The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 156 - When Mueller Colluded With The Russians

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

A bombshell report uncovers a possible major conflict on interest for Robert Mueller and his never-ending Russia investigation. Then, legendary standup and SNL alum Dennis Miller stops by to talk come...dy in the age of Trump. Finally, how to fix our ‘vomitive’ culture! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Because satire is now impossible and reality has become the only source of comedy. A new bombshell report reveals that after a full year of the Mueller investigation of Russia collusion, it turns out Mueller himself colluded with Russian oligarchs. That is a true story. You cannot make that up. We will analyze this major conflict of interest for Robert Mueller and his never-ending probe. Then, speaking of comedy, the legendary stand-up and S&L alum Dennis Miller stops by to talk comedy in the age of Trump. Finally, a silver lining for our vomative culture. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is the Michael Knowles show. I like that word, vomative. That's a good. I'm going to start
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Starting point is 00:02:51 Robert Mueller Russia collusion investigation. It turns out in 2009, special counsel Robert Mueller now investigating President Trump for colluding with the Russians, himself colluded with the Russians. I know. I'm just as shocked as you are. It is an absurd punchline. We'll get through this because I want to get to Dennis as quickly as we can. Of all of the arguments to take down the Mueller investigation to stop this anti-constitutional, clearly un-American power grab here to overturn a presidential election, of all of the arguments to take down this investigation, this one is the best. Here's what happened. See if you can follow this. It kind of seems like a really weird, sad James Bond story, but because it's real life government, there's a lot of just
Starting point is 00:03:40 inefficiency and poor decisions that happened along the way. So in 2009, Robert Mueller was running the FBI and the FBI asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska for some help to help them with an operation that they were doing. Even the name, I have to assume that Oleg is short for oligarch? Because that is like out of a cartoon that the Russian oligarch's name is olig? Oleg. So the FBI asks Oleg for some help on this operation. I'm going to call him Garkey. I think that's another good nickname for him. So the FBI asked Garkey. They asked Deripaska to spend millions of dollars of his own money to fund an FBI-backed operation to rescue a former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, who was captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.
Starting point is 00:04:30 Former FBI agent, now working for the CIA, abducted in Iran in 2007. Now it's 2009. FBI asks the Russian oligarch for help. Deripaska agreed. Deropaska spent millions of dollars of his own money. He had meetings with the FBI. He had meetings with that disgraced former FBI agent, Andrew McCabe in Paris, in Vienna, in Budapest, in Hungary, in Washington, D.C., all over the place they meet.
Starting point is 00:04:55 They're working together very closely. Now, the operation worked. They actually were able to locate. Evanson with video and photographic evidence. They tracked him down in Iran. They were about to go get him. And then Hillary Clinton shut everything down. Hillary Clinton at the time was the Secretary of State. She shut everything down at the last minute. Who knows why? Maybe she didn't want to deal with the political fallout. Maybe she didn't want this mission to imperil her presidential ambitions. Who knows? They were on the verge of getting him. Millions of dollars had been spent. They
Starting point is 00:05:25 had evidence. They knew where he was. And then he was gone. The operation ended. in 2011. Levinson has never been found. This is 11 years now after he was captured. Score another failure for Hillary Clinton. So this story, by the way, which is a punchline to the Mueller investigation, actually is another piece of evidence for why it's so good that we did not elect Hillary because she totally bungled this and appears to have made certain political calculations that left this guy stranded in Iran, God knows where. Back to Robert Mueller. So the Russian oligarch, Deripaska, turned up in the Mueller investigation. Deripaska has long-standing ties to Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman.
Starting point is 00:06:06 Manafort allegedly offered Deripaska private meetings about the 2016 campaign. They had long-standing financial ties before this. Deripaska sued Manafort this past January because he was alleging fraud in a 2007 investing deal. So now, let's bring in the hookers. Now, Dera Paska's former mistress, the Belarusian prostitute, Anastasia Vasukovic, who was videotaped on a yacht with Deripaska and the deputy prime minister of Russia, because the oligarchs run the country, it's a very corrupt country. This Belarusian prostitute is claiming to have evidence that Deripaska had a plan to interfere
Starting point is 00:06:44 in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Okay. So you say, where's the evidence? Let's bring in the evidence. The only trouble, of course, and this happens with Belarusian hookers, is that she's currently stuck in a Thai prison. Are you still with me? Are you still tracking this? because there's a lot going on. So put that aside, speaking of hookers, Deripaska is one of the Russians that the FBI questioned
Starting point is 00:07:05 about the Democrat-funded hit-job dossier that alleged that Donald Trump paid Russian hookers to relieve themselves on a bed that Barack Obama once slept on. Now, the FBI, after this was alleged to have happened, the FBI busted into Deripaska's hotel room. They asked him about that crazy dossier, the Democrat-funded dossier. Deripaska laughed at them because he thought they were kidding.
Starting point is 00:07:27 because the story is absurd. Now, okay, none of this really matters much so far. We've got some hookers. We've got some strange preferences in bedrooms. We've got some corruption. Okay, fine. Everybody in the world has a plan to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Oligarchs frequent a lot of hookers.
Starting point is 00:07:46 These are tales as old as time. Nothing really special here. What matters here is that Robert Mueller has not mentioned Deripaska in the Manafort indictment, despite Derisbasca's being a central figure in all of Manafort's dealings with Russia. So we've got this huge, wide-ranging Russia probe, we've got Manafort actually being indicted, and yet the central Russian figure here just doesn't show up on the indictment. That's a little weird. We also know that the United States has recently instituted sanctions against Deripaska.
Starting point is 00:08:17 The duly elected government, this is coming out of the White House, has been dealing very harshly with Deripaska, but the unelected anti-constitutional bureaucracy has been playing softball with him. Now, why would Robert Mueller play softball with Deripaska? Well, Mueller, as the director of the FBI, asked a Russian oligarch to underwrite an FBI operation to get around U.S. laws. Mueller tried to do something indirectly
Starting point is 00:08:41 that he was explicitly prohibited from doing directly. Now, okay, he's trying to subvert the law. He's trying to, okay, that doesn't look good. But then what really matters is the quid pro quo here, because if you're not familiar with Russian oligarchs, One characteristic of them is they don't generally do favors in exchange for nothing. They don't do things out of the goodness of their heart. Russian oligarchs are not known for the goodness of their hearts.
Starting point is 00:09:06 So the question is, what did Deripaska get or expect in return for his $25 million donation to Mueller's FBI? Maybe, I don't know, does that explain why this particular Russian oligarch didn't turn up on Mueller's indictments? Maybe did Mueller want to avoid the transparency that is required by law? I don't know. Let's ask all of the experts on this across the political aisle. That's what Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz is saying. Alan Dershowitz thinks this was a way to avoid transparency because he might have broken the law. Melanie Sloan, who's a former Justice Department lawyer for Bill Clinton,
Starting point is 00:09:43 former Clinton administration lawyer. She wonders if the first FBI operation was even legal. because that first FBI operation where the FBI asked the Russians to fund this operation it looks like it violated the Anti-Deficiency Act which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services
Starting point is 00:10:00 and the reason it does that makes perfect sense because then there's an obligation there's a debt to be paid off and it gets really tricky down the line when you start indicting people for Russian collusion but you don't indict the central Russian oligarch. GW constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley he thinks exactly the same thing
Starting point is 00:10:18 thing. This is not a right-wing conspiracy. This is not all, this is not, you know, Sean Hannity saying this on his show. This is Dershowitz, Sloan, Turley. These are all people who have worked quite publicly for Democrats, but they're very good lawyers and this is their legal opinion. This is the best ending to all of this, isn't it? Isn't this the best ending to all of this? Because this Mueller thing has been going on forever. It's been going on, I don't know, since I think the Coolidge administration at this point. But there was the FBI investigation, then the Mueller thing. It's basically the one year anniversary of the Mueller investigation.
Starting point is 00:10:54 And now the punchline is Robert Mueller colluded with the Russians. It's just, what credibility does he have? What credibility does this investigation now have? We know that it's probably unconstitutional. It seems to violate the Supreme Court's rulings. And I think the case was Morrison v. Olson, both the opinion and the dissent of the court. We know it's far too expansive. but also it seems that even in the carrying out of it,
Starting point is 00:11:22 they're trying to avoid transparency. They're trying to skirt the law. They're trying to cover up possibly illegal actions that were undertaken by the head of this investigation 10 years ago, 9 years ago. Doesn't look like there's a lot of credibility here. But keep looking. I'm sure you'll find that Russian collusion somewhere.
Starting point is 00:11:37 You might find it really, really close to home. You might find it, oh, might actually be you guys who were doing it. Really, really wild. The Democrats, the, the Democrats, collude with the Russians, pay for this steel dossier, then the FBI seems to be colluding with the Russians. I think Donald Trump is the only guy in this country who has not colluded with the Russians. Donald Trump may be the last American who didn't collude with the Russians. Unbelievable. We got to get to Dennis Miller before we do that. I want to tell you about a product that has changed my life. I'm talking about
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Starting point is 00:14:16 Slate. Now, you have won. I don't know about you. I'm having, I guess we all have to just bite our lips and soldiers are on without Iran right now. It is really hard. Do you think we'll make it? My Sherpa told me, when we were above the kill zone on Everest, just put one foot in front of each other and keep moving. Somehow, we'll get through this together. I hope, you know, I was so nervous because Ben Rhodes and Dan Pfeiffer, they assured me that everything was going to fall apart without the cooperation of the worst regime on planet Earth. I hope we can make it. I hope we can make it. I, uh, you know, like I feel unprotected. I've been with him so long. Probably since not without my daughter, the Betty Mahmoudi story is when I was first introduced to the lovely vibe in Iran.
Starting point is 00:15:02 But somehow, like I said, we'll get to you. We'll soldier out. We'll truck along. I, now, I want to talk about another great foe of the United States, Michelle Wolfe. Now, you have won multiple Emmy Awards. You've won Writers Guild Awards. You've hosted a bunch of TV shows. You've hosted radio, podcast, the Dennis Miller option. You've also headlined the White House correspondence dinner back in the Bush one years. I wanted to know on a scale of Hiroshima to Nagasaki, how badly did Michelle Wolfbaum? I don't think she did in her world, right?
Starting point is 00:15:36 People, listen, you have to understand. It's a completely, it's a schism now between the two sides, I think, on her side. She was, I never know if the word is F-E-T-E. ed faded. You know, I think she was probably praised. My only thing was when I read about it, and I got angry because I saw Sarah Sanders sitting there and she'll go to see him and cry.
Starting point is 00:15:59 I said, who is this? I did not know who it was. So I put up a tweet about researching her and getting back with a joke on Wednesday, which is when my podcast is, and all of a sudden it was like it absolutely hit the fan. I realized that the Internet really is the Wild West. You put up something that, oh, hated, which they underwritten,
Starting point is 00:16:22 all of a sudden you're like the old lady who goes over the horseshoe falls with the trash can and ends up in the whitewater turn. At the bottom, you're just getting dermabrated out of the zoo for a day or two. And then I realized, I guess that's what the Internet is about, and when you were in the crosshairs of it, you should handle it with a suitable degree of a plumb. Because certainly I love people on Twitter. So that's the way it happens.
Starting point is 00:16:46 And it happens quickly. It seems like it happens, boom. Well, I saw that tweet when you sent it out, and I immediately got it. I got the joke. You know, no one knows who this woman is. And you're going to have to research her, and then you can talk about it on the show. And immediately, everyone pounces on you, and they say, ha, ha, you don't have a quick wit. Ha, ha.
Starting point is 00:17:05 And I couldn't tell if it was the left being obtuse, or if they genuinely just didn't get it. And this does bring us to it, I think, the defining characteristic of the Trump era, which is that the left is humorless these days. And conservatives during the Obama years, conservatives still had a sense of humor, but now the left seems totally humorless. Why can't they take a joke right now? Oh, I don't know. You know, I will say this. When Obama won, and I watched that seat that first night in Grant Park, and I think that's the park in Chicago, right? I'm not that much of a Chicago denizens.
Starting point is 00:17:49 But then I saw those upturned faces and people with all that hope and that. And I thought this will be good for this country. Honest to God, I remember thinking, I hope he does well. I'll give him a few months here. See, but I don't think, well, like you were laughing that I put that thing up about, I don't think the Lusper's. handled Hillary's loss all that well. You don't say. It's the simple truth that I think that was such a lock in their head that all I can say is it must be,
Starting point is 00:18:19 it must have been a cataclysm for them. I remember when I watched the Jacob Jabot Center that first night, and it was like a snowflake Jones town. And I thought, my God, I have never, in all my years of having political opinions, have you ever come within a light year of crying over a politician. I never, I don't take it like that. It's not that important. You know, Obama's approach to it was not my approach, but he seemed like a genial bloke. It seemed like a good family man. I didn't agree with a lot of it, but I never hated him. I never wanted to cry that he became president. And I was just looking at it go, I guess they've got more
Starting point is 00:19:00 invested in it on the secular side because they seem genuinely, you know, devastated. I just don't get that devastated. So can I speak and say that there's nobody on the left who's having any fun with it? No, I can't. I see some guys who are having fun with it. But can I say by and large the left was devastated by her loss? Yeah, which is surprising to me because I didn't even think she was the ideal candidate. It's not like Obama lost or something.
Starting point is 00:19:28 You can see he has charisma. He was a great speaker, and like I said, he was of the era. You can understand why that might have done it. But Hillary, I mean, Jesus. Say what you will about Donald Trump, but give him this. I think that his outer voice is indeed an accurate depiction of his inner voice, works and all, whereas I don't think Hillary's inner voice and outer voice have ever even had a cup of coffee together. So to see people crying about it, I thought, my gosh, something's.
Starting point is 00:19:59 Something's happened here. It's bizarre. Are they humorous about it? I don't know. I think they're starting to get to lick their wounds a little more. But up to this point, I would say that there's a pretty virulent schism in this country right now. And whenever they, the ones who have just lost, get a shot. They're going to take a shot at you.
Starting point is 00:20:18 And that's what, that's the way of the world. And it was, I love that phrase, the snowflake Jonestown. That is, when you looked out of that scene, that Brooklyn scene when Hillary lost, I remember John Podesta came out because she didn't show up. She was throwing desk lamps in her hotel room or something. And he comes out and he says, thank you for being here for Hillary. She's always been here for you, except for right now the only time it matters and she's not here for you. They were devastated. And yeah, that side is more secular. The Democrats booed God at their national convention a few years ago. So perhaps they've got some misplaced longings. But when I watched that set of Michelle Wolf at the White House, House Correspondence Dinner, I didn't hear many jokes. She told a few jokes, but what I heard a lot of is she just accused people of being liars. That was like her punchline. She said, you're a liar, and you lie, and you're a disappointment to women, and as though that were sufficient to qualify as a joke, which I don't think it did. How was the culture of that dinner and politics and political
Starting point is 00:21:24 comedy. How radically different was it back in the early 90s when you were doing it for George Bush Sr.? Well, first off, I would say that whether you liked her jokes or hated her jokes, I don't think she did that badly in the room. Am I missing the point? No, you're absolutely right. They did. Those journalists were laughing. Yeah, when I listened to clips and when I saw people cutaways like they always do, people are laughing a lot, I think. Yeah. I don't. I don't. I don't. I remember when I miss did it. Didn't I miss do it one year? And I do remember that being a bit of a train wreck, wasn't it? Didn't I miss come? And it was actually quiet in the room? That's true. I mean, they did give it to Michelle in the room. I sort of felt it was that distinction of claps, not laughs,
Starting point is 00:22:12 that they were going along with her because she was saying things that they politically agreed with, even if she wasn't reinventing comedy. Well, we might all have selective hearing, and maybe I as a comedian, and him, listen. I'll have to defer to your expertise. I remember getting some left. And I would say this, I was surprised to hear that nobody bedded it, because when I did it for Bush 41, I'm telling you, I had to get my Wazoo armor all. I was so bedded out of the Wazoo.
Starting point is 00:22:42 I had the run jokes by the White House correspondence people. I had to run jokes by the White House people. And then when I was in the green room, I remember Bush 41. He's such a mensch. He comes up in exam with Bart, and I don't say the F word. And I said, oh, Mr. President, you think of it'll crank up an F word in front of it. So it was a bit of a different thing then. Listen, and the curtain comes down on the culture now in the space of an evening. It can happen midway through an evening in a commercial break.
Starting point is 00:23:13 The culture can change. Back then, when is that? I even know when I did it, is it 15 years ago, 18 years ago? I'm not sure. Well, come on it. over 5,500 days, the world turns now and around 15 seconds things go away or they come back. We're living. I assume it was always like this.
Starting point is 00:23:34 Even in primordial days, I assume this is human behavior. It's just now through social media, the entire world is privy to your synapses, your reactions to things, our animus, our collective consciousness. It all happens in real time, almost all across the planet. I would say the big thing that's changed is social media. Do I think human nature's changed? No. I think there'll be a point in somewhere way down the line. You don't even hear this stuff. Like, it's the Outer Limits episode where David McCallum gets a huge skull and they can just start talking to each other with your thoughts. And we can tear each other a new asshole and never even open our mouth. I think that's what's coming down the road. So I think right now all this changes is the animus level is consistent throughout history. It's just right now we're all privy to each other. was crank, you know. Well, that's, and that's certainly true that the culture can change on a dime. Speaking of cultural changes on social media, I don't know, I know you've been on Twitter a little bit. I've been perusing your Twitter feed the last couple weeks. You might have heard of this fellow Kanye West.
Starting point is 00:24:37 He's a famous rapper, apparently, and he's been tweeting a lot of very conservative-sounding things. Very conservative, though. He's tweeting out Scott Adams videos and Thomas Soul quotes and all these little conservative YouTube videos. Do you think that that reflects any change in the culture, no matter how short that change may be? Are the conservatives and the right finally winning a little bit of the popular culture with Donald Trump and Kanye West, or am I celebrating too much and reading too much into it? No, I think, listen, next to Warhol, in the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes, which looking back on, I had always taken him with a bit of a grain of salt, because I'm not a modern artist fan.
Starting point is 00:25:24 And I always thought he was just a, you know, a Studio 54, sort of New York downtown scene guy. But when I look back on that, that is so prescient, but I think I should read more about him because that's a pretty brilliant thing to say. The second was a brilliant thing I've heard, or 1A, is that Breitbart's saying that politics are downstream from culture.
Starting point is 00:25:43 And I do think this Kanye West thing, listen, up to this point in my life, my introduction, my only knowledge of Conway, Kanye West, not a hip hop fan, is that I remember him being loaded on stage at an award ceremony with Taylor Swift and grabbing her award thing. That's very boorish behavior. That's my take on him.
Starting point is 00:26:04 When I see what he's done in the last couple weeks, do I lionize him? Is he my new, you know, ID fiction? They're the monolith in 2001. I don't think that, but that's a pretty important defection on their side. I really think that I think he, in the lexicon of the day, I think he was tired of getting played. I think the Democrats are playing African Americans. And I think that things are starting to fall. That's really interesting what he did.
Starting point is 00:26:39 Sol's been out there for years on the front lines of this. I don't even think, you know, just the fact that Kanye West is reading Thomas Saul, I thought, well, good for you, brother, because I like a curious mind. Thomas Stolles, brilliant, absolutely brilliant, man, who they've been ignoring for years. So is something, is there some fissure there? Yeah. Now, I don't quite understand why I don't hear as much about it now. Is it strictly on that flash poll they did where Trump's approval goes from 11 in the black community that's 22% of the black community? And as maybe the people on the left thing, we can't keep crucifying Kanye because that's not going to play. I just like, I like free thinkers.
Starting point is 00:27:19 I like people who don't walk in lockstep. And when he stepped out like that, I thought, well, I now have another swing put on Kanye West. It's not just grabbing the trophy off Taylor Swift. I should learn a little more about this cat, because I think what he's done is pretty brave, and I think it's opened up an amazing tributary of dialogue. Remember Eric Calder always said, this country's too afraid to have that conversation? All right. Well, where's Eric Colder coming forward in the last?
Starting point is 00:27:49 week or so and say, well, I guess somebody is not afraid to have a conversation. We found the guy. Yeah, well, I really think, I hope that's what Holder was referring to. The fact that this guy's not getting much, you know, supply train support is a, I think that's very telling. I think that's going to help Kanye's cause more than it will help the liberal cause. That is a really good point. And you know, you've been a comedian and an amazing cultural observer for such a long time, and really one of my favorites. On this point that you brought up a little earlier on the boorishness of the culture, or, you know, the F word that George Bush Sr.
Starting point is 00:28:33 He said, oh, come on, I got my wife here tonight. Don't go blue. Or that sort of thing now, it's not just the White House Correspondence Dinner. It's not just Kanye taking that award from Taylor Swift. You hear it, even those Comedy Central roasts, with few exceptions, they're so often just a litany of vulgarities and trying to one up one another of the most disgusting thing to say. We use a loose language all the time now. Is there any hope that the culture will rebound in a way that gives us back a little dignity or a little class or using language in a nicer, more elevated way? Or do you think for the time being, that might be lost and we've got to navigate these new walls? that we're in. I would be funny if I commented on that. I say the F-bomb all the time with my act.
Starting point is 00:29:19 That's true. I just don't do it on air. Well, except when I'm, when the job description is not. But left to my own devices, I find it a good word in my act. Do I, am I, am I vulgar in my act? No, I don't think I am. But if I use the F-bomb, yeah, I can't lecture anybody on that. But when I'm in front of a president or when I'm on TV or when I'm in front of a corporate
Starting point is 00:29:39 crowd that doesn't need that Sturman-Drang in their day, is it? very easy for me to not do it? Of course it is. Every time I do it corporate, I say to the guy, I say, who's the guy who signs this check? And then I say to him, do you want it, PG-13, or do you want it R? And if he says PG-I say, fine, there'll be no swearing in it. If he wants a PG-13, I say, fine, there might be a couple swear words, but I won't use the F-Blong. I just find it easy to shift that stuff out. And like I said, is there a new Bulgarianism in the country? I don't think. so. I think this is the way it has always been in small clashes, except our small clatch now is the entire world due to social media. I really think that social media never have
Starting point is 00:30:26 lived, less lived, been more chronicled, the minutiae, the innocuia to invent a word, and not a, I think that might be Elizabeth Warren's Indian by the way. That is, yeah, good use of the native language. privy to that now. This is all the stream of consciousness that for years was either in our own head, in our own living room, or with our own friends at a tavern or a bar, or with a group of like-binded people. Now everybody knows everything about everybody. And what I say, that social media has allowed us to all come together as one and probably realized there was never really any good reason for us to all come together as one. That is a devastating,
Starting point is 00:31:13 but accurate observation. Because it's true. When I tweet or I go on Facebook, I don't feel as though I'm addressing a crowd of thousands. I feel like I have a drink in my hand and I'm spouting off on whatever thing crosses my mind. That is very true. It makes you think twice before you tweet.
Starting point is 00:31:31 Dennis, before I let you go, you have this new podcast. It's very, very good. The Dennis Miller option, it just launched. How's it going and where can people find it? Well, listen, I've done two, and the third one's on tomorrow. Carbys on it. You can download these on iTunes, and I'm just learning the lexicon. So I will spare you hearing me say, we drop on Wednesday, like I'm, you know, like your Kanye.
Starting point is 00:31:55 Putting out a new album from both hours, but we appear on Wednesdays and you can go to podcast one. I was bringing sports one, but we decided to get rid of it because I found out that sports is the most you're going to get, it seems to me, unless you're, your big Dan Patrick or something like that. You're probably going to get 20,000 ballots. People were sending me emails, but I'm not saying they were shoveling them in like Cole into a speeding train car, but I wasn't
Starting point is 00:32:23 getting emails saying, listen, I like residency, but I don't like sports. So we're putting it into a more generic thing called the Dennis Miller option. We're probably going to do two of those a week, the next one's tomorrow. Like I said, it's an hour with Carvey. He's absolutely the best guest. He and Marty Short
Starting point is 00:32:38 in the history of any sort of medium. And it's comedy. It's my thought. on the world. It's my thoughts on politics. It's just sort of stream of consciousness for an hour. I was just looking at it on iTunes, and I don't know much about the ratings, but it seems to be okay on there. And we'll see how it goes. I think that you pretty much have to fall back into this and say, to stay out loud what you're thinking and see who shows up for that. If it's enough, they keep you on. If it isn't, they whack you. That's sort of where I'm out of show. It's really, really good. I listened to the first episode right when it came out. I am, I don't want
Starting point is 00:33:11 a fan girl too much, you know, but I am a big Dennis Miller fan myself and have been for years. So everybody I highly recommend going at and getting the podcast. Thank you. Absolutely. I'm blud. You can't see me right now, but I'm blushing, even in my swarthy Italian skin. Dennis, very good to talk to you. In the future, like I said, if we know everybody sucks on the future, there will be a blusho meter on your eye. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's something I probably shouldn't tweet. note to self. Dennis, thank you so much for being here. Great to talk to you. And I'm looking forward to the podcast with Dana. All right. Dennis Miller. How cool is that guy? On Saturday,
Starting point is 00:33:52 May 19th, Dennis will be performing at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee. On Saturday, June 23rd, Dennis will be taping his next stand-up special at the Bijou Theater in Knoxville, Tennessee. Dennis can also be heard on his other weekly podcast, Red Circle Sports with Dennis Miller, with Podcast 1, and his twice-daily syndicated 60-second race. radio feature, The Miller Minute. I want to get some of those. That guy's got so many podcasts. Okay, I got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube. Don't forget. Don't forget. The conversation is today. It's coming up. This is it. This is your last chance to subscribe. If you go to DailyWire.com right now you subscribe, you can ask questions during the conversation.
Starting point is 00:34:29 That will be coming up real soon, 530 Eastern, 2.30 Pacific. Only subscribers can ask the questions. Everybody gets to watch, but only subscribers can ask. Many are cold, but few are children. We thank everybody who is already a subscriber. You help us keep the lights on. It's very nice of you. If you subscribe, you get me, you get the Andrew Cleveland show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get to ask questions to the conversation. You get to ask questions in the mailbag, which you can go do right now.
Starting point is 00:34:54 There it is. Now, I have been sipping deep the John Kerry vintage for the last week. The Kanye vintage, Kanye caused all of those to pour in. And those were delicious. I'm saving those now for a special occasion because now I'm on the Bob Mueller colluded with the Russians vintage. Oh, that's a really sophisticated brew. And it is best served cold
Starting point is 00:35:23 because after a year of Democrats trying to overturn this presidential election, now it looks like they're the ones who colluded with the Russians. Serve it cold. Nice chilled leftist tears. Go to DailyWire.com. We'll be right back to talk about our vomative culture.
Starting point is 00:35:50 Vomative. I'm only, I'm just covering the story so that I can say the word vomit. So the word of vomative is being used to describe Lars von Trias' new murder movie called The House that Jack Built. It's at Cannes Film Festival. Here is the preview for the house that jack built. The old cathedrals often have sublime artworks hidden away in the darkest corners for only God to see.
Starting point is 00:36:19 The same goes for murder. Apparently, that's the only eight-second clip of the movie that does not entail dismembering children. so that's all they could use for the trailer. This movie just debuted at Cannes, and it actually prompted the moviegoers almost uniformly to storm out of the theater in disgust. That's true. Just to point this out, because it should go without saying,
Starting point is 00:36:51 but some people aren't familiar with these festivals, it's not that it caused an audience of your sweet aunt Ethel to storm out in disgust. It caused the attendees of the Cannes Film Festival to leave in disgust. The con film festival attendees are some of the most decadent debauched people on the face of the earth. They're all these show business types, their show business elites. How many times has Harvey Weinstein attended the con film festival?
Starting point is 00:37:18 One of the attendees this year, Kirsten Stewart, took off her shoes on the red carpet and walked in barefoot. They are debased people. They are debauched people. And even they said that this movie is too much. One reviewer said of the film, he said that it is gross, pretentious, vomitive, torturous, and pathetic.
Starting point is 00:37:39 That's actually the review that Ben gave of my show, but it applies differently to this movie because of how gruesome and bloody it is. Another reviewer called it, a vile movie should not have been made actors culpable, as if to say the people who just got the script, they just played their parts,
Starting point is 00:37:55 they are morally culpable for how filthy and rotten and demonic this movie is. So what's the movie about? According to Rotten Tomatoes, Lars von Traja, his upcoming drama, quote, follows the highly intelligent Jack, Matt Dillon, over a span of 12 years and introduces the murders that define Jack's development as a serial killer. We experience the story from Jack's point of view. Well, he postulates each murder is an artwork in itself. As the inevitable police intervention is drawing nearer, he takes greater and greater risks in his attempt to create the ultimate artwork. of dismembering children.
Starting point is 00:38:34 One viewer from con, this is not a reviewer, but one of the people who saw it tweeted out and said, seeing children being shot and killed is not art or entertainment. So this, you know, people have been scandalized by artwork for a very long time. This is nothing new. But perhaps this has gone too far.
Starting point is 00:38:56 Perhaps, who knows? I haven't seen the movie yet. I've only seen me eight seconds, which still have blood all over them, but apparently they're the safest to air. I think there's a silver lining here, actually, for the culture. You might ask, what is the silver lining to naming and mutilating children? The silver lining, I think, is that the culture has turned a corner.
Starting point is 00:39:14 Because you can keep going down this path. Obviously, certain material would be shocking, even 50 years ago, that today would be absurd. You know, Ricky and Lucy, on I Love Lucy, they didn't sleep in the same bed. They're a married couple, and they slept in separate beds on this show. show because it would have been too scandalous too out there to show them sleeping in the same bed. They couldn't use the word pregnant. That was a culture back then. Now, you just maim and torture all of these children on screen, and that's pushing a boundary slightly. These things can't go on forever. A grotesque culture will exhaust itself eventually. Jimmy Kimmel actually talked about
Starting point is 00:39:55 this yesterday. He said, I think we've had enough of the Trump jokes, of the Trump hate. Have you, Jimmy? You hate it? You hate it. Donald Trump, but they've just gotten to the end. What more is there to do? How much further can you go? Kanye West is talking about this. He says, you know, everyone's just hating really hard and hating and hating and hating and mean and mean and hating and hating. I'm going to love people.
Starting point is 00:40:13 I'm going to try something different. I'm going to do something that's not within the popular culture. Facebook and Twitter are talking about this even. They're offering a bad solution because their solution is censorship, but they're talking about this problem of just meanness and crassness and vulgarity.
Starting point is 00:40:30 People criticize Donald Trump for being a little bit vulgar, but they themselves behave in a much more vulgar way than the president does. Maybe, you know, take a look at the man in the mirror, huh? There's so much meanness, there's so much coarseness and vulgarity. Michelle Wolfe at that White House correspondence dinner, it's so gross, how much further can you go?
Starting point is 00:40:47 It's like the experience of reading the Marquis de Sade. If you ever read, the Marquis de Sade wrote a book called 120 Days of Sodom, and he's where we get sadism from and sadistic. So the Marquis de Sade was both a pornographer and a phaidid. philosopher and you read it and you start to read it and you think, ooh, this is a little, ooh, this is a little titillating. Oh, yikes. Should I don't, should I be aroused by? I don't know. And then you get to the end and you're just so horrified and disgusted with the material and with yourself. It sounds like this movie, you know, which is just people are doing all sorts of
Starting point is 00:41:20 depraved things and it gets violent and vicious and all of that. And by the end you say, ha, gross. It's the experience, I think, of whenever you really feel. feast the flesh. So whenever you can just, let's just use Thanksgiving as an example. You could use more scintillating examples, but let's use Thanksgiving. You go and you say, okay, I'm just going to eat as much as I can all day. So you start out the day, you start eating and drinking and eating pie and turkey and right. By the end, you don't want to eat anymore. You're just so fat and full and disgusted with yourself, tired, and you want to go to bed and do something else. This is true whenever you feast the flesh on anything. It could be sex. It could be.
Starting point is 00:42:01 gambling, it could be drinking, it could carousing, whatever. You just get exhausted by the end of it. And I think that's what the culture has done here with crassness and meanness and vulgarity. That's not to say that we're going to have a really nice pristine culture now. I just think we've sort of reached the end of it. In some ways, the Trump election might mark the end of that. And what comes afterwards? I don't know, but you're seeing the culture slowly starting to move. And if these debauched, depraved showbiz types are going to walk out of a movie, because it's too crass and vulgar and violent.
Starting point is 00:42:33 That could be a good sign. Things are looking bright. Among all of the dead bodies on screen and the husk of our culture, things could be getting better. Okay, make sure to tune in for the conversation. That will be happening in like three seconds. It's going to be at 2.30 Pacific 530 Eastern Time. So do that.
Starting point is 00:42:50 It'll be with Alicia Krause and me and ask all of your questions. I won't answer. I believe Ben touted my conversation as me staring blankly at the screen and then quoting an obscure Catholic theologian that nobody's heard of, that's probably what's going to happen. So, you know, tune in. And I'll just, I'll give you this. Just straight, just...
Starting point is 00:43:11 And then I'll quote some theologian. But you've got to tune in to find out which one. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. I'll see you in like an hour. The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Sennia Villa Real, executive producer Jeremy Borey, senior producer Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
Starting point is 00:43:34 And our technical producer is Austin Stephen. Edited by Jim Nickel. Audio is mixed by Mike Coramina. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. The Michael Knoll Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

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