Ep. 201 - Free Speech Is So Rare, You Can't Even Buy It
Conservatives offer to pay Ocasio-Cortez for the debate she demanded, while lefties give disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok $300K for being a twerp. We’ll discuss the current price of free speech. Then, George Gilder stops by to discuss the death of Google and the rise of block chain. Finally, the MSM think President Trump is stupid, Keith Ellison faces more abuse allegations, and Chris Pratt loves God!
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Unfortunately, it seems no amount of money will entice the proudly ignorant socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to publicly debate any of her terrible policy proposals.
But if that cash is burning a hole in your wallet, don't worry.
Disgraced FBI agent and all-around twerp Peter Strzok is perfectly willing to take it on his GoFundMe.
As the left ramps up censorship of conservatives, we will explain the current price of free speech.
It ain't free, baby.
Then George Gilder steps by to discuss the death of Google and the rise of blockchain.
Finally, you'll be shocked to hear this one.
The mainstream media think that President Trump is stupid.
Can you believe it?
We'll analyze the latest accusation in light of all the others.
I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
I couldn't believe it when I read that, that they think...
The media, they think Trump is stupid.
Shocking.
It's shocking.
We'll get down there.
There's also, we have a little This Day in America segment.
That's two of my segments.
This is America segment where we'll talk about what a cool guy Chris Pratt is.
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Okay, a lot to get to today.
I want to start out basically by...
I'm just going to be honest with you.
I'm just going to lay this on the table.
I want someone to pay me $10,000 to debate them.
I'm on Twitter all the time.
Everybody's offering $10,000, $20,000, $100,000 to debate them on how terrible socialism is.
I'll settle for a hundred bucks.
You know that Ben doesn't pay me.
You know that I'm here in this broom closet, wasting away over here.
I was living in a dumpster in an alternate universe.
I need some money, honey.
The way this all began, if you're a little confused on who's offering who money for what, this began because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that the Republicans are afraid to debate her.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Talk to Nobel Prize.
Waka, waka, waka.
She said that Republicans are afraid to debate her.
So Ben says, I will debate you.
In fact, I will donate $10,000 to your campaign to debate you on the merits of socialism.
So she didn't want to do that, obviously.
She said it was catcalling.
I don't know how she came up with this one.
She said that Accepting a debate challenge, challenging someone to a debate, accepting a debate challenge, is catcalling.
Why did she say that?
I'll allow Alexandria to explain in her own words.
I am not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.
It makes a lot of sense.
She's not the expert.
She didn't know.
That's fair enough.
So she says she's not going to do it.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jenny from Yorktown Heights, says, I'm not going to take this debate.
So then they turn it up a notch.
She pulled the gender card.
So then Candace Owens says, I'll give you 20 grand.
And I think Charlie Kirk said, we'll give you 100 grand.
And then I don't know if the number's at like...
A hundred billion dollars right now or something, but either way, she's not going to do it.
Why won't she?
Why won't she do it?
One of the responses that the Democrats have all lined up on is, she's just running this one congressional race.
She only has to debate her opponent.
She only has to debate her opponent.
She doesn't need to debate random people like, for instance, the guy with the biggest conservative talk show in the country.
You don't need to do that, right?
You don't need to do that.
If she had just stuck to her race, then she wouldn't have to.
But she has positioned herself as the future of the Democratic Party.
The head of the DNC, Tom Perez, says that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the future of the Democrat Party.
She is going all around the country.
She's stumping for candidates in Michigan.
She's raising money in California.
She stumped for that one candidate.
She went out and gave her introduction, then forgot to introduce the candidate she was endorsing.
Because it's all about her.
She's the future of the party.
She's positioned herself this way.
If you're going to be the future of the party, Then you have to debate people.
Then you have to be out there in the public arena and talk to people outside of New York's 14th Congressional District.
Which is very hard because New York's 14th Congressional District is something like 90% Democrat.
It's a D plus 21 district, I think, or D plus 29 district.
It is solidly Democrat.
So she's got to think outside of here if she wants to.
Or if she wants to be the head of that party.
But she isn't going to do that.
This gets to part of the Democrats' problem with free speech right now.
Because she's made herself the superstar.
If she wants to be the superstar, why not engage in the free exchange of ideas?
What is stopping her?
I get practically what's stopping her.
She doesn't know anything, and she sounds very foolish every time she goes on TV. I see the practical reason.
But then maybe she shouldn't be the head of the party.
She will not take the money.
No matter how high the numbers go up, she won't take the money.
Meanwhile, money is pouring in to Peter Strzok.
Peter Strzok, you'll remember that name.
He's the guy who texted his girlfriend, the girl he was having an affair with, his colleague, and said, I'm going to stop Trump from becoming president.
Don't worry, he'll never become president.
As he's investigating President Trump, as he's working in the FBI during the 2016 election, got fired from the Mueller administration, If you don't remember him, here is Peter Strzok looking like a demon before Trey Gowdy at Congress.
Your testimony is Bob Mueller did not kick you off because of the content of your text.
He kicked you off because of some appearance that he was worried about.
My testimony, what you asked and what I responded to was that he kicked me off because of my bias.
I'm stating to you it is not my understanding that he kicked me off because of any bias, that it was done based on the appearance.
If you want to represent what you said accurately, I'm happy to answer that question, but I don't appreciate what was originally said being changed.
I don't give a damn what you appreciate, Agent Strzok.
I don't appreciate having an FBI agent with an unprecedented level of animus working on two major investigations during 2016.
Oh, Trey Gowdy, why are you going away?
Why are you leaving?
That struck.
He comes off as smug.
He had this weird sort of demonic smile look on his face during his testimony.
But how smug?
This is a guy.
The audacity of his GoFundMe campaign is jaw-dropping.
This is a guy who has worked his entire life on the public dole.
He's worked a taxpayer expense his entire life.
Then he was caught being corrupt.
He's caught cheating on his wife with a co-worker, promising her that he's going to use the power of the state, the coercive power of the state, to undermine a democratic election, to undermine a presidential election, to subvert that election and prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.
He then just waits.
He just sits around.
He says, I'm not going to resign.
I'm not going to quit.
Finally, they were able to push this guy out of the bureaucracy.
What's the first thing he does?
He puts his hand out again and says, give me more money.
I need more money.
Give me more of your money.
And the American people, really just lefties, they give him more money.
We must be so rich right now because of the Trump economy that money is literally burning a hole in people's pockets, that they're going to give it to this schmuck.
It is unfathomable.
He puts up his GoFundMe campaign, and I believe the limit was $150,000.
That's what he wanted.
He has now had to up that limit twice because people keep pouring money in.
Do you know how much this guy has raised?
$300,000.
Because he got fired for being terrible at his job and corrupt and trying to subvert democratic processes.
He's raised $300,000.
That's what the left has rewarded him with.
$300,000.
That, by the way, is nearly $300 per minute.
If you factor in all of the waking hours that we have, this guy's making about $300 per minute.
They've raised it twice.
Here's what the GoFundMe campaign says.
This is what's written on it.
Quote, Peter Strzok, a man who has spent his entire life working to help keep us and our nation safe, has been fired.
He needs your help.
For the last year, Pete, his work, and his character have been the target of highly politicized attacks, including frequent slanderous statements from President Trump, who actively and apparently successfully pressured FBI officials to fire Pete.
no.
He wasn't the target of politicized attacks.
He is the politicized attack.
He politicized the FBI to attack a presidential election and to attack President Trump.
That's what he did.
It's unbelievable.
I told you yesterday was the projection day for the Democratic Party.
It was the I know you are but what am I day.
They constantly project what they're doing onto their opponents.
The GoFundMe goes on.
Peter Strzok is a proud husband and father.
Can I end the show there?
How am I supposed to make fun of that?
Peter Strzok, the only reason we know this guy's name is because he was cheating on his wife with a co-worker.
He wasn't even just cheating on his wife with Sally from the diner.
He was actually cheating on his wife, so violating their marriage and violating the bonds with himself and his employer who is the American people.
He's working for the American people.
He's working in the government at an executive agency, a law enforcement agency, that demands integrity, and he's cheating on his wife with his co-worker.
He's a proud husband and father.
Are you kidding me?
He goes on.
A veteran of the U.S. Army and counterintelligence special agent who spent more than two decades in a job he loved at the FBI. Yeah, I bet you loved the job.
I bet you loved the job.
I bet you loved feeling empowered to subvert presidential elections.
I bet you loved apparently having little dalliances with your co-workers.
I bet you loved that feeling like you controlled the power of the state to stop the American people from selecting the president that they want.
I'm sure you loved it.
Tough noogies, buddy.
It goes on.
But last week, in a decision apparently driven by political pressure, a senior FBI official chose to fire Pete.
The reason you were fired is because you were horrible at your job and you violated the trust of the American people.
The shocking story here is not that Peter Strzok was fired.
The shocking story is that he was allowed to keep his job as long as he did, which just shows you the inertia of the federal bureaucracy.
It shows you why we have to slash the power and size and scope of the federal bureaucracy.
But he kept his job anyway.
Unbelievable.
$300,000 this guy gets.
The left now is pouring money, giving money to a lecherous criminal bureaucrat.
That's where they think the money should go.
Where else could this money go?
I don't know, like any charity could go there.
Why don't they give it?
They're always whining about how the federal government doesn't have enough money.
Why don't they give their money to the federal government?
No, they're giving it to this lecherous creep, this little twerp who lives his whole life on taxpayer handouts while simultaneously violating the public trust, and then he demands more money, puts his hand out.
No shame whatsoever.
Could you imagine the shame?
You get fired for your job for violating the public trust and cheating on your wife.
And you're trying to subvert a presidential election.
And then the first instinct is, gimme, gimme, gimme.
I can't support myself.
Gimme, gimme, gimme.
So pathetic.
What a little twerp.
And they're giving money to that guy.
The left is giving money to that guy.
And this all ties in with the debates.
This all ties in with free speech.
Because the left right now...
It feels an utter disdain for the essence of this country.
It feels a disdain for freedom, for the freedom that the United States represents, and for the country, and for the countrymen.
Why do they like Peter Strzok?
Because Peter Strzok tried to use the power of the state in his own words.
He boasts about it in his own words.
Using the power of the state to stop Americans from electing the president they want.
And the left doesn't like freedom.
Doesn't like...
The country doesn't like the American country.
They applaud people when they protest the flag itself, the symbol of the country, and they don't like their countrymen.
They slander them with all sorts of nonsense, constantly, calling them Nazis and white supremacists.
Anybody who's to the left of Vladimir Lenin is a Nazi all of a sudden, or a white supremacist or something.
That's why they like him, because Peter Strzok opposed freedom.
He opposed democratic order.
He opposed his country and his countrymen.
That's why they like him.
You see that same thing with the debate.
They won't debate.
The left will not debate.
We're offering them $100,000.
They won't debate.
Why?
They don't want to engage with us.
They can't defend their point of view.
They need censorship.
It's all about shutdown.
Censorship, back off, block you on Twitter, give money to the lecherous creep who tries to subvert democracy.
It's all about that.
I was on Fox and Friends this weekend, and we were talking about these teachers in Boston, or in a Massachusetts suburb, Who openly admitted that they were going to become liberal propagandists, they were going to disregard objectivity in their teaching, that they were going to brainwash their students.
They're admitting this in a meeting that has been uncovered.
We were discussing this on Fox& Friends and Ed Henry and Abby Huntsman repeated multiple times, if you're one of these teachers and you want to come on and have your voice heard, come on, we'll have you on.
Come on.
Come on the show.
We'll have you on.
But you don't see that from the left.
You don't see the left saying, come on and we'll talk.
It's only the right that does that.
It's only right-leaning networks like Fox, like us.
How many Democrats have I invited on this show?
Every day I try to invite Democrats on this show.
Two people have taken me up on that.
One of whom was Tom Arnold.
Ha ha.
And that was great.
I had a good time doing that.
The right is constantly inviting people in, constantly inviting people to talk.
The left will not do that.
The left never has an actual Republican on their networks.
Who was the last Republican to actually go on CNN? I know they have Anna Navarro on all the time, someone who, to my knowledge, has never once...
Actually advanced the Republican or conservative cause, but they call her a Republican strategist because she plays one on CNN. You know, Anna Navarro, all of these people.
Oh, that one who's so awful in the watch.
Jennifer Rubin.
pretend that Jennifer Rubin's a lifelong lefty.
They pretend that she's a Republican or a conservative.
They don't have people on.
And now you're seeing big tech do this.
You know, look, you saw that they banned Alex Jones from YouTube and Facebook.
Now they've banned Gavin McGinnis from Twitter.
Who knows who's next?
They're getting progressively more mainstream.
Even Noam Chomsky No less a lefty than Noam Chomsky thinks this is a terrible thing and opposes the censorship of people like Alex Jones.
If you aren't familiar with Noam Chomsky, here's an example of a bygone day of yore when the left was willing to engage in discourse.
Here is Noam Chomsky on Bill Buckley's firing line.
I rejoice in your disposition.
To argue the Vietnam question, especially when I recognize what an act of self-control this must involve.
It does.
Sure.
It really does.
I mean, I think that this is the kind of issue where...
You do very well.
Sometimes I lose my temper.
Maybe not tonight.
Maybe not tonight.
Because if you would, I'd smash you in the garden.
You say in your book...
There's a good reason for not losing my temper.
You say the war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act, By weak and miserable men.
Including all of us.
Including myself.
Including every...
That's the next sentence.
Same sentence.
So you heard that the Vietnam War is a weak and miserable act undertaken by depraved men.
This is not a moderate person.
This is a far-left person, Noam Chomsky.
But even he is saying this tendency of the left to just censor, to refuse to engage, to refuse to debate.
He's on Bill Buckley's show.
Buckley's actually making a joke about his debate with Gore Vidal on television where he said, Don't call me a crypto-nazi or I'll smash you in your damn face and you'll stay plastered, you queer!
It goes on and on.
He's making a joke about this, and they're laughing about this and engaging in an exchange of ideas.
This no longer happens.
Right now, big tech is escalating its attacks.
Big tech is controlled by the left.
The people who run these companies are left-wingers.
They're under immense pressure from the left right now because the left blames big tech financially.
They blame Facebook for allowing conservative news, so-called fake news, to pervade the platform.
They blame Twitter for the Russian bots.
Everything's a Russian bot.
I'm a Russian bot.
And they're constantly blaming big tech.
They're under pressure and they're caving.
They're censoring people right now.
This is bad.
And I get really sick and tired of even conservatives who say, well, big tech, they can do whatever they want.
It's not a big deal.
They can do whatever they want.
The First Amendment doesn't...
They have their rights to speech.
It's the First Amendment.
That's fine.
Yes.
Nobody...
Duh.
Nobody disagrees with you that a company can do what it wants to do.
Although, one has to remember, if you're a platform or if you're a publisher, there are certain rules that go along with that.
But, yeah, nobody is saying that they can't do it.
We're saying they shouldn't do it.
We're saying it creates a bad culture.
It's a bad society.
It's not in keeping with American premises.
It's not in keeping with American ideals to censor people with whom you disagree.
Sure, it's not an issue of the First Amendment, perhaps, but it is an issue of the cultural products that go with the First Amendment, of the American ethos.
It is an issue of that.
Big government is very bad.
Censorship by big government is bad.
But big corporation isn't that much better.
I guess it's a little bit better because it has usually less of a monopoly.
But the corporate culture in America does define our culture in so many ways.
When a CEO gets run out of town on a rail because he's contravened the latest leftist orthodoxy, the leftist orthodoxy du jour, that's not good.
That's not something we should celebrate.
Say, oh well, it's freedom.
No, it's okay.
No, that's okay.
They can do it.
Of course they can do it.
Nobody's disagreeing.
We're saying, should they do it?
There's a thought that stops thought, and that's the only thought that ought to be stopped.
Censorship is bad.
Censorship is bad per se, especially in America.
And when corporations do it, we shouldn't just shut down the conversation and say, well, they can.
They can.
Hey, they can, right?
Yeah, sure.
But should they?
Should we hold them accountable and say, no, don't censor people?
Especially when you've got all outsized power, especially when you've got the data of all Americans, especially if you know where Americans are at all times everywhere, and especially when you work with the government.
When you are constantly in contact with the government, all of these big tech firms are.
Fortunately, there's some hope in this.
There are some writers and economists and technologists who are offering hope.
One of those is George Gilder.
George Gilder is an American investor, economist, and author of the international bestseller Wealth and Poverty, which made the case in the early 1980s for supply-side economics and capitalism.
He was the most often quoted living author by President Ronald Reagan, and he now predicts The eventual, if not imminent, fall of Google and big tech companies in his new book, Life After Google, The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy.
I sat down with George Gilder a few days ago to discuss why I shouldn't worry too much about Google and why I should buy a lot of Bitcoin.
Without further ado, here is Mr.
Gilder.
Mr.
Gilder, thank you so much for being here.
Great to be here.
So the book is Life After Google, The Fall of Big Data, The Rise of the Blockchain Economy.
You know, my show personally has been censored by Google, by YouTube.
I know a lot of people now, especially conservatives, but across the political spectrum, have big gripes with big technology, big data.
Give us hope that...
This is a welcome message that there will be a life after Google.
But why is there going to be a life after Google?
Why is Google and big tech going to fall?
And what comes next?
Because the internet architecture that Google and all the big internet leviathans manage...
Google has reached the end of the line.
It doesn't supply security.
It doesn't supply privacy.
It can't sustain factuality.
It really can't ultimately sustain transactions because transactions are necessarily dependent on security.
So Google's response is to give everything for free.
Because who wants to steal free stuff?
But ultimately, this aggregate and advertise strategy that they're pursuing reaches a dead end.
If you're giving away stuff for free as your dominant model, you're The internet fills up with unwanted, value-subtracted minuses called ads, and the whole system breaks into separate walled gardens.
The mullahs of Iran have a walled garden, the government of China, which makes perfect sense if two nerds at Google can have their walled garden and And Mark Zuckerberg had his.
The segmented internet has reached the end of the line, is the essence of it.
And it's just like IBM. You know, everyone thought IBM was the dominant empire of information technology 30 years ago.
And the government mobilized to Regulate it and sue it just at the point that it began to subside into the background of our lives.
Of course.
And it's funny, the IBM example is great because I wonder even if a lot of millennials watching this show remember how dominant IBM was, and then it began to subside.
And now it seems virtually impossible to think of a world after the dominance of these big tech companies.
In your book, you refer to these Silicon Valley types, the heads of Google and Facebook, as neo-Marxists.
They have a neo-Marxist view of themselves and of the world.
I think a lot of conservatives suspect that on a gut level.
But what do you mean by that?
Well, the essence of Marxism was Marx's belief that the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century was the final human attainment.
It provided productivity beyond any possible needs.
And in the future, the only issue would be how to distribute existing wealth rather than how to create new wealth.
Google and itself today believe that their machine learning, their artificial intelligence, their robotics, their algorithms represent the ultimate human attainment. their algorithms represent the ultimate human attainment.
Their error is even grander than Marx's because Marx didn't imagine that the steam engine could usurp the human mind.
Brin and Page imagine that their machine intelligence can usurp and transcend human minds in a grand singularity.
And you believe that this is foolishness, as it was foolishness back then, because we hear so much that in the future, in the not too distant future, I don't know.
I don't know, you can write poetry or something like that.
You won't really have to work.
And your writing speaks sort of uniquely to the dignity of the human person, to the dignity of the individual.
This sounds like very good news, especially for conservatives, but for all of us.
Why is it that we don't have to fear the super-duper AI singularity running, wreaking havoc and surpassing all of human achievement and intelligence?
It's just delusional.
It's the belief, a vast exaggeration of the significance of your own, of the technology of your own time, of your own inventions.
There are computers, these big data centers next to Giant rivers and glaciers around the world that Google's building have nothing to do with human intelligence.
They have to do with processing huge amounts of data faster than it's ever been processed before in human history.
And that data processing that they call machine intelligence is, in fact, totally dumb.
It is utterly dependent on human brains at every point of its development and deployment and definition and application.
And to the extent that it increases human productivity, it will result in more jobs and better jobs and safer jobs and more creative jobs than ever before.
There's just no evidence whatsoever that technology on net has ever destroyed a job.
The failure to deploy technology, Ludditism, and environmental overreach can all destroy jobs, but technology cannot.
Not only can it not destroy a job, but it can't Be a conscious mind.
Of course, and it's interesting that you bring up the Luddites because I think a lot of the times the political left wants to paint conservatives.
We're the Luddites.
We're resisting change.
We're the ones who won't adopt new things.
Meanwhile, it is the left that's resurrecting It's the left which is relying on these old centralized technologies that seem to be, if your thesis is right, seem to be heading the way of the dodo.
The subtitle of the book is The Fall of Big Data, And the rise of the blockchain economy.
What does that mean?
Does that mean we have to all go out and invest in Bitcoin right now?
What is the future of the blockchain economy and what does it mean for politics as well as technology?
The blockchain is a new architecture for security on the internet that starts as a new form of money.
Unlike cash, which affords anonymity, but doesn't give you a record of your transactions, this blockchain economy provides you with anonymity.
You don't have to expose yourself on the screen in order to get a conducted transaction on the internet.
But at the same time, if some Unruly prosecutor comes after you and claims that you're avoiding taxes or concealing transactions.
You can document unimpeachably your own behavior.
So it combines anonymity With attestation in a unique way and a major advance for money.
It also redistributes power.
Today, these walled garden, these leviathan segmented internet with porous security allows all the money and power to be sucked up to the top where the only security is supplied.
The new The blockchain is peer-to-peer and universal.
And put security in your own device and in your own hands with your own content, which you can transact with others.
Across the internet without disclosing all your own personal data.
You keep using that word that very few people on the internet for recent memory have used, which is security.
And now, obviously, big tech has gotten into a lot of trouble for this.
They're being hauled before Congress because they've been so loose with their security.
There have been so many invasions.
There has been so much theft of data.
Why is that?
How is it that these guys, Google, Facebook, that they seemingly ignored security for so long?
And how is it that blockchain brings that security back?
Well, they ignored security because they were giving away all their stuff for free.
They thought they'd discovered the magical...
A strategy to move beyond capitalism to this new eschaton, as Bill Buckley would have called it.
Imminentizing the eschaton, is that right?
Imagining that your own era represents the final things, the final human solutions.
This is the Marxist vision and it's the Google vision and it's been transcended by the blockchain which keeps your own data with you and allows you to use it as you choose across the internet rather than depending on Facebook and Google and It
all to tell you who you are and whether you're permitted to proceed further with any action across the net.
Well, I believe I read somewhere that you were the most cited living author by President Ronald Reagan.
He cited you the most.
And Ronald Reagan was fond of saying that the government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.
And it seems that the same principle applies to big technology companies.
We're all so afraid of Google and Facebook because they have all of our stuff.
They're playing loosey-goosey with it, and they can really manipulate it.
And to say nothing of censoring people and targeting people for unpopular political points of view.
So this is really a breath of fresh hope.
And it's so well written that it's really understandable.
I am somewhat of a Luddite in that I really don't understand technology.
And the book is really clearly written.
It is a must-read book.
Life After Google, The Fall of Big Data, and The Rise of the Blockchain Economy.
The author, George Gilder.
Mr.
Gilder, thank you so much for being here.
Delighted, and thank you for having me.
All right.
What a cool guy.
Most quoted writer by President Ronald Reagan.
Most quoted living writer.
That's not bad.
Okay, I've got to say goodbye.
If you're on Facebook and YouTube, go to dailywire.com.
If you're already there, thank you very much.
You helped keep Covfefe in my cup.
We have a ton more to talk about.
I have to talk about the shocking, breaking news story that the mainstream media think that Donald Trump is stupid.
We'll analyze that.
We'll analyze the Paul Manafort case, what's going on with that, and the latest allegations against DNC Deputy Chairman Keith Ellison.
Nobody else is covering it, so I suppose we should.
You know, it's almost time for our next episode of The Conversation.
on Tuesday, August 21st at 5.30 Eastern, 2.30 Pacific.
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Okay, again, none of that stuff matters.
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Because what is this vessel worth?
Is this vessel worth $10,000?
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Is it worth $100,000?
It's worth even more than that.
Leftist tears are worth even more than $100,000.
We offered.
We said, Alexandria.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, please, let us give you $100,000 for your delicious leftist tears.
She said, no, they're more precious.
They're more valuable than that.
Think about it.
This is like $100 for an annual membership.
You get this?
What a steal!
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Go to dailywire.com.
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All right, this is the breaking news story.
The breaking news story that the mainstream media think Donald Trump is stupid.
That's what they think.
He's stupid.
Do you know how I know this?
Because I was checking my news last night, my Apple News on my phone, and the big headline, the big story, is that Donald Trump, people have to explain to Donald Trump what time zones are.
What a fool.
What a dolt.
He probably doesn't even know what time zones are.
This is the new story, and the left is running this, and they're saying that people close to Donald Trump, unnamed anonymous sources, but don't worry, they're really close to Trump, they say, that guy, he doesn't even know what time zones are.
You know Donald Trump, who has businesses and property in at least 25 countries around the world, has traveled, I don't know, everywhere in the world, and whose present political fake turmoil comes because he regularly traveled to Russia, in part because of his Miss Universe contest?
You know that?
The guy who famously travels all over the world, who keeps up one of the busiest travel schedules of anybody.
He's got meetings in the morning.
He's going to rallies in Michigan at night.
That kind of guy.
Yeah, he doesn't know what time zones are, according to the left.
And I'm actually surprised that the left still is going down this path.
They've been going down this path for a while.
They say, he's so stupid.
Here are the accusations against Trump.
He doesn't understand time zones.
Does anybody really believe that?
I know the left is sharing this article.
The aides close to Trump Anonymous, they say he doesn't understand time zones.
Does anybody believe that?
The evidence, by the way, is that he calls foreign leaders at whatever time he wants to call them.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't understand time zones.
It means that he cares more about his time than Emmanuel Macron's time.
It means that he doesn't care.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry that the president of Uzbeki, Becky, Becky, Stan, Stan, Stan, to quote Herman Cain, has to wake up at a bad hour so that the leader of the free world can speak to him.
Oh, gosh, yeah.
That means that Donald Trump just wants to talk to people.
And by the way, part of the allegation here is that he's in constant communication with world leaders.
I thought the allegation was that he disregards our allies.
He only wakes up to insult them.
No, he's clearly in constant communication with them.
So anyway, that's a pretty stupid one.
The other one, they're saying he doesn't know what maps are.
In this article, they're saying they have to explain to him what maps are.
He doesn't know where countries are on the map.
And again, I don't want to pick on Uzbekistan, but again, to quote Herman Cain, if you can't pinpoint Uzbekistan, that doesn't mean you're an idiot.
How many of you could pick out some of the smaller countries in the world on a map?
Right away.
You probably couldn't.
You know where they are.
You know that they exist.
You probably even know some of their geopolitical importance.
But that's the other one.
He doesn't know what maps are.
Then names of countries.
He struggles with the names of countries.
He can't pronounce them.
Again, like, okay.
When all of these comments, you know, they say he doesn't understand foreign alliances and rivalries.
He doesn't know which countries like one another, which are rivalrous with one another, which are our allies or whatever.
Okay.
Look around the world right now.
We are at a time of greater peace and prosperity around the world than basically at any point in modern presidential history.
We've militarily mostly defeated ISIS. We've avoided major trade wars.
We've avoided major wars.
We've de-escalated tensions in Syria.
We're not starting random wars in Libya.
North Korea seems to be at least at the negotiating table to denuclearize.
He's pretty good on world affairs.
So if the argument is he doesn't know anything about world affairs, the evidence seems to contradict it.
Then the other one, this is another one.
He only eats fast food.
New York Times calls him the fast food president.
He only eats fast food.
Keep barking down that tree.
That's a great one to bark to.
First of all, he owns many high-end restaurants.
The other thing that they said about him was that he only eats steak every night.
Remember, that was the stupid news story six months ago, is that he eats steak and he burns it and puts ketchup on it.
Now they're saying he only eats fast food.
The other one, he spends the whole day watching TV. He's just watching Fox and Friends all day.
When he finishes Fox and Friends in the morning, then he starts watching reruns of Fox and Friends probably, right?
Isn't that what he does?
I mean, obviously that isn't true, but if that were true, and he's accomplishing what he's accomplished, he's accomplishing the conservative agenda, the Heritage Foundation agenda, at a faster rate, according to them, than Ronald Reagan did, then great, keep watching TV, baby!
Let's get him a bigger TV. Maybe he can be even more successful.
The other one, that he spends all day golfing.
Again, if he's this effective while golfing, Keep it up.
Keep putting, buddy.
He doesn't know anything about politics or policy.
This is another canard of the media.
They say he's not...
They alternately say he's a white supremacist and that he's not ideological.
Saying he's got the most pernicious extreme ideology and he's not ideological at all.
Doesn't know anything about politics or policy.
I'm sick of this one because I hear it from conservatives sometimes, too.
They say he's not really conservative.
You know, he's not really conservative.
What do you mean he's not really?
He's got the most conservative record of any president in modern history.
Yeah, but that's an accident.
He's not really conservative.
I know in the real world he's conservative, but secretly, deep down, really, secretly, he's not conservative.
Okay, right, really deep down, got it.
And then the other one is he's never been good at business.
You see the mainstream media constantly talk about this.
He's really terrible at business.
I know he succeeded at the highest levels of obviously politics, real estate, casinos, television, entertainment.
I know he succeeded at the highest levels of that.
But really, secretly, in the secret world, he's not successful at those.
I know he has at least a billion dollars, but secretly, in the secret world, he doesn't have any money.
You're probably richer than he is in the secret world.
I'm sure that all the mainstream media reporters in the secret fantasy world that doesn't exist and only exists on CNN, then it's opposite day.
But here, the facts remain.
And by the way, even with all of that...
All of these absurd attacks.
Even with Omarosa, you know, I don't know, prostituting herself on television.
His daily approval rating is still 50%.
He's still doing better than Barack Obama day by day in terms of personal popularity.
And Barack Obama was personally very popular.
So, ha ha ha.
Before we go, I do want to cover this Manafort case.
So, the big headline here was that the Manafort case is wrapping up.
Even though the defense has not mounted, has not put Paul Manafort on the stand, has not really mounted a defense, they're moving straight to their closing arguments.
To put this in perspective, this is basically what the defense's argument is at this point in the trial.
Everything that guy just says is bulls**t.
Thank you.
That's basically very fitting to have Paul Manafort have his defense attorney be Joe Pesci.
So that's what they're saying.
They're not going to put Paul Manafort on the stand.
They don't want him to be examined or cross-examined.
They're just making their closing arguments right now.
Why is that?
A few reasons.
One, they might want to have a show of confidence.
It could be a good strategy for opposite reasons.
On the one hand, they're confident.
They're going in and they want to look confident at least.
On the other hand, Paul Manafort might be a terrible witness and they don't want the other side to get a piece of him.
So either way, they're going to arrest it.
I think another big aspect is they're waiting for a presidential pardon because this is a witch hunt.
I'm not saying Paul Manafort didn't commit crimes, but this trial has basically been about how Paul Manafort likes really expensive suits.
That's the crime.
He wears criminally expensive suits.
And sure, he laundered money, he did this, he did that.
He did things that a lot of lobbyists on both sides of the aisle do.
Why was he brought under scrutiny?
Why was he brought under scrutiny by...
Bob Mueller, who's supposed to be investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, why does this have nothing to do with the election?
It's all because he worked for Donald Trump.
That was his crime.
He worked for Donald Trump, and so they dug up all this dirt on him, and they're prosecuting him now.
He's probably just waiting for a presidential pardon.
He probably should get it because this has been an egregious miscarriage of justice every step of the way.
And I say that knowing that Paul Manafort probably committed crimes.
I know we're running late.
What do you want me to do?
I've got to cover how the deputy chairman of the DNC might have beaten ex-girlfriends and nobody's covering this whatsoever in the media.
The deputy chairman of the Democrat National Committee may have battered women.
There are allegations about this, and nobody's covering it.
Here is the latest.
Karen Monaghan, the woman who is accusing him, has now released some texts.
Here are some texts from a couple years ago when this happened.
From Karen.
Oh, this is from Keith Ellison.
Karen, when can I come to drop your stuff off?
What should I expect from Austin, her son?
He seems pretty upset.
We talked on the show yesterday about why he's upset.
He's alleging that Keith Ellison beat his mother.
Then Allison says, quote, in a text to this ex-girlfriend, Later on, Monahan says, A lot has come to light this past year and a half, and the boys have seen some things, heard some things that I've tried to explain.
It's been hard on them and shocking.
It's taken a lot for me and others to convince them to allow me to handle things in my own way, in my own time.
A lot has happened.
Now from that, can we conclude that Keith Ellison beat this woman?
No.
No, we can't conclude that.
They say that there's a video, but that this hasn't been released.
Nobody's seen it yet.
Can we conclude that he's beaten this woman?
No.
Should we be asking some questions about it?
Yeah, of course.
Look, in election years, a lot of stuff comes up, even from years past.
So I'm always skeptical of these accusations.
What I really just want to point out is the utter hypocrisy from the mainstream media, which found doctored evidence, a doctored yearbook, alleging that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore was...
Prowling for teenage girls when he was 30.
And they crucified him with this.
With what we know is doctored evidence.
Here, we have a woman saying, I was beaten by Keith Ellison and they are shutting her up.
Every bit of reporting says he's denied it.
He's denying.
No evidence.
He's denying.
The utter hypocrisy of people who pretend to be pro-MeToo, pro-women, fighting against the war on women, whatever...
Also, by the way, on this allegation, there's another woman who alleges abuse by Keith Ellison.
Minnesota Democrat activist Amy Alexander said, quote, I was seduced by the idea of what I thought he, Ellison, represented.
As a perennial Democratic farmer labor activist from the north side of Minneapolis, I worked for and with Ellison on a number of issues and community boards.
Keith belittled me about my weight and constantly criticized my every word in action.
He ostracized me from the community on whose behalf I had worked so hard to advocate.
Feeling exiled, I escaped to New York for the next five years.
In May, Keith wanted to try and quiet me.
So he came to my home uninvited.
We had words.
His anger kicked in.
He berated me.
He grabbed me and pushed me out of the way.
I was terrified.
So now we have a second allegation of physical abuse from the...
Deputy Chairman of the DNC. I don't know.
Have I made that clear enough who this guy is?
The Deputy Head of the Democrat Party, Keith Ellison.
A second allegation of physical abuse, and nobody's covering it.
Nobody will acknowledge it.
And by the way, there is a record of this 911 call.
There is a record of this that she did call 911 on Keith Ellison.
So there is some evidence here.
But the left won't cover it, will they?
They won't do it.
It's funny because Karen Monaghan, the first accuser, is, you know, she did date Keith Ellison so that you do have a certain ideological stripe when you do that.
And she did say, she's turning the identity politics on him.
She said, quote, I know who I am.
I know what I was going through.
We aren't anywhere in society where I wasn't going to get smeared.
As an Iranian, as a woman of color who is an immigrant, do you honestly think I'm going to get validation from a society who's been telling me since I was young that I don't have a voice?
Now, of course, American society does not tell Iranian women that they don't have a voice.
They do the opposite of that.
But I do love that she's turning the identity politics on Keith Ellison.
That is too delicious not to save her.
Before we go, I know I'm running late.
Too bad.
I just want to end on This Is America with a terrific video from Chris Pratt.
Chris, take it away.
Wow, what a great crowd.
Give it up yourselves.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
I'm so thrilled to be here.
I have not been a teen for quite some time.
I love you two.
Thank you.
I'm just so thankful to be here.
Thank you so much.
This means a lot to me.
I know Bryce and I both have so much fun being part of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchise.
Make those movies just for you.
I'm so glad you like them.
I want to thank God.
I always do that when I'm up on a big platform in front of a bunch of young faces.
I say, I love God.
That's my thing.
I love him.
And you should, too.
I love God.
What a great moment for the culture.
We're always complaining about the culture.
And here you've got the biggest movie star in the world, Chris Pratt.
Now this is the second time he's done this in one of these big award shows in front of a bunch of young kids saying, I love God.
It reminds me of, there was this great moment when Pope...
John Paul II, I'm not comparing Chris Pratt and the Pope, but Pope John Paul II during communism came to Poland and you heard chants, you heard cheers, you heard, we want God, we want God.
This popular uprising of calling for God because there's a natural human longing for God and all of our human longings have satisfaction.
When we're hungry, we get food.
When we're thirsty, we have...
There's water to drink, and the natural human longing for God does have a satisfaction in God, and it's great to have a guy who is at the center of popular culture just shouting that from the rooftops.
That is fantastic, so good on you, Chris Pratt.
This is America.
How American is that to just talk about how we love God while being at the center of Hollywood movies and exporting culture?
Really, American culture at its best.
That's it.
That's the show.
Sorry I ran late.
We'll be back.
No, we won't be back tomorrow.
We're going to have a show on Friday instead.
So I'll see you Thursday.
Get your mailbag questions in.
In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
I'll see you Thursday.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Jim Nickel.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
