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Nov. 6, 2018 - The Michael Knowles Show
48:52
Ep. 246 - How I Got Suspended From Twitter

Bad jokes and dad jokes—we analyze with funnyman extraordinaire Owen Benjamin. Then, a VICE writer is outraged that he can't vote because he's ineligible to vote. Finally, a look around the races on the last day before the midterms! Date: 11-05-2018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Bad jokes and dad jokes abound, as alleged SNL comedian Pete Davidson mocks a veteran's injury with no consequences, and I get kicked off of Twitter for telling a dad joke.
We will analyze the comedy double standard with funnyman extraordinaire Owen Benjamin.
He's actually my consultant on getting deplatformed on social media.
Then, a millennial writer whines in the pages of Vice that he has been disenfranchised from voting in Tennessee, merely because he's not eligible to vote in Tennessee.
Also, he's committing insurance fraud.
Finally, a look around the races on the last day before the midterms.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
I knew I'd get banned from Twitter at some point.
It was only a matter of time.
I figured it might be something that I said that was incendiary or controversial or politically incorrect.
No, no.
No, no.
It was for telling a dad joke.
We will go into it and precisely what got me deplatformed and why Jack Dorsey is a big jerk.
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Well, I've missed you all.
I've missed you all the last few days.
Usually I get to talk to people over the weekend on Twitter, and this time I couldn't.
By the way, I've never been more productive in my entire life.
Not being on Twitter has freed up so much of my time.
They have kicked me off.
The reason that they have suspended me, because I could get my platform back in two seconds.
All I have to do is delete the offensive post.
Eventually, I suppose I'll have to, but I'm resisting for now.
They want me to delete a post, and it's wrong.
I don't want to delete it.
The post that I tweeted out that created so much trouble was this.
It said, quote, Remember Democrats, don't forget to vote on Wednesday, November 7th.
Ha ha ha, do you get it?
Because election day is Tuesday, November 6th, but I said Wednesday, November 7th.
Ha ha ha, get it?
This is one of the oldest jokes in elections.
People have told this forever.
A ton of lefties told it, and by the time I was kicked off, had not been kicked off.
But then I even went further.
I went further to show the punchline of this joke, because I suspected they might use this as an excuse to kick me off.
So I added to that tweet, the addition to that tweet said, quote, Thank you, Jack Dorsey and Twitter, for proving my point.
For proving my exact, you couldn't have done it any better.
I go, I log on to Twitter, and so I told this joke, and nothing happened for 24 hours.
The time I got kicked off of Twitter was when Donald Trump Jr.
retweeted something that I had sent out.
I'd criticized CNN or something like that.
Don Jr.
retweets it.
Almost immediately, I'm kicked off of Twitter.
A full day after I send out my election joke.
And a ton of other of the same election joke all up on the internet.
I mean, here's, SNL made a similar election joke in their coverage.
Here they are.
You know, my friends can't wait to vote.
So we'll see you at the polls next Thursday.
Tuesday.
I know, Mom, I'm kidding.
It was not funny!
So be part of the victory.
Get out there and vote.
Promise me you're gonna vote.
I am.
Feels pretty good.
We're gonna win!
Stay in there!
There's a longer bit that SNL did.
Is SNL going to get kicked off of Twitter?
Is SNL going to get kicked off of YouTube for saying, oh, it's on a different day.
Ha ha.
It's on Thursday.
It's on Wednesday.
It's not on Tuesday.
Of course not.
A ton of blue check marks had tweeted out, hey, Republicans, don't forget to vote on Wednesday.
Ha ha ha.
And they had not been blocked.
So they block me.
I log into my account and it says, quote, your account has been locked.
We have determined that this account violated the Twitter rules.
As a result, we've locked your account.
What rule did I violate?
Can anybody show me the rule that I violated?
Because I look through the Twitter rules.
There's no rule that I violate.
There was one blog post that talked about misleading during an election.
But what it was talking about was misleading who you're representing.
If you're representing a campaign or a political party or this, obviously I'm not representing any of those things.
So specifically, it didn't say you can't make election jokes.
But of course we know that because they didn't kick off the left.
They only kick off right-wingers or use it as an excuse.
So at this point, I'm kicked off.
Some of the Daily Wire guys start a free Knowles hashtag.
So it gets a lot of posts very quickly.
So Twitter finally responds.
They won't respond to my appeal.
I appealed that ruling and I said, look, I actually explicitly say...
I explicitly underline the punchline to the joke, which is a poll about kicking conservatives off Twitter.
You shouldn't kick people off for a joke, but even in this joke, I'm explicitly not talking about the midterm elections.
They won't respond to my appeal, but they responded very quickly when we started pointing out all the left-wingers who made the same joke.
They deleted their posts.
They deleted those posts.
They would rather censor a handful of leftists Then stop censoring conservatives.
Absolutely outrageous.
So they've kicked me off of Twitter.
At some point, I'll have to take down the post.
In part because the election will be over, so there's no reason to have it up anymore.
And Twitter also already took down the post.
But they will not respond.
This is targeted.
This is a ton of bias.
And the question that we need to ask these big tech companies like Twitter is...
Does their interference constitute election interference?
Does their interference, their censorship of conservatives over left-wingers, so close to an election, is that an in-kind contribution to Democrat candidates?
Is that interference?
I think we should hold them to account.
I think we should burn their bank accounts down to the ground if they're violating election law, because that certainly seems like what they're doing.
Are they publishers or are they platforms?
Are they publishers or platforms?
They say they're platforms.
They behave like publishers.
They say they're open and anyone can use it and the rules are clear.
And then they start selectively, unfairly targeting people with whom they disagree politically and kicking them off right before an election.
If they're publishers, treat them like publishers and burn their bank accounts down to the ground.
Now, obviously, I'm having a little trouble processing this.
I haven't been kicked off of Twitter before.
Fortunately, though, I have someone who is well acquainted with getting kicked off of social media platforms.
The very funny Owen Benjamin is here, my consultant on getting kicked off of Twitter.
Thank goodness I have my Twitter band consultant, Owen Benjamin here.
Owen, thanks for coming on.
Thanks for having me, brother.
Yeah, I'm here to help you through your transition.
I was previously a platformed American.
I'm now trans and de-platformed.
You've been de-depth.
I've been de-depth.
I'm glad, too, that you're here because, I mean, you're an expert in comedy.
I was kicked off of Twitter for making a really incendiary, violent, oh no, it was a dad joke.
I made a dad joke.
And then I got kicked off.
And a bunch of lefties made the same joke.
They stayed on.
Well, they'll kick you off if you kick a sacred cow, even if it's not.
I was banned for life for making fun of David Hogg.
And that's when I realized there was something seriously going on with that kid.
I've made fun of David Hogg.
Maybe not on Twitter, though.
I actually don't think I've ever made fun of him on Twitter.
Well, I was pretty relentless.
And then when they realized how they could get me, which is so ironic to the leftist disposition in Hollywood, because I said, anybody that isn't old enough to grow pubes can't tell me not to have a gun.
Which is a...
They said I was sexualizing a minor.
He was about to be 18, and that's not sexualizing a minor.
They are sexualizing minors.
You lost your career because you refused to sexualize minors.
Because of the trans kid thing, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And people don't believe me, so I may read emails and say, eh, eh, it's kind of a little blah, blah, blah.
But like...
Do it.
They fired James Woods.
They fired James Woods.
And it's the heart of darkness.
There's that.
It's just like the mowing hole.
They started the Me Too movement in a conference room as they were repping Harvey Weinstein.
Yep, that's right.
So, you know, there's that.
But, yeah, I refused to, or I was calling out this dude who had a five-year-old boy that he was saying was a girl and he was going to put him on hormone blocks and stuff.
I'm like, that's abuse hiding in plain sight, you know?
Right.
People can be broken up between, like, abusers, people that sit by and watch, and then people that don't sit by and watch.
It's kind of what the world's broken up into, and they get real mad when you don't let them eat the babies.
Bill, when did you get here?
President Clinton.
I love it.
What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Yeah, that's really...
Come on, I'm a little hungry.
Can we eat one of these little babies?
That is how the election is going to break down.
And the fact that they kicked me off...
Well, it's by design.
It's by design.
It is by design.
There's no question.
Because, you know, I think they kicked me off because it wasn't what I said.
I said something.
I made some joke about the election that everybody makes.
And then they kicked me off the next day, right after Don Jr.
tweeted something that I said making fun of CNN. And it was right then they almost immediately kicked me off.
Isn't it a bad look for them, though, to kick off conservatives, blue checkmark conservatives, Two days before the midterm elections?
You'd be surprised how many people don't notice.
One of the great things and weaknesses of conservatives is usually we have jobs and families.
So it's like a lot of people don't, they can't tell unless they're listening to the podcast.
You know, they're just like looking and working and dealing with families.
You know, a lot of leftists are unemployed, you know, just childless, childless, you know, warlocks and witches.
They're just running around doing spells and stuff and chanting.
You know, you're joking.
Witchcraft abounds right now.
I am not speaking about some fringy thing.
Vox.com encouraged left-wingers to practice witchcraft.
Everyday feminism encouraging people to practice witchcraft.
John Podesta, didn't he have some spirit dinner or something?
Yeah, and I just introduced my wife, who's here, to some of these emails.
This last week, because some of this stuff I missed, I've just been coming out of my office like, Amy, they're witches!
They're actually witches!
And then door closes.
I open the door.
Something weird is happening in Haiti!
You know, because I don't like going down the conspiratorial rabbit holes that you can't prove, but the ones that are just right there.
Like, they have parties where they cut up a cake that looks like a human body, and they're like, how is your flesh tasting, Hillary?
And they're like, mmm.
And they think that's normal.
Yeah, they're like, we're taking strength from it.
I'm like, dude, most of my buddies are like truck drivers and plumbers and stuff.
Like, no one's like...
Not hosting spirit dinners?
No, that's hedonic treadmill, like, your whole life.
That's like you've run out of sins and you just have to invent them.
Yeah, you're almost tempted to practice virtue because you've just run out of sins.
Maybe I'll give virtue a try to get some adrenaline.
Dude, I've been doing lines of ethics all morning.
It's nuts, man.
I turned down a murder this morning and I feel like I can't feel my face.
Oh yeah, I've been faithful to my wife for days now.
Dude, I'm so high off it.
So it seems like everything's going well for you.
It is.
You're really high off.
No, it's fun being off Twitter.
It actually clears your head a little bit.
This is what I've wondered, because you've been thoroughly deplatformed.
You're still on YouTube.
Yeah, I'm on YouTube.
And then they took away my live streaming, so I started another channel.
And it was up to, you know, like 2,000 people watching within like a week.
That's the thing, is they keep trying to get rid of people, and all it does is solidify your base.
It's really, it's having the opposite effect, and it's kind of hilarious to watch.
This is what I think, because they think they kick you off Twitter, they kick me off Twitter, and then the audience goes away, and then nobody hears from you ever again.
But then you crop up again and immediately you get your whole audience back.
This is what I think is going to happen in the midterms.
This is what I suspect is happening.
We have been told 0% chance Republicans are going to get blown out in the House.
Don't even vote.
It's not even worth it.
Yeah, I think I'm very optimistic.
I know Clavin freaked both of us out a little bit.
He did.
He keeps texting me.
He's now become Ben.
He's texting me all this pessimism.
But being a comedian and just never bending the knee, I get to see a lot of perspectives.
It's never the people they say are against Republicans.
It's never these big voting blocks.
In fact, a lot of times it's the opposite.
It's always these leftist weirdos that are literally eating human cake flesh.
They're like, oh, the Jews hate Trump.
And meanwhile, all these Israelis are emailing me like, we love that dude!
Meanwhile, Israel is building Trump a train station in Jerusalem.
Literally!
And they're not against political correctness stuff.
That's right.
It's only white girls from your alma mater.
I know.
They're ruining the world.
They're ruining the entire world.
White millennial girls, they all have some Ivy League degree, certainly.
And they're offended on behalf of every other person on Earth.
Literally.
They're like, well, I have a made-up friend whose friend is black.
And Jerome doesn't like it.
Yeah, T-Bone.
And that's the thing is they always treat them like the worst stereotypes of what they're trying to defend.
That's right.
They're like, they can't read, so that isn't very nice of you.
And you're like, they can read!
They can read.
They do this on voter ID. They say, we can't, look, Michael, we can't require IDs to vote.
Black people can't get IDs.
Exactly.
I think they can.
I'm pretty sure black people are entirely capable of getting IDs.
In fact, I think they have IDs.
I've been to bars with black people.
I've bought tobacco.
I've traveled on airplanes.
I think they can get IDs.
If they stop importing them, I think you'll see Hispanic people start leaning right.
Oh, yeah.
They already do.
That's why they lean left, just because they get a new crop of illegals.
And they're like, we'll give you a card if you vote for this witch.
And Hillary's like, Abracadabra!
And that's the thing.
People assume that my wife was on the left because she's half Mexican.
And I'm like, her whole family's on the right.
Why would you assume that?
It makes no sense.
I'm really tall.
I don't play basketball.
I'm not black.
That's true.
It's a stereotype.
You know, this actually, what you've just said, Your wife.
She makes me really grateful for America.
She does.
The American dream.
It is the dream.
The American nightmare being married to Owen Benjamin sometimes.
She's a brave woman.
But it makes me really grateful.
And this reminds me of Operation American Gratitude.
Oh, tell me more about it.
I don't know if you've heard about this.
Operation American Gratitude.
I really like them for two reasons.
One, because then we can make a little money, honey.
But two, you know that?
But also, they do excellent, excellent work.
This is the opposite of witchcraft.
Operation American Gratitude was started when the founder heard a Vietnam veteran say on his podcast that he had never been welcomed home in 50 years since returning from Vietnam.
So, Operation American Gratitude, you go, you get a box, you'll get your own kit, it'll give you a bunch of thank you cards for veterans, an interview of veteran card, a you are not forgotten card, a POW MIA card, a 58-220 card, that's the people who were lost in Vietnam for those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and what's more, 100% of the profit from Operation American Gratitude goes toward building the Freedom Never Sleeps business training center in beautiful Eagle, Idaho.
I love Idaho.
I love Eagles.
That's the best combination.
I don't love Eagles.
We'll get to that in a second.
I'm trying to take out my chickens.
Go on.
Okay, all right.
Fair enough.
It's an on-site, six-month paid entrepreneurship training program designed for veterans and underprivileged youth.
You can make life better for Vietnam veterans, and you can also instill a sense of gratitude so that your kids don't grow up to become these screeching, awful, millennial, America-hating people.
Gratitude really is the antidote to witchcraft.
It is.
It actually is.
If you're around Hillary Clinton and you're like, oh, thanks for this coffee, she'd just be like, and she'd just melt into just a puddle of something that Bill would be like, can I drink up that puddle?
Like, they're just so gross.
Anyway, how do people know that you sent them?
The way that you can find out that I sent them is to go to RaisingAmericans.com slash Covfefe.
C-O-V-F-E-F-E. Get your Operation American Gratitude Kit.
You will get a 25% discount for this week only in honor of Veterans Day coming up.
You can make Vietnam Veterans Lives Better.
Help your kids learn some gratitude for less than 20 bucks.
As always, partnering alongside Operation American Gratitude makes you 50% more likely to meet George Washington in heaven.
Whoa!
It's guaranteed.
Happy Veterans Day.
And will you be grateful if they do this?
I will be extraordinarily grateful if they do this because this is the great thing about a rising tide lifting all ships and American productivity.
You help us.
You help the show.
You help get a message out.
You help Vietnam veterans.
You help little kids.
The only people you don't help are those witches.
Which you don't want to help.
You don't want to help them.
No.
Absolutely not.
So go over there.
RaisingAmericans.com slash Covfefe.
That's right.
You should go over there, too.
I will.
Absolutely go over there.
I might spell Covfefe wrong, though.
I'm going to have to Google it.
I know.
I think I picked the worst promo code.
I think I've lost about 50% of advertising revenue because I picked a word that is a misspelling.
Right.
That is, by definition, a misspelling.
What's the best promo code you think you could use?
Oh, real quick, I do have to address the Eagle situation.
Yes.
Please.
Because we live in Washington and we have a bunch of chickens and a bunch of dogs and a bunch of eagles.
And at first I was like, God bless America, look at those eagles flying.
And then there'd be like five.
And it's now just this like border wall situation with the chickens.
Where I just keep trying to keep the...
Because the eagles are huge and they'll just come down and be like...
Just let them in.
They're not trying to hurt the chickens.
They just want a better hen house.
They just want to work in the hen house.
They just want to come over to the hen house.
Don't even check what species they are.
Doesn't matter.
Might as well be a caterpillar.
Those talons and that giant sharp beak are just randomly there.
Are you trying to tell me that just because Guatemalan authorities arrested seven human smugglers in the caravan, those eagles are trying to do your chickens harm?
Who's to say what rape is?
I mean, who are you?
Yeah, that's going to be the new post-modern book, I think.
Who's to say?
Well, you can always tell someone's up to no good when they're trying to redefine monstrous terms.
Like, that's the biggest red flag ever.
It's like, well, who's...
Yeah, yeah.
What happened with Polanski, with all the celebrities, remember Whoopi Goldberg was like, well, it wasn't rape-rape.
It wasn't rape-rape.
It wasn't real rape.
Right.
Yeah, so when you're trying to make these distinctions, you back away.
You should just back away, you know.
It's like, no, I'm a centrist-rape guy.
Yeah.
I'm kind of in the middle, you know?
I like to get along with everyone at Thanksgiving.
Come on, I'm a moderate.
I'm not an extremist is what I'm saying.
I'm not going to take an extreme position on that.
Yeah, it's like she said no, but there weren't several exclamation points.
Come on!
You know, I actually do.
I want your opinion on this from the comedy perspective.
Okay.
Which is...
Okay, so they've been deplatforming people.
They take extreme voices away.
Whatever.
My extreme voice of telling dad jokes.
Fine.
Right.
Did you see that Pete Davidson joke on SNL? I did.
You saw him?
Do we have it?
The Pete Davidson, he's there making fun of this combat veteran.
And practicing witchcraft, yes.
And practicing witchcraft.
Almost certainly.
Yeah, here he is.
Look at that.
That's a witch outfit.
This guy's kind of cool.
Dan Crenshaw.
Oh, come on, man.
Let's go.
Hold on.
You may be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie.
I'm sorry.
I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.
Whatever.
All right.
Well, here's a Democrat, so I look fair.
Give me that Cuomo guy.
There he is.
All right.
So, there he is.
Looks like a witch.
Was engaged recently to another witch who said God is a woman and had this super culty video.
Yeah, there was broom-only parking outside of SNL. It's really efficient.
It's good for the environment.
The crazy thing about this, I was arguing with people on Instagram, which is my new Twitter.
I've made it just toxic.
I'm with you.
I was like, oh, Owen's got great Instagram posts, and I'm only there because I got kicked off Twitter.
That's where we go.
That's why their stocks keep tanking.
But someone was saying, well, he made fun of his dad who died in 9-11, so why can't he do that?
I'm like, that was his pain to mock.
Yeah.
And also, if it was that dude's friend, that would be one thing.
Right.
But someone who clearly hates you for your politics and is making fun of something that happened to you in a war, that's the difference between, like, you can do a joke about rape versus mocking a rape victim.
Yeah, you'd never tell a joke about a rape victim who's, like, you know, especially one who's in the public eye, who's, you know, Especially, I mean, this case is even crazier than that because this guy got his injury serving that witch.
Serving that dude trying to protect her freedom.
Oh, exactly.
And it was like his third deployment as a SEAL or something.
Right.
It was like he just kept going the extra mile and this little weasel.
And, like, okay, because someone was telling me, they're like, oh, you've done a pedophile joke.
I'm like, it was a pun about a pedophile.
Like, it's about me going into, you know, like a drugstore and being like, where are the pedophiles at?
And the whole thing is, it's like, well, my toenails are long.
It's a long joke, but it's a pun.
And they're trying to compare that to that actual pedophile who directed Guardians of the Galaxy.
And I'm like, no, he's just saying he wants to have sex with children.
Like, that's called being a psychopath.
It's not even a joke.
Yeah, and I'm starting to really wonder if people have lost their...
Any morality at all.
They don't see the difference.
Well, that's the thing.
Well, you're eating chicken and I'm eating a baby.
What's the difference?
What's the difference?
You're a hypocrite.
Because they're calling conservatives hypocritical over this for saying, oh, you know, you're criticizing this joke.
They somehow don't see the difference.
How do we get it through to them?
I don't think you do.
I think we just focus on our gratitude and just let this guy just keep...
Just practicing witchcraft.
And we just gotta win.
That's why we gotta vote.
That's true.
We just gotta bury them.
Have you voted yet?
I haven't yet.
I'm gonna drive people to the booth.
But according to a tweet, it's, what was it, the 7th or the 8th?
Well, I forget what it is.
They're gonna shut our stream down.
The minute I say this joke, the minute I say this dad joke, they're gonna shut down this stream.
They're gonna say Michael is inciting violent, hateful, bigoted...
Rules-breaking rhetoric.
That was the other thing.
But you have Farrakhan's on there calling Jews termites.
Calling Jews termites and saying, death to America, death to Israel.
They also didn't tell me what policy I violated.
Oh, there is no policy.
There's no policy.
Well, that's why I've been telling this to people for a while, that you've got to stand with everybody getting deplatformed, even if you don't agree with them.
Exactly right.
Because appeasement just means you get eaten last.
Yep.
And so, what they do is they have, one's called bullying, or one's called...
I don't know.
But I'm like, that's all comedy.
So it's like, knock, knock, who's there?
It's like home invasion statistics.
Sadness now.
You're mean to me.
And you're like, okay, so now my job is...
Everything's an exaggeration, hyperbole, irony.
Like, I can't do it if I don't do that.
So they're just waiting to ice me.
They would ice me if they knew that it wouldn't create the opposite effect.
That's true.
And if they weren't going to abolish ICE. They're really getting caught in that, you know, abolish ICE kind of...
I know.
It's like, oh, so you're for ice?
It's like, what do you mean?
You mean the existence of a nation?
No!
No, no, no, not me.
Come on, let's not talk crazy talk.
I don't think we should enforce laws.
No, no, no.
Sanctuary city.
Well, this is my sanctuary tank.
I know.
Yeah, right now you're in my sanctuary cave in Bora Bora, I think.
Yeah, this is definitely a CIA black ops.
Alright, Owen, I've got to kick you out.
Oh, you're the man.
Good time.
Where can people find you?
Where have you not been blacklisted?
Hugepianist.com to get tickets to my upcoming tour or my last special persona non grata shot in Atlanta.
All right, and make sure to follow Owen on the dwindling list of social media platforms that will have him.
You're still on Instagram.
I'm on Instagram, but Facebook gives me 30-day bans.
They let me back for one day, and then they kick me every time.
Every time, like Zuckerberg's playing this little game of cat and mouse with me.
It's really nice.
Yeah, well, I just bought a drone, so we'll see what happens.
That's not a threat, by the way.
It's a joke about looking at it.
It's not a threat.
All right.
Good to see you.
Yeah, you too.
Later, bro.
This is why we bring in social media deplatforming consultants to really make you feel better when you get kicked off of them.
So speaking of very funny things, a vice writer, a writer in vice.com, has inadvertently published one of the funniest columns of the entire midterm elections.
It's this millennial who is extremely angry that he was not allowed to vote in Tennessee.
And the excuse, the reason why he wasn't allowed to vote, is that he's not eligible to vote in Tennessee.
And he's very upset about this.
The headline is, quote, what it feels like to be disenfranchised by a voter ID law.
The guy's name is Davis Winky.
That can't be his real name, but maybe it is his real name.
Davis Winky is what it says on the article.
Subtitle, I had a birth certificate, a photo ID, and utility bills proving my residency, but Tennessee decided that wasn't good enough.
Okay, well that sounds pretty interesting.
He's got the ID. He's got the proof that he's a Tennessee resident.
Okay, I'm with you.
Let's see.
Maybe these laws really are good.
Maybe they're really preventing you from...
Oh, no, not at all.
It's just total nonsense.
He goes on to write, quote, you had to have either a Tennessee state issued ID or a federally issued photo ID in order to vote.
My wife and I were in this strange situation of being young and married, but still somewhat financially dependent on our parents.
Our vehicles were registered in our parents' names and we had Georgia driver's licenses.
Registering the vehicles in Tennessee would have incurred a pretty significant tax burden.
And getting a Tennessee driver's license, we were led to believe by our insurance agents, would be a problem for us, since then we'd be listed as drivers on our parents' cars without Georgia licenses.
So we were in this space where we feared losing our transportation or having to incur a significant financial burden if we tried to get Tennessee driver's licenses.
I know that was a gobbledygook of words.
Let me try to summarize that for you.
He didn't have a Tennessee ID. The law says you need to have an ID from Tennessee or from the federal government.
He had a Georgia ID. Why?
Because he was lying about his residence.
So what this means is, one, he was committing insurance fraud because he's saying he lived in Georgia and drove in Georgia when he didn't.
He was living and driving in Tennessee.
Also, I think he may have tried to rectify this right before the election, but there are cutoff dates for registration.
So he missed his shot.
Sorry, too bad.
Try again next time.
Then he says, my wife and I were in the strange situation of being young and married, but still financially dependent on our parents.
Unfortunately, this is not a strange situation anymore.
A lot of millennials do this.
I think the age now to go off your parents' cell phone plan is about 65.
I think that's the median cutoff.
It means that you're a bum.
Get off your parents' finances.
You're married.
You're an adult.
Start acting like an adult.
Stop being a little child.
Stop committing insurance fraud.
Stop blaming everybody for your problems.
They're your problems.
I get it.
Look, I sometimes forget deadlines.
I forget paperwork.
Okay, blah, blah, blah.
Fine.
You missed the deadline.
And you didn't even just miss the deadline to register as a Tennessee resident and get your car insurance and everything pushed over.
You chose not to do it because you didn't want to pay taxes.
You didn't want to pay fees.
You didn't want to be an adult.
Okay, fine, but that's your fault.
You're a child, and children don't get to vote.
Adults vote, not children.
Now I think the left is trying to lower the voting age to 12 or something.
But they actually are trying to lower it to 16 in certain places.
But if you're going to behave like a child, you're going to be treated like a child and you don't get to vote.
If you want to be an adult and you want to stop committing insurance fraud and register where you live and stop having mommy and daddy pay for everything for you and your wife, then you can vote because then you're behaving like an adult.
It's unbelievable.
And even the language that millennials use, listen to this, We would have to incur a significant financial burden if we tried to get Tennessee driver's licenses.
You mean you would have to pay the taxes and fees that you legally are required to pay because you moved to Tennessee?
Nobody made you move to Tennessee.
You could live in Georgia.
You still should have your own car insurance, but nobody made you.
You chose to do it, but now you won't accept the consequences for your actions.
This is the best they've got.
Because the other argument, and we were talking about it with Owen, the other argument against voter ID is a racist argument.
They say that black people can't get IDs.
They can.
Black people have IDs.
They have ID cards.
They can go.
They can go vote.
They can go buy alcohol.
They can go travel on airplanes.
They can buy cigarettes.
You need IDs for a lot of things in life.
And the argument from these white liberals who choose to be offended on behalf of other people is that black people, for whatever reason, aren't capable of getting ID cards.
They are.
White millennials might not be capable of getting ID cards, but other people can.
Don't be offended on behalf of other people.
Don't put your problems off onto other people.
We've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
We have a lot more coming up.
I want to give my final thoughts on the midterm elections because my gut feeling on this is a little different than what the pollsters are saying.
Before we do that, I have got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
I probably already have.
They probably already kicked me off halfway through this show.
What I've got to remind you, though, is that we're going to have a backstage tomorrow starting at 8 p.m.
Eastern Time, 5 p.m.
Pacific.
We're going to be hanging out.
It's going to be the God King Jeremy Boring, Ben, Drew, Elisha, myself.
We're going to be covering all the latest election news as it happens.
We're actually going to be getting Twitter updates from our own Cassie Dillon and Colton Haas.
Why we're letting Colton do anything.
I have no idea why we would subject ourselves to this, but it should be a lot of fun.
You're not going to want to miss it.
And Cassie and Colton are going to be on in the throes of social media while it's happening.
I obviously can't do that job because I keep getting kicked off.
As always, Daily Wire subscribers get to ask the questions, so make sure to subscribe today.
Also, don't miss Andrew Klavan's next chapter of Another Kingdom, performed by none other than Little Old Me.
Almost certainly the last acting role I'll ever have in this town.
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Again, none of that matters.
This is what matters.
Because right now, never say never, who knows?
Democrats told us we were going to have a blue wave.
Democrats were going to take the whole Senate.
They were going to take the House of Representatives.
They're going to do all of this stuff.
Now it's not looking like that, is it?
Now it's looking like maybe they won't take the Senate.
Now it's looking like maybe Republicans will gain in the Senate.
Now it's looking like they might not get 50 seats in the House.
They might not get 40 seats in the House.
They might not even take back the House.
Can you imagine what the tears will taste like?
They actually, we probably will need a new vessel because it's just going to be a block of salt, like those thick blocks of salt that you grill meats on.
It's going to come out that way.
They're not going to have any more tears left to cry.
It's just going to be pure salt popping out.
You're not going to want to miss it.
Go to dailywire.com, get your Leftist Tears Tumblr.
We'll be right back.
All right, the midterms.
What do we think about the midterms?
Nate Silver tells us 87% chance, I think he's upped it to, that the Democrats take the House.
History tells us Democrats are going to take the House.
Obama lost over 60 House seats in his first midterm.
Clinton lost 54, I think, in his first midterm.
Bush didn't lose any, but it was right on the heels of 9-11, and America was pretty unified behind that president.
Reagan lost a bunch in his first midterm.
It goes on and on and on.
Okay.
Mike Pence says he thinks we're going to keep the House.
Here he is.
Well, Buck, I think we're going to expand our majority in the United States Senate, and I think we're going to hold our Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
That's what he thinks.
Now, I talk to my pollster friends.
They say, one in 1,000 chance Republicans keep the House.
But I talk to my Politico friends, the ones on the ground, the ones who are in the fields, They say Republicans are going to keep the House.
My gut tells me Republicans are going to keep the House.
I know that the odds are so slim when you look at all the numbers.
If I were to make a bet on this, I would want some of those good Shapiro odds.
You know, I'd want him to give me another one of those four-to-one odds.
And then I would put money because I'm looking at the data.
I get it.
But my gut tells me something, that this is not a typical midterm election.
My gut tells me President Trump hasn't lost votes.
My gut tells me Republicans can keep the House by a slim majority or maybe they'll lose it by a slim number.
But that's what my gut is telling me right now.
Another reason I'm thinking this is that the Democrats are going fluffy.
They're going really, really fluffy.
They're not hard charging at the end of this campaign.
Here's CNN talking to...
They're at a rally for Andrew Gillum, socialist gubernatorial candidate in Florida.
And they interview just a random person, just a random woman at the end of the event to get her take on the race.
Here they are.
For one voter here, this really is personal.
Will Barack Obama's presence in this race and here today influence your vote?
I believe that it will.
We picked her randomly out of the crowd, but at the end of our interview, when I finally asked her name, it sounded strangely familiar.
And what's your name?
My name is Frances Gillum.
As a matter of fact, my son is running for governor.
No!
Yes.
Oh, my God.
Wait a minute.
Why didn't you tell me that you'd be sick with?
No.
That is not true.
That is hilarious.
Yes.
Well, now that changes everything.
Oh no!
Oh my god!
You're kidding!
You, you, the woman who's here at this exclusive area of the Gillum campaign rally, you, the woman who looks like Andrew Gillum because you're his mother, you, you, you're his mother?
Oh my gosh!
Wow, what a coincidence!
So tell me, like, how great is your son?
I mean, is he like, he's super great, or he's just like, really?
Can you imagine?
If they were at a Trump rally and, I don't know, they were talking to Tiffany Trump.
They didn't know it was Tiffany.
And she said, oh, you know, yeah, I think Trump is going to do well.
And, you know, actually, I'm his daughter.
I'm Tiffany Trump.
It's like, ah, they're biting her head off.
You know, it'd be this awful segment.
But it's total fluff that they're going into this with.
And I think it's fluff because, one, they don't have anything to run on.
And two, they're nervous.
I mean, SNL did that sketch.
They actually got this pretty right, which is all the Democrats saying, like, oh, we're looking forward to the election.
We're confident.
Blue wave.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
You know, beads of sweat pouring down their face.
They're very nervous because by all historical rights, this should be a blue wave election.
They should win the Senate and they should win the House.
The polling doesn't quite suggest that.
They're also in trouble right now because prominent Democrat candidates are really, really kooky.
I mean, Andrew Gillum puts on a good show, but he is a socialist.
He's a radical, radical candidate.
And this woman in Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema, is about as kooky as they get.
And there are several others like her.
Here's Sinema.
Martha McSally has asked you to apologize for what she said was treasonous comments about somebody being able to go and fight for the Taliban.
Do you regret that statement at that time?
You know, Martha crossed the line with those comments, and that's the choice that she's made in her campaign, to run a campaign that's based on But do you regret that statement, though, at all?
Well, it was an offhand comment during an interview about a war that I believed was misguided and still believe is misguided.
What Martha has chosen to do is run a very negative campaign based on false attacks and smears and lies.
And that's her choice.
But I think Arizonans are choosing the person that they believe shares their values and they believe will stand up for them.
So, just to translate that from gobbledygook, what she just said is, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm not going to rescind my comment.
And her comment was, during the Afghanistan war, the early stages, she said it would be perfectly fine for Americans to go fight for the Taliban.
And Martha McSally obviously said, uh, what?
No, you can't do that.
That's awful.
That's treasonous.
And she won't even walk that back.
She won't even walk back her pro-Taliban comments.
And she, this kind of reminds me a little bit, during the Tea Party election, there were some kooky Senate candidates.
None ever is kooky as this woman.
I mean, none ever like that.
No one ever said that Americans should go fight for the Taliban.
But it's like the bizarro world version of the Tea Party.
During the Tea Party election, we had this woman, Christine O'Donnell, who was running for Senate.
And speaking of which, we were talking about witchcraft with Owen.
There was some allegation that she practiced witchcraft.
And she came out with this ad, this insane ad, and said, I am not a witch.
Here she is.
I'm not a witch.
I'm nothing you've heard.
I'm you.
None of us are perfect, but none of us can be happy with what we see all around us.
Politicians who think spending, trading favors, and backroom deals are the ways to stay in office.
I'll go to Washington and do what you'd do.
I'm Christine O'Donnell, and I approve this message.
I'm you.
Not a great ad.
Not a great campaign from Christine O'Donnell.
But I would like to point out the difference between her and Kirsten Sinema.
Christine O'Donnell said, I am not a witch.
Kyrsten Sinema's comments, to say that Americans should go fight for the Taliban, is the equivalent of running an ad and saying, I am a witch.
I am a witch.
Hi, I'm Kyrsten Sinema.
I am a witch.
Yes, I am exactly what you've heard.
Everything you've heard is true.
I'm a witch.
So, I get, you know, it was a bad ad from Christine O'Donnell, but at least it was angling at something good.
You know, it was her defending herself and saying, no, I'm the good thing, not the bad thing.
Kyrsten Sinema and other Democrats are saying, no, I'm the bad thing.
I'm the bad thing.
Open borders, abolish ICE, Americans should fight for the Taliban.
That is a big difference.
So it's this bizarro world version.
It's bizarro world Tea Party 2 because, one, it's the midterm right after a controversial presidential election, and because Democrat voter enthusiasm is very high.
The reason it's different than the Tea Party is, one, because Republican voter enthusiasm is also very high, and two, there's no issue that Democrats are running against.
They're running against a guy.
They're running against Trump, because Trump is mean, allegedly, and says mean things.
But there's no issue.
You know, in 2010, that election was about Obamacare.
This awful law that took away our doctors, that destroyed a sixth of the economy, that took away our freedom to make life and death decisions and gave it to government bureaucrats.
It was a referendum on that.
And so GOP enthusiasm was high and Democrat enthusiasm was low.
Now they're both very high.
And I think this is going to have significant impacts.
You know, there was a guy, Tim Ryan, who is now running away from his party on key issues because he wants to win his House seat.
He wants to run away from the party to try to save his own seat.
You're seeing a lot of Democrats do this around the country that doesn't speak well for a blue wave.
Here's Tim Ryan.
You know, you're seeing proposals out there like Medicare for All.
You're seeing abolish ICE, raise taxes.
Do you agree with these proposals?
And what is your platform?
Well, you know, I think these are principles.
You know, first of all, I don't know a whole lot of Democrats that are talking about abolishing ICE. I come from Ohio.
Are you kidding me?
The most prominent Democrats running for office in this country are talking about it.
Ocasio-Cortez made it a big part of her platform.
Democrats used her as a major fundraiser.
Beto O'Rourke was talking about it.
Liz Warren, Laya Watha, was talking about it.
Everybody was talking about abolishing ICE. For at least several weeks there during the summer, now they're trying to walk it back because it's obviously deeply unpopular with the American people.
So you've got Tim Ryan there, one, lying.
He's saying they're not running on abolishing ICE. They are.
But he's running away from his party.
Imagine if in 2010, Republicans were running away from opposition to Obamacare.
If they were interviewed and they said, oh, well, I don't know if we need to repeal Obamacare.
No, I haven't heard a lot of Republicans talking about repealing Obamacare.
No, they wouldn't have won.
You need momentum.
You need to have a platform that you're hard charging and running on.
Democrats don't have that, which is why I'm really skeptical of the conventional wisdom right here.
I was looking at some of the breakdowns, and RealClearPolitics has a good breakdown because they take all the major polls and average them out.
Right now, according to RealClearPolitics, this was as of last night.
It could have changed in the morning.
The GOP has 218 solid seats.
Democrats have 205 solid seats.
There are 38 toss-up seats.
Of those 38 toss-up districts, 26 of those districts voted for Trump.
Regardless of whether they're represented by a Democrat or a Republican, 26 of those toss-up districts out of 38 voted for Trump.
So 26 to 12, Trump versus Hillary.
It actually seems to me that in just looking at numbers and districts, the GOP has a raw edge here.
The Democrat advantage is historical, and it's not to be understated.
I mean, it would be History-shaping, history-shattering if the Republicans held on to the House here, or even if they didn't lose that many seats.
But we're in history-making times.
We're in really strange times right now.
This is not a typical midterm election.
Right now they're looking at some of the highest voter turnout since 1966.
Now, you can't even take too many lessons from 1966 because the Democrats owned the House for decades and decades.
So you didn't see the House swaying between Republicans and Democrats at that time.
Not until 1994.
Not until the Gingrich Revolution did Republicans finally retake the House after decades.
So...
You've got the highest turnout since the height of the Vietnam War, after the Kennedy assassination, massive civil unrest, the civil rights movement, all of these things.
I mean, you are in historically unparalleled times.
You can't make those comparisons.
Okay, look at the rhetoric now.
So the rhetoric that they're employing at the last moment, right before the election, Paul Ryan and House Republicans want to talk about the economy.
Donald Trump wants to talk about immigration.
One of the reasons to temper our hopes that Republicans keep the House is they seem to be blaming each other for why they're going to lose the House.
So Trump seems to be blaming Ryan and Ryan seems to be blaming Trump.
Okay, they're not really touting how they're going to keep the House much anymore.
Mike Pence is, but other people are not as much.
But look at those two approaches.
Paul Ryan saying talk about the economy.
Trump saying talk about immigration.
By the way, Trump is talking about the economy a lot, too.
But he's not shying away from immigration.
Trump is right here.
Trump is right.
And Morning Joe and Paul Ryan and Mika Brzezinski and all of the Brooks Brothers set is wrong.
Here is the conventional wisdom care of Morning Joe.
Donald Trump has not completely destroyed the Obama recovery.
And they would think that, and they'd get a lot more votes.
But Donald Trump has reminded them of Charlottesville every day over the last couple weeks.
And what does that do?
That inspires Democrats, independents, moderate Republicans, suburban Republicans to vote Democratic.
Well, it may.
He's reminding them of Charlottesville.
He's saying because Trump is talking about immigration, he's reminding them of a white supremacist killing a woman.
I don't see the connection, but then again, that's morning Joe for you.
What he is saying is Trump should keep his mouth shut on immigration and on cultural issues and should only talk about the economy.
Nobody is motivated to vote in midterm elections, especially when your party is in the White House, because of the economy or because of 401ks.
That's just, it does not happen that way.
The reason that there's a reaction to the party in the White House is because if the Republicans are in the White House, then Republicans are happy, they're not as motivated to go out and vote.
And a marginal upswing in the Dow Jones is not going to cause them to go out and vote.
Whereas the party that's out of power does have high motivation, so they go out and vote.
And they take the House.
Okay.
How many times has the elite media and Morning Joe and the Chamber of Commerce Republicans, how many times have they told Trump, stop talking about immigration?
Trump's been talking about immigration since he walked down the escalator, since the beginning of his presidential campaign.
And he wiped the floor with every other GOP candidate, 16, 17 candidates, mows them all down because he was talking about these issues that people care about, that are foundational, that are cultural, that are essential.
Politics is downstream of culture.
The economy is downstream of culture, for that matter.
And so run on the economy, sure, but run on these things, too.
It's the only way that you're going to be able to rally support from your base when you're in the White House for the midterm elections.
That's my gut feeling.
My gut feeling is we're going to be in for a lot of surprises.
I think it'll be close elections.
But the sum total of all those close elections could be excellent news for Republicans, and we'll see what happens tomorrow.
We'll have a little bit of last-minute analysis tomorrow, and then stick with us during all the coverage.
Okay, until then, I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
I won't see you on Twitter.
The Michael Knoll Show is produced by Semia Villareal.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
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