The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 81 - Trump’s Button Is Bigger

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00:00:37.660 What do Kim Jong-un, Mahmoud Abbas, and Steve Bannon have in common?

00:00:42.340 They messed with the wrong bad hombre.

00:00:44.620 We will analyze Trump's castration of Bannon and the important lessons it holds for international relations.

00:00:50.720 Then, this day in history.

00:00:52.380 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:56.980 What a day.

00:01:03.140 You know, I think we're going to have to reshoot that Christmas morning video that we did.

00:01:06.920 We released a Christmas morning video a couple weeks ago, and, you know, The Daily Wire did it.

00:01:12.240 It had me and Drew and Alicia, and Ben was in a bunny suit.

00:01:14.940 But we're going to have to reshoot it now, because I now know what Ben Shapiro really looks like on Christmas morning.

00:01:21.020 We've got a lot to talk about before we get to that.

00:01:24.480 We have to talk about something just as important, maybe more important, and very, very fitting for the tone of today's show.

00:01:30.720 That is American History Tellers by Wondery.

00:01:34.500 So, first thing you've got to do, this is a great new podcast.

00:01:37.480 Go subscribe to American History Tellers on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

00:01:43.760 Go do that right now.

00:01:44.600 I talk all the time about how nobody reads any history.

00:01:47.680 You should.

00:01:48.380 It is, I think, the best bang for your buck and education for your minute listened or read you're going to get by studying history.

00:01:58.340 So how well do you really know history?

00:02:00.420 You know, we're talking about the stories that make up America and Americans.

00:02:04.080 Everything from the words we speak, the ideas that we share, the values that we admire, and the freedoms we defend.

00:02:09.200 They can all be traced to our shared history.

00:02:11.140 Trouble is, nobody knows anything about history.

00:02:13.600 If you read, like, one history book, you will know more about that topic than virtually anybody else in the country.

00:02:20.500 I know what you're thinking.

00:02:21.920 You don't have time to read history.

00:02:23.280 You didn't have time to study it.

00:02:24.760 That's fine.

00:02:25.420 Tune into this great podcast.

00:02:27.240 It puts you inside the shoes of everyday people in the time, place, and event that made history.

00:02:32.220 The Cold War, the American Revolution, Prohibition, the Space Race.

00:02:36.960 There's one on the Gold Rush.

00:02:38.580 It will show you how history affected them, their families, and it affects you today.

00:02:42.500 This is hosted by Lindsey Graham.

00:02:44.460 No, not that Lindsey Graham.

00:02:46.760 He is not.

00:02:47.920 It would be funny, though.

00:02:48.720 It would be funny to hear his voice doing a podcast.

00:02:50.660 No, this is Lindsey Graham, who's a history buff.

00:02:53.840 He's teamed up with PhD historians to bring you a new take on history.

00:02:58.620 So they take a first-person's narrative with sound design to really get history stuck in your mind.

00:03:05.000 It's a really innovative way to do it.

00:03:07.060 It's really tailored for the medium.

00:03:09.040 It's a good show.

00:03:09.920 You should definitely check it out.

00:03:10.980 The first six episodes for this new series cover the Cold War.

00:03:14.160 This is something that I studied a lot when I was in college.

00:03:17.760 The stories of the Cold War are endlessly enlightening.

00:03:21.680 You could keep studying them.

00:03:22.760 They're having ramifications, certainly, today.

00:03:25.700 You know, one way to debunk a lot of nonsense news stories about Russia is to actually learn about our relationship with Russia in the Cold War.

00:03:33.180 So the show premieres today, January 3rd.

00:03:35.780 You can start listening to the first episode right now.

00:03:38.580 Listen to the rest of my show first, but then make sure you subscribe so that you can listen to that show today.

00:03:44.360 It's really, really good.

00:03:46.100 American History Tellers on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen.

00:03:50.040 American History Tellers, subscribe today.

00:03:52.880 Okay.

00:03:54.040 Talk about American history.

00:03:55.160 And what a great opening to the third season of America.

00:03:58.040 It's only January 3rd, but this is the third season of America, the reality show.

00:04:02.300 The second season ended in a kind of boring way.

00:04:04.820 I don't know if you remember the last episodes, but it was tax reform, lower corporate tax rates, blah, blah, blah.

00:04:09.640 Now we've got new cast members, better plot lines, new conflicts.

00:04:13.440 So let's get into this first episode.

00:04:16.060 It all began when quotes leaked this morning that Steve Bannon allegedly gave to author Michael Wolff, who's now writing a book called Fire and Fury Inside the Trump White House.

00:04:26.460 So according to these quotes, Steve Bannon calls Donald Jr. a traitor, unpatriotic, and says that he's going to get cracked like an egg on national television.

00:04:36.320 So of course, the White House issued this response.

00:04:39.000 I want you to get this where he brings.

00:04:41.400 I want you to find this nancy boy, Elliot Ness. 1.00

00:04:43.460 I want him dead. 1.00

00:04:44.460 I want his family dead. 1.00

00:04:46.060 I want his house burnt to the ground. 1.00

00:04:47.660 I want to go to the middle of the night. 1.00

00:04:48.520 I want to kill his ass. 1.00

00:04:50.200 No, I'm only joking. 1.00

00:04:51.380 I'm only joking.

00:04:52.000 Trump's response was far more vicious than Al Capone.

00:04:55.440 This response is so incredible.

00:04:58.260 I'm just going to read it verbatim.

00:04:59.780 It's a little long.

00:05:00.680 Don't worry.

00:05:01.320 You will not want to miss one syllable.

00:05:03.760 President Trump, this is a statement from the president.

00:05:06.020 Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency.

00:05:10.020 When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.

00:05:13.520 Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party.

00:05:24.480 Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look.

00:05:29.620 Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. 0.96

00:05:36.120 Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than 30 years by Republicans.

00:05:43.180 Steve doesn't represent my base.

00:05:45.040 He's only in it for himself.

00:05:46.860 Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party.

00:05:51.180 Yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was.

00:05:58.340 It is the only thing he does well.

00:06:01.040 Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue whom he helped write phony books.

00:06:10.880 We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda.

00:06:18.200 Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.

00:06:29.340 And with that, Rosie O'Donnell learned that Trump actually went very easy on her 10 years ago.

00:06:34.960 This is brutal.

00:06:36.420 This is classic Trump, vintage Trump.

00:06:39.140 Watch the language.

00:06:40.300 He says when he was fired.

00:06:42.440 Now, Steve Bannon insisted when he left the White House that he chose to leave.

00:06:46.080 He could better support the MAGA agenda from outside of the White House, from Breitbart or wherever.

00:06:51.580 Trump totally smacks that down.

00:06:53.300 And by the way, Trump held his fire at the time, didn't he?

00:06:56.720 Trump, when Bannon was saying all these things, Trump played very nicely.

00:07:01.520 He didn't contradict him.

00:07:02.740 It's only when Bannon turned on Trump that we get this smackdown.

00:07:05.800 More language.

00:07:06.380 He says he lost his mind.

00:07:08.240 What Trump is telling you is Steve Bannon is not credible.

00:07:11.940 Do not believe it.

00:07:12.720 It's not just he has a vendetta against me or he's an angry ex-employee who wants to get back at me.

00:07:20.680 He's saying he lost his mind.

00:07:21.760 He's saying his very capacities of reason are not credible.

00:07:25.620 And he then goes on and says Steve was a staffer, not a strategist, not the ex-CEO, not the blah, blah, blah.

00:07:31.900 He was a staffer.

00:07:32.940 Who does he work for?

00:07:33.860 He works for me, numero uno.

00:07:35.760 And we have these memories, these images of Trump that says you're fired, you're fired.

00:07:41.260 That's why he uses that word in the statement.

00:07:43.740 That's why he calls him a staffer.

00:07:44.960 Donald Trump is the guy who decides who gets fired.

00:07:47.420 That's his catchphrase for 15 years.

00:07:49.380 He brings up the Senate seat in Alabama.

00:07:51.620 Now, why does he pounce now?

00:07:53.740 Steve Bannon has been causing trouble for Donald Trump for a few months now, for more than a few months now.

00:07:59.780 Why does he pounce now?

00:08:00.840 Because Steve Bannon's credibility is at the lowest it's ever been.

00:08:03.460 Steve Bannon, through sheer tyranny of will, made Republicans lose the Alabama Senate seat for the first time in decades.

00:08:10.720 We lost Alabama.

00:08:11.900 This is impossible.

00:08:13.120 So he strikes him exactly when he's weakest, when he's most vulnerable, when he knows he can pry Bannon right off of the actual Trump base.

00:08:21.000 And look at even just the wording, pretend.

00:08:24.320 He uses the word pretend twice.

00:08:26.580 Steve just pretends that he has influence.

00:08:28.820 He's just a pretend guy. 0.99

00:08:30.200 He uses the word fool. 0.99

00:08:31.340 He uses the word phony. 0.99

00:08:32.300 What, why?

00:08:33.580 Donald Trump knows when words stick to people.

00:08:36.840 Ask Little Marco.

00:08:38.020 Ask Lion Ted.

00:08:39.100 Ask Crooked Hillary. 1.00

00:08:40.460 Ask Low Energy Jeb.

00:08:41.920 On and on and on.

00:08:43.940 He's using these words because Bannon has no political experience.

00:08:49.180 And after Alabama, he has no demonstrated political skill other than his brief association with Donald Trump.

00:08:55.920 So why pretend?

00:08:58.800 Because Steve Bannon, rather, is playing the political guru.

00:09:03.500 He's playing Karl Rove.

00:09:04.940 He's playing David Axelrod.

00:09:06.660 He's playing a guy who's been in politics for a long time.

00:09:09.200 To my knowledge, he's worked on one campaign.

00:09:11.600 Granted, he entered that campaign at a pretty high level for a brief period of time.

00:09:15.820 But there was a tweet that went out yesterday and it said Steve Bannon is constantly walking around thinking that he's in his own Martin Scorsese biopic.

00:09:25.960 He's got the Layla piano song playing in the background.

00:09:28.900 That's the image you get.

00:09:29.920 It isn't the real political strategy.

00:09:32.200 He isn't the real Metternich.

00:09:33.420 He isn't the real Machiavelli.

00:09:35.020 He's just playing one on TV.

00:09:37.040 And that's something for our culture in which so many things are merely performed for television rather than legitimate and with substance.

00:09:45.480 He's gluing this to Steve Bannon.

00:09:48.900 And what does he close on?

00:09:49.820 He closes on build it up and burn it down.

00:09:52.320 You get these two different images.

00:09:54.120 We know Steve Bannon is famous for saying he wants to burn it down. 1.00

00:09:57.060 Burn that lady dog to the ground. 1.00

00:09:59.540 Burn it down. 1.00

00:10:00.820 But what is Donald Trump's image?

00:10:02.120 He's a builder.

00:10:03.340 He's worked in construction.

00:10:04.560 He builds things.

00:10:05.240 He's going to build a big, beautiful wall.

00:10:07.420 I know how to build things.

00:10:08.860 He's contrasting himself with Steve Bannon, what he does, which is constructive, with what Steve Bannon does, which is destructive.

00:10:15.940 And he's lumping him in with what he said about Democrats on Twitter just a couple days ago, which is that I get results and all of these other people are just obstructing and attacking and breaking things apart.

00:10:29.700 Really classic word choice, classic Trumpian word choice.

00:10:34.800 So there's a lot to be learned from this statement, not just from Trump's personal behavior, also about his foreign policy.

00:10:40.540 First, let's cover the basic thing with the word choice.

00:10:45.240 Donald Trump is a New Yorker, and New Yorkers do not take any guff from anybody.

00:10:49.780 And I don't mean guff.

00:10:50.880 That's actually the line that Billy Joel used to use to end his shows.

00:10:54.340 He would play whatever song.

00:10:55.440 You know, he'd turn and say, don't take any guff from anybody.

00:10:58.920 Don't do it.

00:10:59.480 This is a real thing that is prevalent in New York, I'm sure elsewhere in the country as well, but it's a real sense.

00:11:06.740 And Billy Joel, Donald Trump, these guys are from Queens, the Bronx, Long Island.

00:11:11.880 Don't do it.

00:11:12.700 Don't ever take any guff from anybody, not even once.

00:11:15.600 Why?

00:11:16.500 The preeminent military historian Don Kagan once told me that he knew that passages of Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War were true because of the Brooklyn schoolyard.

00:11:27.520 Sometimes it takes a thief to catch a thief.

00:11:29.640 Sometimes it takes a bully to catch a bully.

00:11:31.500 Everybody I know who knows Donald Trump, and I know a few people who have worked for him, known him socially, knows family, they all talk about his loyalty.

00:11:40.060 If you're loyal to Trump, he's loyal to you.

00:11:42.220 What happens when you turn on Trump?

00:11:44.020 Well, just ask Rosie O'Donnell. 0.99

00:11:45.180 In 2006, completely unprovoked, Rosie went on The View to criticize Trump for giving Miss USA Tara Conner a second chance after it was revealed that she drank and partied underage.

00:11:56.040 I know, something none of us have ever done.

00:11:57.940 So Trump decided not to decrown her, and Rosie criticized him. 0.99

00:12:02.480 During that segment on The View, she called him a snake oil salesman, she accused him of having gone bankrupt multiple times, and she attacked his multiple marriages.

00:12:10.640 So what did Trump do?

00:12:11.400 He just kind of, he said, that's okay, I'm not going to respond, right?

00:12:14.120 That's what he did?

00:12:14.680 No, he did this. 0.96

00:12:16.000 Well, Rosie O'Donnell's disgusting. 1.00

00:12:17.720 I mean, both inside and out. 1.00

00:12:19.220 You take a look at her, she's a slob. 1.00

00:12:20.860 She talks like a truck driver. 0.99

00:12:23.880 Rosie attacked me personally because I was very happy when her talk show failed. 0.99

00:12:27.860 The other thing that failed, and this was a real monster, and everybody was suing her, was her magazine.

00:12:32.820 Her magazine called Rosie was a total disaster.

00:12:36.440 So I loved it.

00:12:37.480 I gloat over it.

00:12:38.520 I think it's wonderful because I like to see bad people fail.

00:12:41.680 Rosie failed.

00:12:42.680 I'm happy about it. 0.99

00:12:43.780 She's basically a disaster. 1.00

00:12:45.080 Well, she called me a snake oil salesman, and you know, coming from Rosie, that's pretty low, because when you look at her, and when you see the mind, the mind is weak. 0.96

00:12:53.740 I don't see it.

00:12:54.660 I don't get it.

00:12:55.400 I never understood, how does she even get on television? 1.00

00:12:58.300 I believe Barbara made a terrible mistake putting her on, and I think Barbara's probably paying a big price.

00:13:03.300 If I were running The View, I'd fire Rosie. 0.99

00:13:05.420 I mean, I'd look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers. 1.00

00:13:07.960 I'd say, Rosie, you're fired. 0.99

00:13:11.740 Very subtle.

00:13:13.040 Typical subtlety from Donald Trump.

00:13:15.300 But this is how New Yorkers talk.

00:13:17.180 There are three components to glean from what he just said.

00:13:20.920 It was blunt.

00:13:21.920 It was brutal.

00:13:23.180 And it was funny.

00:13:24.320 It was funny.

00:13:24.980 You can't, I just laugh.

00:13:25.960 You can't help but laugh.

00:13:27.140 Even if it's so mean, it's mean-spirited.

00:13:29.380 It is funny.

00:13:30.560 This is the last part that everybody seems to miss.

00:13:34.120 So the big news yesterday was Kim Jong-un, right?

00:13:37.540 Kim Jong-un had been boasting that he has a nuclear button on his desk.

00:13:42.160 So Trump responded, quote,

00:13:43.700 Now, the pearl clutchers on both the left and the right started wailing and gnashing their teeth. 1.00

00:14:06.780 I love this response for three reasons.

00:14:09.040 One, it's a response to a genuine threat from North Korea. 0.64

00:14:12.140 So North Korea is saying, we have a button. 0.83

00:14:14.820 We're going to send missiles and blow up your cities. 0.94

00:14:17.000 We're not going to listen to you. 0.99

00:14:18.880 We're not going to abide by international norms.

00:14:20.640 And there's nothing you can do about it.

00:14:22.000 That's a genuine threat.

00:14:22.880 And it tests the credibility of the United States.

00:14:25.240 And there has to be some sort of response.

00:14:28.160 Now, also, and there was a response.

00:14:30.020 And we've been working for a long time.

00:14:31.480 And we have a lot of military assets in the region.

00:14:33.700 Also, it's a joke.

00:14:34.920 It's a joke.

00:14:35.660 And it cuts Little Rocket Man down to size.

00:14:38.520 This is the worst thing to do to these people.

00:14:42.120 Kim Jong-un is trying to seem like a serious, scary leader.

00:14:44.980 And what does Trump do?

00:14:45.660 He just makes fun of him.

00:14:46.980 It just says, oh, yeah, that's cute.

00:14:48.400 Oh, by the way, my button works because you can't get your missiles to fire.

00:14:51.820 Now, the other reason, the third reason why I really enjoyed this tweet is it worked.

00:14:56.860 Just hours after this tweet, North Korea reopened a line of communication

00:15:01.460 that had been closed off with South Korea for two years.

00:15:04.460 It had been closed off during Barack Obama.

00:15:06.860 And they reopened this line of attack.

00:15:08.780 Why is it?

00:15:09.320 I wonder.

00:15:10.220 There has to be a credible threat of force. 1.00

00:15:13.380 And Donald Trump seems like a crazy person. 1.00

00:15:16.860 Many people, even in this country, think that he's a crazy person. 1.00

00:15:19.800 This works to his advantage.

00:15:21.480 He knows that it works to his advantage.

00:15:24.100 You can see it from the tweets.

00:15:25.820 I think anybody who still believes that he's just randomly tweeting whatever thought pops

00:15:30.820 into his head hasn't been paying attention for a year and hasn't been paying attention

00:15:34.660 to the shocking effectiveness of his administration.

00:15:39.560 So it did work.

00:15:41.060 Kim Jong-un, somewhere in a little bunker in Pyongyang, Little Rocket Man, is quaking in his

00:15:45.720 boots because he doesn't know.

00:15:47.000 What president of the United States would ever tweet something like that?

00:15:50.120 This guy.

00:15:50.840 And it's credible.

00:15:52.060 So this isn't something new, by the way.

00:15:53.660 This line of attack, my button's bigger than your button.

00:15:56.160 This followed precisely the line of attack that Trump had during the 2016 campaigns.

00:16:01.400 Do you remember when Marco Rubio started doing his Don Rickles impression when that campaign

00:16:05.860 was on its last legs?

00:16:07.520 He's always calling me Little Marco.

00:16:09.880 And out of a minute, the guy he's taller than me is like 6'2", which is why I don't understand

00:16:13.480 why his hands are the size of someone who's 5'2".

00:16:16.320 Have you seen his hands?

00:16:18.020 They're like this.

00:16:20.260 And you know what they say about men with small hands?

00:16:26.800 You can't trust them.

00:16:28.300 He said I had small hands.

00:16:29.520 Actually, I'm 6'3", not 6'2", but he said I had small hands.

00:16:32.620 They're not small, are they?

00:16:34.640 I never heard that one before.

00:16:37.660 I've always had people say, Donald, you have the most beautiful hands.

00:16:42.840 What?

00:16:43.700 He hit my hands.

00:16:45.040 Nobody has ever hit my hands.

00:16:46.300 I've never heard of this one.

00:16:47.380 Look at those hands.

00:16:48.460 Are they small hands?

00:16:51.400 And he referred to my hands.

00:16:53.380 If they're small, something else must be small.

00:16:56.160 I guarantee you there's no problem.

00:16:58.060 I guarantee.

00:17:00.320 Welcome to America.

00:17:01.800 America in now 2018.

00:17:04.660 So Trump was called sophomoric for engaging in this measuring contest.

00:17:09.200 But he doesn't take any guff from anybody.

00:17:11.880 George W. Bush was in many ways a very good president, but he failed on this front.

00:17:15.880 He failed marvelously because he refused to hit back at the scores of people who were attacking him very unfairly.

00:17:22.140 And those lies, those innuendos drowned his presidency.

00:17:25.180 Maybe in the historical record, he'll be vindicated to some degree.

00:17:29.700 But they drowned out his presidency, and Trump won't let that happen.

00:17:33.120 He fights back.

00:17:34.140 Ben has talked for years about this.

00:17:35.980 When a bully hits you, you hit back twice as hard.

00:17:38.940 People accuse Trump of being a bully. 0.86

00:17:40.760 Maybe it is, but it takes a thief to catch a thief, and sometimes it takes a bully to subdue a bully. 0.59

00:17:45.820 Now, what does all of this mean for broader policy?

00:17:49.460 A lot.

00:17:50.580 Unlike Barack Obama, whose entire foreign policy consisted of strategic patience and leading from behind and phony red lines and more flexibility after my election, Vladimir, and empty threats and apologies, Donald Trump is confrontational.

00:18:03.840 His opponents say confrontation threatens world peace.

00:18:06.500 It'll kill us all in a nuclear war.

00:18:08.240 If we only hug our enemies and appease them and give them whatever they want, then, then they will let us all live in peace. 0.99

00:18:14.440 Another Republican president understood how ridiculous those fantasies are.

00:18:20.040 Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory.

00:18:26.680 They call their policy accommodation.

00:18:29.000 And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.

00:18:35.000 Alexander Hamilton said a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.

00:18:43.220 Now, let's set the record straight.

00:18:45.140 There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace, and you can have it in the next second.

00:18:53.700 Surrender.

00:18:55.140 Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement.

00:19:02.520 And this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face, that their policy of accommodation is appeasement.

00:19:10.580 And it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender.

00:19:15.920 That's the only guarantee of peace.

00:19:17.920 And what a peace that is.

00:19:19.100 That's the peace of slavery.

00:19:21.360 There is no choice between peace and war, only fight and surrender.

00:19:25.560 We had Victor Davis Hanson on the show a few weeks ago to talk about his new book, The Second World Wars.

00:19:30.700 In that book, he makes an excellent observation.

00:19:32.840 He writes,

00:19:33.820 Throughout history, conflict had always broken out between enemies when the appearance of deterrence,

00:19:39.340 the material and spiritual likelihood of using greater military power successfully against an aggressive enemy, vanished.

00:19:47.220 The appearance of deterrence.

00:19:48.820 You see that when the appearance of deterrence to the aggressive enemy, is there a more perfect description of the Obama doctrine?

00:19:57.820 Don't worry about whatever we say.

00:19:59.460 Don't worry.

00:20:00.060 We'll never actually use our military might to a decisive degree.

00:20:04.060 A total surrender of American credibility.

00:20:06.580 In one exchange, he actually told Russia, he told the leader of Russia, Medvedev, that he was blustering in threats against the regime.

00:20:14.220 I will have more flexibility after my election, and Medvedev responded, I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

00:20:21.260 Duh.

00:20:21.800 He was caught on an open mic.

00:20:23.820 These are the policies that threaten world peace, and we saw it happen in real time.

00:20:28.680 The joke goes, they told me if I voted for John McCain, we would get a third war in the Middle East, and they were right. 1.00

00:20:34.340 I voted for John McCain, and we got a third war in the Middle East.

00:20:37.060 That's exactly what happened during eight years of Barack Obama, no decisive victories, just more quagmires, incredible amounts of death because we were simply managing wars that the administration in Washington was half-heartedly fighting, that it didn't want to win, that it didn't want to directly challenge anybody, that it wanted to lead from behind.

00:20:55.360 What did that get us?

00:20:56.240 It got us chaos and destruction.

00:20:58.080 It lost us whole states throughout the Middle East, and it was a major knock to our allies and to American credibility.

00:21:05.960 Donald Trump doesn't do that.

00:21:07.760 It isn't that he's playing 4D chess.

00:21:09.720 That's what they accuse us of.

00:21:10.960 They say, you think he's playing 4D chess.

00:21:12.480 He's not.

00:21:13.020 It's not that he's playing 4D chess.

00:21:14.600 It's that he has credibility when it counts.

00:21:17.220 So Barack Obama, there was a piece in the New York Times, which very occasionally I will read, and the New York Times said Obama's lies compared to Trump's lies.

00:21:26.420 Trump has all of these lies, and Obama had very few lies.

00:21:29.400 But all of Trump's lies are basically to the tune of I exercise every day.

00:21:34.620 Yeah, I'm a really cool guy.

00:21:36.700 Everybody loves me.

00:21:37.600 I had a big crowd size. 0.97

00:21:38.900 Those are the Trump lies, these little egotistical minor white lies. 0.90

00:21:44.320 Barack Obama's lies are if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. 0.80

00:21:47.700 That is more important.

00:21:49.540 He admitted to blustering to the American people, to deluding the American people.

00:21:54.360 Jonathan Gruber, the architect of Obamacare, boasted about conning the American people.

00:21:59.820 His foreign policy advisor, Ben Rhodes, boasted about conning the American people.

00:22:04.720 Those are the lies that matter.

00:22:05.840 So you might say, well, Trump doesn't have any credibility.

00:22:07.560 He's always exaggerating.

00:22:09.140 He's always talking about his crowd size.

00:22:11.120 Okay, he doesn't have credibility on his crowd sizes.

00:22:13.640 He doesn't have credibility on trivial, superficial nonsense.

00:22:16.400 But where it counts, he's had credibility.

00:22:18.720 He's followed through.

00:22:19.360 Before the UN vote condemning the United States for moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem,

00:22:24.820 another promise that was followed through after countless administrations and Republican

00:22:29.680 administrations promised to do it, and they didn't follow through.

00:22:32.240 Trump did follow through.

00:22:33.460 But before that vote, Trump threatened and said the United States is watching the votes

00:22:38.360 and there would be consequences.

00:22:39.960 Nikki Haley reiterated precisely as much.

00:22:42.620 The vote proceeded anyway, and what happened?

00:22:44.840 If this were Barack Obama, if it were another fake red line, nothing would have happened.

00:22:48.260 But with Trump, the United States immediately cut almost 4% of the UN's total budget.

00:22:52.840 Not just our contribution to the UN, 4% of the whole thing, and that's just a warning

00:22:57.360 shot.

00:22:57.980 We've given Pakistan $33 billion in aid over the past 15 years.

00:23:01.920 We had allocated $250 million in aid for the fiscal year 2016.

00:23:06.740 We haven't given them that aid yet, and we're going to withhold those funds until they play

00:23:11.340 ball.

00:23:11.880 No more Mr. Nice America.

00:23:13.720 How about aid to the Palestinian Authority?

00:23:15.560 Will the U.S. maintain its present level of funding of the UN Relief Works Agency for

00:23:24.280 Palestinian Refugees in light of the General Assembly of Jerusalem resolution pushed by

00:23:29.380 the Palestinians and the Palestinian UN representatives' threat to unleash, quote, all the weapons we 0.57

00:23:35.660 have in the UN?

00:23:36.500 You tell him, sister, be still my beating heart.

00:24:02.560 Oh, it's pitter-pattering out of my chest.

00:24:04.640 Absolutely right.

00:24:05.780 Now, I mentioned the military historian Donald Kagan earlier.

00:24:08.840 He has an excellent book on the origins of war and the preservation of peace.

00:24:12.680 That book is called On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace because he's

00:24:15.900 not the most creative titler in the world, but he makes an excellent point.

00:24:19.300 One of the great threats to peace, one of the great causes of war throughout history,

00:24:23.120 has been when great powers get complacent.

00:24:25.420 They rest on their laurels.

00:24:27.660 They believe that threats will suffice without the demonstration of resolve to use force.

00:24:32.700 So let's take two examples.

00:24:34.760 The Second Punic War in the 3rd century BC and the Second World War.

00:24:39.020 What do those wars have in common?

00:24:40.600 In both cases, a dominant power was perceived to be complacent.

00:24:44.360 In the case of the Second Punic War, there was Rome.

00:24:46.800 In the Second World War, Britain.

00:24:48.660 And so a lesser but angry power rose up.

00:24:50.780 Surely a minor defeated power would never challenge the dominant power again, right?

00:24:55.720 Surely North Korea would never really launch a rocket, right?

00:24:59.100 So we don't need to worry.

00:24:59.940 It would never really happen.

00:25:01.460 Coincidentally, both of those wars were among the deadliest conflicts of all time.

00:25:05.600 Ancient historians considered the Second Punic War the greatest in history.

00:25:09.080 World War II is the single deadliest conflict in world history with deaths estimated between

00:25:13.820 50 and 80 million.

00:25:15.720 This is a real trouble.

00:25:18.560 So listen, we have got to get to this day in history.

00:25:22.540 Before we get to this day in history, and we'll conclude with some thoughts on how this

00:25:26.680 all ties together.

00:25:27.460 But before we get to this day in history, I have to tell you about something very important.

00:25:30.940 I have to tell you about upside.

00:25:33.780 So how are your things to do in 2018 checklist coming along?

00:25:37.700 Mine is a work in progress.

00:25:39.200 I don't do checklists.

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00:25:44.980 I do have one thing on mine that belongs to every business traveler's list.

00:25:49.720 Book your next business trip at upside.com.

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00:25:57.460 experience these days.

00:25:58.920 Flying is so awful.

00:26:00.420 They cram you into little tin cans and put you in the cargo hold.

00:26:03.340 And maybe they'll give you a little thing of peanuts, but no more pretzels because they 0.80

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00:26:09.020 So when you're booking your business trip, when you do, I promise you will get a better

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00:26:36.660 without a hitch.

00:26:37.200 They're available on demand by phone, chat, email, wherever you need them.

00:26:41.700 Sometimes I don't want to call somebody or do anything.

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00:26:45.400 It's very easy.

00:26:46.420 Only upside monitors your business trip around the clock.

00:26:49.420 It proactively keeps you posted on everything from the weather to changing your flight home

00:26:54.500 just so you can adjust your meeting schedule.

00:26:56.780 I one time got caught.

00:26:57.780 I was in the UK and my flight had been canceled, like the ticket was canceled, but nobody let me

00:27:02.980 know this.

00:27:03.740 I found this out 15 hours before the flight.

00:27:05.800 It was very frustrating and very expensive.

00:27:08.020 Don't let that happen to you.

00:27:09.900 Have you ever experienced that level of customer service on a business trip that upside offers?

00:27:14.300 Absolutely not.

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00:27:19.640 To get your free pair of Bose SoundLink wireless headphones, those are really good headphones,

00:27:24.280 just book your first business trip with Upside by going to upside.com slash, do you know,

00:27:29.740 do you know, Marshall?

00:27:30.280 Can you guess?

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00:27:32.840 C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 1.00

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00:27:40.380 To claim your Bose SoundLink wireless headphones, upside.com.

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00:27:55.860 Okay.

00:27:56.920 Now it is time.

00:27:58.880 Oh, you know, Marshall, you've reminded me.

00:28:01.080 That's too bad.

00:28:01.640 We were going to have a great this day in history.

00:28:03.300 It's a very personal one.

00:28:04.240 It's near and dear to my heart.

00:28:05.960 But if you're on Facebook or YouTube, I've got to say goodbye to you.

00:28:09.060 If you're on thedailywire.com right now, thank you for subscribing.

00:28:12.020 You help keep the lights on.

00:28:13.280 You help keep Covfefe in my cup.

00:28:15.020 If not, go to dailywire.com right now.

00:28:17.700 What do you get?

00:28:18.220 You'll get me.

00:28:19.320 You'll get the Andrew Klavan show.

00:28:20.440 You'll get the Ben Shapiro show.

00:28:21.440 You'll get no ads on the website.

00:28:22.700 Yeah, yeah, it's all really nice.

00:28:25.680 The leftist tears tumbler.

00:28:27.240 You're going to need it.

00:28:28.840 You're going to need it.

00:28:29.720 I promise you the threat of a nuclear war and the button on Trump's desk, that is a much less severe danger to you than the flood of leftist tears that are pouring out when they read those tweets.

00:28:41.880 Make sure we're cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority.

00:28:44.640 We're cutting off aid to Pakistan.

00:28:45.980 Stan, you really, really need to get this leftist tears tumbler or you're going to be washed away.

00:28:52.020 It's going to be like that scene in Deep Impact, you know, and the giant wave is washing away Morgan Freeman or whatever.

00:28:57.780 That is what's going to happen to you.

00:28:59.780 So go to dailywire.com.

00:29:01.220 We'll be right back.

00:29:01.960 Okay, it's time for This Day in History.

00:29:15.660 This Day in History.

00:29:17.760 A topic near and dear to my heart.

00:29:21.180 On this day in history in 1961, the United States cut off diplomatic relations with Cuba.

00:29:27.140 I know, it was terrible.

00:29:28.760 Luckily, the president stockpiled all of his Cuban cigars before that happened.

00:29:32.940 Now, after two years of deteriorating relations, we closed our embassy in Havana.

00:29:37.900 I love Cuba.

00:29:38.500 I traveled there for a weekend in June with our senior producer, Jonathan Hay, and Daily Wire God King, Jeremy Boring.

00:29:44.560 They have very delicious stogies there, beautiful peaches, truly wonderful people.

00:29:49.300 But the United States has bungled our relations with that island ever since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.

00:29:55.320 And this has a lot to do with what we're talking about today.

00:29:57.860 Those errors almost plunged the world into global nuclear conflict during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

00:30:02.680 These decisions say a lot about confrontation and appeasement.

00:30:05.700 Bill Buckley, William F. Buckley Jr., when he started the National Review, founded the modern conservative movement.

00:30:11.520 He refused to support Dwight Eisenhower because he considered him too soft on communism.

00:30:15.960 Cuba is the prime example of that.

00:30:17.680 In early 1960, Castro signed a trade treaty with the Soviet Union.

00:30:21.540 In response, the U.S. began funding and training a group of Cuban expats to overthrow the dictator.

00:30:27.300 All well and good.

00:30:28.240 Good to get a commie out of there. 1.00

00:30:30.660 Trouble is that campaign was tempered.

00:30:32.820 It was moderate.

00:30:33.500 It was bit by bit.

00:30:34.400 But so Castro began stealing even more private property.

00:30:38.140 To this day, Cuba is essentially a mafia nation.

00:30:41.260 It's a mafia-run nation with the Castros at the helm of it all. 0.98

00:30:44.480 So in response then to that, the Castros stealing private property, including countless American interests, 0.88

00:30:51.420 the U.S. began to implement certain cutbacks in trade with Cuba.

00:30:55.480 Too little, too late.

00:30:56.740 Two months later, just a few months into his presidency, John F. Kennedy sent the Cuban exile force into Cuba during the Bay of Pigs debacle.

00:31:05.060 It was a major failure.

00:31:06.280 It was a major setback for the Kennedy administration.

00:31:08.740 Just one year later, the United States entered into a 13-day standoff during the Cuban missile crisis, the closest the 50-year Cold War ever came to direct nuclear conflict.

00:31:18.660 Two big nuclear buttons, both of which worked on two separate desks.

00:31:23.400 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had met Kennedy four months earlier, and his impression was that Kennedy was weak.

00:31:29.120 Again, the perception of weakness, the perception that this superpower had lost its resolve.

00:31:36.420 He installed missiles just 90 miles off American shores, with Fidel Castro chomping at the bit to launch them.

00:31:42.760 How many times had the U.S. weakly challenged Castro, tried to assassinate him, tried to invade?

00:31:47.940 In fact, many historians credit Castro's hot-headedness with helping to convince Khrushchev to back off.

00:31:54.120 Now, as a result of this bungled foreign policy, the United States was forced to remove our missiles from Turkey, though fortunately nuclear war was averted.

00:32:02.300 What should we learn from all of these episodes, past and present?

00:32:05.600 Peace can only be maintained with the credible threat of force.

00:32:09.320 As Ronald Reagan put it, peace through strength.

00:32:11.820 Teddy Roosevelt said to speak softly and carry a big stick.

00:32:15.500 But sometimes you can't speak softly.

00:32:17.800 Sometimes you have to speak bigly, especially on Twitter.

00:32:21.220 And in those cases, everybody needs to know that we have a big button on our desks, and it works.

00:32:28.200 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:32:29.040 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:32:30.100 Come back tomorrow.

00:32:31.120 We'll do it all again.

00:32:37.480 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.

00:32:40.560 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:32:42.640 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:32:44.600 Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.

00:32:46.560 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:32:49.500 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:32:51.580 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:32:53.840 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:32:56.300 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:32:59.800 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

00:33:01.700 pastry.

00:33:06.160 Produced by Tom grandma

00:33:10.280 but RN is a double-atour raid atmosphere.

00:33:10.680 Seriously.

00:33:11.940 Created by Kevin Tom White.

00:33:14.120 Well done.

00:33:14.700 Here's how we got a littleARDeston.

00:33:15.340 Speaking of greenhouse gases,

00:33:15.680 man looks likeICIA Doc PY.

00:33:16.460 Wolf Colanna.

00:33:17.260 You can use it to be a big-raided Münster.

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00:33:18.740 How we got it.

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00:33:26.920 Adjust off your cortisolinha Inn ultimately into two duaỹ‐s.

The Michael Knowles Show - January 03, 2018

Ep. 81 - Trump’s Button Is Bigger

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