The Dan Bongino Show - The Culture War: An Interview with Michael Knowles (Ep 1286)

Episode Date: June 27, 2020

In this episode I interview Michael Knowles, host of the wildly popular podcast “The Michael Knowles Show.” Copyright Bongino Inc All Rights Reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high-intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions, and that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host,

Dan Bongino. Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show interview series. Today's guest is the spectacular Michael Knowles, host of the Michael Knowles Show from The Daily Wire. Michael is terrific. This interview, we always record the intro after the interview so you know what you're in for. This interview goes everywhere. It gets into everything from the Democrats party, their history with racism to the statues battle going on right now. You're not going to want to miss this. So let's get right to it. Today's show brought to you by our friends at AMAC. Folks, we live in really trying times

right now. Being conservative puts us under fire. I wish it didn't, but it's true, but we're not alone. One group stands out. You may know them. AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens. AMAC is a conservative alternative to other 50 plus groups. You know who I'm talking about. Groups that don't have our interest in mind. AMAC does. They not only give you access to money saving benefits like special group rates on car insurance, cell phone plans, financial products, and more, but AMAC membership also gets you a great bi-monthly magazine filled with spectacular content analysis not available anywhere else. AMAC gives you what the mainstream media won't, the truth. If you care about our future as much as I do, then join AMAC

today. Don't wait. Help them fight for individual liberty, free speech, freedom of religion, free markets, a solvent nation, and the values we hold dear. Over 2 million people have joined AMAC. I encourage you to stand with them today by going to amac.us. That's A-M-A-C.us. The benefits are great. The cause is even greater. amac.us. AMAC is better, better for you, better for America.

Without further ado, my good friend, Michael Knowles. All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show interview series. Listen, we needed some deep thinkers on the show, so I recruited Dinesh D'Souza a few weeks ago, and now out of the bullpen, listen, this isn't even the number two. This is the starting pitcher, our number one H2, the great

Michael Knowles, host of the insanely popular podcast, The Michael Knowles Show. Michael, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Dan, thank you. It's great. Great to be here. Not having you sooner on the interview show is a real travesty and speaks to my awful judgment. And my viewers should take that into account in any future episode. Really. Well, you know, Dan, you're very busy. You're a very busy guy these days. You're doing a million

things. Every one of them is like going to the top of the charts. So I totally forgive you. I understand. Thank you, brother. I appreciate that. We are very busy, but I've watched you frequently. For those of you who don't know Michael, that's a real shame. You better get to know him after this and listen to his show because it's phenomenal. I strongly encourage you not only to listen to this interview, but to watch Michael, some of his debates on college campuses when he's asked really dopey questions by snowflake leftists who leave humiliated as a result. He has a little bit different style than me. I admire it. I wish I could kind of stay a little calmer like he does, but it's just been really rough.

So let me get right to it. Michael, your take on the current statue wars going on right now. I've made the point frequently that this really isn't about statues. It's about power showing you who's in charge and a basic forfeiting of the entire election electoral process. They're not interested in democracy. They're just interested now in raw power. Your take on that? Of course, it shows you that this has been a lie from the beginning, from the very first moment Colin Kaepernick started to protest the American flag all the way to tearing down the statues. What they initially said was that the Colin Kaepernick kneeling protest was about police brutality, which never made a lot of sense to me because he's protesting the flag, which is a symbol of the whole country.

But then it became, he protested the Betsy Ross flag, which is obviously not about police brutality. They didn't have police in those days. Then it became, we're going to tear down Confederate statues because they were racist, terrible people. Then it became we're going to tear down U.S. Grant. Well, U.S. Grant actually defeated the Confederacy. Now they're tearing down Abraham Lincoln. They tore down St. Junipero Serra, a Catholic saint. Now one of the Black Lives Matter activists wants to smash depictions of Jesus. This is not at all about the no good, terrible people in American history. It's about utterly undoing American history. And why do they have to do that? Because the

progressives want to move toward their utopian future. And the thing that constrains them from doing that is the past, is history. Every one of these radical leftist movements in history has smashed the past, smashed history. And this one is no different. They're just doing it under the exploitative guise of Black Lives Matter. Yeah. And I mean, Michael, wouldn't you agree that the very hallmark of an unprincipled movement are, air quotes, principles that keep changing? I mean, if the protests were about Black Lives and the Kaepernick protests, which I'm glad

you brought up, and it wasn't about protesting the very the Kaepernick protests, which I'm glad you brought up. And it wasn't about protesting the very essence of what America is about. Then why is it that when this is a tell, right? And this is one of these giveaways. The Baltimore Ravens had a game overseas in the UK when this was all going on, when the kneeling started. And I don't know if you noticed this, this was a while ago, but they knelt for our national anthem. And when God Save the Queen was playing, they stood up. And when they were asked why, they were like, well, we didn't want to offend the United Kingdom. I was like, I thought it wasn't about flags. Am I missing something? I thought you had principles. Of course, it's just

about an attack on the United States itself. And you see it even beyond the statue toppling. You see it in the 1619 Project, which is based on a lie in the New York Times. The lie is that America was founded explicitly for slavery. There's just nothing to back that up. Many academic historians, even many on the left, have written to the Times and said it's trash. And yet the Pulitzer Committee gives them the Pulitzer Prize. It's now being taught in schools. This is a wholesale attack from multiple institutions, academia, Hollywood, obviously the activist movements on American history itself. And the question is, are we going to stand up or not? Are we going to stand up and say America has a wonderful past? Obviously, it's had some problems.

We've overcome many problems. It's never going to be perfect because no human institution is perfect. But overall, this is a good country. Or are we going to tear it down? You know, the people who are behind Black Lives Matter are admittedly their own words, quote, trained Marxists. They say that they want to disrupt the, quote, Western prescribed nuclear family. This is not about a black man who was killed in Minnesota or Georgia or anywhere else. This is about a wholesale attempt to attack the United States. And sadly, too many people who just want to prove that they're not racist and they're not bad people and they don't understand what this

is really about. Too many people are giving in. I mean, is this the essence of the whole useful idiots motto by, you know, by the communists and Marxists? And what I mean by that, and I don't really that's their line, not mine. But it can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to put words in your mouth. The United States is full of a lot of genuinely compassionate people. We may disagree with the left and people, you know, involved in the gun control movement, but many of, I don't question their motives. I, they're wrong. I'm a believer in the second amendment, but they probably are genuinely concerned about public safety. They're just going about it all wrong. And there are good people. There are of course, some violent rioters as well, and aggressive criminals out there and vandals, but I, are

they being taken of advantage and taken advantage of by this useful idiots model where these people at the top understand exactly what they're doing and they're just leveraging the goodwill of a lot of good people who then just show up and start, you know, yes, this is our cause, but they don't know what the cause really is. This is exactly the right point. You know, the worst governor in America, Andy Cuomo in New York recently said that protesters, quote unquote, tearing down statues is a healthy expression of political views. And what he said was it's a wonderful expression of being against racism and against slavery. Dan, let me ask you a question. Do you know anybody who is pro racism

or pro slavery? I don't think so. I haven't seen many of those people. And what he's implying here is that if you oppose them, if you don't post the black square, if you don't want to tear down the statues, that you're supporting racism or slavery. You know, but one issue, it kind of opened my mind on this whole topic, is they talk about institutional racism. Well, if the left controls all the major institutions, big tech, Hollywood, the mainstream media, administrative government, higher education, lower education, the list goes on and on. If the left controls all those institutions, then if there's institutional racism, whose fault is that? I'm going to get to that in a second.

That was actually my second question for Noel. Systemic racism. You're a genius. You're doing the interview for. Whose show is this? It's a Michael Knowles show. I think we're cross posing. It's like the Justice League.

We're linking rings here. You wonder twins activate folks by the way download michael's show talking to michael knows of course host of the terrific michael no show apple podcast wherever you get your podcast make sure go check it out you will not be disappointed you there's a couple things you just said in there and one of them I wanted to hit on, too, is if we were an inherently institutionally, systemically racist country, then how would racism be such a an aggressive career ending attack? I think it was Shelby Steele, one of our great thinkers who brought this point up on a cable news interview. If this was a racist country that accepted racism as a de facto means of operation, then how can saying someone is a racist be such a catastrophic attack? People would be like, yeah, yeah, that's one of our guys. We're systemically racist. But it's not. It's a career killer. It's over. If you're branded with that label, it is done. It just doesn't make sense. Being called a racist is the worst thing

you can possibly be called in the United States today. The way that I, I mean, this is, I guess, the central flawed premise of Black Lives Matter. The premise of Black Lives Matter is that there is a group of people out there who think that black lives don't matter. And of course, it's not me and it's not you and it's not anybody we know, but there is secretly out there this evil group of people who thinks black lives don't matter. Now, the way I know that isn't true is I looked on Instagram a few weeks ago and everybody was posting the black square. Every company is sending out emails about how they think black lives matter. Brooks Brothers,

which is the, it's such a white company. It is like, you have to be translucent to shop at Brooks Brothers. It's that, that old school. And, and they sent out this whole email, black lives matter. We believe black lives matter, administrative government. I mean, everybody agrees with this, but I guess what's at issue here is they have to pretend. I think it's just something in liberalism, which is always about liberating yourself from the oppressive past. So you always need a villain, but guess what? The Ku Klux Klan isn't a thing anymore. Okay. It's actually the last time I saw someone wearing a Klan hood, it was the Democratic governor of Virginia, Ralph Northup. No, no, he may be the

blackface guy. No, no. We don't know yet. You're right. Blackface. I brought this up on Friday's show, Michael. Klan hood or blackface. We don't know yet. So don't get ahead of yourself. We've got to be fair. We're not exactly sure which one. But you're right. That is the last

time. He might have worn the K're right. That is the last time. Right. The last time you saw a mainstream political figure in, you know, representing this, this grotesquety was Ralph Northam, who may be the Klan hood guy. And we don't even know because he hasn't even admitted to it yet. On this systemic racism topic, though, I brought this up. I was testifying up on the Hill recently and about this old police reform issue. And I just brought up that very simple question. I mean, if we're talking in commonly understood English and you're using the term systemic racism,

you're referring to the root term of a system. I said, well, what system are you talking about? Because most of the systems where the complaints are emanating from our systems run monopolistically by Democrats and not only Democrats, Michael, but far left liberals. And I don't get how people don't make this connection, even kind of like the useful idiot should be saying, well, what system are we talking about? Right. It's it's a fictional problem. All the cities that are burning are Democrat cities. All the states they're burning are Democrat cities. All the states that are burning are Democrat states. All the institutions that are allegedly racist are run by Democrats. But that doesn't matter. It's about creating this fictional villain. You know, there was a professor at Cambridge University in the UK, and she was just a

lecturer, actually. So it's a lower level professor. She tweeted out, abolish whiteness. a lower level professor. She tweeted out, abolish whiteness. And if Twitter is censoring Trump for harmful and violent speech, surely saying we should eliminate an entire group of people, that should count as violent speech, right? No, the tweet was allowed to stay up. She actually got a promotion for it from Cambridge University. And it raised this question to me. I said, whiteness, what does that even mean? What is whiteness? Because I don't think of myself primarily as white. That's not something I identify with very much. I identify Catholic, conservative, American, a little bit Sicilian, you know, I mean, obviously, especially when I enter the kitchen, but they're all the, but I don't think of myself as a white guy, as my top identity. And then I looked at the research, Pew Research Center did a

study on this, of racial consciousness. And it turns out that Asian people, Hispanic people, and black people have relatively high racial consciousness, somewhere around 50% think of their race is very important to their identity. For white people, that number is very, very low. It's about 15%. Only 5% say it's extremely important to their identity. So there is no real white racial consciousness in America, even though that's what the radical leftists say that there is. But actually, when they say this sort of thing, abolish whiteness, the effect of that is to try to create a racial consciousness where there actually isn't one in the first place. And that's been what the left has been doing for decades. They're trying to create racial divisions through a racial identity politics to create a problem

where actually relatively no problem exists. It's their divide and conquer strategy, and it's only going to amp up through November. Yeah, you know, I've brought this up a lot on my show over the last five or six years. Do you ever notice with leftists, it's very rarely in a political strategy where they'll come out with a message that says, hey, vote for us. We're going to do this, this and this. It's typically not vote for us, but don't vote for the other guy

because they hate you because you are fill in the blank. Black, Muslim, an immigrant woman, whatever it may be. That message has been so, you know, beaten in through the media to a lot of folks out there into their, you know, skulls that they believe it they believe the republican party has some agenda

against the black population of america which is utterly absurd i mean they're the school choicers they're the ones pushing for things like opportunity opportunity whether you believe in them or not opportunity zones i'm not a huge fan of them but that's definitely an issue targeted towards the minority community and this is clearly a strategy where you said divide and conquer. I brought this up a lot. The only way to divide and conquer is to get people in an identifiable box. That box isn't always a simple one. You're union versus non-union.

And that's what they do. And they pit us against each other. And I think race is a convenient one for them, obviously, because of their troubled history. I mean, that's not going to go away. We should never run from it. But having said that, it's easy. I mean, you can see something like skin color. So it makes for an effective weapon rather more than, say, immigration, which doesn't always work. I mean, even first generation immigrants sometimes. I mean, my mother-in-law is a first generation immigrant. She's like to the right of Genghis Khan on immigration, you know? I mean, seriously, but skin color works for them because it's such an easily identifiable phenotype. Right. You know, America has this one thing that

holds us together, which is love of country. It's patriotism. President Trump started his administration on this. He said, we all bleed the same blood of patriots. And people all the way back into America's earliest history came from different places. Some of them had slightly different religious beliefs, broadly similar, but slightly different, some of country. And yet what has happened over time is the left has tried to take away anything that holds us in common. I mean, they don't even want us to speak the same language, the language of English. They don't want us to have any sort of religious precepts in common. They've been just trying to take that away. And the last thing that held us together was at least respect for the American flag, love of our country as a country. And I think that one reason you're seeing so much flag burning, so much statue toppling is because if they can take that last bit of unity away, then they will truly have a divided country and they can finally try to

conquer it. This is a loaded topic and I didn't intend to spend as much time, but you're a fascinating guy to talk to. And last question on this and I'll move on to some other things. But I had Keira Davis on recently in the interview show, and she was fantastic. The interview went on way longer than I expected because she just was, just really opened my eyes to a lot of things. And she said something to me, she's a great conservative, really fights for things we all believe in. And she said, you know, black America doesn't always see it that way. And kind of hinted at what you just said, that racial identity is a large part of being black for them. Cause some of them are treated differently.

Some of them, listen, racism does exist. I don't believe it's the epidemic. The left wants us to believe, but it's certainly not non-existent either. And she said, you know,

it would behoove the Republican party to sit down at the table and willing, be willing to get really uncomfortable and have these conversations. And I said, you know what, Kira, that's really well said because we should never as a party. And I'm just, I know you'd agree with this. We should never run from our history. I mean, the history is there. It's something to be talked about so we can avoid it. I mean, there are people alive today who are black, who had to sit at a counter. I say this all the time that said colored. I mean, can you imagine the indignity of that? The answer is I can't.

And they had children who have, and this is still discussed in their families. We should never run from that. I think that, I think the left though, sorry to be long-winded, but has forced us to run from this because we're afraid anytime we bring it up and you and I have a candid conversation, like, yeah, that really happened,

that they're going to say, look, these guys are racist or they're virtue signaling and you can't win. That's right. And I think Kira, who's a friend of mine. She makes a great point here. And I think we should take it even further. We should have as as candid, as open a conversation as the left always pretends to want about race because the left would be abolished. It would it would be demolished by that conversation. I asked this on my show the other day because people were getting

so radicalized on the left and on the right. And and racism has always been the fissure in America, which our enemies have used to exploit us. And I said, why is racism bad? It's a simple question, right? We all agree racism is bad, but why is racism bad? There's only one answer to it. There's only one civilization ever in the history of the world that has opposed racism, that views human solidarity in the way that we do, and that's the West. And why is it the West? Because the West is shaped by Christianity. And you can go back even a little bit further to the Old Testament as well. The reason that racism is bad is because man is made in the image of God. The reason that we have human solidarity is because we all say we go back to one common ancestor.

If you take that away, if you take the religious underpinnings of the West away, then they have no answer for that question. And that's what the left is trying to say now. I think it's why they're so conveniently ginning up racial division. But the right should embrace that conversation. We should say, absolutely,

we want to talk about race in America because we want to talk about the religious values that underpin our whole civilization, which you leftists are trying to rip apart, but is the only reason and the only way that we could ever have a sort of redemption and coming together on this difficult question of race in America. We're talking to Michael Knowles, host of the great Michael Knowles podcast available on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Please download. We're going to take a quick break. We're talking to Michael Knowles, host of the great Michael Knowles podcast available on Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, please download. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back. Today's show also brought to us by Echelon. Echelon folks. Listen, a lot of you have gym memberships and you know, you go to the gym once in a while. Some of you may not be going to the gym as much, but a lot of you are thinking about, Hey, how do I get a solid, strong workout

option from home? The best workout around an effective price? I have the answer for you. It's what Paula uses. It's what I use, Echelon. Across the country, we're staying home for the greater good. And while you're all learning how to become homebodies with Echelon, it doesn't mean you have to sit still. Choose from Echelon's lineup of connected fitness bikes, one of Paula's favorites. Fitness mirrors and rowing machines, the whole family can get a fun and challenging workout from the comfort and safety of your own home my daughter was using the rower the other day

my family loves it we're addicted to these products in as little as 20 minutes you can get the get in the best shape of your life and be active with the entire family our world-class instructors will motivate you with daily live and on-demand classes that are always available when you need them unlike their competitors echelon's affordable for everyone. Their EX1 connected fitness bike is less than half the price of a Peloton. And with Echelon financing, you can try them out risk-free for 30 days, zero down as little as $46 a month. So now you don't have to pay a ton for a Peloton. Go today. These bikes are high quality, top quality fitness equipment, getting the best shape of your life. They're beloved in my household.

We use them all the time. If you've crossed by my house and you see me with the garage open, you know we're not kidding. Go to EchelonFit.com slash Dan. That's E-C-H-E-L-O-N, fit.com slash Dan. EchelonFit.com slash Dan. EchelonFit.com slash Dan. Go today. Great fitness products. Great product. Great quality.com slash Dan. Echelonfit.com slash Dan. Go today. Great fitness products. Great product.

Great quality. Check them out. Echelonfit.com slash Dan. Back to Michael Knowles. All right, welcome back to the Dan Bongino Show. We're here with Michael Knowles, host of the terrific Michael Knowles Show. Can't encourage you in strong enough terms

to download and listen to the show. It is most definitely worth your time. A lot of deep stuff goes on in that show. He's a lot smarter than me. He confuses me sometimes. Sometimes I got to get the dictionary and then the thesaurus out afterwards just to figure out a way to say something different than Michael just said. So Michael, moving on, it was a great conversation about everything going on with race in America, the statue wars. But some questions for you about the medium. You know, I'm not going to stereotype all of them,

but sadly, a large majority of the left-leaning media are interested in, as I say on my show often, a story, not the story. You know, they had one job to get the facts right. They couldn't even do that. It's like being an ice maker who can't understand, you know, refrigeration and freezing. Kind of an issue. Do you have any tips, having been the subject, by the way, of many of these attacks as I

have from, you know, alleged media figures, do you have any tips for the audience or even the Republican Party how to break through this media monopoly on the message out there? I'd love to hear your perspective. Yeah, I mean, I think you totally understand this, Dan, and you, you know, I appreciate the compliments at the top of the segment, but I do have to say you, you have seen a little bit ahead in so many of these instances with the Bongino report, with Parler, with all, you've actually kind of seen where these things are going. So I, you know, I always appreciate that you can speak in terms that everybody understands, but you clearly see what's going on. And the media is really the key here because for decades and decades, the media

were the gatekeepers, right? And the way that the media are fake news, some people misunderstand this. It's not just that they publish fake stories, which they do. And it's not just that they contradict themselves day by day, which during this whole coronavirus lockdown has become, it seems to happen by the hour. It isn't just that. It's the fact that they are a corrupt institution broadly. It's not just that one story here or there is wrong. It's the way that they select stories. It's the way that they pretend to be objective. It's the way that they pretend they're just getting to the facts. Because they're dishonest there. It broadly makes us that opportunity. Social media is largely why President Trump was able to win in 2016. He didn't have to go through CNN. He could go directly to people. And that is why, by the way, big tech is clamping down now. Major leftists blame big tech

for undermining the media and giving Trump the election in 2016. And they are damn sure that it's not going to happen again. So over the next four or five months, as this election increases, you're going to see more and more people being censored. They're already censoring the president of the United States on Twitter. And I think that's why perhaps the silver lining to this storm cloud is you're seeing more and more people moving over to platforms that are not going to stack the deck against them. Platforms like Parler, which I just joined yesterday. that are not going to stack the deck against them, platforms like Parler, which I just joined yesterday.

Oh, and listen, he's at Michael J. Knowles on Parler. Follow him, stat, as soon as you can. And follow him on Twitter too. I mean, the thing with Parler is we're not telling anyone to abandon Twitter. What we're asking people is make this your social media home. If you like to cross post, cross post. You want to keep native content there

or do your own thing. All we're telling you is we will not censor you over there. And I appreciate the compliment as well. It's very nice of you. I just, you know, I'm a doer. I just, there's a lot of chatter out there and I didn't like politics. I ran for office.

I didn't like the drudge report. I started a Bungito report. I didn't like Twitter. I jumped in on Parler. So, but on your, the media commentary you just made, you made a brilliant point. I hope the audience understands here. It's not that they have an opinion. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody's biased. Everybody carries bias into what they talk about. My bias is towards libertarian conservative values. I'm

sure yours are the same. There's nothing wrong with that. We base it on facts, but there is an understandable bias there. I think the problem with the media, as you just indicated, is that they pretend they're telling an objective story when it's really a subjective interpretation of events. And it really, just be honest, just be candid. We're a left-leaning newspaper and this is an opinion piece. It's not journalism, but they don't do that. That's right. They can't do that. And that's what makes it so dangerous in the country because they go on TV and they've got their nice tie and their nice jacket and that really serious face that they practice in the mirror. And they pretend, you know, that

they're just going to take the facts. And that isn't the case. I mean, I mentioned it a little bit earlier, the 1619 Project. This is a news piece from the New York Times, which is they have all the news that's fit to print, or so they say. The central thesis is a lie. The lie is that America was founded to protect slavery. In fact, you can read in the Declaration of Independence, they're complaining about slavery. They knew slavery was a major problem from the very beginning. So it's just, it's simply not true. And yet they will publish that. If they're willing to publish a major feature with a central lie, what else are they lying about? One thing I always notice is in the newspaper, obviously, I don't know about all the topics that are in the newspaper, but I do know about some of them. And so you read a story about one topic and you realize,

wait a second, that isn't true. Because I know something about it, I know that that isn't true. And then we go on to the other stories that we don't know about and we take it to be the gospel truth. That just isn't the case, all right? We should apply our own experience here and recognize when they're getting something wrong. And I think one of the great achievements of the Trump administration is he's shown the media to be the dishonest hacks that they are.

And what that means for us, it's a little bit more work. We have to look elsewhere to get our information. Yeah, and it's happening. I mean, you see these public opinion polls. I read one on the air the other day. The media was below Congress in trust and accountability. People believe they're getting trust, you know, information that's worthy of their time.

How do you get below Congress, Michael? How do you get below Congress? How do we trust you less than Congress? I mean, this is like real congress like nobody likes congress no one democrats republicans communists everybody hates congress i would say at least several demons in hell right now rank higher on public opinion polls than members of congress but somehow somehow the media managed to outdo them amazing that demon that possessed l possessed Linda Blair in the extra, the pea soup. And that he's more, was it a hero? I don't even know. I don't know if there's like demon genders too.

The leftists may be listening. But that dude is more popular than the media. And you think like, I mean, the joke of this whole thing is you and I have one job with our platforms. It's a job. I love what I do. I'm an activist. I know this matters to you, but it's still a job. The job is to get downloads and viewers. And I hope by cross-posting

people's content, I hope we can get them for you, me, and everyone else. But that's a metric. It's a measure of success. And if your show sucks, if I may, and you get 10 downloads a show after three years of doing it, it's not for you. Maybe try baseball, try teaching. I don't know. I'm very sorry. Anything else, anything else. But if you're in the media and Michael, you one job, what here, the gavel one, turn it upside down. Your one job, right? Is to get eyeballs that trust you. And only 41% of people believe what they read is actually true. balls that trust you and only 41% of people believe what they read is actually true. That's like a big bat signal that says you really suck. They're terrible.

That's right. And it has real world consequences because when you look at something like this coronavirus lockdown, I mean, to me, this was the most hilarious media self-own. They tell us for months that this virus is the deadliest thing that has ever existed. If you so much as walk out your door, you are killing grandma. You're going to be responsible for thousands of deaths. And then these leftist riots start to break out with Antifa and Black Lives Matter. And then all of a sudden they completely changed their tune. Coronavirus went away. I guess that was the cure to coronavirus. We thought it might be hydroxychloroquine. Turns out it was leftist riots. And there's nothing about coronavirus for weeks. And then now all of a sudden the riots are dying down. And what happens? The media with

a perfectly straight face, they tell you again, stay home, wear a mask. You can't go outside. You're killing grandma. And we look at that and we say, you are actively now trying to more or less imprison me in my home. You're trying to shut down my business, shut down my livelihood based on something that you obviously do not believe. This one bit during the White House press briefing, one of the reporters from CNN had the mask on, very serious talking to the president. And then the minute she thought the cameras were off, what did she do? Took it off. She takes the mask off. She takes it right off.

We were in church last week, just on a point of personal privilege here, as I say, and there was a dude in church, he had the mask on. I'm not joking. It's not a joke. He took the mask off to sneeze. He was like, and I'm like, dude, what's the point? The whole point is for the sneeze. Did you miss that? He literally dropped the thing, sneezed all over and then put the thing back up again. I was like, that was brilliant. So I agree with you. I don't get it.

The virus is not even alive. It's not a living thing, a virus. It's basically an RNA sequence with a lipid layer. It's not even alive. How it would know to differentiate between a rally, a movie, a Trump rally, I can't figure that out. But, Michael, what bothers me about it, and I think would probably get your go-to here, is that it's that they're not even hiding it anymore. Like there were articles from a few weeks ago that the New York City communist mayor, de Blasio, has instructed his Department of Health to not ask people testing for COVID if they were at

a Black Lives Matter rally or a protest. And now the media, so they wouldn't even know. And now the media is reporting in New York. I saw the New York Post today. No connection between this spike in cases at all and the rallies we didn't ask about. And you're like, okay,

you guys aren't even trying anymore. You know, it's over. I read today, just I went through the headlines on my show, NPR, The Times, everybody who made, they said the spike in cases has nothing to do with the protests.

Do you remember a few weeks ago when they said we need contact tracing? We need thousands of Americans to become contact tracers. If you so much as go to the bank to get some money out, you know, you got to sign in so we know where you are. And yet, if you show up with 100,000 people and tear down a statue, we can't ask. We don't want to know. You see no evil and hear no evil. Doesn't it make you wonder as a supposedly cohesive unit, as a country, as a constitutional republic that's supposed to function, do they think people aren't going to pick up on that? I mean, do they think we're useful idiots too? I mean, there are a lot of common sense Americans. The majority of the population gets it. And do they, are they really this, I mean, serious

question for you. Do they really think we're this stupid? Like we know you didn't ask about the protest because it was covered everywhere. And now you're saying it had nothing to do with the protest. You didn't ask about it. And I wonder like a serious question. Do you think they're that stupid or they're so fixed on gaslighting people that they're just going to keep trying and trying and trying, even though, you know, Lucy's going to continue to pull the football away. It's not about numbers. It's about influence. I think that probably 95 percent of Americans are basically normal people. Maybe they're a little bit on the left. Most people are more left than me or more left than you. But, you know, whatever. We might have disagreements, but they're basically normal people. But there's this five percent. There's this small number

who are outrageous. They're radical and they have a lot of influence. So, you know, just a couple of days ago, I got to sit down with the attorney general on the Verdict podcast with Senator Cruz. And we said, Mr. Attorney General. By the way, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I saw that the clips from that on Twitter are outstanding. The Verdict podcast, Michael, outstanding. You guys go from like the most serious topics to kind of like good joke. And I've never seen Barr like that in an interview ever. So I'm sorry. Go ahead. But really nice job. I want to make sure my audience knows to check that out.

I appreciate that. Thank you. And, yeah, you know, the attorney general does have a great sense of humor and it doesn't come out very often because, you know, obviously he's got a very serious job. But we asked him, we said, what is this? Is this a popular uprising? Is this really the voice of the people tearing down these statues? And he said, no, from what you can see in the way these are organized, they're very highly organized by, you know, very radical groups. You can name the groups, but this small number of people is creating the impression that this is the popular opinion. And you can apply that same observation to the mainstream media. The number of people, I'll use abortion as an example. 6% of Americans think that there should be no restrictions on abortion. A full 94% of Americans think that there should be some restrictions on abortion. And yet I think that 6%,

that's everyone who ran for the Democratic nomination for president, everyone who works at CNN, everyone who works. So their voices just get amplified so much. Whereas we talk about the silent majority. The silent majority might not agree on everything, but the vast majority of Americans are reasonable people. The trouble is they can't get a job at CNN.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you. And I think the social media ecosystem makes it even worse. The echo chamber is horrible. I mean, you see things on Twitter. I'll give you a quick story about me. I've been through a number of, having run for office and stuff. There's always something that I've been through a couple of things that were really, you know, you lose sleep at night. It's just hard, hard to get past. People attack you for everything. They go after your family, whatever. And you at the time, because of social media, when you're going through it, especially when you're running, Michael, you swear it's the biggest thing ever that the whole country's talking about it.

You're in public, like shielding your face. And you know what? Nobody knows. It's trending number one on Twitter and nobody knows and nobody cares. But it gives you the impression with the leftist blue checkmark brigade on Twitter that, oh, my gosh, this is really the worst thing ever. So I agree with your point. Let me ask you a question on it's spy gay related, but not so much more from a bigger picture. So this whole spy gay thing has been obviously a debacle.

I mean, I thought I was under the assumption wrongly that there were some red lines the left wouldn't cross. And, you know, I ran for office a couple of times. And one of the things I ran against was the Patriot Act. Candidly, I didn't give a hoot that it was signed by a Republican, George W. Bush. I just thought it was a really bad idea for civil liberties. I ran on it. I explained why beyond the scope of the conversation, but I really didn't care. I thought a red line had been crossed. You know, the public and the private self, which is the hallmark of any free society, the ability to have a private self that doesn't exist in communism. Your neighbors rat on you. There's surveillance everywhere.

I said, I think that's disappearing because of this patriotic. What I find so troubling about this whole Spygate scandal from a big kind of global view here is not only is the left not bothered by the fact that the FBI was clearly weaponized to spy on an American. Forget about he was a candidate. It's an American citizen. They're not bothered. They still celebrate it. You do cable news. You hear the leftist. They're

like nothing to see here. Don't you? This was great. We should do more of this. It's insane. Yes. You've hit on something, Dan. I actually haven't heard anyone else talk about this publicly. The distinction between the public and the private. This is the key. This is essential to a self-governing republic. And the left told us explicitly in the 1960s that they were going to obliterate it. One of the mantras of the radicals in the 60s was the personal is the political, which is to say that the private is the public. There's no distinction anymore. It's all the same thing. It's all fair game. It's where you get cancel culture, political correctness. I

mean, everything that has run roughshod over our civil society in recent years. And the spy gate is just a perfect encapsulation of this. And there's obviously so much more that's coming out. We know that Joe Biden was involved at a very high level. We know that Barack Obama was involved at a high level. We've seen emails and, you know, we mentioned the Attorney General a little bit earlier. Well, one thing that I suspect is going to come out in coming months are the results of this Durham investigation into just how politicized the Obama administration's government had become, into just how personal a tool it became for the president's own political motives. That is poison to our

government. At a time when faith in our institutions is already very low, that could push us over the edge. And so, you know, on the one hand, I sort of wish that this information weren't coming out because we'd have more faith in government. But, you know, light is a great disinfectant. And the only way that we're going to be able to clean this up and restore any faith is by airing out all of this dirty laundry. You know, this is probably a great close because it ties back to the beginning, how the left really doesn't have any operating principles anymore other than power. Power is the tool in their toolbox, whether they use it through the court system or use it through culture wars or use it through politics or just raw brute force that is their tool um but obviously we've seen they don't care about civil liberties because they don't care about donald trump's they just care about their own civil liberties but i heard

an interesting uh take by david harowitz a while ago and he calls the left you know they're the anti-anti-communist that when it's a strict power intimidation play for you, that you're really just fighting against your enemies to get them out of the way, because in order to take power, you got to vanquish your enemies. So there are no real operating principles. It's trench warfare, whatever you have to do to win, you win. And he calls them the anti-anti-communists because you and I are the anti-communists. We believe in freedom and liberty. Anyone who gets in their way, they're the anti-anti-communists. So they're against us. And he says, that's why, you know, one of the big mistakes of the useful idiot Democrats,

not only, but the people who believe the liberals, you believe their principle when they're not. And a perfect example is not just Spygate and civil liberties, but when it comes to even things like when you, LGBTQ rights. Yeah. When we call things out, like, hey, listen, there's kind of a culture problem in some other countries where they,

you know, throw people who are gay off buildings. That's kind of a really bad thing we should speak out. Like, wait, wait, wait, don't cultural relativism. Don't you dare. You're like, wait, I thought we cared about people who were gay. Right. I mean, like it's showing you again, it's not about principles at all. No, not at all. It's funny you mentioned that culture point. I once made this this observation to a feminist friend of mine in college. I don't know if she would call me a friend, but I considered her a friend. And she would talk about how there's a rape culture on college campuses. And you hear this as a phrase that keeps coming up. They basically tell you Harvard's Harvard Yard is as dangerous

for women as Fallujah, which nobody really believes, but that's what they say. And I said, okay, well, hold on. Do you think that some cultures are better than other cultures? And, and she said, no, absolutely not. All cultures are relative. You can't say that our culture is better than any other culture. I said, right. And you think there's a rape culture? She said, uh, yeah. I said, so you're telling me that the rape culture is not any worse than the not rape culture. And then I think her mind just melted. Like she did, she didn't have any, any response to that to that obviously i have seen you do this on college campuses by the way the videos are priceless because they're not ready for you i didn't mean to interrupt you there but can i just say i'll leave you with it because it's your folks michael knowles download his podcast do it today don't even wait pause the show go do it and

come back and listen again but do you think when you're doing that on college campuses and you're debating these liberals and they're really melting down like you just described, do you think it's a function of the fact that they've never really been challenged because they're bathed in this leftist culture? And meanwhile, guys like you and me, everything we say is challenged. Even facts. When we say like, you know, Reagan cut taxes and tax revenue went up. Like, that's not true. Okay, here's the treasury tables. They don't believe you ever.

We're so used to it that we're conditioned to a negative response. But do you think they constantly lose debates? Like I've seen you just destroy people on television debates because they're just not, they've never heard the other side ever. I think that's exactly it. And I think it's actually why, you know, I'm pleased that I can do it sometimes, but I think it's why just actually conservatives in general have this advantage, is that the left has never heard the other side. And there have been studies on this.

John Haidt actually did a study on this, which showed that the right understands the left much better than the left understands the right. And it's not even just because we're so brilliant and good-looking and charming and all these other things. It's because of the culture that we live in. We live in this pop culture. We are moving about in the culture of leftism. So we know exactly what they think. And anytime we say anything, we had damn well better be able to defend it because you're going to have a lot of arrows coming at you and that's going to hone your views. You're going to throw out some old opinions. You're going to go deeper on some others. You are going to leave at leftist college

or a leftist high school or just your leftist town knowing what you think a lot better than the left will. I guess that's a little bit of a silver lining in the storm cloud. When we get down to this brute, bare-knuckle, political power battle, we will at least be able to understand our adversary much better than they can understand us. And I think that's why they've been surprised in recent elections. And they get surprised when we outfox them. And hopefully they'll be surprised again very soon. All right.

I promise this is my last question. I'll let you go. I know I've kept you way over and I'm off the clock because I'm done getting paid. But I find you so interesting. I want to get this last pointed. Again, we're talking to Michael Knowles, host of The Great Michael Knowles Show. No, that's a brilliant point you just made. I read a piece in Town Hall a long time ago.

I forget who wrote it. It may have been Jonah Goldberg. I don't remember. But the essence of the piece was the war against smoking, cigarettes, was effective, dramatically effective. I mean, you rarely see a smoker anymore in public. 20 years ago, it was everywhere. My mother used to smoke in the car with the windows closed.

I think they thought it was like health food or something. My mother, too. Yeah. I mean, like, hey, kids, it's great. You know, waft it in, whatever it may be. And he wrote, the reason the war against smoking was so effective is because everybody knew a smoker. You knew how they thought.

You knew how to talk to them. You knew what their soft points were. You knew where to poke them. I knew how to talk to my mother. She cut back dramatically. I'm just, she didn't actually do it. She was, she was great. Great mom.

Sorry, folks. Just messing with you a little bit. But he said that the reason the war against the left's war against the second amendment and our ownership of firearms has been such an epic fail, despite literally billions of dollars spent is because of what you just said. They have no idea how to talk to us because they just don't want to. And when they talk to us, they're like, well, you suck. You're a racist and you hate immigrants too. And that's it. Everybody just tunes them out. That's right. You know, this is something, I mean, actually tying into this point, you notice that the right these days is a little bit funnier, especially in political debates.

We have a little bit more of a sense of humor, you know, and, and I think that the reason for this is when you, when you don't understand something, you just you just pull your hair out. Right. You just you can't. You're totally humorless, like the shrieking people who have been shrieking since 2016 when Trump won that election, all the way up to shrieking at statues of Christopher Columbus. But the reason conservatives can laugh a little bit is we kind of get the context. I understand why the left is tearing down certain statues. I understand why they're yelling about this, that, or the other thing. There was a line from Chesterton, which I always stuck with me, said the angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. Not that they think everything's a big joke and they're never serious. You got to be serious when

you got to be serious. You got to fight when you got to fight, but you also have to be able to take yourself a little bit lightly. A little bit of humor goes a long way. Our great Republican presidents have known that. The great statesmen of history have known that. And the people who have been able to really affect important political goals have known that too. And when you see the leftists frowning and moping and crying all the time, that's not someone you want to lead. You want them to lead us and you don't want to follow them. I think if we can keep that kind of perspective, knowing what the battlefield is, then there's a chance that we're going to continue to outfox them because they just don't know where we're going to be coming from. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant analysis. That's

why we win the meme wars. You ever see the left meme? It's embarrassingly stupid. It's so bad, really. They take our stuff and they hijack it and put dumb punchlines in. Unbelievably embarrassing. Michael, can't thank you enough for your time. You're really an insightful guy. It's a travesty and an immortal sin. I did not have you on this show sooner,

so please forgive me. Thanks for your time today. I absolve you, Dan. Thank you so much, man. Listen, I got to come on sometime. We'll do a we'll do a back and forth it would be great

thank you again appreciate it the great Michael Knowles folks thanks again we'll see you all soon take it easy you just heard

Dan Bongino