Kanye’s back in the presidential race, Trump gives conservatives a lesson on political power, and churches burn around the West.
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Kanye West is back in the presidential race, I am happy to report.
And Kanye, unlike Joe Biden, is holding campaign rallies.
And of course, the left is calling him insane.
Now, Kanye has said colorful things over the years, and the left never called him insane for those things.
But they're calling him insane now, specifically because he teared up while talking about The thought that he himself was almost aborted.
And he teared up while thinking about how his daughter was almost aborted.
He teared up at the thought of infanticide and the left thinks he's nuts.
My mom saved my life.
My dad wanted to abort me.
My mom saved my life.
there would have been no Kanye West because my dad was too busy.
He starts to tear up.
He starts to tear up.
Definitely not performed.
Pretty genuine.
The crowd seems surprised but supportive of Kanye.
No way!
This is why they're saying he's crazy, because he gets so emotional here, thinking about how his father tried to kill him, and how he almost killed his daughter.
You see, that's where the emotion comes in.
He starts to work up the emotion when he talks about how his father almost killed him, right?
There's a lot of social decay that could come just from that fact, just from that kind of family breakdown.
But then where he really tears up is that he almost killed his own daughter.
And the left calls him insane for that.
They're calling him insane for a political reason.
They're calling him insane because what the left does is it exploits science, quote unquote, and history, quote unquote.
Has this view that all politics is now science.
You can't disagree with it.
And has this view that history is always marching toward their own progress.
So if you deny science, you'd have to be insane.
If you believe a baby is really a baby, you'd have to be insane.
And if you stand in the way of their march of progress toward the inevitable turn of history, you'd have to be evil because you're standing in the way of progress.
Now, of course, the left doesn't care about science or history.
Just imposing their will on you.
And when anybody stands in the way, they will tear you down.
It takes a truly insane society to question a man's sanity for tearing up at the thought of infanticide.
But this isn't about any of that.
It's not about science.
It's not about history.
It's not about logical debate.
It's all about power.
And the right is starting to figure it out.
We'll get into all of it.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is the Michael Knowles Show.
The left understands power.
And I think the right is starting to wake up to the fact of how the left is imposing their own power, how the left is flexing their own power.
We'll get to that in one second.
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The left gets power.
Okay.
They use power.
The entire edifice of science, capital S, trademark over the E, and history, capital H, trademark over the Y. They get it.
They use it.
They flex it.
They will shut you down.
Okay, they're happy to play nice when you don't threaten their power structure, but the minute you do, they start to go after you.
Chris Wallace actually inadvertently made this point.
Chris Wallace of Fox News sat down with President Trump over the weekend.
It was a pretty tense interview.
We'll get to some of it today.
But Chris Wallace raised this great question that I think a lot of conservatives have been calling an unfair question.
I think it was a terrific question.
I think it shows you how the power really works in this country.
He pointed out to President Trump, he said, President Trump, the cities are burning down and the statues and everything's going crazy.
Why is that happening now?
So Trump answers and he says, well, it's because the left has run these cities.
Sure, good answer.
But then Chris Wallace said, well, you know, the left has run these cities for decades.
Why is it only happening now?
They're Democrat-run cities.
They're liberally run.
They're stupidly run.
We have forced them in Seattle to end the chop because, you know, we were going in that following day.
You probably have heard it.
We were getting ready to go in.
We were all set.
And when they heard that we were going, they set their police force.
Liberal Democrats have been running cities in this country for decades.
Poorly.
Why is it so bad right now?
They've run them poorly.
It was always bad, but now it's gotten totally out of control, and it's really because they want to defund the police.
So Trump basically punts on the question.
He goes, they're really bad.
They've run them poorly.
It's really bad.
And inasmuch as Trump answers the question, he says, well, because, look, things can't go on getting worse and worse forever.
Eventually, they hit rock bottom, and that's what we're seeing now.
I actually think the answer is more than that, and it's more specific to Trump.
I think the reason the cities are burning down is because of Trump.
Doesn't mean it's Trump's fault, but it is because of Trump.
Meaning the left is more than happy to play along and basically be nice so long as the right doesn't put up much of a fight.
You know, maybe we put up a Mitt Romney, right, whose job it is to lose.
Mitt Romney's entire job as the Republican nominee was to lose gracefully and never push back too hard.
John McCain, same thing.
His job was to lose, to never push back too hard, to lose gracefully, and to get nice write-ups in the New York Times.
George W. Bush actually won the elections, but he never, he certainly didn't push back very hard.
Don't forget, he was the inventor of compassionate conservatism who didn't want to answer the press or fight the press or push too hard on legislation.
He signed legislation, called McCain-Feingold, where he actually said, this is probably unconstitutional, but the left really likes it.
And so John McCain, a Republican, sort of likes it.
So I'm going to sign it anyway.
He just was a moderate liberal Republican, and now he openly...
More or less openly opposes the Republican president, Donald Trump.
They like you on the left as long as you play nice and don't push back.
Trump is a threat to the system.
Okay?
And when Trump is a threat to the system, they fight very hard.
This is why you've heard some conservatives now say the country might be better off if Joe Biden wins in 2020.
Not because they like Joe Biden or they want him to, just because they know that the cities will stop burning.
Now, I don't like that argument because I think that's basically giving into an extortion racket.
I think that's basically saying, well, if we appease these bullies, if we appease these gangsters, then things will be fine.
Let's just not rock the boat too much.
But that is the argument here.
And Chris Wallace proves it not just on this question of why the cities are burning, but even on the edifice of the administrative government, of the scientific establishment.
Chris Wallace loves Dr.
Fauci.
The left, you notice this?
The left loves Dr.
Fauci.
They treat Dr.
Fauci as though Dr.
Fauci should be the president.
As though we all elected Dr.
Fauci.
And Chris Wallace just cannot understand...
Why Donald Trump would undercut the exalted, holy, peace be upon him, Dr.
Fauci.
Why on earth would your administration be involved in a campaign at this point to discredit Dr.
Fauci, who is the nation's top infectious disease expert?
Why on earth would you disagree with some guy who's gotten everything wrong?
He's the nation's top infectious disease expert.
Is he?
I know he's the guy who's been in that job since the Reagan administration, but you can't disagree with Fauci now?
You're not allowed to disagree with scientists.
Science is all about believing dogmas forever, even if they are proven wrong time and time again.
So President Trump pushes back on the premise.
So what are you talking about, discredit Dr.
Fauci?
Because we're not.
If one man from my administration doesn't like him because he made a few mistakes.
Look, Dr.
Fauci said, don't wear a mask.
Dr.
Fauci told me not to ban China.
It would be a big mistake.
I did it over and above his recommendation.
Dr.
Fauci then said, you saved tens of thousands of lives.
More than that.
He said, you saved tens of thousands of lives.
Dr.
Fauci has made some mistakes, but I have a very good...
I spoke to him yesterday at length.
I have a very good relationship with Dr.
Fauci.
Another politically brilliant answer from Trump here, right?
Because he rejects Wallace's premise.
He goes, we're not discrediting Fauci, although Fauci's been pretty wrong.
This is a great way to answer when the entire media is against you, is you disarm them.
You put them on the wrong foot.
You say, no, your premise is totally wrong.
But then you keep hitting the guy.
He goes, but Fauci was wrong about this.
He was wrong about that.
I was right about this.
I was right about that.
And Trump is absolutely right to note that.
Trump has a better record, personally, on coronavirus than Dr.
Fauci.
I guess that makes Trump America's leading infectious disease expert.
Fauci told us, first of all, he over-predicted how many people would die.
Then he dramatically under-predicted how many people would die of the virus.
He told us not to wear masks on camera.
Do you remember that?
He went on camera and said, don't wear masks.
It would be crazy to wear masks.
That was at the peak of the virus.
That was when that thing was shooting right up to the top.
Now he's telling us opposite things and we're supposed to believe him again today.
So he says, you know, Fauci got things wrong.
And if you just left it there, you'd say, okay, it's a disagreement about the administrative state, fine.
But Wallace, he is so offended by any criticism of Dr.
Fauci, he has to push back again.
But sir, this week, this weekend, your White House put out a series of statements, so-called mistakes, that Dr.
Fauci had made.
One of your closest aides, one of your right-hand men, Daniel Scavina, put out Have you seen this?
Dr.
Fawcett, it shows him as a leaker and an alarmist.
I don't know that he's a leaker.
He's a little bit of an alarmist.
That's okay.
A little bit of an alarmist.
I'm an alarmist.
A little bit of an alarmist.
Let me just say, Dr.
Fauci at the beginning, and again, I have a great relationship with him.
I spoke to him at length yesterday.
Dr.
Fauci at the beginning said, this will pass.
Don't worry about it.
This will pass.
He was wrong.
Dr.
Fauci said, don't ban China.
Don't ban China.
I did.
He then admitted that I was right.
But you made mistakes, too.
I guess everybody makes mistakes.
I was going to say.
You made mistakes, too.
That's an amazing statement coming from...
Because first, Wallace opens up and he says, Fauci didn't make mistakes, right?
He said, your white ass put out this list of so-called mistakes from Dr.
Fauci.
Then Wallace admits, he finally has to admit, because Trump proves it to him, that Fauci made a lot of mistakes, very serious mistakes.
And what's Wallace's response?
Well, you made mistakes, too.
Yeah, I'm the president, right?
I'm the duly elected president.
If I make mistakes, that's on me, and the American people will hold me accountable.
Who's holding Fauci accountable?
Fauci's been in that job forever.
I don't know.
Fauci is like this ageless man.
I don't know.
Somehow it's kind of creepy.
He doesn't age.
He's been in office forever.
Never held accountable.
Presidents come and go.
Dr.
Fauci remains.
The administrative state remains.
The bureaucrats remain.
That's what the left wants.
That's their view of government.
That's how they flex power.
Right?
Because...
As I've pointed out, I've made this point on the show a few times.
The left talks about institutional racism and institutional oppression, yet they control all of the institutions.
One of those institutions is the administrative government.
And some people have pushed back on me.
They say, Michael, Republicans have the Senate.
Republicans have the White House.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the administrative government.
All the little alphabet agencies.
CDC, FDA, HHS, whatever, right?
State Department, all these.
The State Department, I suppose, is an actual cabinet.
However, They run that one too.
But all of those executive agencies, the left runs.
And so they have an extra bit of power here because it doesn't matter who gets elected.
They will remain in office.
This is why early on in the pandemic you heard the left always saying, why is Trump talking at these press conferences?
We only want to hear from Dr.
Fauci.
Trump's talking because he's the elected guy.
He's the one who's supposed to be in charge.
But in reality, it's the bureaucrats who are in charge.
And so, you see the appeal first to science, because what the left has done is taken political questions.
Should we have schools that are open?
Should we allow people to travel?
Should we allow restaurants to reopen?
On what timeline?
How do we debate this?
These are political questions that are based on eternal principles and changing political circumstances.
But we take those out, the left takes those out of the realm of debate and pretends that they're somehow scientific.
Because if they're scientific, there's only one correct answer.
And so you get some guy in a lab coat to take all of your politics away from you, all of your debate away from we the people, and just give you the answer and we have to do whatever he says.
That's the first thing they do.
Then the next thing they do is they take history and they apply science to history and they say history has a march, right?
The arc of the moral universe is long but it always bends toward justice.
You're on the wrong side of history.
You're marching toward progress.
And so, if you stand in the way of progress, if you stand in the way of their narrow ideological view of history, then you are considered evil.
And that's how they flex power time and time again.
Well, President Trump, one of the few people, probably the only guy in my lifetime, pushes back on that view of power.
One thing he did in this Wallace interview that was stunning is he acknowledged the problem.
He said, this is a debate about power.
And the Supreme Court just gave me, the president, a new power based on a power that the left had taken a number of years ago.
And I am going to flex that power.
Something you haven't heard this from conservatives in a long time.
Acknowledging that there is a power that has shifted around and that they are willing to use it.
We're signing a health care plan within two weeks.
A full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do.
So we're going to solve, we're going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan and various other plans.
And nobody will have done what I'm doing in the next four weeks.
The Supreme Court gave the President of the United States powers that nobody thought the President had by approving, by doing what they did, their decision on DACA. And DACA is going to be taken care of also.
I love this.
I hope that he is telling the truth and he's not just bluffing here.
Because what he just did upends decades of conservative so-called political practice.
What Trump just said is The Supreme Court just gave the president, the presidency, you know, not just one president or another, gave the president powers that no one thought he had on the DACA decision.
What's the DACA decision?
Well, it goes back to when Barack Obama issued an executive amnesty for relatively younger illegal aliens, you know, 40 and younger, the so-called dreamers, and Obama at the time admitted that it was unconstitutional.
He admitted at the time he didn't have the power to do that, so even he acknowledged that this was a power the president didn't have.
But the Supreme Court, because the country is always tilting leftward, the march of progress never stops, the Supreme Court, despite Obama's own objections, said that the president had that power, and so executive amnesty was constitutional, and so the DACA people get to stay.
So, the typical conservative response that you'd expect from the weak, spineless conservatives is, this is terrible, the Supreme Court shouldn't have given the president that power, and now that a conservative has the presidency, which they never thought possible, and they tried to steal it from us, and then they tried to steal it from us again after we won it, we're not going to use that power.
The left can use that power, but we won't.
Because if we use power, then we'll become the very people that we oppose, and we'll be no different than the left.
Even though that doesn't make any sense, of course, because politics is not merely formal.
It's not merely a procedure.
It's not merely how you do things, but what you do and what the left does is very different than what the right does.
And conservatives should not only want to have a sort of procedure of how to do things, they should want to do actual things.
And so what Trump says, stunning stuff.
He says, okay, the Supreme Court gave me that power.
I don't think this is a power that the President necessarily...
No one thought this was a power the President has.
The Supreme Court gave me that power because they wanted to help Obama?
That's fine.
I'm going to use that power.
The left uses their power, and the left has a whole lot more power than the right does.
So now the court gave us this little bit of power, I'm going to use it.
And I'm going to use it on healthcare.
And I'm going to use it on immigration.
And I'm going to use it on DACA too.
It's a guy who finally, finally understands what this is about.
The left uses all this mealy-mouthed language to hide their quest for power.
I mean, even the way they use science and history, it's basically just a way to put lipstick on the pig and put a facade up in front of what they're really doing, which is exercising pure will.
There's no argument.
There's no reason.
There's no logic.
They're just doing what they want to do.
I want to do it, so I'm going to do it.
And what Trump is saying is, I recognize that you're doing that, and I'm going to use the power that I can as well.
It's not just Trump.
Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, we sat down with him on the Verdict podcast just a few weeks ago.
Mark Meadows was on Maria Bartiroma's show.
He was asked about this Durham investigation.
That's another way to investigate the left's abuses of power into the origins of the Russia probe.
Where did this Russia probe come from?
Why was Obama's government spying on Donald Trump?
Who's going to be held to account?
And Mark Meadows, we've had a lot of worries.
We've said, gosh, is the White House actually going to go after anybody?
Is the DOJ actually going to go after anybody?
Is anyone going to be held to account for this outrageous abuse of power that took place in 2016?
And Mark Meadows says, absolutely.
I think the American people expect indictments.
I know I expect indictments based on the evidence I've seen.
Lindsey Graham did a good job in getting that out.
We know that they not only knew that there wasn't a case, but they continue to investigate and spy, and yes, I use the word spy, on Trump Campaign officials and actually even doing things when this president was sworn in and after that and doing it in an inappropriate manner.
You're going to see a couple of other documents come out in the coming days that will suggest that not only was the campaign spied on, but the FBI did not act appropriately as they were investigating.
It's all starting to unravel and I tell you, it's time that people go to jail and people are indicted.
It's time that people go to jail.
It's time that people are indicted.
Yes, that's right.
People have to be held to account.
This is a problem.
I get the conservative reluctance here to actually hold people like, for instance, Peter Strzok, that corrupt FBI agent who went after Trump, who went after Michael Flynn.
I get why you don't want to hold these people to account, because you don't We don't want to acknowledge how deep the problem runs.
We don't want to acknowledge the corruption of our own government.
We don't want to see these people go to jail because we don't want to see that they've committed crimes because we want to pretend that things are working as they should, as the Constitution lays out, or anywhere even close to how the Constitution lays out.
But they're not.
And conservatives are not going to help the problem by putting their head in the sand and pretending it's not happening.
Conservatives are not going to fix the problem by acting like cowards and refusing to do what they are called upon to do and what they have the power to do in the moment.
That's not going to be the way forward.
The way forward is going to be to actually take a risk, use your courage, stand up for what's right.
Now we're doing this not just on the level of the FBI and the DOJ. This is happening in the Pacific Northwest, which has been crazy town, right?
That's where Chaz and Chop and the Soyvia Union are.
These anarchists are running wild.
Well, finally, people are beginning to clean this up.
DHS is arresting anarchists in Portland.
We're talking about elite forces are now coming in to arrest these anarchists.
These anarchists are not...
They're not just demonstrators protesting for peace and love on the street.
These are highly organized, very dangerous, deadly...
Anarchists and Marxists out on the streets of Portland and absolutely they should be arrested.
They should be taken in for their crimes.
They should be dealt with.
The left is furious about this.
The left is furious that the right is actually using their power to stop their radical agenda.
The Attorney General of Oregon is now suing the feds for arresting violent anarchists who have taken over American cities.
Actually suing them.
And it's so bizarre to me.
That the left, whenever an American police officer does his job, whether it's a DHS unit taking down an anarchist or just a local cop arresting a looter or arresting a vandal or arresting a killer, the left hates that when the police do their job here in America.
And yet, you look on the international scene, when the government of China is arresting whole populations, particularly the Uyghurs, arresting them, Blindfolding them, handcuffing them, throwing them on boxcars, sterilizing them, killing off their population, committing genocide slowly.
But the Chinese move slowly as they march through history.
But committing genocide slowly but surely enough.
The left doesn't care.
The left doesn't care at all because China, the rise of China is part of the left's agenda.
They've been pushing for this for decades and decades.
It has largely worked.
And so they look the other way when China's committing actual, what you would call human rights abuses, committing heinous crimes against whole populations.
There, they just don't care.
Actually, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Lu Xiaoming, was asked about this question.
Finally, someone actually asks the Chinese about this question.
What does he say?
He totally deflects.
This is not the first time you show me.
I still remember last year you show me what is happening in Xinjiang.
In Xinjiang, exactly.
But let me tell you this.
Xinjiang, have you been to Xinjiang yourself?
No, I never have.
You know, Xinjiang is regarded as the most beautiful place in Xinjiang.
There's a Chinese saying, you do not know how big China is.
Ambassador, that is not beautiful coverage, however, is it?
You know, Xinjiang, that is exactly what I'm going to tell you.
Since 1990, Xinjiang has completely changed because there's thousands of terrorist attacks.
That was 10 years ago.
Can I ask you why people are kneeling, blindfolded and shaven and being led to trains in modern China?
What is going on there?
I do not know where you get this video tape.
You know, sometimes you have a transfer of prisons and prisoners, you know, in any country.
But just what is happening here, Ambassador?
I do not know where you get these video clips.
These have been going around the world.
That is really spooky because he is...
He's telling you that what you're seeing is real.
By denying it, by deflecting, he's telling you that what you're seeing is real.
That footage is pretty terrifying stuff.
I mean, that is truly, you know, Hitler-esque or Stalin-esque stuff.
You've got a whole population blindfolded, shaved, being loaded onto boxcars.
And listen to how he changes his story.
The interviewer says, what is this?
He goes, this is not the first time you've shown me this footage.
So he's saying, I've seen this before.
Then he says, oh yeah, this region is really nice.
He completely deflects.
Oh, you ever been to this region?
Oh, it's good.
They have wonderful hot dogs.
Yeah.
Oh, no, they're really good.
Try the iced tea when you're there.
So he totally deflects.
The guy says, what are you talking about?
Answer the question.
He goes, well, I don't know.
What is this footage?
Where did you get this footage?
I don't know about this footage.
But he already acknowledged that part's a lie because he said he's already seen it before.
Then he goes, well, I don't know.
I mean, you know, look, sometimes prisoners get transferred.
He doesn't say that's what this is.
If this were just a normal prisoner transfer, he would say, well, it's just a prisoner transfer.
But he's not saying, sometimes this happens.
He's got deniability there.
And also, prisoner transfers don't happen like that.
But neither here nor there.
And then he says, I don't know where you get this footage.
He goes on to criticize Western intelligence.
That's China for you.
That's what's been...
We've known this.
We've known that this is going on in China for a long time.
Even as people, mostly the left in America, but some more squishy Republicans, have applauded the rise of China this entire time.
If only we'd listened to that Hong Kong protester who put it in simple terms, but he sums up the situation perfectly.
Donald Trump don't trust China!
China is asshole!
Yep, that's about it.
That sums it up.
That's the whole thing.
But the left didn't want to believe...
The left understood that China was essential to their political program of economic globalization and broadening out governments beyond national sovereignty into international institutions.
And so that's what they've done.
Elsewhere on the international scene, churches are burning all around the West and The Cathedral of St.
Pierre and St.
Paul in Nantes was burned down over the weekend.
Luckily, firefighters contained the damage, but it blew out stained glass windows and destroyed the Grand Organ in the 15th century church.
It's not just going on there, though.
St.
Joseph Church in New Haven was forced to close after it was the target of vandalism that included satanic symbols painted on the front door.
Two additional attacks were recorded in Miami and in Colorado Springs.
In Miami, a statue of Christ was toppled and beheaded.
A statue of Mary was covered up in red paint.
That was all just last week.
That was all just in America and this church burning down in France.
What's the explanation for that?
Just another cigarette butt?
Gosh, a lot of cigarette butts flying around the West and they all seem to land on very old, historic, beautiful churches.
This happens constantly, certainly on a weekly, almost a daily basis, around France, Spain, burning down all over the place.
This is not just an accident.
It's not just a cigarette butt flying.
It's not just a weird quirk.
It's not even unforeseen.
This is a flex of power.
Power by the enemies of the West.
Power that is ignored and abetted by internal enemies of the West, by the political left that admittedly wants to destroy the West, that marches on college campuses and says, hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.
That says that the West is hopelessly bigoted and terrible and evil and caused all the problems in the world.
And we need open borders just to bring people in because of how terrible we've been to the whole world.
Doesn't make a lot of sense, right?
The West is the worst place in the world.
That's why we need to let everybody in.
The West is terrible.
We've hurt so many people around the world.
That's why we need to let them come into the West.
Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Clearly, they're being disingenuous somewhere in their argument.
But the point is the same.
The West is under threat.
From a religious standpoint, from a scientific standpoint, from a cultural standpoint, from a political standpoint.
And the big threat is not just that the West has enemies.
Every civilization has enemies.
The big point is that the West no longer can defend itself.
In President Trump's best speech that he's given yet, it was not the Mount Rushmore speech, though that one was very good.
It was the speech he gave in Warsaw, where he asked a simple question.
Does the West have the will to survive?
The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.
Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost?
Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?
Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?
Do we have the will to survive?
We in this country, in this civilization of ours, mock Kanye West.
We call him crazy and insane because he expressed the will to personally survive.
Because he expressed shock and horror at his father's desire to kill him and his erstwhile desire to kill his own daughter.
Because he recognized, even on a personal level, the will to survive.
And we mock people who want our politics to survive and our culture to survive and our whole civilization to survive.
So do we have the will?
There's only one way we're going to have the will.
That's if we actually exercise the power that we have, that we can, before it's too late.
These are themes that were brought up in the Flight 93 essay.
Very famous essay written by Mike Anton in 2016.
And people made fun of him for the Flight 93 essay.
How dare you?
But why did he title it that?
Because that is the fundamental question.
Trump gave that speech in Warsaw because it's not even just uniquely American or uniquely French or uniquely Italian.
It is Western.
Do we as a whole coherent civilization have the will to survive?
Well, right now, we are allowing marauders and vandals and murderers to run wild.
And we're arresting people for defending themselves.
Not a great sign.
We'll get to that in one second.
That's in St.
Louis with the McCloskeys.
We'll get to the latest on BLM and wild accusations of racism.
And we will get to surviving the coronavirus.
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You remember the McCloskeys?
That's the gun couple that I think should be the cover of the next Brooks Brothers catalog.
You know, the one with the pink polo shirt and the white chinos, standing outside of their house with their guns, just aiming at the marauders who themselves were wielding firearms at them and destroying their property.
So, you might have heard, the McCloskeys had their house searched, very likely to be indicted, very likely to be prosecuted for defending their own house.
Well, this is a very bad situation, but it's one we've come to expect.
Because the bad guys get away with stuff and the good guys do not.
That's how our politics works right now.
That's how power is enforced.
Well, good news.
The governor in that state, Mike Parson, is strongly considering giving them a pardon if they should be indicted.
He made this point while speaking on the Mark Cox Morning Show.
Let me just be clear on this.
Regardless what the people's last name are, you're talking about the opportunity of the law to stand your ground is what you're talking about.
And the Castle Doctrine, which I helped write in the state of Missouri, they did what they legally should do.
A mob does not have the right to charge your property or to come on your property not knowing what the intent is.
They had every right to protect their cells.
Do you as governor have the power to pardon or commute something like that?
By all means, I would, and I think that's exactly what would happen.
Exactly what would happen, exactly what should happen.
Trump has come under fire for pardoning Roger Stone.
He was absolutely right to pardon Roger Stone, his old campaign aide who was attacked for committing the horrible crime of working for Donald Trump.
There are few places that conservatives can exercise real power these days.
We should use all of them.
Obviously, the issue they have with the McCloskeys is the McCloskeys countered the BLM narrative.
BLM narrative is they're just BLM wonderful protesters.
They're really the true inheritors of the American dream.
No violent criminals among them.
Not highly organized by self-avowed trained Marxists.
No, no.
Just grassroots wonderful protesters.
So those guys are encouraged, BLM, no matter what kind of crimes they commit.
Meanwhile, if you oppose BLM, You're destroyed, you're harassed as a racist, as a terrible person, even if...
As one BLM opponent in New York just showed us, even if you're black, a black woman came out in the middle of this big BLM demonstration in New York and started to paint over the Black Lives Matter Marxist slogan.
Started to paint over it and say, this is outrageous, these people don't care about black lives, they're endangering black lives, this is terrible stuff.
The authorities were not as nice to her as they were to the BLM rioters.
Black lives matter.
Black lives matter.
But you want to defund the police for black people.
You're lying.
No.
We're not standing for Black Lives Matter.
We want our police.
Refund our police.
Refund our police.
Y'all don't care about black lives.
Get the pack.
Y'all don't care about black lives.
Refund the police.
Refund the police.
They say black lives matter.
They say black lives matter, right?
They say black lives matter.
They don't care.
Refund the police.
They don't care about black lives.
They all for the sake of black people.
De Blasio doesn't care about black people.
She's just covering it up in this paint.
Refund the police.
And she's just...
Cops are grabbing her.
Cops are pulling her up.
One cop goes down because she's a little tougher, you know.
This is a chilling scene.
This could be out of some kind of dystopian novel or movie.
Because what we've seen for the past three weeks is that if you knock down windows, pull down statues, burn buildings, spray paint BLM on anything you want, burn down police stations, You won't be met with resistance.
You will be permitted to do it.
Mainstream media, even the cops at the behest of the civil authority will let you do it.
But the minute, the minute you contradict that narrative, even if you're a black woman, the minute you do that, you will be taken into custody.
Those cops, they didn't let her go too long before they grabbed her and tried to pull her in.
What's the point she's making?
BLM is trying to defund the police.
The police are saving a lot of black people in these bad neighborhoods.
You are killing black people by doing this.
You are permitting the death of black people by doing this.
You are doing exactly the opposite of what you say you're doing.
I can't let that message get out.
I don't even blame these cops.
I blame the civil authority and the culture that's enforcing it, that's making these cops act against this woman, but not against the BLM rioters.
That is what power looks like.
And that's the kind of hidden power that you don't see it on the news, you don't see it all the time.
It's not in our laws or our constitution, but that's the reality.
If you push the leftist narrative, you can get away with murder.
In many cases, literally.
And if you oppose the leftist narrative, you're not even permitted your own free speech.
And you're certainly not permitted the kind of more expressive speech, including painting over murals and things like that, that the left is always permitted.
On this BLM issue, too, I can't believe, I cannot believe, I've got to defend Marco Rubio.
But I do.
Marco Rubio got in trouble over the weekend.
Marco Rubio tweeted out, so John Lewis, who was a Democratic congressman and he was part of the civil rights movement, he died.
He was an older man, so, you know, this was not totally unexpected.
Rubio tweeted out, it was an honor to know and be blessed to serve in Congress with John Lewis, a genuine and historic American hero.
But the issue is, he tweeted out a photo, not of John Lewis, but of Elijah Cummings, who's another black congressman who actually died not too long ago.
And so Marco Rubio.
And so he's this genuine hero.
I love John Lewis.
He's the greatest guy.
But he doesn't even know who John Lewis is, and he tweets out a photo of a different guy.
This was widely considered to be a racism.
And Rubio got in trouble for it and he had to apologize.
I actually have to defend Rubio a little bit here.
I'm not totally defending him.
And we'll get to how I'm not defending him in a moment.
But I do have to point out, it is not necessarily racist to confuse two people of the same race who happen to look like each other.
Okay, we're talking about two guys, Elijah Cummings and John Lewis, who had the same job, they were of the same race, they were of the same political party, they were roughly the same height, they were roughly the same build, they were both bald, they both had the same haircut, right?
John Lewis was a bit older, but he looked young for his age, and Elijah Cummings was a bit younger, but he looked older for his age, and that's why perhaps you might notice that Elijah Cummings pre-deceased John Lewis.
It's not as though Marco Rubio confused John Lewis with Denzel Washington.
That might have some more racial questions associated.
These are two guys who did look relatively similar.
If you were to confuse Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley, as I always do, if you put Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley in front of me, I could not tell you which is which.
That's not racist.
It's not racist against white ladies.
Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek.
Nobody knows which is which.
They look very, very similar.
Felicity Jones and Emilia Clarke.
Nobody could pick out which one is which.
They look very similar.
It's not a racism, necessarily.
Now, the issue with Marco Rubio's tweet here, of course, is that what it revealed when he couldn't tell which was Elijah Cummings and which was John Lewis, what it revealed is that he was just pandering.
And this is what the American right does all the time.
They're so afraid of being called racists that they want to glom on to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, even though we're talking about something that happened many, many years ago that very few people alive today...
I mean, John Lewis, who was a young man during the Civil Rights Movement, he just died, right?
There are very few people alive today who had any direct connection to that movement.
But everybody wants to claim the mantle of that movement, especially conservatives, because they're so afraid of being called racist.
The left is going to call you racist anyway.
So if it's not genuine, as clearly it is not in Marco Rubio's case, then you just come out looking ridiculous, and then you have to walk it back and apologize and tweet out the right picture, too.
Because conservatives are so afraid of being called racist.
Hey, guess what?
If you're not racist, then don't worry about being called racist.
They're going to call you racist anyway.
There's this woman, Jamil something or other.
She has a leftist blue checkmark on Twitter.
She said, if you vote for Donald Trump, you are a racist, and that's it.
A lot of people were responding angrily to this, and the conservatives got really angry.
I didn't get angry because I know that that's what the left thinks.
It's not just what that woman thinks.
That woman is not just some kook.
Okay, that woman is representing what I would say the broad coalition of leftists believe, which is that if you vote for Trump or if you're a conservative, you're a Republican, you are racist.
In fact, they tell you explicitly if you're white, you're racist, just necessarily.
If you're born white, you have to be a racist person.
Now, I know that isn't the case.
You know that isn't the case.
We all know no one's racist, right?
None of us are racists.
So why worry about what the left is going to call you when they're going to call you that anyway?
That is one way that they flex their power.
Well, you're not going to be able to counter that by yelling until you're blue in the face or trying to prove them wrong.
They don't care if they're wrong.
It's not about an argument.
It's not about logic.
That's just a cudgel.
That's just an imposition of their will on you.
The quicker conservatives wake up to that, the better.
We should oppose actual bigotry because that's wrong because, as we've mentioned on this show before, racism, in so much as that word still has a meaning, racism is an affront to human dignity because man is made in the image of God and we have a common ancestor in this human solidarity.
That's it.
Simple as that.
You don't need to make a big thing about it.
You don't need to, like, tweet out all this black squares to prove that.
Move on.
The left actually doesn't even care about that.
Move on and hit the left where it will matter.
Stop trying to win an argument that the left isn't even really having.
It's the only way you're going to get anywhere in this whole thing.
And by the way, once the race thing stops working, they're just going to hit you from another angle, okay?
So, Chris Wallace, in this interview with the president, so he's moving topic to topic.
He's an excellent interviewer.
He knows how to move this thing along.
And Chris Wallace, then when Trump answers his questions on power and how he's using power, he moves back to the coronavirus.
And he talks about how the coronavirus cases are exploding and Trump is being irresponsible.
Testing is up 37 percent.
Well, that's good.
I understand.
Cases are up 194 percent.
It isn't just that testing has gone up, it's that the virus has spread, the positivity rate has increased.
The virus is worse than it was.
Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day.
They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.
Many of them.
Don't forget, I guess it's like 99.7%.
People are going to get better.
And in many cases, they're going to get better very quickly.
We go out and we look.
And then on the news, look, if you go back to the news, all of your, even your wonderful competitors, you'll see cases are up.
Well, Cases are up.
Many of those cases shouldn't even be cases.
Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world, and we have the most testing.
No country has ever done what we've done in terms of testing.
We are the envy of the world, they call, and they say the most incredible job anybody's done is our job on testing.
Great point.
Chris Wallace says, the cases are exploding.
Trump says, who cares the cases are exploding?
What you're supposed to care about is how many people are dying from it, what the death rate is.
We've already been told we're not going to stop the virus, so the virus is going to spread.
Fauci even admitted we're not going to get herd immunity, even with a vaccine.
So the thing is going to spread.
What are you going to do?
You just got to make sure you're managing it relatively well, which we are.
Chris Wallace doesn't have an answer for that.
I noticed this.
The New York Times does this all the time.
They have these articles.
A virus walks into a bar.
As communities open up, it's becoming increasingly clear that the indoor bar scene is uniquely suited to transmission of COVID. Oh no, that's terrible.
In Louisiana, at least 100 people tested positive for the virus after visiting bars.
By the way, they never have these articles about the riots.
That took place three weeks ago, where hundreds of thousands of people met up, right?
You're not allowed to ask about that.
But the bars, 100 people tested positive.
In Florida, several bars are the source of large outbreaks.
In Jacksonville Beach, 16 friends went to a pub, and then they all tested positive for COVID. So you hear all this, they're meeting up, they're meeting up, and they're all testing positive.
Okay, so what happens?
So what happens?
So they tested positive and then nothing.
Then they're fine.
Then they're totally fine.
Because if they weren't fine, if they had died, God forbid, or something serious had happened, then the New York Times would have written about it.
But it's just this scaremongering, this fear-mongering.
People see that headline and they stay home.
And that is a very effective power flex.
Chris Cuomo on CNN, same thing.
He brings in three young people who, you know, they went out, they went to bars, they thought they were invincible to COVID, and then they caught it, and then they recovered, and they're fine, and they're on CNN. Seven workers at a Florida bar and a group of 16 friends who are out for a night of fun all tested positive for coronavirus.
Erica Crisp was one of them.
She's been sick for a week, but she's here along with two of those friends, Kat Layton and Dara.
Is it sweet or sweat?
Sweat.
All right.
Good to have you.
Now, I don't want any of you to sweat.
This is not one of these sessions.
I'm happy that you are feeling better.
You're young.
Thank God you didn't get hit the way I did.
I just wanted to quickly give each of you a chance to share how you now feel after this experience.
Erica, starting with you, I know nobody had masks.
It was crowded in there, just like a normal bar.
Why did you think it was okay to do it that way?
And what do you think now?
Why did you think it was okay?
Did you think it was okay because all of us, including me, who had coronavirus, were all completely fine and were talking about it on TV? Oh, wait.
Wait a second.
Whoops.
I think I just undercut my own argument there.
Yep.
They're fine, right?
All four of them are totally fine.
Chris Cuomo was on TV while he had coronavirus.
This woman was sick for a week.
Yeah, okay.
People get sick for a week.
Okay.
That's fine.
Are you fine?
Yeah, you're fine.
They're not even making the argument that this was disastrous for them.
They just...
They just insinuate.
It's just pushing this cloud of fear.
Not based on science, not based on anything like that.
Last point on this issue of power.
Last night, a gunman who was dressed as a FedEx delivery man shot the husband and the son of a federal judge, Esther Salas, at their New Jersey home.
Killed the son.
Horrible story.
Salas was in the basement.
She was not injured.
The shooter couldn't find her.
The motive is unknown, according to NBC and ABC. This judge was assigned a case on Jeffrey Epstein's finances five days ago.
Is that a coincidence?
I don't think this shooting was just a random incident.
I don't think you dress up as a FedEx delivery man and go in and target a federal judge and try to kill her entire family if it's just a random whoopsie-daisy.
Random act, senseless act of killing.
Seems to me a lot of people around Jeffrey Epstein wind up dead, including Jeffrey Epstein.
That's just one case.
One bizarre example of a place where a lot of powerful people are connected to this one guy and things just keep going wrong.
It's an example where regardless of what you think about the whole Epstein thing, there's so many theories on what happened and nobody knows the truth yet.
And maybe never will know the truth.
But we do know there's a lot of power there.
There's a lot of exercises of power going on.
There are some people trying to exercise power to cover up the truth.
There are some people trying to exercise power to take away your freedoms.
There are some people trying to exercise power to dismantle your government and your civilization.
Same way we say the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
The only way to stop a bad politician exercising political power is to have we the people come in and exercise political power.
That's the only way we're going to do it.
Are we willing to do it?
Do we have the will to survive?
We will see.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
I'll see you tomorrow.
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You know, the Matt Wall Show, it's not just another show about politics.
I think there are enough of those already out there.
We talk about culture because culture drives politics and it drives everything else.
So my main focuses are life, family, faith.
Those are fundamental and that's what this show is about.