The Michael Knowles Show - Friendly Fire： AOC's 2028 Dating Game & WNBA's What is a Woman Debate

00:00:00.480 Recently, our company's softball team lost the big game by one run.

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00:00:54.120 oikos pro feed your strength visit oikos.ca for more details you know it's so funny i'm sitting

00:01:00.980 there i just i get a text from drew he's like hey you know i'll be around in about an hour if you

00:01:06.120 want to have a cigar i was like wait why aren't you on friendly fire what do you mean you're around 0.64

00:01:09.120 you're in what do you do for a living andrew clavin like what the hell what the hell that's

00:01:13.880 so funny also yeah that's that's wild also i i thought by now you would have taken the job as

00:01:18.120 the white house press secretary my off the board pick for white house press secretary because i

00:01:21.980 just want ratings and amusement was Alex Jones. Alex Jones as White House press secretary would

00:01:26.800 be extraordinary. Just having him do to the White House press corps, like what he did to Sneeko,

00:01:31.980 would be the single greatest thing in the history of American politics. Just crossing his eyes,

00:01:36.240 screaming at the top of his lungs and ripping open his shirt as he screams about the frogs in 1.00

00:01:40.400 Islam would be like incredible. I would pay excellent money. We can solve the national 1.00

00:01:44.920 debt this way. Have you been following our beloved sponsor, Kalshi, does have some rankings here of

00:01:51.080 the likelihood. And so right now they've got Anna Kelly at 18 percent, Scott Jennings at 16 percent,

00:01:57.920 Roma Dharavi at 14, Alina Haba 12, Stephen Chung 10, Jason Miller 9. And I don't, I think it's

00:02:06.640 going to be a girl. I think it's still going to be a girl. I don't, right? I'll take the under on 0.99

00:02:13.080 Jennings for sure. Like there's no way that Scott is going to do that job. Like Scott has a very

00:02:17.320 nice perch over at CNN. And also, again, he's like you, right? He wants to comment on the issues.

00:02:22.040 He doesn't want to actually just speak for the administration. I don't know Anna Kelly.

00:02:26.400 Apparently, she's talented. So I think there's a reason why she's on that on that chart. 0.58

00:02:30.380 I think between all of us, we actually know a bunch of people who'd be great at this job,

00:02:33.700 like Mary Margaret Olihan's bring to mind is somebody who'd actually be great at this job.

00:02:36.760 And I prefer they not start poaching our talents at the White House.

00:02:40.300 I think we're too quick to write off Scott Jennings. He's lost like 25 pounds, it looks

00:02:46.060 like in the last few months, which implies to me that he's getting ready. I think we'll know

00:02:50.260 that he's really throwing his name in there if he dyes his hair, bleeds blonde. And Trump has said

00:02:56.780 he wants someone out of central casting. And I think if he gets that blonde hair look,

00:03:00.860 he's been trimming down. He has to plump his lips, plump his lips. So he has the very plump

00:03:05.420 Caroline Lovett lips that President Trump apparently so adored. I caught that clip.

00:03:10.260 You know, that's the thing with Trump though. When he said that he goes, those lips, they move

00:03:13.640 like a machine gun and they, but you know, he does, he thinks of things from TV. And so he says

00:03:20.220 like, all of my guys are at a central casting. He says that about John Ratcliffe, the CIA director.

00:03:24.980 And so this is where I think with Caroline Levitt, I can't think of a better press secretary. I don't

00:03:31.920 mean to say like, there have been plenty of terrific press secretaries, obviously like going

00:03:35.600 back to Tony Snow was an amazing one. And Dana Brino was great. Yeah. Dana was great. Kaylee,

00:03:40.400 Sarah Huckabee.

00:03:41.480 I know they batted around Sean Spicer for a bit.

00:03:43.420 I thought Sean Spicer did a good job. 0.98

00:03:45.020 And now, obviously, it's moved into the girls.

00:03:47.200 But with Caroline, I just think, like,

00:03:49.140 was there any error?

00:03:52.060 Was there any big gap?

00:03:53.980 I can't think of one.

00:03:55.800 No, this is totally right.

00:03:56.780 Like, Caroline, the thing she did better

00:03:58.900 than pretty much anybody in the modern era

00:04:00.680 is she just did not give the opposition

00:04:02.440 a bunch of material on her. 1.00

00:04:03.860 If you think of the really bad White House press secretaries, 1.00

00:04:06.100 and obviously by far the worst White House press secretary 0.85

00:04:08.780 of all time was Karine Jean-Pierre. 0.95

00:04:09.940 Without any doubt whatsoever, bar none, no close competitor, essentially the secretariat of bad White House press secretaries.

00:04:17.400 Just there's no one else even in the picture. 0.99

00:04:19.460 But that's because pretty much every day she would do something stupid and then it would lead the news. 0.96

00:04:24.320 And you don't get that from Caroline Leavitt, who, again, was given a challenging job because the president's policies are pretty controversial on a wide variety of issues. 0.97

00:04:31.720 So, yeah, I think Caroline did herself really proud here.

00:04:34.920 And she's the only person in politics who I actually believe when she says that she does not want to do this job because she wants to go spend time with her kids.

00:04:41.060 I will admit to being mildly sexist here, when a man says I need to quit the job to go spend time with my kids, usually like 70% of the time he means I need to spend more time with my mistress.

00:04:50.500 When Caroline Levitt says I need to spend more time with my kids, I think she actually does really want to go spend more time with her kids.

00:04:56.220 I actually think that the best thing that she did was not just all the things you're listing.

00:04:59.920 From a performance standpoint, yes, I think she did a very good job.

00:05:03.180 I think her lasting legacy, though, will be bringing in alternative media outlets to the press room.

00:05:09.120 That was something we did not see as much of an effort on in the first Trump term.

00:05:12.620 And I think she deserves credit for not only allowing those voices in the room and working and pressuring the Courts Respondents Association to bring in outlets that are not traditional legacy ones,

00:05:23.900 but actually calling on them and promoting them, putting them in that new media seat right next to the podium.

00:05:28.560 and the Daily Wire now has a seat at the actual or in the press room.

00:05:33.580 And I think that that is the big legacy that she leaves 0.98

00:05:36.280 is taking away some of the power from the legacy outlets.

00:05:39.780 Yeah, no, I remember when the transition was up and running.

00:05:43.600 I was on with Don Jr.

00:05:45.780 And we were talking about what the press room should look like.

00:05:49.400 And I thought, you know, that would be such a natural legacy for Trump 0.75

00:05:54.840 is to bring in the new media and to kind of demote some of the old desiccated media.

00:06:00.260 And she did it. She made it happen, including the aforementioned great Mary Margaret Olihan getting in there. 1.00

00:06:05.320 So it was terrific. I look forward to Press Room 2.0 after Press Room 1.0 was so great.

00:06:12.860 You know what 1.0 was not great was Woke 1.0, and it's being replaced by Woke 2.0,

00:06:19.580 which strikes me as exactly the same as Woke 2.0.

00:06:22.440 I should also point out, it's friendly fire.

00:06:32.260 AOC comes out, she says, woke 1.0 was crazy.

00:06:39.180 Do we have the clip?

00:06:40.820 What do you make of those controversial statements I'm sure you've seen?

00:06:43.420 I mean, she's, you know, the Thanksgiving dust up.

00:06:47.100 She says she doesn't, you know, still believe that.

00:06:49.340 But, you know, abolish prisons, abolish police, which is also positions that have been taken by a lot of the progressive candidates who have won.

00:06:59.200 How do you get around that?

00:07:00.740 Yeah.

00:07:00.960 Those are not positions that are supported by most of the world.

00:07:03.400 Right.

00:07:03.920 I mean, I think that a lot of these races, even right now, they'll have a tendency to be nationalized.

00:07:11.120 Yeah.

00:07:11.400 But these races ultimately are local and all politics are local. 0.68

00:07:16.820 My understanding is that Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her electorate. 0.68

00:07:25.140 Yeah, she's moved away from a lot of that.

00:07:26.600 Right, she's moved away from it.

00:07:28.060 And I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy. 0.76

00:07:36.380 Woke one was crazy.

00:07:37.800 Okay, that's so true.

00:07:38.700 And I think that what's important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying.

00:07:43.180 Was it?

00:07:43.520 I mean, did the movement go too far with some of those positions?

00:07:45.860 I mean, you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police.

00:07:49.900 Well, you know, I think that during this time, and especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window.

00:07:59.460 We were shut down.

00:08:00.680 There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns.

00:08:04.880 And I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place.

00:08:14.880 So she comes out, and this was clearly intentional.

00:08:17.240 She's referring to this city council member who she's allied with and says, oh, yeah, I had this friend.

00:08:22.320 She told me, woke 1.0 was crazy.

00:08:24.880 And it's clearly an intentional pivot ahead of the midterms to say, yeah, we want to distance ourselves from all that stuff that got us blown out in 2024.

00:08:32.560 But it seems to me that woke 2.0 is exactly the same thing.

00:08:37.460 So it is not quite the same thing.

00:08:39.980 It is, broadly speaking, a similar thing.

00:08:44.220 So the way that I would distinguish Woke 1.0 from Woke 2.0 is Woke 1.0 is the idea that the chief motivating factor in all of Western civilization and in America particularly was racism, that it was white supremacy, right?

00:08:55.640 It was Black Lives Matter, that the 1619 Project made the argument that basically slavery and racism were the thing that built, say, capitalism or free speech was an aspect of a racist system.

00:09:05.540 Racism was the underlying motivating factor, and it was incurable.

00:09:09.100 There was nothing you could do about it.

00:09:10.620 All you could do is sort of rip down the system.

00:09:12.140 And I think it faded out because most Americans looked at it and went, what the hell are you talking about?

00:09:16.240 Most Americans got tired of it.

00:09:17.520 And also, most Americans looked at their neighbors and went, well, I don't see that many racists around here, and that doesn't feel real to me.

00:09:23.580 Woke 2.0, I do think, has a little bit more legs than Woke 1.0.

00:09:27.220 I think Woke 2.0 is making a different argument, and that is that the root of all evil is capitalism.

00:09:31.640 And you see this from Abdul El-Sayed.

00:09:33.000 You see this from Zahra Mamdani.

00:09:34.280 You see this from AOC. 0.61

00:09:35.800 Woke 2.0 is the idea that racism, imperialism, colonialism, all of this is the result of individual rights and free markets in the West.

00:09:42.340 And so all of that stuff needs to be thrown away.

00:09:45.000 And it's why you're seeing some horseshoe effect where you see some people on the right who are sort of warming to Woke 2.0.

00:09:50.260 It's why you'll see people like – if you listen to Hassan Piker on the left and Tucker Carlson on the right talk about economics, there's actually some significant crossover in the way they're talking about this sort of stuff because the idea is that capitalism is the thing that's to blame.

00:10:03.540 that that's a richer vein to mine for two reasons one people are really pissed off about the price

00:10:07.680 of things lately and i think that there's rationality to that again i think that most

00:10:11.920 of that is being caused by government policy i think the failure of government policy is what

00:10:15.300 causes prices to disconnect from underlying demand and supply rationality and two there

00:10:22.820 it is much easier to make the case that capitalism causes bad things that happen abroad like like

00:10:30.300 imperialism colonialism than to say that america itself is racist and terrible the problem with

00:10:34.400 one woke 1.0 is it was self-refuting you looked around the country went i don't know how many

00:10:37.800 racists things seem kind of okay like most of my neighbors seem like good people and it's like okay

00:10:41.540 that refutes that but if you say that american capitalism is causing us to be an imperialist

00:10:46.320 colonialist power abroad backing quote-unquote genocide in gaza which is like the number one

00:10:50.560 issue for the dsa right now you have to wonder how did how did a war 8 000 miles away involving

00:10:56.020 a very, very small sliver of humanity

00:10:57.680 become the number one issue for the DSA.

00:10:59.700 That's because it's much easier

00:11:01.600 to get people to buy into a proposition

00:11:02.700 that a bad thing is happening on ITV

00:11:04.180 where people are blowing up 8,000 miles away

00:11:06.420 and probably that's us in capitalism

00:11:07.920 than it is to say,

00:11:09.340 well, actually, you getting paid by your employer

00:11:11.700 is a result of slavery.

00:11:13.260 Like, Woke 1.0 is a harder sell, I think.

00:11:15.380 Well, so I wondered that.

00:11:17.400 I don't know.

00:11:18.080 I think actually you're being too charitable 1.00

00:11:19.360 to the Woke 2.0 people

00:11:21.480 in as much as what they want to pitch

00:11:23.520 is a much more serious economic populism.

00:11:26.880 They were pretty open about that.

00:11:29.280 And in some ways, I think the right

00:11:32.120 has more of an opportunity there than the left

00:11:34.020 because whenever they're asked,

00:11:35.760 okay, what's the difference?

00:11:36.720 To me, this is the, whenever AOC says,

00:11:38.460 well, at one point it was crazy,

00:11:39.800 the obvious follow-up we should ask is,

00:11:41.600 oh yeah, what was crazy about it?

00:11:43.960 Be specific, what was crazy? 1.00

00:11:45.800 Was it the trans thing or was it, you know, 1.00

00:11:48.300 marching in the streets

00:11:49.260 because a career criminal overdosed on fentanyl?

00:11:52.000 Or was it, what was,

00:11:52.920 Is it the mass migration?

00:11:54.320 What was crazy?

00:11:55.620 They won't tell you. 0.99

00:11:56.620 And then you have all these clips of Abdul El-Sayed and all the rest of them going around doubling down on transing the kids,

00:12:01.900 doubling down on the mass migration, doubling down on all of it.

00:12:04.280 So I think if it were this switchback, as AOC says, to, you know, I'm just a working class person.

00:12:09.980 I'm not a radical leftist.

00:12:11.720 I think it would work a lot better for them.

00:12:13.740 I just don't think they can disavow any of the aspects of Woke 1.0, which involved race, but it involved sex stuff.

00:12:21.760 It involved migration, involved all of that.

00:12:23.780 I don't think they're going to disavow it.

00:12:25.360 And so maybe they could make a play for the economic populism.

00:12:28.980 I just don't think they can stick the landing.

00:12:30.860 So I think you're right about that, Michael.

00:12:32.780 I think there is one thing that they're doing that's clever.

00:12:34.800 Well, there are a couple of things that are clever about the woke one, woke two sort of

00:12:37.720 rebranding.

00:12:38.180 One is that most people don't follow this stuff closely.

00:12:40.480 And so they just assume that when you disavow a prior position without explaining why, you've

00:12:44.960 actually disavowed it, right?

00:12:45.880 This is the same thing as Zora Mamdani going out there and saying, you know, I shifted

00:12:48.720 and I evolved on my defund the police position.

00:12:51.080 No, you didn't.

00:12:51.600 You just became mayor, right?

00:12:52.780 You still believe in defunding the police, right?

00:12:54.280 You still hate the country.

00:12:55.200 You're just lying about it.

00:12:56.260 You're just doing, you know, 0.92

00:12:57.480 taqiyah from a left-wing perspective.

00:12:59.620 These sort of Islamic doctrines 0.59

00:13:00.600 that during war you're allowed to lie. 1.00

00:13:01.980 Like you're, that's just the thing.

00:13:03.440 But I think there's one other thing

00:13:04.820 that they're doing that actually is clever.

00:13:06.360 And that is the thing they will say

00:13:07.800 was bad about woke one

00:13:09.020 was what they are now terming

00:13:10.880 the broad misinterpretation of cancel culture, right?

00:13:13.400 And this has become part of the problem.

00:13:15.400 It's a problem on the right

00:13:16.140 and a problem on the left, by the way,

00:13:17.400 is that originally when people like us

00:13:19.300 talked about cancel culture,

00:13:20.260 The idea was people should not lose their jobs for saying that men are not women, right?

00:13:25.060 That's what I mean by cancel culture.

00:13:26.200 We don't mean that if you go into your workplace and just start shouting Nazi slogans, you can never be fired, right?

00:13:32.020 That's not cancel culture.

00:13:33.000 That's just called like rational consequences.

00:13:35.100 Standards and norms and taboos.

00:13:37.240 Yeah, exactly.

00:13:37.720 But that turned into there can be no consequences whatsoever for your decision making.

00:13:43.360 And so they're taking that model, and that's how they're mapping on Hassan Piker, right?

00:13:46.540 You hear Bernie Sanders do this now, right?

00:13:48.080 Bernie Sanders is like, you know, I don't agree with everything that Hassan Piker has

00:13:51.360 to say, but we can't just cancel Hassan Piker.

00:13:54.080 We have to include him.

00:13:55.420 And you see this on the right, right?

00:13:56.600 Obviously, the vice president said some of this stuff at TPSA, and you see it on the 0.97

00:13:59.660 left with regard to the Democratic Party just ingesting all this crap from Hassan Piker.

00:14:05.160 And I think that that is, again, a tactically smart move. 0.95

00:14:07.980 I agree with you.

00:14:09.000 I think they're going to have a very difficult time disavowing many of their prior crazy

00:14:12.600 beliefs, but they're hoping that everybody sort of glosses over it, that everybody sort

00:14:16.400 of ignores it, that it goes away for them. And you could see a world in which they nominate

00:14:20.180 somebody for the presidency who's able to kind of like gloss over the top of it. I don't think it's

00:14:24.140 AOC, but you could see somebody like a Westmore being able to sort of evade that, some of those 0.83

00:14:28.440 more dicey issues for them like trans. Do you think they even need to fully disavow all of this 0.85

00:14:34.300 stuff? I just can't help but wonder how many within the Democratic base are like, have a

00:14:41.060 hankering for them to disavow or if they're just saying, oh, well, yeah, we all got caught up in

00:14:45.300 stuff, no big deal. And I just wonder how many of these Democratic lawmakers are going to say,

00:14:50.480 screw it, I'm not going to give any ground on this. I'm not going to show any weakness.

00:14:54.140 I agree with what you're saying, Ben, that I think this one has more legs because

00:14:58.080 I think the class warfare, there's more for them to go on than the racial grievances in Woke 1.

00:15:04.220 And maybe I'm the pessimist. I feel like Republicans have done a terrible job so far

00:15:09.140 responding to Woke 2. And the main message that I'm hearing, I mean, we have congressmen and

00:15:14.340 senators and candidates on Wired End like every day. And the main thing they're saying is just,

00:15:18.760 oh, these socialists, they're fools because socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's tried. 0.99

00:15:22.460 And they kind of laugh at them. Oh, we all know how socialism works in the end. And they're right. 0.99

00:15:27.560 But I'm not seeing a ton of like acknowledging what people are actually mad about in the first

00:15:32.080 place and telling people, hey, this is a crappy idea. I don't think it's going to be enough.

00:15:37.340 And I'd like to see more folks on the right say, yeah, you guys actually are right to be angry

00:15:42.460 about this. Let's have a more clear solution. Do you think Republicans are actually doing that

00:15:46.320 right now? Well, on the base point, Cabot, you're right that there's no appetite among the base

00:15:51.780 whatsoever for them to disavow woke one. That's one of the problems. I mean, the Democratic

00:15:56.280 Socialists of America are now more popular with rank and file Democrat voters than Democrats in

00:16:01.120 Congress are. Huge swaths of the Democrat base identifies now as socialists. So they don't want

00:16:06.420 them to disavow it. They're just trying to win over normal people, recapture the common sense.

00:16:11.200 So the other problem that they have is that the internal logic of their ideology won't allow them to disavow it. 0.87

00:16:17.480 This is the problem they ran into when they went all the way up to transing the kids. 0.64

00:16:20.560 Well, okay, if transing the kids is wrong, then why is transing the adults okay? 0.83

00:16:24.860 If transing the adults is not okay, if men and women are really different, why is gay marriage legitimate? 0.78

00:16:29.480 If men and women actually are different, then why would we redefine marriage in this radical way?

00:16:33.560 If the LGBT movement in itself is not okay, then I don't know why some of our premises about feminism are probably wrong. 0.56

00:16:41.420 So it's like, just as ideas have a kind of inertia and momentum to them that bring us from Gloria Steinem to transing the kids,

00:16:49.240 when you reject part, it goes back in the other direction.

00:16:52.140 I just think that the left cannot unwind it.

00:16:55.280 So they're really between a rock and a hard place.

00:16:57.860 And what the conservatives need to do, I think we need to be honest with ourselves.

00:17:01.300 The Iran war is unpopular and it's dragging on a lot longer than people thought it would.

00:17:05.660 The affordability issue is good for Democrats and Republicans just have a harder time.

00:17:11.160 Even if we brought the inflation rate way down from under Joe Biden, it's still a problem.

00:17:15.420 Stuff is still expensive.

00:17:16.360 People see that all around them.

00:17:17.860 Trump has done well with economic populism since 2016 by arguing against NAFTA, by not wanting to reform entitlements.

00:17:25.260 You can say all of that could be economically bad down the road, but just it did actually have a sway with voters.

00:17:29.720 But right now, it's much more difficult for conservatives to make that argument with Republicans in power.

00:17:34.260 So what are you going to hammer?

00:17:35.920 I think you've got to go back to the well. 0.94

00:17:38.160 You've got to pick up the bat, keep hitting that dead horse of the trans issue and the radicalism of wokeness, 0.65

00:17:43.720 in part because the left hasn't given it up, so it's still a live fight. 0.56

00:17:47.800 And two, they can't run away from it.

00:17:49.760 It's just a major wedge issue for them right now.

00:17:52.280 I think that there's another angle that needs to be taken that the right has been very reticent to take, which is weird.

00:17:57.500 I get to the affordability and sort of what needs to be done on that issue in a second, because you're right that obviously there's a lot of political hay that's being made off of all those issues.

00:18:04.860 And I agree with your assessment, Michael, on the unpopularity of the war in Iran and the lack of an overall strategy that's been expressed to the American people and all that kind of stuff.

00:18:12.880 There is one angle that the Republicans have left totally on the table and they're just not taking it for a reason I cannot discern.

00:18:18.900 And that angle is these people, they hate America.

00:18:21.160 I mean, they literally hate America.

00:18:22.680 I mean, Hassan Piker despises the country.

00:18:25.180 I mean, despises it. 1.00

00:18:26.080 I mean, he says he wipes his ass with the flag of the United States of America. 1.00

00:18:29.020 Abdul El-Sayed hates America. 1.00

00:18:31.400 I mean, associates with people, campaigns with people who hate America.

00:18:35.480 Grand Planner and Maine hated America.

00:18:36.940 Zorma Amdani hates America. 1.00

00:18:38.620 Like, these people are not being shy about any of this.

00:18:41.260 And that hatred of America, I think Americans have a gut level willingness to understand that if we show it to them.

00:18:46.340 I mean, if I were the Republicans, I would just, in every one of these campaigns, be showing pictures of Hassan Piker with Abdul El-Sayed and say,

00:18:53.840 this is your democratic party and then play a clip of hassan piker saying this right there's a

00:18:57.320 clip of the kind of stuff that hassan piker says openly and he is a treasured part of the democratic

00:19:02.200 constellation at this point i hate this country so much overall what my favorite flag yeah hezbollah

00:19:09.660 look it up if hezbollah is a terrorist organization america is the top terrorist organization which it

00:19:16.320 is by the way america is the top dog in terrorism one side is always going to be worse than the

00:19:20.680 other side america is worse than iran that much is 100 something i stand on it's not even a 0.96

00:19:26.620 comparison america is the greatest terrorist on the planet also you might have noticed something

00:19:30.720 finally framed newspaper from 9 11 the morning of 9 12 the newspaper right there america deserved

00:19:37.920 9 11 dude i'm saying it they love walking over like the american flag and the israeli flag side 0.69

00:19:43.380 by side they will always like march on it kill those and murder those in the street let the 0.97

00:19:48.400 streets let the streets soak in their red capitalist bloods dude they can do whatever 1.00

00:19:55.180 the they want with the american flag and the israeli flag i wipe my ass with the american 0.99

00:19:59.360 flag i understand the the utter moral depravity of the average american and me from the back okay 1.00

00:20:06.640 i the constitution i i wipe my ass with the constitution it's a piece of paper dude shut 1.00

00:20:14.100 the fuck up mother constitution and mother this country okay okay so i mean like that seems to me 1.00

00:20:21.900 a pretty rich vein for republicans to mine so i if i were doing the republican campaign strategy 0.99

00:20:27.380 number one would be pointing out how much these people truly hate the country yeah now again some

00:20:32.000 of these people hide it better than others right like the the they're they're more mainstream

00:20:35.380 democrats who don't say that kind of stuff and so that means that it'll be harder in for example 1.00

00:20:38.840 wisconsin would be easier francesca hong had actually won that primary in wisconsin for

00:20:42.720 republicans to win the gubernatorial race over there but that brings us to the sort of affordability

00:20:46.720 thing and this is where you know there's going to be some significant disagreement between you

00:20:50.040 and me michael on this i think that i agree with you cabot that obviously everyone ought to

00:20:54.500 acknowledge things are too expensive they are too expensive of course they mostly got expensive

00:20:58.180 under joe biden right that is the reality of when things got super expensive and then they've gotten

00:21:02.520 marginally more expensive under president trump as well the great jump in expenses did not happen

00:21:07.080 because of the iran war although the iran war contributes at the margins to that i think all

00:21:10.780 of those things are true simultaneously. The question is how you solve that. I don't think

00:21:14.020 that you can solve that by proposing a set of policies that are statist and interventionist

00:21:18.020 in nature, because the Democrats, number one, on a political level will always outbid you there.

00:21:21.620 And number two, it just happens not to be true. If you're the person who wants to bring down

00:21:25.480 prices, there is only one way to bring down prices. And the only way to bring down prices

00:21:29.860 is to skyrocket supply. And the only way to skyrocket supply is to remove things like the

00:21:34.600 tariffs that President Trump likes, to stop subsidizing demand side, which is what subsidies

00:21:38.720 are. That's the stuff you actually have to do. So if you want to bring down the prices, and right

00:21:42.400 now the Republicans are in power, so they're responsible for it, you actually have to promote

00:21:45.760 policies that actually get that thing done that are different than the stuff the Democrats would

00:21:49.860 say, which is mandate, mandate, regulate, subsidize, and all the rest of that kind of stuff. You have

00:21:53.980 to make an overt defense of free markets and attack socialism, not just as a buzzword. Like

00:21:58.960 the polls show, Americans don't even know what socialism means anymore. Bernie Sanders has done

00:22:02.240 an amazing job of basically convincing people that socialism looks like Denmark, when Denmark

00:22:07.220 in reality is a very, very robust capitalist state with extremely high tax rates and social

00:22:12.060 redistributionism. Yeah, I think, look, I think even the socialists don't understand what socialism

00:22:18.220 is and the chief critics of socialism don't understand because I think that Winston Churchill

00:22:22.460 is right that it's a gospel of envy. I think it's actually much more than economics. I think it

00:22:26.720 comes down to Marx's favorite line of literature being from Goethe's Faust saying that everything

00:22:31.920 exists deserves to perish and he wants the ruthless criticism of all that exists. So I mean,

00:22:36.540 there's a deeply spiritual component here. How many popes have we had who've said that a Catholic

00:22:40.880 cannot subscribe even to a moderate form of socialism? You obviously, you know, there is a

00:22:46.300 robust moral argument to be made against socialism, even more than the economic one. Yeah, where I

00:22:51.220 disagree though, Ben, is I do not think that, I don't agree with the solution that, or with the

00:22:57.320 proposition that Republicans can't campaign on economic populism. And putting aside even the

00:23:03.940 efficacy of the policies, which we could debate later, just in terms of the campaigning. If the

00:23:10.940 idea is that you shouldn't engage in the economic populism because the Democrats are always going to

00:23:15.800 offer more, they're always going to offer more free stuff than you're going to offer. So they're

00:23:19.160 always going to beat you at that game. I don't think that's true. And I think the proof is now

00:23:23.020 like 60 years of Republican politics here. The Republicans ran for a very long time against FDR's

00:23:29.480 New Deal. When the Republicans really came into ascendancy with the modern conservative movement,

00:23:33.940 It was under Ronald Reagan who defended the New Deal, who said, I'm a New Deal Democrat.

00:23:38.400 I didn't leave my party. My party left me.

00:23:40.900 Now, Ronald Reagan obviously defended free markets.

00:23:43.100 He had a complicated economic record because he also implemented tariffs.

00:23:46.080 But yeah, he was a free marketeer, no doubt about that.

00:23:48.960 George W. Bush won and won eventually the popular vote in 2004 by campaigning with a little bit of economic populism in there.

00:23:55.540 And President Trump, I think, did this most beautifully in 2016.

00:23:59.020 It's annoying because we have this major debt problem and we need to figure out a way to reform our budget,

00:24:02.760 which begins with our entitlements. But President Trump changed the script. Republicans were getting

00:24:07.860 hammered. The Romney-Ryan campaign got hammered because the Democrats said that Paul Ryan

00:24:13.220 especially is going to throw granny off of a cliff. They campaigned against entitlements

00:24:16.920 and they got crushed. Trump comes out, he says, I'm not touching your social security.

00:24:21.300 I'm not touching your Medicare. And there have been a lot of economic reforms under Trump,

00:24:26.040 some more successful than others. But I think there's a long and storied history

00:24:29.680 of Republicans leaning a little bit into economic populism.

00:24:33.780 And the reason for that, by the way,

00:24:35.280 is not because we're going to become a little bit socialist,

00:24:37.460 but because that's the way to prevent socialism.

00:24:39.260 If you tell people, we don't care about your economic condition,

00:24:42.760 we're not going to do anything to help you,

00:24:44.260 you know, the market is all-knowing,

00:24:47.020 the invisible hand deserves our worship,

00:24:49.520 and if it doesn't work out for you, too bad.

00:24:51.600 If we tell them that, we are going to lead them towards socialism,

00:24:55.000 rightly or wrongly.

00:24:55.880 Okay, so this is an argument, this last part of the,

00:24:57.840 I was with you, actually, for a huge part of the argument.

00:24:59.820 The last part of the argument is the part that I find to be a bit of a straw man.

00:25:02.780 I don't think anybody is saying, worship the invisible hand of the market.

00:25:05.340 The question is, if you actually want to bring down prices, you need to say, what is the obstacle to prices coming down?

00:25:10.200 And the answer is, you have a supply-side problem and an artificial demand-side problem.

00:25:14.180 That is just the reality of the situation.

00:25:16.100 And so you can campaign on a bunch of nonsense that actually doesn't lower the prices.

00:25:19.420 But when you say there are third rails to American politics, obviously that's true with the welfare state, right?

00:25:23.280 Yeah, yeah.

00:25:23.500 I mean, that's true. 0.99

00:25:24.040 If you want to talk about the true uniparty in Washington, the truest uniparty, and they're a bunch of idiots who talk about uniparty in foreign policy, which is not true. 0.98

00:25:31.620 There is an actual uniparty, not when it comes to, quote unquote, neoliberalism, but when it comes to the welfare state. 0.96

00:25:36.640 That is an actual real uniparty where there are zero votes for a full scale reduction of, say, Social Security or changing of the structure of Medicare and Medicaid.

00:25:44.920 That's the actual thing, which is only the biggest issue in probably the history of American politics that we are just going to run right over.

00:25:50.580 But, you know, again, on a political level, I'm not saying Trump should run on we're privatizing Social Security.

00:25:55.140 What I'm suggesting is that Republicans are going to need to provide an alternative structure that is not just a bunch of subsidies that Democrats can out.

00:26:02.960 And tariffs are not, in fact, a third rail of American politics.

00:26:06.180 In fact, if you look back at President Trump's approval rating, they actually drop below the 50 percent mark on Liberation Day.

00:26:12.300 They never recovered because of the implementation.

00:26:14.180 Arithmetically down.

00:26:15.520 Also because they're just a bad idea.

00:26:17.080 I mean, like the way that he did it, I mean, we can say that Reagan liked tariffs.

00:26:21.540 President Reagan's use of tariffs was nowhere remotely close to what President Trump did on Liberation Day.

00:26:26.960 That's also true of the Bush steel tariffs and all the rest of it.

00:26:29.240 By the way, we should say that, you know, AOC, we mentioned AOC and woke 1.0 earlier.

00:26:34.720 AOC, obviously, we should get to how she announced her presidential run because it was weird, weird.

00:26:40.240 But the Kalshi markets suggest that 9% of people think she is going to announce her presidential candidacy before January 1 of next year.

00:26:48.720 23% of people saying before April 1 of next year.

00:26:51.940 July, 40%.

00:26:53.540 October of next year, 58%.

00:26:55.040 So pretty much everybody, at least a huge majority of people in the Kalshi markets, which, again, a sponsor of ours, believe that she is going to announce a presidential run before the actual presidential season starts next year.

00:27:05.040 Again, I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't.

00:27:06.820 And if that keeps you up at night, well, you need a Helix-lead mattress.

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00:28:12.620 Okay, Michael, I do have to ask you, and I have to ask you, Cabot, about the AOC presidential announcement.

00:28:18.680 I'm not sure I've ever seen a quasi-presidential announcement predicated on a biological intervention.

00:28:27.920 That was a new one.

00:28:29.260 I've never seen that.

00:28:30.460 First of all, I feel like none of this should be on camera.

00:28:32.340 If you're going to do it, whatever moral problems any of us have with it,

00:28:35.240 and I think we all have some moral qualms about a lot of this,

00:28:38.140 that's super duper weird.

00:28:40.600 That's weird, is it not?

00:28:41.540 It's weird, you know, and I actually, just respectfully,

00:28:44.460 since you just came out of the Helix sleep ad,

00:28:47.080 if I were in your shoes, my transition would have been,

00:28:50.560 okay, gang, we're repopulating the Earth

00:28:52.580 because my wife and I share a beautiful Helix mattress,

00:28:54.720 and we'll just leave it at that, gang.

00:28:56.160 But if you, but unlike us, AOC has decided to take the less fun route, 0.53

00:29:02.020 And so she comes out and she injects herself on camera and she pre-tapes it.

00:29:07.360 She says, I'm not going to do this live.

00:29:08.880 That'd be weird.

00:29:09.560 You're like, that would be weird?

00:29:10.580 Yeah, right.

00:29:11.860 And yes, I had the exact same first instinct you did.

00:29:15.500 My first instinct was, okay, this is her presidential announcement.

00:29:18.340 We should bring on, actually, a candidate, a politician who knows a thing or two about running to help us talk about this. 0.98

00:29:24.840 That would be Michelle Tafoi, a sports broadcaster and Minnesota Senate candidate.

00:29:30.260 Michelle, thank you for coming on the show.

00:29:32.020 It's good to have you. I'm really sorry I missed this clip of this shot or whatever AOC was doing to herself. What happened?

00:29:38.640 Well, she stuck herself with a needle because she said, I guess we have the clip. Yeah, you want to play it?

00:29:43.700 Don't be weird about this, even though I know all of you will be.

00:29:48.580 All right, everyone. Deco and I, day one of freezing my eggs.

00:29:53.560 I'm diving into the process and now I've got

00:29:59.120 let's see all of this medicine here I'm going to inject this first but I got a pro tip from a

00:30:10.260 friend because this injection kind of stings it kind of burns a little bit so a friend of mine

00:30:18.340 told me that if you make the first injection first and let it sit while you're making while

00:30:26.420 you're doing everything else maybe it burns a little less i don't know all right

00:30:38.900 then she shows skin don't be weird about this don't be weird too late not being weird yeah

00:30:46.660 It's not being weird, Michael.

00:30:47.380 Is that on me?

00:30:48.720 That's like when the libs.

00:30:49.580 You're being weird.

00:30:50.100 They say, like, why do you guys always talk about trans people? 0.99

00:30:52.680 It's like, I don't know, because you started it. 0.91

00:30:54.360 Like, I'm just responding, don't be weird about this.

00:30:56.820 You're taking your shirt up and injecting it.

00:30:58.460 Also, when she was asked this week about her relationship,

00:31:01.400 they said, are you still engaged?

00:31:02.840 She said, I don't talk about my personal life.

00:31:05.620 But let me whip my stomach out on a live stream

00:31:09.000 and show myself freezing my head.

00:31:10.260 I don't talk about my personal life except my eggs.

00:31:13.540 That's interesting.

00:31:14.380 Well, it brought back some memories there

00:31:16.080 because my husband and I went through infertility.

00:31:17.980 We did not freeze any eggs, but we did do in vitro.

00:31:20.480 So I remember all the shots.

00:31:22.080 I had no desire to film myself doing the shots, by the way,

00:31:27.280 but to each his own.

00:31:29.760 Well, again, you know, my feeling about this is,

00:31:32.020 so first of all, this is what I've called on the show,

00:31:34.380 face tattoo syndrome, right?

00:31:35.760 This is where you walk into a Starbucks

00:31:37.020 and there's some weird person with a gigantic face tattoo

00:31:39.500 and you're kind of staring at it

00:31:40.660 because they have a face tattoo.

00:31:42.180 And then they look at you and they growl and they go,

00:31:44.820 what are you staring at?

00:31:45.860 it's your face tattoo that's what i'm staring at it's the thing that you did in order to get 0.99

00:31:49.500 attention for the thing i mean it's like you like what what the hell don't be weird about this lady 0.99

00:31:55.100 you're filming yourself injecting yourself with hormones in order to artificially stimulate your 1.00

00:32:00.540 ovaries to reproduce to produce multiple eggs that can be harvested for later like what i'm being

00:32:06.740 weird i'm like me it was me like i don't know man i feel there there there's so much there with her

00:32:13.440 But again, this is a weird Democratic Party.

00:32:15.420 And the whole thing for the Democratic Party is be weird and dare other people to talk about it.

00:32:19.860 Because the first thing that I thought of here was like, this is, it was like Tom Hardy, right?

00:32:23.460 This is bait.

00:32:24.320 This is bait.

00:32:24.840 Yes.

00:32:25.160 But we all had to take the bait because it was there, right?

00:32:26.820 I mean, it is bait.

00:32:27.840 Can I say something uncharacteristic here, which was not, I'm not, this is not a joke.

00:32:32.340 This is not a setup to anything.

00:32:33.300 This was my sincere reaction when I saw it.

00:32:35.920 I feel bad for AOC.

00:32:37.440 I actually feel really sad for AOC.

00:32:39.020 AOC is a year older than me.

00:32:40.920 Lady never tells.

00:32:41.580 We grew up in almost exactly the same place and towns right over from each other at almost exactly the same time.

00:32:46.920 She grew up in the whiter, richer town next to me, but nevertheless, it was very similar.

00:32:50.460 And I think, okay, this is a 36-year-old woman who I thought was engaged for four years now. 0.99

00:32:58.160 Talk about millennial behavior. 0.95

00:33:00.160 And I said, what are you waiting for?

00:33:02.780 You could just have the kid.

00:33:04.680 Obviously, you're putting this off probably for presidential reasons or running for Senate or something like that.

00:33:10.580 And so you're putting your career first, and you're going to put this off until, what, 40, 45, 50?

00:33:14.960 And it's very sad because this is the most millennial behavior ever.

00:33:19.640 The millennials were all told, put off getting married, put off having a kid, stay engaged for 75 years, put your career first before everything.

00:33:27.060 And they just are wrong, and they're miserable as a result of it. 0.63

00:33:30.900 And AOC now is in favor of her, I don't know, putting off getting married to the guy that she may or may not be still engaged to and obviously wanting to run for president.

00:33:42.580 She's missing it, man.

00:33:44.620 I've spent a lot of time around Congress.

00:33:46.340 I've spent a lot of time around the White House.

00:33:48.340 Having kids is better.

00:33:50.140 It's better. 0.95

00:33:51.080 And to dedicate yourself to spending time with most people on Capitol Hill are complete degenerates. 0.99

00:33:57.240 Some of them are very fine people, but a lot of them, it sucks, man. 0.99

00:34:01.480 You're missing out.

00:34:02.400 You're making the wrong choice, and you're going to be less happy as a result of it, and you don't have to.

00:34:07.020 Listen, you know what?

00:34:09.020 I'm going to say this.

00:34:10.240 I didn't have my son until I was 40.

00:34:12.720 Part of that reason was I was really pursuing my career hard, and I didn't put anything off.

00:34:19.440 I wasn't avoiding meeting the man of my dreams.

00:34:22.240 I just wasn't meeting him.

00:34:23.480 And then finally we met. He's seven years younger. And then it was time to get married. And we thought, no, we have a little time to just go enjoy the first years of our marriage. Before I knew it, you know, I was 37 and trying to get pregnant and it went very, very poorly.

00:34:39.420 I have no regrets in my life, except not a couple from my young age, but really no regrets.

00:34:45.540 I couldn't be happier in my marriage and with my children.

00:34:48.060 And I had the benefit of adopting my second child.

00:34:51.080 And she is the gift that keeps on giving, man.

00:34:54.880 But I will say, you can do it.

00:34:58.960 You know, I think she's doing this.

00:35:00.620 Obviously, it's kind of a clear sign that maybe they're not getting married. 1.00

00:35:03.540 Otherwise, just have kids.

00:35:05.140 You can juggle stuff.

00:35:07.000 It's not, it's hard, but it's worthwhile.

00:35:11.160 Michelle, the White House came out

00:35:13.220 and there were multiple outlets reporting

00:35:15.620 that the White House was upset

00:35:16.660 that there were conservative commentators,

00:35:18.620 folks like that evil Michael Knowles,

00:35:19.980 who were pointing out some of the strangeness

00:35:22.800 with this entire situation.

00:35:24.080 And the White House was reportedly calling Republicans saying,

00:35:27.040 hey, don't talk about this, please.

00:35:29.460 This is not playing well to go after AOC 1.00

00:35:31.480 for what she's doing. 1.00

00:35:32.640 Just stay out of it.

00:35:33.680 Do you agree with the White House messaging

00:35:34.820 or did you yourself hear from the White House on this?

00:35:37.440 I haven't heard because it's the first time I saw the video.

00:35:39.900 So I haven't commented on it until now.

00:35:41.760 But look, whatever people want to do

00:35:44.380 to bring kids in the world, I'm all about it.

00:35:46.640 Like I said, we had a hellacious experience.

00:35:50.900 And fortunately, almost 21 years ago now,

00:35:54.060 I had my son and it was, for me,

00:35:58.080 it was the way it was supposed to be.

00:36:00.220 That's the way I look at it.

00:36:01.520 And then we adopted this angel from Bogota, Colombia

00:36:05.680 So I'm not going to question anyone's motives or the track that they take to having a family.

00:36:12.680 I'm not.

00:36:14.640 Just I don't need to see it on video, I guess.

00:36:19.160 Ben, are you going to question their motives and their track?

00:36:22.340 I mean, I get paid to question people's motives and their decision making.

00:36:25.660 So, I mean, it's a bit of a different career path that we've chosen from those who are seeking elected office.

00:36:30.880 But, you know, speaking of kind of the weirdness of Democrats more general, I want to ask Michelle about the race that she is currently going to engage in.

00:36:37.040 So what do we know about your opponent?

00:36:39.740 So you overcame some establishment Republicans who wanted someone else to actually win.

00:36:44.540 So what happened in the primary there?

00:36:46.160 And then why explain who you're running against in the Senate there?

00:36:49.880 Yeah, I think I think our message really resonated.

00:36:52.140 I got in on January 21st, you know, so I was playing from a little bit behind in terms of time.

00:36:57.660 But, oh, my gosh, we started raising money so fast.

00:37:00.680 And in the first quarter, we raised a record amount for any Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Minnesota history.

00:37:07.400 So we felt like we were on to something.

00:37:10.380 And the message just really did.

00:37:12.440 We didn't win the establishment Republican endorsement, but we told them from the get-go, whatever happens, we're going to go to the primary because we believe in this candidacy.

00:37:23.240 And that message really has resonated.

00:37:25.760 Our entire message has resonated across the state.

00:37:28.240 I think we won 81 of 87 counties.

00:37:32.400 So and then on the other side, it was a woman, Angie Craig, who's a sitting congresswoman who likes to appear moderate and is not versus a woman who doesn't care at all if she appears moderate because she is not.

00:37:44.820 And she has been Tim Walz's lieutenant governor while all of this fraud has gone on, while the test scores in Minnesota have plummeted, while crime has gone up, while the police have been just strangled of their livelihood in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

00:38:00.320 All of those things happen under Tim Walz and his right hand, Peggy Flanagan.

00:38:04.700 She is now the Democrat nominee. She won in a landslide on that side, which was a little bit surprising to a lot of Minnesotans that she won so handily. I'm telling you, there is a dearth of leadership in Minnesota. And I'm going to encourage everyone in this state to say, stand up. Do not give this woman a promotion.

00:38:24.680 She's overseen fraud. 1.00

00:38:26.120 She's overseen all of these issues that we are now, you know, sitting with in Minnesota

00:38:30.580 going, what has happened? 0.75

00:38:32.300 So let's not give her a promotion. 1.00

00:38:33.980 Let's hold her accountable. 1.00

00:38:34.920 That's what my campaign intends to do.

00:38:36.700 Michelle, I thought the interesting thing on the Democratic side was how really the 0.68

00:38:40.280 death knell for Angie Craig was her vote for the Lake and Riley Act when she was in Congress.

00:38:45.120 And it seems like immigration is the biggest issue on the left right now because of the

00:38:50.420 ICE operations that we saw in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

00:38:53.720 And Peggy Flanagan's really main message that she was hitting Angie Craig on was she voted with Republicans for the Lake and Riley Act, which if you actually read the Lake and Riley Act, of course, every single member of Congress should have voted for it.

00:39:04.660 But talk to us about that issue, the role that immigration and ICE and all those things are playing in this race.

00:39:10.180 Well, you're right that Craig had to walk that back and apologize and she regretted that vote.

00:39:14.740 But you're right, the Democrat Party in Minnesota held it over her head and supported her opponent, Peggy Flanagan.

00:39:21.700 So she is going to make all of this a central issue to her campaign, to which I would say this.

00:39:29.300 I wish that it was handled better in the beginning, this Operation Metro Surge.

00:39:35.520 We had two tragic, unnecessary deaths here that were horrible.

00:39:40.700 Tom Homan came in and I think really leveled things out and calmed the situation down.

00:39:45.920 And I've spent a lot of time talking to law enforcement, leadership groups, unions, police chiefs, sheriffs here in Minnesota, a lot of time.

00:39:54.240 And they've been demoralized. But when Tom Homan came in, they like him.

00:40:00.360 They admire him. They respect him. They work well with him. And it really quelled the situation.

00:40:05.480 So, you know, look, I think this idea that you you get one end of the spectrum or the other, they're going to say open borders or, you know, just open borders are fine or immigration control is cruel.

00:40:20.280 What I think is cruel are deaths like Lake and Riley's. And I think it's also cruel to American citizens to hollow out programs at their expense for the expense of people who are not here legally.

00:40:31.440 I think I think we can have two things. I think we can have a secure border and I think we can also have a legal immigration system that I know my grandparents took advantage of and have people vetted coming here legally to be productive members of American society.

00:40:50.940 I just don't see I don't see the other side seeing it that way. They they're making a two sided argument that is with no room for in between.

00:40:58.920 Michelle, how are you feeling about the midterms right now generally?

00:41:01.640 Because I was very, very black-pilled some months ago, and I was interviewing Speaker Johnson, actually.

00:41:08.160 And he said, no, I think we're going to do well.

00:41:10.680 I think we could grow the majority.

00:41:12.240 And I remember he had a cup of coffee.

00:41:14.280 I said, what's in that coffee?

00:41:15.380 Would someone mind pouring some of that into me?

00:41:17.680 And then I start looking at the polls.

00:41:19.520 Was it two, three weeks ago?

00:41:20.860 All of a sudden, that on top of the redistricting from the U.S. Supreme Court, Virginia Supreme Court,

00:41:25.380 I'm starting to say, man, you know, that maybe I was wrong. You know, actually, maybe things are looking a lot better for Republicans. For a while, they were running basically even on the generic ballot, even though historically we should get blown out of the water. It's just how the first midterm works in this election cycle.

00:41:41.440 Now, however, I'm feeling a little more black-filled again.

00:41:43.860 It seems to me, you know, we're looking, the economy could be a little shaky and the Democrats have avoided some of the worst nominees.

00:41:52.720 You know, I was really pulling for Francesca Hong.

00:41:54.780 I thought that would really help us out in Wisconsin.

00:41:56.900 They averted that disaster. 0.99

00:41:58.880 Obviously, the Iran war complicates things.

00:42:00.480 So how are you feeling about your chances in Minnesota and the Republicans' chances more broadly?

00:42:06.380 How tough is it going to be for the candidates?

00:42:08.580 Well, it's certainly an uphill climb, but you know what?

00:42:10.840 The contrast could not be clearer.

00:42:14.180 And that's what we just need to keep hammering, is this contrast between common sense and

00:42:20.220 crazy, or some people like to say common sense and communism.

00:42:23.760 I mean, my opponent could not be worse for the state of Minnesota, could not be worse

00:42:27.840 for the U.S. Senate.

00:42:29.200 And you guys were talking about something earlier that I was listening and taking notes

00:42:32.540 on. And that's this notion that this Hassan Piker led party is so anti-West, so anti-American,

00:42:39.180 so anti-Israel. I don't think we can expose that enough because I think there are more people in

00:42:47.820 America who love this country and who want the best for this country and actually who want hope

00:42:52.740 and do not want to see us in this Marxist lens of oppressed versus oppressor, who want to feel

00:42:58.880 like, you know what? That American dream sounds pretty good. I'm kind of bummed people keep

00:43:03.980 telling me it's dying because it's not. I see it all the time. I'm a product of it.

00:43:09.860 My background is, trust me, the harder I work, the luckier I've gotten. And I've done nothing

00:43:17.220 but work since I was 10 years old. It was the way I was raised. It was the way my parents were

00:43:20.700 raised during the depression. You can do these things. And I'm so tired of this notion that

00:43:26.780 no, only certain people, rich people, white people get privileged. No, that is just so not true.

00:43:33.340 So I think that we need to keep exposing the weaknesses of the other side. It seems like

00:43:38.760 we're constantly on the defense. We've got to go on offense. I agree. I want to get to a very

00:43:45.920 important story, but if anyone has anything else to add to the election, I want to get to the much

00:43:50.500 more important story, which is the WNBA and the fact that it's about to become much more inclusive

00:43:57.540 They're finally, you know, after years that we're going to break the glass ceiling, the super ceiling on top, not just for the women, but for the, you know, the men who think that they're women.

00:44:06.320 Because Inez Cantor Freedom has just come out and made himself a prospect for the WNBA.

00:44:12.420 And the WNBA hasn't exactly shot it down yet.

00:44:16.360 So the question I have for a Republican candidate, and especially for us at Daily Wire, which has made a lot of hay out of Matt's movie, What is a Woman?

00:44:22.760 And the question I have is, are we just beating a dead horse here?

00:44:26.960 Is it, look, we've gotten, Republicans have gotten a lot of mileage out of the trans issue over the years.

00:44:32.100 Are we beating a dead horse or do we need to keep talking about it?

00:44:35.460 Just for your context, here is the future star of the WNBA.

00:44:45.800 After careful consideration on reviewing the current eligibility guidelines, I am officially declaring myself a WNBA prospect.

00:44:52.760 If simply declaring who you are is all that is required, then I meet every single requirement

00:44:57.800 necessary to compete in the WNBA. My team and I have carefully examined the WNBA's eligibility

00:45:03.880 criteria and governing framework surrounding self-identification and inclusion. Based on the

00:45:09.400 current guidelines, I can and am officially declaring my eligibility for the upcoming WNBA

00:45:14.600 draft in May 2027. I am definitely not here to mock, make fun of, or to suspect any community

00:45:20.520 or personal choices.

00:45:22.020 I am simply asking that the current rules

00:45:24.260 be applied equally to everyone.

00:45:26.120 The rules that represent the very values

00:45:28.240 many WNBA players and coaches

00:45:30.180 have publicly advocated for.

00:45:31.980 My team and I are prepared to ensure

00:45:33.940 these guidelines are applied equally,

00:45:36.200 consistently, and without exception.

00:45:38.140 And I look forward to the WNBA honoring

00:45:40.340 its stated principles.

00:45:42.120 See you at training camp.

00:45:45.420 Preach, sister.

00:45:46.780 Do we continue to harp on this or no?

00:45:50.120 Is this a dead issue?

00:45:52.260 No, it's not a dead issue.

00:45:53.640 And I'll just use the people in my life as a barometer, whether they're athletes, whether they're non-athletes, whether they're moms or dads.

00:46:01.980 It's hard to believe we're still talking about it, but we still obviously have to talk about it.

00:46:06.100 Look, I covered the WNBA as a play-by-play announcer.

00:46:09.340 Robin Roberts, Hannah Storm, and I were the first three play-by-play announcers for the league when it started.

00:46:14.160 Reggie Miller was my analyst.

00:46:16.040 And it was a time of celebrating women.

00:46:19.480 Lisa Leslie, Cheryl Swoops, Sue Bird, Rebecca Lobo, that whole crew that came through and it was a celebration of women distinguishing themselves as athletes.

00:46:32.620 Well, now you're saying, OK, are you going to accept trans women, i.e., for those who still have a problem following this, biological men who identify as women?

00:46:44.140 can they play in the WNBA? And you're hearing coaches and even this commissioner dodging this

00:46:51.280 by saying exclusion is never the answer. Hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. Let me give the

00:46:57.680 Sophie Cunningham point. Hold on just a minute. You know what? Exclusion is always a part of sport

00:47:05.060 at every level. You know, once you get to high school, you might not make the team because

00:47:11.180 someone might be better than you you might not make division one but you could make division two

00:47:17.320 because you can compete at that level but not a division i feel like you're talking to me right

00:47:21.480 now directly i feel very same for the men's division and that's it's as simple and cut and

00:47:26.260 dried as that yes no you're right i get this point i feel like you're bringing back these

00:47:30.520 traumas from high school of just being excluded from sports did you not get picked i did i was

00:47:35.020 i was michael didn't even try out michael's michael's experience with getting cut was getting

00:47:39.660 cut from the school play when he was auditioning. He was not doing the football. I was never cut

00:47:43.420 from the school play. That's a calumny. He's often cut from the school play.

00:47:47.240 But this point is so important on all of the DEI inclusion

00:47:51.680 stuff, which is you always have to exclude.

00:47:56.440 Human life involves exclusion. Having a nation

00:47:59.580 involves excluding other people who are not part of the nation. Having a 1.00

00:48:03.720 team involves excluding people who aren't going to make the team. 0.88

00:48:06.700 having single sex bathrooms or sports teams or leagues or schools involves excluding the other 0.60

00:48:13.200 sex. That's just, of course, you know, this is a finite world and it involves discrimination. 0.92

00:48:18.280 So like you have to do it and you have to do it in a good way. I guess on this point, the left

00:48:23.920 will say, you know, you right-wingers, you're being so cynical and opportunistic here. You don't

00:48:28.180 really care about women's sports. And speaking for myself, you obviously do. You've worked in it. But 1.00

00:48:31.980 for me, I don't care about women's sports. Couldn't possibly care any less. It interests 1.00

00:48:36.200 me, not at all. And I think most of them probably shouldn't even exist other than to keep the ladies 1.00

00:48:40.780 happy. But the reason that I care about this issue is as a matter of justice. If there is

00:48:48.500 going to be a women's sports league, they need to be protected and they need to win their trophies 0.99

00:48:53.740 and they need to not have things stolen from them. Sorry, go ahead. No, that's exactly right. 1.00

00:49:00.720 It's pretty simple. Look, I remember being a little, little girl. My dad came to me. He had

00:49:05.960 his son and three daughters and he came to me and he said guess what just happened title nine passed

00:49:10.640 this means you're going to be able to play sports in high school and college if you want your mom

00:49:15.060 never got to do that your aunties never got to do that he was so excited he became my basketball

00:49:19.940 all my sisters and i we coached our basketball teams um because title nine passed which was to 0.97

00:49:27.460 give women a more equal opportunity in certain things in college and elsewhere in life.

00:49:35.680 I would say to you that Title IX was one of the most important pieces of, you know,

00:49:41.860 it was an incredibly important development in society. You talk to women in the C-suite all

00:49:48.280 over corporate America and they'll say, I played sports. It taught me leadership, taught me

00:49:53.360 teamwork, taught me competitiveness, all of those things. So I think this has been, I don't know

00:49:59.020 that I would have become a sports reporter without Title IX, right? So this is what we fought for.

00:50:04.340 And now we're just going to kind of say, yeah, that was all good, but we got to be compassionate,

00:50:09.520 let men compete too. So I think this Ennis Cantor freedom thing pushes them on this issue.

00:50:17.560 Are you going to be exclusionary or are you going to be all inclusive? Because if you are,

00:50:23.360 you have to let him try out and you have to let him make a team

00:50:27.200 because he will make anything he wants.

00:50:29.020 I was with Inez Cantor Freedom at the RNC in 2024.

00:50:32.480 He came to the Daily Wire booth and he was letting me know,

00:50:34.700 hey, I love Daily Wire.

00:50:35.960 I'm especially a fan of Ben Shapiro.

00:50:37.980 And he had us film a video challenging Ben Shapiro

00:50:40.740 to a one-on-one basketball game.

00:50:43.080 I don't think Ben ever took him up on it.

00:50:45.100 Michelle, would you be willing to take some time

00:50:47.180 from your busy campaign to commentate on the one-on-one game

00:50:50.320 between Inez and Ben?

00:50:50.680 I would totally call that one.

00:50:51.660 I would absolutely.

00:50:54.560 Ben, are you going to take him up on this?

00:50:57.220 I mean, for the sake of clicks and giggles, maybe we would do that.

00:51:03.700 I mean, I would get destroyed.

00:51:05.520 Wait, but that's not fair, Ben. 1.00

00:51:06.700 That would not be fair for you to play basketball against a woman. 1.00

00:51:09.900 That's not, you would have such an advantage. 1.00

00:51:12.200 I mean, oh my gosh, it's like a lose-lose proposition for me now.

00:51:14.760 Before I could just be like, oh, I got beat by a former NBA player who's 6'11", 0.72

00:51:18.260 and now it's like I'm getting beat by a girl, like a red-headed stepchild. 0.98

00:51:21.360 Like, I'm just getting destroyed by this gigantic woman who's dunking on me. 0.97

00:51:25.960 So, yeah, I don't see a real upside there. 0.96

00:51:27.860 My kids would definitely enjoy the prospect, though.

00:51:30.440 They would love it.

00:51:31.380 I just want to throw one more thing in there. 0.99

00:51:33.900 You know, there have been these kind of rallies at WNBA games when Sophie Cunningham hits a town. 0.97

00:51:39.460 And she hit Minneapolis here a couple weeks ago playing the Lynx.

00:51:42.900 And so Jennifer Say and Riley Gaines and I were down at the arena and cheering on Sophie Cunningham in a very positive way.

00:51:49.520 We had this counter-protest, which was disgusting, the names they were calling us, the things that they were doing.

00:51:56.020 It was really awful, but that's going to happen.

00:51:58.980 And again, the contrast can't be clearer.

00:52:02.240 Fairness, lovingness on one side, and just absolute ugliness on the other side.

00:52:07.560 I guess what I would say is if the league says exclusion is never the answer,

00:52:12.940 then they better make their rosters really, really, really big so that everyone who wants 0.92

00:52:19.380 to play in the WNBA can play in the WNBA. But see, here's why they've got to exclude even some women 1.00

00:52:25.200 because they can't afford a roster more than 12, neither can the NBA. This is a product. 1.00

00:52:31.840 So they've got to exclude certain women. Now, if you start letting men come in, biological men, 0.98

00:52:37.500 now you're excluding even more women from the WNBA. 0.68

00:52:43.600 So I think the absurdity of this cannot be amplified enough, you guys.

00:52:48.100 I really believe that because it gets people's attention,

00:52:51.640 it makes them mad, and it makes them want to go,

00:52:54.240 I just want to go back to normalcy in this world.

00:52:57.560 And so this is an issue that illustrates it well. 0.66

00:53:00.320 If the WNBA doesn't exclude anyone, it will just become the NBA,

00:53:03.360 which maybe is not the worst.

00:53:04.580 Look, I don't care about basketball generally.

00:53:05.980 So, you know, I'm going to let the league sort it out, but I think you're absolutely right on the point of justice, Michelle.

00:53:10.780 We have to let you go there.

00:53:11.800 Best of luck on the campaign trail.

00:53:13.480 Thanks for going out there to fight.

00:53:14.380 Thank you. Good to see you.

00:53:15.120 And please save sweet Minnesota because that state's been tough for a while.

00:53:19.320 The only state that voted against Reagan in 84.

00:53:21.540 I know it's an uphill battle.

00:53:22.660 Because Walter Mondale was a son of Minnesota.

00:53:25.560 Right.

00:53:25.860 Come on, let's not forget that.

00:53:27.560 No, I think—

00:53:28.580 Go to michelletafoya.com.

00:53:30.120 Yes, go out there, support Michelle.

00:53:32.300 We have had Republican senators from Minnesota not so long ago, before the Democrats stole it in that election with, anyway, a dispute for another time. 0.76

00:53:41.660 But they did totally steal that.

00:53:42.820 Al Franken should not have gotten that seat.

00:53:44.260 Michelle, best of luck.

00:53:45.780 Best of luck on the trail.

00:53:46.580 Thank you so much.

00:53:47.500 Good to see you all.

00:53:48.340 I want to talk to all of you about Pure Talk because modern life has become absurdly complicated.

00:53:52.680 Your coffee has 37 ingredients.

00:53:54.120 Your toothbrush needs Bluetooth.

00:53:55.300 Your refrigerator is asking for software updates.

00:53:57.540 Can we please stop making ordinary things so complicated?

00:54:01.280 I hate smart devices. I love dumb devices. You know why? Because dumb devices are smarter than 0.99

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00:54:45.360 for a limited time. PureTalk.com slash Knowles Canada W-L-E-S to claim this offer. PureTalk.com

00:54:49.920 slash Knowles Canada W-L-E-S to start saving today. Now, folks, before we get into this,

00:54:57.160 before we get into this trailer that I want to show you.

00:55:00.140 I just got to get your take, Ben.

00:55:01.920 Al Franken stole that seat.

00:55:03.480 The Democrats stole that seat.

00:55:04.820 Of course.

00:55:05.420 Totally, right?

00:55:06.200 Yes.

00:55:06.700 Yes, it was like 300 votes.

00:55:08.040 It was totally, I know, I really-

00:55:09.800 It was covered in like the trunk of a car, 100%.

00:55:11.820 And, you know, I was trying to hold off

00:55:14.240 on my sexist remarks about the WNBA

00:55:16.200 while Michelle was on the line

00:55:17.360 just so that it wouldn't create trouble for her campaign.

00:55:19.640 But there are a few things that occurred to me

00:55:21.800 that I just want to get off my chest here.

00:55:22.980 One, I did not know that they make sweatshirts

00:55:25.020 in Enos Kanter's size for fans of the WNBA.

00:55:28.460 Like, how is that even possible?

00:55:30.480 How many 6'11 men are wearing around WNBA sweatshirts?

00:55:33.460 I do not think that there are that many.

00:55:35.120 Two, I will say that when it comes to the WNBA,

00:55:38.440 I've never seen a league blow itself up

00:55:41.240 like the WNBA is currently doing. 0.99

00:55:43.000 Like, it's not that hard to market a league 1.00

00:55:44.680 where you have a bunch of girls 0.99

00:55:45.660 who actually would like to go to the games,

00:55:47.160 and instead they decided to turn it into 1.00

00:55:48.620 militant lesbian angry people league.

00:55:52.020 And it's like, what are you doing? 0.97

00:55:53.400 Like, why don't you just provide?

00:55:54.880 you know like sports for girls where they go and feel good about things like no no no we're

00:55:59.200 gonna have people assaulting caitlin clark and sophie cunningham and we're gonna say that

00:56:02.680 sometimes you don't know what a girl is final sexist comment i will say that i'm unsurprised

00:56:07.080 the wnba executive board was unable to reach a definition of woman because presumably there

00:56:11.200 were 20 women in a room trying to decide a thing and if you've ever tried to see 20 women in a room 0.99

00:56:16.520 deciding where to go to dinner that that even that doesn't end well trying to define womanhood even 0.96

00:56:21.740 though that's really, really simple, it turns out that that was going to be, I think, a lost cause

00:56:25.820 from the very outset. Yes. Look, Ben, I could sit here all day and listen to this commentary,

00:56:31.460 and maybe we can't. No, there's one bit of business we have to get to, folks,

00:56:35.920 which is we kind of made a big splash last week, upset all the right people. Everyone knows that

00:56:42.800 Hollywood is fearless. The big studios will make a villain of anyone, a corrupt cop, an oil

00:56:46.460 executive, any man who owns a shotgun, any bigoted white Christian threatening society.

00:56:50.920 But there is one group that Hollywood will not cast as the bad guy, despite the historical record.

00:56:56.740 You already know which group that is.

00:56:59.000 So we made a movie about it ourselves. 1.00

00:57:01.060 It's called Run, Hide, Fight, Infidels. 0.93

00:57:02.720 Jonathan Majors, a college campus and an existential threat to Western civilization. 0.59

00:57:07.960 It has the establishment media with their hair on fire.

00:57:11.200 It is not even out yet.

00:57:13.680 Roll the clip.

00:57:16.060 Your country is beneath contempt. 0.91

00:57:18.260 We who love and serve Allah fought back against the Americans and the Zionists from the scourge 0.60

00:57:27.180 of secularism and the lands of unbelief.

00:57:36.200 Anyone going to listen to Captain Saunders tomorrow?

00:57:38.380 The retired Delta IV soldier with a new book out. 0.75

00:57:41.880 He's the polar opposite of those brain-dead protesters.

00:57:44.660 Given the current climate, should Clay Saunders even be allowed on campus?

00:57:48.260 Mr. Saunders is a close personal friend of Chancellor Friedman.

00:57:51.020 This is a decision I cannot find. 1.00

00:57:53.420 There are three ways Islam will conquer the West. 1.00

00:57:58.180 Through immigration, through the wombs of our women, 1.00

00:58:04.580 and by using our nation's freedoms against us. 1.00

00:58:12.380 Are you paying attention?

00:58:18.260 Hello, Mark Potter.

00:58:19.800 Listen carefully.

00:58:23.760 The great Satan America will fall. 1.00

00:58:32.260 You are infidels. 1.00

00:58:34.500 The bodies of women are not pure, and the men's souls are unclean. 1.00

00:58:39.580 What makes them so dangerous? 1.00

00:58:42.200 Their goals are not in this life, but the next.

00:58:48.260 Anyone?

00:58:49.260 I got friends here.

00:58:50.260 I can't just leave.

00:58:51.260 Listen to me.

00:58:52.260 In the law, we cannot run or hide from what is coming.

00:58:58.260 We have to fight.

00:59:00.260 I will be rewarded 10,000 times in the next life. 0.98

00:59:03.260 When you die, you're nothing. 0.92

00:59:05.260 Only one way to find out.

00:59:09.260 That's the American way.

00:59:18.260 The way I think about this movie,

00:59:24.400 like if I were pitching it to someone,

00:59:25.820 I don't know, I didn't like totally run this by the team or whatever,

00:59:28.220 but this is how I would pitch it.

00:59:29.540 I would say, hey, do you like Red Dawn?

00:59:31.800 You remember like those 80s movies, like Red John Milius?

00:59:34.180 Okay, you like Red Dawn? 1.00

00:59:35.780 Make it like even more schizo and put it out there in the big two six 1.00

00:59:40.220 with just explosions and violence and the crazy Muslims. 1.00

00:59:45.180 Do you want to see that? 1.00

00:59:45.980 And my answer is, yes.

00:59:47.940 Yes, I do.

00:59:48.520 That's what I want to see.

00:59:50.000 So it was amazing to watch the media totally blow up over this.

00:59:52.620 Obviously, the idea was that it's Islamophobic to show ISIS being ISIS

00:59:55.780 because the villains in this movie are ISIS offshoots who do ISIS things.

00:59:59.820 And apparently, you know, when you have the main character

01:00:02.120 talking about the threat of radical Islam, which is what he is talking about,

01:00:05.040 like, no one's saying that all Muslims are terrorists.

01:00:07.540 No one's saying that all Muslims believe what these Muslims believe.

01:00:11.420 Wait, I'm saying that. 1.00

01:00:12.440 Kevin is saying that, yeah. 0.93

01:00:14.180 You know, in any case, the movie itself is, you know, again, a reminder that if radical Muslims got control of our of our universities, our politics, things would not go so well. 0.94

01:00:26.620 And we're seeing that evidence like everywhere. 0.96

01:00:28.300 It's it is amazing how, you know, when you say true things in a narrative fashion, it tends to be reflected in reality.

01:00:34.540 So while we were cutting the trailer for this film, you saw a mass migrant invasion of Souta on the on the coast of Morocco.

01:00:42.360 While this was happening, you saw a wide spate of terrorist attacks.

01:00:45.040 You saw Abdul El-Sayed, who's a terrorist supporter, being nominated for the Senate in Michigan. 0.88

01:00:49.420 The reality of a threat of radical Islam is quite real, and it is there. 0.57

01:00:53.920 And pretending that it's not there, it's not going to get anybody anywhere. 0.98

01:00:55.740 And this is kind of a fun and kind of popcorn-y movie that makes the message clear.

01:01:02.300 So it's missional in that sense. 0.97

01:01:03.600 But it's also something you're going to want to watch with your friends because it's pretty audacious, and it does kick ass.

01:01:07.960 It's basically Toy Soldiers or Red Dawn.

01:01:10.200 You know, it's not a documentary.

01:01:11.220 It's not meant to be a documentary.

01:01:12.760 It is meant to be, you know, a fun, awesome action flick that is thought-provoking and

01:01:17.700 definitely, you know, I would say it's the biggest action flick that any conservative

01:01:20.980 studio has ever put out by far.

01:01:22.580 You mentioned the popcorn.

01:01:23.520 I had my popcorn out reading all of the horrified reviews of the trailer from Vanity Fair and

01:01:29.200 whoever else.

01:01:30.360 And they were saying, oh, it's so Islamophobic to, you know, to talk about Islamic terror

01:01:36.340 as if we haven't already seen plenty of examples of Islamic terror.

01:01:39.580 But the ironic thing is, if you go back and read their reviews of the countless movies 0.63

01:01:43.620 that have come out portraying the bad guys as these Christian nationalists and white 0.55

01:01:47.820 supremacists, there's a million movies where those are the bad guys, and it's terrorist 0.99

01:01:51.900 acts committed by white supremacists. 0.91

01:01:54.700 And their response was, well, it's not hard to imagine these things happening in the future.

01:02:00.120 Those things haven't happened, but they're saying it's not hard to imagine it happening

01:02:03.020 in the future.

01:02:03.480 But when we make a movie on things that actually have happened, they say, well, it's racist.

01:02:08.780 It's very offensive.

01:02:09.640 It's Islamophobic.

01:02:10.480 What is that great norm joke?

01:02:12.160 I mean, I'd have to be more specific because they're all great jokes.

01:02:14.920 But that Biddy did on his show where he says, you know, my greatest worry is that a terrorist, 0.99

01:02:20.760 well, Muslim terrorists will get a dirty bomb, detonated over a major city, 1.00

01:02:23.760 killing tens of millions of people because the blowback against peaceful Muslims would be terrible. 1.00

01:02:30.460 And everyone just has to straight face it. 0.97

01:02:32.980 This is the, like, to your point, Ben, you say, look, we're not obviously saying that all Muslims

01:02:37.520 or the terrible people or anything like that.

01:02:39.880 But I have a somewhat nuanced take on Islam,

01:02:44.640 ultimately ending in what they call Islamophobia, I guess, 1.00

01:02:48.200 though mine is rational. 0.99

01:02:49.720 But nevertheless, you think, like, you can have a really nuanced view.

01:02:53.000 You can, I mean, Dante put, we haven't talked about Dante yet today,

01:02:55.640 Dante put Saladin with the virtuous pagans in the Divine Comedy.

01:02:58.480 Like, you can have a nuanced view and have some respect for Muslim culture

01:03:01.260 and even architecture, whatever, and still recognize 1.00

01:03:05.020 Islam has been trying to conquer the West

01:03:07.400 basically without interruption for 1,400 years. 0.93

01:03:11.480 So that's not changing.

01:03:14.160 That's not going anywhere.

01:03:15.580 We are the ones who have changed,

01:03:17.100 and it has been to our detriment.

01:03:19.600 And that's right.

01:03:20.140 I mean, it's all semantic debate, right?

01:03:22.200 I mean, so the question is kind of

01:03:23.540 what word we're supposed to use for the fact

01:03:25.280 that there is a very large contingent

01:03:27.560 of Muslims on planet Earth 0.93

01:03:29.840 who actually hate the West 1.00

01:03:31.020 and wish to see it destroyed, okay?

01:03:32.520 And some of those people live in the West because we decided to allow mass migration into the West from a lot of countries where this stuff is taught. 0.86

01:03:38.980 And again, we can say and I do say that there are reformed Muslims or moderate Muslims who oppose all of that. 0.96

01:03:44.460 And that's true. But unfortunately, you know, there are 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Countries and of the majority Muslim countries in the OIC. 0.94

01:03:52.740 Precisely zero are actually multi-ethnic tolerant democracies that really like the Western way of life. 0.74

01:04:00.000 It seems that there might be some problems with importing a lot of people from those countries to our countries and then assuming that they're just going to assimilate well. 0.80

01:04:09.000 And when you ignore that, you end up with London, you end up with Dearborn, you end up with all these other places. 0.90

01:04:14.200 And people who have experienced this firsthand, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, speak pretty openly about this.

01:04:18.900 And the fact that we're all supposed to ignore it and pretend that it's not happening and then we just kind of throw words like Islamophobia, I don't know.

01:04:25.840 I mean, it depends on what Islam is saying. 0.73

01:04:28.160 And if Islam is making the claim that everyone ought to be Muslim and that war by the sword is the way to do this, then I feel like being phobic of that particular proposition. 0.84

01:04:35.460 You want to come out and say that that's not what Islam argues? 0.93

01:04:37.360 Great. 1.00

01:04:37.640 I'm on your side.

01:04:38.400 I hope you win.

01:04:39.520 But for the people who are arguing the opposite, I hope they lose.

01:04:43.740 Yeah, I think you're right.

01:04:44.880 And I think it would be hard to argue, frankly. 1.00

01:04:47.580 I think it's hard to argue the liberal, reformed, moderate form of Islam, which is why I would encourage their conversion. 0.96

01:04:54.680 though not by the sword, 1.00

01:04:56.300 just by the sacraments would be very good.

01:04:58.460 But we've been trying to do that for about 1,400 years

01:05:00.260 to varying degrees of success.

01:05:02.400 And one way that you can engage with that issue

01:05:04.760 and eat a lot of popcorn and have a great, great time

01:05:08.000 is by watching Run, Hide, Fun.

01:05:09.380 When does it come out?

01:05:10.300 Have we set a date yet?

01:05:12.320 September 16th.

01:05:13.240 September 16th.

01:05:13.900 And there will be fun and games around the premiere,

01:05:17.080 so look out for it.

01:05:18.060 Look out, look out.

01:05:18.860 It'll be very fun.

01:05:19.500 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.

01:05:20.960 For all of us on Friendly Fire, goodbye.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 13, 2026

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