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May 22, 2021 - The Michael Knowles Show
39:06
The NUCLEAR Option | Steven Crowder

Steven Crowder joins the show to discuss his most recent strikes from YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Time Text
- You may not have seen a lot of Steven Crowder lately, Why is that?
Where has this international man of mystery gone?
Is it because he has COVID? I don't know, maybe.
He does have the sniffles and he's got a box of tissues on his desk.
Is it because he's gone to the other side of the world?
No, it's because YouTube is taking him down like they've been doing more and more in recent days.
What did Steven do now?
We will find out.
Steven, thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me, sir.
I apologize that I sound like Hunter Biden on a parmbender, but I'm very sick.
The only thing that I know it's not is COVID because of many, many tests that I've done.
Wow, that's true.
I'm sure you've taken a bunch of tests, and now, you know, even if you want to walk into, like, a Starbucks, I think you've got to get three negative COVID tests.
So you actually didn't remember that anyone could get sick with anything else over the past year other than COVID. I know.
No, believe me, I was in the same boat.
Turns out the flu is still a thing.
And it turns out that there's pneumonia, bronchitis, these things still exist.
As a matter of fact, it's almost more likely for some of you out there to get it, depending where you are.
And depending on your age demographic, you know, if you're a young, healthy person, you might be more likely to experience these symptoms like I have, where, you know, if I could check off a list, hey...
Which symptoms of everything that I have, you know, the throat that feels like the device from 7 had been jammed into it, the nasal drip, or a slight loss of taste and smell, I would pick that.
That's what I would pick.
Yes.
But, wow, I'm so upset that not only are you going to get yourself kicked off YouTube, now that you have suggested that some people are less likely than others to get COVID, you're going to get me kicked off of YouTube too, and then where are we going to be?
I know.
How dare we suggest it?
It's almost as risky as suggesting that if people are vaccinated, they don't need to wear masks.
Here we go.
Retroactively, we don't fix those bans, do we?
We don't fix the bans of people who said that.
They were removed from social media platforms until Fauci said, well, you know, it really was Theta because I didn't want to send the wrong message.
Okay, great.
Well, I think we sent the wrong message by banning people who were actually following the science.
And who are right.
You know, this brings up, there was a fact check.
I think it was, I forget if it was PolitiFact.
I guess it was PolitiFact.
They came out and they said, oh my God, I'm going to get COVID just from sitting on the, oh gosh.
I can feel it over here.
I saw this fact check where someone said, Early on, it looks like the Wuhan Institute of Virology was associated with this leak.
And they got a big fact check from PolitiFact, this is wrong, 7 zillion Pinocchios.
And then they had to put an editor's note on the fact check, and they said, oh, actually, yeah, maybe it was.
Where's the apology?
Where's the putting them back on YouTube?
Where's the reinstituting their social media platforms?
I mean, this is, right?
I don't think it was COVID that got you booted this time.
Can you tell us anything about why you're off YouTube right now?
Can I tell you anything?
Yes, a few things.
So first off, let me preface it with this, because you and I both know that there are You want to do your show.
I want to do my show.
There are some people who thrive off of just social media drama who, oh, they have a Twitter temporary suspension.
This is not that.
We've done hundreds of shows.
We do hours of content.
We get more viewers on a live show than Jimmy Kimmel, than Jimmy Fallon.
That's what I want to do.
This is different.
We have submitted a notice.
We are filing a lawsuit with YouTube and an immediate injunction, request of injunction, because, as you know on YouTube, if you have three strikes, your account is gone forever.
Yeah.
Okay, so we had the Vox apocalypse.
This happened a while back, and they found that we violated no policies, right?
So they demonetized us, then they re-monetized us, and they demonetized us.
And we've always said, your sandbox, okay, your rules, 230 may have something to say about it.
But in this case, actually, COVID was one of them.
So the first, I don't remember the exact order, but for people out there who aren't paying attention, and we're still broadcasting, by the way, live at livewithcrowder.com slash mug club, and the free content is available on Rumble right now until we're able to stream back on YouTube and remains to be seen.
The first strike, which wasn't a strike, which was a warning, was about election, about voter fraud, I should say.
Because we made it very clear, we never discussed mass election fraud.
We never said the ghost of Hugo Chavez rigged the Dominion voting machines and Donald Trump was the rightful president who won re-election.
What we did do, and it became a joke with my lawyer, was I said, look, just like Amy Klobuchar, just like Elizabeth Warren, just like Jimmy Carter, where they talked about, they had commissions to say, hey, voter fraud, which can occur, is one of the biggest threats to our national security, to our national democracy.
That was them.
Yeah, yeah.
And it occurs more with mail-in voting.
They said that.
Yes, exactly.
Can we cross-reference voters with the current voter rolls and the addresses that don't exist?
And if we go on Google Earth and show that it doesn't exist as an address, can I just talk about those?
He said, nope, because Google Earth is not up to date.
I said, what if I set interns that day with a copy of that day's newspaper live on camera to show that it's an overpass or an empty lot, double, triple confirmed?
He said, if you're willing to do that, sure, fine.
And we actually booked tickets to Nevada and Michigan and did it.
That was removed.
Okay?
Now, we didn't get a real reason.
They just said, well, you know, this violates election policy.
I believe that was the warning.
Then one of them was for COVID. One was a warning.
One was a hard strike.
They should have been considered hard strikes.
You know, listen, tomato, I say, you know, Orwellian.
So the COVID one, we did a one-year anniversary of 15 Days to Flatten the Curve.
And we went through the sequence of all of the science.
So, for example, we had a montage of Fauci saying, don't wear a mask.
A mask is actually worse because people touch their face and touching their face.
And then we had him saying, do wear a mask.
We had the Surgeon General saying, stop buying masks and then saying, do buy a mask.
Then we had him saying, double masking is unnecessary.
You guys should double mask, double masking.
So we went through all of this, right?
And keep in mind, I think we're the only show that does this.
We provide all of our references, like a bibliography, at loudworthcredit.com every day, every single show.
Wow.
Our sources for this episode were primarily the CDC and the WHO. And they're never specific.
And these aren't really violations.
But I believe the statement that got us into trouble, and I'm sorry, hopefully this doesn't get anyone into trouble, was something along the lines of, and so I will make sure that it's not specific, but we brought up an image of the CDC mortality charts and said COVID is significantly more lethal than the flu to old people.
And we need to recognize that and treat it properly.
For some reason, it's significantly less lethal than the flu today.
Exclusively to young people.
That was it.
That was going against, that was considered medical misinformation.
This is the sort of thing, you know, my wife was pregnant during COVID. We'd go into the doctors and we'd say, gosh, do we need to be worried about this for the baby?
Because, you know, flu is actually kind of a big deal if you're pregnant.
But the doctors, all of them said, no, actually, for whatever reason, COVID is not really a threat to the babies or to pregnant mothers.
You don't need to worry about it as much as you would for something like the flu.
I mean, this is not some kooky conspiracy theory.
I just went through.
I mean, my wife is pregnant with twins right now.
And I am up in the den in the far wing of the house like Castlevania version Dracula.
You know where I'm slightly charming but still a little bit intimidating?
And I just emerged from my coffin to do the show and hack into a mug.
We're going through this right now.
We just had that conversation.
That conversation could result in a strike or a ban.
Now the final, this is the one that just happened that was the second strike.
And again, you know, we don't have specific answers.
It's one thing to have a rulebook, people to understand it, and they break the rules fairball.
You know what I mean?
This happens all the time in sports where you go, I don't agree with the call, but okay, it's in the rules.
You know, this happens like in MMA. You grab my shorts, you're not allowed, but the ref didn't call it.
I have to accept the results.
That's not what's going on right now.
The recent strike...
Let me be as clear as—I'm trying to be as succinct as possible so I don't bore people.
Remember the police officer, the hero who saved a young girl of color in Ohio who was about to be stabbed?
No, I'm sorry.
I only remember the vicious monster who wouldn't even allow that young, wonderful girl to stab the other girl to death and who was imposing his white supremacy on her.
Yeah.
Yes, Ed Furlong in a bomber jacket.
Yes, correct.
No, so we talked about this on air, and I said, not only do I think this was a justified shooting, I think it was a necessary shooting with a police officer.
I think it'd be an abdication of duty if you don't shoot someone while they are attempting to penetrate someone's flesh with a knife.
Yes.
And this was celebrating, and by the way, I make no apologies.
Sometimes people go, it's always a tragedy.
No, no, look, this is not one of those equivocations.
Yeah.
Sure, we wish that people wouldn't lose their lives.
But I actually think that once someone has made a decision to put someone else's life in danger, the happy ending as the innocent civilian is saved lawfully by the police officer.
That was considered broadly harassment, bullying because of reveling in the death of apparently Micaiah Bryant, which we did not do.
Now, look, people need to understand that as comedians, as a comedian, this is a comedy show, there's a difference between when we're joking about things and when we're covering stories.
That's why we provide our references.
Yeah.
But this is not about what we're doing.
I think a lot of people can sort of – you look at like Alex Jones at one point was deplatformed and I disagree with Alex Jones on a whole lot.
I didn't think I deserved to be deplatformed.
I think a lot of people can separate themselves from what they view as extremism.
Look – I am basic pumpkin spice latte, basic conservatism, a Christian conservative who came to notoriety because Amy Schumer attacked me for talking about how I wasn't having sex until I was married.
And these points of view, YouTube is saying you cannot say that the science matters that two-year-olds shouldn't mask, according to the CDC. You cannot say that voter fraud occurs on an individual level and agree with Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren.
You are not welcome to say on our platform...
Good for you, police officer, for a fraction of a second placing a perfect shot to save someone's life.
That is saying if they remove us here from YouTube and we have good reason to believe that they're looking for other potential violations because these aren't actual violations as far as we know.
We really haven't gotten the specificity.
This is tantamount to saying half the country, your points of view are not welcome on this platform.
There is no extremist here.
This is really important because I guess the line here that they're pushing is, you know, your joke went too far about Makia Bryant.
But what you're saying is no, it's not a joke.
I made the same point on my show.
I said, yeah, it's sad.
You know, it's sad that this is a fallen world and people do bad things and they face consequences when they do it.
But this is a good conclusion when someone is about to be stabbed and...
It is good that a cop goes in and saves that person's life.
There's nothing that's a joke about that.
And the other thing here that when I see the coverage, every time you get suspended or they try to de-platform you, you see it in Media Matters or any of the other leftist organizations.
They'll go out and they'll say far right, extremist, radical right-wing or Stephen Crowder.
And I think, you know, I don't, they're obviously being disingenuous and dishonest when it's Media Matters or Right Wing Watch or any of those other groups.
But I bet a lot of other people out there might not realize how pumpkin spice you are.
I mean, look, I spend a lot of my day reading far radical leftist content, watching far radical leftist content, and watching far radical right wing content.
I mean, really out there stuff.
And then some stuff in the middle, too.
You are, I say this, it's going to sound like an insult almost.
No, I understand what you're about to say.
You are about as mainstream as it gets.
If they go after you, it's not like it's the fringe radical.
If they go after you and they deplatform you, what they are saying is anyone in this country who identifies as conservative is no longer welcome here.
That is exactly what, and I hate to, because I don't want to be a martyr.
I want to do the show, but this program is the biggest conservative program that's ever existed on a new media platform, period.
Certainly on YouTube.
Billions of plays.
And look, I defy people.
Point out to me my most extreme right-wing view.
Ending the drug war?
Heartbeat bills for abortion?
A flat tax?
Non-interventionism unless our country's security is at stake?
Free open markets where people have to be transparent?
I don't know.
I couldn't point to any radical points of view.
What I would say is what they probably try and say is, well, we didn't like the way you said it.
And the only thing, this didn't come from YouTube as far as I know.
People were mad because they said, well, you joked about Mekhi Bryant being overweight.
First off, maybe I did.
But the statement that I made was at this time, people need to understand at this moment in history, when we went out there and we did this stream, for example, LeBron James had just tweeted out, you're next to this police officer.
And the story was a police officer showed up, Mekhi Bryant called the police and he showed up and shot her.
That was it.
And she didn't have a knife.
So we had to correct it.
And it was a 16-year-old girl.
And I said, look, this isn't a 15.
This is a 230-pound woman who was mid-step.
And that matters.
That matters.
I don't remember if it was Joe Lewis.
It might have been Marvin Hagler who said, listen, the size of someone matters regardless of age.
He said, I remember he was talking about, I think it might have been Marvin Hagler.
I could be wrong.
Or he was about to fight someone who they thought was a stepping stone.
And they said, what are you saying to people who say your opponent doesn't have a shot?
He said, oof.
It's a 200-pound man.
I don't care who you are.
A 200-pound man hits you, he has a shot.
And that's what matters.
It is very relevant.
It's relevant in how police approach it, just like it's relevant how the immune system of a four-year-old reacts differently to a novel virus than a 64-year-old.
And people tell us that we need to follow the science.
We need to follow the truth.
Well, where are your sources?
Rachel Maddow, New York Times.
We always try to be as transparent as possible.
And it's, look, could I go off and do something like Mug Club?
Sure.
There are ways to make a living when you're not on these platforms.
And I hope that there's an alternative at some point where people in the future can make a living.
But I started this in 2009.
I started YouTube in 2006.
I started doing political videos in 2008 or 2009 with a blue bed sheet in my den.
There was no money.
There were no conservatives.
Now, I know there's been sort of a mean factory sort of people talking about alt-right.
This was long before that.
Now, this is a business.
I'm soon to be a father of two with 12 people, 12 to 15 people who I employ depending on the day, depending on the interns who are here.
And I don't know that there can ever be another young Stephen Crowder coming up.
I don't know that there can ever be another Rush Limbaugh because the entire town square, the entire digital town square is controlled by effectively three companies, Facebook, Google Alphabet, YouTube, and Twitter.
And certainly then if you include Amazon and Apple who also control the app stores and the ability to even get a competing application up there, I don't know if you're not allowed to say, hey, officer, not even blanket back the blue.
Hey, officer, thanks for saving that girl's life and shooting that woman while she was trying to stab her.
If you're not allowed to say that on YouTube, I don't see how anyone could censor themselves to come up and...
And carry the torch behind us.
And that's really what is scary to me.
And by the way, let's say now you're just going to do your show.
It's only going to be Mug Club.
It's all going to be private.
You'll go onto some private website.
And by the way, they'll try to shut that down too, just like they shut Parler off of Amazon Web Services.
But then let's say, okay, you find some other server and you're going to host it.
And that's great.
And you're going to be...
Crowder's special secret mug club dot club dot mug dot org or whatever, and they can't get at you.
Okay.
It is simply the case that even if you bring over a huge portion of your audience, that is going to be ghettoizing your extremely mainstream conservative content.
And so you're going to, you'll get, you'll get to keep some of your viewers.
But by the way, the whole point of YouTube or these other social media platforms that have gotten a critical mass and now control the flow of information around the internet is discovery.
So sure, maybe you get to eke out a living and maybe some of your most diehard fans who can follow you and keep track of all this stuff and they're very tech savvy, they'll follow you.
But it's okay.
The big blob, the liberal establishment is fine with that because no one else is going to discover you and they'll keep their control over the information.
And then they'll go and write New York Times columns pitching about an echo chamber.
They'll say, we need to stop the radicalization.
So you got rid of the guy who wrote about not having sex until marriage.
You got rid of the guy who said, you know what?
Actually, you already do have to pass a background check to legally purchase a firearm.
You got rid of the guy who said, I come from a country where we don't have a First Amendment, and so the First Amendment is really important to me, and defended liberals who I do not like and their right to speak freely.
You got rid of that, like you said, basic mainstream, basic conservatism, right?
Seasonal Starbucks.
Yeah.
And then you complain about an echo chamber.
Whereas people who don't believe that the police should exist at all, nor prison systems exist at all.
People say, oh, you're taking fringe?
No, I'm taking United States representatives in Rashida Tlaib, in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in Ilhan Omar, people who Joe Biden has praised.
These are mainstream leftists and they hold far more extreme views.
Yeah.
Far more extreme views.
And it's just ironic to me that then they complain about an echo chamber.
But really, look, I've always said this before is when they demonetize us, everyone else made a big deal about that.
And I said, I don't care.
Obviously, I care, right?
I run a business and it does and it hurts everybody here.
But I say, you don't have to YouTube.
They don't have to pay us for the content.
Now, that being said, sometimes ads were run anyway.
I'm like, well, someone's making some money.
Also, I've run ads on YouTube, and they say, well, advertisers don't want to be associated with your content.
And they go, hold on a second.
When I run ads, I can't run my videos as ads on the kind of content I would like to sponsor.
You preclude me as both an advertiser and you preclude me as a content creator.
Who are these people making?
Well, they have three different sets of standards.
They have community guidelines.
This is determined by YouTube, which is if you're bullying, harassing.
I just think it should be the actual speech code laws if you're breaking the law.
That's how simple it should be.
Then they have advertiser-friendly guidelines.
Well, who determines that?
Well, we know it's not really the advertiser.
Certainly not me.
I'm an advertiser, right?
Yeah, yeah.
We've never been polled.
So that's also determined by YouTube.
And then there's a third category now, borderline content, which isn't a violation of policy, but they have other think tanks and organizations and strategic business partners who determine if something is borderline, and that's where this rests.
And from what I understand, they said, well, you didn't violate...
The guidelines per se, but in totality, maybe there's a pattern of whatever it is.
LGBTQAIP or racism or something.
Because this is a new thing, by the way.
I don't know if you know this.
We've always known that, for example, blackface.
You don't do blackface.
That's something you shouldn't do.
It's not new.
Ever since we've grown up, we know white people don't do blackface.
There's no argument about that.
Trudeau, notwithstanding, that's his raison d'etre.
Trudeau, yeah.
Blackface official.
Northam.
Northam would be another one.
Or Joy Behar.
Or Jimmy Kimmel.
Howard Stern.
Yeah, but I guess we don't do it, is what you're saying.
No, we know that you don't do it.
But what's very new is you can't do an impression of someone who happens to be black.
Really?
Well, that's very new.
Really?
You've had white people.
Yeah, they go, you're doing black voice.
Black voice.
What?
Yeah, black voice.
I mean, I was just watching a show, Life and Times of Tim, one of my favorite shows.
It's a white guy playing a black female hooker on the show.
It's a voice.
That's what they switch out of poo.
So now they try and say retroactively, well, this is, now this is racist.
You can't do a lisp because it might be mocking LGBT. They just keep changing the rules and act as though it's the same as using the N-word or blackface.
And it's not.
And I think that people need to be very clear about that.
And to be clear about it, you just need to be able to, it's not hard.
Well, there's a historical connotation.
the world through the lens of oppressor and the oppressed, it's because the word was designed to hurt.
- Yeah, right. - Other words have been changed and morphed and re-appropriated so that there's a war against language.
And so my issue, sorry to go back to the point here.
This brings up actually a pretty important point, though, because I remember when they canceled Aunt Jemima, they said, you know, Aunt Jemima is racist.
And I said, well, actually, because she's a black woman.
I said, well, you can't have black women on products now?
They say, no, it's because that woman is offensive.
I said, well, you know, it was a black model who portrayed Aunt Jemima.
They said, yeah, but that was, she didn't realize how oppressive it was.
And I said, I looked up and I said, well, actually, you know, it was a black comedian who Who created the character Aunt Jemima, Billy Kersands, who was a minstrel performer.
He wasn't a white guy in blackface.
He was a black guy.
He was the writer who popularized this character, Aunt Jemima.
So now you've got some 27-year-old, almost certainly, I don't have evidence of this, but I'd bet the farm on it, a white chick working in some marketing department in the company that owns Aunt Jemima, saying that we need to cancel a black actress, a black character, and a black writer because it would be offensive...
To black people that she's feeling on behalf as a white woman.
And not only that, we've said, hey, white people, who, by the way, were the largest consumers of Aunt Jemima, you're not allowed to be comforted By a southern black lady, which by the way, the reason it was marketable is because there were enough white people in this country who thought that was appealing and thought Aunt Jemima was likable, that it was comfort food.
If you're a racist, you don't have Aunt Jemima on your table.
You don't.
But guess what?
If you're a racist, you never have to see Aunt Jemima on your table again.
Win one for the racists!
So the issue here, I mean, look, I feel like I'm living in a parallel universe here.
And Whitlock, actually, Jason Whitlock made the point.
He said, I think the reason that people like myself or people like you get in trouble or people say that's racist is because there is not even a shred of racism.
When there's no shred of racism in your personal life, you feel free to communicate authentically.
You're not worried about the landmines because we have in this office alone, we have what?
We have four Asians.
We have a biracial.
We have we have Colombians.
Four and a half.
Pretty sure we have we have pretty sure we have two gays, but I don't want to out them here.
We have we have people who didn't even speak the language until a couple of years ago.
This is a really surprisingly diverse office place.
And it's not even an issue.
So the issue here with with YouTube, though, is I didn't care about the demonetization because I was saying you don't have to pay me if you that's fine.
Yeah.
Let us know what the violence.
They did a full audit of everything.
And so these aren't violations, but we would request that you, you know, maybe get rid of these things.
We were public.
We told people YouTube wants us to get rid of these.
It wasn't a Spotify situation where they just disappeared.
We let people know these are YouTube's rules.
We're going to stay there.
And they re-monetized us.
We didn't necessarily know why.
Then they demonetized us.
And now we're at a point where we're going, whoa, hold on.
What's the violation here?
And they're not being clear about it.
There is no other course of action at this point to maintain a livelihood for everyone here and my future children.
And all we want to do is a show that's not even a strong PG-13, a show that could run on FCC broadcasts on most days.
I'll give you that.
Right, of course, because it would seem to me what they're proving now in big tech is this old line, you hear it in New York, which is, you can indict a ham sandwich.
I don't think they saw a violation and they said, that's it.
That's the line.
I think they decided they're going to get you.
This is enough.
We've had enough Crowder.
So we're going to get you.
Okay, he didn't really cross the line.
Okay, he didn't violate this policy.
Well, now we have this kind of ridiculous category called borderline content.
The whole reason that you have the guidelines is so that you're either on one side of it or the other.
So if you have borderline content...
You obliterate the point of the guidelines themselves.
But okay, yeah, we'll use that, and it's a little broad in any way.
We'll find something.
In the meantime, you're suspended.
That's what it is, right?
Yes, yes.
And I just want to make sure I have to, because I want to quote directly here for...
For effect, the exact terminology.
So maybe you need to have your censor button of Stephen Colbert and of Samantha Bee because I've had these conversations where they say, well, do you need to do this segment?
We have a segment called What a Piece of S***. And it usually involves a terrorist or maybe Don Lemon, something like that.
It's silly, right?
It's a redundant description, but sure, yeah.
Right, exactly.
And I said, you really shouldn't do that.
Or you know what?
You really shouldn't have accidentally missed...
You shouldn't have...
One time was you shouldn't have laughed...
When this transgender individual threw a lunchbox at you and tripped over their high heels when she was running away.
And I said, okay, I can see how that offends you.
But is it anywhere near as close to calling our sitting president's mouth Putin's c**olster or the first lady a feckless c**olster?
You have to use that as a standard.
Not, does this joke offend you?
It has to be applied equally.
And don't try and conflate a joke with a point.
And I think that's important.
Listen, it's tough because we make both of those on this show.
It's really the only show that does it the way that we do.
It's why we've been incredibly successful.
And I don't say that out of arrogance.
I say it on my knees, Mr.
Marley.
I say it on my knees, grateful for the fans that we have who have supported us.
And we've played by the rules as best we know how.
And now there are no other options.
And I don't want this fight.
No one would want this fight.
I am absolutely a...
People don't know this about me.
I've never been in a fight.
Do you realize this?
In my adult life.
In a physical fight?
It's never happened.
In a physical fight.
Never.
It's never happened.
Not once.
I've been assaulted.
Yeah, people see the muscles in the gun and they just say, you know what?
Maybe I'll mess with another guy today.
No, I've been assaulted.
And people know that I have a hobby.
And every other week we have a UFC champion because it's a sport we follow.
Sometimes we train with these people.
I've never been in a fight.
I'm very much a pacifist.
But my belief is this.
You avoid it at all costs.
There is nothing anyone can say to me that will offend me enough to fight.
There's nothing anyone can say about my wife that will offend me enough to fight.
Now, I'm not saying that that should be the line for everyone, but as a public figure, I understand the line is different for me.
However, if I get to the point, and again, I've never been in a physical altercation.
I've been assaulted.
Meaning I've been assaulted and I have retreated and not actually fought back.
Right, right.
Right.
But if it's at a point where I believe that there is no escape and it is my duty to protect either my safety or those around me, I've predetermined that it will be as swift and as effective as possible to end that threat.
Yeah.
It's the same thing with this.
Hmm.
I don't want the fight.
You guys can tell us your rules.
That's why we have Mug Club.
You want us to try and set...
Okay, I think there'll be a conversation somewhere down the line about 2.30, whether you're a publisher or a platform.
But, got it, but we're at the point now where there is no other way...
To proceed.
And so we've got to make sure that people know exactly what is going on here.
And this is, like you said, this is tantamount to saying no conservative viewpoints are welcome on this platform.
I mean, here's what we're talking about the publisher issue.
This is separate, but I don't think there's ever been a more clear example.
Then President Trump, people say ex-president, he was removed from all these platforms while he was president, right?
Yeah.
He was removed for saying fight like hell, which by the way, our shirts are available at credit shop.com.
Anyone who acts like fight like hell is not a phrase that had been used forever.
It's just being dishonest, okay?
Removed the president of the United States.
The Ayatollah is still on Twitter.
Hamas is still on Twitter.
So Twitter has now said, listen, we have decided editorially that Donald Trump's tweets are just too far of a bridge for us to cross, which must mean that they've decided Hamas and Ayatollah Khomeini are not.
Yeah.
They need to be held liable for that.
You can't enjoy the legal protections and say, we're just a platform when you are clearly making editorial decisions.
And that's what's going on here.
I think that kicking Trump off, and they all did it, right?
I mean, basically every single social media platform and some...
Technology platforms that aren't even exactly social media.
But they all acted independently, right?
We know there's no collusion.
It was within days of one another.
And to me, that was crossing the Rubicon.
To me, that was...
That hipster Rasputin, you know, Jack Dorsey in Silicon Valley, that he and these other oligarchs would ban the duly elected sitting president.
Whatever you think about the 2020 election, the man was the duly elected sitting president on January 7th, January 8th, and they booted him off...
So, of course, next they're going to go for Steven Crowder.
Steven Crowder has got the biggest conservative show on social media.
So what?
Booting him off, too.
And I love what you said there about, look, YouTube, I don't want this fight.
I'm willing to play ball to a certain degree.
I am not the sort of person who says you ought to be able to say whatever you want at any time, regardless.
You know, I mean, I think we've got...
Fraud.
You're not allowed to discuss fraud right in this country.
You've had protections against that from the very beginning.
Sedition, obscenity, direct threats.
That's not protected speech.
So I'm willing to play ball.
I agree.
But here's...
But here's something that's even more concerning, Mr.
Knowles.
And you probably know this, but a lot of people skim over it.
Do you know why citizen journalism is going to be dead?
Why?
And I got into it with John Stossel about this.
He wouldn't be able to do the stuff that he used to do in 2020.
Because the things that you just meant, these are laws.
For example, not hate speech, that's not a real thing, but a direct threat or direct call to violence.
Or if we're talking about slander, libel.
Yeah.
They don't follow those laws on YouTube.
A single-party consent state.
What does that mean?
You're in a state where you have the right to record.
In other words, that's how you record corrupt politicians engaging in corrupt political acts.
YouTube says, well, no, we actually don't follow those laws.
If it's slander or libel, sometimes they'll leave it up.
We've had shows with YouTube where we've interviewed people.
They have been on camera saying, I give permission, spelling out their name on camera, right?
Release forms.
And then they went afterwards and said, I didn't like the way that I looked.
I want you to remove it.
And we had to blur the face.
We go, but that's not the law.
So they don't follow the laws that we should all agree.
Whether we agree with the laws or not, we all agree that since they are law, need to be enforced, they operate outside of the law.
And then they create their own new laws while benefiting from the legal protection of 230.
How could you ever catch a corrupt politician?
Dark money in politics.
If this is a standard they use.
And of course it's not a standard that they apply equally.
It's, oh, a liberal doesn't like it.
So we're going to remove this.
All someone needs to say is, yeah, you know what?
I did offer money for that underage boy of the night, but I didn't like the way that clip made me look and I want you to remove it.
YouTube says, good enough for me.
And then they let the Matt Gaetz stories roll for, you know.
So this point is so important because Yeah, we all agree.
There are standards and we have laws for those standards.
And okay, good.
That's like how society is supposed to work, right?
And then YouTube says, nah, never mind.
We're going to have our own.
And it's actually, I don't even just mean to single out YouTube.
It's all of these woke corporations and specifically big tech.
They say, no, we're going to kind of pass our own laws.
And actually, Cocaine Mitch himself, as establishmentarian as you get on the right, Mitch McConnell came out and he said, This is a big threat because these woke corporations are operating like a parallel government.
They are in many ways the real governing force in the country.
Look, I don't like big government, but I also don't like big woke corporation because they're even less accountable to the people than the government is.
Yeah, and they're more powerful than any government that's ever existed.
If you were to actually get in a DeLorean and go back to the Roman Empire and show Caesar the power of Alphabet, Google, YouTube, and show them the map and how much information is controlled, you're kidding me.
Caligula would be like, that's a little extreme.
Whoa, guys.
I just was seeing a few ladies in the brass room here.
Whoa, by the way, it looks like that Epstein picture.
Yeah.
No one was allowed to cover that until he died under security cameras that went out for the exact 12 minutes, right?
But the point is, no, these people are more powerful than government, and I do think that people need to understand it's not about private corporations at this point.
It's not about an open market when they collude and when they don't follow the laws and they enjoy the legal protections that, by the way, other business owners out there don't.
If you post something at Daily Wire...
And it is incorrect.
And it is malicious.
And it is slander.
You can be sued.
You will be sued.
And you will lose.
We have been sued.
And we've won.
And it cost us money just to win.
Because someone says, I don't like the article that you write.
They would never dream of suing YouTube because of these protections of 230.
One other thing I would like to talk about.
I don't know how much time we have.
Yeah, we have at least like 10 seconds left.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
You're a busy man.
And next time I will bring you the cigars when I'm not coughing up the lung.
You know, just to let the audience in a little bit, we were supposed to hang out this week.
I was very excited.
You were going to bring some stogies.
We were going to have a great time.
Obviously, Stephen, had you exercised your lungs properly, you probably wouldn't be in this sickness right now.
I need to make better choices, Michael.
I think this is because a lot of liberals, even if you say, oh, you know what, basic conservative, even though you acknowledge it, not extreme, still don't like his opinion, get rid of it.
Guess what?
you won't be able to conduct any sort of business at all in the world, really, without access to Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Google, Alphabet, Google, YouTube.
This is also a business issue for people who own and run a business.
We just talked about how we've advertised on YouTube or on Facebook, right?
And I don't have the, I'm entirely independent, right?
And we have sort of partnerships.
So I haven't spent nearly as much money as other people, but I've done it consistently to understand how the systems work from both sides.
And you know they send you these requests and you get someone on the phone who says, hey, advertise with us.
As opposed to Billboard, they have this whole kind of spread, right?
You get to keep the subscribers you gain.
You get to keep the followers that you have.
They encourage you to spend your money as a business on these platforms.
And then they decide which businesses they're going to allow through and which businesses are going to pinch the valve to give you an idea with the Vox apocalypse.
Who's Vox?
Vox.
NBC, Vox, Disney Universal, Viacom.
Vox, they've co-produced a show with YouTube and Netflix, right?
This is something people need to understand.
In original studios, it wasn't just us versus some independent online video creators.
It was us versus one of the biggest multimedia conglomerates that has existed before big tech.
And then you go through a period where you search Stephen Crowder changed my mind abortion.
And you can't find it.
Instead, you find NBC videos.
And this is what's really concerning for anyone out there who runs a business.
It's taking away your ability to put up flyers for guitar lessons, to give you an idea as to how we've had to change our business online.
We just used to upload the shows, let the cards fill where they may.
Well, then we realized, oh, hold on a second.
We're not really showing, we're not being able to reach people, search, browse.
People are entering in the title of the video and being taken to a nine-year-old PBS video with 400 plays.
So we said, okay, then we need to focus on subscriptions, notifications, but then notifications and subscriptions don't always really work.
And so YouTube doesn't really tell you why they don't work.
So what we had to do at this point, because YouTube is favoring live streaming, we live stream and we just tell everyone, we've gone back to the old school Johnny Carson approach.
Weekdays at 10 a.m.
Eastern.
Just bookmark it and tune in so we don't lose touch with you.
So it doesn't matter if notifications work.
It doesn't matter if search or browse works.
We still have millions of people tuning in no matter what.
And if you go on the YouTube Live page, we're number one, two, and four out of five in any given day.
I think that's a huge component to it.
Because if I were Seth Meyers, and even though I was getting all that autoplay, I'd be pretty pissed.
But we constantly have to reinvent the business model that is different from the terms we agreed to when we spent money.
And everyone here, their livelihoods depend on it.
Like I said, just want to know the rulebook.
And anyone who says they know the rulebook is being dishonest.
You know how I know?
Because YouTube has said, we don't show you the rulebook.
I don't know if they know the rulebook.
I'm so glad you brought this up because, yes, there's the ideological point.
They don't like our views, and so they're going to support the leftist views too.
But there's a money component here too.
You're taking away eyeballs and you're taking away dollars from the left-wingers who can't get the same kind of views.
And there's a lot of moneyed interest here that is trying to get those eyeballs back.
You know, we've got eyeballs we've got to work on.
We've got lungs that we've got to work on next time.
I hope that we can exercise those lungs with those stogies when you are feeling better, hopefully when you're back on YouTube.
In the meantime, though, seriously, people need to go to the mug club because I've got to tell you, pal, look, I hope it all works out.
I think you're big enough in the sense that it would be a really big deal if they took you off totally, but it would be bad for you, it would be bad for the audience, and most importantly, It would be bad for me and all the rest of the conservatives out here who are trying to get a message out.
Because if they come for you and it really seems like they are, they're coming for all of us.
That's just the way it is.
Oh, you don't have a chance.
Not a chance.
You have a good Catholic boy like you.
No chance whatsoever.
Especially, I don't know if you've been vaccinated or not yet.
You have absolutely no chance.
And I think we share the same views here.
Look, I'm pro-business.
I'm anti-fraud.
That's really what it comes down to.
It's about business practices.
Give us the rulebook.
And I do have to correct you.
We won't be exercising our lungs when I come out because you don't inhale stogies.
You know that.
No, you're right.
Only every...
You're right.
I actually got someone wrote into me today and they said, Michael, should I take up smoking cigars?
I'm told they're really bad for you.
And I said, yeah, well, you don't inhale.
You know, you're all good.
It's like Bill Clinton.
You don't inhale.
And they said, well, but it's bad for your mouth and your lips and you're this and you're that.
I said, you know, look, man.
To quote a great liberal economist, in the long run, we're all dead.
Isn't that the case?
Yes.
So we've got to enjoy ourselves a little bit.
We'll either be dead.
Well, physically, we'll all be dead someday.
Digitally, we may be dead sooner rather than later if big tech gets its way.
Before that happens, everyone head on over to the Mug Club.
Find Stephen while you can.
And our audio, by the way.
People can still listen on audio, on Apple, on Android, on Spotify.
And it doesn't, you know, listen, it's a video show.
So that's one thing we often, you know, we try and direct people to watch the video on Mug Club.
There's also an additional hour.
But yeah, people can listen on audio.
Just don't let us lose touch with you guys out there.
So somewhere, sign up either Mug Club if you don't have the money.
We still provide plenty of free content on audio.
And yes, I am dead inside.
Yeah, and I will say before we go very quickly, if by the time this video goes up, if YouTube has permanently banned Steven Crowder, I never liked him anyway.
I don't know him.
Please don't associate me with him at all.
We have nothing to do.
I disavow his views, his vicious, vile, awful.
Please, don't take me down.
I just hated that Michael Knowles told me to never get the vaccine.
What was that about?
No, hold on.
No, please.
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