Ep. 58 - Dems Grill Sessions On Russia: Do You Still Beat Your Wife?
Jeff Sessions headed to Capitol Hill today, where Democrats who couldn’t coherently grill him over alleged Russia collusion grasped for straws, humiliating themselves and entertaining us. Then Josh Yasmeh and Campus Reform’s Cabot Philips join the Panel of Deplorables to discuss Trump slam dunk on getting China to release UCLA basketball players in custody, the total media silence on a Democrat congressional candidates accused of stalking and sending lewd photos to a New Mexico woman, and conservatives’ victory over media matters in the great Sean Hannity Keurig Coffee War of 2017.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jeff Sessions headed to Capitol Hill today where Democrats who couldn't coherently grill him over alleged Russia collusion grasped for straws, humiliating themselves and entertaining us.
We will review the highlights.
Then Josh Yasma and Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips join the panel of deplorables to discuss Trump's slam dunk on getting China to release UCLA basketball players.
Huh?
They can't all be winners.
The total Democrat media silence on the congressional candidate accused of stalking and sending lewd photos to a New Mexico woman and conservatives' victory over media matters in the great Sean Hannity, Keurig, coffee, covefe war of 2017.
I am Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
What a great way to wake up today, I guess.
I got to watch the session's testimony and Democrats just absolutely humiliate themselves, especially Sheila Jackson Lee, my favorite member of Congress, maybe my favorite member of the federal government.
Before we get to all of the highlights, though, I have to tell you a sad story.
I have to tell you this is a personal story.
It comes from my own life.
You've probably experienced this having watched the show and listened to the show.
There was one time that I needed to hire a producer.
And I considered my options.
I walked around the sidewalks.
I looked for people muttering to themselves and sleeping in gutters with a bottle of booze in one hand or what have you.
And I thought that would be the best way to find a candidate.
That's how we ended up with Marshall as the producer.
But what I should have done is gone to ZipRecruiter.
If only I had known—it's too late now—but if only I had known, we could have gotten one of the most qualified people in the country because that's where they all are.
With ZipRecruiter— ZipRecruiter, you can post your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards with just one click.
Nobody has time.
We actually have, you know, walking around the street looking for muttering people aside, we actually do hire people a fair bit.
And it's very complicated if you use other tools.
So you've got to post to this, and you've got to post to that, and you've got to follow this, and you don't get a notification for this one and that one and this one.
ZipRecruiter makes it all simple.
So easy.
You can rest easy knowing that your job is being seen by the right candidates.
Because ZipRecruiter puts its smart matching technology to work.
It actively notifies qualified candidates about your job within minutes of posting so that you receive the best possible matches.
That's why ZipRecruiter is different from all of those other ones that don't do anything.
You just pay them some money and you click a button and nothing happens.
Unlike other hiring sites, ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on the right candidates finding you.
It's not just a board.
It's not just you pin it up there.
It actually finds them.
notifies them, and that way you'll get the best candidates.
You can even get a start on the interview process by adding screening questions to your job post, and then you can help identify the most qualified candidates.
And you also don't need to waste time going through stacks and stacks of resumes.
I'm out here in Hollywood.
The way that people deal with resumes and headshots out here is they get it in the mail, they immediately throw it in the trash, so you don't need to worry about going through That is why 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate through the site in just one day.
That's an amazing statistic because we do these searches for people, seriously, and it'll go on for weeks and weeks and a month, two months.
And this, 80% of employers who are on ZipRecruiter, they get a quality candidate in just one day.
Then the easy-to-use ZipRecruiter dashboard lets you manage your hiring process from start to finish all in one place.
Zip Recruiter is the smartest way to hire.
And today, you can find out why Zip Recruiter has been used by growing businesses of all sizes and industries to find the most qualified job candidates with immediate results.
Because right now, my listeners can post jobs on Zip Recruiter for free.
That's right.
If, unbelievably, some Michael Knowles Show listeners are in a position to hire people, and I believe that.
We're all good capitalists.
We're all serious people.
We know all the news.
We have all the covfefe.
Then you can go check it out right now for immediate results.
It's free.
It's just ZipRecruiter.com slash MKS. You know what that stands for?
Of course you do.
The Michael Knowles Show.
ZipRecruiter.com slash MKS. One more time to try it for free.
Where do you go?
Marshall, do you know where you go?
Yeah.
Where is it?
ZipRecruiter.com.
He doesn't know.
Why didn't I use ZipRecruiter?
Why didn't I use it?
ZipRecruiter.com slash MKS. Okay, let's get to the news.
Attorney General Sessions headed up to Capitol Hill today.
In the buildup, Democrats boasted of how they were going to grill Jeff Sessions on Russia.
Trouble is, they don't have a whole lot to work with because, as left-wing commentator Van Jones pointed out...
What do you think is going to happen this week with the whole Russia thing?
The Russia thing is just a big nothing burger.
Really?
That's a nothing burger.
Whoops.
So, instead, we were treated to a typical tour de farce from Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee.
Here she is.
I took the liberty of reviewing federal crimes against children, particularly those dealing with sexual or physical abuse.
As you well know, Lee Kaufman, Wendy Miller, Debbie Watson Gibson, Gloria Thacker-Deason, and Beverly Young Nelson, these young women have accused this individual, Judge Moore, who is running for a federal office, the United States Senate, of child sexual activity.
Do you believe these young women?
I have no reason to doubt these young women.
And with that in mind, if you believe these young women, do you believe Judge Moore should be seated in the Senate if he wins?
And would you introduce investigations by the DOJ regarding his actions?
We will evaluate every case as to whether or not it should be investigated.
This kind of case would normally be a state case.
I would say Representative Jackson Lee, that the ethics people at the Department of Justice, and I've talked to them about that when this campaign started.
It's the seat I used to hold.
They advised me that the Attorney General should not be involved in this campaign.
I have friends in the campaign.
I have steadfastly adhered to that view, and I think I should continue to do so.
My question is, as I hold up the poster dealing with the report under your jurisdiction, Black Identity Extremists, it is interesting to me that you are opposing individuals who are opposing lethal force.
Similar to the attack on Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King on COINTELPRO, but there seems to be no report dealing with the Tiki Torch Parade in Charlottesville chanting, Jews will not replace us.
Why is there an attack on black activists versus any reports dealing with the alt-right and the white nationalists?
What is your favorite breakfast cereal?
Who won the 1968 World Series?
The reason she's asking these ridiculous questions is, of course, that she doesn't really have anything to say about Russia because this entire testimony today was a ridiculous parade and a charade.
Let's just put this into context.
She is asking the Attorney General, in his official capacity, to comment on a Senate race, on a Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama.
She's then asking him to comment on, I suppose, a potentially criminal case from 40 years ago that would typically be handled by the state anyway.
And so obviously Sessions, who has been around a long time, he's a pretty smart guy, he says, well, with due respect, this has nothing to do with my role, and I'm here, I'm supposed to be testifying in my role as attorney general, not as a Fox News contributor or whatever they're trying to make him into.
Then she brings up Black Lives Matter and looking at some of the protests and riots that have come out of Black Lives Matter, and she says, why aren't you looking into white supremacists or yada, yada, yada?
Now, he says, I don't know what you're talking about, lady.
It's just business as usual at the DOJ. It is worth pointing out, though, that in August, the DOJ sent out a major release that...
They had gotten the largest conviction of white supremacists, Aryan nation prison inmates in U.S. history.
So that happened just a few months ago.
It was the biggest skinhead white supremacist gang prison conviction in history.
89 inmates was what they got.
And in 2016 in the United States, just some interesting statistics, there were 5,770 hate crimes in the United States.
According to DOJ statistics, 46.3% of those were committed by white people.
But that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and I didn't believe the statistic, so I looked a little further down there.
They're defining Hispanic people as white people for that statistic.
So when you look for non-Hispanic whites, that number drops to 26.1% in that category.
Nevertheless, during testimony that where we're supposed to be talking about Russia, we're supposed to be talking about anything that the Attorney General really can comment on, this is the kind of nonsense because Sheila Jackson Lee either doesn't understand what her role is or what the role of this testimony is or realizes she's got nothing and just needs to try to grab as many crazy headlines as she can.
You know, I never miss an opportunity to watch clips of Sheila Jackson Lee.
I'll be on YouTube sometimes, and I'll be, you know, on YouTube, you go from one video to the next.
I will go on an hours-long clip parade of Sheila Jackson Lee.
She is the most entertaining person in D.C. So here are just a couple other greatest hits from her.
My chairman and others for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years operating under a constitution But you did say it.
Again, I'm trying to put my comments into context, ma'am.
I'm aware of the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
But you're not a doctor either.
I'm not a doctor.
Are you?
What do you mean I'm not?
Of course I'm not a doctor.
You're not a doctor.
And I love we've been under the Constitution for 400 years.
It's served us very well for these 400 years.
It hasn't been 400 years since the landing at Plymouth.
But sure, we're under 400 years we've been laboring under this.
So I love her.
She is just absolutely fabulous.
Then the Republicans came around and it became much more coherent after just Democrat inanity.
But still, there were some problems with the Republican testimony.
Here we have the cannons being turned on Hillary Clinton.
As the chief law enforcement official in this country, do you share similar concerns?
And in your opinion, is it legal under current law for a presidential campaign to hide its funding of the compilation and dissemination of political dirt on its opponent by using a law firm to directly pay for the work?
I would think that those matters are worthy of consideration, but as to the details of them and for me to express an ultimate comment today, I'm unable to do so.
Now, obviously Republicans want some investigations of Hillary.
We've had people clamoring for this since the election, into the Clinton Foundation, into the Uranium One deal, into Hillary's collusion with Russia.
But listen to what Jeff Sessions doesn't say.
He says he can't comment on that matter.
Why can't he comment on that matter?
Is it the case that there's an investigation going on?
Is it the case that special counsel's looking into it?
We know that Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group are under investigation by Mueller.
Why can't he?
There's always a little smirk when you see Jeff Sessions testifying, and I just wonder what that smirk means.
Perhaps Republicans are getting what they want, but so far the DOJ has been slow to go after Hillary.
Congressman Jim Jordan, a conservative member of the House Republican caucus, has gotten fed up with this, and he's called for a special counsel.
So on Twitter this morning, calls for a special counsel were popping up.
I think this is because people don't understand what a special counsel is.
The reason for a special counsel is when an investigation would create a conflict of interest if it were undertaken by the DOJ. So the DOJ can't do it because of some conflict of interest.
And therefore they appoint a special counsel to come in and do it for them so that there is no, uh, impropriety and no political dealing that's going on during the investigation.
Now, uh, Sessions has apparently sent a memo to the DOJ asking for their evaluation on whether or not they should investigate, or whether or not a special counsel should be appointed for Hillary Clinton.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for it to, from the information that we have right now.
It seems like the DOJ could just investigate this themselves.
Uh, That said, you know, there are enough special counsels.
Don't do it.
The DOJ should investigate her.
It was a mistake that we have the special counsel from Bob Mueller, but it is what it is and we are where we are.
It is not unusual for multiple special counsels to be going on at once.
You might remember the great days of the Bill Clinton administration.
When there were, I think, 150 million special counsels that were floating around the White House.
There were actually seven.
There were eight under Ronald Reagan.
That is not uncommon.
But if we want to go after Hillary Clinton, it seems to me more special counsels would not be the way to go.
We should do it where we have some control and not let this thing get completely out of bounds, as it seems the Mueller investigation is.
So much grandstanding.
Few answers came out of today's charade for analysis.
We bring on Josh Yasmin, Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips.
But before we talk to those guys, we have to talk about something much more interesting than anything either of them have had to say, and that would be Ring, our second sponsor today.
Ring, we've talked about them before.
They are an excellent company.
Ring's mission is to make neighborhoods safer.
A byproduct of this mission is they keep the lights on here, which is another reason that we love them.
But today, over one million people use the amazing Ring video doorbell to protect their homes.
Ring knows that home security begins at the front door, but it doesn't end at the front door.
So now they have a new product.
This is one that's really cool.
It is the Ring floodlight cam.
So you know the floodlight cam.
Obviously, the criminals in my audience know that when you're trying to break into someone's house, you go in there, that floodlight cam...
Or that floodlight, rather, hits you and then you run away scared.
Well, what this does is it puts a camera in that floodlight.
So just like Ring's amazing doorbell, the floodlight cam is a motion-activated camera that connects right to your phone with HD video and two-way audio that lets you know the moment that someone steps onto your property.
It uploads it to the cloud, so even if that robber climbs up the ladder and rips it out and runs away with it, you'll have it in the cloud.
You'll be able to see it right on your phone.
So you can see and speak to visitors, even set off an alarm right from your phone.
For me, I like to sleep about 14 hours a day, and I take usually seven to eight months of vacation a year.
So if I'm away snoozing on a beach somewhere, and I see that some bad guy's trying to break into my home, I can set off an alarm right from my phone.
Whether you are home or away, the Ring floodlight cam lets you keep an eye on your home from anywhere.
You'll immediately know what is going on.
And it is the ultimate in home security.
You know, in the old days we had Neighborhood Watch.
We had those really clunky home security systems that you had to install and they were extremely expensive and paid all these fees.
That's over.
It's the 21st century.
Get with the 21st century.
Ring is an amazing deal.
You'll save a lot of money.
You'll keep your home really safe.
Right now, Right now you can save up to $150 off of a Ring home security kit.
Because they know that the viewers of The Michael Knowles Show, they probably live in pretty bad areas.
They probably don't make the best decisions in their lives, you know.
So they're giving you $150 off, up to $150 off of this security kit when you go to ring.com slash Knowles.
That's K-N-O-W-L-E-S, like Beyonce, ring.com slash Knowles.
And what is really amazing, they did a study in L.A. in a kind of bad neighborhood of L.A. They gave out a bunch of Ring products and they noticed within six months a 55% reduction in home burglaries.
You can't argue with those statistics.
It is really, really good.
So go there right now.
Ring.com slash Knowles.
All right, panel, how you doing?
Panel, listen, I want to talk to you, but I can't.
We're running late today.
We have the conversation coming up.
So right after this, I'm going to be doing the next episode, the third episode of The Daily Wire's conversation.
It is at 5 p.m.
Eastern, 2 p.m.
Pacific.
There is still time, so only subscribers can ask the questions.
Anybody can watch it on the website, Facebook, YouTube.
Become a subscriber to ask me any question in the world.
How do you become a subscriber?
You go to DailyWire.com.
DailyWire.com, well, what do you get for it?
I know we're all capitalists.
We're all good conservatives.
You get me.
You get The Andrew Klavan Show.
You get The Ben Shapiro Show.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You get this.
You want to talk about home security.
Once, like Hillary Clinton, tries to creep over and sneak into your house and take all your freedom away, then that ring home security kit is going to blast you.
And what you can do is catch all of her delicious leftist tears in the leftist tears tumbler.
It doesn't matter if she's a little hot, if she's a little cold.
We all know she's cold-blooded.
You'll get them there.
They're always salty and delicious.
Go over to dailywire.com right now.
Now we'll be right back to talk about all of the important news with the great panel.
Cabot, Josh, thank you for being here.
We have an expert panel.
I can't help but notice that, Josh, you've positioned yourself in front of every single book in the world.
I'm going to guess you have read about 1% of those.
You've skimmed about 1%.
Less than 1%.
Less than 1%.
Look at Cabot.
He's there just a white wall.
Look at my bookshelf compared to yours.
I don't even see reasons to vote for Democrats there.
I have a few books here propping up my computer, but...
How else am I supposed to evoke intelligence?
I know, it's all about signaling.
In the 21st century, in 2017, it is all about appearances and virtue signaling.
So, let's get to the news, folks.
Look at the cavities so smart.
Early Tuesday morning, three UCLA basketball players were released from Chinese custody for shoplifting, and they safely boarded a 9am Delta flight to come home.
Why is that?
According to all available reports, it's because President Trump What do you think?
So first in regard to the story, the Wall Street Journal first reported this story, and NBC, CNN, all of them picked it up.
It's clear that he intervened.
He spoke to President Xi personally, and he got the job done.
Which is a huge feat.
When foreign nationals go abroad – I mean when American citizens go abroad and you go into these hostile foreign countries, anything could happen.
We saw with Otto Wambier in North Korea.
That was incredibly dangerous.
But Trump got the job done and he displayed his negotiating skills.
Well, that's actually what I want to bring up because people make fun of the art of the deal all the time.
They say, well, it was ghostwritten.
He's probably never even read it.
You know, he's busy running this company and running that company.
But Cabot, is this the art of the deal?
And if so, what is the secret to the art of the deal?
I saw some people on Twitter comparing this to when the Iranian hostage crisis ended on Ronald Reagan's first day in office.
I don't know if it's that extreme to where there are all these victories.
It is obviously a victory.
I think maybe the difference is that President Trump has taken a much harder line throughout his campaign.
He pretty much had this whole narrative of being tough on China and being tough on every other country.
So I guess maybe that's having an impact.
And also, I think the Trump that we saw throughout the election and really we see on a day-to-day basis and on Twitter is not the Trump that many of these world leaders get.
I think a lot of them are pleasantly surprised when they see his willingness to compromise with them.
He is a businessman, an international businessman at that.
So I think that's helping his clout with some of these foreign leaders.
I don't think it's that he's this world-class, number one best dealmaker in the world.
It's also not that he's a bubbling idiot the way the media is making it out to be.
There's a middle ground there, but there's not too many other ways of spending this other than a victory for the Trump administration, especially on the PR front, in getting these guys home.
And yeah, President Abe of Japan clearly seems to like him, or Prime Minister rather, clearly seems to have been impressed by him.
He's always giving him gifts and silly hats.
And he does seem to have made an impact on world leaders.
Now, Josh, you're a foreign policy guy.
How do you rate this Asia trip?
His poll numbers are increasing, so it seems to be affecting the public.
Has he handled himself, A, better than people thought he would, and B, better than his predecessor, for instance?
Well, his predecessor didn't do much as far as, you know, Chinese— He led from behind.
What are you talking about?
Well, he had this idea of—President Obama had this idea of an Asia pivot.
So he wanted to leave the Middle East behind, let it crash and burn, and move on to Asia, you know, establish trade relationships, strengthen the bond there.
He never got there because the quagmire in the Middle East kept pulling him back.
Yeah.
President Trump seems to really be doing well at this balancing act.
He's taking care of ISIS. He's getting the job done there.
And he's talking to Asian leaders.
He's trying to strengthen bonds there.
I will say that some of his rhetoric on trade...
I'm somewhat opposed to.
But what about his action on trade?
Because we were all nervous.
We were told we're going to get tariffs and trade wars, and none of that has happened.
Was it bluster?
Was it just a negotiating position?
Or are you still afraid that we're going to dive into some trade war?
A lot of it was this populist kind of rhetoric.
And when he gets to the negotiating room, I think he's a lot more realistic about what's required about the importance of U.S.-Chinese bilateral trade relationships.
And from everything we're hearing, it went smoothly.
President Xi was satisfied.
Our partners in the South Pacific were satisfied.
Even the media, they didn't have much to criticize them on.
So it went well.
We don't know yet how much came out of those meetings, so we have to wait and see what the White House says, what the Treasury Department says, what State Department says.
Absolutely.
And I do want to bring it back a little bit to Russia as the final point on this foreign policy and this Asia trip.
All we've heard about are the relentless drumbeats of Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.
You're the foreign policy guy on the panel today.
Is Van Jones right?
Is Russia ultimately a nothing burger?
No.
I think it is.
When it comes to Trump, there was no collusion.
At least there's no evidence of collusion.
But, you know, I said from the beginning that General Michael Flynn was dirty.
He got $15 million from the government of Turkey.
A couple guys in the periphery, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos.
Those guys, they're questionable.
But they were marginal characters in the Trump campaign.
So to sully the entire campaign and to say that Trump is dirty or he's corrupt is as Van Jones says, nothing broker.
It's made up.
But there are some questions, lingering questions about these periphery figures, Manafort, Papadopoulos, Flynn.
We should question them and we should question what they're about. - Cabot, this brings up a question for you.
I have a dichotomy for you.
George Papadopoulos or George Stephanopoulos?
The media have harped on this Russia thing forever and ever.
We had this absolutely useless testimony today that was funny.
I enjoyed that part.
That was a nice way to wake up.
But the American people seem to not like, you know, they don't want Russians interfering in our elections.
They don't want us collaborating with foreign powers or yada, yada, yada.
But they really hate the media.
They really hate the media the most.
So which poses the greater threat?
WikiLeaks sending a couple tweets to Donald Trump Jr.
or a corrupt news media run by people like George Sukalupagus, as Andrew Klavan calls him, that are shilling for Democrats all the time?
Can I take neither in this situation?
It's like, do you want arsenic or hanging?
That's a tough call, but I mean, if it's...
Again, I don't want to make big, sweeping statements about the Russian investigation until it is concluded.
I think the American people would really do well to get the facts in this and not have to deal with the media rhetoric.
In the big picture, though, if the investigation continues to not show any evidence of collusion, as it hasn't so far, I do think the problem of the media is a larger, long-term problem for the country.
When people don't know who to trust, they don't even know what's going on.
on.
It's just this sensationalist drivel that's coming out from the mainstream media where everything has to be the end of the world and with so many different things, you know, spelling doom.
Anything President Trump does, it's, you know, we're, you know, going towards the edge of oblivion and it's hard for American people to keep up with what is supposed to be killing them that day.
What's supposed to be killing them?
They wake up every day, like, what's the narrative?
Like, what's supposed to be scaring me that President Trump is doing today?
You know, how near is our country to, you know, falling off and And the American people, it's sad that many of them have fallen for this.
But again, I think the media is to blame, and it's this sensationalism where if everything is sensational, then nothing is, and the media doesn't realize that.
They're either sensationalist or they're dead silent on it because there was this – did you hear – I'm sure you haven't.
Did you hear about the congressional candidate, Democrat congressional candidate David Alcone, who has been arrested in New Mexico for stalking a woman and sending her photos of his genitals?
You haven't heard about that because not a single mainstream news source is covering it because Alcone is a Democrat.
Not one.
When you look it up, it's like the Santa Fe Shopping Cart Tribune or the local Albuquerque – It's these really local papers.
No one is covering it.
Meanwhile, mainstream media are doing their best to black out Trump's overseas trip with tabloid coverage of Roy Moore's alleged sexual misdeeds 40 years ago.
Josh, in the face of this flagrant media bias, is it any wonder that people will still vote for Roy Moore?
Well, let's be clear.
The Democratic Congressional Committee has already come out and condemned.
When did that come out?
This story happened a week ago, two weeks ago.
Right.
They came out after the fact.
And there's clear hypocrisy, though.
Don't get me wrong.
I think you're right.
I think that there's going to be pushback against these allegations on more.
People may vote for them anyway, which I think is unfortunate.
But there is this double standard.
But what do we mean by unfortunate?
I mean, I get it.
A lot of this testimony is very compelling, especially that Gloria Allred interview that came out yesterday.
The only thing that makes me not believe that interview is that Gloria Allred was there.
That's the main issue with it.
But there are issues on the line here.
We're talking about freedom.
We're talking about a razor-thin Senate majority.
We're talking about issues that will affect your freedom and mine, your national security and mine, your constitutional adherence and mine.
Cabot, is there a good argument for voting for Roy Moore, even if the charges are true?
Even if 40 years ago he was a weird creep and even if the worst charges are true and he was a kind of vicious guy, Is there still an argument to vote for him because we're talking about politics and we're talking about freedom and we're talking about how our government will compose itself both on the international front and here in the United States?
I've been getting some flack for this, and I've been getting some hate from some other conservatives on social media for this.
But I truly would rather we lose an election than have to explain to our children in the future why we supported a guy who was accused of being a rapist, who was accused of having relationships with 14-year-old girls as a grown man.
I think that certain things you don't compromise on, and I don't think we want to be the party that is electing a guy who's accused of all this.
Now, again, there needs to be due process.
We need to make sure that we're getting the facts on this, but as it stands now— I know there's a statute of limitations on many of these issues, but again, as it stands now, I tend to believe many of these accusers, I think that looking at the evidence and mouthing up against him, it doesn't look good.
At the very least, he's a complete creeper, and what grown man is going around hanging out with high school girls trying to pick up young girls at the mall?
I think that is not something that is something we want to be promoting in the party, but as far as the actual election itself goes, I don't think that Mitch McConnell coming out and saying don't vote for him is going to drive anyone in Alabama away from voting for him.
Looking at the vitriol that many people in Alabama have towards the Republican establishment, the more old school senators in D.C. that come out and say we don't want this guy in the Senate, I think the more it may help him get votes in Alabama.
Again, I don't agree with that strategy, but I do think that looking at logically in Alabama, I think that could be helping him in some ways.
But on the morality of this issue, and I'm not sure which way it really falls, let's not forget, if Republicans still go out there—I mean, none of us are in Alabama, but if Republicans in Alabama go out and they vote for Roy Moore, and then he's seated as a U.S. senator, and we maintain our Senate majority, and we get good pro-liberty legislation passed, you know, constitutionally— Constitutional legislation passed and legislation to protect the Constitution.
If we maintain that majority and then we have a stave against impeachment or a stave against conviction of the president, what would you rather do in 40 years say, yeah, there was a really creepy guy, probably not a very good guy, who was in the Senate for a while.
And that's probably not good.
Or would you rather say, yeah, because we decided that accusations from 40 years ago are enough to knock off a Senate candidate, we lost our majority and we had to enshrine Obamacare and we didn't get tax reform.
We lost our presidency because he was impeached and we didn't get any decent judges and your First Amendment's gone and your Second Amendment's gone.
But hey, I feel good about myself because we didn't support that really creepy guy.
It doesn't seem like a clear moral question to me.
Josh, what do you think?
Yeah.
No, I think it's a slippery slope.
If conservatives are going to condemn Harvey Weinstein, conservatives are going to condemn these Hollywood liberal elites.
There has to be consistency.
Why?
Harvey Weinstein doesn't adjudicate whether or not my government encroaches on my freedom or not.
Harvey Weinstein is a gross producer in Hollywood who makes bad movies and some good movies, but he's a bad guy.
And we're talking about the Senate.
The distinction I'm trying to make here is between this guy's weird personal life 40 years ago and the politics of it and the liberty of it and the freedom.
There's a difference, though.
I think there's a difference between a weird personal life and an illegal personal life.
And if we're going to be the party of morality and the party of law and order, how can we stand by a guy who...
But he hasn't been convicted of anything.
These accusations are coming.
And I'm not saying I don't believe them.
I actually am tempted to believe them.
I'm compelled to believe them.
This guy has no due process.
We're talking about accusations well past the statute of limitations.
Does this mean that whenever Democrats get upset in a bad race, they can find somebody?
And I'm not saying that that is what's happening in this case.
But if your principle holds true, then doesn't that mean they can find somebody, hurl some accusations, and we have to jump off the guy even if there is no due process?
Well, there's a big difference between accusations and people coming forward with evidence and with a repeated pattern.
Well, the yearbook is pretty bad.
The yearbook doesn't look good.
But also, when it comes to this guy's morality as a whole, can we just assume that he's going to all of a sudden support all of these conservative principles once he gets elected?
If we can't trust him to be honest about his history, if we can't trust him to follow the law and not be a scumbag in the way it appears, can we really trust him?
In public life, his record has been extremely conservative.
Now, are we saying that someone who's ever broken the law can't be a conservative?
Well, you know, there but for the grace of God go I, because all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God, right?
His entire standard is still a higher standard than some random guy that's creeping them all.
Totally.
I totally buy that.
I mean, this guy's probably going to lose anyway because that was such a devastating press conference yesterday.
I'm just pointing out that there are two different aspects here.
We're talking about this guy's creepy personal life.
Listen, you've met a lot of politicians.
I've met a lot of politicians.
They're basically all terrible people.
There are a few exceptions that I could name, but they're all just desiccated, awful people who have no sense of integrity or soul or really even wisdom.
They just have a desire for power.
And so I don't know.
I'm just not surprised by this.
I think if these accusations are true, it's really awful.
And the Luther Strange campaign should have figured it out so they could have knocked him out early and we could have won this seat.
Or the oppo research.
Yeah, done some oppo research.
But that does raise a question.
Why couldn't Strange figure this out?
Why couldn't any of his opponents in all of the years he's been in public life figure it out?
Josh, last word.
I think the difference is Roy Moore has premise his entire campaign on being holier than thou.
This is a morally infused campaign.
He said he's going to legislate based on his moral principles.
And if that's the case, and he's an immoral character, then none of this follows.
Then his campaign doesn't make sense.
It's inconsistent.
It's hypocritical.
I don't think that he's going to win, and I don't think that what he did should be viewed in any sort of positive light, regardless of the costs and benefits of having him in the Senate.
Well, that's a fair point, too, that in this case, there is hypocrisy.
Whenever you're going to stand for a moral standard or a traditional standard, then you are going to come under the microscope for it.
And that's too bad, because the Democrats don't have any standards.
They don't have any standards at all, which means they might be vicious, awful people, but at least they aren't hypocrites.
Roche-Foucault says that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, but in this case, it's probably enough to make this guy lose a Senate race.
Maybe he should lose the Senate race, but it's really too bad that his Republican opponent couldn't have dug this up a while ago, kicked him out of the race, and then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
To quote a great man, sad.
Maybe we should have followed the candidate that President Trump endorsed.
Excellent.
Thank you for being here.
Cabot Phillips from Campus Reform and Josh Yasma.
I will talk to you both very soon.
That's our show today.
It's a little short today because we have to do The Conversation, which is coming up at 5 p.m.
Eastern, 2 p.m.
Pacific.
Log in.
It's not too late.
Subscribe now.
And, well, I guess if you're watching it right now, you've already subscribed.
So thanks for doing that.
Send in some questions, and I will talk to you all in about an hour.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
I will see you very shortly.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Alex Zingaro.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
And our associate producer is Bailey Lynn.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
