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April 23, 2019 - The Michael Knowles Show
47:11
Ep. 336 - Winning 2020 One Terrorist At A Time

Democrats kick off a major 2020 town hall by endorsing voting rights for terrorists and rapists! We examine the novel electoral strategy. Then, AOC’s star fades, ISIS claims responsibility for Sri Lanka, and why leftists weep for puppies. Date: 04-23-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Democrats kick off a major 2020 town hall by endorsing voting rights for terrorists and rapists.
We examine the novel electoral strategy.
Then, AOC's star fades, ISIS claims responsibility for that terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, and we examine why leftists weep for puppies, but not for babies.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is the Michael Knowles Show.
A gift from the gods last night or the opposite of the gods, the 2020 Democrat candidates You know that all of the cable networks have been doing these town halls for the various candidates.
Fox did it.
Fox had one for Bernie Sanders, obviously CNN and MSNBC. So CNN had a big one that happened with most of these major candidates out there.
How do you think These candidates are going to differentiate themselves.
We've got 20 candidates in the race, obviously some more serious than others, some sitting senators, some sitting governors, some local mayors, some people you've never heard of.
How are they going to stand out and make sure that their voices are heard above the din of everybody else?
Why they're going to endorse voting rights for terrorists and rapists, of course.
Bernie Sanders kicks it off and sets the tone for the night.
Senator Sanders, you have said that you believe that people with felony records should be allowed to vote while in prison.
Does this mean that you would support enfranchising people like the Boston Marathon bomber, a convicted terrorist and murderer?
Do you think that those convicted of sexual assault should have the opportunity to vote for politicians who could have a direct impact on women's rights?
If somebody commits a serious crime, sexual assault, murder, They're going to be punished.
They may be in jail for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, their whole lives.
That's what happens when you commit a serious crime.
But I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy.
Yes, even for terrible people.
So I believe that...
People who commit crimes, they pay the price.
When they got out of jail, I believe they certainly should have the right to vote.
But I do believe that even if they are in jail, they're paying their price to society.
But that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy.
At least he's an honest radical.
You did this to yourselves, Democrats.
You did this to yourselves by reacting so strongly and by...
Moving so far to the left that this man is currently one of the frontrunners for your party.
Voting rights not just for felons who have gotten out of jail, but for terrorists, for rapists, and not just once they've gotten out of jail, but while they are still in jail.
To put this in perspective, because I think we're just so used to radicalism now and extremism, we say, oh yeah, of course Bernie Sanders is endorsing voting rights for terrorists.
Even Chris Cuomo, Whose brother is the Democrat governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, whose father is one of the most famous Democrats in history, Mario Cuomo, even Chris Cuomo, basically begs Bernie Sanders, please, Bernie, don't take the Democrat party down this road.
My follow question goes to this being like you're writing an opposition ad against you by saying you think the Boston Marathon bomber should vote not after he pays his debt to society, but while he's in jail.
You sure about that?
Well, Chris, I think I have written many 30-second opposition ads throughout my life.
This will be just another one, but I do believe.
Look, you know, this is what I believe.
Do you believe in democracy?
Do you believe that every single American 18 years of age or older who is an American citizen has the right to vote?
Oh, Chris, maybe you didn't hear me.
I think that not just felons, but the Boston Marathon bomber and rapists should vote.
Now...
Bernie Sanders here says, I've written many opposition ads against me.
That line didn't get the reaction that I think he thought it was going to get.
I think Bernie Sanders thought that line was going to sound like, I'm really tough, I say things that are unpopular, and therefore I'm really courageous.
What that sounds like is, I say a lot of stupid things.
Because that's what that means.
The reason you get opposition ads against you is because you say stupid things or you say something that out of context sounds bad, even though in context it's really not bad.
But obviously it's not the latter case here because Bernie Sanders has asked, excuse me, Bernie, let's put this in context.
Are you sure you want the Boston Marathon bomber to vote?
He says, yes, of course.
What do you got, cotton in your ears there, Chris?
Of course I want them to vote.
So you can't say he's being taken out of context.
The reason that he's got opposition ads being made against him here is because he's saying something very stupid.
By the way, that was from an opposition ad.
The group RNC Research, Republicans Research Opposition Firm, is coming out and just posting clips.
Nothing else.
No...
Music, no text, just allowing these candidates to say exactly what they're saying, and then we can all use them.
We can all see them in their entirety.
The other mistake that Bernie Sanders is making here is that he is making a mistake that not just Democrats make, Republicans do as well, which is creating an idol out of the franchise.
Creating an idol out of the right to vote.
In the United States, in our representative democracy, in our democratic republic, in our self-government, we have the right to vote to give us good government.
We have the right to vote to protect our liberties.
We have the right to vote to construct a country in which we can all flourish and in which our country can flourish.
The right to vote is simply an instrument to give us all of those things.
What the left here thinks is the opposite.
They think that our whole government just exists to give us the right to vote.
Does anyone really believe we would have a great country if every terrorist could vote?
If every rapist could vote?
If every disgusting degenerate criminal monster who hates our country and doesn't believe in a thing that it stands for had the right to vote?
How on earth would that give us a good country?
How on earth would that protect our liberties?
How on earth would that create a nation in which we can all flourish?
It wouldn't.
And so, we have certain restrictions on the right to vote.
Until very recently, if you were a felon, you couldn't vote in most places.
Now that's starting to change because of Democrat politicians.
Because, as always, they're getting the country exactly backwards.
I like the right to vote.
I'm perfectly happy with the right to vote.
However...
Let's say that everybody, I'm 29 years old, let's say that everybody who was 29 years old, for some reason, some generational psychosis, decided to vote for communist candidates.
For some reason, all the 29-year-olds were voting for communists, and it threatened our whole country, and we could elect communists all around the country.
I would gladly surrender my right to vote.
I would gladly say, okay, 29-year-olds can't vote anymore because it'll destroy our country.
Because that will certainly not protect our liberties.
That certainly won't protect human flourishing.
That certainly won't protect the American traditions and the American ideals.
I don't really care.
It's not like I get some great thrill from voting.
I do it because it's my civic responsibility and because I think that Bernie exactly flips it.
Buttigieg was then asked about this, and Chris Cuomo, he's obviously looking for an out.
He's from what would be considered, I guess, more of the mainstream of the Democrat Party.
His brother is an elected prominent national Democrat, governor of New York.
And so he just wants to pull the Democrats back from the edge.
Please, Mayor Pete, you're a normal guy.
You're a level-headed guy.
Please tell me you don't think terrorists should vote.
Take it away, Mayor Pete.
Senator Sanders earlier this evening said he's in favor of felons being able to vote even while serving their prison terms.
He was asked specifically about people like the Boston Marathon bomber, people convicted of sexual assault, rape and other things, pedophiles.
He said the right to vote is inherent to our democracy, yes, even for terrible people.
Senator Kamala Harris just said We should have that conversation.
She didn't really answer one way or another.
What do you think?
Should people convicted of sexual assault of the Boston Marathon bomber, should they be able to vote?
While incarcerated?
Yeah.
No, I don't think so.
I do believe that when you are out, when you have served your sentence, then part of being restored to society is that you are part of the political life of this nation again.
And one of the things that needs to be restored is your right to vote.
As you know, some states and communities do it.
Some don't.
I think we'd be a better country if everybody did it.
And frankly, I think the motivations for preventing that kind of re-enfranchisement, in some cases, have to do with one side of the aisle noticing that they politically benefit from that.
Oh, did you catch that at the end?
He had a pretty good answer here.
He says, look, Anderson, I'm a moderate guy.
I don't think people who are currently incarcerated should be able to vote.
But once they get out, they've paid their debt to society, all these good people.
And so they should get their right to vote back.
Notice he doesn't use the phrase Boston Marathon bomber or rapist.
That's probably not going to play very well.
But he says, you know, look, they've paid their dues.
their dues.
Okay, great.
OK, great.
Then he says that the debate over this issue comes down to a political party that thinks they can benefit from it.
Now, what he thinks he's doing here, what he was intending to do, is launch an attack on Republicans.
He's trying to say, Republicans want to block felons from voting because felons vote for Democrats.
But you see, the change here isn't taking the vote away from felons.
The law that we're starting with is that felons don't have the right to vote.
They don't have the right to vote for a number of reasons and a long political history and a long tradition.
The people who are trying to change the law are Democrats.
So the party who is trying to change the law because they think they can benefit from it is Democrats.
And the reason that they think they can benefit from it is because they know that felons are a part of the Democrat base.
That's what he's admitting there in that answer.
He had a pretty good answer.
I mean, it was kind of mealy-mouthed, classic Democrat, weak nonsense, but it sounded pretty good until that little bit at the end where he admitted that the motivation to change this law and to reenfranchise felons is nakedly political.
It's just because Democrats think they can harvest votes.
Why can they harvest votes?
Because criminals are basically their base.
The other note you have to see about Buttigieg here is that Buttigieg isn't wearing a jacket.
Buttigieg is just wearing his shirt sleeves and a tie.
Have some self-respect.
Have some respect for the office.
You are running for president.
Put on a jacket.
You wear a jacket when you go to dinner at a nice restaurant.
You wear a jacket when you go to church on Sunday.
Wear a jacket when you're running for president.
But they can't because they've all got to be the cool guys.
I'm not a regular politician.
I'm a cool politician.
I'm not a regular mom.
I'm a cool mom.
Oh, I know all those regular moms think that felons and terrorists and rapists shouldn't vote.
But I'm a cool mom.
That's okay, kids.
Felons and terrorists and rapists can vote.
I don't care if you have a beer or two.
That's fine.
I'm a cool...
I don't even wear a jacket.
That's basically what the Democrats are positioning themselves as.
So what they're trying to do is say, look, all these laws, all of these traditions, yeah, we can weaken those.
Let's weaken all of those.
Then we will be freer.
We talked about this theme last week, the theme of liberation, the theme of emancipation.
This is one of the dominant themes of the West throughout all of modernity.
And the Democrat Party and the left here is really taking up that mantle and turning it up to 11%.
Literally, in their clothing, they're liberating themselves from their jackets.
I don't need all this formal clothing.
I'll be freer.
And they're liberating the country from laws and political traditions.
We don't need boundaries around the franchise.
We can open that up for everybody, including the Boston Marathon terrorist.
All in all, however, Pete Buttigieg basically performed better than most people here.
These weren't the only people who were asked about the right to vote for terrorists and rapists.
Kamala Harris, who I previously thought was one of the tougher candidates in the race, gets the same question from Don Lemon, totally bungles the answer.
Senator Bernie Sanders said that he is in favor of felons being able to vote while serving in prison.
He was asked specifically about people like the Boston Marathon bomber, also people who are convicted of sexual assault, and he said, this is a quote, the right to vote is inherent to our democracy, yes, even for terrible people.
Do you agree with that, Senator?
I agree that the right to vote is one of the very important components of citizenship.
And it is something that people should not be stripped of needlessly, which is why I have been long an advocate of making sure that the formerly incarcerated Are not denied a right to vote, which is the case in so many states in our country.
In some states, permanently deprived of the right to vote.
And these are policies that go back to Jim Crow.
These are policies that go back to the heart of policies that have been about disenfranchisement, policies that continue until today.
And we need to take it seriously.
But people who are convicted in prison, like the Boston Marathon bomber, on death row, people who are convicted of sexual assault, they should be able to vote?
I think we should have that conversation.
Oh my gosh, everything was wrong about this answer.
From beginning to end, it went from bad to worse.
You've got to give a little bit of credit here.
I hate to give credit to Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo and Anderson Cooper.
They actually did push the question and they did push the candidates to answer what should not be a tough question, what should be a very easy question, but I guess for these radical candidates is a tough question.
Kamala Harris, from the very beginning, Don Lemon says, do you think that the Boston Marathon bomber should vote?
And you can hear in her voice the wheels turning.
You can see on her face the wheels turning.
She averts her eyes.
She's looking down.
She says, well, I believe almost in a robotic sort of cadence that the right to vote is very important.
She's trying to figure out her answer.
She should have figured out her answer before.
It should be an obvious answer.
And then in this country, sometimes felons are not allowed to vote, and that's bad.
They should be allowed to vote.
And then she goes off on that tangent for a little while, and then she tries to avoid the question.
Don Lemon pushes her.
He says, are you saying, Kamala, Kamala, please, are you saying that the Boston Marathon bomber should be allowed to vote?
Well, and I believe that that is a conversation that we should have.
So even at the end, it's this totally noncommittal acceptance of the suggestion that terrorists and rapists should vote.
Even in prison.
Even while they're incarcerated.
Except it's even, if she had just come out like Bernie and said, yeah, I think Osama bin Laden should vote.
I think he should run for president.
If she had at least said that, she would get points for courage.
A bizarre courage.
A reckless craziness.
But at least she'd get points for confidence, for standing on an opinion, for believing in something, for having principles.
She doesn't get credit for that.
Because she doesn't have any principles.
I gotta tell you, I really thought that Kamala Harris could be one of the top candidates for the nomination.
I'm really beginning to doubt that.
What made me think she could is that she's got the political calculation of a Hillary Clinton.
The problem is she's also got Hillary Clinton's staff, and I think it's probably messing her up.
She's staffed up basically with all the people of the old Hillary Clinton campaign, and she's just a little too calculating by half.
She's just a little too clever by half.
She even has Hillary's awful laugh.
You know, that bizarre look on her face and that strained and forced laugh.
She even has that.
Nothing about this woman seems genuine.
Everything seems calculated.
You know, early in this race, right when she announced, Willie Brown, former California politician, said that basically Kamala slept her way to the top.
That was the accusation.
And I don't know who pushed for the story or who planted the story, but...
Obviously, that story was designed to say that this woman doesn't believe in anything.
She'll say anything to get elected.
She has no principles.
She has no belief.
And she keeps proving them true.
She just doesn't seem ready for prime time.
She didn't get elected to the Senate that long ago.
She's pretty young.
But she just doesn't seem like she's ready there to get the nomination.
Not just on this answer, but on other answers, too.
She was asked about a bill that she voted for, for her health insurance program.
And...
She tried to lie about it.
When she couldn't lie about it, she just tried to twist the truth and blabber her way out of it.
listen to this: this bill that you co-sponsored essentially phases up private insurance for four years, in four years?
I don't think that's right.
That's what the studies show, that it would phase up private insurance.
I'm actually supporting that.
The bill that you co-sponsored...
Medicare for All?
Yes.
We're co-sponsored with Bernie Sanders.
Medicare for All would effectively eliminate private insurance.
It would essentially phase out private insurance companies...
As the main source, but there would still be supplemental.
There'd still be access to supplemental insurance for whatever is not covered.
But let's be clear about it.
Medicare for All, under the plan that I am supporting, will extend coverage.
So whereas right now it does not cover dental, vision, hearing aids...
Under the plan, Medicare for All, those needs will be covered.
There will be an extension of it, including mental health services, including what we need to do better around women having greater access to reproductive health care.
What?
Okay, and also, hey, look over there, what's that?
And then she scrams and there's a Kamala-shaped hole in the wall.
Again, some points go to Don Lemon here.
He did point out that studies on Medicare for all show that it would eliminate private health insurance.
Kamala Harris said she would eliminate private health insurance.
She walked that back.
That's why she's walking back this, this answer here.
But what she just said is a lie.
Medicare for all, which actually isn't Medicare at all, would eliminate private health insurance.
Medicare, Medicare, the program Medicare is a federal program for senior citizens, whereby the federal government pays for health insurance.
But the federal government is using private health insurance companies and markets.
Medicare for All, which is the socialist healthcare being pushed by Democrats, is not simply a government-funded program.
It is government-run healthcare.
The difference between government-funded healthcare and government-run healthcare is the private market, these private companies.
You hear this all the time from people like Bernie Sanders and everybody else pushing Medicare for All, is they say they want to get rid of the insurance companies.
They want to get rid of the middlemen.
They want it to be a single-payer system between the people and the federal government.
That eliminates private health insurance, by definition.
She admitted that at first, Kamala Harris, then she was called out on it.
Now she's lying and pretending that it's something else.
Again, even this is just an example of her weakness.
If you're going to become a socialist, if you're going to run as a socialist, run as a socialist.
Bernie Sanders has had tremendous success running as a socialist.
The man saying, this land is your land, this land is my land, shirtless, drinking vodka in the Soviet Union.
That guy ran as almost an out-and-out communist, and he's done pretty well.
He nearly became the Democrat nominee in 2016, and he's leading the pack for all intents and purposes right now.
But Kamala just doesn't know.
She's a weathervane.
She wants to know, do people want me to be a socialist?
Okay, today I'll be a socialist and I'll eliminate private health insurance.
Do people want me to be a capitalist?
Okay, today I will completely lie about the thing that I voted for and say that actually it won't do the things that it'll do.
Weak sauce.
Also true on guns.
Kamala Harris is trying to have her cake and eat it too on guns.
And again, she's resorting to lies.
How?
On the third piece, because none of us have been sleeping over the last two years, part of what has happened under the current administration is they took fugitives off the list of prohibited people.
I'd put them back on the list, meaning that fugitives from justice should not be able to purchase a handgun or any kind of weapon.
So that's what I'd do.
Would this be your first executive action as president?
Well, it depends on what else happens.
That would be after 100 days.
Okay, so what she just said, that fugitives are allowed to buy guns, that is not true.
That is a lie.
What she is implying here, what she's suggesting, is that the Trump administration is allowing half a million fugitives now to buy guns.
What she's referring to does have a grain of truth in it.
It is true that in recent years, half a million fugitives were removed from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
But that happened under Barack Obama.
That didn't happen under Donald Trump.
That was an Obama-era policy to remove half a million fugitives from the national background check system, the instant background check system.
It also remains the case that fugitives are not allowed to buy guns.
So that is just a blatant lie.
And this is one thing that worries me about Kamala Harris.
At least with Bernie Sanders, he's relatively honest.
His worldview is absolutely perverse and the things he wants are evil, but at least he's relatively honest.
This woman is an out-and-out liar.
She's the Hillary Clinton of the race.
Now, 2016 was Hillary Clinton's race to lose.
She lost it.
I guess 2020 might be Kamala Harris' race to lose.
She's losing it already.
She was doing very well early on because she was keeping her mouth shut.
So you had people sniping at Liz Warren and Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden, and they're all going back and forth against one another.
Bernie Sanders.
She was trying to stay out of the fray.
You can only do that for so long.
At a certain point, you have to come out and say who you are and what you want to do.
It's not going well for her when that happens.
And to double down on the radicalism, because she's so schizophrenic in this campaign, I'm a moderate, I'm a socialist, I'm a moderate, I'm a radical, she comes out and endorses one of the least popular policies in the country, impeachment of the president.
I believe that we need to get rid of this president.
That's why I'm running to become president of the United States.
So that is part of the premise, obviously, of my point.
But I think we have very good reason to believe that there is an investigation that has been conducted which has produced evidence that tells us that this president and his administration engaged in obstruction of justice.
I believe Congress should take the steps towards impeachment.
This is a pure lie.
She is lying through her teeth.
There was a two-year investigation.
It did not produce evidence sufficient to prosecute Donald Trump for obstruction of justice.
This is...
Bob Mueller didn't come to a conclusion on obstruction of justice.
However, ultimately, the question goes to the Attorney General and to the Deputy Attorney General, in this case, Rod Rosenstein, who had been overseeing the investigation.
Both William Barr, the AG, and Rod Rosenstein came to the prosecutorial judgment that there is not evidence to prosecute.
There is not evidence of the crime of obstruction...
Trump is exonerated.
I spoke yesterday when I was filling in on Ben's radio show to Alan Dershowitz.
Alan Dershowitz said certainly he agrees with Barr and Rosenstein and actually says that Bob Mueller got the question of obstruction dead wrong.
The framework that he was using was way too broad, would not hold up, is not in the mainstream of legal thought.
There simply is not evidence.
To impeach Donald Trump for obstruction or collusion.
And to push this ridiculous line is a lie.
Now, Kamala Harris wants to push impeachment because she thinks it'll rally up her base and maybe get her the Democrat nomination for president.
Fair enough.
That's a fine political strategy.
All the other candidates are thinking that as well, including Elizabeth Warren.
But at least Elizabeth Warren is a little bit more honest about her motivation for impeachment and what she thinks the true grounds of impeachment would be.
Other Democrats have been saying it's not worth the political cost, it's not worth the civic cost, or it's arguably just too soon.
What made you decide to take this step today?
Well, I read the report.
I was on an airplane yesterday and started reading it, read it way into the night last night.
And I got to the end and realized this is about a point of principle.
The report is absolutely clear that a foreign government attacked our electoral system to help Donald Trump.
He welcomed that help.
And then when it was investigated by our own federal authorities, Donald Trump took multiple steps.
To try to obstruct justice.
This is one of those moments when I get it, that there are people who think politically, no, it's going to be too hard to do this.
This isn't about politics.
This isn't even specifically about Donald Trump himself.
There it is.
This isn't about politics.
This isn't about Donald Trump himself.
It's about me!
It's about me, Elizabeth Warren, who's running for president and I'm not even registering in the polls and I need to catapult myself to the top so I'm going to back impeachment.
It's about a principle, but not a legal principle and not a political principle.
I guess it's just about me.
It's about a selfish principle.
I give her some points for some honesty there.
I think that is much more credible than Kamala Harris trying to pretend, trying to lie through her teeth.
And say that there's some legal basis for impeachment here.
This is another way in which she's like Hillary.
She's totally able to lie.
She appears to do it effortlessly.
The trouble is she's not very good at it.
So she can do it effortlessly, she just doesn't do it credibly.
So you look at her and you say, I know you're lying to me.
You're not even good at it.
very weak performance.
I think among people who are paying attention to politics, Kamala Harris really fell very, very far in everyone's estimation of whether or not she can become president.
Liz Warren herself will make her pitch to be president.
Bernie will double down on radicalism and Pete Buttigieg and A.B. Klobuchar will come in as weaklings.
Then, by the way, will Joe Biden even run for president?
We're getting conflicting reports.
We'll get into that in a second.
But first, this afternoon at 3 p.m., the YAF campus tour brings me to Cal State Los Angeles, the home of La Raza, where I will be giving a speech on illegal immigration and the wall.
The speech is called, This Land is My Land.
It's my favorite line from a pretty mediocre song.
It's a free event, so if you're in the area, please come on down to the University Student Union Theater at 5154 State University Drive and enjoy the show.
By the way, if you bring super soakers, don't you dare get in on my jacket.
I've already lost one jacket to a super soaker.
I do not need to lose a second one.
If you can't make it in person, you can watch the live stream on the Daily Wire Facebook page and the Daily Wire YouTube channel.
Got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
Go to dailywire.com.
$10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.
you get me.
You get the Andrew Klavan show.
You get the Ben Shapiro show.
You get the Matt Walsh show.
You get to ask questions in the mailbag coming up on Thursday.
You get to ask questions backstage.
You get another kid.
What don't you get?
You get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
You're going to need it.
If the Super Soakers come out tonight, you are going to need the Tumblr to catch the tears.
Go to dailywire.com.
We'll be right back.
So Liz Warren shows up to the town hall, even though she's barely registering in polls, This is kind of do or die for her at this point.
And she decides she's going to play it a little bit safer.
She's not going to be making the pitch that you should vote for her because she'll enfranchise felons and terrorists and rapists.
Instead, she goes back to the tried and true Democrat strategy of promising to give people a bunch of free stuff.
I have two parts to the proposal.
Part one is that we say that we are going to roll back student loan debt for about 95% of students who have debt.
That's part one.
And then part two is, we'll roll it back for the other 5%.
Free stuff for everybody.
Ha ha ha.
That's more or less her proposal.
I love the language that the Democrats use, too.
We're going to roll back debt.
To translate for you from Democrat speak, what that means is we are going to take your money, you the taxpayer, and then give it to some students who made poor financial decisions and took out a lot of loans to get a worthless degree, a degree that almost certainly didn't educate them, and a degree that is also not applicable to getting a job, which is why they can't pay back the loans.
So that's why you, who didn't make any of those bad decisions, now have to pay off the loans for them.
Also known as rolling back the debt.
Just roll it back.
We're going to roll back your bank account.
We're going to roll back all of history so that you can rethink making good financial decisions.
Then we're going to roll it all forward and your good financial decisions are going to be held against you when you pay for other people's bad financial decisions.
Think about what this means.
This means that you, let's say you, didn't go to college.
You didn't take out $200,000 in debt.
You got a job.
You worked for an extra four years, maybe six years, maybe eight years if they got a PhD.
You worked for all of that time.
You did what you had to do.
You made smart decisions and you were responsible.
You, guy who didn't go to college, are now going to pay for a guy who did go to college Who, statistically speaking, is supposed to make more money in the long run than you will.
I think this is what they really mean by income inequality.
This is the biggest income inequality I've ever heard of.
People who have lower long-term income predictions are going to pay money directly to people who have Better chances at higher income in the long run.
Democrats pushing income inequality as ever.
But this is what they do.
They say, we'll pay you for everything.
Forget about how much it's actually going to cost.
Forget about how it's actually going to look.
Everybody gets everything for free.
Bernie Sanders goes a step further.
He proves that he's still an OG socialist defending comments he made in the 1970s about the Soviet Union defending communism.
You were asked earlier on, as a quick follow on this, what do you feel differently about now?
I was reviewing what CNN's K-File had come up, taking a look at your evolution in politics.
You used to argue that you should have government control of the means of capitalism, energy companies, factories, banks.
When did I say that?
In the 70s.
Okay, right.
No, but hold on.
What did you say in the 70s?
Hold on.
Gaga, Google.
That's right.
All right.
What I'm saying is that you've changed.
Well, wait a minute.
You know, first thought, you know.
He hears me criticizing media all the time, and he gets nervous about it, right?
One of many things that makes me nervous.
All right.
Is I was the mayor of a city for eight years.
Did I nationalize any of the industry in the city of Burlington, Vermont?
I don't think so.
Congressman for 16 years.
Look, I said what I said.
That's your excuse?
Your excuse for saying you want to nationalize industries just like Fidel Castro did and Joseph Stalin did and all of the communist thug tyrants of history did?
Your excuse for that, first of all, you don't apologize and you don't say you don't believe it anymore.
Your excuse is when I was mayor of Burlington, I didn't nationalize any industries.
Apparently unaware that you can't nationalize something when you're the mayor of a small town.
He says, look, I was a congressman for 50 years, 60 years.
Right.
You were.
You've been a congressman for a very long time.
You've just been very ineffective.
Is he saying that I didn't really want to nationalize all those things?
I didn't really mean what I've been saying for the last 50 years?
I don't think that's what he's saying.
I think what he's saying is, I've been so inept in the actual functions of government, in my actual career in politics, I've been so completely ineffective that I haven't been able to do any of the things that I've been promising to do for half a century.
That's his excuse.
Don't worry that I'm a communist.
I'm also extremely ineffective.
Don't worry that I'm a communist.
I'm incompetent.
An incompetent communist.
That's his pitch, Bernie Sanders.
Still, he gets points because he says things so confidently.
This is why I think in parties at the top of the polls, these other candidates are not.
There were some weaklings here.
Pete Buttigieg, not wearing a jacket, slump-shouldered, looking like he's 12 years old, not with a whole lot of gravitas, is asked.
He initially said that Mike Pence...
He doesn't like him, hates him, wants to erase him from the world, is anti-gay, he's a bigot.
This is not true, of course.
Mike Pence has only ever been complimentary and kind to Pete Buttigieg.
Pete Buttigieg completely made this up to try to make himself look like a victim.
Pete Buttigieg was then called out for this.
And then Pete Buttigieg apparently can dish it, but he can't take it.
You've gotten into kind of a back and forth, a public back and forth between Vice President Pence and yourself over the issue of discrimination against LGBTQ people and faith.
The current ambassador to Germany, Richard Grinnell, who's also gay, he weighed in on this saying that you have been, quote, pushing this hate hoax along the lines of Jussie Smollett for a very long time now, several weeks.
How do you respond to that?
I'm not a master fisherman, but I know bait when I see it, and I'm not going to take it.
Make haste while the sun shines.
30 days hath September, April, June, and November.
And when short February is done, all the rest have 31, Anderson.
That's my answer.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
That's enough.
That's enough, Pete Buttigieg.
We don't need to hear anymore.
He punts on the question.
It's pathetic.
He can sling a totally unfair attack, and then the gay ambassador to Germany, Grinnell, Ambassador Grinnell, comes out and says, this is a fake, unfair attack, and Pete Buttigieg should answer for it.
And Buttigieg says, yeah, pass.
I think I'm going to pass weak.
He would have done better giving a Kamala Harris answer.
Just weak stuff.
Not as weak though as Amy Klobuchar.
Remember Amy Klobuchar?
She's the one who gave a speech about global warming while she was covered up to her shoulders in snow.
Amy Klobuchar, who basically throws desk furniture at her staffers, who's throwing the office lamp at her aides.
Amy Klobuchar, who eats salads with combs on airplanes and then hands them to her staffer and says, clean it!
So anyway, I was kind of hoping, because Amy Klobuchar is a tough lady, that she could come out and be the tough one in this race.
Turns out Amy Klobuchar is the Jeb Bush of 2020.
I am someone that runs in a purple state.
It is a state that when I first started running for office, the other senator was Republican, the governor was Republican, and three of our four constitutional officers were Republican.
And then I started running.
And every single time I have run, I have won every single congressional district in my state, including Michelle Bachmann's, okay?
That's when you guys are supposed to cheer, okay?
All right, so...
I, uh...
Please clap.
Please clap.
My name's Jeb Klobuchar.
Please clap.
Weak stuff.
Don't ask for applause.
If you're going to ask for applause, you've got to really be playing with the audience.
You've got to really have a good rapport with the audience.
Amy Klobuchar doesn't have a good rapport with anybody.
She comes off as mean, aloof.
She does come off as a bit tough, but here she's trying to play retail politics and it's just not working.
So I think probably she's the weakest one in this race right now.
After this town hall, Bernie, radical as ever, what Bernie promises us is he's going to remain at the top of the field for at least a little while longer, because he did have a pretty good performance.
Because he's at the top of the field, because he's one of the better candidates in the race...
And because he is the most radical candidate in the race, what that tells us is the 2020 primary race is going to remain far left and radical for the foreseeable future.
Biggest loser of the night was Kamala Harris.
She went from a top tier candidate and really hurt herself.
If she can't figure out how to speak, if she can't figure out how to stop lying or at least lie better, she is going to fall way down in the pack.
But a judge is okay.
The bloom is off his rose a little bit.
He played all right.
But wearing the shirt sleeves and refusing to answer questions like he got caught not doing his homework in the eighth grade is not going to play well for a guy who looks like he's 12 years old.
He has to show people that he's an adult.
He has to show people that he can go from running a very small town in Indiana to running the whole country.
And he's not going to be able to do that if he continues to pretend to be Howdy Doody or somebody or leave it to Beaver.
Ain't going to work.
And Amy Klobuchar really had to make a move here.
She didn't.
She didn't move the needle.
Elizabeth Warren maybe helped herself just a little tiny bit because she gave direct answers and went to a tried and true Democrat strategy.
Speaking of weakness, though, somebody was missing in that town hall, you'll notice.
Who was missing?
Creepy Uncle Joe himself.
Joe Biden was supposed to announce his presidential run on Wednesday.
Frankly, he was supposed to announce a while ago.
And he's been kind of playing, doing this Hamlet game.
It was supposed to be on Wednesday.
He was supposed to go drop the video on Wednesday, then do stops in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.
This has been known for weeks at this point.
And then all of a sudden, it's not happening, apparently.
Now we're getting some reports that he might announce on Thursday.
Now we're getting some reports he might not announce at all.
Why is that?
Well, I can show you in a 30-second video.
Listen to this.
The basis of the behavior that I talked about was something much more serious than just a hug.
I mean, that's where the conversation devolved into, but that's not where it started.
We talked about the fact that I had no previous relationship with the vice president, that it was moments before a high-profile event where I was supposed to speak to hundreds of people.
It was unexpected.
He was behind me.
He held onto my shoulders.
He got close to my body From behind, smelled my hair, kissed my head, all moments before I was supposed to do this event, and that is not a hug.
That is just unprofessional, inappropriate behavior, no matter who does it, but certainly from, at the time, the second most powerful man in the country.
I guess the real question for 2020 Democrats is once Joe Biden is convicted and sent to prison for weird shoulder massages, will he still be able to vote?
That's what they're going to debate at the next CNN town hall.
You know I have long defended Joe Biden on this line of attack.
I think it is totally disingenuous.
It is probably being launched by the Bernie Sanders campaign.
It is making a mountain out of a molehill.
He's a weird guy who gives weird shoulder massages and smells women's hair.
I'm not saying that that is normal behavior.
However, why is he doing it?
He's clearly doing it to ingratiate himself.
He is a glad-handing, walking simper of a politician.
That is his whole shtick.
He's doing all of it on camera.
There has never been an allegation that he's jumping around hotel rooms cheating on his wife or anything like that.
So I think it's a weak attack But I've long said...
Joe Biden is a weak candidate.
I think he's a total paper tiger.
He ran in 88, he flopped.
He ran in 2008, he flopped.
The only reason he got to be vice president is because Barack Obama hated Hillary Clinton so much.
I don't think he's going anywhere.
If Joe Biden can't withstand this flimsy attack by a former campaign volunteer for Bernie Sanders, which is who that woman is, Lucy Flores, was a big booster of Bernie Sanders, and I believe she remains so, if you can't weather that kind of an attack, You ain't going nowhere.
That is nothing.
He should have been able to brush that off in two seconds.
So maybe he'll announce on Thursday.
Maybe he won't.
He's playing Hamlet for now.
We have another candidate entering the race now, a guy named Seth Moulton.
He is from the 6th Congressional District of Massachusetts.
He just announced his campaign yesterday.
I was first called to service in my college church.
By a minister who's the greatest mentor I ever had.
They talked a lot about the importance of service, about how it's not enough just to believe in service.
You gotta find a way to give back yourself.
You couldn't help but sit in this church and be hit by the names on these walls.
And I had so much respect for them that I wanted to do my part too.
So I joined the Marines.
My parents weren't exactly thrilled.
I was really scared for him.
Even in a war I disagreed with, there's nothing I'm more proud of than being a grunt, being on the ground, serving with those Marines.
Before I knew it, I was commanding a platoon in the first company of Marines into Baghdad.
His campaign manager, his pollster, told him to quit.
And you don't tell us how to quit.
How many more Democrat presidential announcement ads are we going to have to hear this ridiculous platitude?
You know, when he announced he was going to run, all everybody told so-and-so to quit.
But you don't tell so-and-so to quit.
So-and-so doesn't quit.
He can't quit.
He doesn't even know the word quit.
He's not a quitter.
So-and-so's not a quitter.
It's Eric Swalwell's campaign ad all over again.
Also, this guy, Seth Moulton, white male Marine.
Probably not exactly the demographic that identity-obsessed Democrats are looking for in 2020.
2020, 20 candidates running.
Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Klobuchar, Wayne Messon, Beto O'Rourke, Tim Ryan, Bernie Sanders, Eric Swalwell, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson.
She's a spiritual author and counselor to Oprah.
Andrew Yang, now Seth Moulton, possibly Joe Biden in a couple days.
I thought this might be a long drawn out thing.
Looking at their performances on CNN, I'm wondering if this isn't going to thin out real quick.
These are weak candidates.
They are not like the Republican candidates in 2016.
Those Republican candidates, most of them, were extremely strong candidates.
Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, obviously.
These were, Jeb Bush actually was a, was at least a serious candidate.
Donald Trump turned out to be one.
Rand Paul, these were tough people who did know what they think and were able to put up a fight.
Lots of others as well.
These are not.
These are for the most part pretty weak candidates.
The fear here is if they all stay in too long, Bernie Sanders is going to be able to come in, win a plurality in a number of states, walk his way to the nomination without actually winning too many votes.
That's the fear.
He's running the strongest right now, including Joe Biden.
And the only hope is the total weakness of these candidates.
They're all trying to be Bernie, but you can't out Bernie Bernie.
And if you don't really believe it, if you're not a true believer who takes his shirt off and swills vodka and sings, this land is my land, this land is your land with Soviets in the eighties, you really can't pull off the commie shtick.
We'll see how long this, this lasts.
I want to start taking bets on who is going to be out of this race before the first debate.
We'll find out after a couple more CNN town halls.
Speaking of town halls, come see me tonight at Cal State LA. We will be talking about the wall.
We will be talking about immigration.
We will be talking about how this land is my land.
Go check it out.
Otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkowitz and directed by Mike Joyner.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Danny D'Amico.
Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
And our production assistant is Nick Sheehan.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
Today on the Ben Shapiro Show, Democrats compete for attention on CNN and the media downplay Sri Lanka.
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