Andrew Clayphon dissects Barack Obama’s presidency as a catalyst for economic inequality—$700B bank bailouts, Wall Street stimulus, and global instability—while dismissing "Russian hooker" 2016 election claims as CNN-fueled "fake news," despite Trump’s Putin praise and Tillerson’s Senate grilling over Syria’s Aleppo war crimes. He contrasts classical liberalism (Mill’s On Liberty) with libertarianism, rejects sectarian Christianity, and praises Trump’s appointments cautiously, framing media bias as a political advantage. [Automatically generated summary]
Barack Obama's farewell address began last night, and by now it may well be over.
And you know, it made me think.
A lot of times over the years, I've made fun of Obama as a scissified anti-American narcissist know-nothing whose ignorance of the way life works is matched only by the titanic arrogance of his delusional self-importance, which masks an essential weakness and lack of fortitude that makes him seem less like a powerful world leader and more like a whining, sniveling little girl who wasn't invited to her popular friend's birthday party.
Sorry, my mind drifted.
Back to Barack Obama.
I've made fun of him a lot over the years as a gormless leftist buffoon who was being mindlessly cheered on by a group of media and academic elites who, when asked to locate their buttocks with two hands and a flashlight, quickly asked to be excused and then ran away.
But now the Obama administration is coming to an end.
And as we helplessly weep in gratitude, I feel it's time to soften our tone a little, time to overlook some of those all-too-human flaws that sometimes made Obama's presence feel something like a cross between a herpes sore and shingles.
And instead, we should take a more generous look at some of the accomplishments for which this administration will be remembered long after it's completely forgotten.
You might not recall it now, except for the fact that Obama is constantly reminding you, but when the president first took office, this country was in the depths of one of the worst crises since the Great Depression.
The Democrat policy of forcing banks to make home loans to people who couldn't repay them had sent our economy spiraling crapwards.
And Obama saved the day by bailing out irresponsible institutions and funneling cheap money into Wall Street while saddling job creators with suffocating regulations that ensured only the wealthy would prosper while the poor became mired in dependency and the middle class virtually disappeared.
Now, some of you may say, well, wait, all he did was prop up fat cats while mortgaging our children's future to debt and inflation.
But speaking personally, my children have always kind of annoyed me.
And if they're saddled by massive debt and inflation, I'll be gone anyway.
So tough.
And what about the world stage?
When Obama took office, the Russian threat had been largely contained and the Middle East was subsiding into peace after years of warfare.
Let's face it, it was boring.
There was nothing to talk about, and our soldiers were just sitting around playing video games, wasting their time.
But happily, thanks to Obama, the world is once again completely in flames.
And that means there'll be lots more of those wonderful YouTube videos of military men and women surprising their families by coming home unexpectedly from the intolerable hell of war.
Blue Apron Sponsorship00:02:41
I love those videos.
They choke me up.
So really, when you think about it, Obama has done a lot to this country, and it's with grateful hearts that we say to him: farewell and stay out.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin, and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm a hunky-dunky, life is tickety-boo.
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Hooray, hurrah, it's mailbag day.
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Sex Lies and Russian Spies00:15:31
So so much stuff is going on.
It's overwhelming.
We've got sex lies and Russian spies.
Trump is giving a presser as we speak.
Rex Tillerson, his pick for Secretary of State, is under the gun being questioned in the Senate as we speak.
There is this huge story that broke yesterday.
I mean, it's a weird story, but it's a disturbing one as well.
That CNN released a story that all the news media has had, and it has been kind of going around, everybody's heard the rumors about it, that in the briefing with Trump last week, the intelligence chiefs gave him all this information about the Russian hacking and Russian interference.
And some of them, there were two pages of uncorroborated reports from basically a private eye who used to be in the intelligence community, a British guy, used to be in the intelligence community, who had uncorroborated OPPO research.
He was being paid by the opposition to get Trump, right?
And he had OPPO research that the Russians had compromising intelligence on Trump that they could use to blackmail him and that somebody in his campaign might have been collaborating with the Russians on their attacks on Hillary Clinton.
None of this has been corroborated.
Nobody else was running it.
CNN ran it with this breathless as if nobody had heard about it before instead of just exercising journalistic integrity.
BuzzFeed then published the documents.
Okay, so this is the thing.
And just to get to the salacious stuff first, because we don't want to leave you hanging, part of it was that Trump had gone to a Russian hotel and hung out with Russian hookers who part of the rumor was that he had paid them to watch them urinate on each other and all this.
And I personally am absolutely delighted to hear that there is some sexual perversion that the left doesn't approve of.
Because, I mean, most of the time, if you're a man who thinks he's a woman sleeping with a child who says he's an animal, you know, President Obama will issue an executive order saying you have to be allowed to sleep in the barn.
Suddenly, if Donald Trump is watching a weird sex show, then that's a problem.
But, you know, again, totally, totally unsubstantiated.
Trump addresses this in his presser, and I haven't heard these clips yet, so I'm going to be hearing them with you because it's happening right now.
But what did he have to say about all this?
These meetings, as you know, are confidential, classified, so I'm not allowed to talk about what went on in a meeting.
But we had many witnesses in that meeting, many of them with us.
And I will say again, I think it's a disgrace that information would be let out.
I saw the information.
I read the information outside of that meeting.
It's all fake news.
It's phony stuff.
It didn't happen.
And it was gotten by opponents of ours, as you know, because you reported it and so did many of the other people.
It was a group of opponents that got together, sick people, and they put that crap together.
So I will tell you that not within the meeting, but outside of the meeting, somebody released it.
It should never have been, number one, shouldn't have even entered paper, but it should never have been released.
But I read what was released, and I think it's a disgrace.
I think it's an absolute disgrace.
Okay, so we have to address this from several different angles.
I should add, by the way, that part of this report was that a Trump aide, Trump advisor named Michael Cohen, I think his name was.
He was a lawyer, went to Prague and met with the Russians and all this, and Cohen tweeted out his passport, which Reince Priebus says he has paged through, and he says he has never been to Prague in his life, and that should be easy.
That's the kind of lie you tell.
That would be too easy to check.
There are a number of ways this is extremely disturbing.
One of them is we have to start with the media.
I mean, the New York Times, it's only a former newspaper, the New York Times, and they wouldn't run this stuff because anybody can say anything about anyone, right?
You can say anything about anyone.
I can tell people that you went out and hired hookers to do whatever.
I can say anything.
If you're a reporter, you have to get this stuff corroborated.
And the Times has been trying to corroborate it, hasn't been able to.
The CIA has tried to corroborate it, hasn't been able to.
There's a question, James Comey won't answer the question of whether the FBI has looked into it or is looking into it.
There was some report that they issued, they tried to get a warrant to look at some of Trump's computers.
The warrant, the FISA warrant was turned down, but they have gotten one guy they're looking into or something like this.
This is not something that you run.
I mean, think about, if you ever saw the movie All the President's Men, think about the kind of care they took.
You know, you haven't got this story.
You got to get another.
You got to get a named source.
You haven't got it.
You haven't got it.
This is trash reporting.
It is trash journalism.
I'm not letting Trump off the hook.
I'm going to get to that in just a minute.
But this is trash reporting.
And listen to what Ben Smith, the guy who runs BuzzFeed, listen to what he says for a minute.
He says, our presumption is to be trans.
They're publishing this document, right?
And again, I can write a document like this about any one of you.
Anybody who's listening, I can write this document about any one of you, and Ben Smith can put it on BuzzFeed, okay?
And he says, our presumption is to be transparent in our journalism and to share what we have with our readers.
We have always erred on the side of publishing.
In this case, the document was in wide circulation at the highest levels of American government and media.
It seems to lie behind a set of vague allegations from the Senate Majority Leader to the director of the FBI and a report that intelligence agencies have delivered to the president and president-elect.
As we noted in our story, there are serious reason to doubt the allegations.
Publishing this document was not an easy or simple call, and people of goodwill may disagree with our choice, but it reflects how we see our job with reporter, as reporters.
And basically, he went on to say that he wanted people, us, to be able to see the documents so we could make up our own mind.
And think about the absurdity of that.
How are you supposed to make up your own mind?
What intelligence sources do you have?
This is their job.
Their job is to make sure that something they're saying has weighted sources behind it, weighty sources.
They can't always tell whether it's true, but you have got to have, you know, this is just a document of OPO research.
And it is just appalling that the anti-Trump hysteria has reached this level that people would degrade themselves, especially at CNN, which is supposed to be the most trusted name in news, as they always called themselves.
You know, it is appalling that the press would run with a story like this and make it breathless while these hearings are going on.
It is all very suspicious timing.
Now, let's talk about whether or not Trump is a Russian spy, as Keith Olberman has been saying.
All right.
You know, my question is, what would he do if he were a Russian spy?
Would he, for instance, let the Russians get undue influence in Syria and make sure that the Iran, I mean, and make sure that the Iranians were getting uranium.
The Iranians were getting uranium.
Sounds like a Danny Kay routine.
The Iranians were getting uranium to be able to make nuclear.
I mean, Obama has done all that stuff.
Obama has let the Russians walk all over him.
So, you know, there is this question about Trump's flattering talk about Vladimir Putin.
We heard this flattering talk from George W. Bush.
Remember?
I looked into his soul, which must have been a very, very ugly experience.
We got it from Barack Obama.
We're going to reset our relationships with the Russians.
And now we get it from Donald Trump, who is basically saying, I want good relations with the Russians.
Here he is at the presser today.
If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability.
Because we have a horrible relationship with Russia.
Russia can help us fight ISIS, which, by the way, is number one tricky.
I mean, if you look, this administration created ISIS by leaving at the wrong time.
The void was created.
ISIS was formed.
If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks?
That's called an asset, not a liability.
Now, I don't know that I'm going to get along with Vladimir Putin.
I hope I do, but there's a good chance I won't.
And if I don't, do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me?
Does anybody in this room really believe that?
Give me a break.
That was a pretty good response.
And then the president, President Obama himself weighed in on this, too.
He's a lame duck.
All right, okay.
Now, Rex Tillerson, who is obviously was the CEO of ExxonMobil and is now under the gun in the Senate, being questioned.
He has done a lot of business with Russia, and they're questioning him on whether he's going to be soft with Russia.
Here is Marco Rubio, a real hawk, giving it to him pretty solidly.
Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?
I would not use that term.
Well, let me describe the situation in Aleppo, and perhaps that will help you reach that conclusion.
In Aleppo, Mr. Putin has directed his military to conduct a devastating campaign.
He's targeted schools.
Markets, not just assisted the Syrians in doing it.
His military has targeted schools and markets and other civilian infrastructure.
It's resulted in the death of thousands of civilians.
This is not the first time Mr. Putin is involved in campaigns of this kind.
And what's publicly in the record about what's happened in Aleppo and the Russian military, you are still not prepared to say that Vladimir Putin and his military have violated the rules of war and have conducted war crimes in Aleppo.
Now, those are very, very serious charges to make, and I would want to have much more information before reaching a conclusion.
I understand there is a body of record in the public domain.
I'm sure there's a body of record in the classified domain.
And I think in order to deal with a serious question like this.
Mr. Tillerson, what's happening in Aleppo is in the public domain.
The videos and the pictures are there.
Fully informed before advising the president.
Well, I encourage you.
There is so much information out there about what's happened in Aleppo, leaving the Chechen issue aside.
What happened there is clearly documented as well.
There's so much information out there.
It should not be hard to say that Vladimir Putin's military has conducted war crimes in Aleppo because it is never acceptable, you would agree, for a military to specifically target civilians, which is what's happened there through the Russian military.
And, you know, I find it discouraging, your inability to cite that, which I think is globally accepted.
All right, I'm going to pack this in just a minute.
I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube, but we've got the mailbag coming up.
So come over to thedailywire.com, subscribe, and you can ask questions as I speak.
And what happened to the trumpet?
What kind of a crummy trumpet was that?
That was like a crumpet.
It was crummy and a trumpet.
It was a crumpet.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, here's the thing about what Rubio is saying.
Rubio is absolutely right.
You know, the stuff he's talking about is real, and Putin has done some, he's done awful things.
He's assassinated people.
He's done terrible, terrible things.
And this stuff that's going on, I mean, it's really bizarre how suddenly, suddenly, the left is standing up for the intelligence community.
Remember, Bush lied, people died because he listened to the intelligence community.
Suddenly, the left is standing up for the intelligence community, and the right is standing up for Russia.
I mean, come on, you know, this is ridiculous.
I mean, Rubio is right.
On the other hand, on the other hand, Tillerson is going to be the Secretary of State.
He's going to have to sit down with the man that Barack Obama called Vlad.
Remember, tell Vlad, I'm going to be a lot more flexible about removing our nuclear weapons after I don't have to run for office anymore.
Remember, Obama said that, was caught on the mic saying that.
Tillerson is going to be the Secretary of State, all things being equal.
You don't want to start out by calling the guy a war criminal.
I mean, so he's dancing a little bit.
He's dancing and singing, but he's a hard-nosed guy.
I think he knows exactly who Putin is.
I don't want to let Donald Trump off the hook at all.
One of the things about this hysteria is it's making Trump look great.
I mean, the hysteria in the press is making Trump look like some kind of genius.
You know, if Trump or any of his people have any kind of untoward connections with Russia, we should know about it.
I'm very, very doubtful that it goes beyond a sort of crush on a strong man that Trump admires.
Some of the guys he's appointing are very hard line against Russia.
His intelligence guys, hard line against Russia.
I don't know.
I wrote Donald Trump the day he was elected president, I wrote him a blank page.
I gave him a blank page, not out of respect for Donald Trump, out of respect for the American process of election that had chosen him the president.
So far, he hasn't done anything except appoint people.
That's what he's done.
He's appointed people today.
He announced that he's setting up a kind of wall.
I haven't had a chance to vet this, so I can't really say too much about it, but he's setting up a wall between him and his businesses to protect him from conflict of interest.
You know, he's going about this in a serious way.
And when he does something that goes up my nose that I think is wrong, I'm going to say things about it.
I think he can be undependable.
I think sometimes his words don't mean what he says they mean.
But so far, he has done nothing.
He has done nothing except appoint people.
I think his appointments are great.
The last thing that really, really disturbs me about this is who released this information.
You know, I always say that when the right has a scandal, it's always about the scandal.
But when the left has a scandal, it's about who released the information.
In this case, Trump has been hammering the intelligence agency and saying he's going to reconstitute and all this.
And when you do that, they don't like it.
Here is Chuck Schumer asked about this by Rachel Maddow.
Listen to what he says and listen to the tone he says it in.
You take on the intelligence community.
They have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.
So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this.
What do you think the intelligence community would do if they remotely?
But I, from what I'm told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them.
And we need the intelligence community.
We don't know what's going on.
Look at the Russian hacking.
Without the intelligence community, we wouldn't have discovered it.
For Chuck Schumer, the head of the Democrats in the Senate, to sit there with that little smirk on his face and say, if the president messes with the CIA, the CIA is going to get him.
That's not good, okay?
That's bad.
The CIA is essentially effectively a left-wing organization because it is the defender of the status quo.
If you go in and try to fire people in the CIA or shake up the CIA and they strike back by releasing information about you to the press, that is a bad, bad thing.
That is not a free government anymore.
And so that is right at this minute before any more information comes out.
The thing that worries me most about this is is the CIA going to fight, the president is going to set itself up as the enemy of the president, and are the Democrats going to sit by with that Chuck Schumer smirk and let that happen?
That is very, very bad news.
Obama's Farewell Speech00:14:58
All right, we have to very briefly talk about Obama's interminable speech last night.
was an excerpt from Obama's farewell speech in Chicago.
I hadn't seen that before.
That was courtesy of Austin because, see, he's a lame duck.
That's the thing.
And here's the press reaction to the speech.
This love of mine goes on and on.
Though life is empty since you have gone.
You couldn't see that if you don't subscribe, but she's dancing with an empty suit, which I think is pretty much sums up the press relations.
You know, the thing about the speech was it was his usual thing where he was pretending to be magnanimous.
We have to listen to white people and we have to listen to the other side and all this stuff.
But buried underneath it was this assumption.
Just play the cut when he talked about immigration.
I'll show you what I mean.
If every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and an undeserving minority, then workers of all shades are going to be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves.
If we're unwilling... You can stop it right there.
He does that with...
He basically frames every question in terms of racism.
So in other words, if you oppose people sneaking across our borders en masse, if you oppose unvetted Syrian immigrants being poured into our communities en masse, it is about the color of their skin.
And so this nonsense where he says we have to listen, we have to get together, and the press weeps.
The guy in the Hollywood Reporter said watching him walk off the stage was like watching daddy walk away while you're clinging to his leg.
He literally said that.
George Stephanoboulos called it a song of hope.
The speech was a song of hope.
But all the while, underneath it, is if you disagree with him, you're a racist.
And he has done that throughout his presidency, throughout his career, and he does it so well, so subtly, that the press can ignore the fact that he just stuck a knife into 50% of the country.
People whose opinions have nothing to do with race.
It has nothing to do with race that there should be legal borders and immigration laws that people follow.
All right, it is time for the mailbag.
Yeah!
I was ready for it that time.
Usually it just blows me off the back of my chair.
All right, from Brendan, dear Supreme Consulate and first citizen of the culture.
Thank you.
I do appreciate my proper titles being used.
You can't use all of them because it just takes all day.
What do you think can be done about America's cities?
As a Michigan native, I can't help but see Detroit as a tumor on our state, yet I have no idea how one goes about fundamentally changing a place as broken as that one so that it can be restored to its former glory.
A great question, a big question.
I can't answer it in detail, but look, there are three policy things that need to happen, and then there is one problem that's much more entrenched and much more difficult.
In order to save cities, I mean, we've seen cities saved.
You know, I was in New York during the summer of Sam when New York was a cesspool.
New York, after Rudy Giuliani got through with it, one man, two terms, got through with New York.
I shouldn't say one man because also the police chief was instrumental.
New York was a wonderland.
It was the greatest city in the world, the greatest big city, the safest city.
When I lived there, you couldn't go out to get a pack of cigarettes without taking your life in your hands.
And then, you know, now you can walk home at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning and feel really safe.
Okay, so what do you have to deal with?
You have to deal with crime, you have to deal with jobs, you have to deal with education and all those things.
We know how to deal with crime.
We know the broken windows policy works.
We know that stop and frisk works.
We know that mandatory sentencing helps.
You've got to clean up the streets until people feel safe.
They're not going to move there.
They're not going to bring their businesses there.
They're not going to invest.
All those things have to happen.
We know this because it worked.
It was done and it happened and it worked.
And when Obama sits around and says, well, crime is still going down, he's lying because what he has done is he has undermined the police forces in various cities from Seattle, St. Louis, all these different cities.
And crime is going up in those cities.
We're just still seeing the decline from the Bratton-Giuliani years that swept the country.
Okay, so that's the first thing.
We know how to deal with crime.
Obviously, jobs is about building the economy.
I am in favor of a little bit of government finagling to create enterprise zones to make sure some of the minorities, some of the minority areas get built up.
That is very helpful.
And education, you're fighting against the Democrats because so many of their people are in these corrupt and horrible teacher unions that drag our schools into the muck.
That's why it's going to be very interesting to see Trump's pick because she's for education secretary, because she is very much in favor of charter schools and school choice.
All those things will help the cities.
The other problem you have that is bigger is about the family.
And this is so huge that I can't really deal with it.
I would take me half an hour to deal with it because it's not really, I mean, it's not a problem.
It's a huge problem in the black community, also a huge problem in the white community.
Any place where the family falls apart, it is very, very hard to get them out of poverty.
It's very, very hard to get the government out of their lives.
It's very, very hard to get them out of the system.
It's very hard to reduce the crime.
The family, obviously, without the family, there is no democracy because the family is the first line of defense.
If you notice what's happening now in America, wealthy, elite people have families.
Women may play around in college, but then they get married before they have kids.
You know, that's the way they work it.
In the black community, now they have more illegitimate children than they did during slavery days when Democrats were actually selling them downriver to break up their families.
Now, Democrats have just used welfare to do that, and it's worked better.
They've actually achieved what they couldn't achieve when they were slave masters.
The family, though, is a problem, has been a problem really since the Industrial Revolution because the worth of children has gone down.
When you start to build factories, when you start to have innovative technologies, children stop to be wealthy.
Children used to be wealth.
I used to call them the poor man's wealth because they would help you on the farm.
They would help you in your business.
They would take over your business.
They would take care of you when you were old.
Once technology starts to develop so quickly and once the world becomes a global economy, kids go off and do things that didn't exist when you were young.
They go into businesses that didn't exist.
I mean, even I am in businesses that didn't exist when I went into, you know, there were no podcasts.
There was no iPad stuff that I work in all the time.
There were no blogs.
I do this stuff all the time for a living.
It didn't exist.
So my kids are going to go off and do other things.
They're going to live far away.
They are now wholly an expense.
Your children are now wholly an expense.
And that has affected everything.
And of course, the government has made it worse by even taking away their role of taking care of us when they're old.
The government maybe had to do that because once they become separated from their parents, they may not come back and take care of you when you're old.
This is a serious problem.
And I can't go into the things that need to be done about it now, but it is a spiritual problem.
And until that problem of family is solved, it's going to be very hard to see how democracy goes forward.
But in the meantime, cities can be rejuvenated by taking care of crime, jobs, education.
We've done it before in New York, and we can do it again.
Here is a live question.
So I don't know how dear great semi-overlord K-L-V-N, because they don't want to put the, you know, when you pronounce my name, you suddenly have a heart attack.
How do you, as a former Jew, address Orthodox Jewish people like that other guy who does a setup who does a podcast, Ben or something, when discussing the issue of the personhood and deity of Christ?
Okay, give me that again.
I was laughing to her.
How do you, as if I'm just wondering, some guy in the writer's room is sending this question.
How do you, as a former Jew, address Orthodox Jewish people like that other guy who does a podcast, Ben or something, when discussing the issue of the personhood and deity of Christ?
Well, look, I'm willing to discuss that with them, but I'm not here to force them to abandon their 4,000-year-old belief in favor of mine.
I mean, I say what I have to say all the time, but I don't think it is appealing and I don't think it works to attack people's religion.
So I tell people why.
Yeah, I know, I know.
I tell people what I believe.
I'll tell anyone what I believe.
And we'll do it politely and kindly and say what I have to say.
But if you read my book, The Great Good Thing, which by the way is still being sold on Kindle for $2.99, The Great Good Thing.
Look it up.
It's got over 200 five-star reviews at this point.
So it's like, yeah, it's really, I know.
Who knew?
But you will see how I feel about Jews.
I think they are, I think they are still an important part of the body of Christ.
I think they're the part of the body of Christ that doubts, and without doubt, you can't develop your belief.
From Noah, can you detail the differences between conservatism, libertarianism, and classical liberalism?
Yeah, you know, obviously all these things overlap, but classical liberalism and conservatism are basically the same thing.
They are the idea developed in the 18th and 19th century.
If you read John Stuart Mill on liberty, basically the idea that personal freedom is important, so that freedom of speech, individual freedom is important, which means freedom of belief, freedom of speech.
All these things are important, and that what government has to do is regulate us so that we don't get in the way of other people's freedoms.
Libertarianism is a little bit more extreme than that.
A libertarianism basically is saying that government should just be as tiny as it possibly can be.
I, as a classical liberal or slash conservative, got in an argument with a libertarian where I said, I think government has no right to tell you to wear a seat belt in your car because it has no right to protect you from yourself, but it does have a right to tell you not to use a handheld phone because that endangers other people.
And the libertarian was furious.
I mean, it was just like, no, absolute government has no right to regulate anything whatsoever.
But I do believe that the government can enhance our freedoms by protecting us from one another, obviously.
If I can, you know, I'm free until I'm free to swing my fist until it goes into your nose, basically.
But you should read on Liberty by Mill.
It's a wonderful, wonderful book and really interesting.
And Isaiah Berlin, also a philosopher of liberty, wrote about Mill, and it's interesting stuff.
Most merciful yet ruthless, absolute imperator clavin.
Can you, that's my old Roman title.
Not a lot of people know that one.
Can you describe where the explanations of religion you share with us on the podcast come from?
Are they all original thoughts from you?
Or is there a church I don't know about that explains Christianity in this way?
I've yearned to be a Christian my whole life, but can never bring myself to believe what's been told to me in church.
When you explain it, it makes perfect sense and removes that barrier.
Thanks, Eli Strauss.
You know, that's another reason I like it if people who feel this way would get the great good thing because it has time to explain what I'm talking about.
Nothing I say is made up.
I believe in the Nicene Creed.
You can read the Nicene Creed.
It is true, however.
It is true, however, that there are many Christians who believe that only their sect of Christianity has a monopoly on the truth.
And it is true that I take my thoughts from various writers.
C.S. Lewis, of course, one of the most powerful writers, but also Aquinas, also the last Pope Benedict.
You know, these are guys that I read and develop my theology, and I read the Bible every day.
And of course, the Bible is important because here's the thing.
Here's the reason I think you feel the way you do.
You know, when people talk about gentle Jesus, meek and mild, there is no gentle Jesus, meek and mild in the New Testament.
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild would kick your, I mean, he said things to people that even I wouldn't say, and I'll say almost anything, but he almost always said them to the powerful religious authorities because he felt that they were interpreting the religion in such a way that it was keeping the people from God.
That has not changed, okay?
People do that today.
I talk about this all the time, and I always get scored for it.
When Jesus said, judge not lest you be judged, he was telling you that you have no authority over the relation of another man, between another man and God.
It's not your job to be telling him what he should be doing, except if he, unless he asks you what your advice is.
It's very, very simple for you to deduce rules of life from the New Testament, to go from that, where you deduce rules of your life from the New Testament, to telling other people what to do and what their life should be like.
You do not, you know, C.S. Lewis has a great line in one of his Narnia books.
No one is told any story but their own.
The only person, the only thing you know about a relationship with God is yours, and you should not be judging.
So in other words, all these people, when they say, well, you can't be gay, you can't do this, you can't sleep here, you can't drink, you can't do this, you know, they're welcome to their opinions, but that is not the relationship with God.
God is opening a relationship through Jesus Christ.
God is opening a relationship with you right now as you are.
You are welcome to take advantage of that relationship, and anyone who tells you you're not is wrong.
That is what I'm saying.
Okay, that relationship may take you places you did not expect.
It may take you places that are difficult.
It may take you places and show you parts of yourself you don't like.
But that relationship is open to you right now.
And it is not a relationship with Joel Osteen.
It's not a relationship with Jerry Falwell Jr.
It's not a relationship with anybody else.
It's a relationship with God through Christ.
And if you read the words of Christ, you can get to know him and find out about him and you can establish that relationship.
So that's all I'm saying is if I'm saying things that are outside of the church, too bad, because churches do corrupt the information that they received.
But they received that information good, and there are many great churches.
There are many great preachers.
You know, I belong to the Episcopal Church because the unchanging liturgy, which is basically the Catholic liturgy, is the point of going to the church.
And if the preacher gets up and says something stupid, as he frequently does, I just ignore it.
I'm there for the communion and the liturgy.
Also, I enjoy, we have a home church at the Daily Wire, the God King of the Daily Wire, whose name I can never remember.
Jeremy Borne, you know, runs a home church, and it's really interesting.
We talk about the gospels there.
So don't be put off by somebody telling you what the gospels are, because the gospels are there for you to read.
They're there for you to read.
Take a look at them.
Read the Gospels00:01:51
See what he says.
It's that simple.
If you can read, you can do that.
All right, I wish I could go on.
I love the mailbag, but we'll do it again next week.
If you subscribe, you can be in there.
I will answer your questions, change your life.
You may even, who knows, I may change your gender.
You don't know what's going to happen.
It's always a surprise.
All right, stuff I like.
I have to mention this.
I don't know if I've ever recommended this before, but it was out of print, basically.
Here's a movie that you couldn't get for years.
Yeah, obviously you could find it on eBay or something like this, but now it's back.
Sleuth, a 1972 film of a play by Anthony Shaffer.
It had a great cast led by Lawrence Olivier and Michael Kaine, but terrific acting throughout.
Anthony Shaffer, this was his big play, but he was the brother of, the twin brother of Peter Schaffer, who wrote Amadeus.
And they were always writing these duels between two men, you know, like Amadeus and Salyeri, and this is a duel between two men.
Anyway, I'm not going to tell you this is the greatest movie ever made, but the play is fantastic, and they capture the play, and the acting is wonderful, and it's been out of print for a long time.
I just ordered my own copy yesterday, and I just wanted to bring it up again because I think it's wonderful if you haven't seen it, and a lot of people haven't don't get.
There's a Jude Law version, which I haven't seen, but I hear is not very good.
I know this one is good, and mostly because of the cast.
So, Sleuth, great stuff, a 1972 play.
All right, this is getting, the news is getting big, and it's getting fun.
And I have to say, it is really, really interesting.
We are withholding a lot of judgment here.
I know there are a lot of people mouthing off and saying Trump is good, Trump is bad.
I'm not telling you anything except that I like the appointment so far.
I think the press has befouled itself in their hysteria and meanness and anger and bigotry and bias.