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Feb. 5, 2020 - The Michael Knowles Show
02:44:24
Daily Wire Backstage: 2020 State of the Union Edition
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Hey, Michael Knowles here, and do I have a treat for you.
The latest episode of Daily Wire backstage is right around the corner, and you do not want to miss it.
Join me, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, and the God King Jeremy Boring as we discuss the latest news and cultural events, all while enjoying some fine whiskey and cigars.
It is going to be all that and more.
Take a listen.
A funny thing happened on the way to the caucus.
62% of the total is now in, and we have official results with the popular vote.
That's who people actually like, the actual audience we're talking about here.
We have, in first place, Ben Shapiro, with 1.5 million somethings.
In second place, we have Andrew Klavan with considerably less something.
And in third place, we have Michael Knowles with just barely anything at all.
Clearly, the winner of all of our delegates, Elisha Krause.
Elisha, tell us how people can get their questions in.
I'm actually really annoyed because I would expect this from Michael, but when Ben told me we were all going to dress up like Supreme Court justices, I believed him.
Really, guys?
Golly!
Alright, let me just RBG it up over here.
She will be there tonight, right?
She's not skipping like AOC. So, for our subscribers watching at home, if you want to ask the guys questions, just head on over to dailywire.com and navigate to the shows page at the top, click on backstage, and then type in your questions into the chat box next to the video.
Another special perk for our subscribers is this kind of AMA thing that we do every once in a while with our writers and editors and all of the talent here.
It's called Discussion and that's only available to subscribers and it's going to be lots of fun.
You can ask me how annoyed I am with Ben and where Michael is because we still don't know.
Allegedly with Ted Cruz smoking cigars in D.C. I don't know.
But only subscribers get to ask the questions.
So if you're not a subscriber, you can become one tonight and get those questions.
And we'll be taking all of your questions after President Trump's State of the Union address.
Thank you, Elisha, and thank you to everybody watching at home.
We're sorry.
Listen, we don't control the fact that the American democratic system has fallen into complete ruin and disrepair, and now the president stands up like a monarch for three to seven hours and talks on and on and on and on and on while he's booed, hissed, cheered, walked out on or Instagrammed about, in the case of AOC tonight, who's not actually going to attend the State of the Union.
She's just going to—it's very serious, very somber, very personal decision.
She'll be on Instagram.
Talking about it there.
We don't control it.
None of us like the State of the Union, but what we do like is watching it with you and talking about the Iowa caucus, mostly because we love to say the word caucus.
It is one of the greatest words in politics.
How does the Iowa caucus work?
I used to think that I was a political novice because I didn't know.
It turns out...
It just means I'm a Democrat.
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Michael, you're in Washington, D.C.
You broke up the band.
This has never happened before.
We're all a little pissed, but we should take a brief moment to celebrate your victory.
You've been killing it over there.
Tell us about it.
Thank you very much.
I am co-hosting the number one show as of two days ago.
We had the number one podcast for a week.
Unfortunately, Joe Rogan has come back and overtaken us.
But it's the verdict with Ted Cruz.
We've been covering every single night.
The senator comes over from the Capitol.
He comes to a bunker that we have somewhere in Washington.
We stay up all night talking about the impeachment.
It's a lot of fun.
And it made me think...
With all the conspiracy theories going around with the Iowa caucuses and all this craziness with the Democratic ballot counting, I did have to wonder if it was Ben who orchestrated this entire impeachment hoax just to get me 3,000 miles away on the other side of America.
If we could keep you there permanently, that'd be fantastic.
I also did ask for a mute button for this television.
Unfortunately, it was not provided for me.
You know, I would like to point out, we've got some pretty amazing technology that allows me to beam in.
My cigar smoke is coming off of the TV at the Daily Wire in L.A., and the Democrats can't even get an Excel spreadsheet together to count some votes in Iowa.
So this is like the best week ever, right?
I mean, the Iowa caucuses are just spectacular.
This was great, because I will admit to you that leading up to covering the Iowa caucuses, I was not a happy camper, because the leading contenders are all of my least favorite human beings, right?
It was Bernie Sanders, who's an actual communist, like an actual 1930s.
That's the pejorative that you use because he's a communist.
Right?
I will say, it is maddening and unbelievable to me that no one in the media sees fit to ask Bernie Sanders why he says that he has the same belief.
He said this, that he has the same belief system now that he had in 1963, right?
This is his selling point, is that he has never changed at all.
And in 1976, when he was my age, right, because Bernie Sanders has been an adult for one million years...
Okay, so in 1976, when he was my age, I'm 35, I'm 36, he was 35 then, he said he wanted to nationalize the energy industry, all of the major banks, and every major industry in the United States, and no one has asked him.
I think one person asked him, so what was the deal with that?
And he was like, well, I was mayor of Burlington and I didn't do it.
Right, because you're mayor of Burlington, you get nationalized.
As mayor of Burlington.
And you're just calling...
You're saying that he's a socialist.
I guess that if you just mean that he believes that the working man deserves to do better, then yeah, he's a socialist.
Yeah, this formulation makes me want to vomit so hard and never stop vomiting.
Like, my stomach lining comes up.
Every time he does that, if by socialist you mean that I would like puppies to have a life of their own, then yes, I'm a socialist.
Like, no, that's not what I mean.
I mean public ownership of the resources and means of production.
That's what I mean, you asked me.
But in any case...
I like that he just bleeped the hole and asked That's usually how it works on our site.
I'm not sure you've figured this out yet.
In any case, I'm tired.
So in any case, I thought the story was going to be Bernie, who is just an awful human being, or Elizabeth Warren, who may be an even more awful human being because she pretends to be Bernie but doesn't actually believe it.
So think about how awful you have to be.
To pretend to be Bernie Sanders, right?
You don't actually believe the bullcrap he believes.
It's just that you want to be him.
When you're used to pretending to be something you're not, as Elizabeth Warren is, I think it just kind of comes out before you think about it.
And then it was Pete Buttigieg who pretended to be a moderate, but in reality just hates people who believe in the Bible and wants to see them all burn in hell and makes this absolutely clear and calls everybody who disagrees with him a racist.
Like, this is his thing.
So the story was going to be that one of these great minds wins.
And I was kind of ticked about that because in reality, if I had to pick among the awful Democrats, I would obviously pick Amy Klobuchar, who, number one, physically beats people with binders, and number two, is actually not completely insane.
And Joe Biden, who's a corpse, right, and would do minimal damage to the country because he's dead.
I feel like the founding vision of the presidency is almost perfectly embodied in Joe Biden as president.
This is right.
It's a guy who they can occasionally wheel out to sign something that was passed by the legislature.
Right.
And they wheel him back.
And, like, we wouldn't have a State of the Union, right?
They'd wheel him out and they'd just have a letter pinned to his chest.
And then they'd just wheel him back.
It would be fantastic.
The State of the Union is...
Good.
So I was really expecting the Iowa caucuses to be terrible because I was expecting all the people who I didn't want to win to win.
We'd have to hear about how Bernie was going to be the nominee.
It was going to be awful.
And then the light of God shone down.
And the Iowa caucuses end up being a complete and utter cluster F. And at this point, you have to wonder.
You do.
You have to wonder.
Did Donald Trump at some point cut a deal with Satan?
Okay.
Because the man has an unbroken streak of luck.
Like, nothing I've ever seen.
Now, for all this other stuff, I'm willing to hear the 4D chess, 5D chess, underwater, upside-down, hungry, hungry hippos theory of how Donald Trump is manipulating things.
But you are going to have to explain to me how Donald Trump made the Democrats implode their own caucuses in Iowa.
Like, maybe it was by adding Kansas City...
The devil went down to Wharton looking for a soul to steal, and he laid a golden toilet on the ground at Donald's feet...
And Donald whooped him.
It's unbelievable.
I mean, my going theory was that by adding the city of Kansas City to the state of Kansas, he had somehow thrown off magnetic alignment in that part of the country because, of course, Iowa is just north of Missouri.
So maybe by depriving Missouri of Kansas City, he had somehow thrown things off and it screwed up the app.
But it just reveals, it really just reveals the simple truth about Donald Trump, that no matter how bad Donald Trump is or no matter what you think of him, the Democrat Party is worse and has always been worse.
And it's not like they keep saying, oh, he's corrupt.
Really?
This is the Democrat Party in Chicago.
They're now hauling people away under the arms like the Keystone Cops are arresting the politicians in Chicago.
But here's the...
But here's the wonderful thing, right?
Because the rips on Trump that they were going to use are, one, that he's evil, which, I mean, he's Trump, right?
I mean, like, come on.
And two, that he is corrupt, which they tried with this Ukraine thing.
That didn't really work.
And also Hunter Biden.
I mean, like, seriously, like you.
Right.
But their final, the final arrow in their quiver was one that kind of you could see, right, which is that it's chaos over there.
Like, it's chaos inside the White House, and it's incompetence, and he doesn't know what he's doing.
And sure, some good things are happening, but it's complete batshittery.
And so, let's put someone sober and confident.
I would have said bleepshittery.
LAUGHTER Okay, I'm confused about the rules, guys.
I'm confused about the rules.
And so, instead, just to counter the final quiver, the final arrow in their quiver, which is that he's incompetent and it's all chaotic, they decide that they are going to take a process that involves a grand total of 170,000 votes.
More people will watch this broadcast tonight live than voted in Iowa last night.
And we will handle all of them.
They will come to the site and we will handle them.
It will be fine.
Can I be alive?
Since I know that Ben will not point, no matter how long the show goes, and it looks like it's going to be about seven hours...
No matter how long it goes, Ben will never point out that this has been the greatest, January, it's now February, January was the greatest month in presidential history.
I have never seen a president with as many successes as Donald Trump had in January.
In one month, a record stock market, a record stock market, Soleimani.
Soleimani was a huge one.
A huge win.
The peace plan, the Middle East peace plan was fantastic.
The Middle East people.
Excellent.
Two trade deals, which, you know...
No, those are good.
Those are good.
I mean, it's better than nothing.
I mean, this is all in one month.
And didn't get impeached, just like every other president in American history.
So that means that by the Trump affirmative action standard, that's like the best month ever.
That's a pretty good month.
That's a pretty good month for a president.
No, I mean, in the Gallup poll, right?
I mean, he's up to 49%.
And the other poll...
63% approval on the economy.
No one's beating him this way.
And people are happier with race relations than they've been, with security than they've ever been.
I mean, it's amazing.
I mean, his race relations are breaking down in Iowa, right?
I'm not exaggerating.
Race relations are breaking down in Iowa, though.
Democrats are very angry.
They realize that everybody is white.
And so now all the white people are trying to determine who's the most white.
And it's like shades of white, right?
They've got, like, fluorescent eggshell.
They've got French vanilla.
And they're all arguing amongst each other because there's a real race crisis in Iowa.
I think we're actually missing the biggest news out of Iowa, which is that Bill Weld Michael, we're talking here about impeachment.
You know more about impeachment than any of us because you've been boots on the ground there with Senator Cruz.
Talk to us a little bit just about the insights that you're getting, hearing from the senator coming straight out every night.
The most interesting thing about impeachment to me is how nobody has their act together whatsoever.
So I went into this thing just assuming that everybody kind of had a plan, and it was all going to play out, but it was pre-scripted, no big deal.
No, it turns out the U.S. Senate has absolutely no coordination whatsoever, and it's just happening in real time.
So Senator Cruz is telling this story of they show up, and they're listening to these droning speeches, and they're so boring, and then Adam Schiff makes a mistake.
Adam Schiff gives the Senate Republicans an opening.
We don't need to go into it now because it gets very complicated.
But then Cruz jumps up.
He runs into the cloakroom.
He's trying to cut a deal with a couple other senators in there.
They come back out.
Elizabeth Warren asks a stupid question.
That gives another opening.
That irritates Lisa Murkowski.
Lisa Murkowski decides she's not going to vote for witnesses.
Like it's all playing out in real time.
And it actually made me feel kind of good about politics.
One, because I don't think that the U.S. government is competent enough to tyrannize us.
But two...
It made me feel good because it really means that individuals do matter and that these speeches and these machinations and these deals really do affect politics.
I mean, we saw this play out in Iowa just the other night where, you know, the Democrats accused President Trump of every manner of evil, but it turns out the Democrats have done it even worse.
They accused Trump of stealing the general election in 2016.
The Democrats couldn't wait one caucus before they stole one of the states, and that's Mayor Cheap Buttigieg.
It is true, right?
Like, Cheap Buttigieg, they've got 60% reporting happening right now in Iowa.
That's all the people, right?
It's like the Democratic three-fifths rule.
They've announced these results.
Which are built to take wind out of Bernie Sanders' cell.
We were talking last time we were together, they're going to have to come up with new ways to cheat Bernie this time because they burned the boats after they cheated him last time.
And they're doing it.
They're coming up with new ways to cheat the guy.
Is it...
We should get used to socialism.
That's what it's like.
Yeah, he didn't grease the right palms.
Do we think that it's possible that the Democratic Party will be so fractured by this primary that they don't unite?
Or is Trump the great uniter, no matter who they were?
No, so the secret, the dirty secret of the Iowa caucuses that no one really wants to talk about, it's been buried beneath three layers of coverage.
Because the turnout sucked.
So they were expecting this to be like an all-time turnout.
Like 300,000 people show up in Iowa.
240,000 people showed up for Obama in 2008.
This time it was 170,000, which despite population increases in the state, is the same number as 2016, which means no one showed up.
The fact is, enthusiasm on the Democratic side is not nearly as high.
It's high in L.A., right?
We're in L.A., so it feels really high.
In New York, it's really high.
In D.C., it's really high.
In the middle of the country, nobody's sitting up nights thinking about President Trump, and that was perfectly obvious in Iowa, and that is a serious problem for them, because what it really means...
If Bernie does not get the nomination for any reason at this point, because Bernie will have come away with the most votes in Iowa, he's going to win the most votes in New Hampshire, if he comes away for any reason, competitive with Joe Biden or Michael Bloomberg, or goes to a brokered convention and he has a plurality of the votes but not a majority of the votes, his people will walk.
They're not going to stick around and watch him get jobbed a third time.
I mean, the man might not live to run again when he's 84.
I mean, he can only run...
I said to Drew before the show, though, Bernie should be an inspiration for Drew.
Drew's been mostly useless for only 50 years of his adult life.
He's still got 10 years to be useless and then run for president.
This thing about the turnout, though, is huge.
It is a big deal because all we've heard, the anger, the fury of the Democrat Party has been overwhelming and the fury of the media.
But the people, you know, what do they think?
They're going to go back to the good old days where Ma and Pa sat on the porch and watched the factory close, you It's not that good for the Democrats in the Midwest.
Did you overhear the conversation that happened in New Hampshire the other day?
John Kerry, Thurston Howell III, John Kerry was caught on camera, or on the phone rather, saying that the party's falling apart and they're following Bernie Sanders off a cliff and maybe he has to run again.
John Kerry got clobbered in 2004 by George W. Bush.
What I like is that then later that day he put out a tweet saying that it was absolutely effing untrue, and then he deleted the tweet because his entire presidential strategy is flip-flop.
Is that joke like 20 years too old?
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I wouldn't go that far, but since I work for Ben, I do like to at least be perceived as a good person.
The truth is, none of us are omniscient.
We all get the future wrong.
Ben lost hundreds of dollars to Michael and I by saying that Donald Trump could not be elected president.
And if I had made a monetary bet, Drew would have lost hundreds of dollars to me by saying that Donald Trump couldn't be a viable candidate.
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And we are going to be watching tonight with you the State of the Union.
President Trump, what we believe is going to be the greatest show probably in the history of the Republic.
President Trump, less than 24 hours after watching the Democrats collapse in Iowa and 24 hours before being acquitted in the Senate for impeachment, is going to stand in front of a joint session of Congress and tell them...
I've got to say that I hated this impeachment story from the beginning.
I thought it was a sham.
I think everything Trump said about it is true.
It's a hoax.
It's ridiculous.
And I resented having to talk about it.
I resented having to talk about the guy who is doing a good job as president.
You can pick on him for a lot of things, and that's fine.
But to talk about what he said to the president of Ukraine was nonsense.
But I've got to admit, watching him give the State of the Union, while he's still on trial, is kind of dramatic and fun.
Yeah, no, I totally agree with this.
So I hate...
I mean, I've given this speech.
We've all given this speech, I think, a thousand times.
The State of the Union is a monarchic garbage institution.
We should go back to writing letters to Congress and be done with it because it's ridiculous.
The executive branch is not superior to the legislative branch.
In fact, it's kind of the opposite in the Constitution in terms of delegated powers.
The treatment of the president as though he's the king is disgusting.
But putting all of that aside, watching Donald Trump go into a room of people who hate him is spectacular.
Oh, yeah.
Spectacular drama.
And watching...
I'm sorry.
The Democrat women are still doing this like we're going to wear white thing in honor of the suffragists.
I thought they did that last year because it was like the 100-year anniversary of the amendment that allowed women to vote.
Why don't the Republicans just show up in their union uniform?
Like from 1864.
Remember that time we freed the slaves and all you Democrats were in favor of slavery?
Remember that?
Nothing this week.
The Democrats are racist and they think that white is better than black.
So they have to wear white to show how great they are.
I also want to offer a counterpoint here to Ben, because I agree.
Yes, it is irritating that we treat the president like a king.
It used to bother me so much.
After the past few weeks of the House Democrats droning on, trying to rip up our Constitution, I want Trump to go full Charles II. I want him to use the State of the Union, dissolve the whole Congress, declare himself king for life.
I will say that I'm now going to cut against my normal advice to the president.
So normally I say things in this situation like, don't be a tool.
And also don't be a tool.
And if you could avoid it, just don't get up there and be a tool.
Because seriously, you have 49% approval rating, 63% approval on the economy.
The Democrats are falling apart in front of your face.
Just play it safe and be normal.
Go up there, be on teleprompter.
You know what?
Screw it.
No way.
Because the time has come.
The time has come.
If ever it was time for Twitter Trump to make an appearance at the State of the Union, today is that day.
And if he does not take a massive dump all over them and just mention Iowa 173 times and call out Pencil Neck Schiff and Crazy Nancy, if he doesn't go after Crazy Chuck, and if he doesn't yell at the Democrats and make fun of AOC for being at home playing with the Instant Pot while Instagramming, then what do we pay for?
I mean, what are we even doing here if he's not going to do that?
Seriously.
Adam Schiff will get an ovation tonight from the Democrats, right?
Trump will have to say his name, and the Democrats will give him a standing ovation.
Well, I don't know why Trump will have to say his name.
Yeah, why should he say his name?
Why don't Trump say his name?
When I say Donald Trump will have to say his name, I mean because Donald Trump is Trump, and have to implies compulsion.
I think he's selling him short.
I think he's going to get up and give a quiet, optimistic speech, and then go home at 3 o'clock in the morning and tweet some stupid stuff.
We were talking about this earlier.
Donald Trump is the only person in the world who buys back his not mistakes.
Everybody else, you make a mistake and then you're like, oh God, I can't believe I did that.
Can I buy that back in some way?
Donald Trump is the only person who does something perfectly normal.
And two hours later, he's like, I shouldn't have done that.
Gotta go after it, man.
You only live once.
Donald Trump is the guy who, when he's driving home and he thinks of the comeback that he should have used at the party.
Yeah, she drives me back.
Yeah.
Rush Limbaugh, by the way, is in the audience, which is a cool thing.
They didn't bring Rush to the State of the Union.
He's giving me the Medal of Freedom, right?
Which is great.
Which is well-deserved.
Here come the members of the Supreme Court, and we have to pretend we like those guys.
But they're not going to pretend that they like the president.
First of all, it is hilarious to me that we treat these people as, like, honored guests.
Like, I know Elena Kagan, right?
She was dean of the law school when I was there, and she's just a human.
Like, the way that we treat the Supreme Court justices is though they are...
As though they have been invested with all the power and dignity of the office and they know all and are all wise.
I like it better when they fall asleep at the State of the Union and make faces at the president and stuff.
What we have learned in the last couple of months is what people who watch already know.
This is never House of Cards.
It's Veep.
So let's treat this thing like Veep, right?
I mean, it's all a joke and it's all a ridiculous spectacle.
And I'm really just hoping the president gets up there and literally just takes his microphone and throws it at people.
I mean, like, Let's just go.
Full WWE. Tags in Mike Pence.
Mike Pence jumps in from the rafters.
From the top rope, Mike Pence.
Let's just do this thing.
Let's do it right.
Come on.
Just the way Washington imagined.
I was genuinely sad about Rush Limbaugh.
I was genuinely sad about Rush Limbaugh.
Oh, of course.
Yeah, it was terrible.
Way to kill the joke there, Drew.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I know, but we had to stop.
Just to stop for a minute.
None of us would be here if it weren't for him.
He just did so much for this country.
Really for the country, right?
I mean, I grew up listening to Rush.
I mean, I think everybody who's conservative of my generation grew up in the car listening to Rush because it was before the internet, really, and before you could listen to podcasts or anything.
My first exposure to conservative thought was Rush Limbaugh.
Yeah, my dad introduced me to Rush Limbaugh when I was maybe 14, 15 years old.
We used to listen to him in the car together.
I mean, unbelievably talented broadcaster and a populist version of William F. Buckley, by which I just mean that he was able to reach a crowd that Buckley was never able to reach.
I mean, Buckley was speaking up here and Rush was speaking kind of for the common man.
And that's a pretty impressive thing.
And we shouldn't talk about him like he's gone.
No, he's not.
He's perfectly well there.
And he's going to, with the help of God, hopefully he'll be in recovery soon.
And Rush doesn't get enough credit, too, because, you know, you compare him to Buckley.
He and Buckley were actually friends.
Obviously they were speaking in different ways on different media.
But I loved in Rush's statement when he gave the announcement, he said, you know, I really don't like talking about myself.
And this struck a lot of people as odd because he says, you know, I have talent on loan from God.
I do it with half my brain tied behind my back.
Yeah, but that's not talking about himself.
That's right.
It's the joke he said.
He said, you know, I don't talk about myself unless it's satiric and parodic.
And, you know, I have this relationship with God.
I'm leaning on it more now than I used to, but I just wanted to let you know because I respect the audience.
And he always respects his audience.
He never refers to his fans.
He always refers to his listeners.
And I think that respect is why he gets so much love back.
And we know since reality is conservative, we know God listens to his show to get his ideas, so we have a lot of hope for him.
We also know with Rush Limbaugh that the response on Twitter yesterday is the most vitriolic, hate-filled garbage that I've ever seen.
On a platform ordinarily known for its poise, civility, I read people's reactions to Rush Limbaugh yesterday, and I was actually embarrassed for people.
That's the thing.
You know, I just feel like people like that are already suffering.
I don't even engage with them.
I won't respond to them.
I won't tell them what I think of them.
I just think that's an evil unto itself that you pay for already.
Twitter is the dumbest place on earth, and unredeemable, except when the Iowa caucuses are melting down.
In which case, it was the greatest thing that has ever been invented.
Okay, so, before the State of the Union, let's quickly handicap the Democratic race.
Right now, if you had to put money on it, I'd bet on Bernie, but then he'd take all my money if I win, so...
It really is not worth it at this point.
But I think that Bernie is still the frontrunner at this point.
What do you guys think?
Michael, what are you thinking?
I'd bet on Bernie, except the Democrats are going to redistribute his votes.
And I really mean that seriously.
He would win.
Right now, it looks like he probably won in Iowa.
There are some shenanigans going on.
He's way up in New Hampshire.
The guy's even gaining in South Carolina, which he hadn't been doing well in.
I think if they were left to the will of the voters, he would get it.
And yet, the Democratic Party, this is not a conspiracy theory, they have tried time and time again to squash this guy's candidacy.
And they have the power to do it, so I suspect there's a good chance they'll succeed again.
I don't think they will succeed.
I think it will be Bernie if things keep up this way.
And I don't think they will succeed because I think you're right in that the people who follow Bernie are not showing up for the second-tier candidate.
They'll burn it down.
They'll burn the place down.
They're communists.
Why wouldn't they?
Did you see that James O'Keefe was banned on Twitter today for his exposés about Bernie Stafford?
That's unbelievable.
I completely miss this.
That's insane.
Perfectly predictable, but insane.
Anyone who hasn't been following this, O'Keefe has done a terrific expose over the last couple weeks.
Sanders campaign worker after Sanders campaign worker after Sanders campaign worker, saying that they support gulags and violent revolution.
It's been a remarkable event.
Nobody even covered the fact that they made anti-gay slurs against Lindsey Graham.
There's Rush.
There he is.
And the man himself with Melania Trump, Rush Limbaugh.
And we're waiting here for the President of the United States who ought to make his entrance just any minute now.
We'll be watching the State of the Union along with you.
And then afterwards, we'll pop back on here and give you our analysis.
In the meantime, the year is just getting started and it's already pretty crazy.
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Is this the cabinet walking in now?
The president's cabinet is walking into the chamber.
So, question.
Do you guys have a rooting interest in the Democratic primaries?
So, I know there are a lot of people who are rooting for Bernie to win, and it seems like a lot of folks in sort of Trump's orbit are rooting for Bernie to win.
No, I do not want Bernie to win.
I don't want Bernie to win either.
I want Biden to be the nominee, and the reason is because, if we learned anything from the 2016 election, is that anyone nominated can become president.
Correct.
And if Biden becomes president, it will not be the end of the republic.
I know that it's...
We're in the election now, and you're going to get burned at the stake if you say things like this.
But I'm just telling you, if Joe Biden is president of the United States, there's going to be some problems.
I won't be happy about it.
We will still have a country on the other side of it.
And if someone like Bernie accidentally, you know, think of all the things that happened.
He can be the nominee.
Trump can have a heart attack.
He can be the nominee.
The economy can collapse.
He can be the nominee and anything can happen.
Any of a hundred things can happen and he becomes the president.
And now the greatest country in the history of the earth has elected an actual communist to be president.
I don't see how we can possibly root for that just because we think it might be funny.
I gotta be...
Well, that's one thing.
Also, I just don't think it'll happen.
I have too much hope, too much faith in the country.
I do not think they'll elect Bernie Sanders, and I would love to see his philosophy repudiated, as I think it will be, as Jeremy Corbyn's was in Britain.
The problem, though, is another lesson that we learned from the Trump election in 2016 is that a party will realign its values to support its nominee.
They will.
And if Bernie is the nominee, he doesn't even have to win.
If he is the nominee, the Democrats will be the party of communism.
No, wait, but that's not true.
They realign, but if he loses, they realign again.
Well, no, I'm not sure that that's right, because they realign for McGovern.
And then there were a few, there was like one election cycle with Carter, basically, where they realigned in sort of more conservative direction.
And then by 1980, they were already realigning back toward McGovernism, right?
Because Teddy Kennedy was winning primaries, and by 1984, you have Walter Mondale on stage proclaiming he's going to raise everybody's taxes radically.
So I do think that wherever is the outer bar that is set, that bar now becomes closer to the middle than it was.
That coverage is That may be true, but my other calculation is very simple, which is that if the possibility is Bernie has a 40% shot of being president and Biden has a 45% shot of being president, I would much rather take Biden at 45% shot of being president than Bernie at 40% shot.
The differential isn't enough to justify Bernie being president.
You're Batman at the end of the Dark Knight saying, they won't blow up the boats.
Not in this town.
Not in this town.
Anytime I can be Batman at any point, I'm happy.
And I'm the Joker going, where were you in 2016?
Ah!
You know, on the other side, though, of this whole, like, worry that it just goes left and left and left, you did get, when Mondale got wiped out by Reagan in 84, you did, not so long after, get Bill Clinton, who was, especially by today's standards, but really even by those standards, a sort of moderate Democrat.
I do wonder, if you got a Bernie in there, and hopefully everyone survives, then maybe you can get a repudiation of that.
But even if not, even if you're worried that that'll realign the party, then by that logic, shouldn't we be pulling for a guy like Bloomberg, Bloomberg still likes capitalism.
Bloomberg actually believes that the free market is a good thing.
And here he is, the President of the United States.
Here we go, guys.
All right, let's do this thing!
Whose music is that?
That's the president's music!
Madam Speaker, the President of the United States.
Thank you.
Mr.
Thank you.
Members of Congress, the President of the United States.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Madam Speaker, Mr.
Vice President, members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow citizens, and my fellow citizens, Congress, the First Lady of the three years ago we launched the Great American Comeback.
and come back.
Tonight I stand before you to share the incredible results.
Jobs are booming, incomes are soaring, poverty is plummeting, crime is falling, confidence is surging, and our country is thriving and highly respected again. and our country is thriving and highly respected again.
America's enemies are on the run.
America's fortunes are on the rise.
And America's future is blazing bright.
The years of economic decay are over.
The days of our country being used, taken advantage of, and even scorned by other nations are long behind us.
applause Gone, too, are the broken promises, jobless recoveries, tired platitudes, and constant excuses for the depletion of American wealth, power, and prestige.
In just three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline, and we have rejected the downsizing of Americans' destiny.
We have totally rejected the downsizing.
We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, and we are never, ever going back. ever going back.
I am thrilled to report to you tonight that our economy is the best it has ever been.
Our military is completely rebuilt with its power being unmatched anywhere in the world and it's not even close.
Our borders are secure.
Our families are flourishing.
Our values are renewed.
Our pride is restored.
And for all of these reasons, I say to the people of our great country and to the members of Congress, the state of our union is stronger than ever before.
The vision I will lay out this evening demonstrates how we are building the world's most prosperous and inclusive society, one where every citizen can join in America's unparalleled success and where every community
one where every citizen can join in America's unparalleled success, and where every community can take part in America's extraordinary rise.
From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy, slashing a record number of job-killing regulations, enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts, and fighting for fair and reciprocal trade agreements.
APPLAUSE Our agenda is relentlessly pro-worker, pro-family, pro-growth, and most of all, pro-American.
Thank you.
We are advancing with unbridled optimism and lifting our citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed very, very high.
Since my election, we have created 7 million new jobs, 5 million more than government experts projected during the previous administration.
The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century.
Thank you.
And very incredibly, the average unemployment rate under my administration is lower than any administration in the history of our country.
If we hadn't reversed the failed economic policies of the previous administration, the world would not now be witnessing this great economic success.
Thank you.
The unemployment rate for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans has reached the lowest levels in history.
African American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low.
Thank you.
African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded.
The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years, and last year women filled 72% of all new jobs added.
The veterans' unemployment rate dropped to a record low.
Applause.
Applause. Applause.
The unemployment rate for disabled Americans has reached an all-time low.
Workers without a high school diploma have achieved the lowest unemployment rate recorded in U.S. history.
Applause A record number of young Americans are now employed.
Under the last administration, more than 10 million people were added to the food stamp rolls.
Under my administration, 7 million Americans have come off food stamps and 10 million people have been lifted off of welfare.
Thank you.
In eight years under the last administration, over 300,000 working age people dropped out of the workforce.
In just three years of my administration, 3.5 million people, working age people, have joined the workforce.
Since my election, the net worth of the bottom half of wage earners has increased by 47 percent three times faster than the increase for the top 1 percent.
Thank you.
After decades of flat and falling incomes, wages are rising fast, and wonderfully, they are rising fastest for low-income workers who have seen a 16% pay increase since my election.
This is a blue-collar boom.
Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Thank you.
Real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded.
Since my election, U.S. stock markets have soared 70%, adding more than $12 trillion to our nation's wealth, transcending anything anyone believed was possible.
This is a record.
It is something that every country in the world is looking up to.
they admire. .
Consumer confidence has just reached amazing new highs.
All of those millions of people with 401ks and pensions are doing far better than they have ever done before with increases of 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100% and even more.
Jobs and investments are pouring into 9,000 previously neglected neighborhoods thanks to Opportunity Zones, a plan spearheaded by Senator Tim Scott as part of our great Republican tax cuts.
In other words, wealthy people and companies are pouring money into poor neighborhoods wealthy people and companies are pouring money into poor neighborhoods or areas that haven't seen investment
in many decades, creating jobs, energy, and excitement. .
This is the first time that these deserving communities have seen anything like this.
It's all working.
Opportunity Zones are helping Americans like Army veteran Tony Rankins from Cincinnati, Ohio.
After struggling with drug addiction, Tony lost his job, his house, and his family.
He was homeless.
But then Tony found a construction company that invests in Opportunity Zones.
He is now a top tradesman.
Drug-free, reunited with his family, and he is here tonight.
Tony, keep up the great work.
Tony.
Thank you, Tony.
Our roaring economy has, for the first time ever, given many former prisoners the ability to get a great job and a fresh start.
This second chance at life is made possible because we passed landmark criminal justice reform into law.
Everybody said that criminal justice reform couldn't be done, but I got it done, and the people in this room got it done.
Thank you.
Thank you.
With the tremendous progress we have made over the past three years, America is now energy independent, and energy jobs, like so many other elements of our country, are at a record high.
We are doing numbers that no one would have thought possible just three years ago.
Likewise, we are restoring our nation's manufacturing might, even though predictions were, as you all know, that this could never, ever be done.
After losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new factories under my administration with thousands upon thousands of plants and factories being planned or being built.
Companies are not leaving.
They are coming back to the USA. The fact is that everybody wants to be where the action is and the United States of America is indeed the place where the action is.
One of the biggest promises I made to the American people was to replace the disastrous NAFTA trade deal.
In fact, unfair trade is perhaps the single biggest reason that I decided to run for president.
Following NAFTA's adoption, our nation lost one in four manufacturing jobs.
Many politicians came and went, pledging to change or replace NAFTA, only to do so, and then absolutely nothing happened.
But unlike so many who came before me, I keep my promises.
promises, we did our job.
Six days ago, I replaced NAFTA and signed the brand-new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement into law. I replaced NAFTA and signed the brand-new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement into The USMCA will create nearly 100,000 new high-paying American auto jobs and massively boost exports for our farmers, ranchers, and factory workers.
It will also bring trade with Mexico and Canada to a much higher level, but also to be a much greater degree of fairness and reciprocity with We will have that.
Fairness and reciprocity.
And I say that finally because it's been many, many years that we were treated fairly on trade.
This is the first major trade deal in many years to earn the strong backing of America's labor unions.
I also promised our citizens that I would impose tariffs to confront China's massive theft of America's jobs.
Our strategy has worked.
Days ago, we signed the groundbreaking new agreement with China that will defend our workers, protect our intellectual property, bring billions and billions of dollars into our treasury, and open vast new markets for products made and grown right here in the USA. For
decades, China has taken advantage of the United States.
Now we have changed that.
But at the same time, we have perhaps the best relationship we've ever had with China, including with President Xi.
They respect what we've done because, quite frankly, they could never really believe that they were able to get away with what they were doing year after year, decade after decade, without someone in our country stepping up And saying, that's enough.
Now we want to rebuild our country, and that's exactly what we're doing.
We are rebuilding our country.
As we restore American leadership throughout the world, we are once again standing up for freedom in our hemisphere.
That's why my administration reversed the failing policies of the previous administration on Cuba.
We are supporting the hopes of Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to restore democracy the United States is leading a 59-nation diplomatic coalition against the socialist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro is an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people, but Maduro's grip on tyranny will be smashed and broken.
Thank you.
Here this evening is a very brave man who carries with him the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of all Venezuelans.
Joining us in the gallery is the true and legitimate president of Venezuela, Juan Guaido.
Mr.
Mr. President, please take this message back to your family.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. President.
President.
Great honor.
Thank you very much.
Please take this message back that all Americans are united with the Venezuelan people in their righteous struggle for freedom.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Thank you very much.
Socialism destroys nations, but always remember freedom unifies the soul.
To safeguard American liberty, we have invested a record-breaking $2.2 trillion in the United States military.
We have purchased the finest planes, missiles, rockets, ships, and every other form of military equipment, and it's all made right here in the USA.
We are also getting our allies to be able to do it.
finally to help pay their fair share.
I have raised contributions from other NATO members by more than $400 billion, and the number of allies meeting their minimum obligations has more than doubled.
And just weeks ago, for the first time since President Truman established the Air Force, more than 70 years earlier, we created a brand new branch of the United States Armed Forces.
It's called the Space Force.
Very important.
In the gallery tonight, we have a young gentleman and what he wants so badly, 13 years old, Ian Lonfay.
He's an eighth grader from Arizona.
Ian, please stand up.
Ian has always dreamed of going to space.
He was the first in his class and among the youngest at an aviation academy.
He aspires to go to the Air Force Academy and then he has his eye on the Space Force.
As Ian says, most people look up at space.
I want to look down on the world.
But sitting behind Ian tonight is his greatest hero of them all.
Charles McGee was born in Cleveland, Ohio, one century ago.
Charles is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, the first black fighter pilots, and he also happens to be Ian's great-grandfather.
Thank you.
Incredible story.
After more than 130 combat missions in World War II, he came back home to a country still struggling for civil rights and went on to serve America in Korea and Vietnam.
On December 7th, Charles celebrated his 100th birthday.
Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause.
Applause. Applause. Applause. Applause.
A few weeks ago, I signed a bill promoting Charles McGee.
Charles McGee to Brigadier General And earlier today, I pinned the stars on his shoulders in the Oval Office.
General McGee, our nation salutes you.
Thank you, sir. sir.
From the pilgrims to the founders, from the soldiers at Valley Forge to the marchers at Selma, and from President Lincoln to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Americans have always rejected limits on our children's future.
Members of Congress, we must never forget that the only victories that matter in Washington are victories that deliver for the American people.
The people are the heart of our country.
Their dreams are the soul of our country, and their love is what powers and sustains our country.
We must always remember that our job is to put America first.
The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure that every young American gets a great education and the opportunity to achieve the American dream.
Yet for too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools.
To rescue these students, 18 states have created school choice in the form of opportunity scholarships.
The programs are so popular that tens of thousands of students remain on a waiting list.
One of those students is Janiah Davis, a fourth grader from Philadelphia.
Janaya.
Janaya's mom, Stephanie, Stephanie, is a single parent.
She would do anything to give her daughter a better future.
But last year, that future was put further out of reach when Pennsylvania's governor vetoed legislation to expand school choice to 50,000 children.
Janiyah and Stephanie are in the gallery.
Stephanie, thank you so much for being here with your beautiful daughter.
Thank you very much.
But, Janaya, I have some good news for you, because I am pleased to inform you that I have some good news for you, because I am pleased to inform you that I can proudly announce tonight that an Opportunity Scholarship has become available.
It's going to you, and you will soon be heading to the school of your choice.
Now I call on Congress to give one million American children the same opportunity Janiyah has just received.
pass the Education, Freedom Scholarships, and Opportunities Act because no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.
Every young person should have a safe and secure environment in which to learn and to grow.
For this reason, our magnificent First Lady has launched the Be Best initiative to advance a safe, healthy, supportive, and drug-free life for the next generation, online, in school, and in our communities.
Thank you, Melania, for your extraordinary love and profound care for America's children.
Thank you very much.
My administration is determined to give our citizens the opportunities they need, regardless of age or background.
Through our pledge to American workers, over 400 companies will also provide new jobs and education opportunities to almost 15 million Americans.
My budget also contains an exciting vision for our nation's high schools.
Tonight, I ask Congress to support our students and back my plan to offer vocational and technical education in every single I ask Congress to support our students and back my plan to offer vocational
With a grand, equal opportunity, also proud that we achieved record and permanent funding for our nation's historically black colleges and universities.
A good life for American families also requires the most affordable, innovative, and high-quality health care system on earth.
Before I took office, health insurance premiums had more than doubled in just five years.
I moved quickly to provide affordable alternatives.
our new plans are up to 60% less expensive and better.
I've also made an ironclad pledge to American families we will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions.
And we will always protect your Medicare, and we will always protect your Social Security.
always.
The American patient should never be blindsided by medical bills.
That is why I signed an executive order requiring price transparency.
Many experts believe that transparency, which will go into full effect at the beginning of next year, will be even bigger than health care reform.
It will save families massive amounts of money for substantially better care, but as we work to improve Americans' health care, there are those who want to take away your health care, take away your doctor, and abolish private insurance entirely.
132 lawmakers in this room have endorsed legislation to impose a socialist takeover of our healthcare system, wiping out the private health insurance plans of 180 million very happy Americans.
To those watching at home tonight, I want you to know we will never let socialism destroy American health care.
Over 130 legislators in this chamber have endorsed legislation that would bankrupt our nation by providing free taxpayer-funded health care to millions of illegal aliens, forcing taxpayers to subsidize free care for anyone in the world forcing taxpayers to subsidize free care for anyone in the world who unlawfully crosses our Thank you.
These proposals would raid the Medicare benefits of our seniors and that our seniors depend on while acting as a powerful lure for illegal immigration.
That is what is happening in California and other states.
Their systems are totally out of control, costing taxpayers vast and unaffordable amounts of money.
If forcing American taxpayers to provide unlimited free health care to illegal aliens sounds fair to you, then stand with the radical left.
But if you believe that we should defend American patients and American seniors, then stand with me and pass legislation to prohibit free government health care for illegal aliens.
This will be a tremendous boon to our already very strongly guarded southern border, where, as we speak, a long, tall and very powerful wall is being built.
*Applaus* We have now completed over 100 miles and have over 500 miles fully completed in a very short period of time.
Early next year we will have substantially more than 500 miles completed.
My administration is also taking on the big pharmaceutical companies.
We have approved a record number of affordable generic drugs and medicines are being approved by the FDA at a faster clip than ever before.
And I was pleased to announce last year that for the first time in 51 years, the cost of prescription drugs actually went down.
Thank you.
And working together, Congress can reduce drug prices substantially from current levels.
I've been speaking to Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and others in Congress in order to get something on drug pricing done and done quickly and properly.
I'm calling for bipartisan legislation that achieves the goal of dramatically lowering prescription drug prices.
get a bill on my desk and I will sign it into law immediately.
With unyielding commitment, we are curbing the opioid epidemic.
Thank you.
Drug overdose deaths declined for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Among the state's hardest hit, Ohio is down 22 percent, Pennsylvania is down 18 percent, Wisconsin is down 10 percent, and we will not quit until we have beaten the opioid epidemic once and for all.
Protecting Americans' health also means fighting infectious diseases.
We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China.
My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.
We have launched ambitious new initiatives to substantially improve care for Americans And because Congress was so good as to fund my request, new cures for childhood cancer, and we will eradicate the AIDS epidemic in America by the end of this decade.
Almost every American family knows the pain when a loved one is diagnosed with a serious illness.
Here tonight is a special man, beloved by millions of Americans, who just received a stage 4 advanced cancer diagnosis.
This is not good news, but what is good news is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet.
Rush Limbaugh, thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country.
Thank you.
The recognition of all that you have done for our nation, the millions of people a day that you speak to and that you inspire, and all of the incredible work that you have done for charity.
I am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Thank you.
I will now ask the First Lady of the United States to present you with the honor.
Please.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Rush and Catherine, congratulations.
Thank you, Catherine.
As we pray for all who are sick, we know that America is constantly achieving new medical breakthroughs.
In 2017, doctors at St.
Luke's Hospital in Kansas City delivered one of the earliest premature babies ever to survive.
Born at just 21 weeks and 6 days and weighing less than a pound, Ellie Schneider was a born fighter.
Through the skill of her doctors and the prayers of her parents, little Ellie kept on winning the battle of life.
Today, Ellie is a strong, healthy 2-year-old girl sitting with her amazing mother, Robin.
In the gallery, Ellie and Robin, we are glad to have you with us tonight.
Thank you.
a miracle of life.
And thanks to modern medical wonders, 50% of very premature babies delivered at the hospital where Ellie was born now survive.
It's an incredible thing.
Thank you very much.
Our goal should be to ensure that every baby has the best chance to thrive and grow just like Ellie.
That is why I'm asking Congress to provide an additional $50 million to fund neonatal research for America's youngest patients.
That is why I'm also calling upon members of Congress here tonight to pass legislation finally banning the late-term abortion of babies.
Thank you.
Whether we are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, surely we must all agree that every human life is a sacred gift from God.
as we support America's moms and dads.
I was recently proud to sign the law providing new parents in the federal workforce paid family leave, serving as a model for the rest of the country.
Now I call on Congress to pass the bipartisan Advancing Support for Working Families Act, extending family leave to mothers and fathers all across our nation.
Thank you.
40 million American families have an average $2,200 extra thanks to our child tax credit.
I've also overseen historic funding increases for high-quality child care, enabling 17 states to help more children, many of which have reduced or eliminated their wait lists altogether.
there.
And I sent Congress a plan with a vision to further expand access to high-quality childcare and urge you to act immediately.
To protect the environment days ago, I announced that the United States will join the One Trillion Trees Initiative, an ambitious effort to bring together government and private sector to plant new trees in America and all around the world.
We must also rebuild America's infrastructure.
Thank you.
I ask you to pass Senator John Barrasso's highway bill to invest in new roads, bridges, and tunnels all across our land.
I'm also committed to ensuring that every citizen can have access to high-speed Internet, including and especially in rural America.
A better tomorrow for all Americans also requires us to keep America safe.
That means supporting the men and women of law enforcement at every level, including our nation's heroic ICE officers.
Last year, our brave ICE officers arrested more than 120,000 criminal aliens charged with nearly 10,000 burglaries, 5,000 sexual assaults, 45,000 violent assaults, and 2,000 murders.
Tragically, there are many cities in America where radical politicians have chosen to provide sanctuary for these criminal illegal aliens.
In sanctuary cities, local officials order police to release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public instead of handing them over to ICE to be safely removed.
Just 29 days ago, a criminal alien freed by the sanctuary city of New York was charged with the brutal rape and murder of a 92-year-old woman.
The killer had been previously arrested for assault, but under New York's sanctuary policies, he was set free.
If the city had honored ICE's detainer request, his victim would still be alive today.
The state of California passed an outrageous law declaring their whole state to be a sanctuary for criminal illegal immigrants.
A very terrible sanctuary with catastrophic results.
Here is just one tragic example.
In December 2018, California police detained an illegal alien with five prior arrests, including convictions for robbery and assault.
But as required by California's sanctuary law, local authorities released him.
Days later, the criminal alien went on a gruesome spree of deadly violence.
He viciously shot one man going about his daily work.
He approached a woman sitting in her car and shot her in the arm and in the chest.
He walked into a convenience store and wildly fired his weapon.
He hijacked a truck and smashed into vehicles, critically injuring innocent victims.
One of the victims is...
A terrible, terrible situation.
Died.
51-year-old American named Rocky Jones.
Rocky was at a gas station when this vile criminal fired eight bullets at him from close range, murdering him in cold blood.
Rocky left behind a devoted family, including his brothers, who loved him more than anything else in the world.
One of his grieving brothers is here with us tonight.
Jody, would you please stand?
And Jody, thank you.
Jody, our hearts weep for your loss, and we will not rest until you have justice. and we will not rest until you have justice.
Senator Tom Tillis has introduced legislation to allow Americans like Jody to sue sanctuary cities and states when a loved one is hurt or killed as a result of these deadly practices.
I ask Congress to pass the Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act immediately.
The United States of America should be a sanctuary for law-abiding Americans, not criminal aliens.
In the last three years, ICE has arrested over 5,000 wicked human traffickers, and I have signed nine wicked human traffickers, and I have signed nine pieces of legislation to stamp out the menace of human trafficking, and all around the globe.
My administration has undertaken an unprecedented effort to secure the southern border of the United States.
Before I came into office, if you showed up illegally on our southern border and were arrested, you were simply released and allowed into our country, never to be seen again.
my administration has ended catch and release.
If you come illegally, you will now be promptly removed from our country. you will now be promptly removed from our country.
Very importantly, we entered into historic cooperation agreements with the governments of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
As a result of our unprecedented efforts, illegal crossings are down 75% since May, dropping eight straight months in a row.
And as the wall rapidly goes up, drug seizures rise, and the border crossings are going down and going down very rapidly.
Last year I traveled to the border in Texas and met Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz.
Over the last 24 months, Agent Ortiz and his team have seized more than 200,000 pounds of poisonous narcotics, arrested more than 3,000 human smugglers, and rescued more than 2,000 migrants.
Days ago, Agent Ortiz was promoted to Deputy Chief of Border Patrol, and he joins us tonight.
Chief Ortiz, please stand.
A grateful nation thanks you and all of the heroes of Border Patrol and ICE.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
To build on these historic gains, we are working on legislation to replace our outdated and randomized immigration system with one based on merit, welcoming those who follow the rules, contribute to our economy, support themselves financially, and uphold our values.
With every action, my administration is restoring the rule of law and reasserting the culture of American freedom.
Thank you.
Working with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Thank you, Mitch.
And his colleagues in the Senate, we have confirmed a record number of 187 new federal judges to uphold our Constitution as written.
This includes two brilliant new Supreme Court Justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Thank you.
And we have many in the pipeline.
My administration is also defending religious liberty, and that includes the constitutional right to pray in public schools.
In America, we don't punish prayer.
We don't tear down crosses.
We don't ban symbols of faith.
We don't muzzle preachers and pastors.
In America, we celebrate faith.
We cherish religion, we lift our voices in prayer, and we raise our sights to the glory of God.
Just as we believe in the First Amendment, we also believe in another constitutional right that is under siege all across our country.
So long as I am president, I will always protect your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation.
Now we must embrace the next frontier, America's manifest destiny in the stars.
I am asking Congress to fully fund the Artemis program to ensure that the next man and the first woman on the moon will be American astronauts, using this as a launching pad to ensure that America is the first nation to plant its using this as a launching pad to ensure that America is the first
My administration is also strongly defending our national security and combating radical Islamic terrorism.
Last week I announced a groundbreaking plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Recognizing that all past attempts have failed, we must be determined and creative in order to stabilize the region and give millions of young people the chance to realize a better future.
Three years ago, the barbarians of ISIS held over 20,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and Syria.
Today, the ISIS territorial caliphate has been 100% destroyed, and the founder and leader of ISIS, the bloodthirsty killer known as al-Baghdadi, is dead.
We are joined this evening by Carl and Marsha Mueller.
After graduating from college, their beautiful daughter, Carla, became a humanitarian aid worker.
She once wrote, Some people find God in church.
Some people find God in nature.
Some people find God in love.
I find God in suffering.
I've known for some time what my life's work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering.
In 2013, while caring for suffering civilians in Syria, Kayla was kidnapped, tortured, and enslaved by ISIS and kept as a prisoner of al-Baghdadi himself.
After more than 500 horrifying days of captivity, al-Baghdadi Murdered young, beautiful Kayla.
She was just 26 years old.
On the night that U.S. Special Forces operations ended al-Baghdadi's miserable life, The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, received a call in the Situation Room.
He was told that the brave men of the elite Special Forces team that so perfectly carried out the operation had given their mission a name.
Task Force 814.
It was a reference to a special day, August 14th, Kayla's birthday.
Carl and Marsha, America's warriors, never forgot Kayla, and neither will we.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Every day, America's men and women in uniform demonstrate the infinite depth of love that dwells in the human heart.
One of these American heroes was Army Staff Sergeant Christopher Hake.
On his second deployment to Iraq in 2008, Sergeant Hake wrote a letter to his one-year-old son, Gage.
I will be with you again, he wrote to Gage.
I will teach you to ride your first bike, build your first sandbox, watch you play sports, and see you have kids also.
I love you, son.
Take care of your mother.
I am always with you, daddy.
On Easter Sunday of 2008, Chris was out on patrol in Baghdad when his Bradley fighting vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.
That night, he made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Sergeant Haake now rests in eternal glory in Arlington, and his wife Kelly is in the gallery tonight, joined by their son, who is now a 13-year-old And doing very, very well.
To Kelly and Gage, Chris will live in our hearts forever.
He is looking down on you now.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you both very much.
The terrorist responsible for killing Sergeant Haik was Qasim Soleimani, who provided the deadly roadside bomb that took Chris's life.
Soleimani was the Iranian regime's most ruthless butcher, a monster who murdered or wounded thousands of American service members in Iraq.
As the world's top terrorist Soleimani orchestrated the deaths of countless men, women, and children.
He directed the December assault and went on to assault.
U.S. forces in Iraq was actively planning new attacks.
When we hit him very hard.
And that's why last month at my direction, the U.S. military executed a flawless precision strike that killed Soleimani and terminated his evil reign of terror forever.
Our message to the terrorists is clear.
You will never escape American justice.
justice, if you attack our citizens, you forfeit your life.
In recent months, we have seen proud Iranians raise their voices against their oppressive The Iranian regime must abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, stop spreading terror, death and destruction, and start working for the good of its own people.
Because of our powerful sanctions, the Iranian economy is doing very, very poorly.
We can help them make a very good and short-time recovery.
It can all go very quickly, but perhaps they are too proud or too foolish to ask for that help.
We are here.
Let's see which road they choose.
It is totally up to them.
As we defend American lives, we are working to end America's wars in the Middle East.
In Afghanistan, the determination and valor of our warfighters has allowed us to make tremendous progress and peace talks are now underway.
I am not looking to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan.
Many of them totally innocent.
It is also not our function to serve other nations as law enforcement agencies.
These are war fighters that we have, the best in the world, and they either want to fight to win or not fight at all.
We are working to finally end America's longest war and bring our troops back home.
War places a heavy burden on our nation's extraordinary military families, especially spouses like Amy Williams from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and her two children, six-year-old Eliana and three-year-old Rowan.
Amy works full-time and volunteers countless hours helping other military families.
For the past seven months, she has done it all while her husband, Sergeant First Class Townsend Williams, is in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment in the Middle East.
Amy's kids haven't seen their father's face in many months.
Amy, your family's sacrifice makes it possible for all of our families to live in safety and in peace, and we want to thank you.
Thank you, Amy.
But Amy, there is one more thing Tonight we have a very special surprise.
I am thrilled to inform you that your husband is back from deployment.
He is here with us tonight, and we couldn't keep him waiting any longer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Welcome home, Sergeant Williams.
Thank you very much.
As the world bears witness tonight, America is a land of heroes.
This is a place where greatness is born, where destinies are forged, and where legends come to life.
This is the home of Thomas Edison and Teddy Roosevelt, of many great generals, including Washington, Pershing, Patton, and MacArthur.
This is the home of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, the Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, and so many more.
This is the country where children learn names like Wyatt Earp, Davy Crockett, and Annie Oakley.
This is the place where the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth and where Texas patriots made their last stand at the Alamo.
The beautiful, beautiful Alamo.
The American nation was carved out of the vast frontier by the toughest, strongest, fiercest, and most determined men and women ever to walk on the face of the earth.
Our ancestors braved the unknown, tamed the wilderness, settled the Wild West, lifted millions from poverty, disease, and hunger.
Vanquished tyranny and fascism ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine, laid down the railroads, dug out the canals, raised up the skyscrapers, and, ladies and gentlemen, our ancestors built the most exceptional republic ever to exist in all of human history, and we are making it greater than ever before.
This is our glorious and magnificent inheritance.
We are Americans.
We are pioneers.
We are the pathfinders.
We settled the new world.
We built the modern world.
and we change history forever by embracing the eternal truth that everyone is made equal by the hand of Almighty God.
Thank you.
America is the place where anything can happen.
America is the place where anyone can rise.
And here, on this land, on this soil, on this continent, the most incredible dreams come true.
This nation is our canvas, and this country is our masterpiece.
We look at tomorrow and see unlimited frontiers just waiting to be explored.
Our brightest discoveries are not yet known.
Our most thrilling stories are not yet told.
Our grandest journeys are not yet made.
The American age, the American epic, the American adventure has only just begun.
Our spirit is still young.
The sun is still rising.
God's grace is still shining, and my fellow Americans, the best is yet to come.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Thank you very much.
And there she is, overtly tearing it up.
You see that behind him?
Classy.
Well, there you have it.
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, letting all of us here at Daily Wire down by giving a terrific State of the Union address.
In contravention, both of our bias against States of the Union generally and our high hopes that the President would come out and give us Basically, WWE-style destruction of the Democrats.
Instead, he chose to give truly one of the great State of the Union addresses, I think.
He's good at these.
He's good at these.
So some of the best State of the Union—I mean, his last year's State of the Union address was excellent.
Every year we say this is like the best speech he's ever given.
And this is, again, one of the best speeches that he's ever given.
He is by far the best president I have ever seen in my lifetime at putting people in the stands and then telling great stories about him.
Because he's a TV guy, right?
So he understands that if you actually reunite people on TV, that is better than talking about reuniting.
He shows.
He doesn't tell, right?
If you're going to give Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom, you have him actually being given the Medal of Freedom on TV. And so all of that was just fantastic.
He really took the opportunity to say all the things in the first 20 minutes that everybody can agree with, right?
That the economy is fantastic.
You should reelect me because the economy is fantastic.
And then he started clubbing the Democrats about the ears over socialism and about health care and about illegal immigration.
But he saved that stuff like 40 minutes in.
So if you are just sort of the casual viewer, you're not going to understand any of the headlines tomorrow from The New York Times about how divisive the speech is and how terrible the speech is.
Because you only watch the first half an hour where he's talking about how fantastic the economy is, which, again, is a very smart tactic.
The best thing in the speech, aside from, obviously, the reuniting of the family on screen, which, I mean, that is a surefire winner.
The best thing that he did was the very end right there where he tells the story of America because that is the key contrast that we are going to be looking at in this election, especially if it's Bernie Sanders.
That key contrast between America is a fantastic place.
America was a fantastic place.
America has been filled with heroes.
And America is constantly trying to better herself.
Our history is great.
We've made the modern world great.
All of that is a direct contradiction to everything that you've been hearing from Pete Buttigieg.
The sort of Noam Chomsky.
The 1619 project.
America was rooted in racism and slavery and big trade.
America was a horror show.
People's history.
Right, exactly.
It's a direct refutation of the Howard's in bullshit.
That's right.
You've been hearing the Democrats push on the campaign.
The Beto O'Rourke nonsense.
And they all have been mirroring this.
They've all been mirroring it.
So Trump, the smartest move that he makes there, is he says, America is great and we're making it greater than ever before.
And to all the Democrats, they hate Trump, right?
But it looks like they're sitting for the part where he said that America is actually great.
It has been great.
But the truth is that they wouldn't even agree with the basic statement, right?
I mean, the new Democratic Party.
Unlike Democratic voters, most Democratic voters are still patriots.
Most Democratic voters still believe that America is a uniquely amazing place because they live here.
How can you live here and not believe that?
That's right.
But by pointing that out and by saying all of those things about American history, he's drawing a significant contrast that Democrats are going to be hard-pressed to win.
Michael.
I really don't think that this is an exaggeration at all.
I think this was the single greatest State of the Union address in American history.
Not all because of Trump, but largely because of Trump.
It was in part because of the moments, as Ben said, those moments were hard.
I mean, tears came to my eyes at the Rush moment, the Tuskegee Airmen.
I mean, the moments were just unbelievable.
The second reason is because of the Democrats' reactions.
Nancy Pelosi couldn't stand for Rush Limbaugh's All the Democratic women and white couldn't stand for low unemployment among women.
But the third reason, the third reason that this State of the Union was probably, I think, the greatest ever given, is because the State of the Union simply is, in discrete measures, the greatest it's ever been.
On economic policy, on foreign policy, peace around the world, consumer confidence, manufacturing confidence.
There's all this political rancor.
You saw that with the Democrats sitting down.
But by all objective measures, he was telling the truth.
The State of the Union really is strong.
You know, I have a really good friend who likes to say that facts don't care about your feelings.
All through this speech, I kept thinking of something that the poet John Keats wrote to the other poet, Percy Shelley.
He said, load every rift of your subject with ore.
Meaning, don't just spout words.
Actually have those words apply to meaning and to facts.
And Donald Trump, as I keep saying, has done a tremendous job.
You know, obviously we have problems sometimes with his character.
We have problems with sometimes the way he behaves.
But he is a guy who advertised himself as a fixer.
He has fixed a lot.
This country is in great shape.
It really is.
It's in better shape.
This is the most successful president I've seen since Ronald Reagan.
And has he got the grace of Ronald Reagan?
No, he doesn't.
Maybe it's a different time.
Maybe it's a time when pugilism is required, when a certain kind of fight and a certain kind of Intensity is required simply to fight back against the incredible wave of anti-American hatred that the press has sold and the Democrats have sold.
He has done an amazing thing to this country.
He has turned its economy around.
To me, the biggest...
A statistic in the Trump administration is the statistic that the American life expectancy is growing again.
People have stopped killing themselves out of despair.
And that one statistic, that statistic that people were killing themselves out of despair, was a rebuke, an unanswerable rebuke, to the elites who said it didn't matter, to the elites who said that they were citizens of the world and America, you know, if America had to suffer a little bit for the world to get better, that was fine.
No.
I mean, Donald Trump said, no, that's not the way it's going to be.
Obama said these jobs are never coming back.
They came back.
Obama said, you need a magic wand.
We didn't need a magic wand.
The speech was so great.
The showmanship was great.
The showmanship was great.
But the speech was great because it applied to things that were actually happening.
And this is the thing that has amazed me.
I remember at Christmas time, I remember sitting there with the newspaper and turning to my wife and saying, I've never read this much good news.
And now, as January's unfolded, with the trade deals and Soleimani getting killed and the record stock markets and the record job numbers, it's an amazing moment.
And Donald Trump really does get the credit for it.
His administration gets the credit for it.
And I think the Democrats look terrible because they're not applauding success.
It's the substance of the speech that made it great.
I want to talk about that opening 20 minutes because I think that it was some of the most savvy craftsmanship that I've ever seen in a State of the Union, especially going into an election year.
But first, I want to talk about our friends over at Bravo Company Manufacturing.
It seems like every backstage we talk about Bravo Company Manufacturing.
Of course.
And it's because Bravo Company Manufacturing, one of the great supporters of this show and one of the great supporters of our Second Amendment, the president, by the way, during the speech, saying that as long as he is president, he's going to defend the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.
And that's what our friends at Bravo Company Manufacturing are all about.
When the founders crafted the Constitution, the very first thing they did was to make sacred the rights of the individual to share their ideas without limitation by government.
That's the First Amendment.
But the Second Amendment they enumerated was...
The Second Amendment.
That's why they call it the Second Amendment.
Oh.
And that is the right of the population.
We learn so much on the show.
I know.
I really bring my A game.
That is the right of the population to protect our First Amendment rights and to protect our own persons with force.
That's what the Second Amendment is all about.
As Ben likes to say, it isn't about your right to hunt.
It isn't about your right to go...
Engage in target practice, speed shooting.
It's about your right to protect yourself and your rights.
Owning a rifle is an awesome responsibility.
I've talked before on the show about how I think I took you to buy your first firearm.
I've taken like half the people who work here to buy their first firearm.
Took Michael to buy his first firearm.
The truth of the matter is, though, that I don't like hunting.
I don't really like target shooting.
It's the responsibility that causes me to own the firearm.
I feel like as an American, it is our responsibility to own a weapon as a bulwark against people coming to take our weapons.
Building rifles is no less a responsibility.
If it's a responsibility to own one, it's a responsibility to give us a quality one.
and that's what Bravo Company Manufacturing, or BCM, is all about.
They were created in a garage by a Marine veteran more than two decades ago.
BCM built a professional-grade product built to combat standards.
Bravo Company Manufacturing is not a sporting arms company.
They engineer and manufacture life-saving equipment.
That's how they see it, because that's what it is.
The people at BCM assume that when a rifle leaves their shop, it will be used in a life-or-death situation by a responsible citizen, law enforcement officer, or soldier overseas.
Not they hope it will.
They assume it will, and they give that much care to its creation.
To learn more about Bravo Company Manufacturing, head over to bravocompanymfg.com, where you can discover more about their products, special offers, and upcoming news.
That's bravocompanymfg.com.
If you need more convincing, you can find out more about Bravo Company Manufacturing and the awesome people who make their products at youtube.com slash bravocompanyusa.
The first 20 minutes, Michael, of this speech...
The president truly gave a State of the Union.
He enumerated almost in bulleted form all the sort of measurable KPIs, the key performance indicators of what's going on in our country.
And he gave a report.
I've never seen a president actually do that.
I found it to be overwhelmingly effective.
What was your response?
I think that's why we liked it so much, because we generally hate these State of the Union addresses.
They're so boring and meandering.
This one, he actually gave a State of the Union.
And the reason he did it, the reason he was so savvy, is because the State of the Union is strong.
I was a little afraid that it was just going to all be a diatribe about this farcical impeachment process.
And I think what I left this speech, especially that first 20 minutes of the speech, what I left thinking was, oh yeah, this impeachment is going to be a punchline in the history books.
And the actual substance of the history is going to be all the great stuff that we've seen over the last three years.
So a few things that are worthy of pointing out.
One, Nancy Pelosi's behavior is atrocious.
She opened this thing and normally you say, it is my high honor and pleasure.
pleasure, distinct privilege to present the president of the United States.
Instead, she said, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States, because she wasn't going to give him the time of day.
And then she offered him her hand and he brusquely turned his back on her.
So that'll be the big headline tomorrow, that they had this little tête-à-tête.
At the very end of the speech, I believe she does this normally, but she made it very overt tonight.
At the very end of the speech, while he was still up there, you could see her physically take the speech and tear it in half before the cameras went off.
She looked pretty puerile up there.
But I...
There were several times where it appeared that she was talking to herself, Did anyone else notice that?
A few times you were reading along on your computer as it went.
But there were several times where she would look over kind of in the middle distance between herself and Pence, kind of out on the horizon somewhere, and she would just start talking as the president was speaking.
I wonder if she was mouthing somebody to something in her caucus or something.
But you did see a couple of kind of outbursts by a member of the caucus.
Apparently Congressman Tim Ryan walked out in the middle.
Presumably AOC is drinking and Instagramming right now.
But the...
I will say one thing.
So it is eminently true that the president's record is particularly on the economy, but also on foreign policy.
Spectacular.
Spectacular.
I mean, the one area that no president ever touches ever, the only one who ever did was Reagan, is spending cuts, right?
Nobody ever talks about how they're going to cut spending in the State of the Union.
I remember Bush never did it.
It drove me up a wall.
Nobody ever talks about minimizing government, which I thought was part of conservatism until the last five minutes.
But no one ever met.
But that's not just on Trump.
That's on every Republican.
I will point out, the reason we all feel good tonight is because what we just saw tonight is what Trump could be if he contained himself 20%.
Okay, not 100%, 20%.
If we saw this Trump every day, so for all of the, we laugh along and we chuckle along at tweets and all this stuff, you and I, all of us in this room, and one person in D.C., we all know that if Donald Trump were this every day, the man would win 60% of the vote.
And he could do it still.
Right.
Right.
Well, we were talking about this off-air, which is that the good news is that the American public's attention span is all 7.2 seconds.
So if Trump does it for like four days before the election, then he'll probably be okay.
But this sort of contained Trump.
And we saw this last year with the State of the Union, too, because we were all like, wow, that was great.
That was really spectacular.
If Trump could just contain it and if he could channel the showmanship into moments like the Tuskegee Airmen getting up, which is an unbelievable thing.
I mean, it's an unbelievable thing.
You have the Democratic Party today claiming that America is not worth fighting for, that America is garbage.
That America needs to be fundamentally changed.
And there you had Tuskegee Airmen who are coming home to segregation, risking their lives for a country that did not respect them as human beings, but recognizing that the potential in the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence was such that they were American citizens and America was still the last great hope of man.
I mean, that's an unbelievable thing.
If Trump could...
I mean, it's the great frustration of my life, right?
I mean, it really is, politically, is that Donald Trump has all the potential to truly be...
You know, they're the people who are fans.
He's the best president ever.
He's the best president of recent memory.
He's talking about you, Michael.
Yeah, I am talking about you.
I agree with Ben's point here.
But the fact is that if Donald Trump were able to be this guy all the time, it would be almost impossible to argue against that.
Yeah, but if he was this guy, he would not have gotten elected.
I have to pause for just a second.
By the way, I don't think that's true.
I just don't think that's true.
I've got to stop for just a minute and talk about this thing with Rush Limbaugh, this moment with Rush Limbaugh.
That was great.
Because every single one of us in this room and on this...
I've always said Knowles was kind of two-dimensional and now...
I'm part of the manifest destiny over Mars right now.
But I have to say, every single one of us has taken hits from Media Matters and from Twitter.
And I mean, somebody today wished that when I said something nice about Rush, he said, I hope you're next.
We've all gotten this stuff.
But Rush has gotten it.
They don't know you're already dead.
You've been dead.
Exactly.
They don't even know.
Russia's gotten it a thousand times more.
He got it when nobody else existed like him, when there was nobody else to compare him to.
He was out there alone.
And to see him win that medal, the highest medal that a civilian can get in America, and to see him honored by the President of the United States.
In front of a joint session of Congress.
It was kind of like all of us getting a little stardust on us, and I just thought, like, you know, this is an amazing thing, and Trump has brought us there.
And the only thing I say, I understand what you're saying, Ben.
I don't think you're being, like, crazy to say these things about Trump.
I understand.
I really feel that it's kind of a tragic situation in that only a guy like Trump could have gotten elected, and some of the things that got him elected work against him.
I think that that's just...
And we agree that if he does this the rest of the election cycle, he will be better off.
And not only that, he'll whomp the person who's on the other side.
And not only that, some of his biggest supporters tell me that when I'm out on the road and I'm talking to them.
Everyone knows.
They all say it.
However, however, it is because he has got a little bit of Rush in him.
He's got a little bit of that spirit of conservatism, a little bit of that pugilistic spirit, that we have this moment when this guy Rush who was...
The first time I heard of Rush, it was because I was in London and I read a London paper.
A friend of mine in New York, a very big literary agent, was saying nobody should publish Rush Limbaugh's book.
And I wrote to her.
I wrote to her in those days with a pen, right?
The internet was just starting.
I wrote to her and I said, you know, this is the voice that's being silenced.
I wasn't a conservative then.
I just said, you know, but we can't silence these voices.
Who did you hand the pen to when you were finished?
Nancy Pelosi.
She just happened to be there.
But no, this is a tremendous change in American society that this voice, Russia's voice, Trump's voice has become acceptable and I think it took a lot of pugilism and a lot of toughness to get there.
I want to push on this just very slightly because I don't think on this topic right now we wildly disagree.
I think we all agree Trump's Strengths and his weaknesses are possibly the same.
We all agree that if this Trump would be the dominant Trump, his chances at re-election would be...
Because he's pretty damn pugilistic in the speech, by the way.
Yes, he was.
But he's thoughtfully pugilistic.
I think the one distinction between Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh, and I think it's an important one...
When people talk about Rush Limbaugh, the first thing that most people who don't like him will say is that he's arrogant.
What they don't understand is that Rush is actually one of the most self-deprecating people that I've ever had the pleasure to meet.
And every boast that he makes about himself is a joke about himself.
You know, talent on loan from God.
He doesn't actually think he's...
Of course.
He's a humble guy.
If you've ever spent any time with him, he's a self-deprecating guy.
He has a good sense of humor about himself.
I have not found that to be the case with President Trump.
I don't think Trump easily laughs at Trump.
I think Trump might laugh at Trump's jokes.
But I don't think that Trump laughs at Trump.
And I actually think he has that in common with Barack Obama.
I've said since the beginning that I think in some ways...
Donald Trump is like bizarro Barack Obama.
He's the funhouse mirror Barack Obama.
The funhouse mirror Barack Obama.
That Barack Obama couldn't laugh at himself ever.
One thing that they both have in common is when they would go to the, is it the Al Smith dinner?
Yes.
That happens in D.C. and you see at every election the candidates get up in their white tie and they tell jokes about themselves.
And neither of them would laugh at the jokes that were made at them, neither Obama nor Trump.
When they go to the White House correspondence dinners, they rarely crack a smile at the jokes that are being made in their direction.
Both of them are people who...
Take themselves quite seriously.
And I think that that's actually where Trump gets himself into trouble.
Trump is also an American figure in every sense of the word.
You know, America is a great, big country.
We have great, big flaws.
We do things wrong.
We're a little garish.
The idea of the ugly American.
I've been over in Europe.
I've seen ugly Americans and all this stuff.
Trump embodies all those things.
He embodies the greatness of America, the absolute, you know, I'm going to do this thing.
I'm going to put my name.
You like that building?
I'm going to put my name in the Gold letters on top of the building.
That is an all-American way to be.
But he also embodies some of our flaws.
And I think that embracing the bigness of America, the Trumpness of America, is not such a bad thing in a moment when the New York Times is telling us that we're the worst country on Earth.
And I do think there's a little bit of a difference in degree here.
You know, I'd push back a little bit on your point, Jeremy, which I think is mostly true.
But there are these moments that you see Trump break the act a little bit.
I remember this one time he was talking about how he never had a beer.
He said he was probably the only president who could say he never had a beer.
It was the only good thing you could say about him.
Could you imagine if he was a drunko, he'd be the worst?
That's fair.
Look, I'm not saying you get a ton of moments of public humility from Trump, but there are a few that show you maybe some of his braggadocio is an act, or maybe more of it is an act than we think.
So the upside of this is that this was fantastic.
It really was.
It was terrific.
It was first-rate, A-plus, top Trump, right?
I mean, this is the best.
Coming on top of the Iowa catastrophe.
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
And in the middle of he's about to be acquitted by the same people who are sitting there making lemon face at him while he was doing this.
I mean, they were really sour.
They sucked on just eggs and lemons.
Every lemon.
Right, exactly.
All the lemons.
They actually made lemons out of lemonade.
It's almost impossible to do.
But with that said, what this says to me is that if that's as good as Trump can be, and we all know that that Trump wins, if he somehow loses this election under these conditions, the only person to blame is Donald Trump.
Because this Donald Trump cleans the clock of any Democrat who runs against him.
They all look like Lolliputians against this.
The fact is he has a great record.
The fact is that he is fully capable of laying out, or at least when he's scripted, he is fully capable of laying out a fulsome argument as to not just Democrats suck, but why Democrats suck, right?
I mean, he was giving paragraphs long why Democrats are wrong on health care for illegal immigrants.
That's right.
And why Democrats are wrong on Juan Guaido and socialism.
And why Democrats are wrong on all these things.
And it wasn't just a tweet.
This is why I think that Twitter is some of the worst thing that ever happened to Trump.
I know that his base loves it.
I know it's him going around the media.
I know all of that.
But if it were...
Like, long-form Trump...
If his thought...
We all spend an enormous amount of time.
Everyone in the media does.
Spends an enormous amount of time doing explications of Trump.
Right?
Trump gives you a shorthand, and then you just spend the next 40 minutes trying to explain what he...
It's Talmudic, right?
They give you, like, this much text, and then you give, like...
Pages of Talmudic explanation of what exactly Trump meant.
And maybe Trump meant some of it, and maybe he didn't mean any of it.
But the bottom line is that when Trump explains himself, whether it's written by speechwriters or not doesn't matter, because the president's...
This is always written by speechwriters.
But when he explains himself in full like this...
They can't touch it.
You know, I've actually written to some of the speechwriters in the White House telling them that one of Trump's best moments was, I think it was during the World Series.
They put out an ad saying, he's not Mr.
Nice Guy.
And I think he needs to make that speech as the election comes on.
Because one of the The groups of people who obviously have turned against them are suburban women.
And the one thing about suburban women is they all have suburban husbands.
And their husbands are not always Mr.
Nice Guy because sometimes you ask your husband to do the stuff that needs to be done, that needs a little bit of nastiness that maybe you're not going to do.
And I think that Donald Trump needs to say to people, I know a little bit.
I see myself.
This goes to Jeremy's point.
If he had a little bit of self-awareness.
If he expressed it.
If he expressed it more clearly.
Like, listen, I know I'm a jerk.
Everybody knows I'm a jerk.
And you know what?
I'm doing good stuff.
And you're going to have to forgive me for being a jerk.
Or you don't have to forgive me for being a jerk.
I don't care.
Look who I'm dealing with.
Sometimes it takes a tough guy to get stuff done.
And beyond that, listen, pay no attention to the me behind the curtain.
Pay attention to that.
Just pay attention to what I'm doing out here.
And I think that that is a winning pitch and does inure him to some of this.
The big problem is when you have the legion...
Honestly, I think it's an actual problem.
When you have the legion of defenders who are willing to defend every ridiculous thing that he says, it actually encourages him to say more ridiculous things.
I also want to say that I don't think that his garishness is the problem.
I actually find his garishness charming.
It's his boorishness.
His meanness.
And his inability to back off of a bad position.
Or as we were talking about before, his tendency to snatch Victor.
To feed from the jaws of Victor.
This is his big problem.
I think its garishness is funny.
I know that none of the three of you watched it because I was going around the office trying to get you guys to watch it.
When the president gave his speech regarding the Chinese trade deal, it was one of the great moments in American history.
I'm going to go as far as to say it's like Gettysburg Address.
A farewell address by Washington.
Trump announcing his trade deal with China.
He has the Chinese ambassador standing over his shoulder.
That was funny.
And he proceeds to say great things about China and horrible things about China, almost like seamlessly.
Back and forth, yeah.
And this governor is here who's also an ambassador, and he loves China, and he told me to be nice to China.
I had to tear up half my speech about China because he loves China so much, and he was very helpful.
Also, our trade secretary.
Oh, he doesn't agree with the governor.
Yeah.
China is mean.
China is terrible.
They're an awful place.
You see the Chinese ambassador kind of standing over China.
I think people love that about Donald Trump.
That he doesn't...
Perfect example.
So Baghdadi gets killed.
And Trump does the whole...
And he was whimpering and he was crying like a little pansy in the corner.
And the media was like, was he actually whimpering?
Was he actually crying?
Where is the actual evidence that al-Baghdadi didn't die like a martyred hero?
And everybody's like...
Okay, so fine.
So, like, let's say Trump's embellishing.
Are we really going to sit here and, like, whine about the fact that Trump is making fun of the worst person on Earth?
Like, good, good.
I hope that that guy's burning in hell, and I'm glad Trump made fun of him, and screw that.
There's a difference between that, right, and Donald Trump then going on Twitter and saying what he says that we all know is stuff that's not...
Or more than that.
Quid pro quo.
Right.
Quid pro quo is terrible in that Donald Trump, every act of foreign policy is quid pro quo.
The only reason you give foreign aid to any nation is to get a behavior in response.
So when Donald Trump insists immediately out of the gate, there was no quid pro quo, and then he can't back off of that position.
And then we get all the way to this point of impeachment and the Bolton transcript leaks, and we get into this position of, Aha!
There was quid pro quo.
Now Donald Trump is in an unforced error because quid pro quo was never the standard of whether or not this was a corrupt action.
I don't think that's the thing.
The other example...
He was never...
He set that bar.
This is right.
And when you set that bar with the public, then you fall short of that bar.
I think it's the stuff where John Bolton suddenly becomes the worst person in America.
I agree with this.
I've seen him on Fox News being welcomed like unto a god.
I think it's the stuff, the personal stuff.
Well, I agree, but that flows from...
Mini Mike.
It's funny, but it is...
It's puerile, and it minimizes him as a human being.
It minimizes everybody else.
I think those are the things...
When he does the thing with the hurricane, where he draws on the map with a sharpie, and then we have to have the entire weather...
That's just geography, Ben.
And there is a Kansas City, Kansas.
It's right there.
But this is actually my point, is that the group of people who are like, okay, now we're going to do a fulsome defense of why Kansas City, the airport's actually in Kansas.
And it's like, or we could just go, yeah, it's just Trump being Trump, and we move on with our lives.
And Obama said 57 states and all this.
Right, and who cares?
And honestly, who cares?
But the problem is that Trump cares.
And the more you care, the more Trump cares.
The thing is, though, I think you guys have paid too much attention.
I really do.
I think you've paid too much attention to outliers.
The thing is, most of this country, most of this country is somewhere around the middle.
I mean, it's to the left of the middle and to the right of the middle.
And most of this country, including Trump supporters, are going like, yeah, I wish he'd stopped tweeting so much, but I love what he's doing.
And I think that...
We sometimes pay too much attention to the guys who say, like, yeah, you know, yeah, that's right, Mike Bloomberg is short.
You know, those guys are going to have their day.
They're going to have their columns.
They're going to have their Twitter feeds.
But I don't think that they're the people who are going to decide this way.
Well, but the point is that if Trump's Twitter feed is a way of going around the media so he can talk directly to the public, then he doesn't need people.
I'm not supporting him in doing this.
I'm just saying that the support for him doing this is not as scary as you think it is.
So here's the thing.
As I've said a thousand times at this point, politics is about making it very difficult to vote for your opponent and making it very easy to vote for you.
And Trump is excellent at the former and he is rotten at the latter.
And the fact is that if Donald Trump were even half rotten at the latter, if we got this tonight, that makes it easy.
That's an easy you pull the lever.
This Trump right here, you commit voter fraud for this Trump, right?
That's a joke, Media Matters.
No one's committing voter fraud, except in Iowa where Bernie was screwed, I tell you.
But But other than that, the fact is that the Trump tonight makes people comfortable.
That was a comfortable Trump, right?
That was comfortable.
And every time he makes people feel uncomfortable, the issue becomes Donald Trump, as opposed to this great cornucopia of wonder that lies before us, right?
As Jeremy said, and I think this is absolutely true, we're not really far apart on these things.
No, I do think we leave certain things out.
And one of the most important things we leave out is the effect of the media.
And I think that the media has been so corrupt, so left-wing, so single-minded in their attempt to destroy not just Donald Trump.
Romney, McCain.
Derangement syndrome started out as Bush derangement syndrome.
So they've been calling us Nazis for a thousand years.
But I don't think this is fair.
They have a strange new respect.
And I think that that atmosphere is why Trump is there.
It is people finally saying, you know what?
You know, I'm not a Nazi.
I'm not even a racist.
I go down, my neighbor is some other race than me, and I love them.
That's an explanation, but it's not a justification.
I accept that.
I totally agree with the diagnosis.
I don't agree with the prognosis.
Meaning, like, the diagnosis is correct, and now we need the cure.
And the cure is the very focused Trump that we saw tonight.
And you know what?
There's no...
I don't know who thinks it's a great sin for Trump to read off the teleprompter.
There is no great sin in reading off the teleprompter.
No, of course.
And there was no great sin for Obama either.
There is no great sin in having your tweets read by one person before they go out.
Not a thousand people, one person before they go out.
There is no great sin.
Melania would be a good one.
This is fine.
Seriously.
Anybody in the West Wing, those people, I promise you, are begging that they would be allowed that sort of access.
And so even a shred of it...
This is what's so frustrating.
It's why...
It sounds like I'm bitching about the president...
I really am not.
We want him to win.
This guy was fantastic and would be unifying.
Half his speech was about reaching out to minority communities.
Half the speech, literally.
Well, this is the beauty.
This guy is the guy that people want to have for their president.
And against this guy, to your point, Ben, every comer on the Democrat side looks like a child.
Yeah, that's right.
But when Trump acts like a child...
This is right.
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Absolutely.
Out on your hikes.
You know who we should talk to?
Remember Alicia?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, you mean Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Oh, yeah.
Ruth Bader Crafts.
We made the girl dress up.
Will you at least give us an ovation in your white outfit?
Oh, yeah.
Sorry.
No, I'm just making sure that you guys are doing all the reads properly.
That's what this is.
Now that I know that, I can tear it up.
Good job on that.
Bravo company.
Should be pleased.
Also, you know what's funny?
I feel like Trump just makes people more Trumpy because according to Mary Bruce, who's a White House correspondent for ABC News, she tweeted that when Nancy Pelosi was asked why she ripped Trump's speech up, Speaker Pelosi responded, it was because it was, quote, a courteous thing to do considering the alternative.
It was such a dirty speech.
Ooh.
Whoa.
What was the alternative?
She was going to wipe her ass with it or what?
Like, ugh.
Anywho.
Yeah.
It's also interesting because the State of the Union is a constitutional requirement.
And the reason that the president hands a typed copy of the speech to the Speaker of the House is because that is actually the fulfillment of the constitutional responsibility, not giving the speech.
So what she just tore in half, well, not only that, it doesn't belong to her.
It's an actual official document.
The Democrats used to ruining things in the Obama administration.
Nancy Pelosi actually thought she was ripping up the Constitution, so she made a mistake.
In that case. - It's such a dirty thing.
I'm like killing full-term babies.
Very dirty, dirty thing.
Yeah, I'm just wearing my white over here to remind those women that they don't own the color white.
Pro-life women can rock it, too.
I think that's the first time any of those women have worn white either.
Yeah, he used to be an angelic color, but anywho.
Moving along, we have a question from somebody that wanted to know about the infrastructure part of the president's speech.
He wants to know, if he passes all of that legislation, is he not concerned about growing the national debt, and is his infrastructure plan conservative?
He's not concerned about growing the national debt.
He's not concerned about the debt.
He literally promised that he was going to provide full parental leave, that he was going to make sure that Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security were not touched, and also that he was going to build Space Force, send people to Mars, build an entire new education program, and build new infrastructure.
I'm going to go, no.
I'm like him caring about blowing out the debt and the deficit, but no Democrat or Republican does.
They are all on the same page.
He's in a safe position because he knows that Congress won't pass anything he says up there.
He could literally get up there and say, I'm calling on Congress right now to give every American a brand new Ford F-150.
It means nothing.
Obama literally used to do this.
He used to get up there and give a litany of things.
He'd be like, I want everybody to have a new unicorn!
And half the Congress was like, yeah!
Unicorn!
I hate my old unicorn!
To be fair, we do not know what his infrastructure plan looks like, which it could be an incentive plan that I would support.
I mean, it doesn't have to be unless the government...
You were doing so well tonight.
We have no idea what it looks like.
I'm pretty sure we know what it looks like.
Really?
Yeah.
I'm fairly certain that he's not just going to leverage a bunch of private people into paying for the roads, Drew.
No, he actually cited someone who had authored some legislation, right?
Yeah, and it got like one person clapping.
It was a guy.
It was a guy.
That was my name, people.
That was my name.
Michael, what do you think on this infrastructure bill? - You know, I think that we all cheered on the Tea Party era, every single one of us.
And there was this big moment for entitlement reform.
Paul Ryan put forth a number of plans.
He worked with Ron Wyden, he worked across the aisle, and we were all rooting for that.
And I think one of the lessons of that era turning into the Trump era was that we got it a little bit backwards.
We were hoping that we could get our fiscal house in order.
I remember Governor Mitch Daniels at CPAC one year said that the new red menace is the menace consisting of ink.
And really, we probably should have taken Andrew Breitbart's advice.
Which is that the political issues are downstream of cultural issues, and really the way to fix our fiscal house is first to deal with the cultural issues which President Trump has tapped into.
Maybe that's not what we would prefer, and that's not what the early 20-teens were about, but I think that's what we've learned.
You know, I hate to say this, but that may be the smartest thing that Michael Fox has ever done.
It's so funny because I was about to say, see Drew, what?
Alicia, let's hear some questions from our dailywire.com subscribers.
Absolutely.
And by the way, everybody did tear up at the military family reunion and the moment when Rush Limbaugh got that medal.
Presidential medal.
Presidential medal.
Tuskegee Airmen.
He's great at this.
He should really host a game show.
I mean, it was like The Apprentice, but nobody got fired.
So a lot of Daily Wire subscribers are commenting that they just love those moments.
And this question is for the whole crew.
They want to know, what do you think is going to happen to the Democratic Party after they lose this mutual hatred of Trump?
Because there tend to be these establishment Democrats.
You know, God King has mentioned Joe Biden might not be as threatening as Communist Bernie Sanders.
So what happens after they lose this mutual hatred of Trump?
Do you believe that the Democratic Party will shatter once he is no longer in office?
I personally believe...
I sound like Bernie.
I happen to believe.
But I actually think that the Democrats are going to go far left on this.
Maybe as far left as Bernie.
I think they're going to lose.
Obviously, nobody knows the future.
I'm riffing, but this is what I think is going to happen.
And I think they're going to have to reconsider.
Their resistance has been a failure.
Their resistance has been a failure...
In every possible way, the only way it could be a success is for them to win the next election.
I don't think they will.
They might, but I don't think they will.
If they don't, I actually do think that new forces within the Democrat Party are going to rise up because most of the Democratic Party, as you point out, including the voters, but many of the politicians themselves, A really moderate.
They're moderate left-wingers who have stuff to say that is part of the American argument.
And I think that there is a chance, just being optimistic here, there is a chance that if they are decimated in the next election, as they so deserve to be, that they may have to reconsider and move to the center.
So one of the things I love about Drew is that he's so close to death and yet so optimistic.
It really is an amazing thing.
I'm optimistic for you.
I'm being optimistic.
I appreciate it.
For future generations, plant a tree that you'll never see grow to fruition.
I'm out here for the laugh.
So I think that the actual answer to this question is that the Democratic Party is going to continue to move left.
The young people are in the Bernie camp.
They're not in the Biden camp.
It's all old Democrats who are in favor of the Biden camp.
This is where you guys are wrong.
And wait, this is where old age actually comes in handy.
Young people are ignorant.
Youth and ignorance are actually synonyms.
And they will learn.
They will learn that guys like Bernie are...
Right, but the problem is if you start off at Bernie Sanders, you end up at Elizabeth Warren.
Meaning that to start off that far to the left where you're like supporting an actual commie is not quite the same thing as I supported Walter Mondale and now I support Bill Clinton, right?
You're moving gradations here.
And the biggest problem of all, of course, is that when you look at sort of the demographic shift inside the Democratic Party, what you are seeing is that it is being led by the intersectional coalition.
And this is not a racial point.
This is the point that The pitch that the Democrats have been using since the Barack Obama era is that minorities in this country have been put upon by the American superstructure, this is the Ta-Nehisi Coates case, and that these groups who have been dispossessed need to fight back against the privilege they were denied by rupturing the system as a whole.
And so the Democrats have banked on this kind of coalition of dispossessed minorities and enough white people who can absolve themselves of being called racist by going along with it, which is how you saw this, I don't know if you saw this insane piece in The Guardian about liberal white women who are now paying $2,500 a pop to Sarai Rao and some other crazed person to be lectured on their own racism.
I think the most likely outcome, no matter which way we go, here's the thing, if Biden runs and he loses, Let's say Biden gets the nomination, he loses, they're moving left.
If Bernie runs, and they lose, then I think they'll do the same thing that Trump would have done in 2016 if he had lost.
Blame the never-Trumpers.
Blame the moderate Democrats for not showing up in mass numbers.
Why didn't you show up for us?
We showed up for you, kind of thing.
And then what you will see is it'll be a good move for the Republican Party because as the Democratic Party moves to the left, it does clear the center For Republicans to take some of that.
And I think you are seeing some of that, particularly in the middle of the country, which is why Trump was able to breach that blue wall.
But I think the wish that the Democratic Party is going to move back to a centrist party, I do not see that happening in the future.
Let me offer an alternative theory.
And I'm not...
I've learned since 2016...
Nothing is predictable, yeah.
But it is possible...
There's the theory, the great man theory of history, right?
It is possible that...
Bernie Sanders, it's amazing, right?
You've got AOC, you've got Ilhan Omar, you've got Rashid Tlaib, all these guys.
And yet it's 80-year-old Bernie Sanders who is the populist figure on the left.
It may be that Bernie is a unique character on the left.
That it's actually the fact that he's 80, it's the fact that he has a funny accent, it's the fact that he seems unthreatening.
He's been out saying this stuff for 438 years and nobody's listened.
Suddenly he gets into his late 70s and he becomes this sort of beloved figure for young people.
It's not other 80-year-olds who like Bernie.
It's 20-somethings who like Bernie.
It is possible that to a much greater extent, but a similar phenomenon to what we had on the right with Ron Paul...
Where it was the zaniness of Ron Paul and the sort of physical stature of Ron Paul and the age of Ron Paul.
All of that is what was required for Ron Paul to be Ron Paul.
And it's possible that when Bernie is no longer, you know, if Bernie were to run and lose, it's possible that that clears the way for kind of a new demagogue on the left, which could be more of a Barack Obama type.
Who we're not all talking about today, just like we weren't talking about Barack Obama four years before his election.
But you could see sort of a new wave of Democrats come in.
Who are the Democratic stars?
Elizabeth Warren came in second in Iowa.
Here's the reason I'm not as pessimistic as you are.
The Democrats have bet heavily on the ignorance of the young.
And the New York Times, the 1619 Project, is a bet that they can keep the young ignorant.
It is, we can lie to you, and you will believe our lies.
And the thing about ignorance is that it doesn't last.
It's not something that you can keep going for a long time.
And I think that...
That they're going to lose that bet.
I do believe that they're going to lose that bet.
On a cultural level, they've kept it going for some 50 years.
Well, it has taken them 50 years to get the youth to this level of ignorance.
But ignorance falls apart really quickly when it meets reality.
I mean, reality has a voice.
And this is the thing that no political observer ever takes into account.
Reality has a voice.
You do someday show up and say, hey, you know, I earned $100 and here's my check for $50.
Where's the other $50?
And people say, well, that's taxes and it's going to.
Right, but I think the argument that you're making is that the Democratic Party is going to move to the center if Trump swamps them.
I think the argument that you're now making is that the Democratic Party will move back to the center after Bernie Sanders is president and the economy tanks.
No, no, no, not at all.
This is what happened in Britain, right?
I mean, Britain moved way to the left after World War II, and then they completely collapsed in on themselves like a dying star, and then Margaret Thatcher comes along.
Same thing in the United States with Reagan.
That is a possible future event.
It definitely is a possible future, but I don't think it's going to happen.
I think Bernie may win.
I think he's going to lose the main election.
I do think that Trump is going to be re-elected.
And again, we've all learned that we don't know what the future is.
From your mouth to God's ears.
I hope you're right.
And I think that there's got to be voices.
There have got to be voices in the Democrat Party that are now silenced by the rage and hatred of Donald Trump and the belief that he can be brought down.
There is this intense belief that Donald Trump can be brought down.
Bringing up this left-wing move of the UK after World War II, and then it goes back right with Thatcher, which coincidentally happens at the same time as Reagan, it's important not to look at this in isolation.
It is true that America leads the world in pretty much everything, but there is something happening beyond America.
At the same year that we elected Trump, you had Brexit in the UK. You had these right-wing movements beginning in Italy and throughout Europe.
It does seem that there's sort of a waking up among the West that this kind of stale liberalism is insufficient, not just economically, but spiritually and politically.
And so I don't see that dying out anytime soon.
They tried to relitigate Brexit how many times, and Brexit still went through.
I think we actually have a pretty decent future At least for the near future.
It is for the national elections, by the way, in Britain.
I did a paper on this in college, and it's held true ever since, that if you look at the prime ministerial elections in Britain, they very closely mirror the American presidential elections.
I agree with you.
I so agree with this.
And I also think, you know, we have to get rid of the idea that there's going to be some victory that lasts forever.
No political victory lasts more than 25 years.
If you win for 25 years, that's a long time.
And I think we are set up right now for a 25-year victory.
We may not get it, but we are set up for it.
I'll have what she's having.
No.
Three of the five of us on this show will still be here in 25 years.
That's right.
And if you would like to continue hearing from us.
And by the way, I'll be laughing like a crazy man.
You can head over to dailywire.com and give us a little bit of your hard-earned money.
We can use it around these parts.
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And if you become an all-access tier member, you will get to join us after this show and several times throughout the week for a live sort of AMA-style discussion that we do on the website where we get to answer a ton of questions.
In the meantime, let's answer one more question on the show.
Alicia?
I hope that Drew's here until 100.
Yeah, really.
I'm feeling great.
He's, like, really old, right?
All right.
This last question is a good one, and I'm kind of disappointed, and I think this Daily Wire subscriber is as well.
Are y'all surprised that Trump didn't bring up the impeachment?
I'm delighted that he didn't.
I thought it was a brilliant move.
Surprised, yes.
Are you surprised?
I am surprised.
I'm not surprised.
He rarely has discipline to avoid taking jabs.
The fact that he didn't take a jab about impeachment and he didn't take a jab about Iowa is good Trump, to quote Ben, but I will also add, for me, surprising Trump.
So, he did reference impeachment, right?
There was one point where he pretty obviously, where he said, when we work together for the good of Americans, wink, wink, nod, nod, right?
And all the Democrats were like, no, we can't do that.
Yeah, he said the only victories that matter are the victories on behalf of America.
Right, exactly.
That was like...
F yourself.
That was pretty obviously an impeachment reference.
But yeah, I mean, he contained it.
Was I surprised?
A little bit.
Whenever he contains himself, that's kind of a surprising thing.
Was I happy that he did it?
Yeah, smart politics.
You don't want to bring up something that really is not going to help you in any way.
He did get a bit of an impeachment bounce because Americans don't like this.
The Gallup poll showed that he was down to like 38% approval rating in October.
He's up to 49% approval rating now.
So that's a pretty significant bounce.
Was I disappointed that I didn't get the fisticuffs that I had foreseen and maybe hoped for in the immediate lead-up?
I mean, now that it's all over and the better angels of my nature have kicked back in, I'm very happy the president gave a good speech and I hope that he is this until the election or until the next seven minutes when he gets back on Twitter and starts retweeting random Twitterers making memes of him beheading Nancy Pelosi or something.
I was not surprised.
This is the speech I expected from him.
It's the speech I thought he would make.
I'm much more worried about what he's going to tweet tonight than I was about this speech.
You know, I was surprised, and it was a political masterstroke, but maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.
Maybe I should have been more like Drew, because you've got the billionaire who's married to the gorgeous woman who speaks five languages, who became the head of network television, you know, top-rated show, a big real estate mogul, won the presidency on his first time running for office.
Maybe the guy has better political instincts.
I swear to God, Michael Moses, if you were in this seat right now, I would beat the living hell out of you.
If I had to hear another encomium genius of Donald Trump.
Like, okay, let's be real about this for one second.
He read a speech that was written for him off of teleprompters.
It was great.
Loved it.
He hired a good speech writer.
Also, sweet baby, within seven minutes, we were just saying, even Drew, who's with you on the Trump train, right?
You're the conductor, and he's shoveling the coal right into that end.
And Drew is over here going, well, God, I hope that we don't check Twitter right after this and Trump is retweeting porn.
Like, we all know what this is.
Just cut your s*** for a second.
Hey, Knowles, you know, I told Jeremy that I was afraid that you would leave us because when you throw a crocodile into the swamp, he swims away.
Are you coming back from Washington one of these days?
Well, I guess when I finish my cigar, I'll try to fly back over there, you know?
You are going straight from here to do an episode of The Verdict with Ted Cruz, yes?
I am.
I'm going to be up all night probably, but it should be a pretty exciting one.
I thought it was going to be very boring with a very boring speech, and now we're going to be up until 5 in the morning.
Well, if anybody hasn't gone over and listened to The Verdict with Ted Cruz, we're proud of it.
Michael's doing some of his best work.
The senator is fantastic.
It's certainly Michael's best work.
And it is the first show of its kind where you get immediate inside baseball insight from someone who's sitting in the room actually experiencing all of this in real time.
For the rest of us, we're going to go over to thedailywire.com and do our discussion right now.
We'd love to hear from you.
Come over to the website if you're already an All Access member.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you're not one, use that promo code DW2020 and subscribe.
We're going to get through as many questions as we can here.
You'll hear from Ben.
Drew, myself, Alicia.
We might even get one or two from Michael before he has to go do the show.
And we really appreciate you guys spending this really just insufferably long evening with us.
And we look forward to doing one of these again.
Never.
Thanks, everybody.
Daily Wire Backstage is produced by Robert Sterling, directed by Mike Joyner.
Executive producer, me.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
Technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Assistant director, Pavel Wadowski.
Edited by Adam Siavitz.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromino.
The Daily Wire Backstage is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire.
Well, hey there.
Now's the time when you hit that like button for me so we can keep smoking cigars and drinking whiskey for your amusement.
Or, in Ben's case, eating popcorn directly off the floor.
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