Ep. 1468 - Iran's Attack On Israel EXPLAINED In 3 Mins
Iran attacks Israel, potentially sending us into World War III, and Republicans squish on abortion, which Bill Maher admits is murder.
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Ep.1468
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Iran has launched its first ever direct attack against the state of Israel.
The mullahs launched more than 200 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles into Israel on Saturday night.
Israel is vowing revenge, sort of.
America, for some stupid reason, is funding both sides of the conflict.
That was what was really amazing, looking at the photographs of the missiles being launched from Iran and then the defense missiles being launched from Israel, is that every single missile launched from both sides on Saturday night was directly or indirectly purchased by America.
And the question on everyone's mind, are we on the brink of World War III?
Many talking heads on both sides of the aisle are warning that we are headed into World War III.
And my take is probably the most radical one that you will hear today, which is that basically everything is fine.
I'm Michael Knowles.
Knowles, this is the Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to the show.
Bill Maher has just admitted what a lot of libs don't want to admit, which is that abortion is murder.
Though he added onto that, he said, I'm okay with that.
He said, abortion is kind of murder.
I'm okay with that.
At least he's honest.
I will be addressing this now very urgent political issue for conservatives as a U.S.
Senate candidate is embracing a much more pro-choice position, as even President Trump has been accused of weakening on the issue of abortion.
I will be speaking at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign tomorrow night.
That will be on abortion, on what conservatives should be thinking and doing and saying about abortion right now.
If you are in the Urbana, is it Urbana-Champaign?
Like real pain for my sham friends, champagne for my real friends?
Urbana Champlain.
I don't even, I don't even know.
It's such a liberal school, I don't even know.
But I will be there tomorrow night.
So if you are in the area, even if you're not in the area, drive, get out there.
We will see you there.
Go to YAF, Y-A-F dot org.
You get information about how to get tickets and we will address that big issue.
There's so much more to say.
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I would probably get many more views and clicks if I were scaremongering right now and saying that we are on the brink of World War III because of the missiles from Iran.
And I think that's what most other talking heads are doing on both sides of the aisle.
I don't think that's true.
I think actually, basically, it's fine.
Which might mean that I get fewer views, but I actually believe my view is the most radical of all of them being stated right now, and I think it's the most defensible.
Yes, it's very scary on the surface level, 200 drones and cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, but what are we actually looking at here?
As far as I can tell, there was one casualty.
It was this poor little Bedouin child.
And there was another, there was a military site in Israel that was hit.
99% of the missiles were intercepted.
And is this an unprovoked act of aggression?
No.
Where did this begin?
The Iranians would say this began on April 1st, when Israel hit the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which is a big no-no.
It's not quite a violation of international law, probably, but it's pretty close.
Israel went about as close as you can get to violating international law without actually doing it.
Because as a general rule, we all agree not to attack embassies and consulates.
And certainly we've all agreed on that since the Vienna Conventions in 1961.
So what exactly happened here?
According to the Vienna Conventions, quote, the premises of the diplomatic mission shall be inviolable.
This is not just when the diplomatic mission is being used for diplomatic purposes, but even if it's being used for military purposes.
No matter the purpose that it's being used for, embassies and consulates are supposed to be refuges and are supposed to be safe.
But the reason that this might not violate international law is that that mandate applies only to the host country.
So you remember when Saudi Arabia went in and they murdered that ex-Saudi spy who sort of was a journalist, like he wrote a couple articles for the Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi, and all the liberals in the West who were very anti-Saudi Arabia.
They said, you know, this was an attack on the free press, and this was an attack on journalists.
But he wasn't really a journalist.
He was a Saudi spy.
And I'm not defending the Saudis for killing one of their own spies, but, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
They have a place called Chop Chop Square in their country, all right?
It's a dangerous government to work for.
And so what did they do?
They lured Jamal Khashoggi into the Saudi embassy in Turkey, and then that's where they murdered him.
And when that happened, the Turkish government was not able to get into the embassy to investigate for something like four or five days.
Why?
Because the host country is not able to violate the embassy.
The embassy just belongs to the country whose embassy it is.
So, those rules apply to the host country.
In this case, had Syria attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, which would not have happened, but had that happened, that would be a clear violation of international law.
The fact that Israel, a third country, went in and did it means that it's actually kind of outside the scope of that particular international law protection.
But then, there's a more obvious way that Israel's actions might have violated international law.
And that is that an embassy, a consulate, is a civilian target.
It's not a military target.
Right?
Well...
The attack that Israel launched on the consulate in Damascus killed one of the top Iranian generals, as well as I think six other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders.
So this attack took out a lot of top Iranian military guys.
So wait a second, was this really a civilian target?
A consulate or an embassy?
By definition, I guess it's a civilian target, but obviously the people who were blown up here were not civilians.
So military operations were obviously being planned in this consulate.
And so there I think Israel gets off the hook too.
I don't think it's a violation of international law.
It's pretty close though.
It's pretty close.
It's very audacious.
And so Iran had to respond.
And how did Iran respond?
Did Iran respond by a sneak attack that devastated the state of Israel?
No.
Iran responded by telegraphing for three or four days, we are going to do this.
Hey, heads up America and the United Kingdom and Israel.
We are totally going to attack in these specific places.
So, you know, just I just want to I just want to let you know that, you know.
And why did they do that?
They did that so that this would not escalate the conflict, so that the Iranian regime could save face to their own people, so the Iranian regime could in some way re-establish deterrence, show that they're not just going to be walked all over, but they don't want to escalate the conflict with a direct war.
Because Iran is in a pretty good position right now.
Iran doesn't need to directly attack Israel all that often because it's proxies.
Hamas and Hezbollah and all the little terror groups, the Houthis, will attack Israel for them.
So, we had the first ever direct attack from Iran.
Okay.
But it was kind of a fake attack.
It didn't do very much.
Now, how are the Americans reacting?
You've got the real Warhawks.
This guy Joe Walsh.
Remember him?
He was a Never Trumper.
I think he ran for president, sort of, back in, was it 2016 or 2020?
I don't know.
He was one of the big Never Trumpers.
And he came out, he said, an attack on Israel is an attack on America.
Which is not true, actually.
An attack on Israel is an attack on Israel.
And an attack on America is an attack on America because they're different countries, and we have an alliance, but we have different interests sometimes, and that's ridiculous.
Did you ever say, an attack on Italy is an attack on America?
No, it would be an attack on Italy.
An attack on Sweden.
It's an attack on Sweden.
It's not an attack on America.
I have no idea even what Joe Walsh and some of the Warhawks are talking about here.
Joe Biden's response, which he's being criticized for, was to call up Netanyahu, reportedly, and to say, hey, you got to win.
Let it go.
Calm down.
Don't hit Iran back.
And much as it kills me to say it, I think Biden's instincts are right there.
Biden's broader foreign policy has been a complete disaster and has led us to this point, and he's probably the cause of all of these wars.
But in this particular moment, his advice to Netanyahu, I think, is basically correct, at least from the perspective of the American interest.
They got a tit for tat here.
Israel hits the embassy, hits the consulate.
Iran has this fake attack that injures one person, not to downplay this poor little Bedouin child, but 200 missiles, drones, and you get almost no hits.
It's not bad.
So Biden says, look, Bibi, you got to win.
Take the win.
Now, Netanyahu doesn't want to take the win because the Israeli interest is to destroy The Israeli interest is to destroy Iran, fair enough.
If I were the Prime Minister of Israel, that's what I would want to do too.
The Iranian interest is to maintain and expand regional dominance.
Which, right now for them, means hitting Israel, being a credible threat against Israel, using its proxy terror groups to attack Israel, but not necessarily escalating the war, which could be devastating to the regime, but still keeping and expanding that regional dominance.
Okay, well I don't really care what the Iranian and the Israeli interests are, I care what the American interest is.
What's the American interest?
The American interest, as I've said from day one of this conflict, is to contain the war and stop it from expanding.
It's good that the United States and the United Kingdom and the Israeli defense agencies were able to stop this massive attack on the state of Israel.
It's good.
It's probably good that the Israelis weakened the Iranian regime by hitting those generals, even though it was so audacious to hit a consulate.
And now everybody basically just needs to chill.
That's kind of my view on it.
President Trump's view.
We'll get to that in one second.
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You will recall some years ago when the Iranian regime threatened the United States.
Trump's response was not to say, well, now listen here, listen here, I have no problem if Iran wants to have a greater role in its traditional sphere of influence.
That was the Obama line about Russia, about Iran, about all of our geopolitical foes.
Trump's response was on Twitter, to Iranian President Rouhani, then all caps, Never ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before.
We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death.
Be cautious.
And you know what happened during the Trump years?
Iran just kind of chilled.
They just kind of played it cool.
Russia just kind of played it cool, man.
They invaded a country under George Bush, they invaded another country under Barack Obama, then they just kind of chilled during the Trump years, and then they further invaded a country under Joe Biden.
Why is that?
Why is that?
There's one reason, and it's not because Trump was pro-Russia or anti-Russia.
It's not because Trump is pro-Israel or anti-Israel.
On this point, it is very clear in the 2024 election, the pro-Israel candidate is Trump.
The anti-Israel candidate is Biden.
The pro-Israel party is the Republican party, the anti-Israel party is the Democrat party.
Maybe you like that, maybe you don't like that.
It doesn't matter.
That's what it is.
Trump posts on Truth Social immediately after this attack, all caps, AMERICA SUPPORTS ISRAEL!
There's a town in Israel named after Donald Trump.
There's a train station in Israel named after Donald Trump.
Donald Trump brought peace to the Middle East, got the Abraham Accords done.
He's the pro-Israel candidate.
Had Trump been president, this never would have happened.
The October 7th attack almost certainly would never have happened.
Russia probably would not have invaded Ukraine.
That's not just according to me.
That's according to President Zelensky of Ukraine.
None of these foreign policy crises would have occurred under Trump, most likely.
But Joe Biden's president, it happens.
Here's Trump's reaction to the attack on Saturday.
Before going any further, I want to say God bless the people of Israel.
They're under attack right now.
That's because we show great weakness.
This would not happen, the weakness that we've shown.
It's unbelievable, and it would not have happened if we were in office.
You know that, they know that, everybody knows that.
Very true, we all know that.
Why would this not have happened?
Because, look, Trump is clearly in favor of Israel and opposed to Iran.
Obama had been against Israel and in favor of Iran, and gave Iran pallets of cash and paid obeisance to the Iranian regime, and so that part was clear.
But remember, when Trump came into office, we were told he was pro-Russia.
Remember that?
It was BS, but why then is it the case that if Trump were ostensibly pro-Russia, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine on his watch?
And Trump is pro-Israel, but Iran would never have attacked Israel under his watch.
Why is it?
It doesn't matter which side he supports, you wouldn't have seen this kind of belligerence under Trump.
Because it's not about aggression versus meekness.
And it's not about supporting this side or that side.
The brilliance of Trump's foreign policy was unpredictability.
That's it.
Biden is predictable.
Obama was very predictable.
George Bush, for that matter, certainly after the first couple years of his administration, was predictable.
Trump is not.
When the mullahs, when the Ayatollah sees this tweet from Trump, all caps, you will suffer consequences the likes of which few threat history have ever suffered before.
We will no longer stand for your demented words of violence and death.
Probably, the Ayatollah thinks, 5% chance he attacks us.
95% chance he doesn't attack us.
We can't take the risk.
Because Trump was a dove in so many ways.
And then he drops the Moab.
He drops the mother of all bombs.
Trump was a dove in so many ways.
He wanted peace, peace, peace.
He was meeting with Kim Jong-un, for goodness sakes.
And then he takes out the top Iranian general.
And you just have no idea what this guy's going to do.
He tells Putin, he says, hey, if you invade Ukraine, I'm gonna blow up the Kremlin.
And I think Trump himself said this.
He said, you know, probably Putin thought I was five to 10% serious, and that's enough.
That's enough to deter.
With Biden, you don't get that, and so the world descends into chaos.
Now, what does a top Trump advisor, former lawyer for the president, former mayor of New York, a man very well acquainted with terror attacks, What does Giuliani think about all of this?
Giuliani comes out and he says, the way Republicans need to think about an attack like this is to ask themselves the question they've asked themselves for 40 years.
WWRD, what would Reagan do?
I really do think we're missing an opportunity, a historic opportunity here.
If we had a president like my old boss in the White House.
Every time I was mayor and I had to make a difficult decision, I would say, what would Ronald Reagan do?
I know what Ronald Reagan would do right now.
He would have hit Iran before their first missile got to Israel.
And he would have taken out every nuclear facility he could.
Because he would have been trying to look for an opportunity to do that for years.
Now we take out their nuclear facilities Here's what the traitors who run our government say.
They say, oh, they'll just build it back up again.
Well, that'll take them 10 years to do.
Also, if you really know what's going on inside Iran, if we were to hit them before they hit us, it would destroy them.
I mean, they obviously are a frightened enemy.
You wouldn't do an attack like this unless you were timid.
Best thing to do with a frightened enemy is knock them out.
Okay.
Love Rudy.
He's great.
Greatest mayor in the history of New York.
Really like the guy.
I think his analysis is off base here.
I don't think Ronald Reagan would have attacked Iran before the first missile hit.
And the reason is because we have seen a similar situation.
A far more devastating situation, actually.
And far more devastating not just to the Israelis, but to the Americans.
And that was the Beirut barracks bombings.
When terrorists blew up An American target in Beirut and killed what, 250 troops or thereabouts?
And what did Reagan do?
Did he just blow them all up?
Did he glass the Middle East?
No, he did basically nothing.
He pulled the troops out, actually, is what he did.
Ronald Reagan, through the mists of history and mythology, is seen as this belligerent war hawk.
Even at the time, he was viewed as a cowboy.
But if you look at his actual foreign policy, he was much more of a dove in practice.
If you look at his actual foreign policy, his response to the Beirut barracks bombings was to pull the troops, and then he tried to negotiate away all the nuclear weapons when he was negotiating with Gorbachev.
The similarities between the Reagan and the Trump foreign policy are really striking in that both were called cowboys, both were called crazy, both were called belligerent.
And yet in practice, they were much more dovish.
But they still had that deterrence factor.
They still had that speak softly, carry a big stick, or with Donald Trump, you know, speak in all sorts of ways, in totally unpredictable ways.
But carry the big stick, but don't always use the big stick.
Okay, so, you know, there are going to be a lot of calls to escalate this conflict.
Seems to me, everyone's made it out pretty well here, and we can just kind of keep calm and carry on.
I think that's what Reagan would do.
I think that's probably what Trump would do.
And if either of those guys had been in the office, none of this would be happening in the first place.
Speaking of the current state of the American right, Gary Lake, Another Republican politician that I like very much, Carrie Lake, I think also has her analysis a little bit off.
She just came out as part of her Arizona Senate campaign to advance her new platform on abortion.
Take a listen.
This total ban on abortion that the Arizona Supreme Court just ruled on is out of line with where the people of this state are.
The issue is less about banning abortion and more about saving babies.
I agree with President Trump.
This is such a personal and private issue.
I chose life, but I'm not every woman.
I want to make sure that every woman who finds herself pregnant has more choices so that she can make that choice that I made.
I'll never forget the first time I got pregnant, taking that pregnancy test, looking down.
And I was excited, but I'll be honest, I was afraid as well.
I was nervous.
I was anxious.
It's natural for women to be nervous and anxious when they're pregnant.
I never would ever assume that any woman had the same exact feelings I had or situation I had.
Okay, I like Carrie Lake.
I hope she wins her seat in Arizona and everything.
I don't know who advised her to change her stance on abortion and adopt this view.
This is a terrible, a terrible view, both morally and politically.
It is unjust in itself and it will not work politically.
It will repel pro-lifers.
It won't attract pro-abortion people.
Look, people sometimes Make mistakes in politics, it happens all the time.
Whichever advisor advised Carey Lake to adopt this view and to put out this commercial should be fired yesterday.
This was a huge, totally unforced error.
We'll get to why in just a moment.
First, though, I mentioned I'm going to University of Illinois tomorrow.
It should be a lot of fun.
I was just at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and you can check out the latest episode of Cross the Line.
Here's a short clip.
Hundreds of people came in, they filled all the seats, and they were polite for almost the whole time.
I'm standing here now, a biological male, wearing a dress with a pair of leggings.
Do you sincerely believe that I should be subject to punitive justice on the basis of what I'm wearing?
And if so, are you willing to turn yourself in for wearing women's panties in your gay college film?
I say almost the whole time because a couple students, one who called himself transgender and another who called herself non-binary, became a bit more pointed during the Q&A.
I was happy to answer their questions.
So happy, in fact, that we all decided to sit down and have a conversation after the event.
This series is about finding one or two students who don't just scream and yell and throw explosives at the building, but who actually have the courage to show up While disagreeing, and then sit down and have a discussion face-to-face.
Watch the full episode now on YouTube.
If you are planning to come protest my YAF speech at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign tomorrow night, and you want to discuss our difference in viewpoints, well, just find producer Ben Davies and yell at him.
Carrie Lake, this is a very unfortunate new policy on abortion.
I want to get this out of the way at the top.
I understand that it's a controversial issue.
I understand that Republicans probably are not going to campaign on this being their number one issue, and they're not going to campaign in the clearest moral and ethical terms on this issue.
I get it.
I'm not even opposed to that.
Prudence is the top political virtue, and prudence is a really good thing.
So, if it were the case that Carrie, like, came out and she said, you know, I'm pro-life, and I want more babies to be saved and fewer babies to be killed, and that's where I am.
This race is going to be won on Joe Biden's terrible economy, and on Joe Biden's terrible immigration policies, and on the way that Joe Biden has pummeled the American family, and she just focused on other issues, and downplayed the abortion issue.
I would totally get it.
I would applaud her.
I would think that's actually pretty prudent, and would ultimately, it would be both a Perfectly just in itself, and down to the benefit of the cause of life in the long run.
That's not what she's doing here.
What she, and I fear some other Republicans are going to end up doing, is just moving to the left on abortion, and still running on abortion!
Which is a huge mistake!
You know, the reason that the pro-lifer is here, that the conservatives don't want to run on abortion, is it's kind of controversial, and pretty much any statement you make about it is going to lose you some votes, so you got to downplay it a little bit.
Well, here, she's doing the worst possible thing, which is she's adopting the pro-choice, pro-abortion rhetoric, which means she's going to alienate her own base, the pro-lifers who are probably the most motivated voters on the right.
So she's going to suppress the foot soldiers in any Republican campaign, the pro-life campaigns.
She's going to suppress enthusiasm from her own side, which she needs every single one of those guys to come out and vote for her.
And she's going to totally fail to win over the pro-abortion people.
Who view her as a surrogate for Trump, she's part of the MAGA wing of the party.
They hate her especially, even more than they hated John McCain from her state, or Mitt Romney, or one of the squishier Republicans.
So it's just not going to work.
The problem here is the Republicans who advocate talking in this squishier, pro-choice way about abortion, they think they're being really prudent.
They're being very imprudent.
This is not going to help them at all.
And what Carrie Lake said here is not just a kind of downplaying or a kind of prevarication about abortion.
These are talking points from the Democrats in 2008.
Okay, what did she say exactly?
This is such a personal and private issue.
It's not.
It's a public issue.
It's a political issue.
Because the question is, do we have the right to kill innocent people?
That makes it political.
If it's just about you, First of all, there's really no issue that rises to the level of a national discussion and debate that is purely private.
Even doing drugs or something, which seems like it's private.
It's not really private because it affects your communities.
It affects your safety while walking down the street or while driving or anything.
But this isn't even talking about the legalization of some drug or other.
This is about do you have the right to kill another innocent person?
So that's obviously a political issue.
The Democrats want to pretend it's a personal issue because they deny that the baby is a baby.
So that's totally adopting the pro-abortion side of the issue.
I chose life.
But I'm not every woman.
Hold on.
What?
You chose life.
That's very laudable.
That's good.
You should be proud of that.
I chose life, but I'm not every woman.
I chose not to murder my precious baby, but you poor people, you can kill your babies if you want.
You black people, you can kill your babies if you want.
You people in the inner city, you can kill your babies if you want.
Forget about even the racial and the socioeconomic distinctions.
You Democrats, you can kill your babies if you want.
You liberals, you can kill your babies.
No!
No!
The reason it's wrong to kill a baby is not that the baby might turn out to be a Republican.
It's not that the baby comes from a certain socioeconomic class or a certain geographic location or a certain race or anything else.
The reason it's wrong to kill a baby is because the baby is a human being, an innocent.
That's a totally incoherent line.
I chose life, but I'm not every woman.
You chose life because it's good for you and for your baby, not to kill the baby.
It's good for your soul, it's good for your baby not to die, and it's good for society not to tolerate infanticide.
So why don't you want that good thing for other women too?
I want to make sure that every woman who finds herself pregnant has more choices so that she can make the choice that I made.
What?
Oh man, that sentence is one word off from being acceptable and maybe even good.
She says, I want to make sure that every woman who finds herself pregnant has more, fill in the blank, resources?
Has more support.
Sure, all those words are fine.
So that she can make the choice that I made.
I mean, I'd also like to make sure that the law supports protecting innocent life.
So we don't just totally leave it up to the whims of these individuals.
But sure, I like that.
I want to make sure every woman who finds herself pregnant has support, has love, has care, has resources.
Yeah.
I want to make sure she has more choices so that she can make the choice that I made.
How does having more choices Help her to make the choice that you made.
If the choice that she has is have her baby and raise the baby, or give the baby up for adoption, then she's going to be more likely to make the choice that you made.
If she has a third choice though, if the choices are have the baby and raise the baby, give the baby up for adoption, or murder the baby in the womb, she is going to be less likely to make the choice that you made.
The expansion of the number of choices is not going to Incentivize her to make the choice that you made, namely not to kill the baby.
Choice, choice, choice.
This is the pro-choice position.
Totally.
I don't mean to beat up on Carey Lake so much.
I assume this was just a blunder, and every campaign makes a blunder.
But whoever advised her to do this should be fired.
I hope that person has been fired already.
This is completely unacceptable to the pro-life movement, and she will lose if she keeps this up.
And it's not because I'm telling people not to vote for her.
I would quietly urge her to change her position, but I would recognize that the other candidate is going to be extremely pro-abortion too.
And so I would make a political calculation here.
I'm not telling people not to vote for Kerry.
Like, if she loses, it's not because I'm telling them not to vote for her.
But I am making a prediction right now.
If she keeps up this line where she's going to be almost totally pro-legal abortion, but not quite the same, she's going to lose.
She's going to lose.
The pro-lifers are not going to show up, and she's going to lose.
And she's going to have no one to blame but herself and her advisors if this is her line.
Completely insane.
Let this be a warning not only to the late campaign, which I hope fixes the ship and goes on.
She's got a ton of political talents.
She could make a great senator.
This should be a warning to the other Republican campaigns, too.
This way lies madness.
Speaking of abortion, Bill Maher, Big Lib, came out and admitted what the Democrats have denied for a long time, most of them, and what the conservatives have been pointing out, which is that abortion is in fact murder.
The idea that you're fighting an election around this issue seems to be, you know, just strange.
Back to the 19th century.
Well, not if you believe it's murder.
You know, that's why I don't understand the 15-week thing.
Or the Trump's plan is, let's leave it to the states.
You mean, so killing babies is okay in some states?
Like, I can respect the absolutist position.
I really can.
I scold the left when they say, oh, you know what, they just hate women.
People who aren't pro-life, pro-choice.
They just, they don't hate women.
They just made that up.
They think it's murder, and it kind of is.
I'm just okay with that.
I am.
I mean, there's 8 billion people in the world.
I'm sorry, we won't miss you.
That's my position on that.
Two cheers for Bill Maher.
Not three cheers because what he's saying is evil, but two cheers because what he's saying is honest.
And it's a lot more honest than what the Democrats are saying.
And his views are actually charitable toward the Republicans.
He's saying, yeah, look, if you think it's murder, and you think murder is always bad, then, yeah, it's not, your pro-life support is not motivated by misogyny, it's motivated by your care not to murder innocent people.
By the way, you're right that it's murder.
I'm just okay with that.
We have overpopulation.
I remember these views.
I held these views.
When I was pro-choice, I made the same arguments Belmar did.
I did not think it was murder.
I wouldn't have said it was tantamount to murder.
He's going a little further, but he's just being clearer than I was when I was a 16-year-old idiot.
He's articulating the Naomi Wolf argument from the mid-90s, which was that abortion should be legal, I'm all for abortion, but we need to recognize that a woman in an abortion is killing the baby in all of its humanity.
That was Naomi.
Now, she may have changed her position since then.
She's become more right-wing since then, but that's what Bill Maher is saying here.
And this is the practical problem for the conservatives and the Republicans running on this.
Hey, I'm personally pro-life, but I want people to just have choices.
And please, please don't not vote for me because I support not killing babies or whatever.
And Any position other than the principled one, which is that it's wrong to murder innocent people, is going to make you look like a liar.
And it's going to make you look really, really cynical.
And it's going to undermine your whole argument.
That's why the libs are trying to get us to undermine our argument.
They want us to embrace the surrogacy industry, for instance.
You know, IVF, where you create a bunch of babies and then...
In practically speaking, most of them, you either throw in a freezer forever, or you just kill them through abortion.
They really want to make Republicans, in principle, adopt support for IVF and surrogacy, because they know that it undermines our argument on pro-life.
Because it means that we don't really believe that life begins at conception.
Which, by definition, it does.
It's conception, it's the beginning.
This is the practical argument.
The practical problem with trying to squish on this issue.
If conservatives don't want to have to run on abortion as the big issue in 2024, good.
That's smart.
That's prudent.
And we need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
Okay.
And we can have all sorts of language and all sorts of legitimate policies about supporting women, giving them a lot of resources, giving young families resources, encouraging marriage.
We can do all that stuff.
That's great.
And you can downplay the issue of abortion in a campaign.
But if you're going to flip on your support for the fundamental right Without which, none of the other rights can exist, on which all of the other rights rely, then you've just undercut your entire position in public life.
If we're not even going to defend the basic right, then what's the point of political participation?
Then we stand for nothing.
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Speaking of changing views on abortion, according to Pew Research, 6 in 10 Catholics support legal abortion.
This is really shocking because the Catholic Church has always been against abortion.
From the very beginning of the church, 2,000 years ago, the earliest documents we have from the church, the didache, for goodness sakes, the original kind of catechism of the church, going back, what, 1,900 years?
Was it 1,800, 1,900 years?
Opposes abortion.
This is as consistent a view in practical politics as can be held by the Catholic Church.
And now most American Catholics support abortion?
What?
What does that mean?
Well, by definition, it is not possible for faithful practicing Catholics to support abortion.
It is not possible.
If you support abortion, you are not a faithful practicing Catholic.
You could be a baptized Catholic.
But you cannot be a faithful practicing Catholic if you do that.
It's not even like saying, you know, to be Catholic you have to be perfect all the time and you can never sin.
We're not talking about, you know, a failure of continence.
You know, you glutted yourself, you said a naughty word, you, I don't know, you did drugs, you looked at porn, you got drunk, whatever.
Those would be sins, certainly, and you should go and confess your sins and receive absolution.
But in this case, what we're talking about is something much more conscious and much more doctrinal.
You're saying, I do not ascend to the teachings of the Church, and I will continue, I will persist in defiance of the Church, of the 2,000-year magisterial teaching of the Church, on this issue.
This is not a negotiable issue.
You know, Pope Benedict XVI opposed the death penalty, and he said, look, Catholics can disagree on this.
For virtually all of the Church's history, the Church has defended, in principle, the death penalty.
In fact, Popes, including beatified Popes, carried it out.
Blessed Pius IX carried out 500 executions in the Papal States.
So there you might say, okay, there might be some disagreement.
Not so on abortion.
So what does this mean?
What it means in practice is not that the Catholic Church is changing its teaching on abortion.
It cannot do that.
What it means is Catholics are giving up their collective political power.
Catholics, by breaking ranks and by breaking with the teaching of their church, they're just giving up their political power.
And so you don't need to win the Catholic vote anymore, if this is the case, because the Catholic vote doesn't mean anything.
Because these Catholics, when it comes down to it, a conflict between the God of the Catholic Church and the God of liberalism, they're going to choose the God of liberalism.
It's been two years.
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My favorite comment on Friday.
It's from Frank S.
111 who says, OJ was the original St.
Floyd to the BLM community.
That's not true?
Rodney King was.
I don't even know if we say original, but he was certainly one of them.
It was Rodney King.
Rodney King was this career criminal, wife-beater, druggie, lunatic, who was viciously beaten by the LAPD.
And it was after Rodney King led them in a very dangerous high-speed pursuit that reached 117 miles an hour.
And the cops beat up Rodney King in a similar way that Rodney King beat up his wives.
And this led to the LA riots, which killed 63 people.
They had to call in the Marines and the National Guard.
And then the jury let O.J.
off the hook for almost beheading his wife and killing her friend because of that, as payback for what they viewed as the, you know, poor innocent Rodney King being beaten up by the LAPD.
So, that was where it came from.
It was similar principles as we saw in BLM and George Floyd, but slightly different characters.
I saw the comment was from Frank S., by the way, and you know who that must refer to?
You guessed it, Frank Stallone.
Speaking of changing political views, Mike Pence is going on a tour asking Republicans to do a little soul-searching.
He's looking at, he's saying, which way, Republican man?
And here is the line that he's been repeating at most of his speeches.
The essential question facing the Republican Party is this, will we be the party of conservatism and the Constitution, or will we follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles?
That's a fair question.
I like Mike Pence.
He's probably not in the ascendant wing of the GOP right now, as a diplomatic way to put it, but I always liked the guy.
What do Mike Pence's friends say about this?
According to Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council, Says, I think Mike is stuck in the Republican Party of the past.
I think the party has changed, fundamentally changed, and it's not just about Trump.
Okay, I think many people share Tony Perkins' view.
And what about Newt Gingrich?
I just saw Newt Gingrich last week.
I was at an event in Florida, a pro-life event, and Speaker Gingrich and his wife, Ambassador Callista Gingrich, were there.
Great to see them.
Newt Gingrich, one of the great All-time political observers and wielders of power, one of the most important speakers in the history of the US Congress.
He said, There are a number of Republicans who for a variety of different reasons want to cling to a system which is now basically gone and will be the minority wing of the Republican Party for the foreseeable future.
Had he asked me, it is not what I would have advised Mike to do.
Okay.
The thing that Mike Pence is getting wrong here is not that the new version of the Republican Party is totally perfect.
You know, he's not getting wrong that there are issues with how the Republican Party is evolving.
There are some issues, there are some problems.
We've addressed some of those problems today.
The thing that Mike Pence is getting wrong Is not that the old Republican Party didn't have some advantages.
I personally am happy to see the way the Republican Party has changed, broadly speaking.
I think the Republican Party of today, for all its flaws, is actually healthier than the Republican Party of, say, 2011.
So it's not to say that I'm... That's not even totally what he's getting wrong.
What he's getting wrong is the fact of change in political life.
Conservatism and liberalism will always be changing.
That is not hypocrisy.
That is not an abandonment of principles.
That is how politics works.
Politics is the application of some eternal principles to changing political circumstances.
If the way that the Republican Party spoke and acted and addressed issues did not change, That would be an abandonment of true conservatism.
That would be the abandonment of principles.
That would be bizarre and insane and totally ineffective.
Because politics is about people and society.
It is a practical science and society and people change over time.
You've got to be able to adapt to deal with those new problems.
That's what a principled politician does.
A principled politician doesn't live In the past and rest on his laurels and say, well, this is, you know, back in 1987, Ronald Reagan had this really great zinger.
Yeah, I'm sure he did have a good zinger, but that was 1987.
What are we doing now?
Reagan's been dead for how many years now?
Let the boy rest.
You know, he was a good, he was a good man.
He was a good president.
How about we address our own problems?
That's what you got to do.
Doesn't make you principled.
Not to meet the moment as new moments arise in politics.
You might think it does, but it doesn't.
Now, speaking of principles, switching gears a little bit, Billy Dee Williams, cool, crisp, Billy Dee Williams, Lando Calrissian himself, just told Bill Maher, I don't know why there's so much Bill Maher in the show today, it's really, we're just focusing on Lando here, Billy Dee, says that blackface is totally fine.
Olivier was more physical.
In fact, he got criticized a lot for being physical and doing things with his voice that was a bit outrageous.
But when he did Othello, I fell out laughing.
He stuck his ass out.
And walked around with his ass... Problematic.
You know, it was like, you know, because black people are supposed to have big asses, right?
I understand how... I fell out laughing.
And Bradley Cooper thinks he's got a problem with the nose.
I thought it was hysterical.
I loved it.
I loved it.
But see, I love that kind of stuff.
Yes.
Big asses?
Who doesn't?
No, no.
No, I know.
I agree.
Okay.
But here's the thing.
Today, I mean, they would never let you do that.
Why?
Blackface?
Why not?
Because... You should do it!
That's, maybe, that's your point of view.
If you're an actor, you should do anything you want to do.
Totally right.
He's totally right.
I've said this before.
There was one time when one of these, like, blackface non-traverses came up.
I was driving in a car.
I was in an Uber in LA with a black driver.
And this came up.
It was on the radio or something.
I said, oh, yeah, yeah.
You hear about this blackface thing?
And he said, oh, man, you know, blackface, I think that's fine.
I said, really?
You do?
He said, yeah, it's all in good fun.
I don't care.
I think blackface is totally fine.
And it gave me some pause, because I was told that black people were terribly offended by blackface, but they're not.
White liberals pretend to be offended by blackface.
I don't think black people generally are, and whether they are or aren't, it's totally fine.
We're talking about acting.
In acting, you're supposed to play people that you are not.
Now we're living at a time when we're told that a straight man can't play a gay character.
A cisgender quote-unquote man can't play a trans character.
But then we just found out there's a trans identifying actor who no longer wants to play trans characters because the trans identifying actor wants to play women.
But he's a man.
So a man who thinks he's a woman is allowed to play a man.
But the man who thinks he's a woman should no longer play a man who thinks that he's a woman, and a man who knows that he's a man can't play a man who thinks that he's a woman.
Does that make any sense to you?
It's acting.
It's pretend.
People shouldn't take it so seriously.
But what's the distinction here?
Because I do think that there are certain blackface performances that could be offensive and in very poor taste and, you know, should not be done.
So what's the difference?
What's the difference between, you know, Lando Calrissian here, Billy Dee Williams saying, oh it's fine man, it's okay if Lawrence Olivier wants to play Othello.
It's fine, it's fine if Joy Behar wants to dress up as Diana Ross or whatever she did for Halloween that year, got her in trouble, but she's a liberal so she got away with it.
What's the difference between that and some really offensive blackface performance?
The difference is charity.
If you're doing this performance, And you like black people, you know, and you sort of love black people and you treat them as human beings, it seems totally fine.
If you're putting on that makeup and you're doing that performance because you really hate these people and you have no charity for them whatsoever and you just really want to get them, that's what would make it awful.
It's not the accident of the shoe polish or whatever, it's not the makeup that Joy Behar wore.
The thing that makes it good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, is the orientation of the heart, which we're not allowed to even discuss anymore because we've adopted a very shallow view of politics and society that ignores the most fundamental aspects of human nature and the most important of all of the virtues.
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