The Michael Knowles Show - Daily Wire Backstage SOTU Special

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

Will Trump deliver the speech? Will it be in the House Chamber or in a stadium with fireworks and AC/DC playing? Will the Dems implode upon hearing the word "Wall" or wait to meltdown via Twitter later? Join this roundtable discussion featuring Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, Michael Knowles, and Daily Wire god-king Jeremy Boreing, as they discuss Trump's address, what it means moving forward, and how the Left thinks they will stop him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. This is Michael. You're about to listen to our latest episode of Daily Wire Backstage, where I joined Ben Shapiro, Andrew Plavin, and the man who will one day fire me for real, Daily Wire God King Jeremy Boring, for a great conversation on politics and culture, and where we answer questions from Daily Wire subscribers. Without further ado, here is backstage. It's the State of the Union, you guys. Can we even really fake laugh at this point? I'm just done. I have... I can fake yawn. Welcome to Daily Wire backstage.

State of the Union's special. Spoiler alert. It's not going to be very good. I'm Jeremy, the God King of the Daily Wire, lowercase G, lowercase K, lessen the actual God King is watching. Also, spoiler alert, he's not. Let's get this thing started. Tonight, we're going to be with you for three.

Yes, that is correct, three. Very long hours. I'm going to be honest. Tell me this. It's going to be three and a half. It's going to be three and a half. Last year, Donald Trump went for one hour and 20 minutes, and that was considered a short state of the union address.

But we're going to try to make it go fast with our usual... We'll see if Michael Knowles is wearing his best Ralph Northam costume or just that hideous cigar jacket of his, which alone should disqualify him from public office. And yes, we will take questions from Daily Wire subscribers. And tonight, you can ask questions only if you are a subscriber over it. DailyWire.com, that's where you want to go. Hit the subscribe button and become one today. We will be very grateful, as our subscribers are basically who keeps us in whiskey and cigars.

A tip for viewers while watching the president's speech tonight. As with every state of the union, all the politicians on the right side of the screen, that's the Republicans, they will stand and clap continuously for an hour no matter what is said. And all the politicians on the left side of the screen, that's the Democrats, will be announcing their 2020 presidential campaign. contractually obligated to be with me tonight are Ben Shapiro, Andrew Claven, Michael Knowles, and Elisha Kraus. Hey, Alicia. I'm here. How are you guys? Oh, we're just ready and raring to go. Awesome, Alicia. Couldn't be happier. Well, you do have a little old lady drink there. I think that you look like you're drinking

something with an 80-year-old woman from the villages. Sanya thinks that you're drinking something that a 14-year-old girl would drink behind the bleachers at her, you know, spring formal. I'm comfortable with that stuff, Elisha. You know what? I don't have to fake my masculinity. All this whiskey and cigars. All I can say is that this is delicious. With the umbrella, I mean, you had to go all the way in the iridescent cup. But thank you everyone for watching, as Jeremy said, if you're a subscriber, you can go over to dailywire.com, log in, and type your questions for the guys into the chat box.

All the questions tonight are going to be about the state of the union. So be sure to ask us those questions, and only subscribers get to ask them. But anyone watching can head over now because live on Facebook, We're going to be putting up a poll later, and we want to know if you guys think it's necessary to have a state in the union address. So let us know your thoughts, and the results are going to be read live on air a little later.

Thank you, Elisha, and hey, you guys know what today is? Oh, my, look at that. Worst birthday ever. Happy birthday to the God King. Honestly, the only thing that makes tonight palatable is knowing that Jeremy has to suffer through this on his birthday. It is brutal. How did you plan this?

This is, frankly, the president getting revenge on you, I think. Yes. The president of the United States himself was sitting around the oval, he said, I'm going to call Nancy. Jeremy didn't vote for me. I actually had to cancel reservations at a beautiful steakhouse with friends tonight

to spend time with you guys. This is the first bit of joy I felt all the days. And it's not just any birthday. It's like my last birthday. It's the birthday, I know. This is the birthday. This is the one where everything suddenly goes like, it's like that scene where everything

speeds up in Goodfellows, you know? Because suddenly everything's going really fast. This is the one right before your milestone birthday of 41. No, no, your next birthday is 60, believe it? Well, before I die, let's make a little money, honey, to quote a great man, and talk about honey.

Well, I mean, this days, it's impossible to agree on virtually anything. But we can all agree that we need to save money, which is why I use honey and you should, too. Honey is a free shopping tool that automatically searches the internet for the best promo codes every time you buy something online. They believe that everyone deserves the best prices possible on all the things you like. And that's why it works on all your favorite sites like Amazon or eBay, J.Crew, Walmart,

Best Buy, all of them. In fact, Honey has already saved listeners of this podcast an average of $26. And $0.34. Every single time I buy something for myself or for my wife, I'm saving money when I use Honey. And again, all you have to do is you go in your register and then it just runs kind of in the background of your computer. Literally, Michael Knowles put this on my computer. You don't even know.

I did it before the Daily Wire exists. It's the only thing Knowles has ever done for this. It's the one productive thing I've done. I've saved thousands of dollars. And not quite as much as his salary has cost us. And that's why Honey is useful. It could be great for you. They have 10 million members over 100,000 5-star reviews.

Honey is the money-saving shopping until everyone can agree on it. So right now, add Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash backstage. That's joinhoney.com slash backstage because you are watching the Daily Wire backstage. JoinHoney.com slash backstage. Honey is the smart shopping assistant that helps you save time and money, so go check them out at joinhoney.com. Ben should have used honey when he was setting my salary.

40%, 50%, or I could have just hired a woman. Pay you 77 cents on the dollar. That would have solved everything. By the way, you see this breaking news that Elizabeth Warren actually registered as a Native American while she was registering for the State Bar of Texas? I'm shocked.

It's the greatest thing in the world. Believe all women. Hashtag Believe all women. How long ago was this? Well, I mean, she registered for the bar in the 80s, right? In the 80s, so it's 30 years ago. But we've all known this, right?

She obviously used it to get into Harvard, and Harvard protects the record, so there's no evidence of it. So all this is the first time that we're seeing what we all basically knew to be true. Yeah, I mean, she had appeared in a couple of the journals suggesting that she was sort of the American Indian Harvard member. And then she said, all the people there said, no, we didn't admit her based on this.

We admitted her based on other factors. Whatever it is, the fact that she lied about this and that she actually put it on an official form, she's toast. I mean, you can kiss Elizabeth Warren's chances. Oh, yeah. But do we now have to listen to her tell that story again about her pawpaw and her nama or whatever?

And how they had to run away because of their, because they had forbidden love. That's right. She actually told the story of Pocahontas. And then it turns out that her respective father-in-law was going to threaten her father with a club. And then her mother came in and threw her body over her father. And then everybody sang together and then he went off on a ship. I think her presidential hopes were blown away by the color of the wind. Yeah, right.

You know, I have the document pulled up right here. The whole story was that, oh, this was a mistake from Harvard. She never had anything to do with it, but there it is, 1986, April 11th, 1986 in her own handwriting, American Indian signature Liz Warren right there. Pretty spectacular stuff. Man, well, I guess she's the second Democrat to blow herself up on the shoals of race. That's true. I mean, in Virginia, she, I mean, is it possible she's the other person that Ralph Northam photo?

Maybe. Who the hell knows? Everything, everything is insane. Maybe she becomes governor after Justin Fairfax. Exactly. Let's be real about this. Right now, the only person, like, the front owner has to be Kamala Harris in the number of... Oh, yeah, no question.

Clearly, she's winning the intersectional war. Yeah. I mean, so much so that Bernie Sanders is being ripped up and down for having the temerity to even give a state of the union response tonight because Stacey Abrams is giving the official response. So this is the third time he's given a non-democratic response to the state of the union, and he's giving one again tonight, but Stacey Abrams is giving the official response. So it didn't matter when he did it when Joe Kennedy was doing it, but Stacey Abrams is a black woman.

And that means that he is a racist. because he is giving a non-official state of the union response. There are people who are tweeting out that he was talking over her. He's talking after her. Like, she's talking. And then he said, oh, she's a great pick. And also I'm going to give my own thoughts. Like, you can't give your thoughts.

You've got to stop with that thought-giving. Cut it out, Bernie. I just want to know, is he going to do it shirtless, like the Soviet Union video? As long as he does a shirtless singing, then I'll watch. By the way, I don't know if collusion means what they think that it means when Bernie Sanders can go over to the actual Soviet Union. and sing American communist songs shirtless with the Ruski's. With the Ruskis. It's amazing.

Kamala Harris is surprisingly bad so far, what she does. She doesn't have to be good. She just has to be mediocre and not Trump. I mean, right now, the polls are showing right now that over 50% of Americans say they will definitely not vote for Trump. Now, that only matches up once he has an opponent, right? You can say you're definitely not voting for someone, and then you vote for them if the other person stinks enough

or if you just decide not to show up to the polls because the other person stinks. Trump basically has to shut up for about two years and let the Democrats be as crazy as they want to be. And Kamala Harris, she does have some very weird mannerisms in the sense that, like, she has the awkward laugh that Hillary used to do. She has the exact laugh as Hillary. It's very weird. She's also corrupt. I mean, there's something about, first of all, that Willie Brown story is a genuine story.

It's an amazing story of sexual malfeasance and political corruption mixed together. Today she was interviewing that judge candidate. She is awful. It was awful what she did to her. You know, the woman had written a peace saying, if you don't want to get raped it apart, you don't get drunk is one way to do it. She was saying it was blaming the victim. It was just absolutely. I mean, the entire article specifically says if you are raped, it is the fault of the rapist.

Also, you mitigate your risk by not drinking heavily in the presence of young men, which is... But she has to do this because her actual record is of being a fairly tough prosecutor. And so in the modern Democrat Party, in the era of criminal justice reform, in the era of belief all women, in the era of stripping people of due process on these rape cases, she has a liability. because she, by Democrat standards, is pretty harsh. She was actually a pretty oppressive prosecutor, I thought, that's family. This is why she never talks about her actual professional record.

She opens up on the mood mix, what music she liked to listen to. She went to an historically black college. It's all just Peggy Noonan called it. She said it's just a mood that she's sitting for her campaign. Because even if sometimes she was a weak prosecutor, any prosecutor is going to be dead in the Democrat primary. She does present certain challenges, I think, if she's the nominee. And right now, of the people.

people who are declared, we have to call her the front. No question. She will do something if she winds up on a stage with Trump that will be for the left what Trump being on a stage with Hillary Clinton was to the right, which is she will prosecute him. She will call him a racist to his face on national television, and the left will get the same sort of glee from watching that happen that the right got watching Donald Trump. Trump be on a stage with Hillary.

I mean, that was all throughout the Republican primaries, the question, who would you rather see debate Hillary drove a lot of the national dialogue? They're going to be having that exact same conversation on the left. You know, she does have this legitimacy problem, though, or this authenticity problem, which Trump does not, in that she's positioning herself as the girl from Oakland, launched her campaign on Oakland. It's all intersectional identity politics launches on MLK Day, always talking about going to an historically black college.

she grew up from age seven to college in Canada. She left Oakland. Her mother was a cancer researcher. Her father was a Stanford economics professor. This is not the rough and tumble streets of Oakland. And by pretending to be that way, she may fall into Hillary Clinton. I don't think so. I mean, Barack Obama had exactly the same problem.

It didn't matter to him one iota, right? I mean, he grew up not poor in a not minority discrimination area in Hawaii. I think also, though, you know, the left creates the narrative. The left is, you know, you. you talk about the mood mix, but they all have done this. Elizabeth Warren with the beer, and that's all they do. Beto with the dentist. Because we had Beto with the dentist.

And, you know, I think that they're making a mistake. I do think that people care about policy. I do think that Obama ran as a centrist the first time out, and he only canted left after he was elected. And I think that people do pay attention, and she is a far-left candidate, and I think that's going to help Trump. Well, it will if you can shut up, right? I mean, that's really it.

I mean, if he provides for any sort of target, then she will be famous for demolishing the target that's in front of her. If he can be quiet and just let her talk, in the first week she had to walk back from Medicare for all get rid of private insurance nonsense. She had to do that in like the first three days of her campaign. This is why I'm not actually sure that she is a far-left candidate. I think that she understands the temperature.

I think she is a very shrewd calculating politician who understands that in the era of Trump, in the ascendancy of people like AOC, this whole freshman class in the Congress, that there is a major leftward lurch happening in the Democrat Party right now, and she's willing to play to it, especially in a primary

where she needs to rally her base and she needs to make sure that Bernie Sanders doesn't get back in and divide up the party. I don't think that Kamala Harris is an idiologue. I think Kamala Harris is a, I'll sleep with Willie Brown to get power. But you know, this is the issue.

She is a power politician. Bill Clinton was, for a few years, a far-left politician, Hillary care, and then he loses in 94, and he becomes basically a center-right politician. If you are rudderless, if you don't have any ideological mooring, and you just happen to act in a very conservative or very leftist way, what's the difference? No, I think that this is a very optimistic read on Kamala Harris. I think that she is an ideologue, who is also a clever politician, and she knows where the

tea leaves are. I agree with that. What she's doing right now is there are several segments of the Democratic base, and you have to win a plurality within each and within most and a minority in a couple. And so if you split it up into various segments of the Democratic Party, to use the 538 model, there's sort of the black wing of the Democratic Party, the Hispanic wing of the Democratic Party, the millennial wing of the Democratic Party, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the moderate wing.

Those are the five categories that 538 has laid out. And she is the one who is best qualified to grab some of these and a little bit of the others, right? So she's not going to do that great among millennials because millennials don't like criminal justice stuff that she was involved in. She doesn't have to do great there. All she has to do is split the vote a little bit there, win the black vote, win some of the Hispanic vote, not all of it. If she has a unified block of black votes in her corner for the primaries,

and she has some Hispanic votes, and she does well with sort of the mainstream Democrats against Joe Biden. Let's say she splits that. Let's say he wins it, 70-30. And then let's say that with the progressives, she only wins 20 percent, but nobody else wins more than 20 percent. All she has to do is outscore everyone in one category. And she runs the table. I mean, this was the Trump path to victory in 2016.

He didn't win 70 percent of the vote in the primary. won 40% of the vote in the primaries. And in most of them, he won 25 to 30% of the vote. And because there were 1,000 candidates, the votes split enough ways that it didn't matter. That's all she has to do. And so what she's doing right now is she's ticking off boxes. So she's doing the, okay, I'll pay homage to AOC. I'll pretend that I like AOC's thing and I'll pretend that she's clever because that's where the energy is. And then I'll grab a couple of those votes. And what she really is counting heavily on is doing really well with black voters in the Democratic primary.

Because that was Obama's path to victory in 2008. She's hoping to duplicate that. the only person who can threaten her there is Corey Booker, and that's where what Michael is saying could theoretically pose a problem for her, maybe, because Booker actually did grow up pretty impoverished. He is from Newark. He's such a bad politician. This is the problem for him is that he is an awful, insincere,

terrible politician who is bad at everything. I mean, he really is. He's one of the worst politicians I've ever seen in my entire life, and that's from a guy who actually has a unique capacity to grandstand. He spent his entire career grandstanding. But now the grandstanding comes off as so, false and so fake that I'm not sure anybody can even buy into it. Is it even possible to buy into Cory Booker at this point? He couldn't even lead a gladiatorial revolt against Rome.

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because I don't like to go any place. No. There's nowhere I want to go. Nobody in L.A. likes to go any place. We never talk about this. You know, you go home, and it's like, should I go out? No.

And now that everything's on your TV, you don't have to go out. I ordered soup from across the street delivery today. That's not true. It's not. It's been raining. It's been raining, you know. There's something about when the car is in the garage, you're done.

You know? So, okay, so what do you think Trump's actually going to say in the state of the union tonight? Well, he's got, obviously, I think it's going to center on the border thing. Do you think he's going to bring actual blocks and then he's just going to build a wall? What's where he's standing in? Watch me build this. Watch me do it. I'm wondering if, like, the Democrats are actually going to stand up and hurl Honduran children at him, you know?

At some point, he's got to turn around and say something to Nancy Pelosi. I know you hate it when I say that I think Trump is doing something smart, but I really do. I think he has, like, kept a fairly low profile, and he has allowed the Democrats. Wait, wait, let me finish before you attack me. He's allowed the Democrats to be as crazy as they want. They now look like the unreasonable people. He has kept this subject that nobody, nobody on either side wants to talk about. He's kept it front and center, and he has made them look like the unreasonable people.

And I think if he plays that without hammering them, which would be untrumpian, he could make some head. I think he has potentially done something smart. So when you're unconscious, when you're unconscious, is that a smart thing or is that you being unconscious? Well, with me, it's a smart thing. I work at my unconsciousness. You have the precise...

So my rule about politics is never attribute to malice, that which you can attribute to stupidity. Me too. But you don't have that rule of Trump. For you, it's never attribute to stupidity that which you can attribute to brilliance. No, I think that Trump...

I think that Trump has two things that nobody talks about. Well, people do talk about his instincts. He has excellent instincts. He has the instincts of a linebacker. He knows where daylight is. He always knows... of a running back he knows where where daylight is and and the other instinct that he has

he changes like people don't people don't pay attention to it but he actually changes tactics while seeming to be trumping in all the time yeah this is the part where you're crazy you're talking about a man whose first tactic was to marry somebody and then have an affair with someone and divorce the first one to marry that one and then his next tactic was to have an affair and divorce that one and then marry the third one this is a different area of a different area of life where we're all a little stupid things that are potentially smart. The problem is that he's not particularly disciplined. And so to the extent that he, to the extent that he ended the shutdown, to the extent that he ends the shutdown,

which if the purpose of that move is to get his state of the union address back, and to demonstrate that I am the only one compromising, I offered them the DACA deal, they didn't take it. They said we won't negotiate while the government shut down, so I opened the government. If he actually can now go through with shutting the government down again at the end of this, then I think it was some high-level chess playing. You think he'll shut the government down again? No, I don't think he will. If he did, though, if he did, it would be magnificent.

If he did, it would be magnificent. Then he would be being strategic and making a power play. What I actually think he's doing is just respond. I think you're right when you say that he's a linebacker who knows where the daylight is. A running back. He's water, and he finds the crack and runs downhill. The problem is that that isn't strategy. And so I think that he found a way out of the shutdown conundrum of the moment,

but with no thought for the next moment where that was going to legal. Go back to why this would be magnificent if he shuts the government down. It's the only way it's magnificent. If he doesn't shut the government down, at the end of his three-week ultimate, I'm going to open it for three weeks. He said, I'm going to open it for three weeks because they said they wouldn't negotiate while it was shut down. So now it's open. We can negotiate.

And if they don't negotiate, I'm going to. to shut it back down. If he doesn't shut it back down, then all he really did was revealed that he was afraid of the government shut down. He didn't actually have a plan. It is fear that's driving his decision-making. It's just gravity pulling the water through the cracks and pulling the water down hill and not strategy causing the water to find the real threats. I actually disagree. I think that if he shuts the government down, it's going to be bad for him again. I think that the only way that it was ever going to be good is you have to be willing to go through the pain and take as many hits as you're willing to take.

If you're playing a game of chicken, you've got to put the brick on the accelerator and just leave there. And when you take the brick off the accelerator, he's already demonstrated he doesn't like the government shutdown. And so what's he going to do? Okay, I'm going to shut the government down again and the Democrats claim the exact same thing. And then the minute there's pain, the media blame him. And then he says, well, they weren't willing to negotiate. It's not going to go any better the second time than it went the first time. It's exactly the same man. That's my guess, too. But, you know, all of this is just a setup for him to declare a national emergency. And then we get what everybody wants, except for the wall. Right. He's going to blame the

judiciary when they strike it down. And the Democrats are going to say, we stood tall. He gets the win politically because he did the tough thing by declaring a national emergency and the people who didn't back him are the cucks who didn't back him doing something that I think is actually constitutionally illegal and then the wall doesn't get built it is worth pointing out when we hear national emergency we rightly sort of think of it is this crazy thing that shouldn't happen a lot we do have currently what 28 national emergencies declared 21 yes it's 21 okay yeah well that that's true but a national emergency by definition is an event that happens immediately that requires an immediate response

that there's already been delegated power to solve. That's what the power of national emergency is that was delegated to the executive branch. So there are only two statutes under which the president could theoretically declare a national emergency. One is that he could declare that there is a drug corridor or along the entire border of Mexico. Even that would not allow him really

to use eminent domain to seize the property. You need congressional authorization in order to do that. He could renovate fencing. I mean, that he could do. But the idea that he's going to rededicate a bunch of defense funding to build the wall. I think there's some real legal holes in that particular strategy. But I don't think that's what he cares about doing at this point.

What he wants is to be able to say to his people, I did the best that I could. And I couldn't do it, but that's not my fault. That's the fault of the judiciary. I even went far enough that I was willing to declare a national emergency. And I think his people will buy it. I mean, I think that his base will buy it. Because they want any excuse to let him off the hook for this, when the reality is this was a huge fumble from the beginning. Shutting down, because let's imagine he had won. He shuts down the government.

They crack. They give him $5.7 billion. You get $300 miles. Two years from now, 50 miles of wall have been built against the promise of 250 miles of wall on a 2,700-mile border. The win was not worth the price, and he ain't going to win. Yeah, you'd want more than $5 billion. You'd want $25 or $30 billion. Again, the whole purpose of this whole game was to paint the Democrats as not

caring about border security, which he succeeded in doing, right? I mean, except that he should have spent, if you're going to declare a national emergency, if you're going to suggest that this is the end of the world and it's a huge crisis, why are, like, you say that he was great because he went silent. It's good that he went silent in the last couple of weeks because Democrats have been making fools of themselves. Yes. But during the actual government shutdown, why was he not traveling by car to the border

and giving a speech every day on why it was a border crisis? I'm sorry, sitting in the Oval Office and tweeting randomly things. That's not an actual strategy. I think it was a strategy. I actually do. I think he was making sure that he was the reasonable guy. He made a good speech from the Oval Office. He made a good offer that the Washington Post was saying,

sit down and negotiate with the guy. He made them look unreasonable. And it does seem to me, you know, it's a week. It's a week to the people. His approval rating has rebounded fairly well. I mean, it was pretty low during that shutdown. Look, I think that there's not a lot of elasticity in his approval rating. I mean, I think that he's constantly been between, you know,

42 and 47% basically his entire presidency. And by most polls, he's had very little bounce since nearly the beginning. Like he was at 48 at the beginning. On average, I mean, I know people cite the outlier Raspius and poll from the daily tracking. But in the average, he's always 42, 43%. That's fine. He doesn't have to be anywhere but there. All he has to do is defeat the Democrat who's put in front of him.

In the end, I don't think a government shutdown actually matters. I don't even think the wall necessarily matters all that much. I think the only thing that does matter is him shutting up for the next couple of years, as I say. And if that's strategic, let it be strategic, whatever it is, he needs to do that. Because the more the Democrats talk, what Kavanaugh proved is the more people see of Democrats, the more they despise the Democrats. And the more they see of Trump, the more they despise Trump. If you stay away from everything, if you just deprive the media of oxygen, they've got no

place to go. They have to cover whatever the Democrats are doing at any given time. The Democrats have shown that the people who voted for Trump who said this country is in a serious precipice, they were right. They were right. They saw that the Democrats are this crazy. I think they always were this crazy. I think Hillary Clinton was a mask for how crazy they were.

I think she was a moderate-looking mask. She was felled by her dishonesty and being a poor politician. But behind them, they are really this bad. They really are talking about killing live babies. They really are talking about socialism. They're really talking about 90% tax rates. They're nuts. And I think he's doing the right thing.

The thing about the emergency measure, and it's a weak strategy, but it is a strategy. You see, could delay the decision long enough to reach 2020 and say, well, it's in the courts. It's all going to believe me, you're going to get your wall. They'll put up an injunction within the first month. Well, they'll put it up right away.

It's a question of how far it goes. I do think, though, that if Trump came out tonight for his State of the Union speech, and he opens it up and says, my fellow Americans, the state of our union is deeply troubling. In the last two weeks, two states have come out in favor of infanticide, the actual killing of babies who have been born.

You cannot have an abortion once a baby is born. Fourth trimester. Fourth trimester. And in the last three months, we've seen the Democrats ascend a brand new crop of congressional leaders

who are openly calling for socialism within one generation of us defeating our existential enemies in the Socialist Soviet Union. Then I think that we would all go, yeah, the guys got it. And this is what I was saying on my show today. is that the problem is, like, they're constantly trying to cast him against type.

And everybody who tries to cast him against type fails. He's never going to start being the nice unifier. Yep. It's not going to happen. There's no world tonight where he says, I call for unity and reason to come on. He may say it. He's got a trump. And I call through unity and so much reason it'll make your head smith.

Reason out the l'azoo. Like, that's not going to work. I'm the unity president. He won in 2016, the primaries and the general, because he was a hammer in search of a nail, as I said a thousand times. And sometimes you had a nail and sometimes you had a baby. Okay, all he has to do right now

is hit a lot of nails. Let him be the hammer. Let him go out there tonight and turn around and say directly to Nancy Pelosi. Let him turn around on the podium in front of the American people and say, listen,

I offered you legal status for all the dreamers who you are constantly suggesting you want to stay in this country. And all I asked for in return is that you give me the money necessary for us to secure that border and you won't even negotiate with me.

He might do that. Because you don't care about borders. That sounds more like Trump than what you were saying. He sounded too recent. But he should do the same. He should say there are several members of the Democratic caucus who have embraced openly anti-Semitic positions, and the Democratic Party is fine with it and celebrating them.

Like, he should list out all the reasons Democrats suck because he's not going to win by listing out all the reasons he's been great, because people who like him already tend to like him and people who don't like him already tend to not like him. He's got to do exactly what he did to Hillary Clinton. He doesn't need to sell himself. Correct. His gift is he can take anyone and drag them through the mud. That is his gift in life.

Right? Some of us are given the gift of wit and brilliance and good looks. But enough about me. You also have to, he has a unique gift to drag people down and stomp on them with cleats. And if he's not doing that. And he's got a good target, too. And he's got a great target. If he'd ever been able to direct that, like 100% of the time, he would be an actual weapon. Oh, we all used to watch those debates with Hillary Clinton.

We all used to say, like, almost. Exactly, exactly. But it was enough because people knew who she was. Now, you know, listen, I think that's a speech he could make. I don't think he's going to make it tonight because I don't think he's going to make it tonight, because I don't think he thinks this is the moment. I think he does think this is the moment for him to appear reasonable.

He'll make that speech eventually, though. Right, but the problem is that you run out of time, you only have one chance to characterize your opposition. This is the mistake John McCain made in 2008. John McCain thought, okay, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait. Last month of the election, hey, by the way, this guy, Barack Obama, pretty radical. And everybody's like, well, we already met up our mind about this guy.

You said he's decent. You said he was a nice family man. Right, exactly. You said that he's fine. Mitt Romney made the same mistake in 2012. That's right. Barack Obama, a nice family guy, decent, moderate. I don't think he's crazy in any way.

And then at the end of the election, it was, well, actually, this guy's pretty radical, and he's got a bunch of crazy policies. Trump right now needs to be defining every one of the Democrats. Like, I wouldn't mind if he went out there and gave nicknames to 25 Democrats tonight. Crazy Cory Booker.

You just want to be entertained. Well, yes. That's the point in the real. Please. Are you not entertained? So the most entertaining thing that's happened to me today is that Emily, our director of marketing and audience development,

brought me a pitch. And I think it's a little too late this year, but we're going to circle back on this next year. It's a pitch for a Valentine's Day card. On the front, it says, facts don't care. You open it, but I do. Happy Valentine's on the Ben Shapiro show. And I feel like we're going to make millions of dollars. It actually has a human heart, not like a cute red heart, but an actual human heart. And as I looked at it, I thought, would I actually want to receive this? And then I remembered Sherry's Barry's, who sent me some.

amazing strawberries last week, and I thought, nah, we're not going to make any money. Got to give your valentine money to share it. I ate cherries berries before they became a sponsor, and they're, like, insane. They are some of the best things ever. As you know, I keep kosher, and that means that a lot of the products that I endorse, I talk about how much people in the office enjoy them,

because I can talk about that, because I'm not eating them. Sherrysberries sent me a bunch of kosher stuff. Oh, my. It's unbelievable. I know. I know. I know. I mean, we had some of their cookies, and we had some of their caramel.

It's the greatest stuff, legitimately. Like my wife immediately, we went to somebody's house the next day for lunch, and we forgot to bring a gift. And so she's like, well, you know what we should do? We should order them some Sherry's berries and have them send it to their house. She'd only heard about it the day before because it is just unbelievable. How do they grow those strawberries? They're the size of, like, pumpkins. Well, you're never going to go wrong with their signature dipped Valentine's strawberries.

They're dipped in milk, dark, or white, chocolatey goodness for any discerning palate. She's going to fall in love with every single bites. If you want to get her something great for Valentine's Day, instead of the drugstore sushi that you got her last year, Instead, you should try some sherry's berries. Always fresh, always tasty, always worth the weight. They arrive fresh with 100% Sherry's berries guarantee. They ship anywhere nationally. So give sweet somethings to your long distance, love.

Send her to the Valentine's gift of her dreams at the price of your dreams, starting at just 1999, plus shipping and handling. So you're not spending a lot of money and you look like you actually care, which is my favorite thing, right? Plus order now and make this Valentine's really special. By getting double the berries for just $10 more. Go to berries.com, click on the microphone, and enter promo code Daily Wire, at checkout. That is B-E-R-R-I-E-S.com. Click the microphone, enter promo code, DailyWire at checkout. Go order today. They really are spectacular. I mean, as I say, like, I cannot speak more highly of

the chocolatey goodness that is Sherry's Barry's. You know, I got to tell you. I got to tell you, I love that drugstore sushi. Swindler-L-Liesa every year. That's how I know she really loves me. I spent the last four months trying to get them as sponsors on the show. There it goes. Drugstore sushi is gone. I'm never going to get back. So here's my actual big question. We all know what Trump's going to say tonight, and it's going to be pretty blase. Because it's the state of the union address. First of all, note, quick show of hands.

Who hates the state of the union address and thinks it's garbage? Just as a general rule. There we go. Hang on, hang on. Spoiler alert. Fast forward to the next Democratic presidential administration. Show of hands. Who hates the state of the union address?

No question. But I don't hate it on principle. That's what you're asking. I'm not talking about like Trump giving it or Obama giving it. I hate it. It's a monarchical garbage institution. The president of the United States is not the king. He is not a prince.

He is not a potentate. Him descending into the chamber to the cheers of the legislature. And then people worshipping at his altar, taking selfies with him. And then the Supreme Court sitting there, an independent branch of government, sitting there and in past years having president rail of them in front of them and lie about them, which is what Obama did in front of the Supreme Court at last year. It's stupid. It is backwards.

It is something instituted by Woodrow Wilson, which in and of itself, means it's terrible. If Woodrow Wilson had a dog, no one should have a dog. Woodrow Wilson is one of the worst people ever walked to serve. He was certainly the worst president. But this is true. No one had done the State of the Union for 100 or something years, except for George Washington. He gave a

State of the Union address. And then Jefferson did the best thing. Jefferson was like, nope. Let me tell you, if something is good for Washington and bad for Jefferson, I love it. I'm in. Sign me. But it's also good for Woodrow Wilson, which means it's bad for everyone. So I have two questions. Will Ruth Bader Ginsburg be there? And two, is she alive? And if she's there, will she be alive? She's never gone to a Republican state

the union address, I believe. This is amazing. She only attends if a Democrat is a person. People don't talk about this. She's not partisan though. She's a completely objective, law-abiding justice, not a partisan half in anyway. She's the notorious R.BG. How dare you, sir?

How dare you? If anything, she's a moderate. That's what I've heard. It is astounding. She is undoubtedly, undoubtedly, the most nakedly partisan Supreme Court justice in modern history, and they end up painting Clarence Thomas or Scalia. That's her or Ginny Thomas. The real problem is Tom.

his wife is part of it right that's really the issue but in any case the so the institution itself is bad but the original question i was going to ask is what do you expect from the response because that's more interesting to me i think trump is going to come out he'll give his unity speech some people might yell or something he'll do his thing where he points to the random folks in the rafts there's bob bob bob is suffered look at bob bob and then bob just sits there and cries and somebody hands him a hand of a hand for bob don't we all we all yeah hand of a round of And then that's exactly what it'll be. I do have to note, it is amazing trollery that the one person who is bullied who he could think to bring to the state of the union dress is Joshua Trump.

It's just spectacular. I was desperately hoping that it would actually be like, and you know who's been the most bullied man in the United States? John Miller. And then they just cut up there and there's a cut out of Trump with a mustache. It would be incredible. But tonight, Stacey Abrams is giving the response. And that I find more interesting because Stacey Abrams ran a competitive race in Georgia, specifically because she did not run a wildly intersectional race.

She did well in suburban Atlanta, basically, because she was running on kind of almost Bill Clinton-esque policies, like the idea was that she was a moderate, who was trying to bring people together. She was doing the unity theme. And then she wrote a piece for foreign affairs. I don't know if you guys saw it, about intersectionality, why intersectionality is wonderful,

why we need to be doing American politics on the basis of group identity. And so I think tonight she's going to go hard to the left. I agree she's going to go very hard to the left. She's going to say, I would not be surprised if tonight she's strutely. straight out calls Trump a racist. If she says, you know, there's a serious problem of racism in America, as we're seeing in Virginia, as we see in the White House every day. With that Republican Governor

Northam with that right. And it's interesting, too, that, I mean, typically the response always gets bad reviews because it's just very hard. They preemptively. But exactly, how are they going to give bad reviews to a black woman? They cannot do it. Yeah, they're already writing. I mean, if you've read the, I mean, she's not even given the speech or probably written it, right? And they were writing things about how great it was going to be preemptively. Really? Who's doing that? I mean, it was like the Washington Post, like, people, Stacey Abrams, it's going to be incredible guys.

Like, just to wait, it's going to be incredible. They've already pre-written their reviews. It's like before Oscar season, whatever is the most SJW film. And nobody's actually seen the film. Right, of course. It's like, that's how Shape of Water ends up winning an Oscar. No one actually watches the film. Because if you spent five minutes with that film,

aside from the greatest and most world famous ball actress, Nick Searsie. It is legitimately one of the, I think it is the worst film I have ever seen in my entire life. You just don't like Fishman. You have a thing about it. I got to say, you know, it's anti-fishmen. I'm really not into fish. I'm not a fischophile.

No, you're not into sleeping with the fish. You're piscien phobia. I don't like sleeping with the fishes. It's not a thing. I don't think that means what you think it means. Yeah, I think that we're going to see the left tonight is going to give us the tone of what the next election is going to look like, right? So we're going to hear this hard tack to the left coming from the rebuttal.

We're going to hear an even harder tack to the left coming from Bernie. Sanders in the rebuttal to the rebuttal? The racist rebuttal. The racist rebuttal. That's right. The pudding rebuttal. He's kind of finished Sanders. He's got wrong. He's done. Well, they basically in 2016, they basically declared that he was never going to win another minority vote, and now they have

created this narrative that he'll never win another minority vote, so they can make way for Kamala Harris and Corey Booker. Yeah, yeah. I can tell you. Because the dream was never to win an election. The dream is to recapture not the Obama-08 coalition, the Obama-12 coalition. That's the one they care about. Because the 0-8 coalition,

was Obama, like it or not, his basic message was appealing to the better angels of our nature. That's what he was trying to do, right? It was, I completely agree. It wasn't, not red America, not blue America, we're all Americans, right? It was that routine. And then by 2012, it was, we're black Americans and we're white Americans. We don't like each other. You should vote for me.

And that was his routine. And so they were campaigning. No politician in the modern era has had a greater opportunity to do good in the world than Barack Obama. This struck me. I said this to you on the day the northern scandal broke. I said, imagine a country where, let's say there was a Republican governor for sake of example. And the Republican governor had a picture like Northam. And it happened during Obama's tenure.

And Obama had come out and said, listen, we are a country of forgiveness. About a Republican governor. We're a country of forgiveness. And we understand that context change. Sometimes people do things that are stupid. It doesn't mean that they're vicious racist. It means they're ignorant. And it means that they're educated and we get better as a country.

And in the light of that, we have to look at the compendium of a man's life. life and determine whether that person ought to be condemned around the virtue of being true right which all of which would be true but he could have been the one to say it as a black man right he could have right he could have said as a black man we have to be a country of forgiveness he could as a black man with a white mother raised by white grandparents who did their best i have i more than anyone have seen the capacity of a man to try to correct historic wrong but they were typically white that was and that was the problem with Obama is that he decided in 2012 and really as soon as he became president that it was more important for him to win on the back of polarizing racial rhetoric than it was for him to actually bring the country

together. What I observed when he was doing was that his policies, you know, Obama was a guy who didn't know what he didn't know, and all his policies failed. Everything he did failed. Every single thing he did went bad. And that's when he really went hard, I think, on the cops and the, but that started from the beginning. Henry Lewis Gates was 2009. So I think that what happened is that he got into office and he came in with 85% approval rating. And he thought my whole life in politics. It's been pretty easy, right? I've basically sailed from victory to victory. I've never lost. I haven't shown up to my votes. Right, and they made me president, for God's sake, right? With a sweeping victory over a

national war hero, right, who was eight years ago hailed as the savior of the Republican party in John McCain, the Maverick. And I just walked all over the guy by doing nothing, basically. And here I am. And here's a bunch of my policies. Why can't we all just get behind my policies? And I think that within the first month, after he started proposing the auto bailouts, and after he started talking about the stimulus programs, and there was backlash, I think that he went, oh, well, I guess I'm not going to be able to do this anymore. And at that point, if you'd been a better man, if you've been a better person,

what he would have said is people don't like my policies, and we can have legitimate disagreements on policy without me maligning their character. And instead, what he did is they don't like my policies because they're racist. They don't like that. The Tea Party is a bunch of racists. The people who don't like Obamacare. And that's who he really was, though. I think that's how we always have been up in the moment. He was in Jeremiah Rice Church for 20 years.

Of course, that's who he was. But he masqueraded as something else. And that's why Trump was a response to that, and not a pretty response to that, by the way. Do you think, is there any well of optimism in you where you look at, we look at these eight years, Trump, Obama was an incredibly divisive, trollish president, worse in some ways than Trump. That's not as obvious. It's just not as obvious as Trump. And now we have this guy who is divisive no matter how you look at it.

He's very, you know, very harsh. His attitude, his affect is so harsh and divisive. Do you think there's anything in the American people? Like when I saw Harold Schultz, the coffee guy, I was thinking, you know, I don't. I don't think this is the time when a third party can win, but I think a third party can win. I think maybe not this election, but I think there's a time coming when people start to say,

you know, the people I disagree with, I live next door to them, they're not that bad, I'm sick of screaming at everybody, I'm sick of everybody screaming at me. Is there a time when the 70% of the people who kind of agree are gonna get together? Shultz is the wrong guy because the left won't vote for anybody

who is financially successful anymore. Really, I think that this is a thing. Like, if you're too financially successful, then they'll tear you down. But, I mean, AOC said that, that billionaire's existence is immoral. Well, I do love to, you know there's that internet meme where you see the guy who has to choose between two buttons

and then he's sweating because he can't choose between two buttons. So they should make that meme, except it's AOC, billionaires are immoral, and we need to tax billionaires to pay for my program, right? Because which one is it? But with all of that said, like, I agree with you that if there was somebody, I really think the, in really divided times, the only people who can win

and create a consensus around them, people who are members of institutions that are well-respected. One of the big problems we have right now is that all the institutions of America are no longer respected, meaning no one trusts the press, no one trusts the banks, no one trusts the banks, no one trusts the educational system, no one trusts the churches, no one trusts, no one trust the police even, there's still a certain level of well-spring of respect, is the military, and even there, the left has some mixed feelings about that, but let's say that General Stanley McChrystal were to run on a third-party ticket, and he were to say, listen, I think socialism is off the table, I'm not going to

begrudge success, and I think that America's a great country that we can come together around something, I think that he would probably draw 15% of Republicans, and I think that he'd probably draw 10% of Democrats. And I don't think that he'd win, but I think that he would win 15 to 20% of the vote overall. I think Schultz right now, running as a third-party candidate, would win somewhere between 7% and 10% of the vote. So Schultz would be much more dangerous. He's also has no charisma. He's much worse for Trump than he is for the Democrat. I don't think so. I don't think so. And the reason for that is because Trump's base is Trump's base, man. That base has been so locked in. Like, if you are planning on voting for Trump for re-election,

there is nothing that can happen that is going to dissuade you from voting for Trump. But you're talking about a 20% base. No, I'm talking about, I'm talking about Trump's base is solid. It is not 20%. His base is about 35% of the American bubble. Yeah, I don't think it goes any lower in that. I think that if you, and you can look at the polls in Iowa, because what they were showing was that, like,

when you match up Trump with Elizabeth Warren, it shows that he beats Elizabeth Warren in Iowa by 52 to 48. Now that was before we all learned that she's Native American. So maybe that changes the fact pattern. I don't like those Indians. But now that she's off the reservation, the polls make you. But it goes from 52, but when you add Schultz to the mix, when you add, that's not making fun of Native Americans, idiotic.

Media matters, that's called making fun of Elizabeth Warren. It's making fun of Americans are wonderful and historically victimized in the United States. Elizabeth Warren is a white woman. It was not historically victimized in the United States and claims credit of historical victimization for political purposes. Let me explain to you because you're... And for all the people who media matters will call. That's what I'm saying.

Okay, can I'm any clearer about this yet? Idiots. Okay, so with all that out of the way. Now, back to our story. When you add Howard Schultz to the polls, what it shows, that he wins 11% of the vote and Trump's margin goes from two, from 4% to 9%. So he is, he is taking a, because think of the battleground sector right now. The battleground sector is not the urban population. I'm not talking black. I'm talking about urban. I'm because urban white people also vote for Democrats. It's not the urban population, which is solidly democratic. It is not the rural population, which is solidly Trump. It is the suburban population, which swung heavily for the Democrats in 2018, which is why we got walloped in 2018.

That population looks at someone like Schultz, who is non-threatening, feels like a return to normalcy candidate, feels like, okay, well, like I look at Schultz and things are so crazy. I disagree with him on policy more than I disagree with Trump on policy. I look at Schultz and I go, he's saying some reasonable things. I agree. I'm not going to vote for him, but I look at him and he says things like, why are we begrudging success in this country? You know, I grew up poor, and I now run an $84 billion corporation, whatever it is. And that's great, because that's what America is. And we should stop beating each other over the head.

And I'm like, how is he the only person saying this? But he's an inspired. He is genuinely an inspiring figure in a totally backwards culture. So he grew up in the projects in Canarsie. He becomes the head of, I mean, he builds one of the great corporations, and it'll hurt him. It'll only hurt him. Yeah.

So one thing I don't know if the president will talk about tonight, but I think we all hope that he does, is the Second Amendment. We have, you know, this whole new crop of Democrat. Everybody who's running right now, basically, is running on some form of ultimately confiscation. Gun confiscation. I mean, it's the most radical gun positions we've ever heard from mainstream candidates. We have friends over at Bravo Company Manufacturing,

who I think are as good on these issues as anybody in the country. No question. Bravo Company Manufacturing was started in a garage by a Marine Veteran more than two decades ago to build a professional-grade product that meets combat standards. BCM believes the same level. of protection should be provided to every American, regardless of whether they're a private citizen or a professional. BCM is not a sporting arms company.

So when you hear me talk about the Second Amendment, I've always said, I don't own a gun to hunt because I don't hunt. I don't own a gun for sport shooting because I don't really do a lot of that and have time for it. I own it so that if someone comes into my house to do me harm, I can shoot them in the face, right? And if my rights are threatened, we can mobilize the society and stop the threatening of those rights, right?

No, I mean, if someone comes to my house, are getting shot in the face. In any case, whatever it takes to neutralize the threat. Okay, I'm not going to say where I'm aiming. How about that? In any case, B-CM, they believe that every rifle that comes out of their shop should be available to be used in a life-or-death situation. Every component of a BCM rifle is hand-assembled and tested by Americans to a life-saving standard, and they feel a moral responsibility to provide the tools that will not fail the user when it's not just a paper target,

but somebody coming to do you harm. To learn more about Bravo Company manufacturing, head on over to bravo company mfg.com. You can discover more about their product's special offers and upcoming news. That's bravo company, mfg.com. If you need more convincing, find out more about BCM at YouTube.com at YouTube.m at YouTube.mfg.com or YouTube.com slash bravo company, USA. I know the folks who run the company. They're really awesome folks. And again, these are people who are going to help save your life, God forbid, something should happen. So go check them out at bravo company, mfg.com.

Yeah. So we do have these subscribers, dailywire.com, subscribers who I don't think we do enough to say thank you to them. We have done one new thing. I do. I give them two additional hours a day. I was about saying, we have done one amazing thing for our subscribers of late, and that's the radio show, which for anyone watching who may not have tuned in since the last backstage, Ben is now doing a nationally syndicated radio show. That means two additional hours every single day of the Ben Shapiro show. And the only place you can get the show after its live broadcast on radio is at the DailyWire.com by becoming a subscriber.

The other thing you get to do, of course, if you're a subscriber, is ask us questions on this show. We have Alicia Krause. We'll be filled in your questions for you. We're going to take several during the hour after the State of the Union address. We want to hear from our subscribers. And I think we have time right now maybe to check them with the Alicia and see if we have a few questions ready for us.

Oh, we have some really, really important questions, including one from Louise, who wants to know, if you guys can all show your best moonwalks and let the audience rate it. Inappropriate circumstances. Other circumstances, I would. Would you pass this shoe polish over it? Not all circumstances are inappropriate. This circumstance.

I would say that around the office, Michael Moles is known for grabbing his crotch. Yeah, but I've never heard of this Michael Jackson fellow. Alicia, what's next? Kyle says that this question is for everybody. He wants to know, do you think the Democrats will come to the table and negotiate with President Trump on the border wall before this new shutdown deadline or not? Show of hands who thinks the Democrats are coming to the table to negotiate? I think there's a small chance.

Do you really? Yes. Because Drew's the most optimistic on planet Earth. You're so irritating, Drew. I'm sorry. Now I feel bad. No, it's a disaster.

I'm still hoping for your hair. Every day he wakes up in the morning. He says, maybe today's the day. My hair comes back. How did you know that? What is the narrow circumstances? The narrow circumstances that Nancy Pelosi loses control of the adults in the party

and the people who are on the committee are not so bad that they might be. It's a small chance. She is the adults in the party now. That's the thing. She's the adult in the party, right? Just by age, me. No, I mean, I mean, even by temperament. Like, the new, the new fresh faces of the Democratic Party, so fresh, so face.

You know, Rashida Talaim and Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, they're fully... The cat calling is out of control tonight. They're fully crazy. Okay, these are crazy people. They're openly anti-Semitic. She had a call with Jeremy Corbyn two days ago. He's an anti-Semite. Like, not he doesn't hide it.

He, like, hangs out with Hamas. And then somebody tweeted her like, you know, you might want to check out his anti-Semitic back. Yeah, I'm happy to go check that out. I was like, give me. No, but Rashida Tlebe and Omar, Ilhan, Omar. They're going to be so busy wiping Israel off the map, but Nancy Pelosi can go go through with Trump.

Alicia, give us one more. Absolutely. Rob really wants to know a fashion question this evening. Where did Michael get the Gomez-Adams smoking jacket? Oh. And why has nobody seen Gomez-Adams? So I got this from my godmother, because only your godmother could ever buy you this sort of jacket. They don't make it anymore.

And I think it turns out, why? It's so weird. I mean, you think that you're rolling off the factory line, but it turns out, not a whole lot of demand. Off of which corpse did you get it? The one that's out there in our, the one out there in my studio? Nobody's seen Gomez-Adams since he got that chat. Alicia, give us one more.

A real serious one. It actually comes from Lawrence. It's pretty good. He asks about looking ahead to 2020. If you guys think that the Republicans win back all three branches, number one, can they win it all back in 2020? and if they do, will they take defunding Planned Parenthood more seriously now that they've seen how radical the left is? Michael, why don't you feel this since your last question was about your apparent?

How many times can I say no? I don't think we're going to win it all back in 2020. I don't think, unfortunately, the Republican Party has not taken seriously defunding Planned Parenthood. I think there's a really perverse incentive here, which is that it's a great fundraiser, it's a great issue that you can run on defunding Planned Parenthood. if they wanted to do it, if the political will were there, they would have done it. And I think the momentum is moving in the pro-life direction. But you forget, I've worked on campaigns in New York, Republican campaigns.

There are a lot of Republicans out there who don't want to defund Planned Parenthood. And maybe as our politics gets more polarized, maybe sometime way in the future, there's a chance, but I'm not holding my breath for any of that. Yeah, this is right. I mean, first of all, it's important to look at the actual Senate map. So the Senate map in the last election cycle was very positive to Republicans, which is where Republicans maintain the majority in pick up. up a seat. The next Senate map is not good for Republicans. The next Senate map has a lot more

Republicans than Democrats who are up for re-election. And that means that there is a much stronger chance that the Democrats actually take the Senate than there is that Republicans gain seats in the Senate. And again, a lot of that is going to be dependent on President Trump down ballot. And if Trump gets blown out, then it's going to be an awful, awful term. I mean, if Trump gets blown out, and you have the possibility of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, Kamala Harris as president and Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader. And honestly, things are going to get so ugly, so quickly, because here's the, Jeremy and I had been talking about this for a while.

And Jeremy's theory was basically the Democrats thought they were never going to lose again. And one of the reasons they're so angry about Trump, because they figured they had built this, this cohesive, durable coalition of minority groups that were going to carry them to victory. It was a growing minority, majority country, and all of this. And then Trump stopped that. And once you built, and now it's just pressure building up behind the dam. And if the dam goes, the speed is going to be, the velocity is going to be incredible. The amount of particularly anti-religious bigotry that's going to be unleashed.

If the Democrats take back all three, both branches of the legislature and the executive and then reshape the judiciary to meet their needs, I mean, if Ruth Bader Ginsburg is able to make it through Trump's term, and then the next justice to go, and then the next justice to go aside from Ginsburg is somebody like, God forbid Tons, and the balance of power shifts on the court again, back to the left. and Democrats have unified control of all through branches of government. I mean, I'm not sure the country is savable at that point, really, because I do wonder whether it'll be impossible for religious people to live in the state of California, whether we all have to move,

whether it is possible for people with high income to live in any place around the coasts. But I'm mostly worried about religious folks, because rich people will find a way to live. Yeah, they always do. But religious people, I mean, I'm deeply concerned about this. I don't blame you on this. What I saw in, like, as a religious person, what I saw in the state of New York,

where they just passed this anti-gay conversion therapy law that's not actually about gay conversion therapy. That law actually says in there that if you bring your child to a therapist who discusses with them sexual identity, then that person can be prosecuted. And even if the person says, I want to change. Right.

And it's not even about sexual orientation change therapy, which is controversial at best and a waste of time at most or damaging at most. We're talking about a seven-year-old goes in who's a boy and parents says, no, you're a girl, actually. And you go to a psychologist for this. That's illegal in the state of New York now. I mean, this is insanity.

And not only that, I think the chances that they start cracking down on religious institutions are 129%. And you see it with Karen Pence, right? They're already going after Karen Pence for having the temerity to go teach in a Christian school. It is a voluntary association supported by zero taxpayer dollars. And there's an article by Richard Cohen today saying that because Ralph Northam may have to step down as governor of Virginia over his yearbook photo 35 years ago, Mike Pence should have to step down as vice president of the United States, and Karen Pence should be ousted from polite society for having the temerity to teach you a Christian school. I should say, though, just a note of hope,

because that does sound pretty dark, I do think today, just looking at the Democrat field, I don't think we retake anything, but I do think President Trump stands a very good chance of re-election, not against a generic Democrat, but there's no such thing as a generic Democrat, and the leaders right now, I don't think can beat them. Let's ballpark it. I mean, what percentage do you think? I mean, I know. Listen, it's early. None of these numbers are fungible. By the way, and events change everything. By the way, for the people who are tuning in at home, we're getting very close to the arrival of President Trump in the House chamber.

We just saw the justices of the Supreme Court taking their seats, and for anyone who was taking bets at home, the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not among them. Actually, only four of them are right. So Clarence Thomas didn't show up. It's Kagan, it's Roberts, it's Kavanaugh and it's Gorsuch. Those are the only four who showed up. Everybody else stayed home because they had better things to do, unlike us.

They're not getting paid by subscribers. I literally had something better to do. It's my birthday. I know, subscribe just to support this Dan on his birthday. My goodness. I mean, we're here working our fingers to the bone and drinking ourselves into oblivion just for you. The least you can do.

It's been $9.99 a month to subscribe. We're $99 a year where you can get the finest in beverage vessels. I do want to say one thing because I'm the only person here who doesn't work for you. And so I think, therefore, I'm the only person who can say this with sincerity. I think you single-handedly change the abortion conversation in America over the last three weeks. I think you did your podcast from the March for Life.

A million people listen to the podcast, making it the most coverage that the March for Life has gotten in at least the last decade. And I think probably in the last 20 years. And there was this immediate pushback from the left. They usually like to ignore abortion and in particular ignore the March for Life. But they saw the kind of spotlight that you were able to bring to that event. they immediately had to pounce and prove just how radical they are on abortion, which I think is such a winning issue for us. So, I mean, I really think this may be the most consequential political thing that you've done in your career. I mean, I certainly hope so because I think it's the most important issue that there is in America.

You know, I really believe, you know, Thomas Jefferson wrote about slavery that he trembles when he thinks that God's justice cannot sleep forever. And that's exactly how I feel about abortion. I agree with you. I agree with you. The fact that God has held out his judgments on us in a country where we're killing a million babies here, you know, God is a merciful being, but that mercy cannot be held off forever. And by the way, nor should it be if we continue this nonsense. And it also is just the underlying philosophy that allows people who are not insane, who are not themselves psychopathic, to go forward and say that you should be able to kill babies

the moment before they're born or the moment after. Yeah, this is a psychopathic. You know, I remember watching a movie about... The first lady, by the way, walking into the house chamber now and greeting people on her way to her seat, so we're getting very close. We are seeing a bunch of Democrats who are dressed in white, as Drew mentioned earlier. Last time there's many, Democrats were dressed in white. They were worried that.

You know, I remember watching a movie about the Tuscahigi Airmen, the black air court, and this actor was playing a senator who was slinging racial slurs. And my daughter came in and said, is this guy insane? And I said, no, the idea was insane. You can have a psychopathic idea that turns sane people into madmen. And I think that this is the abortion thing in front of us in real time. Well, thank you for the compliment. And also, back to, I am interested in hearing kind of your ballpark figure.

If you had to put odds on Trump being reelected, say out of 100%, what percentage re-election do you think? What do you think, Knowles? It's over 50% right now, judging by the leading characters. If a really good candidate, you know, Beto O'Rourke is an example of a very charismatic candidate. I'm sure he can do really well on the ground in places like Pennsylvania. But I think Beto's blowing himself out. I think his self-obsession and that that diary that he's, you know, wrote about himself.

That was tremendous. Traveling around Texas, gazing at the stars, thinking to myself, man, skateboarding is rad. But if you've got a really good candidate, I think they could play, you know, a candidate could play well

in Pennsylvania, Michigan, wherever, then you'd have a really good chance. I just don't trust them to do it. They've driven themselves so wild. They've driven themselves so left. I don't see Kamala Harris beating him. I don't see really any of the others. It is an interesting question in this.

moment can a Democrat capable of winning the primaries win the general? I mean, where are you on this? I'm pretty much where Knowles is. I think right this minute, events are going to change everything, you know, all kinds of candidates. Right, we're saying if the election were held today. But if the election, I think he's over 50 percent. I think he's got a 55 percent chance of winning right this minute, yeah. Yeah, I actually, I think he has a 100 percent chance of winning and a 100 percent

chance of losing, and I realize that that's a pretty cheeky, pretty cheeky thing to say. But what I really mean is that we're, we are so through the looking glass politically right now. I've been saying for over a year, we're post-prediction because... Well, that's right. Because the reality of the country and the perception of the country about itself are both in such an elevate, heightened state at the moment. You don't know are people going to vote on the basis of reality, on the basis of perception of reality, or on the basis of virtue signaling about themselves. And because I can't actually figure out from,

because I think it changes from moment to moment, what the driving need of the American electorate is today, it isn't need like, I mean, we're the richest people who've ever lived, we're perfectly secure in a time of peace, things, reality, things are actually quite the real. The kind of emotional hole that we need to fill at the time. That's right. And so with that in mind, I literally think anything could have.

We live in the timeline where all things are possible. I agree with that because what I really think is we do not know who we are. And I think that's what's happening right now. We've lost our way. I wouldn't say that. I think who we are has changed and we haven't quite figured out what has changed too. So for the pessimistic view of the situation, what I will say is that suburban, right, who could have predicted? Suburban women hate Trump.

They really hate Trump. The Republicans did show up to vote in 2018 and they got blown out by nine points in the House races. You know, I think that Trump, look, you could hit a weird news cycle. You could hit a Kavanaugh news cycle right during the election, and Trump could squeak to victory. I don't see a sweeping victory for Trump because I think there are just too many states that are off the table. Democrats are starting with 230 electoral votes or something. So I think that the idea that he wins some grand sweeping victory is nonsense. It is easier to see a sweeping victory for Democrats than it is for Republicans.

Things go wildly wrong. The economy goes down, and Trump loses Florida. He loses Georgia. He loses Arizona. He starts running competitive. in Iowa. Like it's interesting to watch as certain states move more into the red and certain states move more toward blue. Like Colorado was a purple state, now it's a blue state. Arizona is moving toward a blue state pretty quickly. Iowa is moving more red, and so is Ohio,

which is really kind of interesting. It charts really well with non-college educated white population, actually. But with all of that said, I'd have to put the odds for Trump in no better than 35% right now. Just because he is, who has not made their mind up about this man? In 2016, everyone made the mistake of thinking that the election was a referendum on Donald Trump because he was the one who was sucking all the oxygen out of the room. And it ended up not being a referendum on Trump. It ended up being a referendum on Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump performed exactly like generic Republican.

He won nearly the same percentage as Mitt Romney in virtually every state. And he won because it was a referendum on Hillary. People decided they didn't like Hillary. The Comey letter broke a week before the election. People decided we're just not going to show up for her and we think she's going to win anyway. So why would we possibly show up for her? That referendum on Hillary paid off to his benefit. The question in 2020 is, is it a referendum on him or on the Democrat?

When you're in the incumbent, it's usually a referendum on you. But it's also possible. This is why I say, I keep saying this over and over, but it's actually true. Like if people around him have the capacity to shut him up for a year and a half, then we can have a referendum on the Democrat, which is what you want. You want a referendum on Kamala Harris. You want a referendum on whomever it is, they nominate. But if it's a referendum on Trump, I think that he loses.

We also have to face down the Miller investigation, which we're probably on the brink of having answers about that. It does live in nothing, by the way. It does live between here and there. So we're going to, I think it's time to go and hear from the president. We're going to be listening and we'll be joining everybody back one hour from now or at the end of the speech, one eternity for now. Next year. Next year. With our thoughts, here's the president. Thank you very much. Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans, we meet tonight at a moment of unlimited potential. As we begin a new Congress, I stand here ready to work with you to achieve historic breakthroughs for all Americans.

Millions of our fellow citizens are watching us now gathered in this great chamber, hoping that we will govern not as two parties, but as one nation. The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda. It's the agenda of the American people. Many of us have campaigned on the same core promises to defend American jobs and demand fair trade for American workers, to rebuild and revitalize our nation's infrastructure, to reduce the price of health care and prescription drugs, to create an immigration system that is

safe, lawful, modern, and secure, and to pursue a foreign policy that puts America's interest first. There is a new opportunity. opportunity in American politics if only we have the courage together to seize it. Victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our country. This year, America will recognize two important anniversaries that show us the majesty of America's mission and the power of American pride. In June, we mark 75 years since the start of what General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the Great Crusade,

the Allied liberation of Europe in World War II. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 15,000 young American men jumped from the sky and 60,000 more stormed in from the sea to save our civilization from tyranny. Here with us tonight are three of those incredible heroes. Private First Class Joseph Riley, Staff Sergeant Irving Locker and Sergeant Herman Zycheck. Gentlemen, we salute you.

In 2019, we also celebrate 50 years since brave young pilots flew a quarter of a million miles through space to plant the American flag on the face of the moon. Half a century later, we are joined by one of the Apollo 11 astronauts who planted that flag, Buzz Aldrin. Thank you, Buzz. This year, American astronauts will go back to space on American rockets.

In the 20th century, America saved freedom, transformed science, redefined the middle class, and when you get down to it, there's nothing anywhere in the world that can compete with America. We must step boldly and bravely into the next chapter of this great American adventure. and we must create a new standard of living for the 21st century. An amazing quality of life for all of our citizens is within reach.

We can make our community safer, our family stronger, our culture richer, our faith deeper, and our middle class bigger and more prosperous than ever before. But we must reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good. Together we can break decades of political stalemate. We can bridge all divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new coalitions, forge new solutions, forge new solutions, and unlock the extraordinary promise of America's future. The decision is ours to make. We must choose between greatness or gridlock,

results or resistance, vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction. Tonight, I ask you to choose greatness. Over the last two years, my administration, two years, my administration has moved with urgency and historic speed to confront problems neglected by leaders of both parties over many decades. In just over two years since the election, we have launched an unprecedented economic boom, a boom that has rarely been seen before.

There's been nothing like it. We have created 5.3 million new jobs, an important added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs, something which almost everyone said was impossible to do. But the fact is, we are just getting started. Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades, and growing for blue-collar workers, who I promised to fight for, they're growing faster than anyone else thought possible. Nearly five million Americans have been lifted off food stamps. The U.S. economy is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office. And we are considered far and away the hottest economy anywhere in the world, not even close.

Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in over half a century. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Unemployment for Americans with disabilities has also reached an all-time low. Are working now than at any time in the history of our country, 157 million people at work. We passed a massive tax cut for working families and doubled the child tax credit. We virtually ended the estate tax or death tax, as it is often called, on small businesses, for ranches, and also for family farms. We eliminated the very unpopular Obamacare individual mandate penalty. and to give critically ill patients access to life-saving cures, we passed, very importantly,

right to try. My administration has cut more regulations in a short period of time than any other administration during its entire tenure. Companies are coming back to our country in large numbers, thanks to our historic redact. reductions in taxes and regulations. And we have unleashed a revolution in American energy. The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.

And now, for the first time, in 65 years, we are a net exporter of energy. 24 months of rapid progress, our economy is the envy of the world. Our military is the most powerful on earth by far. And America, America is again winning each and every day. Members of Congress, the state of our union is strong. That sounds so good. Our country is and our economy is thriving like never before. On Friday it was announced that we added another three hundred and four thousand jobs last month alone, almost double the number expected.

An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations. If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn't work that way. We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries abroad. This new era of cooperation can start with finally confirming the more than 300 highly qualified nominees who are still stuck in the Senate, in some cases, years and years waiting, not right.

The Senate has failed to act on these nominations, which is unfair to the nominees and very unfair to our country. Now is the time for bipartisan action. believe it or not, we have already proven that that's possible in the last Congress. Both parties came together to pass unprecedented legislation to confront the opioid crisis, a sweeping new farm bill, historic VA reforms, and after four decades of rejection, we passed VA accountability so that we can finally terminate those who mistreat our wonderful veterans. And just weeks ago, both parties united for groundbreaking criminal justice reform. They said it couldn't be done.

Last year, I heard through friends the story of Alice Johnson. I was deeply moved. In 1997, Alice was sentenced to life in prison as a first-time nonviolent drug offender. Over the next 22 years, she became a prison minister, inspiring others to choose a better path. She had a big impact on that prison population and far beyond. Alice's story underscores the disparities and unfairness that can exist in criminal sentencing and the need to remedy this total injustice. She served almost that 22 years and had experienced. expected to be in prison for the remainder of her life.

In June, I commuted Alice's sentence. When I saw Alice's beautiful family, greet her at the prison gates hugging and kissing and crying and laughing, I knew I did something right. Alice is with us tonight, and she is a terrific woman. Terrific. Alice, please. Alice, thank you for reminding us that we always have the power to shape our own destiny. Thank you very much, Alice. Thank you very much. Inspired by stories like Alice's, my administration worked closely with members of both parties to sign the First Step

Act into law. Big deal. It's a big deal. This legislation reformed sentencing laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed the African-American community. The First Step Act gives nonviolent offenders the chance to reenter society as productive, law-abiding citizens. Now, states across the country are following our lead. America is a nation that believes in redemption. We are also joined tonight by Matthew Charles from Tennessee. In 1996, at the age of 30, Matthew was sentenced to 35 years for selling drugs and related offenses.

Over the next two decades, he completed more than 30, Bible studies became a law clerk and mentored many of his fellow inmates. Now Matthew is the very first person to be released from prison under the First Step Act. Thank you, Matthew. Welcome home. Now, Republicans and Democrats must join forces again to confront an urgent national crisis. Congress has 10 days left to pass a bill that will fund our government, protect our homeland, and secure our very dangerous southern border.

Now is the time for Congress to show the world that America is committed to ending illegal immigration and putting the ruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers, and human traffickers. out of business. As we speak, large, organized caravans are on the march to the United States. We have just heard that Mexican cities, in order to remove the illegal immigrants from their communities, are getting trucks and buses to bring them up to our country in areas where there is little border protection. I have ordered another 3,750 troops to our southern border to prepare for this tremendous onslaught. This is a moral issue.

The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial well-being of all America. We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens. This includes our obligation to the millions of immigrants living here today who followed the rules and respected our laws. Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways. I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally. Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country. No issue better illustrates the divide between America's working class and America's politics. political class, then illegal immigration.

Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards. Meanwhile, working class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal immigration, reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools, hospitals that that are so crowded you can't get in, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net. Tolerance for illegal immigration is not compassionate.

It is actually very cruel. One in three women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north. Smugglers use migrant children as human pawns, to exploit our laws and gain access to our country. Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women

into the United States and to sell them into prostitution and modern-day slavery. Tens of thousands of thousands of innocent Americans are killed by lethal drugs that cross our border and flood into our cities, including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. The savage gang, MS-13, now operates in at least 20 different American states, and they almost all come through our southern border. Just yesterday, an MS-13 gang member was taken into custody for a fatal shooting on a subway platform in New York City.

We are removing these gang members by the thousands, but until we secure our border, they're going to keep streaming right back in. Year after year, countless Americans are murdered by criminal illegal aliens. I've gotten to know many wonderful angel moms and dads and families. No one should ever have to suffer the horrible heartache that they have had to endure. Here tonight is Deborah Bissell. Just three weeks ago, Deborah's parents, Gerald and Sharon, were burglarized and shot to death in their Reno, Nevada home by an illegal alien. They were in their 80s and are survived by four children, 11 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren. Also here tonight are Gerald and Sharon's granddaughter, Heather, and great-granddaughter,

Madison. To Deborah, Heather Madison, please stand. Few can understand your pain. Thank you, and thank you for being here. Thank you very much. I will never forget, and I will fight for the memory of Gerald and Sharon. that it should never happen again. Not one more American life should be lost

because our nation failed to control its very dangerous border. In the last two years, our brave ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of criminal aliens, including those charged or convicted of nearly one 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 killings or murders. We are joined tonight by one of those law enforcement heroes, ICE Special Agent Elvin Hernandez. When Elvin was a boy, he and his family legally immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. At the age of eight, Elvin told his dad he wanted to become a special agent.

Today, he leads investigations into the squirt of international sex trafficking. Elvin says that if I can make sure these young girls get their justice, I've really done my job. Thanks to his work, and that of his incredible colleagues, more than 300 women and girls have been rescued from the horror of this terrible situation. And more than 1,500 sadistic traffickers have been put behind bars.

We will always support the brave men and women of law enforcement, and I pledge to you to you tonight that I will never abolish our heroes from mice. Thank you. My administration has sent to Congress a common sense proposal to end the crisis on the southern border. It includes humanitarian assistance, more law enforcement, drug detection at our ports,

closing loopholes that enable child smuggling, and plans for the future. for a new physical barrier or wall to secure the vast areas between our ports of entry. In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall, but the proper wall never got built. I will get it built. This is a smart, strategic, see-through steel barrier,

not just a simple concrete wall. It will be. deployed in the areas identified by the border agents as having the greatest need. And these agents will tell you where walls go up, illegal crossings go way, way down. San Diego used to have the most illegal border crossings in our country. In response, a strong security wall was put in place. This powerful barracks. powerful barrier, almost completely ended illegal crossings. The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime, one of the highest in the entire country,

and considered one of our nation's most dangerous cities. Now, immediately upon its building, with a powerful barrier in place. El Paso is one of the safest cities in our country. Simply put, walls work, and walls save lives. So let's work together, compromise, and reach a deal that will truly make America safe. As we work to defend our people's safety, we must also ensure our economic resurgence continues at a rapid pace. No one has benefited more from a thriving economy than women who have filled 58% of the newly created jobs last year. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before.

Don't sit yet. You're going to like this. And exactly one century after Congress passed the Constitutional Amendment, giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in Congress than at any time before. That's great. Very great. And congratulations. That's great. As part of our commitment to improving opportunity for women everywhere, this Thursday, we are launching the first ever government-wide initiative focused on economic empowerment for women in developing countries.

To build on our incredible economic success, one priority is paramount, reversing decades of calamitous, trade policies, so bad. We are now making it clear to China that after years of targeting our industries and stealing our intellectual property, the theft of American jobs and wealth has come to an end. Therefore, we recently imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, and now our Treasury is receiving

billions and billions of dollars. But I don't blame China for taking advantage of us. I blame our leaders and representatives for allowing this travesty to happen. I have great respect for President Xi, and we are now working on a new trade deal with China. But it must include real structural change to end unfair trade practices.

reduce our chronic trade deficit and protect American jobs. Another historic trade blunder was the catastrophe known as NAFTA. I have met the men and women of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Hampshire, and many other states whose dreams were shattered by the signing of NAFTA. For years, politicians promised them they would renegotiate for a better deal, but no one ever tried until now. Our new U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, the U.S.MCA, will replace NAFTA and deliver for American workers like they haven't had delivered to for a long time. I hope you can pass the USMCA into law so that we can bring back our manufacturing jobs and even greater numbers, expand American agriculture, protect intellectual property, and ensure that more cars are proudly stamped with our four beautiful words made in the USA.

Tonight, I am also asking you to pass the United States Reciprocal Trade Act so that if another country places an unfair tariff on an American product, we can charge them the exact same tariff on the exact same product that they sell to us. Both parties should be able to unite for a great rebuilding of America's crumbling infrastructure. I know that Congress is eager to pass an infrastructure bill, and I am eager to work with you on legislation to deliver new and important infrastructure investment, including investments in the cutting-edge industries of the future. This is not an option. This is a necessity. The next major priority for me and for all of us should be to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs and to protect patients with pre-existing conditions. Already as a result of my administration's efforts in 2018, drug prices experienced their single largest decline in 46 years. But we must do more. It's unacceptable that Americans pay vastly

more than people in other countries for the exact same drugs often made in the exact same place. This is wrong. This is unfair. And together, we will stop it and we'll stop it fast. I am asking Congress to pass legislation that finally takes on the problem of global freeloading and delivers fairness and price transparency for American patients, finally. We should also require drug companies, insurance companies, and hospitals to disclose real prices, to foster competition and bring costs way down. No force in history has done more to advance the human condition than American freedom. In recent years, we have made remarkable progress in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once distant dream within reach. My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years. We have made incredible strides, incredible. Together, we will defeat AIDS in America and beyond. Tonight, I am also asking you to join me in another fight that all Americans, can get behind the fight against childhood cancer. Joining Melania in the gallery this evening is a very brave 10-year-old girl, Grace Elyne.

Every birthday, hi, Grace. Every birthday since she was four, Grace asked her friends to donate to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. She did not know that one day she might be a patient herself. That's what happened. Last year, Grace was diagnosed with brain cancer. Immediately she began radiation treatment. At the same time, she rallied her community and raised more than $40,000 for the fight against cancer.

When Grace completed treatment last year, fall, her doctors and nurses cheered. They loved her. They still love her, with tears in their eyes as she hung up a poster that read Last Day of Chemo. Thank you very much, Grace. You are a great inspiration to everyone in this room. Thank you very much. Many childhood cancers have not seen new therapies in decades. My budget will ask Congress for for $500 million over the next 10 years to fund this critical life-saving research. To help support working parents,

the time has come to pass school choice for American's children. I am also proud to be the first president to include in my budget a plan for nationwide paid family leave so that every new parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child. There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child

than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days. Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments from birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and their dreams with the world. And then we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term

abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother's womb. Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth. All children, born and unborn, are made in the holy image of God. The final part of my agenda is to protect a man. American security. Over the last two years, we have begun to fully rebuild the United States military with $700 billion last year and $716 billion this year. We are also getting other nations to pay their fair share. Finally. For years, the United States'

United States was being treated very unfairly by friends of ours, members of NATO. But now we have secured, over the last couple of years, more than $100 billion of increase in defense spending from our NATO allies. They said it couldn't be done. As part of our military buildup, the United States is developing a state-of-the-art missile defense system. Under my administration, we will never apologize for advancing America's interests. For example, decades ago, the United States entered into a treaty with Russia in which we agreed to limit and reduce our missile capability. While we followed the agreement and the rules to the letter, Russia repeatedly violated its terms.

It's been going on for many years. That is why I announced that the United States is officially withdrawing from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty or INF Treaty. perhaps we really have no choice. Perhaps we can negotiate a different agreement, adding China and others, or perhaps we can't, in which case we will outspend and out-innovate all others by far. As part of a bold new diplomacy, we continue our historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Our hostages have come home. Nuclear testing has stopped,

and there has not been a missile launch in more than 15 months. If I had not been elected President of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea. Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong-un is a good one. Chairman Kim and I will meet again on February 27th and 28th in Vietnam.

Two weeks ago, the United States officially recognized the legitimate government of Venezuela and its new president. Juan, we stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for, freedom, and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair. Here in the United States, we are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence and not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.

One of the most complex set of challenges we face and have for many years is the is in the Middle East. Our approach is based on principle realism, not discredited theories that have failed for decades to yield progress. For this reason, my administration recognized the true capital of Israel and proudly opened the American embassy in Jerusalem.

Our brave troops have now been fighting in the Middle East For almost 19 years in Afghanistan and Iraq, nearly 7,000 American heroes have given their lives. More than 52,000 Americans have been badly wounded. We have spent more than $7 trillion in fighting wars in the Middle East. As a candidate for president, I loudly pledged a new approach.

Great nations do not fight endless wars. When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria just two years ago. Today we have liberated virtually all of the territory from the grip of these bloods, bloodthirsty monsters. Now, as we work with our allies to destroy the remnants of ISIS,

it is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home. I have also accelerated our negotiations to reach, if possible, a political settlement in Afghanistan, the opposing side. is also very happy to be negotiating. Our troops have fought with unmatched valor, and thanks to their bravery, we are now able to pursue a possible political solution to this long and bloody conflict.

In Afghanistan, my administration is holding constructive talks with a number of Afghan groups, including the Taliban. As we make progress in these negotiations, we will be able to reduce our troops' presence and focus on counterterrorism, and we will indeed focus on counterterrorism. We do not know whether we'll achieve an agreement,

but we do know that after two decades of war, the hour has come to at least try for peace, and the other side would like to do the same thing. It's time. Above all, friend and foe alike must never doubt this nation's power and will to defend our people. Eighteen years ago, violent terrorists attacked the USS call, and last month, American forces killed one of the leaders of that attack. We are honored to be joined tonight by Tom Wibberley, whose son Navy Seaman Craig Wibberley, was one of the 17 sailors we tragically lost. Tom, we vow to always remember the heroes of the USS Cole.

Thank you, Tom. My administration has acted decisively to confront the world's leading state sponsor of terror, the radical regime in Iran. It is a radical regime. They do bad, bad things. to ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons, I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. We put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed by us on a country.

We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chance death to America and threatens genocene. against the Jewish people. We must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism or those who spread its venomous creed. With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs. Just months ago, 11 Jewish Americans were viciously murdered in an anti-Semitic attack

Semitic attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. SWAT officer Timothy Mattson raced into the gunfire and was shot seven times chasing down the killer. And he was very successful. Timothy has just had his 12th surgery, and he's going in for many more. but he made the trip to be here with us tonight. Officer Mattson, please.

Thank you. We are forever grateful. Thank you very much. Tonight we are also joined by Pittsburgh survivor, Judah Samet. He arrived at the synagogue as the massacre began, but not only did Judah narrowly escape death last fall, More than seven decades ago, he narrowly survived the Nazi concentration camps. Today is Judah's 81st birthday. They wouldn't do that for me, Judah.

Judah says he can still remember the exact moment nearly 75 years ago after 10 months in a concentration camp. When he and his family were put on a train and told they were. going to another camp. Suddenly, the train screeched to a very strong halt. A soldier appeared. Judah's family braced for the absolute worst. Then his father cried out with joy. It's the Americans. It's the Americans. Thank you. A second Holocaust survivor who was here tonight, Joshua Kaufman was a prisoner at Dachau. He remembers watching through a hole in the wall of a cattle car as American soldiers rolled in with tanks.

To me, Joshua recalls the American soldiers were proof that God exists and they came down from the sky. They came down from heaven. I began this evening by honoring three soldiers who fought on D-Day in the Second World War. One of them was Herman Zychik. But there is more to Herman's story. A year after he stormed the beaches of Normandy, Herman was one of the American soldiers who helped liberate Dachau.

He was one of the Americans who helped rescue Joshua from that hell on earth. Almost 75 years later, Herman and Joshua are both together in the gallery tonight, seated side by side, here in the home of American freedom. Herman and Joshua, your presence this evening is very much appreciated. Thank you very much. Thank you. When American soldiers set out beneath the dark skies over the English Channel in the early hours of D-Day, 1944, they were just young men of 18 and 19 hurtling on fragile landing craft toward the most. momentous battle in the history of war.

They did not know if they would survive the hour. They did not know if they would grow old. But they knew that America had to prevail. Their cause was this nation and generations yet unborn. Why did they do it? they do it? They did it for America. They did it for us. Everything that has come since, our triumph over communism, our giant leaps of science and discovery, our unrivaled progress towards equality and justice. All of it is possible thanks to the blood and tears and courage and vision

of the Americans who came before. Think of this capital. Think of this very chamber where lawmakers before you voted to end slavery, to build the railroads and the highways and defeat fascism, to secure civil rights and to face down evil empires.

Here tonight, we have to have to, legislators from across this magnificent republic. You have come from the rocky shores of Maine and the volcanic peaks of Hawaii, from the snowy woods of Wisconsin and the red deserts of Arizona, from the green farms of Kentucky and the golden beaches of California. Together, we represent the most extraordinary nation in all of history. What will we do with this moment?

How will we be remembered? I ask the men and women of this Congress look at the opportunities before us. our most thrilling achievements are still ahead. Our most exciting journeys still await. Our biggest victories are still to come. We have not yet begun to dream. We must choose whether we are defined by our differences or whether we dare

to transcend them. We must choose whether we squander our great inheritance or whether we proudly declare that we are Americans. We do the incredible. We defy the impossible. We conquer the unknown. This is the time to reignite the American imagination. This is the time to search for the tallest summit and set our sights on the brightest star. This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty and memory that link us together as citizens, as neighbors, as patriots. This is our future, our fate, and our choice to make.

I am asking you to choose greatness. No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come, we must go forward together. We must keep America first in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America's destiny. That one nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you very much. And that was the President of the United States. Round front, wrapping up his second State of the Union address, clocking in at like one hour, 30 minutes. It only felt like seven hours and 50 minutes. It had some moments, though. He did have moments.

I think that may have been, there were highs there that were the best he's ever been. I agree. Like, there were certain things that he did there that were the best he's ever been. And some of them were exactly the sort of hammer-like attacks that we were looking for. A couple moments stick out to me. Obviously, his declaration that America will not be socialist. which is great because Democrats still want to run away from that label rightly. So you can see Nancy Pelosi sort of softly clapping in the back.

Not too loudly, but a little bit softly. Washington Schultz actually standing ovation for that line. Yeah, that's right. And then the other moments that they came to mind, obviously the singing of happy birthday to the Holocaust Survivor and the Tree of Life Survivor and Trump doing his little conducting thing from the podium. But that's a great American moment. I mean, and it's a great American story, the following story about the Holocaust survivor next to the guy who helped liberate Dachau. That's an amazing, amazing thing.

And look, there's an unbelievable country. And when you come away feeling like it's a great country, the president did his job. So I think that those... The Americans are here is the line that you, the guy on the train is hearing. It's very inspiring. Right. And then obviously his move on abortion, which I wish he had spent a little bit more time on, but he went very hard on it for the time that he did spend.

And calling out Democrats on that issue was great. Now, my only problem, honestly, is that he buried the lead. I agree. Meaning all that stuff, all the best stuff was in the last 20 minutes. Like, you could have skipped the 45 minutes in the middle and just go on to the end. And that was the best stuff in the speech. You know, he did his immigration thing. We've heard the immigration thing before.

It's good for what it's worth, but he went long on it. And when he talked about the greatness of the economy and all of this, that's fine. I mean, the media aren't telling that story. It's worthwhile for him to tell that story. He did make a gambit that worked. He played to the egos of the idiots on the other side of the aisle by saying, oh, look at all these women members of Congress. And they got up and assured themselves. They wouldn't cheer low black unemployment,

low Hispanic unemployment. They wouldn't share record employment overall. They wouldn't even, they wouldn't share any of those things. But you tell them that lots of women are working and you guys are in Congress and they're standing up and cheering each other and giving each other a high-fives. I mean, it's just a not-just thing's in the highest word. Was there, then these Democrat congressmen

dancing and cheering themselves, forget everything else in the speech. It really, I can't imagine that's going to work. It's an unpopular opinion, but I hate all girl power nonsense. And it's for this reason. We live in a country where, you know, women have a probably better shot now at graduating college than men. They have more political power in terms of the voting electorate. There are more women in college than men. There are more women in college than men. And yet women cheer themselves in a way that would be so unbecoming if any other group of people, male, female, regardless of race. No one is allowed to celebrate themselves except women. And I'm with you. I thought it was a fairly disgusting display for these women. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not clap during the speech. In fact, there were times where she would stand as sort of the caucus would stand in support of.

She was trying to split the baby, but Democrats have been very good on that. But the one time that she's clapping is basically for her ascending power. She did miss a high-fi. There's nobody there. Maybe the story of her life, actually. Which is pretty great. Now, there were a couple of low points for Trump, I thought, during. the speech, I thought, obviously, his statements that, you know, the economy is great, and everything

will be great if we can pass legislation and no investigation. It was like this little side no right here. It was an actual stupid moment. It was a real misfire politically because even his own people were going, am I supposed to clap for that? I'm not supposed to fly. Do we know? Was it in the written speech? I think it was in the written speech. Really? I think it was. But it was a real, and I'm sure he insisted on it being in there, but it's a mistake because the entire speech is him flying over the top of a lot of these controversies. And then he just sort of dives right down to the middle of one to say, everything will be great if you leave me alone, which does it, which looks far too defensive. That was one moment that struck me as particularly bad. And the other moment that struck me as

particularly bad is when he was suggesting that we would be in the middle of a major war with North Korea, where not for his presence of the office, which of course is just absurdity on every level. You know, I certainly agree with you. I think the speech was built like a kind of a mountain. He got to the top of it. That last 20 minutes was fantastic. I can't help but notice, and I agree with you about the bad moments. The investigation thing was just like I kind of a clunky note, you know, and the thing about Korea was ridiculous. However, however, the story that he tells is not the story that the Democrats tell, and it is incredibly obvious and incredibly powerful that he is telling the story that this is a great country. And, you know,

the funny thing about that is it's almost corny when you say it, and it's, it has the kind of jingoistic sound. But this is a great country. I mean, it's an amazing country, and the things that have happened here have happened nowhere else. This is the pinnacle of human civilization on earth forever, forever. Never has life been as good as it is right at this moment. And the fact that we have a president who gets up and says that, after eight years of a president who is always kind of waffling around, apologizing to tyrants, always telling us we could be great. We might be great. We might someday, someday, if we could only follow his lead, we might achieve greatness. To have somebody sit there and say, you know what, we have been handed a torch. We've

been handed a flame of freedom that people died for from the very beginning. And it's our turn. and we have to do something about it, just to hear somebody talk like that. It's uplifting and it's beautiful. And, you know, I wish he could do it more. It cuts Stacey Abrams off the knees a little bit. So we're not going to be able to see her response because we don't have, we're not licensed to see her response apparently. But it cuts her off the knees because now if she comes out and she starts talking about

all the problems with America, it seems almost petty. Right. I mean, after he went out there and paid homage to World War II survivors. Moon landing. Moon landing and, and 10-year-old girls surviving cancer. And then if you have Stacey Abrams out there talking about what a problem, he is, and America is in a terrible place and all this stuff, it was a pretty feel-good speech.

So, you know, I think he accomplished his goal tonight, which I didn't think he was going to, and he did. Yeah, you know, I saw, I played this thing on my show today of Don Lemon, interviewing Gladys Knight, who sung the national anthem at the Super Bowl. And she said, you know, in my day, we sang the national anthem. We prayed when we went to school. She said things that everybody in this room would say and agree to. And Don Lemon said, aren't you going to hurt your career?

Aren't you worried you might hurt your career by singing the national anthem? He's talking to the empress of soul, not the queen of soul, the empress of soul. Don Lemon is telling her she's going to hurt her career at 74 because she sang the national anthem. That is the difference, and it's such a core difference, that even Donald Trump, for all the problems we have with them, can hit that note and really make it ring. This is why the woman power thing bothers me. It actually, it's a microcosm of the greater problem you're describing, which is that a country where women are the most successful they've ever been in history shouldn't be celebrating as though women are, like, finally, someone said, something nice about women, let's all celebrate, move in. But that's everything that the Democrats, every position they take is that.

That you stand in the most prosperous country that's ever existed, and you basically try to make the argument that people here are economically oppressed. You stand in the country that innovates the health care, that anyone on earth today getting a pill, it was innovated in America. Anyone on earth today getting a surgery, it was innovated in America. And you say that we have the worst health care system in the world. that they peddled this contra reality. And then they all buy into it and form a narrative around it.

And then they all celebrate as though they're... They legitimately... I think Don Lemon... I thought that's watching the Super Bowl. You're watching the Super Bowl, and they trot out all these civil rights activists from the 1950s and 1960s. You know, Dr. Bernardi's King and John Lewis and all these characters.

And I thought, you're having to trot out all these 70-year-old civil rights icons because there hasn't been a civil rights problem in this country. You can't find a 40-year-old civil rights icon because there aren't any, because there has been nothing to stand against. But this perception that's peddled by Don Lemon and all the people who couldn't stand during this speech is that, no, no, no, if anything, things are worse now.

You know, at least that... You know, it's amazing, it just occurred to me. When you watch that speech, you see all these Democrats, and they're constantly talking about, check your privilege of this, and check your privilege that. Here is the fact. Everyone who is born today is privileged.

Everyone who's born in the last 30, 40, 50 years in the United States, these are the most privileged human beings ever to walk the earth. So check your fucking privilege. Seriously, check your damn privilege. Like all these women who are dancing there, oh, look at us, we finally overcome.

You didn't overcome a damn thing. Your grandmother's overcame something. Your great-grandmothers overcame something. And that's really what the speech was about, when Trump was saying, when he was paying homage, half the people who is paying homage to are people who are over the age of 70. And he was saying, you know, our privilege is to be their grandkids.

Our privilege is to be their kids. They're the ones who did the heavy lifting. We're just here picking up the leftovers, and it's our job to push it on to the next generation. The one privilege that people will not recognize on the left is the privilege of having been born here and the privilege of standing on the shoulders of giants. They act as though the earth began spinning the moment they arrived here and that they've had to overcome such terrible burdens. Alexandra Ocasia-Cortez has not had to overcome a burden. We live in a country.

We live in a country. Neither have I, by the way. No, of course. Anyone who's living in the United States to get a, with very rare exceptions. There are some people who have to overcome burdens. We live in a country where a young woman in her 20s of Hispanic origin can go from being a bartender to a sitting United States congressman and complain about it. Right. Right.

And consider herself a victim. And say that she's not privileged. And then when she does acknowledge her privilege, her privilege is that she's a cisgender woman, as though that's the privilege. You know, the privilege is that you live in this country. The privilege is that you are who you are at a time that is, this time. And that's why when Trump said, this is what the left number understood about Trump's slogan, make America great again. It was never about this idea that America was ever at any point in the past a utopia. It was about the idea that the people who inhabited

America were infused with the idea of an American dream, that they were motivated by that idea. And if you want to make America great again, you have to get back to that idea that motivated people our grandparents to storm the shores of Normandy. Anybody in that chamber is storming the shores of Normandy? They're barely storming the shores of UC Berkeley. Yeah. This is the thing that makes this speech so jarring. Even for me in this culture, but especially for people on the left, is gratitude. We have utterly lost a sense of gratitude. It is nothing but pride and entitlement that people feel. And so he goes out and he says, thank you. Thank you for what you did, guy who stormed the beaches in Normandy. Thank you for what you did. And it's so, we're just not used to saying thank you anymore. And this guy, the billionaire. Who has not said thank you in his life. Right. And he really is embodying that. you know, we always have this joke between us about me being an optimist, but think of my life for a minute. I'm 152 years old.

I've never seen a major war. I've seen racism, and I've seen it disappear. It disappeared. It vanished, you know, it was gone. And I think it's, and not personal racism, that's always with us. But institutional racism, like, legal racism, yeah. Just erased. You know, I've seen all this stuff. I've never had to fight. I've never had to pick up a rifle. I've never had to do any of those things.

And I'm so grateful. I'd be a jerk if I weren't an optimist. And really, I think that that was the contrast. Who are the people who are standing up? Are you standing up to cheer the Holocaust survivor and the American soldier who liberated him? Or are you standing up to cheer yourself? Right. For doing legitimately nothing.

For doing nothing. For being born in the richest country, in the history of mankind, where nobody stood in your way, and where you were feeted for precisely the reasons that you are complaining about, where all of the attention you are getting is based upon the intersectional identity you say is oppressing you. Right?

Nobody would pay attention to Alexander Ocasio-Cortez or Rashida Talib, or any of the fresh faces of the Democratic Party, were they not members of minority intersectional groups? That is why they are receiving this attention. They're brand new Democratic Congress people who are white folks and they're not receiving that attention. Why? Because in this country right now, we are so sensitive to the fact that we've had a terrible history with a lot of various groups that now we're bending over backward to say that we're excited that we've, this is a sign that we've welcomed everybody in. And instead of people saying, you know what, that's amazing. What an incredible country, their answer is, yeah, yeah,

you know, F this country. This country, it's a terrible place, and it continues to be a terrible place, and we have to make the country not a terrible place by abandoning the central values that allowed me to be a 29-year-old bartender from Queens, who becomes the most celebrated congressperson in America. A country where no one loses their job on the basis of their race, where no one loses their job on the basis of their religion, where no one loses their job on the basis of their gender, and where, in fact, a person is immeasurably more likely to get a job on the basis of their gender, get a job on the basis of their... Only if you're licensed by the Texas State Bar, I believe that. But it is a good reminder. And again, it's the contrast that's the reminder.

Right? Whenever, whenever, when, like, if Trump had just said this in the Oval Office, we all would have been like, all right, but the fact that he was contrasting that with these Democrats who are playing victim at a time when they are not the victims, they are not the victims. And you know what? There's this concept in the military, obviously,

of stolen valor, people who pretend that they were, They were members in service when they were not. And then they are stealing the valor of people who actually went and fought and suffered and died and were wounded. Like they were working on refrigerators while they were in the army during the 1970s and not in Vietnam being killed. There is a level of stolen societal valor that is taking place right now. It's a really good point. A group of people in the United States who say that they are victims of a system that has not only not made them victims, but has made them famous in many cases rich and has made them prominent and has made them powerful.

and they are claiming victimhood on the level of the people who actually were victims, who were up there sitting in the rafters. And by the way, not all of whom are Republicans. I mean, people like John Lewis, Richard Talib and Ilhan Omar did not suffer. John Lewis suffered, okay? So if you want to stand there and say thank you to John Lewis, I'm with you, and I disagree with John Lewis about nearly everything.

But if you're going to pretend that the young, fresh faces of the Democratic Party are somehow that they've overcome a thing, you're going to have to explain me what they overcame. Like, really, I want to know, what did they overcome? But it also leaves out what you're not thinking about, when you're thinking about the injustices of the past, and we all agree that there were injustices in the past, there's no question about it. But when you're thinking about those,

you're not thinking about what you can contribute to the future. And I say this to college kids, and I'll say, like the black kids, I'll say, you know, people of your color were attacked by dogs in my lifetime, hosed in my lifetime. But the police, the police attacked them. You shouldn't be thinking about that because that's not going to happen to you. You should be thinking about, can I get to Mars,

can I cure cancer, can I do the next big thing? Because once you're mired in that, Once you have to pretend, that idea about stolen vows so true, once you have to pretend that you're a victim, you can't concentrate on what you can contribute, how can you can make the next generation. And if you're going to pay attention to that, pay attention to pay homage to the people

who made those policemen stop doing that. And also the people who were marching and who were actually sick on, the dogs were sick to hunt. I mean, to suggest that you are the equivalent, we are the new civil rights movement, we are the new civil rights marchers, we are the new anything.

You're not the new anything. You're not the new anything. Because the truth is the worst thing that you have going for you is some people disagree with you sometimes. That's the worst thing happening to you is that you say dumb things and people criticize you on Twitter for saying a dumb thing. And then they get banned. And then they get banned. Or you criticize the press for supposedly lying about you and they're not lying about you and then they praise you for it. In real rough life you lead.

I mean, that's the part that really is it is upsetting and it's galling. And if Democrats keep doing this routine and Trump speaks like he spoke tonight, they're going to have a lot more trouble in 2020 and they think they're going to have. And you're so right about the fact that if he could be that guy. all the time. He would be up 60% his approval. I mean, he's, you know, the thing that gets me, they always drives me crazy about him is, on paper, he's doing a good job. The country is doing well, we're at peace, we're prosperous. He's, he's doing fine, but he is that person. The power of perception, though, is what allows all of this to flourish. And every piece of what we're talking about right now is rooted in perception. One thing, the president didn't talk about

during a speech tonight, which I think was wise of him. He didn't get into his whole enemy of the people, media thing. Yeah, that was not the time. Let's get into it, everything we're talking about here is maintained on the sort of scaffolding of the media and academia, which it requires their full-time effort to prop up these false perceptions and have people be able to live in them as though they were true. Yeah, and it has a double effect because, you know, we see the effect,

we see that the people strike back, we see that the people don't always listen to them. But if you're in Washington and you're there every day and you're governing, and your governing, it's a cloud that surrounds you. When we sometimes wonder, why don't Republicans have any guts? Why don't they stand up here? Why don't they stand up there? It's because they are living in this miasma of press perception that they think is reality,

and they don't get out enough to see the people who don't care as much as they do. And in fact, as we do, these guys have power because they have power over the people who have power over us. What do we do about the fact? So the media is what the media is. We challenge them on free market grounds.

We are not anywhere near as powerful as the combined power of the mainstream press, obviously, but at least there's room on the internet, there's room on talk radio, there's room in podcasting for conservative voices to get out. What do we do about, to me, the bigger long-term problem, which is academia, where our tax dollars are actively contributing. It's not a market situation. We are, through coercion, being forced to pay for practically every young person in this kind of, country to be inundated with this view that they are either victims or oppressors basically on the basis of nothing other than their birth. I have to tell you, I was back at Yale over the weekend for a reunion.

You meet any of your kids there? We were there. I was back there and we were talking about the problem of academia, higher education, that even at Yale or Harvard or wherever, top schools in the country, it has been hollowed out and just filled in with indoctrination. Perhaps especially there. Actually, Yale is probably leading the charge. And we were debating some of these proposals,

taxing the endowments, pulling funding, this, that, and the other thing. I have a sentimental attachment to my alma mater. Absent that, I am basically willing to pull the plug on all of these institutions. I think it's basically unsalvageable, the way that the system is set up, the administrators, the ever-multiplying administrators, the deans, the deputies,

deans, the deputy assistant deputy inclusion dean, all the dean's kicking you out of visiting schools. I'm very offended because they don't kick me at a visiting school, but all of those places, to say nothing of the faculty, to say nothing of the students, the craziest people of all, often, a minority of students, but a vocal leftist minority of students. I think it's basically unsalvageable if we keep playing by these same rules. We've done a great job at creating think tanks, we've done a great job at new media, obviously, but that I don't think is enough, We need a stronger, a more robust solution to higher education. So I do think that there are a couple of possibilities that will crop up in the near future.

One is the possibility of online education, meaning that spending $100,000 to go to one of these colleges, when you could spend $100 to get the same courses, if we can get accreditation for these things, great. And I think that there's a case we made that if you started in a real online university, in which people can pay to get in, and then they're weeded out. on the basis of their performance in the classroom. And I mean, this is the way it used to be at a lot of the top law schools. It was not that they actually admitted you on the basis of past performance. They basically let everyone in and then they weeded people out as they performed.

You know, that would be one possibility. And I think that we should be making moves in that direction as a movement and as a people. The other possibility is that employers, just conservative employers, need to stop credentialing. We need to start going into high schools and recruiting people for internships and then saying, come work, come learn our business, and you'll be a good employee in a year and a half. and you saved on college and then you can work here and then you have a work record. Once you have a work record, you can move place to place because a polyside degree from UCLA, I learned nothing with my policy degree at UCLA.

Neither does any polycyte major in America. They are full of it. All it is is credentialing so you can go to law school. You know, I think we also have to revise the think tank system that conservatives created basically to oppose universities. They are research centers, but they are all based on non-capitalist means of funding. so they all have these old funders who do not know what we're, they have no idea what we're doing.

They think a really strong editorial in the Wall Street Journal is an incredible weapon. If you go in there and say, yeah, I can make you a video that will reach a million people. They have a video? What's video? I've never heard of it. And they need to be more active.

What Yath is doing when they send all of us out to colleges, that is actually taking action. But when you just sit and write articles, it does contribute to knowledge and it contributes to conservative research, but they're not reaching out. But again, my real concern is we pay for these universities to do the work that they do. And listen, the most rabid right-winger will send their kid to these schools to get liberal arts degrees.

And pat themselves on the back for doing it. I'm so proud of you, honey, that you went to a school and got a degree in absolutely nothing. Why? Because there is still a false perception of the... the value of these educations that we buy into. And we all agree if you're going to be a heart surgeon, you've got to go to school. But there is almost, if a liberal arts bachelor's degree qualifies you for a job, that is not a job.

But I will. I'm a strong defender of liberal education, actual liberal education. I love, it helps us make sense of our freedom. That's, you know, what we do. Then let's not pretend that that's what a liberal arts degree is. You can now graduate from Yale with honors in English. never read Shakespeare or Chaucer. So that's not a liberal.

That is not a legal education. That's not an education. Well, I mean, one of the things that actually has to happen just on a legal level is that we have to get rid of regulations that prevent people from going into particular industries. So for example, California actually has it right. You do not have to go to an accredited law school in order to take the bar.

So that's good. But most states, you have to go to an accredited law school in order to take a bar. Well, who does the accrediting? Well, it's an agency of the government that does the accrediting. So you have a corrupt system where Democrats and the legislature decide what the accreditation standards are, And they cram that down on a bunch of universities who are happy to do it because they get to upcharge the students for the payment.

And so they restricts the, it's a bottleneck in terms of who can actually join particular careers. Getting rid of credentialing is the single, I mean, this is what Peter Thiel is working on, right? Getting rid of credentialing is the single best way to get rid of the influence of academia on our lives. And that's a long-term project. That's not something that's going to happen. And get rid of the stigma around not going to college. And that's going to happen when you actually have conservatives who, I have been told, run major business. businesses, start actually hiring people without reference to the idea that if you went to Yale,

you must be smarter than a guy who went to Hillsdale College because Yale requires a higher SAT. It is one of the first things that I did when we started this company and we started having to hire people who weren't my immediate friends. It was like yesterday. Just a few days ago. They put together our first sort of job postings, and they brought them in for me to see. And they all said under the job requirements must have a bachelor's degree or hire.

And I said, you cannot put that in there. And I said, well, why? Everybody does this. I said, yes, but I can't live with myself as someone who did not go to college if I pretend that you have to have gone to college in order to work at this company. It's simply, it is simply untrue. And most CEOs don't go to the top schools. They don't go to the Ivy League. It's not a requirement.

And all these guys who invented the computer revolution dropped out half of them. You know, I mean, I think it's obvious. It's credentialing. It's exactly what you say. And it's why we're proud. It's why I'm proud when my son went to Yale. even though i mean it's funny i i feel like you guys you and my son went to yale in the last gas we did it was the last couple of years really and yet it is now it's the it's the men-in-black scenario if you

all remember that movie where the alien comes eats the guy and then puts on his body as a as a clothing that's what the left does they did it to the new york times new york times is not a great newspaper anymore it just has the the the near the body of a great newspaper with this alien philosophy inside yale is the same way most of our colleges are the same way they do not deserve the credit and the How do we get Donald Trump? How do we get Ted Cruz? I mean, it is a challenge that so many of our elected officials. I mean, that is one thing.

An elite education does afford you a certain amount of networking open stores. That's the cruise. How do we get these guys to actually talk about this kind of issue? Because at the end of the day, we actually can't win the future in a world where you can't spend 25 years training kids to think one way and then go. You have to build the institutions and then ask people to sign on to them. can't ask Trump or Cruz to do the heavy lifting. Yes, that's right. You can have them, you know, endorse programs that already exist and say, you know, this is a great career path.

Like you see this right now, there's a big move for trade schools. The big move for trade schools is specifically because they're a surplus of jobs in certain areas of the country, in fracking and, you know, the Midwest, where you actually just go to trade school and you can make $100,000 a year if you're willing to move to Wyoming or something. And so people are recommending that now. People are starting to say, go to trade school. Don't get that liberal arts degree. Maybe you think about that. The problem is right now the demo.

are offering you free money and telling you that the end of that rainbow, there is going to be a pot of gold, that, you know, you take all the free money and then after you go to college, you'll make $100,000 a year no matter what you do. That's not actually true. We actually have to start also pushing just in terms of messaging the fact that high achieving high school graduates do better than low achieving college graduates, which is also financially true. Again, you don't have to have a college degree. The college degree, especially in liberal arts, as we've always talked about, is basically a substitute for an IQ test. It's just a filtering system. That's all it is. Like when we look at somebody's bachelor's degree, we don't know what they actually learned in college.

We just know that if you went to UCLA, we can probably assume you're smarter than somebody who went to CISN or something. The sad thing, by the way, about the liberal arts is there is a liberal arts curriculum that needs to be touched. It needs to be taught. That I was taught. I went to Berkeley one of the... But you know, it is being taught, but it's being taught informally in other settings, meaning the great courses plus, for example. Right, right. They're teaching these things. Her talk program, Hudson program. Right. Hillsdale has courses that they put out for free. Absolutely. And we buy these courses, right, as laymen because we're interested in them. Like, I wrote an entire book just now on pop philosophy, basically.

That's basically me doing reading outside of school, right? I didn't read any of that stuff when I was an undergrad. That was me deciding I wanted to delve into it on my own. And we're fully capable of doing that stuff. The problem is when we linked the idea of a college degree with an automatic income, which is not a false statement. If you went and you studied classics at Yale, there is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow for you, unless you're going to be a professor in classics at Yale, right?

This is the big issue. I don't think it's up to Trump and Cruz and those guys. I think it's up to use guys. I think it's up to conservative businessman. Because the notion that a liberal arts education prepares you for a job is simply false. People used to ask what I majored in. I said history and Italian literature. I said, well, that's not useful.

And I would joke about it. Liberal arts education is specifically not useful. Actually, if it is useful, it's not a liberal arts education. You're supposed to go. You learn how to think about history for four years. and then if you are ready to do a job, that is a coincidence. Or you go to law school or you do something else. But we've created this ridiculous idea

that studying Shakespeare for four years prepares you to be an analyst in some bank or something like that. It really doesn't do that. And I think it's not up to the politicians. It's really up to conservative businessmen to realize, hey, maybe a guy who has a liberal education could be prepared for a job, but that has absolutely no connection.

I think we just came up with our next business ideas. Who better to, like, shut this coach. Cut the feed. I do want to go to some of our daily wire subscribers because they keep the lights on and keep us in business. And Alicia has been fielding some questions. Elisha, are you with us? Yeah, we do have some questions.

But first, we need to get to those poll results from that Facebook poll that everybody got to vote in, not just subscribers. So that's really cool. The question was, is the State of the Union speech necessary? Our answers were absolutely, please know. It is the bedrock of society. And I wonder if the game is on.

I'm not a sports person, but I thought after the Super Bowl, all sports ended for like another year. Anyway, here's our results. Apparently, 83% of our Daily Wire fans think that absolutely the State of the Union is necessary. Sorry, Ben. I'm shocked that so many people I think so highly of could be so wrong. We should retake that poll when a Democrat is president.

I'm feeling that things will reverse immediately to the other side. It was a good useful state of the union address. Listen, the state of the union address is a grand opportunity for the sitting president. It's an opportunity that they can either take advantage of or choke and botched dramatically. But it's useful for the president, which is why if your party's in power, you tend to like the. Yeah, exactly. You tend to like the others. Especially for Trump, who doesn't get any media love at all.

He just goes over their heads with us. That's right. Yeah. What's next, Elisha? So please know, got 9%. It is the bedrock of our society, got 3%. And I wonder if the game is on got 5%. There's those results on your screen.

This comes from subscriber Jeremy. Well, let me say this. If that game was still going, yeah, the State of the Union Trump said. It was better, yeah. It was more exciting. I am not a sportsball person, but I would strongly agree. This question comes from a subscriber named Jeremy,

not God King Jeremy, but subscriber Jeremy who says, do you think that the Dems really believe half of the intersectional things they say? Or do you think that they are just saying them to get votes? Michael, what do you think? I do think that they actually do buy into the intersectional politics. I think it has been given to,

them through osmosis and training from kindergarten until college. And they really do believe this narrative that women are incredibly oppressed. I see it just in the millennial generation. I think even some conservative millennials have an inkling that this is true. And I don't think it's just cynical. I think a little learning is a dangerous thing. So they learn about some of the historical exclusions of blacks in the 19th and 20th century after freedom from slavery. They learn about some of those things and they don't learn about the tradition. They don't learn about the rest of the tradition. They really do by boilerplate Marxism.

They don't realize that there are other views of the world. You don't learn about other political philosophies. You don't learn about your own tradition. And so when you hear hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Sib has got to go, that really did sever a lot of education about our own history. And now they're just left with this bland ideology. Could they defend why it exists? Probably not, but it doesn't matter because, unfortunately,

for them, their feelings don't care about the fact. It's an interesting point that you raised that even conservative millennials, there's this streak of really sort of left-wing feminism among conservative women that I pick up on quite often, which I'm sure if I were paying more attention in other places I would detect the same thing on other intersectional issues. What is that been? So I think that there's basically two groups of people. I don't think either of these groups of people are the cynical manipulators who just figure

I'm going to tell the virtues of intersectionality for political gain. I think that that's very rare. I think that there may be a few people who are like that. I think most of them actually believe the stuff that they're saying, I'll at least credit my opponents with sincerity. I do think that there is a large group of people who don't actually agree on a gut level with the intersectional philosophy, but also are sick of getting clubbed.

They're just sick of getting hit. And you see it on college campuses a lot. And it's this feeling where it's like a malice show trial. If you proclaim your privilege, then we let you go. So if you, if you, I agree with the intersectional identity politics, and then you proclaim that you are a privileged member of society, and they leave you alone. So, okay, we can all agree that certain, so just like most bad philosophies, intersectional philosophy starts on a couple of foundational principles that are actually correct and then proceeds to build an entire edifice of falsehood over those correct foundations. So foundation number one is that there's been historic victimization minority groups in the United States, which of course is true. And foundation number two is that if you are a member of two victimized minority,

groups, sometimes you are more victimized than a person who's a member of one victimized minority groups. So if you're a black woman, maybe you are worse off than a black man in a similar situation or a white woman in the same situation. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes it's not. But at least there's a plausible argument for it. And then on top of that, they build this idea that the entire hierarchy is corrupt, which is why the victimization itself has become so widespread and endemic to our society. And that the only way to fight back against that hierarchy is to maintain the group identities that originally wrongfully thrust upon you

from above. This is the argument that Stacey Abrams makes in that foreign affairs piece I argued earlier. I mentioned earlier. Basically, what she says is that group identity was built by the white patriarchy, that there were black people and brown people and women. It was that there were a bunch of white men

who othered a bunch of various groups. There's some truth to that. I agree to. Obviously, there's on the racial side. Not on the sexual side, but on the racial side, that is obviously true. And then she says, well, if there's a that targets any of these groups, then they have to fight back qua group in order to overcome that. So if you are targeted as black folks and you fight back against a law that targets black folks, you obviously have to organize as a group of black folks.

Now, that's about three quarters true, but you do have to reach out beyond your immediate group in order to reach allies, right? The civil rights movement didn't just stop at black folks. The success of the civil rights movement was entirely dependent on reaching beyond black folks by invoking universal principles that should apply to everyone, which is why we celebrate Martin Luther King Day and not Malcolm X Day. So that's one of the great lies. But the biggest lie of all is the idea that now every policy that is disliked by Democrats is, in fact, an attack on a group.

And therefore we have to identify as groups in order to fight back against that policy. And that's where Stacey Abrams goes in that piece. She says, well, you know, it used to be that there were laws that prevented black people from voting. So we had to organize as black people to fight back against the laws that prevented black people from voting. Okay, I think everybody is basically fine with that and agrees with that. And we also agree that you have to invoke universal principles that broaden your group so that it's not just black folks arguing. for their rights. It's also everybody arguing for black folks' rights. But then she says something different. Then she says, the problem is that we have reduced the definition of racism down to

legal racism that can be touched. Racism exists everywhere. It's mesomatic. It's all over the place. And therefore, if you look at immigration policy, President Trump's immigration policy, there you also see racism. She actually mentions anti-abortion law. She has anti-abortion law targets minority women in particular because minority women have most of the abortions. And therefore, we have to mobilize as black women as a group because we are targeted in the same way black people were targeted by voting laws cracking down on blacks. That's fundamentally false. Anti-abortion law is not directed at black women. It is directed at saving the lives of children.

So now you are justifying a group identity attack on everyone else in just the same way that white people were a group identity attacking everyone else. So you've flipped the entire script on its head on the basis of politics. What you're describing, though, is you're describing a, and this happens all the time, you're describing, an oppressed group adopting the values of the people who oppress them, which is satanic, if you think about it, and what they should be saying is, yes, we have to gather together as blacks because you have put us in this situation. But we reach out to all of you who do not put us in this situation and say, we are human beings, not black, and that's where you have to be going.

You have to not only oppose the people who oppress you. You have to oppose the values of the people oppress you because that's what they're oppressing you with. And that's what that is what the intersectionalism has failed to do. We're not far off from Martin Luther King, Jr., actually being a pariah because he is not an intersectional figure. Well, they've already done this, right? So what they've done now is they say, yeah, Martin Luther King was great,

but he was great for all the stuff you don't know about. Right. He's not great for the I Have a Dream speech. He's not great for the call for unity and treating people as individuals beyond race. He's not good for any of that stuff. What he's really good for is that he protested for economic justice during the garbage strike in Memphis, right?

That's where he's really great. He's really great because he understood that you need a socialist superstructure of economics in order to achieve a post-racial society. They go to all the stuff. that nobody... Not for his bourgeois white middle class values that are... Not the stuff we built a monument to him. It's exactly the same thing they do with Thomas Jefferson now,

which is, oh, well, you know, what we really should focus on with Jefferson is not the stuff that made him a hero. We should focus on all the other stuff, because that's more indicative of who he was as a person. Yep. Right. And so they've decided to deliberately read a counter history. It's the Howard Zenification of American history. Yeah. Elisha, let's hear from another one of our Daily Wire subscribers.

All right, Matt wants to know. What are some things that ordinary conservatives like him can do to influence the big power players in Washington, D.C., without resorting to the radical tactics of the left. Andrew? Well, I think there are the two things that I, I mean, obviously, there's all kinds of political action you can take, and I don't think you need me to describe the fact that you can call your congressman

and get in touch with the people who are in government. Try voting. What's that? Try voting would be a big one, yeah. But I do think that too many people, especially the young, the question I get all the time is, how can I convince people this, how can I state this? What they really mean is how can I do it without consequence?

And you can't. It requires courage and it requires the pain, the penalty of social, you know, of social approbation. Yeah, that you have to do it. You have to say the words. You have to behave in a certain way. You know, it's no good, to me, it is no good to oppose feminism. I'm very much in favor of women's rights, but I'm very much against the philosophy of feminism. If you don't open the damn door for a lady, if you don't treat women, as you feel women's

should be treated. If you are carrying the culture in your hands, the way you behave is a communication of culture, not just to your family, but to the people around you. And you have to be able to stand, as I have stood, and be yelled at by women for doing the things that you know are right, and be yelled at by your professor, and take a little bit of a less grade, take a little bit of a smaller audience, take some economic hits, you've got to be able to do it, or else they're going to win in the long run. This is the gospel reading this week was about how a prophet doesn't have any honor in his own hometown. And the real difference is, if a kid, you're kid gets into college or whatever and he's kept quiet and he hasn't really said anything,

that's great. A hometown kid makes good, good for him. The minute that he stands for something, people are going to start taking shots at him, that's not something to be feared. I mean, it's to be feared in that there will be consequences. That's what makes you a man. That's what makes you an adult. That's what makes you have integrity. I can't hear a guy dressed like that. No, no, just a lot of integrity. Jeremy, if you don't stand for bow ties, you'll fall for anything. But it's also true that I think that since the company has gotten very large, and because with added degrees of prominence, it's easy to talk about the sort of sacrifices that you have to make to stand for the right things.

We're now in a time when people will deliberately take you out of context, deliberately malign your character, deliberately try to destroy you. So it's not just that you get to stand and then people attack you for the things that you're willing to stand and die for. It's that people will deliberately attempt to destroy you for things that you've never said, that you've never even thought. And it's a dangerous area. I mean, you have to decide whether it's an area you want to go into. I understand people who don't want to go into this fight.

I mean, so it makes it, this isn't a rip on anything anybody else was saying. I obviously agree, we're all in the same business, but it's, it is true that you have to consider the sacrifice on the level that the sacrifice is going, and that is that your life becomes to a certain extent not your own. Basically, you wake up in fear every day that somebody is going, I mean, like, I know this sounds a little self-centered, but it's true. I mean, we're at the point now where I wake up in fear that somebody is going to deliberately take something that I've written 10 years ago, one sentence out of context, and then it will blow up before I have a chance to respond to it on Twitter. I can't go with you on this. I mean, I feel I'm not going to be judged by the

killers of babies. I'm not going to be judged by the people who watch socialism in this country, and they can take me out of context. Look, you know, I've lost millions of dollars, Ben. I'm willing to go there. And that's something that you're willing to do. It's something I'm willing to do, too. But it is something that you have to steal yourself full. And you have to do it on a routine basis. And you also have to make yourself harder in a lot of ways that are unpleasant for a good person. Because as a good person, you spend a lot of time thinking about all the things that you've done wrong. If you're a good person, you try to spend, when somebody criticizes you, your first reaction is, is that true?

Maybe it's true. Yeah, of course. And maybe I should. And there comes a point where you do have to turn into Andrew Breitbart. And it's just like, screw it. But I think for the average person, maybe they're watching this show and they're wondering how they can get involved. And my answer isn't start a multi-million dollar media. company. Although, if you got that in you, do it. But a better piece of advice, I think, it isn't

about what you should do. It's about what you should not do. If everyone would just stop with the Victorian era moralizing lack of grace culture that we live, the first novel written in America is the scarlet letter. And we have really come full circle now where a person makes a mistake or doesn't make a mistake. Somewhere in their life. But at a minimum, they run afoul of the prevailing virtue of society, and everyone jumps on the bandwagon to destroy this person.

And I remember thinking this, I have a friend who, his father was a pastor, and this was in the 90s. He had to get up on the stage at the church and confess in front of 300 people that he had been looking at pornography. Now this was back when the internet was brand new.

And so, you know, back then it wasn't just like you wouldn't, like now you walk through 7-11, you see a little six-year-old on their smartphone. You're like, oh, cool, they're probably playing a world. Oh, dear God. This was back when, you know, people had rolled-up magazines hidden from their mom, right? Somebody, his mom had found his rolled-up magazine and made such a federal case out of this. Because really a lot of these problems started in the church where masculinity just became the only sin that the church cared about. Boyhood became the only sin of... That's not to say looking at porn is good.

It's just to say it isn't the highest evil ever conceived of by anyone, which is what it became, I think, when the church really lost masculinity. I don't think in the Dante scheme of it, like at the very bottom is a nudie magazine. So this kid had to get up 19 years old in front of 300 people in his church

and confess that he had looked at pornography. And all I thought was, what he should have said is, I'm so sorry, it's obviously not a good thing, I'm embarrassed that my mom found this magazine. I shouldn't have done it. And I'm just asking, you know, by show of hands, who's been there? And I actually think what would have happened is every man in the audience would have started to raise their hand.

And every wife would have gone, no, no, no. You don't look at pornography. And he would have been like, uh. And then the next thing. But instead, all of those grown adult men sat there like cowards and let this guy take this hit. And we do the same thing when a teenage girl gets pregnant. Teenage girl gets pregnant. And we, the party of life, shake our heads, humiliation.

Her mother should be disappointed. We don't want our kids talking to her, you know, to her. And then the question I want to say is show of hands how many people had sex before they were married. Even once, you guys. And not by your exaggerated definitions of what is and what ain't. It depends. Yeah, that's right. Who's dodged a bullet in their day? But we all live in this kind of common grace where the truth is the majority of our bad behaviors don't cause the worst possible consequence. But we all sit, we all participate in the prudish stoning and shunning of every person who gets caught doing things that we ourselves. This is much worse than what people try to redeem themselves. Then we still go after them. So we now live in a world where that guy would get up and he would do the confession. And it wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be enough. People would. come up to him afterward and say, why'd you do it in the first place?

Why's you doing it in the first place? And it's the same, I always say that we can't stand for values. No, of course not, of course not. But it's the same. I always say about racists. They're not wrong about the other guy. They're wrong about themselves. The other guy is as bad as they think, but they're worse.

They're just as bad. And the left is the same way. And I think all the right is picking it up now is this idea. I have hardly seen a guy. I mean, look, they're guys who are serial killers and all. Yeah, they're worse than me. Most of these people that are being attacked. I've done things that I'm ashamed of.

Who on earth has not? And when you're shouting at somebody, and when you're shouting them down, you're basically virtue signaling. You're basically saying, it's not me. It is. And if we don't get that back, that idea of original sin,

that the guy sitting next to you is a sinner and the guy he's sitting next to also a sinner, you know, we'll never be able to talk. And if we all jump on the bandwagons of crucifying the people who get caught while pretending that the fact that we didn't get caught makes us virtuous. You can't live in a world

where Liam Neeson confess that he had a horrible thought 40 years ago. He confesses it as a bad thing. A thought. A thought. Yeah. And everyone decides that the conclusion of that is that he should be destroyed. Well, it is a pagan version of sin.

So the religious version of sin is that we all sin. It's part of human nature. It's what we do. God built us that way. And it's our job to try and overcome that, but we are inevitably going to fail. And then when we fail, then we seek God's grace and his mercy in that sin.

And that's what we call redemption, which is the core story of everything. every religious experience that virtually anyone has ever had, from Yom Kippur to Augustine, right? I mean, this is just, this is the common religious tradition. The pagan version of sin is, you sinned, you will be punished, no mercy, it doesn't matter what you do after. There is no redemption, you can't undo a sin, it's already done,

so what exactly are you going to do about it? And this has led to a bizarre situation where not only do we destroy people for sins of which they have repented, or thoughts of which they have repented, we have made it impossible for you to even acknowledge the sin because if we're going to destroy you for acknowledging a sin, you may as well double down. So being shameless and being a jerk is actually an asset in the area of public life. If you don't care what anybody thinks, and if you don't care that you've sinned, and if you're

willing to lie or to just say you didn't do it, then you actually have an advantage in politics because brazening it out is significantly better than just acknowledging that you made a mistake and getting over it. What's even weirder, and this just occurred to me. I don't know if you guys saw Cory Booker's disgusting display today in the Judiciary Committee. I did not say it. He was also humiliating for him. Yeah, well, there was the humiliating point where he tried to ask Naomi Rao, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee, whether she had ever had an LGBTQ clerk, to which she informed him I've never been a judge before.

Yeah, that's right. But there was also a moment, a big exchange where he basically asked her, do you believe that homosexual activity is a sin? And she said, why is this relevant? I'm a judge. That's not my, like, why are my personal religious viewpoints relevant to my interpretation of the law? And he said, yeah, but do you think it's a sin? Do you think it's a sin if two men get married?

Do you think it's a sin? And she kept saying like, this is not an appropriate question, right? This is like we have a law in this country in the Constitution that you cannot have a religious test for higher office. Like, this is absurd. But the reason that Booker was doing that is because he has that same pagan notion of sin, which means that the pagan notion of sin is that if you commit a sin, then you will inevitably be punished by the person who finds out about the sin.

So he thinks that Naomi Rao's version of sin is the same as Cory Booker's version of sin. So he thinks that Naomi has a really good point. She thinks that Naomi Rouse's version of sin is she thinks that homosexual activity is a sin. Now, most traditionally religious people who read the Bible believe homosexual activity is a sin. That doesn't mean that we don't think a lot of things are sins, or that you can repent of that sin, or that you can sin and still be a human being and operate in the good graces of society or that the government should get involved. They're all sorts of. But Cory Booker actually doesn't think that. But Cory Booker doesn't think that.

Corey Booker thinks that if you sin, you go down and you pay the price, and it's my job to make you go down and pay the price. So, Corey Booker's version of sin is a Christian baker who won't serve a same-sex wedding. And that person must pay. That person must be paid to pay by the government. And so he thinks the same thing about religious people. He thinks religious people want to actually target people who believe that religious people who believe that homosexual activity is a sin, want to go into the bedroom and somehow prosecute or persecute people who are gay,

which is eminently untrue. If the things that happened on Twitter happened in physical life and you saw mobs moving from place to place, hunting people down, dragging them out of their houses, beating them to death, which is essentially what they're doing, you would know the horror of it. You would understand the heart. Might not stop it from happening, but at least we would be able to see what it really is.

Twitter, because it's a gathering place, but it's not a gathering place of the purpose. Like, normally, in order for mobs to form, they actually have to have a common purpose. But Twitter is legitimately a mob without a purpose, right? And mob mentality is really dangerous, so all it takes is one guy going over there, and everybody just rushes over there.

And usually you have a purpose, and it's like, oh, well, a bad thing happened. Let's get the mob together and they'll lynch somebody, right? And that's bad enough. I got into a conversation on Twitter just last night about whether or not Twitter is the real. real world where a pal of ours said, you know, Twitter is the real world and people need to treat people on Twitter like they're real people. And everybody says, oh, yeah, that's beautiful.

We all need to be better to each other. And I was like, no, I don't agree with this. And I said, you know, you know, scree, you heard the record scratch, you know. What do you mean? It's not the real world. And I said, well, it isn't the real world because more than 50% of people on Twitter write under pseudonyms. Anonymity does not breed authenticity. And in the real world, our relationships typically form around common circumstances. But on Twitter, they only form over a common reaction to content. Some abstract. Yeah, we like the same thing. Therefore, we are on the same side. We don't know each other, so we have no accountability to each other or to the people we're going to attack. And so it all becomes this sort of purity, right? It all is this sort of... And it's always,

that's why people are always taken aback when suddenly people are polite to each other on Twitter. Because they understand it's all performative, right? Twitter is just performative. You're doing it in public. Like today I had an exchange with Pete Buttigieg, because the mayor of Southman was trying to run for president on the Democratic side. So I tweeted something out about how there's an NBC news article that suggested in the title, basically,

that an ice shelf was about to collapse and inundate all the coastal cities in the world with two feet of water. And I just pointed out that not in the headline and not in the subheadline, did it say, based on a computer model, this might happen in 50 to 100 years. So I pointed this out, and the left went crazy

because am I suggesting we shouldn't do anything about global warming? No, I'm not. I'm just saying like you might want to say, in the headline that in 50 to 100 years, this might be a problem, according to a computer model that has not yet been proved to be accurate. There are a few caveats here.

If there's a headline that said nuclear weapons set to go off in downtown Manhattan, and then in paragraphs seven, it says 100 years from now, you'd go, oh, we may be able to do something about that. Exactly. And so Pete Buttigigig wrote back to me, and he was kind of mocking.

And I said, he said something like, well, you know, this is, I've never seen such unwillingness to consider the needs of the next generation. I said, now do the national dead. And he wrote back, well, you first. And then I actually started a conversation with him. I was like, okay, fine. Well, let's restructure our entitlements. And it started going back and forth. And finally, I said, listen,

why you just come on our Sunday special? Yeah, I saw that. You know, stop by? We'll do an hour. We'll actually have a kind of. And he said, you know what? That actually sounds great. And it's like, well, that's right. Correct. Right? Because you know, Louis C.K. does a great routine. I know we're not allowed to mention. No, I love the guy. By the way, he's dead. Still the most talented

comedian of the last 50 years. Definitely. At least number two. So Louis C.K. does this routine where he talks about how we act when we're in our car by ourselves. Yes, I know. Right? Where, you know, when you're driving and somebody cuts you off in traffic, you just start mother-th-ing. I mean, you just start yelling at them and screaming at them. Yeah, go die. And he says, would you ever do that in an elevator?

Someone bumped you in an elevator, just turned to them. You see, go die. Right? You never do that. We act like we're in our cars alone on Twitter. Yeah. And that's ugly stuff. The physical presence means everything.

Physical presence, looking the guy in the eye, yeah. Or even a phone presence. like having a one-on-one relationship with somebody. Let's use a little bit of the time that we have left to talk to a few more subscribers. I often regret that we don't get enough subscriber questions in on the show since, as I've said many times, they pay us. And it's not just because I'm a good capital. It's like philosophically, I support the fact that they engage in trade.

But that's not why I love them so much. I love them because that money goes to me. Directly to me. It's much closer. Yeah, so for that reason, we should answer more of the, their questions. Elisha, do you have a few for us? Absolutely. Tom says, gentlemen, and Michael. We say that

politics is downstream of culture, but I'm seeing the distance between the two shrinking. Do you see this as well, or do I just watch the Daily Wire too much? I couldn't hear the question. The question is, you often say politics is downstream of culture, but it seems to me that the divide is shrinking.

And do you see that as being true? Well, politics has become a real form of This is not the first time this has happened in American society. Certainly in the 19th century, there were a lot of huge political speeches, and it was a form of entertainment as well. I mean, it remains true. Reality reasserts itself that in a properly aligned society, politics is downstream of culture. Culture is downstream of religion. It's etymologically related to cult. What a culture worships defines that culture. And in inverted societies, in inverted views of the world, like we see increasingly on the left, that goes exactly

in the other direction. So politics defines everything. It defines your culture. It defines what you do, your recreation, and it defines what amounts to your religious faith, which is why you see, especially during the Trump era, so many left-wingers ending friendships with right-wingers, not just on social media, but in real media, in the real air, in real life, because you've violated that which is sacred to them, which is their politics. I think that, you know, quick distinction. So I think that in the 19th century, sometimes entertainment took the form of politics. Today, politics takes the form of entertainment. In other words, people had to be entertained by something, but it didn't fundamentally change the nature

of politics, meaning that people would go and watch a two-hour debate between Lincoln and Douglas, right? And today, people will watch a 30-second clip of AOC owning somebody, or me owning somebody for that matter, right? I mean, that's what people do. So politics has actually been shaped to meet the memeory of the entertainment world. And so, well, I do think that culture, politics was down from culture, now we're seeing emerging of the two. I mean, President Trump is a reality TV star, right? I mean, and the next president will presumably be a new form of reality TV star, as Barack Obama was. With all of that said, the part that's dangerous to me is that politics itself has taken the form of entertainment, as opposed to the way it used to be, which was

politics remained its own form, which people were entertained by it. Now it's that we view a YouTube clip of a cat falling off a tile in the same way that we view a piece of political commentary. I saw this last year, Noah Rothman did a segment on MSNBC about his new book unjust, which is quite good about intersectionality. And somebody cut a two-minute clip in which it doesn't show him talking at all. It's just somebody responding to a claim that we don't know Noah made about how he doesn't understand intersectionality, blah, blah, blah, this thing that was retweeted by everyone on the left.

And Noah was like, you might want to watch the next 30 seconds where I respond to that, so you know, but it was like, no, Noah Rothman owned. Because we watch WWE in the same way we watch politics now. The actual form of politics has changed. And that I think is pretty dark. There was something, too, which speaks to what Jeremy was saying about perception, is that because the arts are monopolized by the left, they've basically dictated what can be in our entertainment.

It's absurd to me. They set the Overton window? Yeah, exactly. It's absurd to me that every single late-night comedian is anti-Trump. Everyone, not one is going to come on and say, oh, yeah, I like Trump, or Nancy Pelosi is also silly. You know, in the day when Charlton Heston, the Great Hollywood Conservative, and Gregory Peck, the Great Hollywood Liberal, could be good friends

and could both represent the kinds of American heroes that we all respected. That was a different day. Well, at the very least, I mean, Jay Leno, you didn't really know his politics. We sort of figured maybe he was a moderate Republican, maybe. Johnny Carson, who was a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat. He had no idea what his politics, where now you have Stephen Colbert basically philating Nancy Pelosi and Schumer on air. Yeah, and embarrassingly, because he knows nothing about politics.

He'll have some hack Democrat on and treat her like she's, you know. It's also just bad. It's not funny. It's just bad stuff. I mean, it's like if you, the new definition of comedy is just sucking radical. I would rather have religious tragedy. Because actual comedy is immoral according to the new religious system of the puritanical left. Okay.

Can we do another question? You want to? Yeah, let's do. One more question. One more question. We do have more questions. And your statement just then reminds me of what my mom always said. behind every joke there's a hint of truth and as we know people on the left just don't like the truth so they won't laugh at it

Donald says hey guys with Cory Booker's prejudicial questions to judge candidate Rao why doesn't McConnell remove him from the judiciary committee well I mean you know I think that the restrictions on removing people from the judiciary committee are pretty strict it's difficult to just censure somebody also if I'm a Republican I want Cory Booker saying that kind of stuff like I want Cory Booker out there every single day being the doof that he is tears of rage. With his weird fingers and googly eyes doing his I am Spartacus routine. What I love about Cory Booker the most, honestly, is it's like you guys have any watches where you actually, the face isn't on the watch. You can see the gears turning underneath the watch.

Cory Booker is that but a human. You can see every political calculation happening in real time. It's like if I turn this little gear right here, it turns the big gear. And the big gear is where I'm popular. And so he does this with everything. Everything has to be rehearsed a thousand times. And it's so over the top. He chose the scenery like no one I've ever seen.

I mean, the guy is just, I mean, he's the Nicholas Cage of Politics. He did this routine today where Ted Cruz responded to him after he did this religious attack on Rao, and Cruz said exactly what is true. Ted said, well, you know, this is a religious attack, what you just did. And Booker says, you know, Senator, you and I are friends. And since we're friends, you know that I would die to protect someone else's religious freedom.

And I just thought to myself, yeah, go, you know, I mean, slow windup for the middle finger, my friend, because you have got to be kidding me. Like, you legitimately just said that this woman should not be able to sit on a federal court because you disagree about her private religious views. And then you're saying you would die for her religious freedom. I'm going to go with, I don't believe you.

So, you know, getting Cory Booker out, no, more Cory Booker. Lots of Cory Booker. McCoy, the nominee. More Cory Booker. So Alicia and all of our DailyWired subscribers, thank you guys for the questions and for making it possible for us to do what we do. I have one last question.

Hey, hey, hey, before you get to this, we've made it through like two and a half, three hours right now. It's this man's birthday. It's not the big birthday. It's not 41, but it is your 40th birthday, and that's a big deal, too. Another year closer to death? I think we have to celebrate that in some way. Maybe just a rendition of happy birthday.

Did you guys get me a blue checkmark? We finally got you a flaming blue check mark. Can we sing a round of happy birthday? Absolutely, absolutely. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you Happy birthday dear the God king Happy birthday

to you They wouldn't have done that for Trump Yeah All right You all get to eat this now knowing that some of my spittle is on it Oh perfect It is the weirdest tradition isn't it We all

You can send that in the 23 of me I can find out whether you're more Native American than Elizabeth Warren. I don't need 23 of me to answer that question. Jeremy, I'm going to let you cut it. Well, thank you. You'll let you cut it while we cut the show. And I will, as I prepare everyone a nice slice of this beautiful birthday cake, which appropriately has the lowercase G, lowercase K.

I will ask my final question, which is, did tonight help the president? Yeah, it definitely helped him. I mean, the question is how much and how much, the question is how much play there is left in the joints. That's always the question for Trump is, is there really any upside left for him. If there was upside for him that's available, then he got it tonight. Now the question, the other question is

how long will it maintain? Because how many times have we seen the, this was the moment that Trump became president? And then two minutes later, he's kicking himself in the ass and walking around with an accordion. I'm like, we just don't know. And now that image is in my head. Thank you, Ben.

I don't think this moved the ball. I think it helped his. Again, he put him in a position where he He is now in charge of the conversation again until he tweets some stupid thing. And I think, I don't think it moved. It's going to force anybody to move off the dime on the immigration thing. But I do think, you know, he always, there's always a chance with Trump that people will take another look.

The American public want a good president. They want him to do a good job. They want him to be presidential. If he can reconstruct himself a little bit, which I just seriously doubt, you know, he put himself in a position to do that. I just, I don't believe that. There's a reason incumbents tend to get reelected, and it's that reason. We are rooting for the guy. And I think tonight was basically a win.

I think it was a win of a speech. Does it move the needle out? We'll see if the government shuts down again in a few weeks. That is hard to say. But it at least wasn't a loss. He didn't hurt himself tonight. What more can you ask for? I think there's one other aspect of it, too, that we haven't talked about, and that is he really did expertly play the freshman women.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did. It was well done. Democrats. I didn't think they were going to be stupid enough to fall for it. They just went right for it. I mean, it was amazing. He was like, so, and one more thing that you're going to love.

You're here. And they're like, don't sit down. If you just set up confetti cannons. It was like the sleeasiest lounge singer trick that you used. And all the ladies, the beautiful ladies in the audience, all the women here who look under 40, not a day over 40, and it's a bunch of 80-year-old blue hairs. If women didn't keep falling for that, the human race would die.

When Trump looks magnanimous, it really works for him. He works the audience. I mean, that was, like, his comedy routine tonight really works. He had a couple of throwaway lines, and they were his best moments. Every time he does that, he's great. Yeah, like the thing where he said, they wouldn't, you know, the happy birthday, they wouldn't sing that for a little girl with cancer. They wouldn't cheer for me that way.

Like, all of that, great. All of that's great. And I also think that he did a pretty expert job. know if it was on purpose or if favor just broke in his direction, which is by framing so many of his arguments the way that he did, he got to really show what Nancy Pelosi will stand for and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won't. In several places, he drew out that distinction, which is potentially a really important fault line over. Yeah. And it's always the best part of the So the best part of the state of the union is always what the opposition will not stand for.

Because if you're not standing for black unemployment, you know, for black employment, who are you? What do you represent? He did show, I mean, that's the definition. You're the part of the Ku Klux Klan. That is the definition of a wedge issue, right? You put a wedge in between those. And he nailed it. I will say, the one other thing that he did, it was clever, is that he gave us all the red meat that we wanted.

But he had a bunch of policy prescriptions that I don't particularly like, and he just dumped them in there, and we sort of glossed over that. But if people were listening and you happen to be, you know, kind of slight, left of center and you like government spending on infrastructure and you like tariff child and you like free family paid leave and all this kind of stuff like mandated by the government you like actual leaders of drug rings getting into who really is from prison i mean like all that's we forgot about that that was a low moment only makes i could go to china guys i mean that's not red meat material for the right wing and he got he can get away with that that's right this is why a lot of folks said if he had started off his presidency by making a couple of moves across the aisle

he would have been a little better off i still think that democrats were never going to allow they wouldn't let it They couldn't. Nevertheless, he wakes up tomorrow in a slightly better position than he started off today. Until the Mueller report comes out in two weeks. See you then for the backstage. Tune in for backstage two weeks from now. And the Mueller report drops, it may not be two weeks from now. I guarantee you when it drops, we're going to be doing one of these.

All right. Well, thanks again to our Daily Wire subscribers and everyone who stuck it out this far. You actually made it through the State of the Union, which is basically, it's your 40th birthday, too. We'll see you guys next time. Thank you.