunt about it. So I was very skeptical of First Leaf. You go on, you, you click on your preferences.
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Oh, I like this kind of wine. I prefer this or a little taste like this or whatever.
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And you get the first box for an incredibly low price. Then you try it. You say, well,
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I was actually really shocked. The wine was excellent. And then some of them though, I said,
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oh, I didn't, I didn't want this kind of wine. I said, I don't like this kind of wine. But First
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Leaf wants to test your palate a little bit. So they'll, maybe they'll give you one that they say,
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maybe you just tried this. And then I forget which one, I think it might've been a Sancer or something
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like that. I really liked it. And so then you go on, you rate the wine. And as you continue to rate it
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more, the wine becomes more and more tailored to your tastes. Whether you're hanging out by the
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water, whether you're grilling with friends, whether you're taking it easy with the family,
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First Leaf is the perfect summer staple. Right now you can get six bottles of wine to try for $29.95
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plus free shipping. It's an insane deal. Just go to tryfirstleaf.com slash Knowles. Six bottles
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I actually saw Ron DeSantis last night. I was at an event here in the great state of Florida
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and I saw Governor DeSantis and he's very impressive. You know, he's obviously running
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for president. He's going to need to be vetted. There's going to be a primary campaign. He's
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going to have to get through a governor's race first for reelection. But he's a very impressive
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guy. And all I know is regardless of the governor himself, whoever becomes the Republican nominee
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in 2024 needs to channel what Ron DeSantis is channeling right now. Period. That is the zeitgeist.
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That is the spirit of what is going on right now. Dr. Fauci is the symbol and the actual politician
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that is representing so much that has gone rotten in our country. And by the way, Dr. Fauci is
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insistent after all the power grabs he's had, after all the demands he's made of you, wear the mask,
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take the vex, lock yourself up, don't have Christmas, don't have Thanksgiving, don't shut
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up sheep, all the demands he's made. He now wants your three-year-old child to wear those filthy cloth
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masks. Now we're a year and a half past 15 days to slow the spread. He wants your little kid to wear
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those masks. He said there is no doubt that that's the right thing to do. The children who are not
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able to get vaccinated because of their age should follow, their parents should follow with them,
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the guidelines of the CDC. That unvaccinated children of a certain age greater than two years
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old should be wearing masks. No doubt about that. That's the way to protect them from getting infected
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because if they do, they can then spread the infection to someone else. So the CDC guidelines
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for unvaccinated people, including children, are not changed at all. You see the three-year-olds
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who even Dr. Fauci, I think is tacitly admitting here, face an infinitesimally small risk of any
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serious complication from COVID. The three-year-olds you see, if they don't wear the masks, which Dr.
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Fauci told us at the very beginning of the pandemic are not effective at preventing the
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spread of a virus, then he contradicted himself later on. And there have been studies that have
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raised a lot of questions about this, which we've read on this show, even though big tech doesn't
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want us to. What Dr. Fauci is saying is even if the three-year-olds don't face a great risk from
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COVID, they can spread it if they don't wear the mask. Now you might be saying, Michael,
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all the other people are vaccinated. So if you're in a demographic that is at very high risk of COVID,
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presumably you are vaccinated at this point. The vaccines have been out for a very long time.
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If you're not vaccinated, there's a very specific reason why. It's very intentional
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why you would not be. So if the vaccines work, then the three-year-old doesn't need to wear the
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mask. But the vaccines, I guess, don't work at preventing the spread. So therefore the three-year-olds
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need to wear the mask. But no, the vaccines do work, which is why you have to get it, which is why
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anyone 12 and up needs to get it. And hopefully children younger than that, according to the public health
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administration, it's whim, it's caprice, it's changing every day. Much like political correctness,
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actually, the public health regime, which is just sort of the most noticeable aspect of the broader
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progressive technocratic regime, is less about the rules themselves, whatever the rules are changing
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all the time. It's less about that. And it's more about the imposition of the rules, the very fact
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that the Dr. Fauci's of our technocratic elite can just get you to do whatever they want you to do.
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And they can say, don't go to church, but you can go to a casino and you can go to a liquor store,
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but you can't go to Thanksgiving. And they can just, they can just make it up and you have to follow
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it. That's a big divide. And I think people across the political aisle, across the partisan lines,
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are sick of that sort of thing. And on the point of this vaccine, by the way, a lot of people don't
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want to get it. A lot of people don't want to get it. And I think they have perfectly good reason not
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to. And the White House, despite bragging about how everyone's getting it, and that's where I almost
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at 70%, 80%, 90%, they clearly are not hitting those numbers because the White House and the ruling
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class are enlisting pop culture figures to try to get young people to get vaccinated, including
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Olivia Rodrigo, someone I had never heard of until yesterday, who showed up to the White House press
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briefing to get your kids vaccinated. I have a special guest with me today. Joining us in the
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briefing room is actress and multi-platinum recording singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, who
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traversed red lights and stop tines to see us. If you know her music, you'll get that dad jokes there.
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And we just want to thank you for using your platform and your voice for elevating the important
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issue of young people getting vaccinated. She's here today to meet with the president and Dr. Fauci
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later this afternoon, but she agreed to come say a quick hello to all of you first. With that,
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Hi. First, I want to say I am beyond honored and humbled to be here today to help spread the message
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about the importance of youth vaccination. I'm in awe of the work President Biden and Dr. Fauci have
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done and was happy to help lend my support to this important initiative.
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All right. Olivia Rodrigo says it's important for kids to get the vaccine. I guess, I guess it's true
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because you see, we've got to follow the science. We've got to listen to the experts. And that means
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that when a parent musician that I've never heard of tells you to do it, then you do it, right?
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That's how she's the expert. They are the experts, the ruling elite, not just the scientists, but
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the people in big business, the people in higher education, the people in media, the people,
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they're all the experts, right? CNN, it's the expert. Pop singers, they're the experts too.
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This sort of thing used to work a lot better. I get why Biden is doing this because Biden is 100 years
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old and he was coming up in politics during a time when there was more of a common culture.
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So if you could get the big movie star to come out and support your political cause,
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that was a really big deal. If you could get the big pop singer to come out, that was a really big
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deal. What has changed though is that the culture has fractured. Part of this was cultural because
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of the cultural revolutionaries of the 60s broke up our common culture. So part of this is the
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chickens coming home to roost for the left. Part of this is technological. There are no longer just
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three TV networks. It's a zillion TV networks and none of which anybody watches. A lot of internet
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channels, a lot of podcasts. So that's broken up to, because of that practical aspect, I suspect this
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is not going to have a great effect. I mean, we talk about how difficult the political situation is
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right now on this show. But a glimmer of hope here is that the left is dealing with this double-edged
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sword. They upended the common culture during the 1960s and 70s and they broke the political
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consensus and they made everything political. So now who washes the dishes is political. Your running
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shoes are political. Your chicken sandwiches are political. And everything is kind of divisive and
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everything makes a political statement okay. But the flip side of that is that now that they're
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trying to settle that culture back down along their own standards, people are still pretty
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divided up. There's still a lot of niche audiences out there. And I just don't think people are buying,
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I don't think Olivia Rodrigo is going to convince people to take an experimental drug just because of
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the strength of her records or whatever she sells. When you want to be safe, I would strongly recommend
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you check out Ring. I love my little son, my cute little six-month-old bundle of joy. I love him.
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I don't want anything bad to happen to him okay. And it's why I'm really glad that my wife and my son
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can know who is outside of the door before they open that door with Ring. It doesn't matter if you're
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in your house, if you're at the office, if you're in another state or another continent, you can see
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and speak to whoever is at your door with Ring. And it's not just at the doorstep by the way. It's also
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every other inch of your house which you can monitor with Ring. You can control it all from your phone.
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You can install it yourself in minutes. Even I can, and I'm not exactly the handiest guy in the
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world. Very, very cool technology. Makes a great housewarming present and allows you to know,
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is the delivery man at the door? I'll open it. Is the pizza guy at the door? I'll open it. Is my
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mother-in-law at the door? Don't breathe. Don't say it. No, I'm joking. I'm joking, am I? Start
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security kit today. You can build the system that's right for your home. Have it up and running in
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minutes. Go to ring.com slash Knowles, ring.com slash Knowles. When the liberal establishment
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is not trying to jab your kids with experimental drugs, the establishment is trying to mutilate
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them. And when I say the establishment on this show, because I'm not just talking about the
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government. Okay. And I, by the way, I don't want to sound like I'm a conspiracy theorist or something
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like it's a shadowy cabal of people, you know, operating in the shadows. That's not what's going on.
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They're operating out in the open and they're obviously colluding with one another. When there
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is a negative news story that affects the democratic candidate for president, it's not
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just the government that's going to shut that down. It's Twitter and Facebook and Google working
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on behalf of the liberal establishment. And there are formal relationships and informal relationships
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between the administrative state and these big tech companies. But it also involves the media and it
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also involves big corporations who will change their corporate policies to better record with the
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liberal. And the institutions of higher education and lower education, which are indoctrinating your
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kids into the ideology of the regime. They're all sort of working together. And so one ideology that
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they're pushing right now is transgenderism. And they're doing this not because a zillion people
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in this country are men who believe that they're women or vice versa. It's not because the psychological
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problem affects that many people, though there is a social contagion aspect. So it is spreading
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actually. But they're doing it because if they can redefine nature, if they can redefine sex
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itself, that is the culmination of their decades, actually centuries long political plan of liberation,
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the political plan of emancipation, the political plan of redefining nature. I mean, this was what Marx
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set out and his ideological heirs set out explicitly to do. And it's what so many revolutionaries in the
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modern era have set out to do. They've set out, as Whitaker Chambers, the ex-communist says,
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to pursue what the serpent told Eve in the Garden of Eden. They set out to pursue the plan of ye shall
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be as gods. And so that's why the pronouns are such a big political fight. That's why transing the kids
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is such a big political fight. So two Amazon employees just quit, at least two, maybe more,
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because Amazon is continuing to sell my friend Abigail Schreier's book, Irreversible Damage,
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about people who come to regret transing their kids and the kids who come to regret having their
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bodies mutilated by irresponsible parents and by pervert public health officials.
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Now, this is good. Abigail Schreier actually responded to Amazon and said, you're welcome,
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Amazon HR department. I've just relieved you of some terrible employees, which is true. But
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I make this point because we've been having some discussions over the past few days,
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just with various friends of mine and colleagues, trying to work through this issue of transgenderism.
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And some people have said, look, we don't want to throw bombs. We don't want to just be
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needlessly provocative. And so we shouldn't needlessly call Bruce Jenner Bruce. Bruce,
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that's his dead name. Now he's Caitlin. And my response to that would be, well, Caitlin is a
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woman's name and he's not a woman. So he's not Caitlin. Well, and maybe we shouldn't call him he.
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Maybe we shouldn't call him she, because he's obviously not a woman, but we should avoid
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pronouns altogether. We shouldn't just be throwing bombs. Now, I think, first of all,
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compassion involves telling people the truth. I don't think lying to people is particularly
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compassionate or kind. I think the truth will set you free. And I think lies are actually very
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disrespectful. I think that comforting people sometimes involves a little tough love. I'm
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reminded of the bio tapestry. It's the depiction of the battle of Hastings. There's a guy with a big
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club and he's beating people with it. And it says here, Bishop Odo holding a club comforts the boys.
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We don't think about comforting in that way, but he was comforting them. He was saying, get back in the
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fight, you guys. He's smacking him with a club. Sometimes you need a little tough love, even if
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that means explaining reality in a way that might offend people who are living in a delusion. But
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even beyond the redefinition of sex and the pronouns and everything, consider this.
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No one is suggesting that we call Bruce Jenner a pervert. No one is suggesting that we call Bruce
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Jenner a degenerate or a language that would really be quite offensive. We're suggesting that we call Bruce
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Jenner, who is a man, by the male pronoun. And that is now considered provocative. That is now
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considered bomb throwing. That is now considered red meat to the base. Red meat to the base has been
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redefined, has been so hollowed out that it now involves calling a man a man. That's the red meat.
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And no polite person would ever do that. And we should be compassionate.
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That's, I think that is evidence in itself of this hugely successful process of redefining all of
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reality. And speaking of transitioning, we can't just talk about sex. We've got to talk about race.
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And Hilaria Baldwin, Hilaria Baldwin is Alec Baldwin's wife. I guess she's something of a social media star
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herself. His wife got caught pretending to be Spanish. For years and years and years,
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Hilaria Baldwin pretended to be Spanish. She's not really Hilaria. She's Hillary. She didn't,
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she didn't grow up with, you know, exclusively speaking Spanish or anything like that. She grew
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up in America and she speaks English. She got caught because people noticed that her accent would
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change depending on what interview she was giving. So she was on an NBC show and she, she somehow
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couldn't remember the English word for a cucumber. We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes.
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We have, um, what do you say? Cucumber. Cucumbers. We have, um, red pepper.
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Okay. We have, um, what is, uh, how you say, how you say in English, uh, oh, a cucumber. Right.
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So, okay. Wow. This woman, she doesn't speak English very well, but she's trying. That's good. But then,
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then you hear another interview of her and her English is, is perfectly fine.
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It's not easy. And I think part of it is that I'm in shape before I have a baby and then I stay
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active when I'm pregnant and I, you know, I'm not trying to stay thin. I'm just trying to keep
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my circulation going and stretching and keep my muscles going up. And then when I have the baby,
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I've been so lucky to have pretty good labor and delivery. So then I can kind of hit the road
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right afterwards. So Hilaria Baldwin is like that person who studies abroad for a semester in college
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in, in England, for instance, and then comes back and says like, well, I write it governor.
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No, you're going to the pub later tonight for a pint. Yeah. I, I want some more. You want some
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more, you know? And I actually, I know a person who did this and it was, it's very strange. I mean,
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it is clearly something has gone a little, a little awry in their psychology. There, there was a gal
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that I knew who she went to London for like a month or less and she came back and had the most
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preposterous fake British accent I've, I've ever, ever heard. And actually a friend of mine who's from
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the UK asked, he said, Oh, where, where did you live in the UK? He doesn't have an accent by the
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way. And she said, Oh, you know, in London. Yeah. We're in London. Well, you know, like on the,
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next to the tube or whatever, you know, next to the pub. So it's, it's, this is very sad and
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embarrassing. And so Hilaria Baldwin, you know, took her licks and kind of, you know, just tried to
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disappear for a little bit. So now she's back and she's saying that actually she is trans cultural
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and this is perfectly good. She's culturally fluid. She says, when you are multi, whatever
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multi, everyone's multi now, we all contain multitudes. It can feel hard to belong. You're
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constantly going back and forth, trying to be more of this or more that you feel you have to explain
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why you are the way you are trying to fit into a world of labels where there might not be one that
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perfectly defines you. You will never quite fit in because of the other parts of you shape and
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influence all your parts. We need to normalize the fact that we're all unique. Our culture,
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our languages, sexual orientations, religions, political beliefs are allowed to be fluid.
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No two of us are completely alike. Got to be fluid. We're all fluid these days. Nothing's fixed.
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Nothing's set. You see this reflected in language, by the way, people no longer state plain facts.
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They no longer say this is true. They'll say, I think this is true. Then it became, I believe this
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is true. Then it became, I feel like this is true because I feel like is unfalsifiable. You can't
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have an argument with someone who feels like because they're not making a truth claim. They're
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just talking about their feels, man. I know this seems subtle. Some people might say I'm reading
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too much into it, but I don't think I am. Michael, you're just talking about semantics. Well,
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semantics means meaning. This is the premise of my book, Speechless. I think this is the most
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important tool that has reshaped our culture. These things really do matter. No one wants to be pinned
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down on anything. Everyone's a pan, bi, trans, fluid, whatever. You know, nobody is the plain
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old thing that they say that they are. Which brings me to a tweet yesterday from The Economist.
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I don't watch soccer. I don't like soccer very much, as I've mentioned on this show. So I didn't
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follow the, I guess it was the World Cup or some big soccer game and Italy won. And The Economist
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tweets out, quote, the most striking aspect of Italy's 26-man squad before it took to the pitch was
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that alone among the main contenders, it did not include a single player considered as being of
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color. Even that phrasing is strange. Considered as being of color. What they're saying is there's no
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black people on the team. And that's very bad. That must be racist or something. But then I thought,
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hold on a second. Italy, Italy is not, you know, a propositional nation founded on an idea with where
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everyone just comes in from all of it. Italy is the country of the Italians. So The Economist
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says, the most striking aspect of Italy's soccer team is that they were Italians. But you never,
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you never see the reverse. The most striking aspect of Nigeria's soccer team is that it did
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not include even one single Norwegian. What that would, that's not striking. That would be expected
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because it's the Nigerian soccer team. So they don't, but it's striking, it's striking that the
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Italian soccer team contains Italians. Because we're all supposed to be trans and fluid, man.
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No one's supposed to have a nation at all. Even Italy, it's like one of the oldest nations.
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You know, it's a nation that has been conquered and has been a little fluid on its borders over
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time. But the idea that Italy would comprise Italians, this is too shocking to people who
00:22:17.540
don't, no one wants to be pinned down in this culture.
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Things are not going very well in the West right now, as Candace will tell you today on her show.
00:22:57.800
Go check out Candace. You can subscribe right now to dailywire, dailywire.com. Use code
00:23:04.300
Candace. You'll get 25% off your new membership. Candace is going to be talking about Cuba and
00:23:10.060
communism and all sorts of terrible things. Also, you can pre-order Ben's new book. This is a great
00:23:15.760
book to pre-order after you order my book, Speechless. It's great. It's really, it's a great
00:23:20.000
one-two punch. You order Speechless, you pre-order Ben's book. I really like the title of Ben's book
00:23:25.300
because it will be my campaign slogan. The Authoritarian Moment. So go check that out and
00:23:29.880
prepare for Knowles 2028, The Authoritarian Moment. We'll be right back with a lot more.
00:23:33.400
Things are not going great for the West right now. This is true in our political system crumbling,
00:23:53.680
the lockdowns everywhere, faith in our institutions falling apart, divisiveness across all sorts of
00:23:59.740
lines, through the roof, but especially you can see it in the population. We are not having babies
00:24:09.160
and that's a weird thing. It's weird when populations decide to die. And so the United
00:24:15.640
States has been below replacement level birth rate for a very long time now and it keeps dropping
00:24:20.160
steadily, which is part of the reason, by the way, that the country floods itself with illegal aliens
00:24:26.060
and legal immigrants for that matter too, is just to kind of keep the country afloat while
00:24:30.560
the native population across races is not replacing itself. That's bad. And then the flip side of that
00:24:37.480
is people are killing themselves. They're killing themselves by committing suicide and they're
00:24:40.800
killing themselves with drugs, especially with drugs. In 2020, drug overdose deaths hit the highest
00:24:48.240
number ever recorded according to the CDC. Ever. There is a good, I know, I know people who,
00:24:55.020
friends of mine, died of drug overdose deaths last year. I suspect many of you out there could say
00:25:01.840
the same thing. I think a lot of people know people who have dealt with drug problems, especially
00:25:07.460
during 2020 when everyone was locked indoors. The number rose by 30% year over year. The drug deaths
00:25:15.140
skyrocketed to 93,000 deaths in 2020. That's an increase from 72,000 in just 2019 and it was already bad.
00:25:25.020
In 2019. You could say right now the biggest problem in America is the drug overdose death.
00:25:32.300
And I don't think it's coincidental that it happened in 2020. I don't think it's coincidental
00:25:36.820
that when you locked people inside for a year and you told them that they can't see their families and
00:25:41.200
they can't go to Christmas and they can't go to their, be with their loved ones while they're dying
00:25:45.340
and they can't have their weddings and they can't have their college graduation, they can't do
00:25:48.880
anything that you would see more deaths of despair. You are seeing here the culmination of two really
00:26:00.260
bad arguments that our ruling elite have been pushing for a long time. The first one is fairly
00:26:08.080
narrow and it was an argument made during the early days of the lockdown, which is, and Andrew Cuomo made
00:26:13.180
it actually, which is funny because he was the worst, worst governor in America on COVID, COVID as we
00:26:17.620
call him. Andrew Cuomo said, if we can save just one life, it'll all be worth it to shut down the
00:26:23.280
entire state of New York. It'll all be, if we save just one life. Okay. Maybe he saved one. I don't
00:26:27.580
think he did. I think actually his policies are directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of
00:26:33.180
senior citizens, which he knew about and covered up from the federal government. That's actually what I
00:26:37.040
think happened. But even if hypothetically, you could say, okay, well, one, one life was saved from
00:26:42.240
COVID because of the lockdown policies. Even if that were true, which it is not, how many lives were
00:26:48.460
ended because of those lockdown policies leading to deaths of despair, like suicide and especially like
00:26:54.920
drug overdoses? How many? It looks like 93,000 people killed themselves. That increase, that, that, uh,
00:27:00.620
20, 21,000 death increase. Hard to explain that apart from what was going on in the entire society
00:27:09.080
last year with the lockdowns. You can only, if you can only save one person and kill 21,000 people, it will
00:27:15.520
have been worth it. Really? I don't think so. I mean, I think that even that calculation is pretty crass,
00:27:20.740
isn't it? These, these calculations of just utilitarianism, it's really ugly stuff. So I think the, if we can save
00:27:28.020
one life argument just was preposterous because there's more to society, there's more to human
00:27:32.960
life than just staying alive from a virus. I mean, the, this is actually a problem that Trump had too.
00:27:38.740
At Trump's COVID press conferences, the only people he had behind him for the most part were public
00:27:44.400
health officials. But America is about more than public health. Our government, our society is about
00:27:50.600
more than public health. He should have had the public health, not Fauci. You should have, that guy
00:27:54.180
should have been exiled to an Island somewhere, but some public health guy, okay. And you should
00:27:59.460
have had an economic advisor and you should have had a military advisor and you should have had
00:28:04.500
all sorts of advisors behind him to say, okay, well, here's the effect on COVID infection rates.
00:28:11.980
And here's the effect on our national security. And here's the effect on our economy. And here's the
00:28:16.240
effect on people's livelihoods. And here's the effect on this, that, and the other thing. And then I
00:28:21.340
think we would have had a very different decision. The other argument here that is, that is really
00:28:27.120
too bad on the drug, drug overdose deaths is an argument that the left has made for a long time
00:28:31.740
that the right has bought into. And it's one that we've talked about on the show a lot, so we don't
00:28:34.820
need to go too much into it, but is the, it is the confusion of liberty and licentiousness. The idea
00:28:40.620
that freedom means that I should be able to do drugs whenever I want. You hear a lot of people on the
00:28:45.100
right calling for the legalization of drugs, all sorts of drugs. You're seeing this, this push go on now
00:28:49.480
in state after state after state. And it's just a bad idea. And it's based on a preposterous logic
00:28:55.020
that if you, if you legalize all the drugs, fewer people will do them. You can't legislate morality
00:29:03.120
anyway. And you know, you can't, you can't control people's behavior with, or shape people's behavior
00:29:09.400
with the laws and politics is downstream of culture, whatever. You necessarily legislate morality.
00:29:16.620
That's what all legislation does. If legislation doesn't shape behavior, then it doesn't do anything
00:29:21.440
at all. The entire, the exclusive function of legislation is to shape behavior, to encourage
00:29:27.120
certain behaviors and discourage other behaviors. And when you create incentives for some behaviors
00:29:32.920
and you punish other behaviors, do you know what happens? You get more of the former and less of
00:29:38.580
the latter. That's, that's just the way it works. You know, actually, uh, because the law,
00:29:44.440
it has all these in inverse relationships with behavior. We need to legalize murder because then
00:29:48.540
we'll have less murder. Will we? I don't think we will. I don't think we, call me crazy. I guess
00:29:52.040
I'm not an economic expert. I don't, I'm not, but I'm pretty sure that when you reward some behavior
00:29:57.020
and you punish other behavior, you get more of the former and less of the latter. And there is no
00:30:01.780
natural right to do drugs. It is not good. It is not, it does not lead to freedom. It leads to slavery
00:30:06.700
and the right needs to shake itself out of that very silly idea. Otherwise we're all, we're going
00:30:12.760
to become a nation of Cuomo's who spout a bunch of preposterous platitudes and end up governing
00:30:19.820
ourselves in the worst possible way. And actually on the Cuomo aspect on COVID here, not only does
00:30:27.120
Cuomo had the scan, he had the sex scandal, which I always felt was just a Democrat distraction so that
00:30:31.520
people wouldn't talk about his actual scandal, which is about lying about the number of COVID deaths.
00:30:35.640
Uh, so he was lying about the number of COVID deaths in the nursing homes, but then turns out
00:30:40.400
he, he also very likely was undercounting COVID deaths more broadly. So the irony of this is so,
00:30:48.020
so sweet, especially because I saw a governor DeSantis last night. Chris Cuomo last year tweeted out,
00:30:54.840
can we trust the data from Florida's governor? This is Fredo Cuomo, the one who's on CNN. He said,
00:31:00.800
can we trust the data? Yeah, the data show that DeSantis is doing a better job in Florida than
00:31:06.840
Cuomo's doing in New York, even though the media are saying DeSantis is doing the worst job on COVID
00:31:12.660
and Cuomo's doing the best job on COVID and he's going to win Emmy awards for it, which makes sense
00:31:16.800
because it was a fiction that was going on in New York. But he says, can we trust the data from
00:31:21.880
Florida's governor? And it turns out we can. We can trust the data from Florida's governor. He counted
00:31:27.240
the deaths and he just is doing a good job on his policies, but it turns out we can't trust the
00:31:32.120
data from Chris Cuomo's brother, Andrew. It turns out that Andrew Cuomo in New York was doing the exact
00:31:38.100
same thing that the left was accusing the Republican governors of doing. Once more, an example of the
00:31:45.380
projection of the left, they do this all the time. They accuse you of doing what they are brazenly doing
00:31:50.160
themselves. Cuomo's COVID death count includes only laboratory confirmed COVID-19 deaths at hospitals,
00:31:59.060
nursing homes, and adult care facilities. Now, other states have taken the approach that's more
00:32:04.900
in line with the CDC. And these states, some are Republican like Florida, some are Democrat like
00:32:10.440
California, some have unconstitutional election practices like Pennsylvania, some are left-wing like
00:32:15.980
New Jersey. All of these different states have followed the approach that's in line with what
00:32:20.380
the CDC says to do, which includes in fatality counts, all cases where COVID-19 is an associated
00:32:26.560
or contributing factor. This has been such a broad count that in some cases it's led to this ridiculous
00:32:31.320
over-counting of COVID deaths, where if you have COVID and you don't even know you have COVID,
00:32:35.380
then you get shot in the head, you get counted as a COVID death because you tested positive at your
00:32:39.520
autopsy or when you're brought to the hospital. So all of these states are doing that,
00:32:44.380
but Cuomo, because he did such a bad job in New York, is undercounting it. Speaking of bad governors,
00:32:51.320
Governor Nussolini, the leader of my former state of California, is being recalled. And the campaign
00:32:58.100
has been pretty rough because the only major nominal Republican who's running against Newsom is
00:33:07.020
Bruce Jenner as Caitlyn, who says that he has no loyalty to the Republican Party and the only thing
00:33:14.940
he really cares about is LGBT issues with an emphasis on transgenderism. So you think, well, hold on,
00:33:19.780
the Republican candidate is somehow worse than the sitting Democrat. He was a terrible governor,
00:33:26.800
but he's somehow worse because at least with Newsom, you know what you're getting. With Bruce Jenner,
00:33:33.720
he's saying he's a Republican, but then he's saying he's not a Republican. He's saying all he cares
00:33:37.000
about is transgenderism, which is very much the opposite of the sort of policy Republicans want
00:33:41.220
to pursue. Well, now there's some hope because a friend of mine has announced he's running for
00:33:45.500
governor, the sage from South Central, Larry Elder, who just last week announced his run.
00:33:52.120
We have rising crime, ridiculous laws that allow a person to steal up to $950 a day without being a
00:34:00.280
felon without fearing going to jail. We have an attack on the police, calling the police to pull
00:34:06.420
back. We have incredible homelessness here in California. It is estimated that maybe one quarter
00:34:11.740
of all the homeless population in America is here in California. And why not? We're not dealing with
00:34:17.740
the underlying problem. We're throwing money after money after money, building homes and attracting
00:34:22.660
other people who get free homes without dealing with the underlying problems. And maybe just maybe I
00:34:27.600
can do something about that. So I am hereby announcing that I am running for governor of
00:34:33.180
California in this recall election to be held on September 14. If you want to help, please go to my
00:34:38.420
website, electelder.com. That's electelder.com. I cannot do it without a great deal of money because
00:34:46.000
my opponent, Gavin Newsom, has no spending limits. I do. He doesn't. So this is really great news,
00:34:54.000
I think, for Republicans in California. Because there are other candidates in California who are
00:35:00.800
running who I think could be perfectly decent governors. I'm thinking of Kevin Falconer down
00:35:05.780
in San Diego. Seems like a fairly conservative guy. I think he's running for governor. But the
00:35:12.500
problem is he doesn't have very high name identification. He's not doing great in terms of
00:35:16.380
fundraising. So it doesn't matter. He could be the second coming of Coolidge or Churchill or Reagan or
00:35:22.260
Washington all combined. And nevertheless, it would be a very uphill battle, especially because
00:35:26.800
no other Democrats are running in the race. So Newsom doesn't really face any challenges in that
00:35:32.960
regard. But he doesn't have that name idea. And I think Larry Elder does. I mean, Larry's been on
00:35:38.000
the radio for a long time. He goes on TV quite a lot. I agree with him on a great many things. He's
00:35:45.340
probably a little more libertarian than my views. You know, he's not quite to the right of Attila the
00:35:49.840
Hun. But he's good. He's a good guy. He would be a good governor. And I am glad that now there is
00:35:55.360
an alternative to Bruce Jenner. I think the embrace of Bruce Jenner is just the death of the
00:36:02.800
Republican Party in California. It's just pathetic if we can't. The GOP, I get it, in California or New
00:36:08.980
York, also my home state, New York. I know that they've had to make compromises to be in any way
00:36:14.340
electorally viable, even in some local races. And I understand that's a political reality that
00:36:19.300
Republicans have to deal with there. If we as Republicans cannot even stand up for the
00:36:26.860
difference between men and women, if we cannot stand up and conserve the ladies' room for men
00:36:34.660
entering into it, we're not conserving anything. And as far as I can tell, the only thing we would get
00:36:42.280
out of a Bruce Jenner governorship is a misguided sense of owning the libs by adopting their most
00:36:49.940
sacred metaphysical premises, which doesn't seem like totally owning the libs to me. All you'll
00:36:55.480
hear, you're actually hearing this now from some prominent Republicans. They're saying, you know,
00:36:58.840
Democrats are the real transphobes. What? What does that even, I don't even, I don't even think that
00:37:02.820
word means anything. Why? And now we're adopting that kind of language. I'm really glad, great to see
00:37:07.080
that Larry Elder is running for governor. Wish him the best of luck in his campaign. I hope that he
00:37:12.300
can raise some money. I hope that he can really mount a challenge because he, he, if he just went
00:37:19.300
in there and just cleaned up the crime and fixed the budget even slightly, that would be such great
00:37:24.420
news for California. There are a lot of Republicans and there are a lot of conservatives and there are a
00:37:28.820
lot of disaffected liberals in California. This is how Gavin Newsom got recalled in the first place.
00:37:33.300
And so, uh, certainly wish Larry the best of luck because at the federal level right now,
00:37:38.340
the federal government is really, really clamping down on right-wingers. And I think that
00:37:43.780
the advances we're going to make in the near future are going to be at the state level.
00:37:48.980
The federal government right now is spending $6.1 million on just a database, just an, an evidence
00:38:00.320
database to prosecute the Capitol rioters. You know, the, the participants in the insurrection,
00:38:08.800
the coup d'etat, the greatest threat to our Republic since World War II, since Pearl Harbor,
00:38:19.100
since 9-11. I'm seriously, people on the left, prominent leftists have made that comparison
00:38:23.900
between September 11th, between planes flying into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and the guy in
00:38:30.840
the horn helmet dancing around the Capitol. They've, they've compared those two things.
00:38:35.300
I'm not saying the federal government is spending $6.1 million to prosecute them. They're going to
00:38:38.580
spend a lot more than that. I'm saying they're spending $6.1 million on just the evidence database.
00:38:44.260
Now you might say, Michael, I think what happened at the Capitol is ugly. It's bad. I don't like it.
00:38:48.700
I don't want that to happen in our country. It was ill advised. It was wrong as a matter of justice
00:38:53.960
and also wrong as a matter of tactics. Okay, sure. Yeah, right. I'm not making any comment on that.
00:39:00.500
I'm pointing out that horn guy danced around the Capitol and smiley guy took Nancy Pelosi's lectern.
00:39:07.440
And the only person who was killed in the violence of that day was a Trump supporter named Ashley
00:39:12.440
Babbitt killed by a police officer, despite all the lies told to us by the New York Times and the
00:39:18.980
Washington Post, which they later had to retract about Trump rioters attacking police officers.
00:39:26.040
I'm pointing out that for six to eight months, BLM and Antifa burned down the country and killed a lot
00:39:33.720
of people and destroyed a lot of property and stole a lot of property. And they're largely getting off
00:39:39.100
the hook. And there's no $6.1 million database. And there's no massive law enforcement campaign to hold
00:39:44.960
these people responsible. And in a lot of cases, they're getting plea deals to plead way, way down and
00:39:50.780
avoid jail time. And in some cases, the charges are just being dropped entirely or not even brought in the
00:39:55.760
first place. This is an unacceptable double standard. And it's really, as we pointed out before, it's
00:40:04.080
hierarchy. It's saying that when the Democrats riot, it's good. And when Republicans
00:40:08.920
riot, it's, it's the worst thing in the world, even when the Democrat riots are by every measure,
00:40:13.940
much, much worse. According to the ruling liberal elite, the conservatives are the big problem
00:40:22.740
that we, the country hasn't been this divided since the civil war and the GOP, they're the Confederates.
00:40:27.920
The assault on free and fair elections is just such a threat. Literally. I've said it before.
00:40:34.620
Remember, we're facing the most significant test of our democracy since the civil war. That's not
00:40:41.540
hyperbole. Since the civil war. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists
00:40:51.020
did on January the 6th. I'm not saying this to alarm you. I'm saying this because you should be alarmed.
00:40:59.080
So I'll make the point, I don't want to harp on it, but it is, it's an irony. So I have to point it out
00:41:06.280
that the Confederates were all Democrats and the union were all Republicans. The parties did not
00:41:13.440
switch as the left insists that they did. But of course, political parties change and they evolve.
00:41:18.400
And so, you know, there's, it's not a direct analog. I don't, you know, I don't want to just retreat to
00:41:22.620
that typical Republican talking point of, you know, Democrats haven't been this angry since we freed
00:41:27.680
their slaves or whatever. Yeah, I get, but political parties do change over time. And so I think that's
00:41:32.420
a little bit of a cheap shot though. It is ironic and one has to point it out, but notice, no, here,
00:41:38.700
here is a real comparison between the Democrats and the Confederates. The Confederates seceded. The
00:41:43.840
Confederates wanted the war. The Confederates, I mean, that, that is, that was the, the very essence
00:41:51.600
of secession is saying we are no longer a country. And they hoped that the North would just let them go.
00:41:56.180
And that, that doesn't happen in a country. You can't just secede from a country. The logic of a
00:42:00.020
country does not permit you to do that. Okay. Who's talking about the civil war right now? I know
00:42:05.720
some people on the right ask questions about this. Are we headed for a civil war? There's so much
00:42:09.780
political violence. Are we, but I'm talking about at the top level of politics, who's talking about
00:42:14.680
civil war? Is it Donald Trump? No. Is it Ron DeSantis? No. Is it Ted Cruz? No. Is it Josh Hawley? No. It's
00:42:24.960
the Democrats. It's Joe Biden. It's other people. Hillary Clinton saying you can't be civil with
00:42:31.720
your opponents. It's Maxine Waters saying go become violent with Republicans. It's,
00:42:35.380
it's Kamala Harris bailing out leftist rioters who were committing violence against their political
00:42:40.500
opponents, among other people. They're the ones talking about civil war. They're the ones calling
00:42:46.600
for violence against, against conservatives. And yet, because they control all the organs
00:42:54.220
of communication, they say that it's, it's us. They're gaslighting. It's projection. It's
00:42:58.840
exactly the opposite of reality. And the regime is backing them up. The regime, the broad, the
00:43:05.640
blob, the establishment, the ruling class is backing them up. Kevin McCarthy, who's the House
00:43:11.880
GOP leader. He tweeted the other day about how inflation is really spiking. And this, and he's
00:43:18.340
tying this to Joe Biden's policies, which is certainly fair. But it's just, just a tweet about
00:43:24.160
inflation. Twitter slapped a sensitive content label on them. Not a call to violence, arms,
00:43:32.300
insurrection. No, just pointing out that inflation is spiking because of Joe Biden's stupid economic
00:43:36.160
policies. Sensitive content. That is big tech, which controls the flow of information around
00:43:42.740
the internet, controls speech in a republic, meaning it controls politics doing the bidding
00:43:46.940
of the dominant liberal regime. Sensitive content. There's a video, I'm not even going to play the
00:43:55.200
video. There's a video going around right now from Cuba of, of the government shooting a man.
00:44:01.000
They're, they're now killing the protesters in the street, shooting a man in front of a toddler.
00:44:04.020
And this follows the threat from the dictator of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said,
00:44:09.020
we will do anything to preserve the quote unquote revolution, to preserve the ruling regime. We
00:44:13.240
will do anything. It's a very nearly explicit call for violence. And then he backed it up with
00:44:19.120
violence. Miguel Diaz-Canel is still on Twitter. The dictator of Cuba, who is killing his own people
00:44:25.580
now, still on, still on Twitter. Donald Trump was booted off of Twitter after telling his followers
00:44:32.580
to be peaceful. Remember, be peaceful. Don't be violent. Be peaceful. You're getting kicked off
00:44:38.340
Twitter, Mr. President, for, for inspiring violence. Miguel Diaz-Canel saying we will do
00:44:43.840
anything and go to all measures possible to preserve the regime. He's still on Twitter because
00:44:49.420
it's not about a principle and it's not about violence and it's not about preserving our democracy
00:44:53.860
or anything like that. It's preserving the dominant liberal regime. That's, that's what this is.
00:44:59.460
That's the divide here. And so we say, save us, Florida man. Florida man, you're our hope. Please
00:45:05.220
save us, Florida. And really help us out any Republican who will channel that, who understands
00:45:10.640
what DeSantis in particular is recognizing right now. But I think the majority of ordinary Americans
00:45:17.400
are recognizing too. That's the divide. And we've got to defend the people and we've got to defend the
00:45:21.400
constitution against a technocratic elite that wants to undermine both of those things. I'm
00:45:26.900
Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. I'll see you tomorrow.
00:45:28.400
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the
00:45:38.840
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00:45:44.320
Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other
00:45:49.880
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00:45:54.960
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies. Executive producer, Jeremy Borey. Our technical
00:46:00.620
director is Austin Stevens. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling. Production
00:46:06.260
manager, Pavel Vidovsky. Editor and associate producer, Danny D'Amico. Audio mixer, Mike Coromina.
00:46:13.420
Hair and makeup by Nika Geneva. And production coordinator, McKenna Waters. The Michael Knowles
00:46:18.700
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00:46:22.380
Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, BLM proves once again it is a garbage communist organization.
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We'll talk all about it. That's today on The Ben Shapiro Show. Give it a listen.