The Michael Knowles Show - Friendly Fire： Defeating Doomerism, Defending America & Ending Time Zones

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00:00:41.360 plan fits your life, which is more than the system was designed to give you. No, no. Canada

00:00:46.700 is up 2-0. That is the most dangerous lead in soccer. Relax, Mike. See that, Dan? My left eye

00:00:52.140 is twitching. That's my warning eye. It'll be 2-2 by stoppage time. It's never wrong. With early

00:00:57.120 payout from bet three six five i got paid the second they went up two goals so to me it's now

00:01:01.820 the safest lead early payout from bet three six five huh now my right eye is switching dan bet

00:01:07.780 three six five must be 19 or older ontario only please play responsibly if you or someone you

00:01:12.160 know has concerns about gambling visit connects ontario.ca t's and c's apply i have a question

00:01:15.880 are we supposed to literally do 15 minutes on joe biden's book and um trump coin because i was 0.59

00:01:22.480 that sounds hellishly stupid um that that like i i have no idea how you sustain that 0.53

00:01:28.180 also good i mean okay i mean well i mean you know where i'm gonna take it i'm gonna take it 0.97

00:01:36.120 oh yeah no i'm gonna take it directly to the struggle session for michael i mean

00:01:41.260 last week was uh last week it was a bad it was a bad moment michael it was a great frankly it

00:01:49.200 was a good time to be on vacation, which I was all week, but no, I, I, I'm actually, I'm on board

00:01:54.920 with like this stage of this whole saga, I think is great because it's like the, it actually does

00:02:01.560 go along. Well, we'll, we'll get into it on the show, but like it gets into my thesis that the

00:02:04.960 thing that's going to, the thing that'll stop all the kind of crazy theories is just going to be

00:02:10.120 like the courts and it's going to be like actual acts that occur. And what was crazy to me about

00:02:15.500 the, uh, the preliminary hearing was not even all the evidence from the prosecution. It was the

00:02:21.200 defense. It was like the defense had, you know, very weak moves, wasn't bringing up any of the

00:02:27.200 conspiracy theories and explicitly rejected those theories. So you're like, at that point,

00:02:32.800 you're like, is the, is the defense in on it too? You know, it was, you know, it was the con I think

00:02:39.900 it was the combo of that. And also, I mean, I will say that the, the shift to mockery was

00:02:45.160 definitely a big thing yeah yeah because he i i think that we had to get to a place where we we 0.99

00:02:50.300 could move beyond the how evil it is for this person to be doing this to how absurd and retarded 0.96

00:02:55.940 all of this is because it is i agree we got and i think that we may be we may be getting back into 0.94

00:03:04.040 the world of of actual humor which which is going to be nice i mean it feels like it's been about a

00:03:08.680 10-year period since you're allowed to make jokes yeah yeah it is so i'm i'm very much i'm very much

00:03:13.160 into the idea that we're allowed to make jokes about things again it was like only a particular

00:03:16.200 type of joke that you could tell you and remember during like the obama era you couldn't tell jokes

00:03:20.320 about obama it was real bad like he was he was the saint in one and you could never tell jokes

00:03:25.060 about him and then during the trump era you could only tell certain types of jokes surrounding 0.98

00:03:28.680 president trump but not really like he couldn't make fun of president trump when he said a dumb

00:03:32.720 thing or something because that'd be a sign that you're with the liberal elites and and now i think

00:03:37.680 we're kind of getting beyond all of that and we're going back to a certain semblance of normalcy where 0.94

00:03:42.400 You can just make fun of retardation wherever it exists. 1.00

00:03:44.940 And that, I think, is a good thing. 1.00

00:03:46.520 I must have missed this period where he couldn't make jokes.

00:03:48.960 I may not have been paying attention.

00:03:51.640 I'm not sure.

00:03:52.580 Well, that's usual.

00:03:53.840 No, we're back.

00:03:54.520 This is, it's like the 2000s are back.

00:03:56.780 We've got Congress fighting to pass a budget.

00:04:00.280 We've got a war in the Middle East.

00:04:02.720 We're back. 1.00

00:04:03.260 We can make jokes again.

00:04:04.320 We're back, baby.

00:04:05.280 This is it.

00:04:06.200 And you know what we're back on?

00:04:07.420 We're back on Friendly Fire.

00:04:12.400 Yeah. So, okay. I just, off the bat, they want us to talk about this Joe Biden book,

00:04:22.220 but if we were to do that, we would be the only people talking about the Joe Biden book,

00:04:26.540 including Joe Biden. I'm kind of like hearing it for the first time. Joe Biden has a book out.

00:04:33.020 I know. The jokes kind of write themselves, but they're not that good.

00:04:36.440 Well, the auto pen writes the jokes.

00:04:39.920 As well as the auto-pen right to jail.

00:04:43.040 That's the exciting stuff, Dr. Biden.

00:04:45.120 In a new era of artificial intelligence, we are prioritizing our most important politicians to have their insights on the day as it stands, namely one Joe Biden.

00:04:58.220 Like, if you were going to pick one politician to put into the AI box and just sort of have something to spew out auto-pen-wise, wouldn't it be Joe Biden?

00:05:07.500 I mean, just, you know.

00:05:08.580 What's the title?

00:05:09.300 It's like You're Welcome America or something?

00:05:10.400 The stories, the big fish sales.

00:05:12.340 You know, I want an entire chapter on corn pop.

00:05:14.840 Somebody pop that into Grok or Claude and figure out what Joe Biden would actually say, you know, today about corn pop.

00:05:23.540 You know, maybe take the intelligence level down a couple of notches from his heyday in the U.S. Senate.

00:05:31.100 I'm going to be entertained by this no matter what it is.

00:05:33.360 By the way.

00:05:34.220 Promise Me America.

00:05:34.780 It's Promise Me America, which is basically like –

00:05:37.300 book with an answering title i can't say on the air yeah yeah exactly it's well it's like jacob

00:05:41.920 on his deathbed it's like it's like he's asking all of us to promise him he has promises that we

00:05:46.780 have to keep to him and i have to and i'm not sure which one i'm looking forward to less the

00:05:53.160 joe biden new autobiography or am i looking forward less to life with mtg the new online

00:06:00.100 series where camera people follow around the world's dumbest ex-congress person which is

00:06:05.460 really exciting is this real um did i miss this show oh my gosh it used to be the people

00:06:11.760 yeah no it's exciting she's apparently in the in the trailer which we played today

00:06:19.740 she actually like visits the statue of liberty as though this is newsworthy uh and she she also

00:06:25.900 i think walks around new york and talks to humans which is exciting uh i'm just glad that we

00:06:31.200 elided the episode where she goes and visits her tantric yoga instructor instructor i think that's

00:06:36.280 that's good i don't think we needed that episode i think we can just get right back

00:06:39.280 is this netflix is this netflix ben i i have i have no idea what outlet will be bringing this

00:06:48.020 to your screen obviously is a crossover with the new uh netflix kevin hart uh show because they

00:06:55.580 bought the cold as balls show where you sit in like an ice bath and talk to kevin hart which to

00:07:02.460 me sounds like the worst experience any human could imagine in their entire life but but we

00:07:09.360 now need those two shows to meet like like kevin hart marjorie taylor green on the contrary i i

00:07:16.200 have a just a rebuttal to that do we do we need those shows to meet i'm not so you know there are

00:07:21.480 two like kind of firm political. I'm just saying it would do bigger numbers than Moana's been doing

00:07:25.440 this weekend. It's been a complete disaster for Disney. Everybody's desperate for content these

00:07:30.160 days. Let's just make it the more ridiculous, the better. My two sort of firm political takeaways 0.98

00:07:36.040 on both of these stories that actually do relate is one, it is kind of sad. People used to run for

00:07:41.600 Congress either to do some good in the country and to advance legislation or more likely just

00:07:47.560 to advance their political careers, make it to the Senate, run for president, you know, take over

00:07:51.440 the whole world, whatever. But now it seems that the end goal for the right, not necessarily for

00:07:56.980 the left, but for the right, the end goal of being in politics is to be in political media. Like it's

00:08:02.580 not, it should be the case that you'd start a podcast so that you can run for office. But now

00:08:08.280 people are running for office to get a podcast. You are leaving out one key political figure

00:08:15.420 here, Michael, which is that Donald Trump ran for president out of the greatest motivation ever,

00:08:20.320 which is spite yeah i i just i think that's one of the most admirable things about his

00:08:26.880 i mean listen no i'm not i'm not gonna get laughed at and then the podcasters have all

00:08:33.300 the power i mean obviously we spent all of last week talking about a psychotic podcaster who

00:08:37.460 thinks that charlie kirk's ghost talks to her and it turns out that actual evidence and reality

00:08:42.800 uh sunk in last week and and then we all got to make fun of her for being a conspiratorial nut 0.93

00:08:48.100 case, which of course she is. And some of us took full advantage of that, I will admit.

00:08:52.940 Wait, but it's so much better than arguing with her though, because like arguing with her just

00:08:56.820 made the people look like they were her. I mean, I've always tried to explain this to our old

00:09:01.720 friend, Jeremy, that when you argue with an irrational woman, she doesn't become rational. 0.94

00:09:05.740 You just go nuts, you know? And I think it's so much better that people are just shrugging her 0.94

00:09:09.880 off and making fun of her and basically saying that then even reacting with moral, you know,

00:09:15.400 getting on your moral high horse and saying she's evil i mean she's too crazy to be evil what who

00:09:20.420 are the people people are always citing her numbers to me who are those people i mean she's

00:09:25.680 being listened to in iran probably by guys in a bunker you know hiding out with a phone i think

00:09:30.700 we're getting news from america you know i just like i disagree with the only person on this

00:09:34.920 podcast i feel very hurt by your commentary i think that listen i mean i think that we should

00:09:43.320 we should recognize that the the wine mom contingent who listens to candace is very real

00:09:47.380 there are a lot of people who listen to candace because that sort of conspiratorial let me connect

00:09:51.700 all of these bizarre dots for you and and it looks like one of those you know children's games from

00:09:56.920 highlights where you have all the dots and you're supposed to connect them in order and she just

00:09:59.840 skips all of the dots and draws a jewish star uh that that's that's pretty much what her show is

00:10:04.260 at this point and and i have to say that you know that that does have there is something seductive

00:10:09.060 about the idea of an almost Plato's cave figure

00:10:12.800 who is going to come in and bring you the truth.

00:10:14.600 Be careful there, Ben.

00:10:16.620 You're going to get a cut image of you.

00:10:20.480 Ben Shapiro calls Canada so inseductive.

00:10:23.860 That's absolutely going to go on.

00:10:26.240 No, but I will say that the sort of bizarre idea

00:10:31.300 that you can string together all of these dots

00:10:33.840 and then a new theory of the world will emerge.

00:10:37.100 it is strangely weirdly seductive to people so when i did the episode on friday where i basically

00:10:41.960 imitated candace and i used all of her tactics and put together a theory whereby candace had

00:10:45.560 killed charlie uh and the and what i got from a lot of people was wow that's strangely plausible

00:10:50.240 i was like guys i'm joking like it's because if you use her if you use her tropes if you use all

00:10:58.020 of these kind of bizarre tactics it actually does have this sort of appeal to the limbic system where

00:11:02.420 people go oh now i can kind of see what was previously hidden to me it turns out that

00:11:06.860 maroon 5 and the maroon shirts and kanye west and candace it's all in it together and and i i think

00:11:12.080 that that that sort of let me find words in my alphabet soup thing it does work unfortunately

00:11:17.680 and it's only because she was so completely beclowned by reality that this was that this

00:11:22.480 was put to bed but i don't think it'll be the end of it i mean there's conspiracy theories about

00:11:25.640 everything people immediately went to conspiracy theories about lindsey graham that were that

00:11:29.460 were completely insane not even the ones like where the russians killed them about this i don't

00:11:34.420 mean to be i don't mean to be fair to crazy people but it has been insane the the disinformation

00:11:39.480 coming from people from whom we expect information like the government the newspapers the news i mean

00:11:45.120 all we just went through this entire period of people telling us that this uh the pandemic didn't

00:11:50.700 come from china where you know from the chinese lab where they were studying the exact thing that

00:11:55.260 was released into the exact place it was released and we were being told that if we said that we'd

00:11:59.300 taken off our social media. I don't blame these people for looking at the world and thinking

00:12:03.780 everybody's lying to me. Oh, but this person is telling me the truth. I can't blame them for that.

00:12:08.920 I mean, we've been living in a true world of lies for a long time. And just to echo that, I mean,

00:12:14.820 some of the people who were saying things along those lines have been included, people like Bill

00:12:18.660 Browder, who I respect, you know, on these kinds of things. You know, there's a lot of people who

00:12:22.880 are, look, you know,

00:12:24.600 I have friends, Vladimir

00:12:26.780 Kyrgyzstan, other people who have been 0.97

00:12:29.120 legitimately poisoned by the Russians. 0.88

00:12:31.460 They have been poisoned. They have survived, 1.00

00:12:33.640 thankfully, knock on wood.

00:12:35.760 You know, and so I

00:12:36.960 think that people raising that kind of

00:12:38.960 thing about Lindsay, I understand why.

00:12:41.080 I don't agree with it at all.

00:12:42.880 I think it is crazy, but I do.

00:12:45.340 Can I just say the

00:12:46.880 thing that's amazing to me?

00:12:48.120 No, no, I don't mean that. By the way, I should clarify. I don't mean the theory.

00:12:50.740 I don't mean the theory that Lindsay was

00:12:52.600 was poisoned by the Russians while he was in Ukraine or something,

00:12:55.260 which does have a smattering of theoretical plausibility to it,

00:12:58.320 given what the Russians actually do.

00:12:59.580 I'm talking about the theory that Mossad did it, right? 0.75

00:13:01.780 Like Alexander Dugan just went right to, it was the Jews, right?

00:13:04.880 And so I will say that there is a range of plausibility when it comes to conspiracy theory.

00:13:09.740 They're currently scheduling his funeral for next week, 0.95

00:13:13.000 and the big thing they're trying to figure out is which day they can do so that Bibi can come. 1.00

00:13:17.140 Like, I mean, like, why would you? That's absurd. 0.74

00:13:19.280 You know what's interesting, though?

00:13:20.280 I saw the Dugan tweet that immediately said, you know, it was it seems like it was Mossad, which you think, no, it probably was like red wine and cheeseburgers.

00:13:28.680 I mean, that's what would take out most like older senators.

00:13:32.220 You know, it's not a very healthy lifestyle.

00:13:34.740 You're close.

00:13:35.640 You're close.

00:13:36.280 It was he actually liked white Russians.

00:13:38.820 White Russians. 0.71

00:13:39.720 That's right. 0.85

00:13:40.100 Yeah. 0.90

00:13:40.340 So it was the Russians. 0.94

00:13:41.240 There you go.

00:13:42.160 But, you know, when I saw that post from Dugan, I thought this is a really brilliant tweet.

00:13:49.200 Because to your point, Drew, first of all, there is reason for people to entertain conspiracy theories.

00:13:54.320 One, the right always entertains them a little bit more than the left, in part because the left conspires more than the right.

00:13:59.700 And so you've always had like coast-to-coast AM, and you've always had, you know, the Alex Jones, that kind of stuff.

00:14:05.000 But you also had COVID.

00:14:07.640 So there was a big conspiracy.

00:14:09.240 They lied to us about a lot of stuff.

00:14:10.580 So, you know, you just have to be discerning to know which theories are more plausible than others.

00:14:14.600 And some are totally outlandish, obviously.

00:14:16.160 But in the case of Dugan, a lot of people don't know that much about this guy.

00:14:20.100 He's a Russian philosopher.

00:14:21.500 He's very close to the Kremlin.

00:14:23.000 In the West, he's called Putin's brain.

00:14:25.140 That might be a little bit of propaganda, but he's obviously very close to the Putin regime.

00:14:28.500 And his political theory is interesting.

00:14:31.180 He advocates a fourth political theory beyond the ideologies of the 20th century.

00:14:36.300 So it's not communism.

00:14:37.880 It's not Nazism or fascism.

00:14:39.380 It's not liberalism.

00:14:40.440 It's some kind of fourth thing. 0.64

00:14:41.560 But ultimately what it is, is a kind of Russian hyper-nationalism and Russian chauvinism. 0.81

00:14:49.300 Mixed with Islamism, though. 0.58

00:14:52.220 Yeah, well, here's the key, I guess, on this point is when you read a tweet like that from Dugan,

00:14:58.360 he's not actually saying the Mossad killed Lindsey Graham, which nobody believes.

00:15:02.480 What he is doing is acting as an operator for the Russian government

00:15:07.340 Because his political ideology is basically Russian greatness.

00:15:13.120 And so what he's doing is he's playing on these divisions that he sees within the American right that comes from the Israel issue or anything else.

00:15:20.000 But he's not making an observation as a philosopher.

00:15:23.400 He's doing a thing as an operative.

00:15:25.340 And it's pretty clever what he's doing because some people are going to entertain him.

00:15:27.700 But how did he become the voice of America, though?

00:15:30.860 There's absolutely no distance between Alexander Dugan's philosophy and Tucker Carlson's.

00:15:35.600 I mean, they're basically saying the exact same things. How did, how did that happen?

00:15:39.720 Oh, I think, I think Dugan, I think Dugan is more entertaining. I have to defend Dugan a little bit. I think of him as like the first Herbert of, of political philosophy. Like the stuff that he comes up with is so wild and bonkers. I don't know how he does it, uh, under, without the influence of drugs. I don't, you know, but it's one of these things where it's like, at least Dugan has the advantage of being someone who I think you can identify on the spectrum as being, as you said, Michael,

00:16:05.600 an operator, an operator for a specific country and a specific type of nationalist agenda.

00:16:12.140 And yes, that is what he was trying to do there. I do think, and I would just ask people who are

00:16:17.560 listening to come to the site tomorrow at the Daily Wire, because we should have an interview

00:16:23.700 up with one of Lindsey Graham's oldest friends, a consultant who worked for both him and John

00:16:28.940 McCain, Bob Heckman, who I interviewed this morning. And he told me this story, which I had

00:16:34.080 never heard before his daughter was going to school at the uh going to college at the college

00:16:39.260 of charleston uh and uh he went down there and uh lindsey met her for uh for the first time

00:16:47.200 he had you know uh been giving her advice about charleston and and and uh south carolina where

00:16:52.760 i grew up and uh and he uh bob told me that you know he walked away with my daughter and he had

00:16:58.660 this very deep conversation with her and i and i didn't know what they were talking about and then

00:17:03.640 she walked back to me and she said uh and i said you know what what did lindsey say to you and she

00:17:09.320 said well he asked me if anybody was bothering me at the college um and if anyone was giving me a

00:17:15.500 hard time and i said no and then he told me well if anybody does just let me know and i'll have

00:17:22.120 them killed because i'm a senator and i can do that and if you know lindsey that is that is exactly 0.61

00:17:29.060 where his form of humor would go. I only met Senator Graham one time. I met him in the early

00:17:35.400 days of the verdict podcast when Senator Cruz and I were covering the impeachment and he brought

00:17:39.800 Lindsey Graham over one day. And something that really surprised me, but it goes along with your

00:17:44.200 story, Ben, is the guy was uproariously funny. Like he comes in, I always thought of him as just

00:17:50.320 a kind of milquetoast, kind of neoconservative, whatever kind of Senator. And he just walks into

00:17:55.280 our basement studio. He goes, what the F is this? Shag carpet? Am I on the set of an F and 70s

00:18:00.760 porno? What is this? You know, he said, no, this is a podcast studio, Senator. What the F is a 0.97

00:18:05.920 podcast? And he's like, he was so funny, very gracious, very generous, really knowledgeable

00:18:11.300 guy, and just a killer, killer politician. You can see all that trial lawyer training really

00:18:16.720 came out in his personality. And the thing I'll say about him, I know a lot of people hated his

00:18:20.160 foreign policy and his immigration policy. And, you know, he was kind of a neocon. Yeah, including

00:18:24.680 me, by the way. So I get all of that, but the one real political virtue he had, and I know a lot of

00:18:31.560 people think this is a vice, he was a partisan. He was a loyal party man who understood that

00:18:37.020 politics is a team sport, and he would work with people. It's how he survived into the Trump era

00:18:42.340 after running against Trump. He was a very talented politician. He did a lot of good,

00:18:46.520 even amid bad things that we don't like about his career, and I think he'll be sorely missed.

00:18:51.080 i i also think i disagreed with his i disagree with his foreign policy too but i i thought it

00:18:57.340 was important that he was there i thought i thought that's a voice you know every everybody

00:19:01.020 in america only has half an opinion so you have to have the other half of the opinion there as well

00:19:05.480 and i always thought it was good to have somebody uh close to trump saying just just bomb him just 0.95

00:19:10.260 kill him you know i i think it was i mean just wasn't as bad it wasn't as bad as john just one 0.98

00:19:14.660 one point i would just make about him i think he would bomb the toilet but it was it was useful to 0.97

00:19:19.280 have him around this this is this is one thing and i and i don't want to dominate this even though

00:19:24.140 i mean i i knew lindsey for almost 30 years and and my opinions about him changed a lot over that

00:19:28.840 time but one of the things that i think people underappreciate is that as a partisan and you're

00:19:35.380 both right michael and drew as a partisan a lot of the role that lindsey had was keeping weak

00:19:42.360 republicans in line and that's something that he was actually doing i think people underappreciate

00:19:48.040 This iconic moment that has been repeatedly shared since his death of him defending Brett Kavanaugh, everyone sort of focuses on the fact that he is attacking the Democrats with moral authority and with total strength in his argument. 0.97

00:20:03.980 He's also sending a message to the guy who's sitting at the end of that committee line, Jeff Flake, about you better not be a pussy on this because you've got to hold the line and we will judge you if you don't hold the line. 0.83

00:20:17.660 And I think that that's a role that he served within this Trump era to great effectiveness. 0.95

00:20:23.360 And I think without his voice in the room, Trump's going to have some problems with the Senate that he that he maybe could have had helped by the fact that Lindsey was the guy who was advocating in the room and who could convince people that, yes, this is the right thing to do.

00:20:37.080 This is the right way to make a stand.

00:20:39.200 And, you know, when it comes to Lindsey Graham, I know that a lot of people who are extremely critical of his sort of overall foreign policy, leave it to me to be significantly less critical of Lindsey Graham's overall foreign policy.

00:20:48.700 There are places where I disagreed with him, for example, intervention in Libya and all of that.

00:20:52.820 But here's the thing about Lindsey Graham. The guy that American power in the world is a good thing, that American power in the world is actively a good thing.

00:21:01.060 And he may have erred on behalf of the idea that there was sort of an over-optimism about what American power could accomplish when applied in different places.

00:21:09.260 But there's no question that he believed that America was a force for good in the world and that an expansion of American power was better for the United States and better for the world, which is a far cry from a huge percentage of our current population on the horseshoe right and the left, all of whom seem to agree that American power in the world is bad.

00:21:24.840 You want to know why Tucker agrees with Dugan?

00:21:26.720 Because he believes that American power in the world is actually a bad thing.

00:21:30.200 And it's why all of the same people, from Nick Fuentes to Anna Kasparian, were out there literally celebrating Lindsey Graham dying.

00:21:37.220 It's because, actually, Lindsey Graham was very, very pro-America, and that manifested, again, sometimes in a sort of chauvinistic politics abroad.

00:21:45.720 But it also manifested in the idea that when it's between the United States and Iran, that's not a choice.

00:21:50.460 When it's between America's allies and our enemies, Ukraine and Russia, that's not really a choice. 0.70

00:21:54.760 And I think that that's a good thing.

00:21:56.320 I think that's going to be sorely missed.

00:21:57.480 I hope there are people who are going to help fill that gap politically.

00:22:00.740 Obviously, there's going to be a special election in the fall.

00:22:02.580 His sister has been appointed by the governor to fill that slot, at least for the moment.

00:22:07.260 I'm not sure she's actually going to run to fill that slot.

00:22:10.900 The Calci markets, and again, Calci is one of our sponsors, that they have the odds on

00:22:15.240 who exactly is going to be running in that race to fill that seat.

00:22:18.900 Ralph Norman is up for that seat.

00:22:21.000 I believe that Fry is up for that seat.

00:22:23.240 Fry has a heavy advantage in the Calci markets right now.

00:22:26.180 And Darlene is way down at like 6%, which I assume just means that no one expects that she's actually going to run to fill her brother's seat.

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00:23:35.280 Did we talk about Joe Biden's book enough?

00:23:37.620 Wait, I want to hear about this a little bit more, Ben. Just a minute.

00:23:41.840 You know, this thing about American power not being a good thing, and I'm not a big war guy.

00:23:47.820 I'm not happy to have war going on. But as opposed to what? I mean, Alexander Dugan, as Knowles points out, is looking for a re-dominant Russia, a new Russian empire. But part of his theory is that the wonderful Christians in Russia have to team up with the Islamists who seem to me just, you know, to coin a phrase, batshit crazy. I mean, they seem like absolutely just a destructive force.

00:24:14.660 and so where does this come in where does it come into america where suddenly we have guys like 1.00

00:24:20.220 tucker carlson basically saying the same thing oh the muslims love the christians and the russians

00:24:25.200 are wonderful and they're just things are going so well in russia it's it's all nonsense i mean 0.91

00:24:29.600 you talk about laughing at candace i mean it's like laughing at this stuff would be a good idea

00:24:33.500 as well it's just complete nonsense so how does that seep in how does this propagandist for the

00:24:38.640 russians seep into american politics because i think what he's done is actually really smart

00:24:42.960 Well, I think what he's done is really smart. What Dugan has done is he has targeted the idea that secular liberal globalism is the dominant force in American politics since World War II. This is the argument he makes. And that ignores a wide swath of American history, ignores the very religious 1950s. It ignores the strength of the 1980s. It ignores the fact that America has been much more religious than Russia for legitimately the entirety of America's experience.

00:25:06.320 It ignores the fact that, as you say, Drew, I mean, who else is on the block? 0.53

00:25:11.580 But the thing that he is doing is he is critiquing what he sees or what he portrays as a sort of LGBT flags on the bombs that we're dropping.

00:25:21.300 And you see Tucker mirroring that sort of perspective.

00:25:23.820 And so the idea is that American power abroad is a flex on the part of a globalist left.

00:25:28.620 And by globalist, Tucker means about three different things, none of them correct.

00:25:31.740 But, you know, he kind of lumps those all together.

00:25:34.160 And then the counter to that is supposed to be this new anti-Reformation, early Eastern Orthodox church kind of stuff that is linked up with Russian nationalism.

00:25:45.500 And Tucker looks at that and he sees a bunch of crossover, which is why you'll see Tucker promoting feudalism.

00:25:49.440 Or you'll see Tucker promoting the idea that the economics of the United States have to be brought back to agrarianism. 0.96

00:25:57.540 You'll see him promoting kind of all this revanchist bullshit that is being promoted by our enemies because our enemies are smart enough to recognize that if we actually did that, we'd be screwed as a country. 1.00

00:26:05.900 But Tucker is either too stupid or complicit to realize that. 1.00

00:26:09.640 And so he's perfectly happy to mimic the nonsense of people who legitimately want to destroy the country. 1.00

00:26:13.760 I mean, Alexander Dugan would be ecstatic if the United States fell. 0.96

00:26:17.380 So would the Iranians, so would the Chinese. 0.51

00:26:19.500 And Tucker has spent legitimately the last two years propping up pretty much every propagandist he can find on behalf of those three countries especially.

00:26:27.000 which is pretty insane.

00:26:27.820 So hold on.

00:26:28.500 Whenever these people talk, 0.99

00:26:29.820 I just hear the two peasants 0.96

00:26:31.300 at the beginning of Monty Python

00:26:32.700 talking about being

00:26:34.140 in an anarcho-syndicalist commune.

00:26:36.460 And it's like,

00:26:37.040 it's just like,

00:26:38.100 this is absurd.

00:26:39.580 It's absolutely absurd.

00:26:40.920 It denies everything that we know

00:26:42.400 about America's history.

00:26:44.040 And it creates a complete facade 0.84

00:26:46.420 about the way that Russian history

00:26:48.380 is played out.

00:26:49.400 Look, I love the Russian people.

00:26:51.420 I think that they are

00:26:52.460 a wonderful literary people.

00:26:54.480 I love Russian literature

00:26:55.660 and I love, you know,

00:26:56.780 the things that they've created that comes out of tragedy tragedy that has been repeatedly created

00:27:02.460 by their the people who govern them i just don't see that there's just not something there that

00:27:08.580 you can you know find any way any path forward that is beneficial to people but the other aspect

00:27:14.160 of this and just just one more note on the on the lindsey point like as much as you can say you can

00:27:19.840 disagree with lindsey's optimism or his hubris i would say when it comes to the the things that

00:27:25.260 he thought could happen in the Middle East. What I think that Lindsay got right and what all these 0.82

00:27:29.880 people get wrong is that Lindsay understood who our true enemies were around the world and that

00:27:35.700 we should take them seriously, that we should listen to them when they say things about us,

00:27:39.580 that we should believe them when they threaten us. So when Iran says we want to kill President 0.82

00:27:44.800 Trump, it means they want to kill President Trump. They're not exaggerating that. They 0.92

00:27:48.880 actually want to do that. And they've tried multiple times. This is not, you know, and that's,

00:27:53.240 I mean, by the way, that came as a shock to Tucker, as I recall, when it came up on a podcast with Mike Huckabee.

00:27:58.400 But it's like this is this is the kind of thing that Lindsay understood.

00:28:01.980 And I think, you know, for again, we cannot play innocence abroad in a world that is not innocent.

00:28:07.500 We have to understand, take these threats as they are, appreciate how much we have to respond to them in order to defend our people, to defend American values.

00:28:16.120 And that doesn't mean we need to be the policeman of the globe.

00:28:19.660 It does mean that we need to use American military might to great effect.

00:28:23.240 which i think the president has done very effectively in his second term and that's

00:28:28.260 something that you know is is at odds with all these different people who i think are trying

00:28:32.300 to pull the wool over people's eyes about the threats that actually exist but the thing i have

00:28:37.000 a question for you sorry actually there's a question that i'm interrupting you with i think

00:28:40.980 the thing you're about to say so you're about to start talking about how the reformation sucked in

00:28:44.960 all of this which which we know we know you believe that but you you had a tweet a little

00:28:48.420 bit earlier this week in which that i thought was kind of fascinating you say you know conservatives

00:28:52.540 are always talking about where history went wrong and some people will say the reformation and some

00:28:56.640 people and a half-joking tweet obviously but only half-joking and and you say that nominalism is the

00:29:02.320 place where sort of history went wrong and and i kind of want to get a little bit deeper on this

00:29:07.080 for a second because i actually do think that this is a great way of distinguishing between various

00:29:11.220 strands of thought i think that if you ask tucker carlson where he thinks that history went wrong

00:29:15.060 i think that tucker carlson would say that history went wrong in about 1939 uh that we sided with

00:29:19.620 some of the wrong people and that when that america before the before world war i think

00:29:23.740 i think he would say when women had the right to vote i know i mean but tucker has overtly had on

00:29:29.700 people who actually make this argument i mean he says that america lost its soul for example

00:29:33.260 when we dropped the a-bomb on japan he says that that you know the the world war ii didn't have to

00:29:38.200 go like it did and it robbed the west of its of its forward momentum and its soul so he clearly

00:29:42.440 thinks something went wrong in that period of time and and there are other people obviously michael

00:29:47.140 you can give your own theory i think that one of the aspects of american conservatism that makes

00:29:50.820 it different maybe from other strands of conservatism is that we don't think everything

00:29:55.040 went wrong okay like i don't think everything went wrong i think some things have gone wrong

00:29:59.660 and many things have gone right and i think that the idea that america is a place where everything

00:30:03.820 went wrong leads you down this black-pilled path of maybe dugan is right maybe actually america

00:30:08.460 should see power in the world maybe we are dominated by secularist forces that make us

00:30:12.560 evil and terrible or maybe a lot of things in america have gone right making us the most

00:30:16.400 prosperous and powerful country in the history of the world. And yes, we've strayed from many of our

00:30:22.020 founding principles, but we've also maintained a lot of those founding principles. And that makes

00:30:25.540 us still the best bet on the block. And so I think that the sort of tendency, and again, I'm by nature

00:30:31.140 a pessimist, but the sort of conservative tendency toward pessimism can lead you down some really 0.86

00:30:34.920 black-pilled and bad paths when it comes to the United States, which is a pretty white-pill place.

00:30:39.320 I mean, America is a place where opportunity and prosperity and power are all combined 0.98

00:30:45.860 historically speaking. And the kind of idea that, quote unquote, everything went wrong. So take all

00:30:50.480 the things that are good and junk them because everything is bad now. It's just bullshit. And I 1.00

00:30:54.100 think it's a demoralization op. Yeah, no, I mean, that's actually kind of part of the joke I was

00:30:58.360 making because it was in response to this guy who I think is Eastern Orthodox, Jay Dyer, was on

00:31:03.900 Tucker's show. And he did the thing that all of us conservatives, myself included, I think all of us

00:31:09.400 here, it's just part of the conservative DNA we love to do. Our favorite hobby is to try to point

00:31:15.220 to the moment when everything went wrong. And it's this fun game. You say, it was the 60s.

00:31:18.980 No, it was the French Revolution. No, it was women getting the right to vote. No, it was 0.93

00:31:21.940 the prohibition. No, it was this, that, or the other thing. And so-

00:31:26.120 The gold standard.

00:31:26.800 The gold standard. Yeah, I had all these people in the comments. No, it was the-

00:31:29.740 You missed the gold standard, Michael. They were totally missing the joke. And so I guess

00:31:34.160 Jay Dyer's point, he was making an argument from a Lutheran history of ideas and nominalism

00:31:40.340 through the Protestant Reformation up to the present. And he was kind of connecting the

00:31:43.560 dots between philosophical nominalism, which holds that there are no real essences, and it's usually

00:31:49.640 described, oversimplified, to say that there are no universals, but they're just particulars that

00:31:53.800 happen to share traits, contrasted with philosophical realism, which says, no, there are real universals.

00:31:59.280 The most hardcore form of realism would be Plato, who thinks that, you know, the forms exist in this

00:32:05.260 separate realm as themselves, and, you know, St. Thomas Aquinas, who finally has come up on this

00:32:11.020 show. I can't believe we made it this long without mentioning Aquinas. You know, Aquinas has this

00:32:14.420 kind of moderate realism, which says, no, we can know real things, but they're in the world. Anyway,

00:32:19.760 I was joking, and I said, you know, of all of the culprits, going from Eve eating the apple in the

00:32:25.460 Garden of Eden all the way up through, like, I don't know, the election of Obama, nominalism is

00:32:30.160 a good contender. That's one of the strongest contenders, which I think is true, but it's also

00:32:34.400 to make a little bit of a mockery of the game, because when you're trying to out-based each

00:32:38.640 other, you eventually will end up back with Eve eating the apple in the Garden of Eden. And so

00:32:43.560 we should take seriously these intellectual genealogies because we all think ideas have

00:32:47.980 consequences. We all realize that sometimes it takes years or decades or centuries for ideas to

00:32:53.040 bear really ugly fruit. But nevertheless, yeah, look, it's a fallen world, guys. I mean, to use

00:32:58.840 a depiction of our pal John Milton, like when Satan rebels against God, sin births out of his

00:33:05.080 head like Athena from the head of Zeus. And then death comes from sin. And like, it's this kind of

00:33:12.080 like matricidal rape. I mean, it's really pretty ugly stuff. That was the world before Adam and 0.97

00:33:16.680 Eve ate the apple. But when you talk about ideas, when you talk about ideas mattering, obviously

00:33:21.700 you're, you're right, but you can get into the idealism too. Ben is absolutely right about this

00:33:26.120 as the, as the one of us who was here during the middle ages, things are better now. They're much

00:33:30.360 better now. And even even while I look at when I look at like every woman in Congress who's 0.85

00:33:34.980 a lunatic, like every single woman in Congress is a lunatic. Politics is not so much worse than 0.99

00:33:40.080 it was. In fact, I would just say it's I would say it's even better than it was now that women 1.00

00:33:44.960 are saying the crazy things women say in our in our Congress. Things have not gotten worse. 0.99

00:33:49.620 You don't think they've gotten substantially worse in many ways since like the 1950s.

00:33:53.500 say. Can I just say? Well, no, the 1950s was a unique period of post-war unity. Not only our

00:34:01.520 enemies, but our competitors were in ruins. And those things happen. We have those moments,

00:34:06.920 but not everything is going to be the 1950s. It's just not always going to be like that.

00:34:10.800 And it was, you know, there were plenty of things wrong, as always. And what it was,

00:34:14.860 was a certain moment of health and happiness that kind of brought everybody together. And that's

00:34:18.920 great. It's wonderful. I hope it comes again. But those are the rare moments in history. And

00:34:23.280 certainly the rare moments in American history, which has been a crazy place since the year dot.

00:34:27.920 I mean, this is a place where the future happens, which it makes it a place of fervent and, you know,

00:34:32.600 and chaos and experimentation. The Europeans, by the way, you know, it's not just that soccer stuff 0.65

00:34:38.840 where they love, you know, Chick-fil-A. The Europeans are fascinated with us and love us

00:34:43.860 because this is the place where stuff happens. And I don't know, I find it exciting. I know this

00:34:48.900 is a chaotic and dangerous period. But I think we're going through the rapids into some beautiful,

00:34:53.400 beautiful possible futures where we wind up on Mars and when, you know, AI starts to cure

00:34:59.800 diseases. I don't think this is a bad time at all. It's just a time of transition and chaos.

00:35:04.960 I struggle a lot with the natural pessimism that I think a lot of conservatives have,

00:35:11.600 and I understand it. And I think I've lived through a period when things have changed

00:35:16.360 dramatically for the worse in terms of our politics in a lot of different ways. But then I

00:35:20.740 also think about this line from David Bentley Hart, who is a little bit of a crazy guy, but is a great

00:35:26.960 religious writer about, you know, we worship a God who has set us free from optimism and taught us

00:35:33.300 hope instead. And that's something that I think is really important to have. I have hope for the

00:35:38.560 human race. I have hope for the American people. I have hope that we can solve our problems, not

00:35:44.800 with some, you know, vast shift towards socialism,

00:35:48.660 but through science and through the progress

00:35:51.620 of the intellect and of creative minds.

00:35:56.840 And I feel like I live in one of the best times

00:36:00.100 in history to ever live.

00:36:02.140 And I don't want to go back to a point

00:36:03.820 where I have to work for a year

00:36:05.820 to save up for a refrigerator.

00:36:07.880 So that's, I think-

00:36:08.900 This is right.

00:36:09.740 I mean, when we talk about ideas have consequences,

00:36:12.880 when we talk about ideas have consequences,

00:36:14.500 so does blackpilling. Blackpilling is an idea, and that's an idea with consequences. It's an

00:36:18.700 idea where you end up taking the best things about America, and you just toss them right

00:36:22.840 out the window. I played on my show, I actually led my show, kind of in unique fashion, I never

00:36:27.460 do this, but there was a clip that came across my feed from our friend Matt Fradd. I don't know

00:36:30.900 if you guys saw this clip. Amazing, amazing clip. Unbelievable clip, right? This clip with Dr. Peter

00:36:36.040 Kleft, where Kleft is talking about his late wife, and he's talking about how he looked at her

00:36:41.520 at her corpse i mean she died and she'd she'd been in in hospice and she was desiccated and

00:36:46.180 she was weathered and she was old and he looked at her and he thought and he fell in love with

00:36:49.920 her again and saw that she was beautiful because of her soul right and and he's talking about the

00:36:54.560 soul and you can see matt get very emotional matt by the way beautiful job with that interview

00:36:58.440 yeah i'm stupid enough that i would have jumped in probably and tried to talk to it

00:37:02.060 matt just kind of lets it sit the way that he should we should play the clips that people can

00:37:05.780 understand we're talking about if you missed it i i called it the single best clip maybe in the

00:37:09.460 history of the internet i really think it is here here is this clip what advice do you have someone

00:37:15.080 watching this who's newly married or who is about to be do you think that when you are very old 0.72

00:37:26.640 and your wife is very old and ugly and wrinkled uh and fat and uh not very bright or even nasty 0.88

00:37:36.620 that you will still find her beautiful. 1.00

00:37:40.760 If so, marry her.

00:37:45.980 The last view I had of my wife 0.99

00:37:51.340 in the nursing home,

00:37:54.660 about an hour after she died,

00:37:57.400 I fell in love with her again. 0.99

00:38:00.300 Here is a wasted, emaciated, wrinkled, suffering body.

00:38:06.620 it's as beautiful as a crucifix.

00:38:25.960 Because that body ain't going to last,

00:38:28.060 but the soul is.

00:38:33.700 So if you don't love her soul,

00:38:35.060 but just love her body.

00:38:39.080 Don't get married.

00:38:42.680 Now, the reason that I played this clip here

00:38:45.080 and I played it on the show

00:38:46.060 is because I think that when you talk about ideas

00:38:47.920 have consequences,

00:38:48.620 one of the ideas that he's talking about right there

00:38:50.700 is this idea that the soul is key

00:38:52.640 to who you are as a human being.

00:38:54.520 And that obviously has its roots

00:38:55.880 going all the way back to Genesis, right?

00:38:57.320 The first time that you mention spirit in the scripture

00:38:59.980 is at the second verse of Genesis

00:39:01.620 where it talks about the spirit of God

00:39:04.300 is hovering above the waters and then that's projected forward into chapter two of genesis

00:39:08.000 where god forms a man from the earth right that's why adam and adama so in hebrew adam is man adam

00:39:14.720 is earth so god forms a man from the earth and blows ruach right that same word into the into

00:39:19.640 the body of the man and this is what animates the human being right is the spirit that is blown into

00:39:24.120 him and and that is then again projected into the idea that man is made in the image of god right

00:39:28.800 this is all part of the same couple of chapters of the book of genesis the reason i brought this

00:39:32.600 up is because this is not just a spiritual idea this is actually baked into the foundations of

00:39:37.100 the united states like the united states in a way that no other country really does recognizes this

00:39:41.820 as a fundamental principle i mean this is legitimately baked into the declaration of

00:39:45.280 independence right when the declaration of independence says that we hold certain truths

00:39:48.840 to be self-evident that all men are created equal right made by their create given by their creator

00:39:53.740 certain inalienable rights right like that that language that we have rights as human beings i

00:39:58.300 know that a lot of traditional catholic theologians have problems with these very ideas of rights

00:40:02.540 and all this but putting that aside i think that the traditional not a huge problem necessarily

00:40:06.860 but yeah there's not necessarily some not all right i mean obviously if you read harvey mansfield or

00:40:14.040 if you read robert george most prominently he talks about rights a lot and john finnis and

00:40:17.480 there are a lot of catholic theologians for instance yeah yeah sure um but the but the

00:40:21.820 bottom line is that the the sort of american idea which is that at the core of our system

00:40:26.300 are individuals that are created with equal equal rights and those those equal rights spring from

00:40:30.920 the fact that you have a godly soul that was imbued in you right like that is the spirit of

00:40:35.560 America and when you throw away all that because there's a huge foundation there that is then built

00:40:39.840 upon by our system our entire system of government is built on the idea that the individual's rights

00:40:44.540 are unalienable and that we consent to form a government because we have these unalienable

00:40:50.220 rights because we are spiritual creatures because we have souls and are individually valuable not

00:40:54.900 as instruments but we have inherent actual value and so when you take all the outgrowths of that

00:40:59.480 which by the way include things like private property they include things like freedom of

00:41:02.680 speech they include things like freedom of religion when you take all of that and you

00:41:05.600 toss that aside because you're so black-pilled about america and you decide what we really need

00:41:09.460 is a sort of collectivist tyranny like they have in russia or like they have in china or a theocratic 0.66

00:41:14.100 tyranny like they have in iran like that's the thing that's going to give people a feeling of

00:41:18.120 fulfillment and soul that's a huge category or it's a huge mistake because again i'm not talking

00:41:22.840 about radical randian isolationism and individualism because we all exist at various

00:41:27.200 levels of our being, right? We're individuals, but we're also members of families and members

00:41:30.200 of communities, of course. But at the core of all of us, the thing that makes us valuable is the soul

00:41:35.060 that Kreft is talking about. And that's an individual thing. That is not a collective thing.

00:41:39.160 That is an individual thing that makes you individually special and worthy of recognition.

00:41:43.260 And systems built around that are systems that are worthy of keeping.

00:41:46.520 Sure. But one, I think there's a little bit of a straw man to the people who think there need to be

00:41:50.720 more of an overt religious sense in government or a greater focus on community. But I think

00:41:56.260 you're missing one of the great points that Dr. Kreeft is making, which is that he says, you know,

00:42:01.280 will you still love your wife when she's ugly and wrinkled and fat and old? And, but he says he

00:42:05.280 falls in love with his wife again, an hour after she's died, this emaciated, desiccated corpse,

00:42:10.980 because she's as beautiful as the crucifix, which is not merely an immaterial soul.

00:42:16.680 That's eminently physical. You're actually not divorcing the soul from the physical here.

00:42:21.740 It's not that you love your wife in spite of the sort of weatheredness and age.

00:42:27.440 You love it in part because of that, you know, because of the vision of love, the perfect vision of love, which is the crucified Christ.

00:42:35.300 So there is this physical aspect.

00:42:37.520 And where that plays into the political theory here is I don't think that people who say we need to bring the Bible back to schools or prayer back to schools or, you know, a little more religion and public life.

00:42:47.320 I don't think they're calling for a theocracy like Iran. 0.51

00:42:50.540 One, that's a different religion.

00:42:52.180 I don't think they're calling for a totalitarian state like you have in Russia, or an authoritarian state at least.

00:42:57.600 I think what they're calling for is the kind of government that we had largely in the United States from the beginning up until the middle to late 20th century,

00:43:04.740 where you taught the Bible in schools, where we had blue laws, where we had established churches for decades after the ratification of the Constitution,

00:43:12.100 where we had cohesive communities, where we had, as John Jay writes in Federalist No. 2,

00:43:16.580 We had a people descended from a common stock with a common language, with a common religion.

00:43:21.160 Thank God, the common experience of the independence, the War of Independence he's writing.

00:43:24.840 You know, it's not to say that you're going to become an ethno-state.

00:43:28.220 It's not to say that you're going to have some mandatory sort of religious requirement or anything like that.

00:43:32.620 Not at all.

00:43:33.280 But there must be, in these United States, some kind of unity, some sense of community.

00:43:39.100 That's not a false community, but an organic one.

00:43:41.880 I think you're agreeing with Ben here.

00:43:43.360 I think, you know, that obviously the fact that we allowed this conversation about souls and the Bible to be pushed out of the open square was a huge, huge mistake.

00:43:53.760 But I have to say, I've got to say two things.

00:43:55.360 One, first of all, to hear Ben speak so optimistically, I feel my work here is done.

00:43:59.160 It's crazy.

00:43:59.360 And I feel like I should actually just go off.

00:44:01.560 I had a baby.

00:44:02.220 I had a baby.

00:44:02.840 I don't know what you guys want.

00:44:03.640 I had a baby.

00:44:04.520 And honestly, it's not just.

00:44:06.020 That will cheer you up.

00:44:07.020 That will cheer you up.

00:44:07.520 By the way, not just that I had a baby.

00:44:08.600 I think I was uniquely vulnerable to that clip in that moment because we've all watched our wives have babies.

00:44:13.680 And I'm not sure that your wife is ever more beautiful than in literally the moment after the baby comes out and they put the baby on her chest.

00:44:19.280 And she's not the most physically beautiful person at that point.

00:44:21.820 She's the most beautiful human being you've ever seen at that point in time.

00:44:24.600 I got to see that this week.

00:44:25.720 So I'm in a very good mood about that.

00:44:27.180 Which is to Noel's point as well.

00:44:29.000 But I have to tell you something else.

00:44:30.340 I'm doing this show with Spencer about the culture.

00:44:33.480 We've had these six episodes.

00:44:35.040 It's a great show if you haven't watched it.

00:44:36.720 I'm amazed at how good it is.

00:44:38.000 But we did a show on the summer movies. I feel that our culture, our artistic culture, flatlined over the last five years. And I was just appalled. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, except for the books I was writing. Like, literally nothing good was coming out. And I was tossing things over my shoulder and going to the movies. Couldn't stand it.

00:44:56.340 this summer everything changed uh steven spielberg brought out a film that was like being an old age

00:45:01.780 home i thought like this is this is killing me it's like so old fashions it's so out of date

00:45:06.560 and you know spielberg is a genius director but this was just he his time has passed but then

00:45:11.520 these two films by two young white men who had been putting out stuff on the internet came out

00:45:17.160 one called backroom and the other called uh obsession that were actually new visions you

00:45:22.060 You know, they were they were just old horror movies, well done and all this stuff.

00:45:25.360 But this film Backrooms, if you haven't seen it, I'm not going to tell you it's a great movie.

00:45:28.980 It's not a great movie, but it is a new movie.

00:45:31.760 It's a new vision by young people.

00:45:34.480 And it's a story of people being trapped through the Internet in their own brains, in a place where the world is being reproduced without the soul, essentially a completely materialist universe.

00:45:45.000 And I thought this is so precise, you know, because what I look for is vision.

00:45:48.120 I look for an artist working and this is an artist working.

00:45:51.120 And it's so precise that we're just an inch away from them figuring out that this is where things went wrong.

00:45:58.040 You know, in other words, once people start to see it, that's what the arts do.

00:46:00.980 Once people start to show it to you.

00:46:02.320 So after five years of just death, where it would have been easy to sit here and say the arts are over, they're never going to come back.

00:46:08.680 These plants are growing up through the ice and it's a beautiful thing to see.

00:46:11.940 And that's what I think, Ben, the other Ben, you know, I think you should be looking at is not that this is a more chaotic time and probably a more diseased time than the 50s.

00:46:22.740 It is, but that we're passing through something.

00:46:25.340 And I think we're coming to the end of that passage when a lot of these extreme and self-destructive movements will, God willing, pass away.

00:46:34.880 I think that you're touching on something which I truly agree with.

00:46:39.840 And by the way, both of those movies are great and people should watch them. The thing that is, I think, happening is that we see these we see these trends in American society burn out.

00:46:51.880 we saw the you know the overreaction that happened in the wake of george floyd we saw the overreaction

00:46:59.300 that happened around the entire you know me too scandals and everything else like that we saw the

00:47:04.880 overreaction uh that has happened uh repeatedly you know backed by the left when it comes to

00:47:11.180 america's uh racial reckoning and the like and they burn themselves out because fundamentally

00:47:17.520 they're at odds with what most americans think about each other and their neighbors

00:47:21.500 and that to me is the thing that gives me hope because i think that we understand that most of

00:47:28.260 our neighbors aren't racist most of our neighbors who are flying a flag you know on the 250th they

00:47:33.680 are not doing so out of some racial animus most of the people i mean the idea that you know you

00:47:38.980 have abc news program the view where sonny hostin says if i see an american flag i think that it's

00:47:44.220 racist you know and it's like this that is not real life that is not the way that americans

00:47:50.220 think about each other. And no matter their degree of patriotism, no matter the way that they vote,

00:47:56.160 I just think that this nation is actually a lot healthier than it seems like it is online and in

00:48:02.980 the pages of our media. And I think that the people who have, you know, a relationship with

00:48:08.060 each other who can cross those kinds of lines, they're the real people in America. Don't believe

00:48:13.580 for a second that there are a lot of people who are like Taylor Lorenz. They do exist, but there

00:48:18.840 are not a lot of people who are signing up for that religious experience. That's too positive.

00:48:22.920 We're getting rid of Dominic. Sorry. Get out. No way. I can't handle it. You know what I want to

00:48:29.540 talk about? Not all that happy stuff. Actually, one happy thing I want to talk about, and that is

00:48:36.600 peer talk. Every once in a while, a deal comes along. It's so good. Your first instinct is to

00:48:41.400 assume you misunderstood it. I had the same reaction when I saw what peer talk is doing.

00:48:46.200 for the first time ever, they're offering any plan, yes, any plan for just $15 a month for your

00:48:51.420 first three months. Not just the entry-level plan, not just one special plan they hope you'll

00:48:56.300 overlook. Any plan, including their unlimited high-speed data plans, including their top-tier

00:49:01.400 plan, $15 a month. So my recommendation is get the best one because it's $15 a month. I'm not

00:49:07.440 an economist. I'm not an accountant, but that's the best deal. It's already a great deal at its

00:49:12.360 usual rates. The deals are, it's a very inexpensive plan. It is the best service you're

00:49:19.220 going to get on the best towers. You heard me say very good towers. I didn't say that. I said

00:49:23.220 the best towers. You have US-based customer service, so they will speak English. That will

00:49:27.640 be a novel change. The people who run the company support all good stuff. It's a veteran-led company.

00:49:32.540 They support all sorts of good stuff. They believe what you believe. Right now, you could save up to

00:49:36.680 $150 over those first three months.

00:49:38.620 So go do it.

00:49:39.720 PureTalk right now, $15 a month.

00:49:43.080 PureTalk.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S to make the switch.

00:49:47.440 What is that PureTalk?

00:49:48.480 P-U-R-E-T-A-L-K dot C-O-M slash K-N-O-W-L-E-S.

00:49:54.940 Start saving.

00:49:57.320 Have you guys subscribed yet?

00:49:59.720 Have you?

00:50:00.800 You better have.

00:50:01.840 I've had my PureTalk phone for like six years.

00:50:03.760 Okay, before we go, we're supposed to play some, are we doing a new game?

00:50:08.280 Are we doing some new segment?

00:50:10.000 Is that real?

00:50:12.040 I heard we're doing this.

00:50:13.720 It's a new, it's a segment where we're kind of like Shark Tank.

00:50:18.300 Mostly they just looked at Drew and they said, you're bald.

00:50:20.780 That kind of reminds me of Shark Tank.

00:50:22.400 Okay, so the new bit, this new hip cool bit, is we are going to take pitches from all of you.

00:50:29.040 All of you brilliant, wonderful people out there.

00:50:31.400 your pitch, not on some new business where we're going to actually invest our money. You're not

00:50:36.680 getting a single penny from me, but your pitch on a policy, some political idea that would help

00:50:41.800 the country and improve the world. And so to start us off, we have Alan Morrow. Take it away.

00:50:49.300 What's up, guys? It's great to be here. We need daylight savings time all the time.

00:50:54.940 Congress is finally doing something. Can we get rid of him already? He already lost me.

00:50:58.840 he already lost me. Michael, bear with me. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed

00:51:04.180 the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight savings time permanent and end the

00:51:08.820 dreaded twice yearly time changes that are forced upon us. Some of the consequences that we deal

00:51:14.500 with and think are normal. In the immediate aftermath of this, fatal car crashes increase,

00:51:19.260 there's an increase in heart attacks, 8% increase in strokes, and Michael, people's cortisol surges. 0.99

00:51:24.840 Your surging microphone is all right now with this stupid proposal, but sorry, finish before I shoot it down. 0.97

00:51:30.920 And some of the benefits of more evening sunlight, it reduces seasonal affective disorder, it increases economic spending in the afternoons and activity, and it gives ice more sunlight to catch illegals. 0.99

00:51:42.060 Okay, I have a question for you.

00:51:43.760 Okay, so in parts of North Dakota and Minnesota, if daylight savings time is permanent, what time would the sun rise?

00:51:50.920 I am not entirely sure of all of the details.

00:51:53.520 Yeah, didn't do any research, did you?

00:51:54.840 9 45 in the morning. Does that sound like a good time for the sun to rise? Doesn't sound so for me.

00:52:00.460 Think of it like this right now, when the sunrise is really early, a lot of people are missing out

00:52:06.360 on all of the sunlight that the day has to offer. This is such a zoomer thing. 9 45 is really early

00:52:12.560 for a zoomer rolling to work about 1 PM. I hate this pitch. Do you guys have any other? No, I

00:52:17.500 like this idea. Can't we just get rid of Minnesota? I think we just kind of saw off the top of the

00:52:24.820 state. Yeah. No, I like this idea. I hate the fact that I have to wake up at different times

00:52:28.780 and figure this stuff out. Why does it, why must it be like that? I mean, I don't care when we do,

00:52:34.440 I actually don't care when we do it as long as we actually don't have to change the clause.

00:52:38.200 The thing is, this is Chesterton's fence, guys. Like this actually drives me crazy. I was reading

00:52:41.660 the stupid house bill. I think the White House is even backing it. This is the one time out of 1.00

00:52:46.860 a thousand where I really disagree with like everyone in the GOP. But this is Chesterton's

00:52:51.620 fence. We have daylight savings time and standard time for a reason. It is seasonal. It's so that

00:52:57.780 you don't have the sun come up at 945 in Minnesota or whatever. In some places, it works better. In

00:53:02.460 Arizona, the earliest, they're now on permanent mountain time in most of Arizona, and the earliest

00:53:08.300 the sun comes up is 530. The latest is 730. It kind of works there, but in a lot of parts of

00:53:12.220 the country, it doesn't work. So daylight savings and the time change, it kind of helps. But then

00:53:16.020 my cultural point on this is it's kind of a fun, weird, delightful thing that we do. We set the

00:53:21.560 clock's back. We set them forward. To me, making it permanent one way or the other is just like

00:53:27.160 the metric system. It's revolutionary France. It's cold. It's sterile. I hate it. And I want

00:53:32.200 the Senate to kill the bill, just like Tom Cotton did last time. Can we keep this guy and get rid

00:53:38.940 of the NOLS? So Calci suggests, and Calci, of course, one of our sponsors, that very, very

00:53:44.900 high percentage, huge jump in the percentage that daylight savings is going to become permanent and

00:53:48.900 Knowles will be permanently forced to get up well before the sun rises where he lives.

00:53:54.700 I will say as someone with kids, it does get very weird, right?

00:53:58.200 Like if I have to get my kids up two hours before the sun rises in order to get them

00:54:02.220 to school and they're in the middle of like third period by the time the sun rises, it's

00:54:06.820 definitely weird.

00:54:07.620 Now, I assume that what will happen is that everyone will just adjust to it the other

00:54:10.400 way.

00:54:10.680 That what will happen is that businesses will start opening later and staying open later.

00:54:13.700 And so what you're actually doing is you're instead of of having, you know, the clock adapt to the businesses, you're just going to have the businesses adapt to the clock.

00:54:21.380 And same thing with schools. You'll have schools that open later and close later.

00:54:24.420 And it's just going to weird out everybody's brain for a few years.

00:54:27.700 It doesn't make any actual difference, guys. The sun comes up when the sun comes up and it goes down when the sun goes down.

00:54:33.060 So, you know, I lived in I lived in England for a long time.

00:54:36.700 And at Christmas time, you could literally stand in Hastings and watch the sun rise and fall in about 15 minutes.

00:54:42.920 So just the entire day went by like a fast motion.

00:54:45.680 And look, they had Shakespeare and built an empire.

00:54:48.180 So it didn't keep them back.

00:54:49.320 You know, I think we can we can live with it here in Minnesota.

00:54:51.920 I mean, come on.

00:54:53.140 How many people are even in Minnesota?

00:54:54.980 It sounds like you guys are both somewhat in favor, but I'm moderating.

00:54:58.600 So, Alan, you lose.

00:54:59.660 We're bringing on Brent now.

00:55:01.740 Brent, what is your pitch?

00:55:05.400 Man, if you thought.

00:55:08.160 Here I am.

00:55:09.680 If you thought, Alan, I agree with everything Alan said.

00:55:12.780 I actually don't think Alan goes far enough at all.

00:55:16.380 My pitch is to get rid of time zones altogether, which sounds really radical at the beginning.

00:55:22.760 But when you think of it, it obviously makes sense.

00:55:25.420 First of all, we all decided that England was going to be the center of the time universe in 1884.

00:55:34.300 And it was because England was already where, you know, nautical roots were based on and everybody was going off that.

00:55:42.780 Today, that is useless, and all time zones are is a confusion.

00:55:48.440 I mean, I know with the three of you and me, I don't go through a single day where I'm

00:55:55.300 not talking to somebody in a different time zone, and it's like, we're going to talk at

00:55:59.420 nine.

00:55:59.900 Is that nine CST or EST?

00:56:02.140 Oh, you're in California today.

00:56:04.480 The confusion here, and before you weigh in on whether you think I'm right or not, I'm

00:56:10.140 not saying that everybody goes off New York time, which should be the center. Eastern time zone is

00:56:16.020 correct. We start at 9 a.m. If you live in California, you start your day at probably about

00:56:23.740 noon. Time, time, time. You're out. Sorry. You should have tightened it up a little bit.

00:56:29.680 I love the humble brag in there, too. Not a day goes by that I'm not speaking to my friends and

00:56:34.160 Paris, friends, and Monaco.

00:56:37.080 Yeah, okay.

00:56:38.400 Gentlemen, any thoughts on abolishing all time zones?

00:56:40.800 Yeah, that's the silliest idea I've ever heard.

00:56:43.060 I mean, what difference does it make if people are waking up at 9 a.m. in the dark? 0.71

00:56:49.840 You know, if they're waking up at 9 a.m. is still the middle of the night.

00:56:53.260 Because Brent doesn't want to do a conversion.

00:56:55.380 That's it.

00:56:55.720 He just doesn't want to look at his G-Cal and do a conversion.

00:56:57.040 He doesn't want to add a couple of hours.

00:56:58.360 Correct.

00:56:58.940 Yeah.

00:56:59.760 Get him out of here.

00:57:00.440 It should be at the same time.

00:57:01.280 And also the couch.

00:57:02.100 I don't like the couch.

00:57:02.780 it should be the same time everywhere so i'm actually kind of warm to this idea mainly because

00:57:09.500 it is very confusing when you fly to figure out where the hell you are and and it doesn't it

00:57:14.180 definitely screws with your brain and if you've got you know a nice watch the way that i do and

00:57:17.860 it doesn't automatically reset you have to reset it every time you get on a plane which is a mild

00:57:22.340 inconvenience and i admit that i'm perfectly willing to mildly inconvenience or massively

00:57:25.960 inconvenience as it turns out 340 million americans to prevent mild inconvenience of having to reset

00:57:30.860 my watch every time i get on a plane my proposal is actually to abolish time completely we'll just

00:57:36.300 get rid of time i feel like this is this is actually it's all for that idea right and then

00:57:42.720 and then drew is just stuck in time forever he just lives forever we never have to deal with

00:57:47.100 that i mean like as long as we're doing things let's just go all the way ben goes fully to

00:57:51.400 immunitizing the eschaton that's we've made in in about 11 minutes on this show we've now made it

00:57:58.600 to the end. We've exhausted this segment. There is now nothing further that anyone can pitch.

00:58:03.600 I think I need five minutes with Donald Trump and this will be a reality. It just makes too much

00:58:08.380 sense. He just does things. Unfortunately, that's probably true. There's going to be two months of

00:58:14.460 this where everybody's going to be confused. Bye-bye, Brent. Now we've got Lyndon on. Lyndon,

00:58:19.320 what's your pitch? I think there should be no social media until you're 18 years old. And no

00:58:26.760 one can disagree with that because this is the downfall of our society yeah okay that's a great

00:58:32.600 pitch and i agree with that and we have unanimity on this yeah i feel like yeah this is like an

00:58:38.520 easy pitch done that was great see linden got that in like 15 seconds or less that's the kind of

00:58:43.960 45 seconds she could sing a song you know let me keep going kids don't have the opportunity to make

00:58:51.460 mistakes can't they be caught by their parents doing something that they shouldn't be doing

00:58:55.480 and they don't need to be on TikTok

00:58:57.160 and their parents like see them on the local news

00:58:59.160 to find out that their kids smoked their first cigarette.

00:59:01.340 It's awful. 0.99

00:59:02.360 Let kids be kids. 0.99

00:59:03.760 Let them go ride bicycles.

00:59:05.120 My dad's in a group picture

00:59:06.660 to our family group text the other day

00:59:08.300 of just four kids without shirts on riding bikes.

00:59:12.020 And he goes, you know, this is a rare sight these days,

00:59:15.000 but I'm glad these kids are riding bikes.

00:59:16.720 And I'm like, yeah, because all these kids

00:59:18.260 are chronically online in their basement

00:59:20.900 and they never leave their basement.

00:59:22.460 So I'm trying to say living in their mom's basement,

00:59:24.440 they never get married, 0.98

00:59:25.320 they never have kids, we'll have this world of just weirdos. It needs to end. Social media is 0.94

00:59:30.660 great for our business. It's great as an adult. You can monetize it. You can stay in touch with

00:59:35.000 your high school classmates if you want to. You may not want to, but there is no need for teenagers

00:59:39.640 and especially children to be on social media. Okay. You know, I kind of like this because it

00:59:44.040 goes, harkens back to the nominalism to Tranny's genealogy. You went from Facebook to the extinction

00:59:50.220 of the human race because no one's having kids. And I, frankly, I kind of buy both of them. So

00:59:54.180 I'm in. Where do I invest? Yeah, it really is like being locked in high school. It's like being

01:00:00.500 locked in high school. It's like that thing back room where he's stuck in this maze behind the

01:00:04.820 scenes. It's like being online for kids. It's like being stuck in high school, which if anybody has

01:00:09.840 an actual true memory of it, is as close to hell as we know on earth. So I mean, I think this is

01:00:14.980 absolutely a good idea. The biggest risk is not that we lose a bunch of shirtless kids riding

01:00:19.320 their bikes around the neighborhood. The biggest risk is that now you see a bunch of shirtless

01:00:22.160 adults on your kids' social media

01:00:23.800 riding bikes around the neighborhood.

01:00:26.180 This is the biggest problem

01:00:27.820 that we've got right now.

01:00:30.380 Yeah, easy.

01:00:31.080 Guys, I'm glad I'm the smartest. 1.00

01:00:33.080 Those guys had such dumb pitches. 0.99

01:00:34.980 And then Lyndon had a good, 1.00

01:00:36.020 like an obvious pitch.

01:00:37.060 Lyndon had a good pitch, I know, yeah.

01:00:38.780 This is, wow.

01:00:40.500 Good scoring.

01:00:40.980 And you notice how quickly it takes

01:00:42.820 to put a good idea forward, right?

01:00:44.200 You can stop talking after 10 seconds.

01:00:46.640 I know, I feared that when she said,

01:00:48.720 no, let me keep talking, 0.93

01:00:50.020 I thought, uh-oh, she's going to ruin the sale. 0.97

01:00:51.600 when you get the yes you got to take yes for an answer but she made many other points okay

01:00:57.480 i mean it is it is weird to me i like why hasn't that been put forward by anybody in congress

01:01:01.960 seriously like a federal ban on social media for people under the age of 16 or 17 in england

01:01:08.040 aren't they yeah and it exists on a state-by-state basis in the united states also there's been some

01:01:13.120 states that are pushing it as well but if if you're talking about something that affects

01:01:15.900 interstate commerce and like the classical sense the internet would seem to be it so

01:01:19.340 So I don't know, man.

01:01:20.800 I feel like that would be a pretty good bipartisan pitch.

01:01:23.200 Yeah, well, the problem is that Congress is extremely old 0.99

01:01:26.560 and half of them are perverts. 0.93

01:01:28.060 So you have double incentives. 0.85

01:01:29.800 Like they don't know what TikTok is

01:01:31.720 and the ones who do are like on it and DMing the kids.

01:01:34.260 Yeah, you know, the incentives are not aligned.

01:01:38.120 In any case, all of our minds were aligned on that.

01:01:41.980 We will, whatever it is that we're supposed to do

01:01:44.220 for Lyndon, because she won,

01:01:46.260 we probably will forget to do it.

01:01:47.920 But we won't forget to see you next time on Friendly Fire.

01:02:17.920 may be lower. Visit shell.ca slash loyalty for full details.

The Michael Knowles Show - July 15, 2026

Friendly Fire： Defeating Doomerism, Defending America & Ending Time Zones

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