The Michael Knowles Show - Friendly Fire： Gavin for President, Greenland for Sale

00:00:00.000 Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me that's hilarious.

00:00:02.260 Really?

00:00:02.780 You think J.D. would mog Gavin Newsom?

00:00:05.060 Yes, I do think he would mog him.

00:00:06.300 I'm really enjoying neocon Matt Walsh.

00:00:08.020 I have also been lusting after Greenland my whole life.

00:00:11.200 I don't buy that.

00:00:11.940 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:00:12.700 I know it's uncouth to say it, but like, am I wrong?

00:00:14.560 For Media Matters, he's joking. It's not true.

00:00:17.520 He's not joking.

00:00:18.920 Friends are these.

00:00:20.360 Who needs enemies?

00:00:22.020 Friends are these.

00:00:23.540 Who needs enemies?

00:00:25.820 Matt, first time that Matt wants to talk foreign policy, so I'm like,

00:00:28.820 I'm all ears, man. Let's do it.

00:00:31.820 I mean, no, don't put it all on me.

00:00:33.360 I just, it's more for you guys to talk about.

00:00:35.780 Normally we mention any place that is outside the United States,

00:00:39.100 and I can see Matt's eyes glaze over.

00:00:42.440 Greenland is the only country outside the U.S. that I care about.

00:00:46.060 And it's meant to be inside the U.S. 0.58

00:00:47.560 Yeah, exactly.

00:00:48.700 I just love that we have as a listed topic the slave trade.

00:00:51.240 Yeah, no, I'm hoping we all can invest.

00:00:53.600 Matt is going to take the Aristotelian pro position.

00:00:56.340 Yeah, it's funny because you said that.

00:00:58.880 I was thinking about Aristotle, too.

00:01:02.620 Will Gavin Newsom be the next president?

00:01:06.220 Daily Wire's very own Ben Shapiro just became Paul Allen sitting down with the Patrick Bateman of California.

00:01:11.320 We will hear all of the juicy details.

00:01:13.340 Then Matt, I believe, is calling for a civil rights movement for white people

00:01:16.960 as he releases his new mini documentary on the slave trade.

00:01:22.180 What is a slave?

00:01:23.200 No, I don't think it's called that.

00:01:23.940 Anyway, he's going to be giving the history on that.

00:01:26.020 And then we will be going all the way into Greenland.

00:01:29.820 I don't think it's coincidental.

00:01:31.160 Denmark has said that they will not sell Greenland to the United States.

00:01:34.940 Then France came out and they said the French military will defend you.

00:01:38.400 And then immediately Denmark said, okay, listen, we'll make a deal.

00:01:41.280 So we will get into all of those things on Friendly Fire.

00:01:45.720 Gentlemen, wonderful to be with all of you.

00:01:47.460 Happy New Year and Merry Christmas.

00:01:49.360 Christmas is still on until February 2nd as far as I'm concerned.

00:01:52.860 Wow.

00:01:53.520 I didn't realize it lasts that long, Michael.

00:01:55.320 Why?

00:01:55.760 Yeah.

00:01:56.040 I go right through to Lent myself.

00:01:57.760 Yeah.

00:01:58.340 I actually, I count Christmas as lasting through until the next Advent.

00:02:02.200 So I've still got all the decorations up in my set.

00:02:05.160 It's amazing.

00:02:05.820 I haven't seen you guys in a little while.

00:02:07.500 And Ben, you were just over with Mr. Slimy himself.

00:02:10.800 I was with Gavin Newsom at the governor's mansion in California, which, by the way, is very tiny.

00:02:15.960 It is the tiniest governor's mansion.

00:02:17.740 It is a very, very small building in Sacramento.

00:02:19.780 You have to brush thousands of homeless people out of your way just to get to it.

00:02:25.040 But, you know, it was definitely an interesting experience.

00:02:28.460 I had a little bit of time off camera with Gavin Newsom.

00:02:32.200 I'd met him briefly before.

00:02:33.620 And like most politicians, he's very good in person.

00:02:35.620 I will say that just as a class of people, politicians in person, way better than politicians on camera, just generally speaking.

00:02:42.600 And we all know a bunch of politicians.

00:02:44.380 And I think that this is the general rule about literally all of them.

00:02:47.840 So off camera, he's very friendly.

00:02:49.860 He's very garrulous.

00:02:51.220 He will kind of get a little more honest with you than he might in terms of his positions on camera.

00:02:56.200 And then I was out there because he had invited me to come on his podcast.

00:03:00.140 That's a podcast where he has, I guess, once every couple of weeks, I believe.

00:03:03.660 Usually it's somebody of the left.

00:03:05.100 Occasionally he'll have somebody of the right.

00:03:06.620 Famously, he had Charlie Kirk on the show.

00:03:09.360 This is back during last summer.

00:03:11.360 And it was about a two-hour show.

00:03:13.560 It was a little bit under two hours.

00:03:14.740 We covered a lot of ground.

00:03:16.320 Before I get to your epic sit down with him, because I want to know if he's going to be the next president.

00:03:21.080 I really hope he's not.

00:03:21.940 I want to get to an even more epic topic, which is, of course, the Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, which is coming out.

00:03:29.720 It's coming to Daily Wire+.

00:03:30.780 This is the latest reason that you have to subscribe.

00:03:34.100 Become a Daily Wire Plus member right now.

00:03:36.100 This just amazing, elaborate, multi-continental journey.

00:03:41.220 If only we had waited a little longer to make it, we could have shot it in Greenland.

00:03:44.780 Just a beautiful, beautiful series.

00:03:46.820 And, by the way, if you go check it out right now, you can go to dailywire.com slash shop and get the Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin board game.

00:03:56.400 Which is very, very cool, depending on how long this goes.

00:03:59.720 Maybe we can all play it together, guys.

00:04:01.340 I love board games.

00:04:02.420 Send me one of those.

00:04:03.520 Wow.

00:04:04.060 It's good.

00:04:04.580 This is looking, I don't know, we spent some money on this.

00:04:06.880 This is a nice-looking board game.

00:04:07.980 Anyway, go check it out right now.

00:04:09.860 Become a Daily Wire Plus member.

00:04:11.980 January 22nd, it all happens.

00:04:14.640 And then possibly in January of 2029, our whole country falls apart if Gavin Newsom becomes president.

00:04:21.400 It turns out that series is the only thing more ambitious than Gavin Newsom.

00:04:25.800 We have a trailer, right?

00:04:27.340 Play the trailer.

00:04:28.780 What was it like, Merlin, to be alone with God?

00:04:33.720 Is that who you think I was alone with?

00:04:36.000 There is a new power at work in the world.

00:04:37.920 I've seen it.

00:04:38.580 A God who sacrifices what he loves for us.

00:04:40.760 I learned of Yazoo the Christ. 0.81

00:04:42.360 And I have become his follower.

00:04:43.920 Trust in Yazoo.

00:04:44.940 Great light.

00:04:45.800 Great darkness.

00:04:47.000 Such things mattered to me then. 0.70

00:04:48.380 What matters to you now, mistress of lies?

00:04:50.580 The Pendragon Cycle, Rise of the Merlin, a seven-part series.

00:04:54.820 Premieres January 22nd, only on Daily Wire Plus.

00:04:59.100 I mean, it is as good or better than anything that you will see on HBO.

00:05:03.360 And you won't get the gratuitous sex and the insane nihilism.

00:05:08.380 Oh, then I'm out. 0.96

00:05:09.420 Guys, guys.

00:05:10.200 I'm sorry.

00:05:10.760 I know.

00:05:11.000 It's a massive disincentive for...

00:05:12.640 Oh, wow.

00:05:14.160 Well, no.

00:05:15.420 Because they said we're going to play the Pendragon trailer.

00:05:17.600 And they came in and gave me this fake sword.

00:05:20.580 They said, what is this for?

00:05:21.860 It's a...

00:05:22.500 So this is a bit where I'm supposed to pull the...

00:05:24.540 I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this, but it's...

00:05:26.820 They gave me the sword and said, well, you could do a bit where you have a sword.

00:05:30.920 What's the bit?

00:05:31.760 Like, I have a sword.

00:05:33.200 What am I supposed to do?

00:05:34.040 I don't know.

00:05:34.580 It's the police show up looking for the lady in the lake.

00:05:35.580 That'll be...

00:05:36.700 Does anyone in my ear want to tell me what the bit is with the sword?

00:05:39.420 Is there a thing I'm supposed to be doing with it?

00:05:42.120 It still hurts yourself.

00:05:43.400 No.

00:05:43.580 I think I'm supposed to just have the sword and you guys are supposed to laugh hysterically

00:05:46.200 because Matt Walsh is holding a sword. 0.99

00:05:48.780 You could use it to smash in the windows of illegals in Minneapolis or something. 0.83

00:05:52.480 You could use it for a very practical political purpose. 0.80

00:05:54.760 It's plastic.

00:05:55.260 It's not even a real...

00:05:56.200 It's plastic.

00:05:57.300 If you wish to buy Matt a real sword, then you can get a subscription to Daily Wire and

00:06:01.300 you can watch Pendragon.

00:06:02.340 And then we can pay for actual metal swords that Matt can use to go and, I don't know,

00:06:06.620 chop down trees in whatever part of rural America he is in right at this very moment.

00:06:11.620 Anyway, back to Gavin.

00:06:13.260 So Newsom, I will say that he is good on his feet.

00:06:18.560 He's squirrely enough that he knows his talking points well enough that if you hit him on California

00:06:23.340 policy, he's able to sort of shift responsibility.

00:06:27.320 His big moves, he likes to shift responsibility onto local officials for failures and then take

00:06:30.780 credit for any state successes.

00:06:32.340 Or he likes to make sort of grandiose claims about the robustness of California.

00:06:37.560 And if you point out it is not as robust as he has said that it would be, then he'll

00:06:41.040 start talking about Louisiana.

00:06:42.440 So you see that sort of stuff happen a lot.

00:06:44.220 So, for example, I was dinging him on California's income tax policy because it's driving business

00:06:48.320 out of the state.

00:06:49.140 And his immediate response was, well, yeah, but we're fairer than, say, Louisiana.

00:06:53.580 And here's how that kind of went.

00:06:54.760 I think we have the clip.

00:06:55.820 Luckily, lowering the income tax rates in the state.

00:06:57.480 Well, California has tax.

00:07:00.440 I mean, there's 16 states right now.

00:07:01.840 Let's talk about those 16 states.

00:07:03.320 Well, why don't we talk about California?

00:07:04.340 That's the number you're in charge.

00:07:04.960 Well, I'm going to.

00:07:05.140 They tax their low-wage earners more than California taxes its high-wage earners.

00:07:09.140 Let's talk about lowering those tax rates in those 16 states.

00:07:12.860 Okay.

00:07:13.060 So, again, notice what he tends to do is he will misdirect away from the actual topic.

00:07:17.360 And even when it comes to the topic of taxes, he'll misdirect.

00:07:20.140 Because the point I'm making is not a fairness point.

00:07:23.320 It is an efficacy point, meaning you're driving every taxpayer out of your state, which is

00:07:27.360 what's happened in California.

00:07:28.980 He'll shift it over to Louisiana, and then he will have his online minions talk about how

00:07:32.740 he owned everybody by showing that you pay a lot of tax in Louisiana as a poor person

00:07:36.720 based on excise taxes and such.

00:07:38.740 So that's kind of one of his squirrely strategies.

00:07:40.420 There are certain places where he is less squirrely, and that's kind of what's interesting.

00:07:44.240 I will say, the thing that I found interesting is his overt attempt to moderate his sort of

00:07:48.920 online persona.

00:07:50.060 So there are a couple of points where he did this.

00:07:52.400 One of them, most obviously, was on ICE.

00:07:54.240 So his crazy social media account, his press office account, which has been dedicated to

00:08:00.060 trolling President Trump for a while, had tweeted out that they'd engaged in ICE, had

00:08:05.640 engaged in state-sponsored terrorism.

00:08:07.380 And I asked him straight up about it and really pushed him on it.

00:08:09.440 One was a narrative that was immediately pushed by the Trump administration and Secretary of

00:08:15.400 Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, that she was a domestic terrorist who was attempting to 0.92

00:08:18.400 run over officers with her car and was legitimately trying, not just this officer, but multiple

00:08:23.420 officers.

00:08:23.940 That was the original statement I said at the time.

00:08:26.020 I thought that was untrue.

00:08:27.200 And then your press office tweeted out that it was state-sponsored terrorism, which, I mean,

00:08:33.440 Governor, I do have to ask you about that.

00:08:34.800 That sort of thing makes our politics worse.

00:08:38.780 And it does.

00:08:39.440 I mean, our ICE officers obviously are not terrorists.

00:08:42.360 A tragic situation is not state-sponsored terrorism.

00:08:45.140 Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:08:46.300 OK, so again, you can see him trying to, like, take his own press office and just chuck it

00:08:49.220 under the bus.

00:08:49.760 He's doing a couple of things.

00:08:50.860 One is he will kind of rhetorically appeal to the radicals in his base.

00:08:54.280 And then when he's called on it, then he will back really quickly away from it because

00:08:57.900 he still wants to win moderates for 2028.

00:08:59.860 By the way, our sponsor, Kalshi, in the prediction markets, shows that he is right now the leader

00:09:04.060 in the clubhouse among Democrats for the 2028 nomination.

00:09:08.740 All right, hold on.

00:09:09.840 Before, I want to hear, because you saw him actually personally, I want to hear what you

00:09:14.200 think about him for 2028.

00:09:15.520 But before you sully the opinions of the, you know, you sway our fellow DW guys here, do you

00:09:23.600 think, Drew and Matt, do you think that Newsom's the guy for 2028?

00:09:28.000 No, I think he's the I think he's the Jeb Bush of the Democrats.

00:09:31.820 I think, you know, one of this one of the continual arguments we have had on this show

00:09:36.700 and when it was backstage is, you know, Ben and Jeremy would always say that Michelle

00:09:41.460 Obama when runs should win against anybody.

00:09:43.980 And I think I don't think it's underestimating the American public.

00:09:47.380 I think it's misunderstanding the American public.

00:09:49.040 They actually are.

00:09:50.220 The American public actually is keyed into issues more than the media wants them to be more.

00:09:55.240 The media wants them to look at people, what they look like and how they behave and whether

00:09:58.520 they do this or that and what words they use.

00:10:00.680 But the people actually do care about topics and issues, especially when they affect them.

00:10:06.780 I think Newsom is a haircut, a sleazy haircut.

00:10:09.600 And I think that that doesn't play.

00:10:11.780 I think the fact that they, anybody who runs against them is going to bring up the fact that

00:10:15.420 they have spent $40 billion, uh, almost on fixing the homeless issue and their homelessness

00:10:22.340 has gone up 30%.

00:10:23.420 Where's the money for the, the, uh, bullet train?

00:10:26.580 Where the hell did that, those billions of dollars go?

00:10:28.980 Money disappears in California because like any one state, uh, one party state, it's full

00:10:34.560 of graft. 0.78

00:10:35.060 It's just a completely corrupt state.

00:10:36.480 But wouldn't you also say that Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were greasy haircuts?

00:10:39.500 I mean, sleazy haircuts?

00:10:40.420 Bill, Bill Clinton was one of the great and Barack Obama.

00:10:44.020 This is the other thing about Democrats, by the way, we've had, we've had three Democrat

00:10:47.000 presidents over the last, you know, several decades.

00:10:50.020 Obama and Clinton were two of the greatest politicians of my lifetime.

00:10:53.580 They were fantastic, uh, wholesale politicians and Joe Biden won under very suspicious circumstances.

00:10:59.700 Let's face it.

00:11:00.340 I mean, very, you know, weird circumstances.

00:11:02.280 So, so I, I don't know the drift, the drift in this country is to the right.

00:11:06.180 The drift in the West is to the right.

00:11:07.900 And in Europe, they're basically stamping it down, but we don't have the capability

00:11:11.420 of stamping it down.

00:11:12.300 And I think Gavin Newsom is toast the minute his record comes up and, and the social stuff,

00:11:18.600 the, the way he handled COVID, the way he had everybody, he shut down John MacArthur's

00:11:22.260 church and her, or tried to, and harass them while he was dining out at a French restaurant

00:11:26.460 with his friends without a mask.

00:11:28.160 I mean, the guy is just, he's too easy a target to really make it, uh, went, once the national,

00:11:33.360 uh, attention is on him.

00:11:35.240 And I just don't think he's, look, I understand he's ahead in the polls.

00:11:39.060 Anything can happen.

00:11:40.080 It's way too far away to actually predict it.

00:11:42.860 I'm not making a prediction, but I, he's just not the guy I'm looking at.

00:11:45.720 It's AOC who kicks me up at night.

00:11:47.380 Is the question, uh, whether he's going to win the presidency in 2028 or whether he's the

00:11:52.460 Democrats guy in 2028?

00:11:53.720 Even just the, even start with just the nomination.

00:11:56.140 Yeah.

00:11:56.320 Because, well, among Democrats, uh, Gavin, I guess I could put this sword on Gavin Newsom

00:12:02.760 among Democrats has a, has something that no other Democrat has that I'm aware of on the

00:12:09.600 entire national stage, which is that he can actually talk to people.

00:12:13.800 Like he could sit down and talk to Ben.

00:12:15.920 He can go on any podcast and have a conversation.

00:12:18.700 And yeah, he's lying the entire time, but, but he's, he's willing to do that.

00:12:23.600 There's, I, I mean, can you name any other Democrat at any level who could even potentially

00:12:28.840 run for the presidency in 2028 who would, who could go on, say, Joe Rogan and have a

00:12:36.020 conversation for two and a half hours?

00:12:37.780 Uh, Gavin Newsom could easily do that.

00:12:40.020 And again, although what he's saying is off is almost always false, everything he believes

00:12:45.620 is wrong and he's lying almost always, uh, he's at least able to go do that in that environment.

00:12:51.000 And he's the only Democrat, not only the only Democrat in the field right now who could

00:12:54.800 do that.

00:12:55.040 He's the only Democrat in the last like 20 years who has that kind of ability.

00:12:59.160 Uh, I think what, so that's an argument for why all things being equal, he has a good

00:13:05.160 chance of being the, you know, the nominee for the Democrats in 2028.

00:13:08.660 I don't think he's going to win the presidency for a lot of the reasons that, uh, that Drew

00:13:12.080 just articulated.

00:13:12.860 You think that J.D. Vans, assuming that J.D. is the presumptive nominee, you think J.D.

00:13:17.860 would mog Gavin Newsom?

00:13:19.380 Yes, I do think he would mog him.

00:13:20.500 I agree.

00:13:21.120 I do.

00:13:21.480 But, but then, uh, not that I know what mog means, but I think he would.

00:13:25.040 No one knows.

00:13:25.860 But the, the problem for Gavin Newsom is that like the obvious thing in the, for a Democrat

00:13:31.000 is that he's a white male.

00:13:32.600 Well, and in a primary, like, is, would the Democrat voters be willing to say, hey, we

00:13:41.040 tried a woman and she failed. 1.00

00:13:43.800 We tried a black woman, she failed even worse. 1.00

00:13:46.240 So now we're just going to go back to a white guy because they're the only ones who can win. 0.83

00:13:50.600 Uh, I, I don't know that the Democrat voters be willing to say that. 0.96

00:13:53.960 Maybe he should move to the next like a black woman midget or something like that. 1.00

00:13:54.700 So I'll say this. 0.98

00:13:56.080 He is, he is smoother on his feet than virtually any of the Democrats that I've talked to.

00:14:00.520 Uh, and I've talked to a fair number of them.

00:14:02.220 Uh, he is also, I think that there's a, a more than decent likelihood he's the nominee

00:14:08.200 in, in 2028 because his chief rival is AOC, meaning that AOC is not a black woman. 1.00

00:14:15.340 She's a Hispanic woman, actually. 1.00

00:14:17.300 And as if you, if you look at the Democratic voting base, particularly in the South, that

00:14:22.340 is a heavily black voting base.

00:14:23.700 Uh, there's no evidence that that crosses over to quote unquote, the people of color

00:14:26.760 category, a category that has never existed nor will ever exist in real life.

00:14:30.420 Uh, and, and you, you've already seen cases, uh, in which the black vote has mobilized

00:14:35.320 behind a white person to stop another white person or a Hispanic.

00:14:38.200 So I, I would not be surprised if he's able to pull out the nomination.

00:14:41.860 I will say that again, the game that he's playing, which is a smart game is he's usually

00:14:45.640 rhetorically radical with regard to president Trump personally.

00:14:48.900 And with regard to Trump, you know, that, that makes you real popular inside the Democratic

00:14:51.920 party, but he's trying to moderate on a lot of the issues where he actually is most radical.

00:14:55.680 Like in that interview, he suggested that he's cooperating with ICE, which I find, you

00:14:59.340 know, very difficult to believe, shall we say?

00:15:01.200 Um, in that interview, he tried to pretend sort of moderation on the trans issue.

00:15:04.800 His state is not moderate on that issue at all.

00:15:07.100 And that brings up sort of the second question that you're, you're raising Michael, which

00:15:10.300 is how does he do in a general election if it's JD Vance?

00:15:12.800 So, you know, obviously the number one question there is going to be, how's the U S doing

00:15:16.740 right?

00:15:16.920 If the economy sucks, JD's got a real problem.

00:15:18.920 Uh, and I think everybody acknowledges that circumstantially, that's just the reality.

00:15:22.240 Um, as far as sort of head to head as candidates, uh, yeah, I, I will say that I look that my

00:15:27.660 biggest question mark for JD is, can he grow any part of Trump's coalition?

00:15:33.800 I look at Trump's coalition and I think to myself, Trump has maxed out in many ways, many

00:15:39.080 parts of that coalition.

00:15:40.160 What is the part that JD grows that Trump was unable to grow?

00:15:43.260 Because this was a fairly narrow election.

00:15:45.340 If you look, it was a couple of hundred thousand votes in a couple of different places and

00:15:48.760 very, very high turnout because again, people really, really love Trump in a way that, you

00:15:53.240 know, again, that's not a rip on JD, that's just a reality.

00:15:56.000 But you've been saying for a while, Ben, and this is something I totally agree with that 0.97

00:15:58.880 almost all of this is going to depend on the economy, which I think is getting better.

00:16:02.760 I mean, even the wall street journal, which has been hysterically depressed ever since

00:16:06.100 the tariff thing comes out, is admitting that the economy is actually turning around

00:16:09.280 and doing pretty well.

00:16:10.580 And the other thing is also, you know, again, I don't think we talk too much and the media

00:16:15.720 likes this.

00:16:16.460 They want to talk about everything as people's faces and their style and the way they talk.

00:16:21.420 And I admit all that is important, but people actually do pay attention to certain things.

00:16:25.640 Like for instance, the parade of U-Hauls leaving California looks like a Howard Hawks cattle

00:16:31.280 drive.

00:16:31.720 I mean, people are just like deserting the state and the state, as we all know, is paradise.

00:16:36.640 If you left it alone, if you took the people out, it would be, it would be paradise.

00:16:40.140 And I, it's just, he's ruined everything that he touches.

00:16:42.820 And I just, I mean, listen, I left the state.

00:16:44.600 You left the state.

00:16:45.540 We all left his state.

00:16:47.580 We all left his state because again, I don't think that his state was well run, but there

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00:17:32.060 Drew, tell me about what you're going to do to protect your family should you die this

00:17:36.320 year.

00:17:36.680 Actually, I don't like to bring this up because it violates my contract, but I actually died

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00:17:45.040 her tennis instructor and live really the way she had wanted to for the last 45 years.

00:17:50.260 So I think it is important.

00:17:51.700 Look, you disappear, your money, your earnings go with you, and that leaves your family on

00:17:57.320 the large.

00:17:57.580 So yeah, it's important, especially for people like me or people like you, Ben, who might

00:18:01.940 finally, they might finally catch up with you and just carry you away.

00:18:06.240 Well, that's a dark thought for me this year.

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00:18:23.120 So here's my question.

00:18:24.420 Drew, I agree with you, obviously, about all of Gavin Newsom's policy failures.

00:18:27.580 The real question to him, and I even agree with you, obviously, about the economy.

00:18:30.700 It's hard to disagree with a 5.3% GDP growth in Q4 following a 4.5% GDP growth in Q3.

00:18:37.620 I mean, those are really, really good numbers.

00:18:39.800 Here is the problem, and I go back to it, just coalitionally speaking.

00:18:42.480 You look at Trump's coalition, it's a very weird coalition, right?

00:18:44.460 It's a different coalition than the sort of historic Republican coalition.

00:18:47.480 It's blue-collar voters, his heavy share of Hispanics, slightly outsized portion of black

00:18:52.680 males, particularly, and skewing younger than traditionally.

00:18:57.780 It's hard for me to see exactly where J.D. grows any part of that coalition.

00:19:02.640 He's going to win fewer Hispanics than President Trump did.

00:19:04.940 Trump has a sort of weird capacity to move beyond his own person.

00:19:09.100 He's kind of everybody's idea of a rich person in their various ethnic group.

00:19:13.200 It's really, really funny.

00:19:14.280 If you talk to my people, you talk to the Jews, he's like, oh, yeah, he's like every 0.61

00:19:18.860 rich Jew that I know.

00:19:19.860 And then you talk to a white Italian guy.

00:19:21.260 He's like, yeah, he's just like the rich Italian guys I know.

00:19:23.320 He talked to a Syrian.

00:19:25.720 He's bizarrely every person and no person at the same time, Donald Trump, in a weird way.

00:19:30.160 That's not true of J.D. Vance, who is a very talented politician, but clearly a politician.

00:19:34.680 And so you take sort of Trump's comments about ICE, and he's not going to—it doesn't come

00:19:39.540 across the same way as J.D. Vance online.

00:19:41.440 My chief critique of J.D. in this way is that I think J.D. is too online, and he needs to

00:19:44.880 get off of X. 0.94

00:19:45.400 This is also my chief critique of everyone, because I think X rots your brain.

00:19:48.620 And if you're a politician and you're using that as your echo chamber telling you which

00:19:52.160 direction to row, I think you're going to end up rowing in the wrong direction.

00:19:54.600 But hold on, Ben, doesn't that undercut your point on Trump, who is the tweeter-in-chief?

00:19:58.100 No, no, no.

00:19:58.640 Trump is not on X.

00:19:59.320 That's not true.

00:19:59.900 Trump tweets, but he does not read X.

00:20:02.020 Trump is not online.

00:20:03.000 Trump, literally, they print out things for him and put them in front of him.

00:20:05.640 You know this.

00:20:06.220 This is a factual truth, right?

00:20:07.740 They were literally, he doesn't, like, Trump does not spend any time at all on CNN.com

00:20:12.040 or NewYorkTimes.com.

00:20:12.900 They literally print out, if there's a tweet that he has seen, it's because his staff literally

00:20:16.280 prints out the tweet on physical paper and puts it in front of him.

00:20:19.580 Okay, but how does Gavin Newsom grow the coalition?

00:20:23.320 Because isn't this conversation, Gavin Newsom hypothetically versus J.D. Vance?

00:20:27.240 How does Gavin Newsom grow it?

00:20:28.480 So, again, when it's two choices, then shrinking your coalition is growing the other guy's coalition.

00:20:34.480 So, if you have a Hispanic voter, he's only going to go in one of two directions. 0.68

00:20:37.500 If that guy does not vote for J.D. Vance and now he votes in the election and doesn't just

00:20:41.780 go home, he's going to vote for Gavin Newsom.

00:20:43.640 So, I think that Gavin Newsom does win a larger share of Hispanic voters than Kamala Harris

00:20:49.780 won in the last election cycle, for example.

00:20:51.120 Listen, I don't know.

00:20:51.520 I think there's a counter-argument here.

00:20:53.020 One is a lot of people were predicting that Trump had maxed out his coalition the first time

00:20:57.220 and, you know, people were upset, they weren't getting exactly what they wanted, you know,

00:21:00.940 all these disappointments.

00:21:02.080 And then what happened?

00:21:02.700 He goes on to win the popular vote the second time.

00:21:04.740 So, if J.D. were able to maintain Trump's coalition, that alone, he'd be great.

00:21:09.040 And let's say that things change because, obviously, in 2024, almost half the voters were

00:21:13.300 millennials and Zoomers, skewed a little younger. 0.94

00:21:15.780 In my meanderings through the young right, I think the young right does like the vice president

00:21:20.360 a lot.

00:21:20.820 For sure.

00:21:21.060 But the other thing, so, you know, to me that's a bonus.

00:21:23.960 I do think this guy is very, very talented in that he came up as this, you know, Ohio

00:21:30.200 guy, this guy who wrote a very famous memoir about his lower class upbringing and he goes

00:21:35.820 on, succeeds at very high levels.

00:21:37.520 He plays well in Silicon Valley.

00:21:39.380 He plays well with rural people who want industrial policy.

00:21:43.120 He plays well, you know, I think he's got a lot of talent.

00:21:45.860 But this actually gets to my point vis-a-vis Newsom, which is Newsom is overestimated.

00:21:52.760 We're all talking about how slick he is.

00:21:54.340 The thing he's most famous for in politics is just being really deceitful.

00:21:57.720 You know, and he's, and Nicki Minaj had that whole line.

00:22:00.160 He goes, oh, he's so sexy.

00:22:01.780 He's so slick.

00:22:02.700 He's so this.

00:22:03.140 So I think he's being overestimated in the ways that people overestimated guys like Beto

00:22:08.500 O'Rourke, these also-rans who fell away. 1.00

00:22:11.360 I don't think it's always great to be the top guy in the race a year or a year and a

00:22:15.080 half out.

00:22:15.640 But second of all, there was a great interview once between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

00:22:20.880 And Clinton said, he goes, you know, George and I have benefited from the same thing, which

00:22:25.240 is we've both been underestimated.

00:22:26.980 Me, because I'm a nice guy, and they thought I was all nice, and they thought he was kind 0.99

00:22:31.380 of dumb. 0.98

00:22:32.160 And you think about the winning presidential candidates. 1.00

00:22:35.160 They tend to be very underestimated.

00:22:37.320 Trump doesn't know anything. 1.00

00:22:38.540 He's totally ignorant. 1.00

00:22:39.740 Go ahead and run, Donald. 1.00

00:22:40.900 Right, yeah. 1.00

00:22:41.700 Barack Obama, he's black in a racist country. 1.00

00:22:44.100 Bill Clinton, he's Bubba. 1.00

00:22:45.220 Bush is stupid. 1.00

00:22:46.080 You know, Ronald Reagan's a cowboy. 1.00

00:22:47.400 On that subject, though, I have to say, last time we were here, which is not that long ago,

00:22:51.740 I would have bet money, and I'm not a betting man, but I would have bet money on J.D.

00:22:55.820 Vance being the nominee.

00:22:56.780 Right this minute, I'm a little uncertain if we're actually talking about the next nominee,

00:23:01.360 because he's not, you know, every time, I mean, Trump has been going very hard on foreign

00:23:05.420 policy, and he has people around him in the press conferences, mostly Rubio, and Vance

00:23:11.160 is nowhere to be seen, because Vance is one of these guys who's trying to take MAGA and

00:23:15.080 turn it into isolationism, which it never was.

00:23:17.900 I don't buy that.

00:23:19.200 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:23:20.180 I don't.

00:23:20.460 Where is he?

00:23:20.880 I don't think so.

00:23:21.560 Why isn't he in these meetings?

00:23:22.740 Well, I'll give you an example.

00:23:24.000 So this was very interesting.

00:23:25.180 I don't know if you guys caught this interview with Sourabh Amari right after the Venezuela

00:23:28.940 strike.

00:23:29.600 Sourabh posted it again, and he said, wow, these comments the vice president made a couple

00:23:33.480 weeks ago really hit differently now, and he was being asked, you know, his involvement

00:23:37.920 in the admin, and he said, I'm getting it a little off.

00:23:41.660 It's not verbatim, but this is the thrust of it.

00:23:43.820 He said, look, let's say, hypothetically, there were an action to be taken by the administration

00:23:49.560 that would look really good for Marco that I would not be all that publicly involved in,

00:23:55.020 in part because you don't have the president and vice president in the same place, often

00:23:57.920 outside of the White House, where, you know, Marco would be center stage, and I would seem

00:24:02.260 to be more in the background.

00:24:03.520 If I were optimizing for 2028, I would try to kill that action.

00:24:07.200 But if I were optimizing for the good of the country, and just to be a good person, I

00:24:12.320 would encourage that action.

00:24:13.740 And, you know, it's kind of unclear what he was talking about there.

00:24:16.000 After the Venezuela strike, it seems clear as day to me.

00:24:18.660 That's what he's talking about.

00:24:19.860 I think the idea that J.D. is some isolationist, I don't buy it.

00:24:24.340 He's positioning himself that way.

00:24:25.880 He's been very close with Tucker Carlson, who, I don't know if Tucker Carlson believes

00:24:29.220 anything at this point.

00:24:30.480 I have no idea.

00:24:31.300 But I mean, he's actually kind of on the phone, remember, on that signal call that was bugged.

00:24:36.000 He was the guy who was calling for restraint.

00:24:38.720 You know, he's not always like, it doesn't seem to be online with the president's foreign

00:24:43.080 policy, which frankly, I think is working out great right now.

00:24:46.840 You know, I think it's going very well.

00:24:48.240 So I don't know.

00:24:49.320 I'm not saying, look, I'm not counting him out by any stretch of the imagination.

00:24:53.140 I'm just saying the guy who looks great is Marco Rubio.

00:24:55.780 And I keep thinking.

00:24:57.260 Here's the thing.

00:24:57.560 I think Marco has basically already said that he is not going to run if J.D. runs.

00:25:01.940 And I think that that's probably true.

00:25:03.480 And I think that right now, if you're looking at the vice president, obviously, his benefit

00:25:07.700 is that he is the vice president.

00:25:09.620 No one's no one's underestimating that he's incredibly talented.

00:25:12.180 He for sure is.

00:25:13.160 I think that there are a couple of systemic factors that are running against him because

00:25:17.360 I sort of did a bit of a deep dive into this.

00:25:19.260 I mean, the reality, he's the vice president who currently has a 40 percent approval rating.

00:25:23.120 Vice presidents who have a 40 percent approval rating running after presidents who have a

00:25:26.700 40 percent approval rating don't typically do amazing in general elections.

00:25:30.140 And so, you know, maybe that changes.

00:25:32.160 Maybe that changes radically.

00:25:33.440 But I think that the sort of core assumption that a lot of Republicans are making, that

00:25:36.400 there's sort of a cakewalk into the presidency for the vice president, that I don't see.

00:25:40.860 And I will say that I do think that the memery, if you do care about the very online, every

00:25:44.600 meme of Marco Rubio, the big meme of Marco Rubio, obviously, is Marco having a different

00:25:48.200 job every day, right?

00:25:49.240 Is the secretary of state.

00:25:50.520 Now he's like a gladiator.

00:25:52.300 Now it's just him in that pose being annoyed that he's been given a new job as king of

00:25:56.840 Venezuela or now the new governor of Greenland or whatever it's going to be today.

00:26:01.280 And then all the memes of J.D. are that J.D. is fat with weird hair.

00:26:04.800 And like that's not kind of where you want to be, just in sort of meme land. 0.81

00:26:09.040 I disagree.

00:26:10.900 You should talk to your guest clavicular, OK?

00:26:13.060 Like your guest clavicular would agree with me, which is hilarious.

00:26:16.020 I don't think the looks maxing, you know, meth addicted 19 year old is representative

00:26:20.720 of the American voter.

00:26:22.100 I certainly hope not.

00:26:23.120 This is why I disagree, though.

00:26:24.640 And it gets to my point on Newsom, is I think it was so smart of the VP to lean into the

00:26:30.420 goofy meme.

00:26:31.200 And the reason I think it was so smart is you want to be underestimated so that the reality

00:26:36.300 can surpass expectations.

00:26:37.740 So even down to the physicality, the fact that the meme is he's like this big fat guy.

00:26:41.240 But then you see him.

00:26:42.220 He's not a big fat guy.

00:26:42.960 He's actually a relatively thin guy.

00:26:45.000 The meme is that he's kind of like short.

00:26:46.560 He's actually very tall. 1.00

00:26:47.680 The meme is that he's kind of dumb. 0.99

00:26:48.980 He's extremely intelligent. 0.99

00:26:50.720 So I think all of those things play really well, even to the point ideologically, some

00:26:54.240 people tried to pin him down on he's an isolationist or he's this or he's that.

00:26:57.400 But he's defended the administration's actions in Iran, in Venezuela, quite vociferously.

00:27:02.740 And so I don't know.

00:27:03.400 To me, like if I were in this position, I would not want the memes to be making me out

00:27:08.200 to be the really cool guy.

00:27:10.400 Frankly, you even saw this with Trump in 2015, 2016. 1.00

00:27:13.220 All the memery was that he was like a big dumb idiot. 1.00

00:27:15.280 And I think to be underestimated actually puts you in a better position. 1.00

00:27:18.320 And he doesn't and he's not any and he's not taking himself too seriously.

00:27:21.040 So that's that's which is a rare quality for politicians.

00:27:23.580 People appreciate.

00:27:24.260 But the question is for Republicans, what other Republican?

00:27:27.080 I mean, to go to Ben's point about Trump's coalition, what other Republican has a better

00:27:31.560 chance of at least maintaining most of Trump's coalition, if not expanding it?

00:27:35.700 And I don't see anybody outside.

00:27:37.180 I mean, there are others who might have a shot.

00:27:38.760 There are others who I could like in that spot.

00:27:41.140 But I think J.D. Vance certainly would have the best shot of that.

00:27:43.680 And as far as as far as approval ratings go, it's like every president and vice president

00:27:48.080 my whole life has had terrible approval ratings, it feels like.

00:27:51.260 I just I don't think it like means anything.

00:27:53.920 It's just it's just it's part of the reality, the political reality we live in that you just

00:27:57.620 hate whoever's in there and they get bad approval ratings.

00:27:59.780 And it still just goes to I don't see anyone else in the and this could change.

00:28:04.020 Obviously, we're still a couple of years out, but I don't see anyone else in the Republican

00:28:06.600 field who I'd look at them and say, well, you know, we know what Trump's coalition

00:28:09.880 is and that guy over there really is going to resonate with that coalition more than

00:28:15.440 J.D. Vance would.

00:28:16.240 And I have to say, by the way, I wasn't suggesting he won't be the nominee or the next president

00:28:20.140 because that was that has been my certainty.

00:28:21.680 I'm just saying that my certainty is a little less certain nowadays.

00:28:25.240 But I think I'm sorry, go ahead.

00:28:26.740 Well, just just what Matt was saying, I agree with this.

00:28:30.040 I think, you know, the combancy is a big deal.

00:28:31.960 And think about having Donald Trump's policies without Donald Trump, you know, the Trumpian

00:28:37.040 of Trump that people don't like.

00:28:38.540 A lot of people don't like his brashness and his big mouth and all that stuff.

00:28:42.340 And if you if we thought we could get MAGA without Trump, I think a lot of people would

00:28:46.240 turn up.

00:28:46.520 Oh, yeah, totally.

00:28:47.200 I disagree with this.

00:28:48.080 Actually, I've completely flipped on this.

00:28:49.440 I think that I think that MAGA is Trump. 1.00

00:28:50.960 I think that MAGA without Trump is boring and stupid in many ways, because I just don't 0.99

00:28:55.660 think it's a concept that holds together. 0.99

00:28:57.000 There's no everyone keeps trying to say, what is MAGA?

00:28:59.620 And so you have the isolation of saying MAGA is America first, meaning America alone.

00:29:03.060 And then you have people who are saying, no, no, no.

00:29:04.620 What MAGA really means is X, Y, MAGA means whatever Donald Trump says MAGA means.

00:29:08.420 That's the reality.

00:29:09.160 And trying to take away the sizzle from the steak and then say, yes, but now it's very

00:29:12.940 nutritious.

00:29:13.540 Like, that's that's not the thing.

00:29:15.640 And if I were going to look at here's what I've said about J.D., I'll say about Rubio

00:29:19.560 too.

00:29:19.960 Every politician must form their own coalition.

00:29:22.320 Anybody who thinks they're just going to pick up the last guy's coalition, they're wrong.

00:29:25.560 It never, ever, ever works.

00:29:26.820 That's what Biden did in weird circumstances.

00:29:29.000 Biden did that, didn't it?

00:29:29.960 But in what way, in what way did Biden do that?

00:29:32.860 He was just running on Obama's third term, basically, in strange circumstances.

00:29:37.220 OK, the 2020 election, as I think we will all acknowledge, those of us who think that

00:29:41.020 he won and those who bizarrely think that he lost are the are the we will acknowledge

00:29:46.160 that was the weirdest election of our lifetime and that that those circumstances are not

00:29:50.460 replicable.

00:29:51.800 Absent some sort of massive pandemic that shuts down the entire world.

00:29:55.020 Unless the Democrats actually release it.

00:29:56.420 Unless we just unless we do it again, I mean, which could.

00:29:59.280 But but the biggest problem is that if you look at here's the thing, I look at J.D.

00:30:03.440 and I look at J.D.'s coalition and it looks like Trump's coalition, but smaller.

00:30:06.920 I look at Rubio's coalition.

00:30:07.980 And if I were going to build a coalition as a Marco Rubio, it would not actually be Trump's

00:30:11.960 coalition would be Rubio's coalition, meaning more college educated white people, more

00:30:15.960 Hispanics, fewer blue collar white voters.

00:30:18.120 Right.

00:30:18.340 I mean, that's actually what his coalition would look like.

00:30:20.560 Probably more women. 1.00

00:30:21.720 Right.

00:30:21.900 Like his coalition just looks different.

00:30:23.620 And when we dismiss that kind of thing, it ignores the fact that that's actually what

00:30:27.380 Trump did.

00:30:27.920 He didn't just replicate George W. Bush's coalition.

00:30:30.640 He built an entirely new coalition where he went to low propensity voters who weren't

00:30:34.360 voting and got them in his camp.

00:30:35.660 My guess is somebody like Marco Rubio dropped some low propensity voters and maybe convinces

00:30:39.900 some more higher propensity voters who voted for Mitt Romney, but not for Donald Trump

00:30:43.040 to come back.

00:30:43.860 Now, again, I'm not saying that means that Rubio wins or the J.D.

00:30:46.100 loses.

00:30:46.340 I'm just saying that when I look at J.D.

00:30:48.260 Vance, I cannot see how if Donald Trump got 77 million votes in the last election cycle,

00:30:53.200 how J.D.

00:30:53.800 Vance gets to 79 million votes in the next election cycle.

00:30:57.100 Very difficult for me to see that.

00:30:58.560 And that's a problem for Republicans.

00:30:59.640 That's not a question just for J.D.

00:31:00.840 That's a problem for Republicans.

00:31:02.080 They should keep that in mind.

00:31:02.980 So when I'm saying Gavin could be the next president, I'm not talking about Gavin because

00:31:06.640 he's so intellectually superior and such an amazing candidate.

00:31:09.880 I'm saying we have now had a series of binary elections in which everyone was kind of squirrelly

00:31:14.980 about all the candidates that we came down to the final two.

00:31:17.520 And there were a couple of, you know, core bases were like, yeah, I love it. 0.98

00:31:20.780 And then a huge swath of the middle was like, man, this is man, this kind of sucks.

00:31:25.440 And if you look at the Gallup poll right now, more than 45 percent of Americans are now

00:31:29.500 identifying as politically independent, not because they actually are, but because they

00:31:32.940 don't want to be identified as either member of either party.

00:31:36.240 That's right.

00:31:37.000 Yeah.

00:31:37.700 But that's it.

00:31:38.160 But see, this is the thing.

00:31:39.080 I mean, as you pointed out, Ben, Trump's policies, you know, eliminate Trump, their policies

00:31:43.860 are fairly middle of the road.

00:31:45.880 I mean, I think some things he's more right and some things he's more left, but he's not

00:31:49.260 a radical in any shape or form.

00:31:52.400 It's just that our politics has been so radicalized that he sometimes looks like it.

00:31:56.680 And I can't help feeling that you could pick up the Trump MAGA and present it in a somewhat

00:32:02.240 more statesmanlike way.

00:32:03.520 And, you know, I always feel that what the people are asking for is normalcy.

00:32:08.100 They're asking to kind of get back to the way we're supposed to be.

00:32:11.020 And I could see Vance selling that really easily.

00:32:13.880 You know, I don't see why he can't do that.

00:32:15.840 The other issue, I see your point, Ben, that I agree with it, that MAGA is what Trump says

00:32:20.560 it is.

00:32:21.020 But I think where I disagree is, I think that Trump actually has a pretty coherent policy

00:32:25.380 vision, though it's often called incoherent or capricious.

00:32:27.960 And you see this especially with foreign policy.

00:32:29.980 Like, what does America First mean?

00:32:31.560 I was just debating some guys on this the other day on Piers Morgan's show.

00:32:34.360 And there's some people who insist America First means conservative or libertarian isolationism.

00:32:40.100 I don't think that's what Trump ever meant.

00:32:41.660 Some people that say the alternative is a liberal internationalism, whether we're, you know,

00:32:46.220 talking about, I don't know, like George W. Bush or something, spread liberalism and

00:32:49.560 democracy overseas.

00:32:50.560 I think Trump's is this third option, which is a conservative imperialism.

00:32:55.100 I think he's been consistent about it.

00:32:56.680 He ran in the first term on destroying ISIS.

00:33:00.240 That obviously doesn't mean you're just going to only focus within your borders.

00:33:02.880 But when he does intervene, it seems to be in this way that's a little bit more restrained.

00:33:07.080 We're going to have these real tactical, you know, in and out kind of hits in the Middle

00:33:11.020 East.

00:33:11.380 And then we're going to focus a little more in the Western Hemisphere.

00:33:13.940 But in the Western Hemisphere, that's going to have cascading effects that do affect Iran,

00:33:18.420 Russia, China.

00:33:19.580 And so to me, it's a third option that is kind of coherent and that therefore could be

00:33:24.900 replicated by whoever succeeds.

00:33:26.640 He's also always thinking about China.

00:33:28.220 He's always setting us up to fight the Cold War with China.

00:33:30.900 I mean, everything he does.

00:33:31.780 You know, when you look at Venezuela, the Chinese ran for their lives, like a lot of 1.00

00:33:36.020 running Chinese after they took Maduro out of there. 0.84

00:33:38.660 They were setting up shop in Venezuela.

00:33:41.160 And now they're not so much.

00:33:42.720 You know, now they're sort of thinking, well, maybe we can use this as an excuse to go into

00:33:45.740 Taiwan, which eventually they'll do.

00:33:47.500 But they're not in Venezuela anymore.

00:33:49.580 And I think Trump is thinking about that all the time.

00:33:51.520 I think if you explain everything he does in terms of China.

00:33:54.200 I mean, I totally agree with that.

00:33:55.060 I think that the danger in trying to intellectualize MAGA is that I think that when you abstract

00:34:00.200 into sort of absolute terms what his foreign policy is, then when you zoom back in into

00:34:05.940 what the specific decisions that are made are by somebody who's not Trump, they don't

00:34:09.660 necessarily match up.

00:34:11.340 I think that, for example, you could make easily the case right now.

00:34:14.480 And I'll make two varying cases.

00:34:16.000 One is that President Trump is what I think he is, which is sort of a hawkish realist, which

00:34:20.320 is that he only wants to get involved in the most minimal possible way to achieve the maximum

00:34:23.600 impossible effect on behalf of American interests abroad.

00:34:26.320 And that's not restricted to the Western Hemisphere, right?

00:34:28.380 That he will he will bomb the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran if he feels that that's necessary.

00:34:33.100 Maybe he'll go ahead and he'll take a military action in Iran if he believes it'll be necessary 0.94

00:34:36.140 right now, but only if it achieves his desired effect. 1.00

00:34:38.500 He's not going to just do something like fire a missile at a camel and hit him in the ass 0.99

00:34:41.440 sort of for show, right? 0.99

00:34:42.740 Like so that's that's sort of one version.

00:34:44.640 And then there's an equally coherent version that I find really off-putting and I think would

00:34:49.420 be wrong in policy, which is this sort of multipolar hemispherism.

00:34:53.600 Right.

00:34:53.740 This idea that what Trump's actually trying to do is create a Western Hemisphere free

00:34:57.120 of foreign intervention.

00:34:57.820 But he's totally fine with Russia dominating both the Near East and Eastern Europe and maybe 0.86

00:35:02.080 a little bit Western Europe.

00:35:02.980 And he's fine with China dominating Taiwan and the Far East, right? 0.69

00:35:06.640 That vision has actually been put forward by people who consider themselves in sort of

00:35:09.740 the MAGA camp.

00:35:10.360 And because Trump is not, I would say, rhetorically coherent in the way that he approaches these

00:35:14.800 issues, even though I think you can read the policy line in the ways that I've presented.

00:35:18.820 And I think the first one is much more accurate than the second.

00:35:20.600 I think that's why you're seeing concerns about, you know, when people say, well, what

00:35:24.420 is MAGA?

00:35:25.480 Those are real open questions because, again, ideology does sort of matter.

00:35:28.880 And President Trump doesn't really have one.

00:35:30.700 And so he's the best pragmatist you'll ever find without a root idea.

00:35:34.300 But what that means is very difficult to have an ideological air.

00:35:37.020 How do you have an ideological air without an idea?

00:35:38.840 It's a good point, Ben.

00:35:39.700 And we're the only one who listens to the MAGA people talk and think, thank God somebody's

00:35:43.100 finally talking about America's benefits again.

00:35:45.660 And I think the person who hears that, like these guys come out and they say, you know,

00:35:49.360 we want this to be good for America because that's who we work for.

00:35:51.940 I think it was Rubio who said that.

00:35:53.660 And I thought, thank you.

00:35:54.720 You know, like you suddenly remembered that all this stuff that we hear, like, you know,

00:35:58.780 you're a racist if you don't open your borders. 1.00

00:36:00.720 It's like, screw you. 1.00

00:36:02.560 This is my country. 1.00

00:36:03.620 I want to defend my country.

00:36:04.800 It's a multi-ethnic country.

00:36:05.840 It's got everybody here.

00:36:06.640 I don't want to let in foreigners. 1.00

00:36:07.820 That doesn't make me a racist.

00:36:09.060 And I just, I think this is the first time I don't hear us being accused of anything.

00:36:12.640 They remember that we actually pay their salaries.

00:36:15.180 Yeah.

00:36:15.380 There's something kind of funny about when Trump goes in and he says, we're going to Venezuela

00:36:18.760 for the oil, which is not even exactly true.

00:36:21.980 I mean, like we would be justified in part, but it actually does have a lot more to it

00:36:26.140 and a lot more principle and everything.

00:36:27.500 And Ben, I think you make a great point, which is you can't quite tell exactly what this is,

00:36:31.920 or you could read in two things because there is a retrenchment that's going on.

00:36:36.420 There's no question about that.

00:36:37.380 That's what the assertion of the Don Rowe doctrine is about.

00:36:39.540 That's what Greenland is about.

00:36:40.480 And the question is, is the retrenchment a way that we can make sure that we're strong,

00:36:46.500 we're, you know, we're not spread too thin so that we can preserve American strength around

00:36:51.040 the world?

00:36:51.480 Or is the retrenchment this kind of surrender that says we just don't want to be involved

00:36:55.060 anywhere else?

00:36:55.880 And I agree, it's kind of ambiguous right now, but I just don't see any real American politician

00:37:01.120 on the right running to say, I want to make America weaker.

00:37:04.000 You know, that's the opposite of what MAGA literally...

00:37:07.220 Well, then you'd have to become a Democrat.

00:37:08.780 That's right.

00:37:09.140 That's their actual platform.

00:37:11.480 I mean, it's a...

00:37:12.880 Sorry, Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me that's hilarious.

00:37:15.640 Okay.

00:37:16.000 Really?

00:37:17.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:37:17.940 He tweeted out, like, here's what Ben Shapiro is hiding.

00:37:20.660 And it's like, gets President...

00:37:21.920 Gavin Newsom gets Ben to criticize Trump's tariffs.

00:37:25.480 What?

00:37:27.000 What?

00:37:28.500 Gets Ben Shapiro to oppose the invasion of Greenland.

00:37:31.080 Stop the presses.

00:37:31.400 What?

00:37:32.760 Gets Ben Shapiro to say that Republicans are going to have a hard time in the midterms.

00:37:35.420 Man, well, with that kind of...

00:37:37.320 Wow.

00:37:38.560 Wow.

00:37:39.320 They nailed you.

00:37:40.180 You got mugged.

00:37:41.080 Brutal.

00:37:41.480 I got mugged.

00:37:41.720 You got news.

00:37:42.360 Okay.

00:37:42.560 Brutal.

00:37:43.120 All right.

00:37:43.380 Speaking of a very hard right turn, Matt, you, I think, are...

00:37:46.860 What?

00:37:47.000 You're defending slavery now.

00:37:48.700 You want to bring slavery back. 0.98

00:37:50.760 Do I understand that right?

00:37:52.740 Very pro...

00:37:53.940 Well, it's a...

00:37:54.760 Look, it's a controversial issue with slavery.

00:37:56.920 Are we for it?

00:37:57.720 Are we against it?

00:37:58.820 There are arguments...

00:37:59.720 There are arguments on both sides, guys.

00:38:01.500 Of course.

00:38:01.720 Okay?

00:38:02.180 Both sides make interesting arguments.

00:38:03.820 Of course.

00:38:04.180 I'm starting to...

00:38:05.160 Could you get me off the shelf, please?

00:38:06.960 For Media Matters, he's joking.

00:38:08.920 It's not true.

00:38:09.860 It's, uh...

00:38:10.580 Well...

00:38:11.100 He's not joking.

00:38:12.280 Sorry.

00:38:12.780 Go on.

00:38:13.080 Go on.

00:38:13.300 So, you know, I've got this little...

00:38:15.800 Not little.

00:38:16.840 We have a series coming out starting on Monday, Real History.

00:38:19.780 And there are shorter, you know, shorter documentaries on various topics, various historical topics

00:38:28.300 that have so often been lied about, misrepresented.

00:38:34.000 And these are generally going to be topics that are talked about a lot.

00:38:36.660 I mean, people talk about slavery all the time.

00:38:38.980 But I think the average American doesn't... understands the topic very little because schools lie about it,

00:38:47.780 media misrepresents it, Hollywood, and there are all kinds of realities around these topics that are never talked about at all.

00:38:54.980 And we're going to start with slavery.

00:38:57.960 And it's very interesting because although slavery comes up a lot in our political debates,

00:39:05.820 like I said, I think, you know, the average person knows almost nothing about it because we're not taught about it in schools.

00:39:11.540 And that's because the history that we've been taught, and this isn't just something that started five years ago in the age of wokeness or whatever.

00:39:21.500 This is something that goes back generations.

00:39:23.200 I mean, I can remember being in public school, you know, 30-plus years ago, and it was the same thing.

00:39:29.780 And that's because the education about American history that we get in the mainstream is designed to make us hate ourselves,

00:39:39.300 hate this country, and feel guilty about it.

00:39:42.520 And that starts with slavery. 0.78

00:39:44.000 So in the series, we're going to begin with a look at the... you know, a global look at slavery.

00:39:49.860 Slavery existed as an institution across the entire world for thousands of years.

00:39:54.740 If it's possible to carry the guilt of slavery in your blood somehow, as we're told white Americans do, 0.68

00:40:02.020 if that's possible, then every single person who exists on the planet carries that guilt

00:40:07.660 because slavery existed everywhere on the planet.

00:40:10.800 And then we kind of narrow it in to slavery in America because even if everybody will acknowledge,

00:40:17.680 of course, slavery existed everywhere, then they move to, yeah, but slavery here was more brutal and it was worse.

00:40:23.520 And that is also not true.

00:40:27.020 And we get into some of the facts about, you know, where did these slaves come from?

00:40:31.540 Well, they came from Africa. 0.93

00:40:32.940 How did the slave traders, the European and American slave traders, get their hands on those slaves to begin with?

00:40:40.140 Well, it turns out that there were entire African empires who... this is what they did. 0.90

00:40:45.800 I mean, this is how they became empires, is that they enslaved other African tribes and sold them. 0.98

00:40:51.160 And not only that, but if you were captured by one of these African tribes to be sold as a slave, 0.70

00:40:59.720 the best case scenario for you is that you'd be put on a ship and shipped specifically to North America.

00:41:07.760 That would be the best case scenario.

00:41:09.760 These are basic facts that I think most people don't know.

00:41:12.920 As you mentioned, or as you maybe intended to mention, this is coming out once a month on Daily Wire Plus.

00:41:18.580 It's awesome.

00:41:19.160 Obviously, we all agree with all of that.

00:41:20.740 Can I just sound like a little bit of a lib, though, for a second?

00:41:22.920 This is one of my most lib opinions, but it's correct.

00:41:25.240 You know, when they talk about the legacy of slavery and the enduring, you know, challenges that come

00:41:32.780 because their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa was brought on a slave ship,

00:41:36.520 I don't think they're totally wrong.

00:41:39.400 I don't think that comes from...

00:41:40.400 I don't, you know, in the sense that...

00:41:41.900 You're right.

00:41:42.180 Like, look, I'm smoking a Mayflower cigar, a brand new blend that's extremely exquisite

00:41:45.860 that I'm not yet going to debut for you all.

00:41:47.960 But I love the fact that some, a very small number of my ancestors, came here on the Mayflower.

00:41:53.440 That makes me feel good about the country.

00:41:56.080 It makes me view the country in a certain way, makes me feel a kind of pride and ownership in the country.

00:42:00.840 If my ancestors had come on a slave ship, even if I were rich, I were a rapper, I had, you know,

00:42:06.520 gold teeth and everything, and I was materially really well off, I would view the country differently.

00:42:11.760 I would have a different relationship to it.

00:42:13.360 And I think, as conservatives, we say that heritage matters and tradition matters and all that.

00:42:17.740 I, all I'm saying is, I kind of get it.

00:42:20.520 And if I were a black guy in America, that would color my view.

00:42:23.200 Well, you get what, though?

00:42:24.000 I think that's true.

00:42:24.220 I think that's true.

00:42:24.980 I also think it's important.

00:42:27.000 Matt, I completely agree with the history you're saying.

00:42:29.320 I know that history, and you're absolutely right about it.

00:42:31.800 But I also think it's important while we're saying this that we should put out the idea

00:42:35.340 that slavery is bad.

00:42:36.600 You know, we think it was bad there.

00:42:37.860 It's bad here.

00:42:38.640 We're against it.

00:42:39.560 I think, you know, this is the Daily Wire.

00:42:40.700 Speak for yourself, though.

00:42:41.160 I think an official Daily Wire, you know, our co-founder is a Jew.

00:42:45.840 Let's take the Moses idea here, like, let the people go, you know? 0.99

00:42:49.620 Like, I always, you know, you read Aristotle, and he says, well, some people are born slaves. 0.96

00:42:53.220 You just want to slap them.

00:42:54.260 And it's like, Aristotle, stop that, you know? 0.97

00:42:56.520 It's like, it's bad.

00:42:57.500 Also, Aristotle means, like, different things by that, yes, yeah.

00:42:59.960 But people should not own other people.

00:43:01.620 And I just think that, you know, of course it's true that, you know, it actually is true.

00:43:06.680 I mean, I live in the South, and people come up to me, and they say, well, you know, slavery

00:43:10.400 wasn't so bad.

00:43:11.020 And I think, okay, but can we begin with no?

00:43:13.960 You know, can we begin with, like, don't hold people slaves.

00:43:17.100 And I think we could put that on our masthead, maybe.

00:43:20.120 But other than that, it is true that it was, you know, I won't say it was better here.

00:43:25.340 It's just an evil.

00:43:27.320 But it is true that we didn't start it.

00:43:30.440 We bought people who had already been enslaved.

00:43:33.260 And if you read, I think at one point, Matt, I sent you the memoir of Mungo, the guy who

00:43:38.580 made it into, I believe it was in Nigeria, the explorer.

00:43:41.900 And he just described a world of slavery when he got to Africa.

00:43:45.760 I mean, he had some, I can't even, I can't remember the number, but he said like something

00:43:49.660 like 40% of the people were slaves.

00:43:51.920 And of course, if you got caught by the Arabs, they also castrated you, which was like an 1.00

00:43:56.840 unpleasant thing in and of itself, because you couldn't just then claim you were a woman

00:44:00.980 and play soccer for the team you could beat, you know, it was really bad.

00:44:04.300 So, so, I mean, I think, you know, I agree with, with Knowles as well. 0.91

00:44:08.340 I think I do understand the guy who sold me my gun was a black guy. 0.89

00:44:11.620 And he said, he said, believe me, I believe in gun rights.

00:44:14.880 Because if I had gun rights, I wouldn't be here.

00:44:17.920 So I actually disagree with, with, with Knowles on this.

00:44:20.840 And I'm with Walsh, I think on, on the question of, you know, this kind of generational,

00:44:25.160 I would feel differently about, about things, I think that the, the history of black Americans

00:44:30.580 is one of the most glorious things, meaning like moving from slavery to freedom, moving

00:44:37.100 from, you know, abject slavery to participating in the building of the greatest country in

00:44:43.180 the history of the world and becoming leaders in a wide variety of fields in that space is

00:44:48.520 an amazing history.

00:44:49.800 And, you know, the, and, and the idea that you should carry with you some sort of generational

00:44:53.100 stigma or shame, or that you should feel internally as though that, that is like, obviously, you

00:44:58.640 know, the history has consequences and you feel those consequences over the course of

00:45:03.120 time.

00:45:03.940 But, you know, I, I, I'm, I, I'm not willing to sort of grant the premise that a history

00:45:08.740 of slavery is so deep that it ought to make you think that today's America is the problem.

00:45:14.080 This is also the America that fought a civil war to abolish slavery.

00:45:17.060 This is also the America that did the civil rights movement.

00:45:20.720 That's not what Knowles was saying though.

00:45:22.060 Yeah, that's, I, I, can I just, can I say one, can I say one thing here?

00:45:24.980 Thank you, Bruce.

00:45:25.260 Yeah.

00:45:25.540 So, well, actually two things.

00:45:26.700 First of all, to Drew's point that slavery is bad, uh, that's debatable.

00:45:30.500 No, it's, no, it's, it's actually, slavery, slavery, no, no.

00:45:34.420 Walsh's job is just to give me a heart attack.

00:45:36.000 Yeah.

00:45:36.240 This is like, this is great.

00:45:37.160 No, obviously slavery is bad, but I do think that assessing that there is, there is a,

00:45:41.980 that there's an important point in, in bringing up that it was a, it was a global institution,

00:45:46.900 which is that it was bad, but when you're assessing the individual moral guilt of people

00:45:52.720 who were involved in slavery, say 500 years ago or 600 years ago, their individual moral

00:45:57.620 guilt is severely mitigated because it was a global institution.

00:46:03.020 And at this time in history, they just didn't have concepts like universal human equality,

00:46:08.960 just simply did not exist for the majority of human history.

00:46:11.980 And, and that means that slavery was bad, but it also means that to kind of look at it

00:46:17.000 through a modern lens and assess the kind of moral guilt on those people that we would

00:46:21.340 on a slave owner today is incoherent.

00:46:23.260 But secondly, to, to the black Americans today, I agree that the fact that they, that, you know,

00:46:28.380 if this is your, actually your heritage, of course, there's plenty of black Americans

00:46:30.860 who came here afterwards and so that's not their heritage.

00:46:33.580 But if that is your heritage.

00:46:34.420 Like all of Minnesota, you mean?

00:46:35.040 Right.

00:46:35.220 You mean like the entire state.

00:46:36.140 Exactly, yes.

00:46:36.160 So if, if that is your heritage, then that's relevant.

00:46:39.240 It's like your, your heritage is very, is very relevant, of course.

00:46:42.660 But what is incoherent is to be mad about it.

00:46:46.100 To be mad today that slavery that, you know, that your ancestors were enslaved is completely

00:46:50.940 incoherent.

00:46:51.500 Not only because it happened a long time ago.

00:46:53.400 I mean, there is that it happened a long time ago.

00:46:55.140 It didn't happen to you.

00:46:56.600 So to be mad about a thing that didn't happen to you doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:46:59.620 But also there's the other part of this, which nobody really wants to say.

00:47:02.780 And every time I say it, I get in a lot of trouble, but I'll say it again, which is that,

00:47:06.440 okay, let's just be real about it.

00:47:09.340 If, if you're a black person in America today and your ancestors were enslaved, you are better 1.00

00:47:16.260 off today because of that than you likely would be if your ancestors had not been enslaved. 0.51

00:47:22.900 That's the reality.

00:47:23.900 If you had, if your ancestors had not been enslaved, then guess what?

00:47:26.680 Either you would not exist, most likely, or if you do exist, you'd exist in Africa. 0.66

00:47:31.960 And it is better to be in America than to be in Africa. 1.00

00:47:34.640 That is not an argument that slavery is okay.

00:47:36.880 I'm not, I'm not, I'm not making an end justify that means argument.

00:47:39.300 I'm only saying that to be mad about a thing that ultimately has actually benefited you today

00:47:44.880 makes no sense.

00:47:47.260 What would you prefer that you're in Africa right now or that you don't exist?

00:47:50.720 Oh yeah, no, I actually disagreed with that.

00:47:51.500 Yeah, Nose is right.

00:47:52.800 Nose is actually, I mean, look, Nose has actually said something that makes sense and is almost

00:47:56.060 profound, which I think we should all stop for a minute and just understand that a miracle

00:47:59.660 has taken place in front of us.

00:48:00.820 I finally did it.

00:48:03.040 I know.

00:48:03.780 I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's rational or not.

00:48:06.580 And Ben, I completely agree that even though you have these feelings, you should be able

00:48:10.320 to overcome them and understand that you've been given the gift of being born in America.

00:48:14.180 And that's a beautiful thing.

00:48:15.440 And I agree with that, but, but, you know, heritage does matter and it doesn't fuse you

00:48:19.980 with a certain feeling.

00:48:20.800 And you hear the name of the famous black comedian who went up against the trans people. 0.96

00:48:26.600 Chappelle.

00:48:27.120 Chappelle.

00:48:27.680 You know, I'll hear him say like, it was really the black people who freed themselves.

00:48:30.420 And you think like, no, it wasn't.

00:48:31.600 It was white soldiers fighting.

00:48:32.840 It was people from, you know, Maine and Vermont coming down and fighting for liberation.

00:48:38.340 It was not black people who freed themselves. 1.00

00:48:41.380 You know, there's a sense of shame that goes with this.

00:48:44.720 There's a sense of shame.

00:48:45.760 You know, when I was growing up, I think Jews had a sense of shame that stemmed out of

00:48:48.820 the Holocaust. 0.58

00:48:49.840 You know, why didn't you fight back?

00:48:50.960 Why didn't you stop them?

00:48:51.780 Which is a complete, obviously a complete false understanding of what happened in that

00:48:56.160 country and what it was like to live through it.

00:48:57.700 But people feel these things and they affect the way you see the place that you're living.

00:49:01.920 And I think that's basically what Knowles is saying.

00:49:03.780 And feelings, you know, I hate to, I hate to break this to you, Ben, but feelings matter.

00:49:07.380 You know, the way people feel affects their lives.

00:49:09.340 And so when you see things like, when you hear the word pride, you immediately know you're

00:49:12.660 dealing with shame.

00:49:13.500 When you hear black pride, gay pride, you immediately know somebody feels ashamed. 0.74

00:49:17.000 And I think that you can't make it go away the way the left wants to make it go away

00:49:21.000 by proclaiming that you're proud.

00:49:22.580 Okay.

00:49:22.660 Am I, am I wrong?

00:49:23.760 Am I wrong about what I just said though?

00:49:25.480 Am I wrong?

00:49:26.800 No, you're, you're not wrong that, that the, you know, I have had black people say to me

00:49:32.120 slavery was bad.

00:49:33.580 Slavery was bad, but I'm glad I'm here.

00:49:35.380 I have had black people say that to me and I understand it, but you know, still the history 0.98

00:49:39.460 counts.

00:49:39.860 And I think we, we can have some kind of compassion for that and understanding for it.

00:49:43.260 I mean, on a practical level, obviously, Matt, your history is all contingent.

00:49:47.000 Right.

00:49:47.620 It's a, it's a bunch of if then statements.

00:49:49.200 So if X had not happened, then Y would not happen.

00:49:51.280 But that doesn't mean that you have to be super happy that X happened, you know, in

00:49:55.100 and of itself.

00:49:55.960 So I, so that, of course, I'm not saying you should be happy.

00:49:58.560 No, no, I'm not saying you should be.

00:49:59.540 I know you're not.

00:50:00.240 Yeah.

00:50:00.360 I'm not justifying it or saying you should be happy about it.

00:50:02.300 What I'm saying is that to be, to, to now in your life today, to be angry about it,

00:50:07.920 um, it just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense because if the thing hadn't happened, then

00:50:15.420 you would not exist.

00:50:16.800 And, or you would exist probably in a worse situation than you do.

00:50:19.960 I mean, I think that, I think that what we need is more specificity.

00:50:22.460 Actually, what is it that, what is it that you're angry about that a bad thing happened

00:50:25.420 in history or at the concept that may still be walking around of say black inferiority,

00:50:30.660 right?

00:50:30.920 That there are still some people who think that, and that's what leads to slavery.

00:50:33.480 And so that's what you're actually angry at.

00:50:35.040 That's justifiable.

00:50:36.200 You know, you're, you're right in the sense that like anything that happened historically,

00:50:40.160 you can be angry at the, if you had been then there, would you have been happy?

00:50:44.760 No, you would have been very angry.

00:50:46.100 You've been upset.

00:50:47.040 Right.

00:50:47.220 And I think we all agree with that, but I think we should be more specific about what

00:50:49.940 it is we mean when we say angry at that.

00:50:51.560 What is the, that that we're angry at?

00:50:52.920 I guess one way to think about it is just because we're conservatives, we're not libs ideologues

00:50:57.560 who think that, you know, one action of politics can just erase the totality of human experience.

00:51:02.780 You would say, well, look, the 13th amendment was great, but it doesn't, it's not a magic

00:51:07.220 wand, you know, the 14th amendment or all the way up to, I don't know, the Civil Rights

00:51:10.180 Act of 1964 or whatever, all sorts of bungled policies that have actually made things worse

00:51:14.560 in many cases.

00:51:15.420 But, but in any case, those are just magic wands that are, that erase a human identity or

00:51:21.200 heritage or a feeling of tradition or place in a society.

00:51:23.980 And so I guess my, my point is, my point is basically boiling down to, I kind of get it,

00:51:29.180 you know, identity really, really does matter.

00:51:31.580 And the libs are totally wrong about their conclusions from that.

00:51:34.620 But it's, it's not to say that that isn't a real problem or a real phenomenon.

00:51:37.820 They're also wrong about what identity is, but, but I, but I take your point.

00:51:41.120 I think that one of the things that's actually quite important also is that if slavery was

00:51:45.500 a human universal, then the people who abolished it ought to get outsized credit.

00:51:48.700 Yeah, absolutely.

00:51:50.500 Namely the British, right? 1.00

00:51:51.820 Yeah, no, I mean, really the British.

00:51:53.140 But, but, but the truth is that, I mean, slavery existed in legal form in Saudi Arabia into

00:51:57.800 the sixties and the, and there is still slavery that is happening on a pretty wide scale, particularly

00:52:02.820 in the Middle East today.

00:52:04.100 And, and very often it's people who are being brought there as, as wage laborers.

00:52:07.640 And then they're being basically, their, their passports are taken away.

00:52:10.040 They're being held there.

00:52:11.040 They can't get out.

00:52:12.120 I mean, that sort of stuff is happening like right now on the ground in a lot of places

00:52:16.180 on earth.

00:52:16.540 So, you know, the stuff that we take for granted is not easily taken for granted.

00:52:20.660 Well, it's controversial stuff and you can only make controversial stuff if you have

00:52:23.460 subscribers like ours, which is why you should head on over to dailywire.com and go check

00:52:27.380 out Matt's brand new series where he will be offending, I assume a wide variety of people

00:52:32.020 over the course of the next year with a, with actual historical takes.

00:52:36.320 So that, that's exciting stuff.

00:52:37.940 Speaking of taking stuff, are we going to take Greenland?

00:52:40.400 Should we take Greenland?

00:52:41.580 This is by my count, the first foreign policy intervention in American history, at least since

00:52:47.320 the Louisiana purchase that Matt supports.

00:52:50.120 Matt, you are pro just F-35, like, like, you know, Don Rumsfeld flying over nuke and

00:52:56.620 taking the, the ice.

00:52:58.600 I mean, I am, I want Greenland.

00:53:01.580 I've been, I have been, I have also been lusting after Greenland my, my whole life and we just

00:53:08.020 need to go take it.

00:53:08.800 No, look, I, I, I am often labeled an isolationist and depending on how you define that, maybe I

00:53:15.940 fit the bill, but my, my, my actual, uh, very simple foreign policy view has always been,

00:53:21.640 I've said forever, is, uh, I'm in favor of anything that America does that actually advance

00:53:27.360 the interests of Americans.

00:53:28.920 And I think that very often, uh, we do things, especially in faraway places that supposedly

00:53:34.580 are to advance the interests of Americans, but actually aren't doing that and aren't really

00:53:38.380 intended to do that.

00:53:39.200 But if, if that's, if that's the goal is to help Americans make America's life, make a,

00:53:44.000 make the lives of Americans better, then at least it's, it's, it's potentially in the

00:53:48.220 realm of something that I would support.

00:53:49.780 And with Greenland, I mean, I can easily see, uh, the advantages.

00:53:54.320 I mean, there's of course what, what Trump always talks about the national security advantages.

00:53:57.760 Uh, there's also, you know, there's the, the resources that are, that are there.

00:54:02.740 Uh, it's a resource rich, uh, country, you know, only like 12 people live there anyway.

00:54:07.740 They're not making use of it.

00:54:08.860 I will say that, you know, I think there are actually, you know, in actually militarily

00:54:14.600 invading Greenland, well, probably wouldn't be necessary.

00:54:17.120 First of all, I mean, you just send in one team of Navy SEALs, you topple the whole country

00:54:21.160 in about one minute.

00:54:22.220 Just send in a SEAL.

00:54:23.560 You can send a SEAL.

00:54:24.440 One like actual SEAL.

00:54:25.500 Actual SEAL, yeah.

00:54:26.100 Yeah.

00:54:26.380 One actual SEAL.

00:54:27.220 Uh, so that, you know, but, but, but, but doing that, I think it would, it wouldn't come

00:54:30.980 to that.

00:54:31.420 That's a different conversation.

00:54:33.020 Um, maybe they could work something else out.

00:54:34.800 Uh, I will just say though, that, uh, it, it's interesting to me when people today get

00:54:41.320 so offended by the very notion that we would try to acquire land, that we would try to grow

00:54:48.820 sort of the, the empire.

00:54:50.140 And, and in particular that we would try to do it by force.

00:54:52.620 It's interesting when people are so offended by that, because how do you think America right

00:54:56.820 now, as it's currently constituted, came to be?

00:54:59.540 You know, America became what it is today, the continental United States plus Hawaii and

00:55:04.100 Alaska, that happened through purchasing land in some cases, going to war, taking it by

00:55:11.460 force, displacing people, kicking them out and taking the land for ourselves. 0.97

00:55:16.460 That is how this country came to be.

00:55:18.800 We conquered this land and we did it because we believed, um, that, you know, manifest destiny.

00:55:24.360 It's what God wanted us to do.

00:55:25.400 We knew that, you know, the American empire should, should reign and, um, and we had leaders

00:55:31.720 who were looking out for the interests of our people.

00:55:34.340 And that's, that's how the entire world has taken the shape that it's taken.

00:55:38.280 This is the way, this is the way that goes.

00:55:39.620 So that doesn't mean that I'm going to support any, uh, effort to just go and conquer land,

00:55:46.580 but it does mean that I'm not going to automatically rule it out because that's, that's the only way

00:55:51.100 that America exists in the first place.

00:55:53.120 So it's, it's worth talking about.

00:55:54.780 I mean, I don't know what I'm going to do.

00:55:57.320 I'm really enjoying neocon Matt Walsh.

00:55:59.000 This is like my favorite version of Matt Walsh.

00:56:00.980 This is, this is really exciting.

00:56:02.300 It's not, it's not neocon.

00:56:03.180 It's like, I know, I'm joking, Matt.

00:56:04.500 I would never call you a neocon.

00:56:06.060 I know.

00:56:06.640 You're a paleo neocon.

00:56:07.120 Of all the things to call me, that's, I'm looking forward to war with Denmark. 0.97

00:56:11.280 I think that's going to be exciting.

00:56:12.200 Matt Walsh, they got him.

00:56:13.000 They finally got him.

00:56:14.380 They got Walsh.

00:56:15.920 They got to him.

00:56:16.380 Call me George Bush.

00:56:17.120 Matt makes a really, Matt makes an interesting point though, which is like, we're supposed to be growing

00:56:20.900 and strong and it occurs to me, the last time we seriously added territory was 1959, which

00:56:27.600 coincidentally is the last time we were like really strong and growing.

00:56:31.640 You know, it seems like since the 60s, everything's been kind of going downhill.

00:56:34.800 And, you know, if we did acquire Greenland in a serious way, that would expand the size

00:56:39.560 of the United States by 22%.

00:56:41.600 That would be, not by, in terms of people, obviously, but in terms of land, that would

00:56:44.480 be a huge acquisition.

00:56:45.200 And just think of the shrimp, the amount of shrimp we'd have.

00:56:47.780 The delicious shrimp would be, there is a real question though.

00:56:51.060 Does this violate, you know, the NATO treaties or international law?

00:56:56.560 But I believe, I don't like to say this out loud because I know it's going to blow back

00:56:59.820 on me, but I believe that empire is a phase in the life of great nations and I don't think

00:57:04.160 you can help it.

00:57:04.960 And I think it's, it's coming our way.

00:57:07.480 I'm, I'm sort of hoping I'll be gone so you guys have to deal with it.

00:57:11.020 But still, I think ultimately that it, you're, there's just an amoral truth about the fact

00:57:17.200 that you grow or you die.

00:57:18.560 And, uh, and I think, uh, you know, war with Denmark is going to be so much fun. 0.98

00:57:22.720 And I, you know, I love the foreign minister of Denmark.

00:57:24.840 He looks like a lawn troll, you know, and he's very civilized. 0.84

00:57:27.400 Smoking cigs at the White House. 0.85

00:57:29.980 He's such a civilized little guy.

00:57:31.640 And he says, I agree with Trump in many ways that this, you know, but we can talk it out.

00:57:35.420 And I think, yeah, let's just invade.

00:57:36.900 Come on.

00:57:37.200 Let's, let's, let's go.

00:57:39.040 You know, let's go.

00:57:39.520 Oh my God.

00:57:40.100 Okay.

00:57:40.440 So as, as the, as the, apparently Abraham Lincoln's, all of your imperialist ambitions

00:57:45.120 to grab Texas and open it to slavery, apparently. 1.00

00:57:50.680 Yeah.

00:57:51.200 Um, I, I am not in favor of the invasion of Greenland.

00:57:54.300 I think, I think, I think that, I think that.

00:57:57.160 I think it's great that you have to say it though.

00:57:58.800 Media Matters, Ben Shapiro.

00:58:00.980 I am not in favor of the invasion of Greenland.

00:58:04.180 Listen, I'm, I'm fine with, with cutting whatever contract we want to cut with Greenland. 0.98

00:58:09.120 If we can pressure them into selling the thing, that's fine.

00:58:10.900 If we want to grab their mineral rights, that's cool too.

00:58:12.820 But like, I'm just, I'm, I'm wondering, I do love the fact that really all this has come

00:58:17.480 down to is that Donald Trump really wants to rename that place Trumpland and just increase

00:58:21.660 the map and be like, this is the thing that I got.

00:58:23.540 Cause that's clearly what this is, right?

00:58:25.140 We have a military treaty with Denmark.

00:58:26.760 We can build whatever the hell we want there.

00:58:28.200 Like right now, if we just decided to put 20,000 troops in Greenland without invading,

00:58:33.040 we could just build a base and put our troops there.

00:58:35.240 We literally can do that under current treaty.

00:58:37.580 So this idea that like the Chinese are about to grab Greenland. 0.98

00:58:41.640 The Russians are about to wade ashore in nuke and they're going to, they're going to start 0.98

00:58:47.460 shooting all the dogs from their dog sleds.

00:58:49.700 I was hoping now that Trump took the Venezuela ladies Nobel prize. 1.00

00:58:53.620 I was hoping that maybe he'd come down.

00:58:55.980 I can't even with that.

00:58:57.580 That one also, I can't even.

00:58:59.600 Oh my gosh.

00:59:00.480 The taking of the, the taking of the Nobel prize is so like, are you kidding me?

00:59:05.400 Like, what are we doing now?

00:59:06.540 You know what it feels like to take in the Nobel prize?

00:59:08.500 You know, you know how on eBay, there'll be some guy who won an Oscar and then he goes

00:59:11.980 bankrupt and then he sells his Oscar.

00:59:13.620 And so you're sitting there and you've got like Marlon Brando's second Oscar on your mantle.

00:59:19.420 What do you do if you're Trump?

00:59:20.620 You just walk around like, here's Maria Machado's Nobel prize.

00:59:23.380 I like the idea that she insisted, she insisted that he wade out.

00:59:26.480 She insisted he take, she's like this little piece of girl.

00:59:29.360 It's like, I insist you take my Nobel prize.

00:59:31.780 All right, all right.

00:59:32.720 I'm sure.

00:59:33.820 Yeah.

00:59:34.240 And, and, and, oh my gosh, it's, it's so good.

00:59:36.300 And I, and, and obviously when we build the, uh, the greenhouse in, in Greenland,

00:59:40.740 then president Trump will obviously put the Nobel prize in the greenhouse.

00:59:45.960 Well, I think, look, I think it's, it's a good, even if you disagree with, uh, with going

00:59:51.420 in and conquering Greenland and making them our, our slaves, because that's another part 1.00

00:59:56.060 of this.

00:59:56.280 We haven't talked about it.

00:59:58.220 Absolutely.

00:59:58.660 But even if you disagree with that, the fact that Trump has that, the desire at all to

01:00:03.340 kind of like expand in this way is, is that's, that's what presidents, I like that.

01:00:09.520 I mean, that's, that's what, that's what our leaders should want to do.

01:00:11.760 I mean, like you said, 1959, right.

01:00:13.940 It was the last time when it felt like, um, well, I would say it's actually 1969 to me.

01:00:19.580 1969 was the last time when it, when, when, you know, it felt like America was, was, was,

01:00:26.060 was like reaching for something.

01:00:27.300 And that's when we, that's when we landed on the moon, of course, and we actually did land

01:00:30.260 on the moon, first of all.

01:00:32.180 Um, but I think there's also this kind of, and I know it's not the most compelling foreign 1.00

01:00:36.940 policy argument, but there's this kind of the spiritual truth, which is that, uh, if you're

01:00:41.920 a great country, then you should be trying to expand, trying to reach for something, explore,

01:00:48.780 go to unknown places.

01:00:50.800 I mean, this is when America has been great.

01:00:52.940 We talk about make America great again.

01:00:54.060 Well, when America has been truly great, it's, it's when it was driven by that desire, by

01:00:59.680 manifest destiny.

01:01:00.800 And then it's kind of like, well, we expanded, we took over, you know, the continental United

01:01:04.320 States and we had Hawaii and Alaska.

01:01:06.200 And then, and then we said, well, where, where's there left to go?

01:01:08.340 Then we started going up and, and we're not really doing that as much anymore.

01:01:11.220 At least that's now kind of in the private sector with Elon Musk.

01:01:14.020 And, uh, and so Trump is the first leader in a while who says, no, let's continue to try

01:01:18.580 to expand and grow this empire.

01:01:20.860 And I think that that's, um, I think like you said, Drew, if you're not, if you're not

01:01:24.420 growing, you're dying.

01:01:25.180 I think, I think there's like a real truth to that when it comes to nations.

01:01:28.640 There's a fact too, which is we had been, you know, since the middle of the 19th century,

01:01:32.460 the state department has been eyeing Greenland.

01:01:34.220 We've tried to buy it multiple times over the years, including the 20th century.

01:01:36.940 And it is kind of weird that Denmark controls Greenland in, in that, you know, Denmark has been

01:01:43.520 downhill ever since Claudius killed Hamlet's dad.

01:01:46.220 You know, like it has not been, it's not been a good few centuries.

01:01:49.860 And so you think it's bizarre that they're there.

01:01:53.140 When Trump was in the Oval Office, he said, Denmark said they're going to double up their

01:01:56.260 defenses.

01:01:56.820 They added another dog sled.

01:01:58.180 That's real.

01:01:58.720 I thought that was a joke.

01:02:00.080 That's not a joke.

01:02:01.040 That's real.

01:02:01.820 They have the serious dog sled Arctic defense, which I'm sure they're great people and great

01:02:06.000 dogs, but you know, that's not really going to cut it.

01:02:08.300 And so, you know, then there's this argument that, well, this violates the spirit of NATO or something.

01:02:12.640 And I think NATO is a Cold War organization.

01:02:15.700 It was developed in the Cold War to protect the American empire, you know, against the

01:02:19.900 Soviet empire and the Warsaw Pact.

01:02:21.560 And it doesn't mean exactly the same thing after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

01:02:25.360 And yeah, to your, to your, really, to all of your points, well, no, not as much to Ben's,

01:02:29.440 you know, because he doesn't want us to just gobble up the whole world.

01:02:31.680 But to Matt and Drew's point, you know, we're, we're great.

01:02:35.200 We grow.

01:02:36.140 That's, we become empires.

01:02:37.280 That's what we do.

01:02:37.980 And you just look at the map and you say, this is kind of weird, especially with a more

01:02:41.220 aggressive China and Russia, whether or not they're actually going to land and put up 1.00

01:02:44.440 a P.F.

01:02:44.800 Chang's and nuke.

01:02:45.600 Like the fact that they're a little, a little more on the move now means that, yeah, I think

01:02:49.880 we need to get a little more serious guys.

01:02:51.300 And, you know, Denmark, I think you're going to get on board.

01:02:53.740 I do think they're going to get on board.

01:02:55.080 By the way, Kalshi says, according to our sponsors, Kalshi, 42% shot or 42% of the people

01:02:59.480 who are betting on it say that, uh, that we're going to take Greenland.

01:03:01.900 So, you know, we're going to find out.

01:03:03.560 And if that's, you know, you can, you might be able to tell.

01:03:05.980 We'll see if there's like an insider spike right before Trump declares that we, that

01:03:09.680 we've taken Greenland.

01:03:10.740 So, uh, honestly, my, my main objective, my main objection to taking Greenland is just,

01:03:15.600 it's not even truly ideological.

01:03:17.440 It's more like, is it, why is this a priority?

01:03:20.240 Like Trump is like, we must, we must deter Russia. 0.97

01:03:22.620 We must deter Russia from, from going after Greenland.

01:03:24.620 Like, you know, what's a really great way to deter Russia? 0.92

01:03:26.880 To fight it, to, to have the Ukrainians fight them. 0.99

01:03:29.200 Like there's like engaging a gigantic ass land war in the middle of Eastern Europe.

01:03:33.980 And it's like, no, no, no, no, they're not.

01:03:36.120 Taking Greenland.

01:03:37.140 Greenland, like, this is where we draw the line.

01:03:40.400 I care much more about Greenland than Ukraine.

01:03:42.520 I don't, am I in the minority here?

01:03:44.760 No, you're probably not in the minority, but you're wrong.

01:03:46.580 So those are not the same thing.

01:03:48.720 I think the shrimp is the one that turns me toward Greenland.

01:03:51.660 And as I keep kosher, so I don't care about the shrimp.

01:03:53.660 That's what's happening right here.

01:03:55.080 Let's see, that explains it.

01:03:55.980 It always comes down to that.

01:03:57.460 It always comes down to this.

01:03:58.520 You know, and because, because we added Hawaii as a state in 1959, the vastness of the American

01:04:04.200 Empire, sea to sea, we can actually have coconut shrimp once we take Greenland. 0.78

01:04:08.320 That's going to be so delicious.

01:04:09.460 Oh my God, this is great.

01:04:10.680 Guys, we have to go.

01:04:12.200 There's two, we have to, we have to go and we need to go to Duke.

01:04:16.020 Wonderful to see all of you.

01:04:17.360 Wonderful to see all of you out there.

01:04:18.800 Go become a Daily Wire member right now, and you can hear Matt Walsh vigorously defend

01:04:24.920 slavery.

01:04:25.560 This is Friendly Fire.

01:04:26.840 We'll see you next time.

01:04:27.200 You're killing me here.

The Michael Knowles Show - January 16, 2026

Friendly Fire： Gavin for President, Greenland for Sale

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