The Michael Knowles Show - “I Got the Call, ‘Your Dad Was Shot’” | Michael & Donald Trump Jr. EXCLUSIVE

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

In this exclusive one-on-one interview, Michael Knowles sits down with Donald Trump Jr. just days after an attempted assassination on his father, President Donald Trump. Join us as Donald Trump Jr. op...ens up about the harrowing incident, sharing his thoughts on the motives behind the attack and the current state of political violence in America.     Subscribe to the Michael & podcast on Spotify to watch this interview and others:  https://spoti.fi/3xXNfQF     - - -     Today's Sponsor:     Good Ranchers - Take advantage of Good Rancher's Prime Week offer, available now: https://www.goodranchers.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I got a call, you know, 615, whatever it was, your dad's been shot. I got a hold of my father and, you know, surprisingly, you know, calm in the hospital. And, you know, by then I'd already gotten seen the video and sort of him coming up, defiant in the face of actual fire. It was sort of amazing. And he just sort of said, you know, hey, man, you're the biggest badass I know. And because I genuinely believe that. Not 72 hours ago, a 15-degree turn of his head permitted President Donald Trump to survive an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Now, we are all sitting here at the Republican National Convention, and I am sitting down for the first long-form interview with the president's son, Donald Trump Jr.
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Starting point is 00:01:22 you will not find in the establishment media. Go to DailyWire.com. Join us in the fight. Use promo code Fight to save 47% on your DailyWire membership. Donald Trump, Jr. Good to be with you. Don, thank you for being here. It's 603 p.m. on Saturday.
Starting point is 00:01:42 Your father takes the stage. Take me from there. Yeah, I wasn't there. I was actually going to be there. I was supposed to be there because I actually thought that's when they were going to do the VP announcement. And so when I found out it wasn't going on, I was still being negotiated or talked about
Starting point is 00:02:02 or whatever it may be, sort of a long couple of weeks. I was like, you know what? I'm going to be in Milwaukee. I'm going to be doing non-stop press. The media, I'm taking the afternoon off instead of campaigning because I'm going to have pretty much a long sprint until November. My daughter calls me, hey, can we go fishing? That doesn't usually happen. She's the golfer, so she's always training and practicing and competing and whatever. So it's like, yes, took my daughter out on the boat with a couple of her friends. We went out fishing, and I got a call, you know, 615, whatever it was.
Starting point is 00:02:32 Your dad's been shot. And any other information? No, we don't know anything. You know, obviously, I immediately get on the phone. I try to call, I guess at that point they're not sure what the attack is, so they locked down all the cell phones and they jam, whatever it may be. I couldn't get through to anyone. And so literally 90 minutes before I even made. contact. I, you know, I obviously got back in, got all my kids together, made sure everything was,
Starting point is 00:02:59 you know, secure, and I'm just literally waiting for a phone call to get even, you know, any information. Finally, you know, I got a hold of my father and, you know, surprisingly, you know, calm in the hospital, and, you know, by then I'd already gotten seen the video and sort of him coming up, you know, defiant in the face of actual fire. It was sort of amazing, and they just sort of said, you know, hey man, you're the biggest badass I know. Because I genuinely believe that. Yeah, of course. Everyone thinks they're tough until they're actually put in a situation.
Starting point is 00:03:29 He actually wasn't, you know, to come out that way. It was sort of the most proud I'd ever been of him. So you're on the fishing boat with your daughter having a lovely, you know, I was, we were baptizing my youngest son that morning, and so very festive. I saw a text come through, shots at Trump rally. Then I see a text, Trump shot. Then I get a phone call, get to the studio. No one knows what's going on.
Starting point is 00:03:54 And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say, had your father been assassinated, it could have led to civil war. Oh, I mean, yeah. The amount of, honestly, Michael, what's really interesting, sort of the amount of reasonable people, I know, that are, you know, professionals and, you know, successful and that are so frustrated with the world we are. are like, you know, imagine the people who are getting crushed by this economy. And there's a, I think, you know, that's not, it's not an exaggeration. It's not like, oh, I think that could very well be real. And I'm not encouraging that and neither are you because someone's going to say, but like, you know, I think there's civil unrest for a lot less.
Starting point is 00:04:44 And the reason I even mention it is, so much depends upon a 15 degree turn of the head. When I went back, you know, obviously you weren't getting any information for 90 minutes. Everyone's trying to say, he just turns his head like a nanosecond before the shot is. And so I think, I'm just a man who admires your father. I'm just a man who supports his campaigns. You're his son. And you're watching this happen. And you think, you know, but for the grace of God.
Starting point is 00:05:13 Yeah. By way, total, like, I can't think of anything other than divine intervention, right? I don't believe in that much luck or coincidence anymore. Yeah. That was amazing. By the way, I'm also, I come from a competitive shooting background. I mean, you know, 140-yard shot, that's like a six-inch putt, right? That's almost impossible to miss.
Starting point is 00:05:36 And so to be able to move that way and that, it just at that exact instant, you know, literally at the speed of a bullet, it just, it... So to what do you attribute it? It is, you mean that literally divine intervention? I mean, I... I do. I certainly. Like, you know, I'm not, you know, not a hyper-spiritual guy. It's not, but, man, that makes you wonder. You know, I kept just watching a sort of once,
Starting point is 00:05:59 it was sort of actually remarkably calm for the first, you know, until I actually spoke to him. And then I finally, you know, got my kids settled and tried to, you know, I'm trying to explain to, you know, a 10-year-old that her grandfather was just shot in the face. It's, you know, it's, these are conversations you hope to never have to have. even if it sort of worked out, you know, in a good way. But, you know, you're doing that. Then you actually sit down and sort of that, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:26 the adrenaline dump hits you. And it was just like, just. Were you speaking to your siblings? Yeah, yeah. The call to my father, you know, I couldn't get through. I couldn't get through. I couldn't get through. Finally I got through to finally got through to, he's like, hey, I just got through.
Starting point is 00:06:39 It puts me on speaker phones with me and my brother. You know, Kim's there. My ex-wife was there. My kids are there. Like everyone sort of, you know, most of the family's just on speaker. I had spoken to Ivanka a few seconds before that. You know, we're just on speakerphone, you know, talking to him. He was just, you know, very calm, collected.
Starting point is 00:06:55 It got to the point where it was like almost, he sort of needed that icebreaker. So me, I'm usually the inappropriate guys. I was like, so, you know, how's the hair? How's the hair, dad? The hair's fine, but it's a little bloody. There's a little blood in the hair, but it's fine. So, you know, we had a little moment of, you know, of levity there.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Yeah, yeah. And, but, yeah, no, it was a somber moment. And then, what's so striking, I just got here to the R&C, you've obviously been here a little bit longer. There's this feeling of, it seems like, jubilence or a lot of gratitude, a lot of people, obviously, this is what... I'm seeing grown men in tears. Yeah, I got misty-eyed. I got misty-eyed. I got misty-eyed.
Starting point is 00:07:39 Yeah, it's amazing, actually. And it's such a contrast. Honestly, you know, 2020 was sort of, you know, digital. It didn't, you know, it was remote. So it wasn't there. But in 16, it was very different. Yeah. I mean, I almost got in fistfight on the floor with a senator because, you know, they were,
Starting point is 00:07:57 he happens to be a good friend of mine now, but at the time he was a Ted Cruz guy and he didn't know what we were coming in. This was with Mike Lee. You know, now he's one of my favorite senators. He's a great guy, actually. We hang out. But like, literally, about to get in a fist fight with a U.S. senator on the floor of the And people didn't know.
Starting point is 00:08:14 Now he looks even tougher with that shaved head and stuff like that. Why are you? I think I can take him. But it's a very different. But it's different. You know, then I get it. You had this sort of unknown entity that was, you know, not a DC guy, wasn't in politics, wasn't this, that sort of took it by a storm. A lot of people, you know, a lot of people make a lot of money in politics and have a lot of vested interest.
Starting point is 00:08:36 They're not sure what's going on. And so, you know, walking in there the other day, it was just, just, you know, just, you know, just blown away. I mean, the support is amazing. You're literally seeing, like, even just for me, like, you know, grown men, you see them, go to shake your hand, and you just see them, like, well up, and it's like, yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:53 Yeah. History does seem to touch people, you know, in that I voted for your father happily in 2016. I voted for him happily again in 2020. I was going to vote for him happily again this time. It does seem that this is different now, that this is even more significant than it was. I wonder, in your mind, maybe in your father's mind,
Starting point is 00:09:16 does the assassination attempt change anything about the campaign or about the vision for 2024? Yeah, you know, I think, you know, once you get shot in the face, it puts things into perspective perhaps a little bit different. So, you know, I imagine, it certainly does. I know, on Friday, the day before he was shot, you know, I was going, I spent four hours with my father going through his speech
Starting point is 00:09:38 and, you know, let's just say, you know, that's been thrown away and, you know, starting from scratch. It's just, you know, a different tone. Now, you know, my father's, you know, I just did this thing with Axios and then, well, is he going to be, I was like, I think you can tone someone down, but, you know, if you're also constantly attacked, what makes Trump successful is that he fights back. He doesn't just take those things, right? So, you know, he's always going to be a fighter.
Starting point is 00:10:02 That doesn't mean you can't, you know, change a tone most of the time. You know, you're still going to be out there. I sort of dealt with this. The one negative experience I had on the floor yesterday, was a MS, NBC reporter. I mean, I'm out there with my brother. We're literally throwing him over. We're giving the 125 Florida delegates.
Starting point is 00:10:18 We're throwing my father over, so he's actually the nominee, and it's about to go official, and the guy starts off. So with all your father's hatred and this, is he bringing that back? I go, hatred and chaos? Wasn't that created by you guys? I mean, you guys were the ones that push Russia collusion. You're the ones that vilifies half the country. You're the ones calling us Nazis and fascists,
Starting point is 00:10:36 and he's the biggest threat to democracy in the world. I'm like, that was you, not him. I mean, if he responds, you have to respond to that. You can't be called a traitor and not respond. And then he goes off on, well, he put children in cages. You mean the Obama cages? Right. And he loses his mind.
Starting point is 00:10:53 And I just said, you know what? Get out of here. No, yeah, like, you're a clown. Yeah. You know, I say you're a clown. Like, you couldn't even wait 48 hours to go back to your DNC talking points, to your non-s. You couldn't even, 48 hours after my father was shot in the face. So, you know, I guess the clip went fairly viral, but they can't control themselves.
Starting point is 00:11:14 It's Baranica, and we're never going to change the tone responding to that kind of idiocy. Nor should we. I'm sure you saw a lot of the clips of prominent liberals, leftists, of campaign and political flags and Hollywood types, celebrating at first and then saying, doggone it, next time they better not miss. Um, far too much of it. You know, if, if that was coming from our side, those people would be, they'd be thrown out a polite society. Uh, they'd be canceled and probably rightfully so. You know, it's one thing to have an opinion. It's another to do that. So, you know, even in the face of that, they can't help themselves. You know, you and your father and your whole family have been, I think, extraordinarily gracious, uh, in the last 72 hours. If I were you. and a man, the president of the United States, spent years calling my father Hitler, saying that he admires Nazis, that he in a way is a Nazi, or at least resembles them, and that he poses an existential threat to democracy, and then my father was nearly murdered.
Starting point is 00:12:23 Yeah, let's just say I won't even finish my sentence. I showed what would be probably an uncharacteristic level of restraint given what was going through my mind at that time. But, you know, I guess that's the response they're trying to elicit anyway. So I'm not going to satisfy that urge, though it would have felt great. Yes, yes. And I saw an interview with the current president trying desperately after, really, I guess this began with that disastrous debate performance,
Starting point is 00:12:53 and then now his campaigns collapsed. But he lost his train of thought, and he said, well, my generic point is, Hamala, and he's failed off. You know, you know, you know the thing. And then it occurred to me, well, of course he can no longer, articulate any point of the campaign because the point of the campaign, he said from the beginning, I am running
Starting point is 00:13:14 because Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, an existential threat to our country. If he can't say that anymore after that kind of language has led to certain incidents, what's he going to say? Well, it's not like they can campaign on the economy. It's not like they've created world peace,
Starting point is 00:13:31 they've created more wars than anyone in modern history and allowed them to happen. And that's the reality, right? when you exude weakness, the world sees it. Enemies attack, I will say, it's sort of the nature of predation, right? Predators prey on the weak. When America is being led by adult, of course it's going to happen. That's why we're in these wars.
Starting point is 00:13:54 That's why it's not how we're going to stop. It's insanity. And so, you know, I'm sure they'll be back to that. Because no one out there in the media is going to hold them accountable. They all feel the same way. But it's nonsense because, you know, nothing screams, democracy like trying to jail your political opponents, to bankrupt them, to, you know, find them, and, you know, put them in dangerous situations.
Starting point is 00:14:17 Put them in dangerous situations. And by the way, again, it's, the whole thing's, it's absolutely crazy. I mean, they're going to lose that talking point for about a week, but I'm sure they'll be right back at it after, after their convention and the media will let it slide, or they'll come up with some sort of way to justify it because they either believe it or it's convenient. There's a bill right now in the House of Representatives, pushed by someone named Benny Thompson, a Democrat congressman from Mars, I think. I'm not sure exactly where this guy's from. One of his staffers was among those who wished that the shooter would hit next time.
Starting point is 00:14:50 This bill would deprive your father of Secret Service protection. It was obviously designed strictly to target him. So that's still sitting in Washington, D.C. It's still sitting in Washington, D.C. His staffer said those things. what do we think they actually think? I mean, they're right there with the Hollywood people. They may not say it out loud, but their staffers have, and it's crazy. And again, it's not like they've presented anything that's great for the American people.
Starting point is 00:15:17 I can't think of a metric. Hey, I was a real estate developer before all of this insanity. That was a lot easier. I used to say, I'm not getting attacked every day by the press and all this. Now, we're also not getting shot at for it. And so I'd love for them. to be successful. I'd love for that as a father of five young kids. You know, I want them to grow up in America they recognize. I'd love not to have to be in that game, but we have no choice because they're
Starting point is 00:15:46 failing on, you know, across the board. It's an abject disaster. I think everyone sees it. And it's why it's why I'm seeing so many, frankly, people from our, who are not Republicans, who are not from the demographics you'd think, who are not, that come up to me on a daily basis, like, okay, I was wrong, we've had enough. We've had enough. Like, please. Get back at it. It's a good point you make, too, because you often hear this from Republican politicians. They say, I wish I didn't have to be in politics. And they all want to be in politics.
Starting point is 00:16:13 But when it comes from you guys, the Trump family has been very rich and famous since before I was born. So, you know, in a sense, it rings much truer because you really could just have a very comfortable, pleasant life, you know. Yeah, I was joking with my father. He's the only person to ever send to the presidency who actually, you know, got a downgrade to public housing. So, you know, it's obviously, it's a little tongue-in-cheek, but not really wrong. Right. It's fine, but, you know, it's... So you're, so you've had this past career, real estate developer, obviously, helping run the Trump organization, TV.
Starting point is 00:16:50 Now, though, you are a political advisor, and just yesterday, the VP pick was announced. Yeah. I think it was an excellent pick, a pick that I had been rooting for. And I know a pick that you had been rooting for, if the reports are to be believed. So... Those reports are true. And those reports are true. A lot of fake news, but those are not false.
Starting point is 00:17:09 So you saw something in J.D. Vance early on, maybe some of your father's other advisors liked other people. Why J.D.? Well, first of all, I've gotten to know him over the last couple of years, but I read his book when it first came out, and I was like, that's a guy you need him. The hillbilly elegy of the story of just coming from, you know, literally Appalachia and just like, you know, growing into a business. It just one after the other, you know. It loved his military service, but it was right out of high school military service. Not like, okay, I'm a consultant at McKinsey,
Starting point is 00:17:44 and now I'm going to go check that box so that I can run for office one day. It's like a different motivation when you're doing it in high school before you know what direction you're going with anything else. But, you know, seeing reality is seeing the way he'll go on CNN and MSNBC, and he'll go into like hostile territory and just destroy. These people, I mean, he does a better job in hostile territory prosecuting the case for sort of the America First Movement, for MAGA, than, like, the best Republicans do unlike Fox News when they're like pitching T-ball. You know, and I'm just like, that's a guy that can resonate. He can break through, you know, when you talk about sort of the Rust Belt and you talk about sort of the electoral map, this is someone who can play in there. And, you know, it's interesting because, you know, all these, somebody are the haters. And you got to remember, even a lot of the political advisor for it, you know, they're on someone's payroll. and no one knows, so they tell my father something,
Starting point is 00:18:36 but they omit the important details. Right. You know, they tell him just enough to get the answer that they want, but not the right answer. Of course. You know, politics is a disgusting game. I was dealing with that for the last couple months as it related to this.
Starting point is 00:18:47 I'm like, well, did you know this? I was like, no one told me that. I'm like, seems like a big one. He goes, what's going on? You know, it's so sick. And I mean, and that's all from our side, frankly. Right. These are lobbyists for other candidates.
Starting point is 00:18:59 Yeah, you know, you had the, you know, the trillionaire faction of the party, You know, the neocons. You had the rhinos. And it's like, and my father's a guy that will listen to everyone. It'll give everyone a sort of a seat at the table and chant. But like, when they're just so flagrantly lying and they have an agenda or they're being paid to basically lobby for someone, even they'd be terrible.
Starting point is 00:19:21 It's like, you know, just filtering through that. So I think it's just a huge win for America First. I think it's a huge loss for the warmongers in Washington, D.C. I couldn't be more psyched. I also love that it's oriented toward the future. I mean, J.D. Vance is decades younger than your father, obviously, almost 40 years younger, I think. So, you know, your father could have picked someone around his age,
Starting point is 00:19:49 just kind of a wallflower, balance out the ticket or something. But he didn't. He picked a guy who's got really formed views, who's very intelligent, very articulate, young, energetic. So what your father and your whole family have done to the Republican Party, has been reported as a change, a radical departures. In some ways, that's true. But I think of it more as a restoration of the Republican Party. In those early days on things like trade,
Starting point is 00:20:14 on things like immigration, on things like foreign policy, the Trump view is actually a more traditionally conservative view than much of what we've seen in recent decades. So tell me if I'm wrong, it seems to me the JD pick is 2028, 2032, 2036. For me, you know, as someone with young kids again, I want to have a country we recognize. I don't want it to be, well, it was manga for four years,
Starting point is 00:20:38 and then we went back to the old ways. Yeah. You know, so, you know, I love that you can have a guy that can, you know, be a leader in that movement going forward who can carry that torch. Not someone who's like, okay, four years of peace and prosperity, back to war, because, you know, there's no money in peace for the swamp creatures. And so, you know, that's so critical for me. I want this to be, you know, a 12-year run of that,
Starting point is 00:21:00 and then we'll figure out whoever's, you know, whoever's, you know, whoever's next. But, you know, I think you're right. You're going back to the ways. But more importantly, I think you're going back to actually listening to your constituents. You know, so many of these guys in Washington, you know, they get voted in to, you know, prosecute the case for their people. Then they get to D.C. and then they do the opposite of what their people want. And, you know, they change their tune around election time and they go back to do it. And, you know, just having someone who's actually willing to fight for the will of the people who put them into office, you know, rather than just take the easy route
Starting point is 00:21:30 and just conform to the swamp is, I think that's a really huge deal as well, and that's something that's been missing from our party. And I think there was an apathy from our voters even. When they see it, it's like, I know, it's not even worse. Trump changed that. I think this gives sort of Trumpism, MAGA, America First, however you want to call it, a real great leg into the future. So speaking of personnel, I'm not asking you to cast your father's administration,
Starting point is 00:21:59 you know, number 47, but surely some people come to mind that you could envision being important leaders. Yeah, you know, I think, you know, I've all said, hey, I want to be on the transition team, but it's not to put a single person into power. It's to stop the scumbags from ascending to power, right? Just as important as putting people. Oh, more important. You know, listen, I think the guys that sort of tell you what you want to hear but then do the opposite or slow roll something or, you know, In politics, in business, it was always like, you sort of understand what people's motivation is, right?
Starting point is 00:22:33 You know, it's wealth creation or money, whatever, like, you kind of understand where they're at. So in politics, it's like, people will sell out their cause to get a good story written about them that they'll leverage into some sort of other next position that they're, you know, ultimately leads to a board seat at Raytheon. It's, you know, so that's, that's all crazy. I just, my whole thing is like, I just want to stop the sconebags. And now that we've been in there for four years, and more importantly, now that we've even had four years, out watching how people react, see how they are as it relates to my father and the movement and the people once they think, hey, well, Trump's out of it, you know, 20, 2021, 2022. So they go back to the old ways. It's like, that's a guy that's just telling me what we want to hear.
Starting point is 00:23:13 Let's just make sure they don't have a seat at the table. It's a great point on politics and business. Not that I have a lot of business experience. I think you've had considerably more, but I have a cigar company. And I noticed I was in politics first, and then I have this little cigar company. And in business, you just incentives line up and you just kind of figure it out and it's good for you. It can be vicious, but not like politics. There's a lot more to get into.
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Starting point is 00:24:42 Head on over right now. Good Ranchers.com. No promo code needed. Good Ranchers.com subscribe to any box, $150 off. The federal bureaucracy is something like 2 million people. Yeah. Any given president can replace 4 to 5,000 of them. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:56 The plum book is like 4,000 jobs. So, yeah. You really, what would you have to replace? 40,000 to start to get a handle on things. You don't need to answer, of course. There were a lot of people. I think there were 40,000 people who ran for president in 2024. And so you got a lot of candidates.
Starting point is 00:25:12 Do some people come to mind? You know, I think you definitely do. You ultimately need people who are tough enough to actually go in there and not get enveloped by that bureaucracy. The people who are tough enough to try to get rid of some of the bureaucrats who are not the elected or appointed positions, but the people that have been in there forever, that slow everything down,
Starting point is 00:25:29 create the bureaucratic red tape in Washington, D.C., that have no outside experience. So I'd love to bring in a lot of people, frankly, from the outside who have been successful outside of the swap, not creations of it. And so, I think there's a lot of, there is a lot of talent, I think, that'll be willing to do that. Now, much more than they would have in 16, right?
Starting point is 00:25:51 It's no longer verboten to say, I'm having leftists that I know sending me pictures. I'm seeing people wearing MAGA hats in San Francisco. It's just a change. I think people have watched the last years. They understand our governments failed us across the board. And so I had to have people who aren't just creations of that. I think there's a lot of people I'd go from the business space and otherwise that I think we would certainly look at
Starting point is 00:26:14 to head up some of these things to have a change, to have a different perspective. Because the same old sort of Washington, D.C. group think hasn't served us all. that well. Of course. It's amazing. I'm even kind of stepping out of myself here in this conversation in that we're having, for the last five minutes, a very normal conversation about politics. Oh, we'll replace these people or others. When, less than three days ago, American history almost took a major turn. The thing that got me to think of it is you say there are new people who were attracted to us. And I wonder to what is that attributable? Is it because Biden's been a total failure and pretty much everyone recognizes it, including Democrats?
Starting point is 00:26:54 Is it because your father destroyed Biden at that debate? And it was just very clear what the options are. Is some of it because, you know, despite all the hot rhetoric that we've seen, people actually had to come to terms with the fact that there might have been a world into 2024 without Donald Trump. And it changed their view. Yeah, I think all of those things, like, you know, I think, you know, I think, You know, the response under fire. You know, coming back to fine.
Starting point is 00:27:27 It's sort of, that screams America, right? That's, you know, and again, everyone's a badass on the internet these days. Like, you know, we sort of covered that. Everyone's a tough guy. Everyone's, you know, behind a keyboard, everyone's a tough guy. After getting shot to still be a tough guy, that says something. I mean, that's the kind of leadership that keeps us out of wars. That's the kind of leadership and resolve that stops despots from invading their neighbors.
Starting point is 00:27:51 Yeah. That's so critical, and it's so clear that it's missing right now. So I think people get that, but it's just across the board. I'm the son of a billionaire from Manhattan, Michael. If I go to McDonald's with my kids, I took my two sons. This summer, it's like $48. It's like me, an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old, and I was like, if I have sticker shock at McDonald's,
Starting point is 00:28:20 I'm not saying it's changing my habits. I'm not one of these, like, you know, the leftists where they do the... My two-year-old was crying about nuclear proliferation in the Korean Peninsula. I'm like, it didn't happen. Like, if I'm pissed off at McDonald's because I think it's too expensive, yes. It's a problem. That's a problem.
Starting point is 00:28:35 Everyone gets it. Now they've had... It's also different than most politics where you're used to, hey, you know, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to create a world peace, and everyone's going to be a billionaire. Like, we've had four years. We'll have had four years under both presidents when we vote. Yeah. When were you better off?
Starting point is 00:28:50 When was your life on a better trajectory? Right. Like, it's sort of a no-brainer. It's a no-brainer. It's funny because, as you say, all of that, I think that picture of your dad getting up, it's a fight, fight, fight, and then now, it's an overused word, but it's apt here, and it's an iconic photograph with the... Oh yeah, that's going to make the mugshot look like some kid drew it with a crayon. Yes, it will. It's totally, like, it really, I thought that was pretty damn iconic. It could have been painted by, you know, like a Renaissance painting. It could have been, you know,
Starting point is 00:29:20 done by Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel of Modern Photography. Modern politics. So that is what would get me. I've heard some people say, I was already going to crawl over broken glass. Now I'm going to eat broken glass. But for a lot of people, I suspect, it's also those kitchen table issues,
Starting point is 00:29:41 the fact that you have to take out a second mortgage to go to McDonald's now and all the rest of it. Biden has really had no response to this. I think this is why you hear all this rhetoric about how Trump's, you know, the worst person ever, big threat to the democracy, whatever. Biden says he spoke to your father after the shooting. Do you have any insight into that? You don't? I actually don't. It's, you know, better that way.
Starting point is 00:30:06 Yeah, you know, I don't want to, you know, I'll get subpoenaed. I've done 50 hours of congressional testimony for treason. I understand I'm not the upstanding citizen that Hunter Biden is. I know that. I'm a terrible human being. When are you going to be invited to a Ukrainian? Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Crackhead Hunter can be running things de facto behind the scenes at the White House,
Starting point is 00:30:23 and no one has a problem with that. But if I heard that rumor. But if I heard a conversation even in the background, I'll get subpoenaed and be testifying. So I'd rather not know. So I actually have no insight to do it whatsoever. If I, look, if your father's public statements are representative of his private statements, I'm sure he was very gracious on the call, I might not have been if I were in his business. Yeah, no, listen.
Starting point is 00:30:45 Again, it's, you know, you got a question, you know, some of, so much of that, right? How's a shooter get inside of 150 yards? Yeah, like, it doesn't feel like that's just a little lapse. And again, I'm not going to be the guy that gets conspiratorial, but, like, I don't think it's conspiratorial. It's just abjectorial. How did it happen?
Starting point is 00:31:04 How does that happen? You know, we now hear that the Secret Service detail has been beefed up around your father. But my question is, why did it have to be beefed up? Correct. And again, I know what these guys do. I had one for four years when my father was thing. I've watched it for eight years. And, you know, more importantly, even if it was,
Starting point is 00:31:26 he's been the presumptive nominee for a while. He was certainly the presumptive nominee on Saturday. He was the presumptive nominee in January of 2020. Yeah. So, yeah. Makes you ask some questions, right? It certainly does. I hope that, you know,
Starting point is 00:31:42 I hope there's people actually pushing to get those real answers because as a, let's call it, calm but really really pissed off sun yeah kind of want to know there was a former another former republican president had a line in a different context where 20 years ago he said that he was filled with a quiet unyielding anger yeah that's kind of how i felt seeing these things play out and i'm sure you felt it 10 times over the uh homeland security secretary alexandra meorkas says he has 100 percent confidence in the director of the u.s secret service Director of the Secret Service says...
Starting point is 00:32:16 Yeah, he thinks the border's shut down. Yeah, right. So, you know, I don't think anything that Alejandro Majorca says is true or means anything. I don't take it. It means nothing to me what he says because I think he's just a liar. If... And he's got more damage, killed more people probably than any person in American history with what he's allowed to happen down at that border.
Starting point is 00:32:39 Between fentanyl, between just the crime, between the gangs coming through. So honestly, whatever he says, means nothing to me. Yeah, fair. But I also want an investigation that's not led by the FBI, because I don't think that anything that they would do would be, you know, unbiased or, you know. When I heard this from... Sort of like, you know, OJ.
Starting point is 00:32:56 searching for the killer just working in a circle, right? It's a little, you know, it's like, come on guys. Like, yeah, you're the guys that think that concerned mothers at PTA meetings are the greatest domestic terror threat in America, but... And that spied on your father's first campaign. Yeah, of course, my father was right. And then they remember the outrage of that. He goes, man, because my dad's a business...
Starting point is 00:33:13 He's like, it just seems on. The only way we get to this fact said if this is going on. How dare you say that? It turns out they were. All the conspiracy theories turned out to be 100% true, usually three or four years later. Right. When Mayorkas came out, and I agree with you, if Mayorchus told me the sky's blue, I'd start to question. But the Secret Service Director then also came out, and she said,
Starting point is 00:33:34 The Buck stops with me. I'm responsible, but I have no plans to quit my job. Yeah, because, again, they say all these things, but it's government. There's no accountability. It's never anyone's fault. You know, there's always an excuse. You know, I know they have an incredible, you know, DEI hiring policy for, you know, let's make sure we, you know, like the rest of, you know, our military. We wonder why there's a recruitment crisis because, you know, people don't exactly want to sign up when they're being led by a trans admiral that is only there because they checked off the boxes.
Starting point is 00:34:07 You know, I get it. It doesn't feel like, yeah, yeah. I never even heard of white rage. But I was like, you know, once I heard that, I was like, why can I have rage? And I have rage. So I guess now I know. Yes. Now I know. But, you know, it's insane what's happening in our country. And I think people just want to return to normalcy, to common sense, which is not at all common anymore.
Starting point is 00:34:29 And, you know, I think we have a great chance to do that. I agree. I think really everyone here is channeling what easily could be rage. If it were on the left, it would be expressed as rage into something really productive, really beautiful, I think, really grateful. and focused on the future. At 24, 28, 32, 36. Like that meme? It just kept going and the left of just the crying. 40, 44, yes.
Starting point is 00:34:55 Don, you've got a lot of people to talk to. Thank you for sitting there. Thanks a lot, Mike. God bless. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy.
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