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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Dutch Vet Sponsor Voice
Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24. 7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
- [00:43]
Michael Knowles
Welcome into Turning Point tonight where together we are charting the course of America's cultural comeback through the mockery of terrible lib ideas. I want to be fully transparent with you folks. When live events are taking place, sometimes it's difficult to plan for. On Tuesday, Vivek Ramaswamy and Greg Gianforte were giving a speech speech at the Turning Point event in Bozeman, Montana. It ran a little bit long, it cut off the first couple segments of our show, but I thought that that was really interesting. So if the event tonight isn't still going, you're going to see what we filmed on Tuesday, which is important. And Evergreen, it has to do with the governor in California and if the event is still going then, well, you won't see this to begin with. Following that again pending the event and how the live events go, it still could be going. Who knows in the TV world. There are some fascinating interviews we took from the Student Action Summit earlier this summer in Tampa. So hope you enjoy whatever, whatever it is that you're about to see. Whether it's the continuation of the Turning Point event which I am at with Glenn Beck, I'm speaking to you from the future or SAS events, SAS interviews or what I believe was a very, very cool couple segments regarding the governor King dictator of California, one Gavin Newsom. Whatever it is that you're seeing, I hope you enjoy it and I appreciate you tuning in. We'll see you tomorrow back live here on Turning Point tonight. God bless America. Gotta remind you, TPTP USA.com is the email you're going to want to send anything, anything that comes across your desk that you're like, hey, this should be talked about. Or if you're watching the show, you have any comments, thoughts, concerns, criticisms even. We're not the libs. We don't like censoring people just because they are wrong. I'm sorry, disagree. TPTP USA.com is the place to send all of your emails. I've actually been responding to several of them because I don't know, just it's fun. It's fun engaging with you folks. On the email tptp USA.com youm should also subscribe to our YouTube channel Turning Point tonight. Some interesting and fun things coming there. Make sure you don't miss it because there's going to be exclusive stuff on on the Internet. Subscribe to our TPT YouTube channel as well. I want to get to this story because I think this is super important. Debunking the statistics that are being thrown around by big blue state governors and big blue city leaders. Well, oh, okay. The, the statistics show that blue cities and states are safer when it comes to crime and homicides. So says the libs running those areas. Now this is all coming on the back of President Trump saying, hey, we're gonna send National Guard into these areas in order to protect the federal facilities. Like in places like Portland, where again is so peaceful. You can just enjoy a nice cup of coffee on the veranda and go to a cafe. It's all peaceful and nothing wrong ever happens there. But in response to that, there have been memes being made. Governor Abbott of Texas posted a meme that basically said the blue leaders are very, very upset. President Trump do not touch our crime. We love our crime in this city. Now what's been interesting is a bunch of the blue governors have been responding to that tweet, specifically New York and California with some statistics. Now the question is whether or not those statistics are accurate and representing the whole picture. First of which is Governor Kathy Hochul. She responded with to that meme that Governor Abbott posted with this Texas total crime rate is 20.5% higher than new York's. In case you're confused, that means it's worse. Of course libs are trying to do those mic drop. I gotcha with these sorts of statistics. Well, then you have to ask the question, is that really what's going on? Is crime in New York actually less bad than it is in. In Texas? Okay, well, let me solve this problem for you. Um, this is a. I know this is going to come as a shock to most people, but in the great state of Texas, they do this crazy thing called enforce the law. They actually prosecute crime and therefore they have more convictions of criminals. Unlike in the state of New York, specifically in New York City, where they don't prosecute crime. And guess what? If you don't prosecute crime, yeah, you're gonna have less of a CR percentage of your overall population against other places that do prosecute crimes. Let me give you a. An example. This is our friend Savannah Craven. You may remember this clip from, I believe, April of this year, where she was just walking and talking on the streets to people, as people are supposed to do, and got attacked for her troubles. Go ahead and play Clip seven, dude. Of having a child. Yeah, well, I'm, I'm not the one who admitted they would be okay with killing babies in foster care and killing children that have been abused. That's not the point. What I'm saying, that is horrible, and I apologize for having to show that to you. But again, need to make a point of the example here. Glenn, can you pull up graphic nine too? Because this is what Savannah ended up looking like after this brutal attack by a person who wants to kill babies, which shouldn't be surprising. If you're willing to kill people, why would you not be willing to punch people in the face? Well, lo and behold, several months later, Alvin Bragg, the famous Manhattan district attorney, dropped all of the charges. I believe graphic 8 would be sufficient for right now. Uh, the same guy who made up a big case to prosecute the former president of the United States, the current president of the United States, President Trump, didn't charge this on video. Clear assault of a conservative activist who's just asking questions on the street. Now, I know this is one example, but it would be crazy to think that this didn't happen over and over and over again, especially considering the fact that this was freaking on video and you're still not going to prosecute it as a crime. All of that's to be said. Uh, sure, Kathy Hochul. I. I guess in theory, statistically, you can say that. Well, yeah, there are 20% of, uh, more crimes in the state of Texas. Well, yeah, if the state prosecutes crimes and therefore has criminals being locked up, yeah, you're gonna have a higher percentage of, quote, unquote, crime that is convicted. If you don't prosecute, guess what, you're gonna have more crime. And your statistic is also going to be lower. That's not exactly how we want to run cities in this country. Uh, we'd actually like to prosecute crime and enforce the law. And if you don't, you don't get to brag about how your crime rate is, quote, unquote, lower. Ask some, ask anybody on the street if they feel safer in New York City or in really any city in Texas. They're going to say, you know, I feel safer in Texas because they actually prosecute crime, which actually is a deterrent for criminals. Which brings us to another big blue Governor, Governor Gavin Newsom of California also quote tweeted or quote posted x this meme from this very accurate meme from Governor Greg Abbott. Uh, he says, hey, at Greg Abbott, Texas homicide rate is 39% higher than California's. Call home your National Guard and deal with your crime epidemic. Oh, burn. From the governor of California. Well, I wonder where he's getting those statistics. Well, they actually came from the CDC and yeah, those are the statistics posted in the c. See. But you have to ask yourself, well, is that data accurate? Well, the FBI came out with a new system of reporting crime and crime data nationwide. And if you ask the question, well, disk does California entirely adhere to those new reporting practices? The answer is no. In 2022, 98.8% of Texas law enforcement agencies were co were adherent to the new FBI system, the National Incident Based Reporting system. Basically a hundred percent of Texas policing agencies submitted all of their data to the FBI in 2022. Again, this is part of a rollout of the FBI's again National Incident Based Reporting System, California, 50%. Half of the agencies in California did not report to that system. And here I guess I don't know if the math works out here, but if you don't report by up to half of the crimes committed in your state, I would imagine that the crimes in your state would look lower. This is not difficult math. Now the numbers that Gavin was citing were from 2023, just to be fair, and not much improved. It only jumped to 75% in California of policing agencies were reporting to the national Incident based reporting system that the FBI has and it wasn't including one of the biggest crime centers, San Bernardino County, California. And if you're familiar with California, you're familiar with San Bernardino. And if you omit the crime statistics from that county, guess what? It's gonna look like you have less crime. Now, the numbers from 2024 and obviously 2025 are not available. But, but the bottom line here is Governor Newsom is quoting statistics based on his own state statistics that aren't in compliance with the federal numbers and then claiming that he's done something. Now, I will say this. It's not homicide rates aren't good at all. We don't want to see homicide rates anywhere in the country. Red state, blue state, purple state, doesn't matter. Homicide is bad. I feel like that's a thing that we all know and I don't think it needs to be reiterated. But at the same time, you can't fudge the numbers and then post statistics that the CDC has. But they only have them because you guys didn't report all of the crime statistics that came in through this new system. I realized it's a little bit convoluted, it's a little bit nuanced, but that's what conservative conservatism is. It's the ability to deal with nuance. The bottom line here is if you don't report all the crime statistics, yeah, the crime statistics are going to look lower. Thanks, Gavin, for helping point that out through the state. That is not, that is not submitting all of the data. By the way, it was interesting too. Several of the articles about this were talking about how California is not compliant because the system is too difficult. In other words, the dumb bureaucracies in California haven't adapted to the new system. Whereas Texas, no problem at all, 100% of them are reporting to the entirety of, of all of their quote unquote crime statistics. But again, Governor Newsom and Governor Hochul are trying to play off these statistics as if, as if they mean something without obviously giving the full picture. What's the quotes. There are lies, damn lies and statistics. And that is what we are seeing here. But there was one other governor that was in that, in that meme shared by Greg Abbott. I'm surprised he didn't take up the entire scene because, well, physical dimensions being at play and that was J.B. pritzker. This I thought was interesting too. This is coming out of Breitbart News. They actually compiled all of the crime data and the shooting victims in the, in Chicago specifically throughout the last 10 years. And the number is staggering and shocking. War zone Chicago sees over 32,000 shooting victims in the last decade alone. This comes on the heels of a Breitbart report where they talking about last last week alone, 30 people were shot, five of them fatally. And this is another interesting statistic too. Yes, Chicago shooting deaths have gone down. One of the freakonomics components of that is the ability to save people from gunshot wounds has gone up, up. So the shootings have relatively stayed the same. Deaths have gone down, which is good. That's a, that's a good thing. We don't want to see more deaths. But at the same time, if it's because they're able to be saved at the hospital, well, that doesn't eliminate the danger of being shot on the war zone streets of Chicago. According to the Chicago Tribune, over 330 people have been murdered in Chicago thus far in 20, 24, 5. And it's up to J.B. pritzker, the governor of Chicago, who is now saying Trump wants to create a war zone. News flash, JB it's already a war zone. Uh, having said that, this is what JB Pritzker is saying. Why President Trump is possibly sending National Guard to Chicago. It's not because he's trying to protect federal agencies. It's not because Chicago is, in fact, a war zone. It's because of this ridiculous reason. Go ahead and play. What is it?
- [14:06]
Matt Walsh
Cut four. Yelling at them, but they think they can get people used to the idea. And next year, I fear that what they're going to do is deploy these folks eventually to polling places and say they're protecting the vote.
- [14:24]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. J Brief. Everybody's able to vote and an American citizen therefore eligible to vote. What would be the problem of making sure that the polling stations are safe? If they're unsafe, maybe we should beef up security and make them safe. Gavin Newsom also said something similar to this of ICE might be at the polling stations to intimidate voters. Why would that intimidate voters, Gavin? Is it because maybe the voters that are voting shouldn't be voting because they're here illegally? It's kind of a conundrum. You've got yourself in there. Again, the governors of the blue states of around the country again claiming, no, this is. We're totally peaceful. Nothing is bad. Nothing bad is going on here. Fudging statistics, manipulating numbers, and then claiming that they've done something is hilarious and should be seen as hilarious. Um, I give this. I give this four eye rolls. It's a new thing I'm doing. It's a rating system that I have in line with the Washington Post's Pinocchio's. I'm going to go with four eye rolls here. Um, and it's not the full five eye rolls just because homicide is bad, regardless where you are. And we'll save that last eye roll for that specifically. But four eye rolls go to the blue governors of these blue states who claim their crime is down. And as we wrap this up, just because we like to hit on Portland, and we're going to talk to Savannah Hernandez a little bit later about Portland. Claiming that they're blue cities and blue states are totally safe is ridiculous. Singing about it is even more ridiculous. I regret to inform you that the liberal boomers are singing yet again in the. In the totally safe city of Portland. Watch this.
- [16:27]
Matt Walsh
All right, all right, let's let's we.
- [16:29]
Michael Knowles
Don'T need any more of that. Lying about statistics doesn't make cities safer and singing about them doesn't change reality. We got a great show planned for you. Got some bumper sticker information. Do you have a political bumper sticker? Do you see political bumper stickers that you don't like? Well, there's some new statistics out on how people react to the bumper stickers. Like I said, we're going to talk to Savannah Hernandez who was in Portland for the last several days. We're going to talk with Turning Points White House correspondent Monica Page and we're going to watch some hilarious videos done by Dumb Libs yet again because we love doing that here on this show. Don't go away. We'll be right back after the break.
- [17:18]
Dutch Vet Sponsor Voice
Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24,7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
- [17:53]
Michael Knowles
Welcome back to Turning Point tonight where together we are charting the course of America's cultural comeback through the mockery of terrible ideas pushed by the left. You can email the show anytime you want. Tptpusa.com love seeing each and every one of your emails and might respond to them. And I know he's been saying we're gonna try and get to more at the end of the show but there's been so much to get to. It's a little bit tough. So I am trying to respond to as many as I can. Again, tptpusa.com love seeing each and every one of your emails. Let us know in the emails. How do you feel when you're driving your car and you get cut off on the freeway? Okay, picture yourself in that situation now. How do you feel if you're driving your car, you get cut off on the freeway and the person driving the car that cut you off has a Harris Walls sticker on the back of it or you know, proud liberal or leftism is going to save the country or I'm a progressive or I like good coffee or all of those things mean the same thing to me. You're definitely a lib. And how does that make you feel? Does it make you feel worse inside. Is it going to listen elicit a different reaction from you? Well, the answer, according to study finds in a new report, is yes, actually it is. I actually have some differing thoughts on this, but I want to read you some of what this report is finding out of party stickers. Meaning like, you know, if you're a conservative and you see a lib sticker, uh, don't matter when the driving is good. Uh, yeah, it doesn't. I don't really care about whoever's driving if, if they are being a good driver, uh, they raise hostility. However, when driving is bad. What they did here is they put people through like a simulator. And the simulator used computer generated dash cam footage to simulate realistic driving scenarios. Participants then watched videos of another car either driving totally smoothly and had, you know, different bumper stickers on it or driving badly, cutting them off, forcing them to break hard, et cetera, et cetera, things that you do when you're driving badly. The cars that displayed. Sorry, that car then displayed four different options of the bumper sticker. Neutral bumper stickers like I love my dog or stickers like proud Democrat or proud Republican. Uh, so no bumper sticker I love my dog, Proud Democrat, proud Republican. Uh, turns out that if the sticker did not align, and this is both sides by the way, did not align with the person politically, it would elicit a different response. Honking and feeling thermometer, which is a different rating that came up for this specific thing, shifted towards colder reactions if the sticker did not align with the person politically. Uh, and interestingly enough, they also tested for race and because we are not a racist country, turns out, didn't really have any statistical, statistical significance at all with the race of the driver. It did, however, with their political ideology or the way that they lean directionally. If a conservative was cut off by a liberal, uh, one that kind of makes sense. And it probably happens more often because liberals tend to be worse drivers because they hate cars and would rather take public transit and trying to eliminate ownership of anything. Because they don't like the way that the world is run, they don't like the free market society and they're freaking communists and want to get rid of cars altogether. Forgot where I was going with that rant. I just kind of had to keep going because that's generally the type of person that cuts you off in traffic. Probably in a lesser instance, when conservatives would cut liberals off, it would elicit a similar reaction. Here's where I think I personally differ from this. When I see somebody cut me off one. I'm never happy about it, but I actually have the reverse reaction. I only get irritated when I see conservatives cut me off because I feel like they should know better.
- [21:43]
Matt Walsh
Right.
- [21:43]
Michael Knowles
I have a higher standard for conservatives overall, how they interact with me and how they interact with the rest of the world. If a conservative cuts me off in traffic, I get frustrated because. Because I know that we are better than them. I recognize, hey, conservatives have a higher threshold of how we view the world. And I think that conservatives are. Should be held to a higher standard because again, we are better. If I get cut off by, you know, somebody in a Prius who has, you know, the peace sign with save the bees and Kamala Harris for president or proud democr. Whatever it is that insinuates that they're a liberal, uh, I don't get as mad because that's what I expect from them. I expect them to be. To be bad, inconsiderate drivers that just. I need to do the thing that I want to do. I missed my exit, and for some reason, you're gonna pay for it. Yeah, every. Nobody likes getting cut off in traffic. But if they cut me off and they have, I don't know, a free Palestine sticker or whatever, the liberal cause of the moment, climate change, is an existential threat on their car. So I go, yeah, that. That makes sense. This person doesn't have regard for people behind them. And while I'm irritated at being cut off in traffic, I get it. It makes sense to me. They're. They're inconsiderate people generally as a whole. And I don't know if that's a healthy way of me thinking about it, but I would. I would love to see and hear your feedback and reaction, how you perceive people when they cut you off in traffic and have a political sticker on the back of their car. TBT USA.com it's kind of par for the course to me. I expect that from Libs when they're driving cars and, you know, make. Make bonehead errors and maneuvers. Shoot, I'm not sure if we have a tire time. Basically. I want to get to this really quick. How the media has covered the would be assassin of Brett Kavanaugh, who is now a girl. I guess for some reason the ruling came down, the sentencing came down for the guy, I'm not going to say his name, who attempted to kill Brett Kavanaugh. And the news reporting around it was ridiculous. He is now saying that he is a girl, which is crazy, but only got eight years And I'm sure this has been covered in other places. But what I would like to cover is the coverage of this. The New York. Sorry. The NBC News people wrote a woman who pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh three years ago was sentenced on Friday. Oh, yeah, the woman that did that. NBC News continued on to say Sophia, which, you know, I guess I'll use that name because it's not a real name. Now, 29, was arrested outside of the home in June 2022 when she intended to kill the associate justice then herself. The New York Times actually added something interesting to this saying the judge also said that a lower sentence was warranted because an executive order issued by President Trump mandated that transgender woman be held at male only federal FAC facilities, which she could, which she said the judge said could interfere with her transitioning care. Basically they're saying, well, the judge had to give her a lighter sentence. Her again, using that stupid language, had to give this dude a lighter sentence because, well, he has to go to a male prison and because he is a she. That would be worse for her. It's ridiculous.
- [25:15]
Matt Walsh
Nonsense.
- [25:16]
Michael Knowles
There's a bunch more examples here, including from the Washington Post, but I don't really have time to get to it because we want to save some time for a Monica Page. Turning Points White House correspondent after we talked to Savannah Hernandez. All coming up here in Turning Point tonight. Don't go away. We'll be right back after this.
- [25:40]
Dutch Vet Sponsor Voice
Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24,7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments. And shipping is always free. With Dutch. You'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
- [26:19]
Michael Knowles
Michael Knowles, host of the Michael Knowles show and not the Ben Shapiro Show. Is that correct?
- [26:24]
Matt Walsh
I should host that show too, I think.
- [26:26]
Michael Knowles
Do you have the capacity?
- [26:27]
Matt Walsh
I, I don't talk fast enough. My voice is slightly too deep. And I once asked Ben, I was like, why is it I, I think my voice sounds nicer. I told him this and you know what he said?
- [26:40]
Michael Knowles
Did he disagree?
- [26:40]
Matt Walsh
I don't.
- [26:41]
Michael Knowles
That's an objective truth.
- [26:42]
Matt Walsh
No, he made.
- [26:42]
Michael Knowles
I'm not trying to go.
- [26:44]
Matt Walsh
It's just that's what he said though. He actually said to Me. He goes, know the fact that my voice is kind of like fast and, you know, a little higher pitch. He goes, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, whereas you like your voice all boring. And they're like, maybe, maybe he's right.
- [26:57]
Michael Knowles
Have you met anybody who listens to, to your show to go to bed?
- [27:01]
Matt Walsh
To go to bed.
- [27:02]
Michael Knowles
That's the true test. Because you know how some people I listen to stand up comedy every time I go to bed? Like, just really. Oh, yeah, I have it in an earpod.
- [27:09]
Matt Walsh
I.
- [27:09]
Michael Knowles
Probably a bad habit of mine. Yeah, yeah. But I. It started when I had an accounting professor in college who I could not stay awake in his class. So I listened to his lectures in my head and then it's transitioned into stand up comedy. But have you met anybody who's. Who's listened to the Michael Mo show as they follow?
- [27:25]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, I think I actually have. And then I was thinking, well, what if, what about the flip side? Like Ben's show? And I thought, well, maybe that's like, I, I know people who, they'll put in a Zen before they go to bed. And that's kind of the Ben version. Me, I'm the opium pipe before you go to bed. But Ben's the. He's like the 15 milli lip filly, you know?
- [27:41]
Michael Knowles
Oh, man. Yeah. Interesting. What is your. What is your. You're at a big conservative movement conference. Right. Which I realize is like the Olympics of hot takes. Everybody's trying to out hot take each other.
- [27:56]
Matt Walsh
Yeah.
- [27:56]
Michael Knowles
And do you have one of those prepared for, for your speech tonight?
- [28:01]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna walk out. I'm gonna walk out and say, woo. You know, I'll say, hey, Woo. And I'm gonna say, hey. So I think we can all agree that the Epstein story is completely above board and there are no additional questions.
- [28:16]
Michael Knowles
That is the joke you're gonna make.
- [28:19]
Matt Walsh
Should I. I don't.
- [28:20]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [28:20]
Matt Walsh
I wonder.
- [28:21]
Michael Knowles
I think you should.
- [28:22]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, that, that one. Because that's kind of the newsiest part of the day. And there, when, when Trump was elected, I had this thought, which is, should I try to get a position in the administration? That could be really fun. I support Trump and I'm really excited by what they're doing. I'd like to maybe help if I could. I thought maybe that could be fun. Ultimately, you know, said, ah, maybe I won't do that because. Because there are downsides to government.
- [28:49]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [28:50]
Matt Walsh
Looking at the past week, I am reminded of, of one reason people don't want to take these jobs yes. That's a thankless week, I'll tell you that.
- [28:58]
Michael Knowles
Oh, yeah, You're. You're saying you don't consider yourself running or see yourself running for anything or, or running or.
- [29:05]
Matt Walsh
I was even thinking when he got in, you know, maybe I could help out the administration.
- [29:08]
Michael Knowles
Okay, got it. But.
- [29:08]
Matt Walsh
All right, yeah, I mean, maybe running down the line or, I don't know, you know, if my country called on me. But there are downsides to running for office. There are a million downsides. But even in this case, you got people in the Trump administration who are terrific and they've given up a lot in the private sector to come help out the country and the admin. And they're working tirelessly and often thanklessly. And then every so often, an issue comes up, up. Like the Epstein thing, which it could be one of two things. Either the official government story is true, and he was a really rich pervert and he was friends with all the most powerful people on earth. Everything's nothing to do with each other. Ghislaine Maxwell's in prison for trafficking girls to no one. So either that's true or. So like, if that's true, you have the whole story.
- [30:02]
Michael Knowles
Yeah. Or.
- [30:05]
Matt Walsh
That'S not true. Or it's not the whole story. And guess what? You're still not going to get the whole story. But either way, if this thing is an intelligence operation, you ain't never going to get those files. And then if it's not, you already have all the information, so there's no way out of it. This is how I felt when the JFK files were going to be released. I remember the admin released whatever, 60,000 files or something. And I remember that day I said, whatever. They released JFK files. Let me know if you find anything. I moved on. The audience yelled at me. They said, you're ignoring this bombshell news story. I said, bombshell news story. One thing I promise you is there is nothing in those files. Because if Kennedy were not killed by a lone gunman on a grassy knoll, if Kennedy were killed by the CIA, the mob, the Mossad, the Soviets, the Cubans, George Bush, Lyndon Johnson, or some combination thereof, collect. If you were killed by them, you ain't never gonna find out.
- [31:05]
Michael Knowles
There you go.
- [31:05]
Matt Walsh
I just thought. And so I guess my defense of the administration is in statecraft. There is espionage, there are cover ups. There are grand strategic objectives that involve global alliances that could upset the entire world order. And sometimes you don't get full transparency and governments can't be fully transparent. And they shouldn't be fully transparent. And I get all of that. But if you this week are some of these really good guys, from Dan Bongino and Cash Patel all the way up to Trump himself and you, I love Trump's reaction where he goes, you're asking me about this again, I want to talk about all the good stuff I'm doing. If you're one of these guys, this has got to be one of those moments where you think this is the most thankless job in the world.
- [32:01]
Michael Knowles
Oh, yeah. Oh, is life objectively got way worse. Yeah. Since, yeah, I would be happy being a billionaire in south beach and not having any sort of responsibilities. You mentioned running for running for office. And if your country called on you. Now, that's the excuse that just about every politician makes. Obviously you can't judge the hearts of the average politician, but it always seems disingenuous. Just it doesn't. Is that okay that in a lot of ways politicians running for office, it's fully self sufficient serving.
- [32:36]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, that's true. No, I mean, that's why public service. Right, right. I'm using the line jokingly, obviously, but I know that. But, but it makes a good point that you're talking about, which is people run. People do sometimes run for office to get rich or famous or have some influence. Now, I'm happy to say, not, not bragging or nothing, but by the grace of God and blank book sales and everything that's followed since then, I have enough notoriety, I don't have to run for Congress to get notoriety. I have enough money, I have more money than I could make in Congress and I think I've got some political influence. So. A little bit. A little bit. But I mean, sincerely, there are plenty of people with a lot more political influence than I have. But. Meaning if I were to run, all three of those things would diminish. Yes. So you'd say, well, and like for Trump, at an extreme scale, all three of those things diminished and they tried to imprison and murder him. So why would you do it? There is an answer, and it is a little bit self serving, but it's public serving too, which is you want to do something, you want to be in it, you want to be the man in the arena, not just the guy talking about the guy in the arena. And I think that's very much Trump. And I think that that can be good where you align kind of personal ambition with the common good. That, that is great. And you get these politicians every once in a while for the Rest of them though, as you say, these guys who are self serving who just want to get famous or rich or corrupt, I don't know, whatever. You know, I would say there are easier ways to make a buck, but.
- [34:14]
Michael Knowles
In a way I think we need those people. I have no interest in those guys. No, we need the people who are self serving to run for Congress because I don't want to run for Congress. That sounds horrible. It sounds like the worst job on the planet.
- [34:28]
Matt Walsh
That is the worst job in the planet. Being in Congress.
- [34:31]
Michael Knowles
Being in the Senate would be cool. Being the president would suck.
- [34:34]
Matt Walsh
Being in the Senate though, you're still away from your family five days a week, you're still not allowed to make, you can make quite a good salary, but you can't make zillions of dollars. You can't really do anything. You can do a little bit more than if you're in Congress, but you still don't have executive authority. So at least president, you can, you can really do stuff.
- [34:51]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, you can actually do something. Yeah, unless a judge in Maryland says otherwise.
- [34:55]
Matt Walsh
But that's true. You, you can do stuff. Unless 1 out of 700 district court judges like woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day. Yeah, you're right, that's true. So it's like you, you could do it. But there is this problem right now, I think on the right, which is there's not much incentive to run for office.
- [35:19]
Dutch Vet Sponsor Voice
Right.
- [35:19]
Matt Walsh
You can, we've built out our think tanks. We got these great think tanks. We built out great media organizations, great activist organizations. Where you're in the private sector, you can. But the libs, I don't know, they're gluttons for punishment. They want to be in the government, they want to staff the bureaucracy. They want to, they want to trudge along in the corridors of Congress. They, they, they want it more, I think, than we do a lot of the time.
- [35:47]
Michael Knowles
Throw that radio away. Sorry, I lost my train of thought there.
- [35:54]
Matt Walsh
Talking about Congress, talking about Democrats trudge away like animals.
- [35:59]
Michael Knowles
So, okay, so, so here at Turning Point events, there's a big butting of heads of the conservatives versus the libertarians and there's a lot of libertarians who, you know, make compelling cases are here. Yeah, no, they're here.
- [36:16]
Matt Walsh
You let libertarians, they're undercover.
- [36:18]
Michael Knowles
They, they were let in because we have this pesky free speech thing, but not necessarily.
- [36:25]
Matt Walsh
Let me send them copies of my book. I don't know about that.
- [36:28]
Michael Knowles
Well, okay, so, so in that debate between kind of the more laissez faire and then the more conservative government, do you think that there is a. With an increase in self morality or religion or Christianity in the country, does that allow for more libertarianism? Does that make sense?
- [36:48]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, it does, it does. If we were to return to a place where we, we had true freedom, which is the ability to regulate ourselves and the inclination to do so, where you don't so much need the heavy hand of government or cultural institutions, then yeah, we could tolerate more like ridiculous dope, smoking, Reddit, using libertarianism. The problem is though, the acid of that ideology would just instantly once again begin to erode and corrode the edifice, the conservative edifice on which it's all built, and you'd wind up in the same place. You know, I love my libertarian friends. The best thing I can say about libertarianism is I like the people. Yeah, but the ideology is ridiculous. It's based on a false conception of human nature that says that man is fundamentally an individual, not a member of a political community. And it says that freedom is the ability to do whatever we wish, not the right to do what we ought to do. And it's just lib and wrong and it is politically ineffectual. It's, it's electorally unpopular and not to put too fine a point on it, but it's, it's bad and.
- [37:57]
Michael Knowles
But tell us how you really feel.
- [37:59]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, yeah, but we, the people are great. And the reason that there remains a conservative libertarian alliance is because of mutual affection that comes out of the Muslims and the trans.
- [38:09]
Michael Knowles
It's like they have no business cohabitating at all.
- [38:13]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, yeah. For some reason, you're a common enemy. The Jews.
- [38:17]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [38:17]
Matt Walsh
So they, like after the Second World War, you had the hard left, the. Really, the communists.
- [38:25]
Michael Knowles
Yes.
- [38:25]
Matt Walsh
And the libertarians hated communists because of the collectivism. The traditional conservatives hated communists because of the atheism and the materialism and all. And the war hawks hated the Soviet Union rather because of expansionism and imperialism. So we all got together and that worked until it didn't, you know, but in the 90s it stopped working. So it's an incoherent marriage. And I think the libertarian moment, such as it is, passed. And that's fine. It's okay that it passed. It's good that it passed. So all those libertarians. I like the people, but just come on over to the conservative. It's okay, the water's warm.
- [39:04]
Michael Knowles
I, I said, I said probably something too spicy in too short of a time to give full context to what I Was saying. I'm not even going to say it here because it's probably.
- [39:14]
Matt Walsh
You got to say it. Hold on. Come on.
- [39:16]
Michael Knowles
We were talking. I was going to pose the question of if you could change or alter one historical moment in US History, what would it be? That question was posed to me. I said, deciding of the Civil Rights act and did it and did. He didn't get the full. The full chance to.
- [39:31]
Matt Walsh
Which is that you hate black people.
- [39:33]
Michael Knowles
Obviously, that's it. They did come to that conclusion because then I said, sign the Civil Rights Act. And then they said, and that'll do it for us here. In no context whatsoever. That didn't actually happen. I explained it a little bit. Yeah.
- [39:45]
Matt Walsh
Brown v. Board of Education. That was the worst month.
- [39:50]
Michael Knowles
It helps because I think I'm dark enough and I think if you tan enough, you will be as well.
- [39:54]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, I know this. The Sicilians are a racially liminal people. No, it's fine. But everyone sees your point, which is the point Chris Caldwell made in Age of Entitlement.
- [40:01]
Michael Knowles
So I was. Yeah, that's. I think the book that everybody's referenced recently of. Well, that's probably a couple years old now. Yes, but yeah, the, the idea that the government shouldn't dictate. Well, and it ended.
- [40:11]
Matt Walsh
Created the Civil Rights Act. I mean, there have been many civil rights acts in American history.
- [40:14]
Michael Knowles
Yes, of course.
- [40:14]
Matt Walsh
But the Civil Rights act in the 60s created effectively a parallel and rival Constitution. This is why every government office has a civil rights division, because it eliminates free association, which is intrinsic to the first version of constitutional principles. And so you just have this rivalry and sometimes the Civil Rights Constitution wins out and sometimes the old Constitution wins out. But that's Caldwell's thesis. And that's, I suspect, what you're talking about.
- [40:46]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, and. Exactly. And I wish we had a video monitor show. There's a. There was a video that I saw. It was one of those New York subway card like interview things. And he was interviewing this older black woman and she's like, what's your hottest take? And she said, bring back segregation. Like, if it's a white owned restaurant, I want to know that your food isn't good. And I thought to myself, you know, I think racism is horrible and nobody should ever do it.
- [41:14]
Matt Walsh
But, but. There's a but. Did you hear the butt?
- [41:34]
Michael Knowles
The, the idea to include or disinclude somebody should be by the. On the prerogative.
- [41:38]
Matt Walsh
Listen, I'm completely opposed to Jennifer, but.
- [41:41]
Michael Knowles
Maybe I phrased that incorrectly.
- [41:44]
Matt Walsh
No, of course. So.
- [41:45]
Michael Knowles
But But.
- [41:46]
Matt Walsh
But I would go back further than that. You know, there. There are. There were errors that led to that kind of stuff. Even here. I'll get. I'll get in more trouble than you did for the Civil. Civil Rights act, which is that the 14th Amendment creates a lot of problems.
- [41:59]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [41:59]
Matt Walsh
Again, not because.
- [42:00]
Michael Knowles
Not the 19th Amendment, which has created more problems.
- [42:04]
Matt Walsh
That's derivatives. Yeah, all right, we'll get to that one eventually. But, but the 14th. The 14th Amendment creates a lot of problems. Not even. People always focus on that as basically just a way to welcome black people into the fabric. But the problem is it's so overly broad that the basis of so much terrible jurisprudence that allows the libs to just rewrite the Constitution is grounded in the 14th Amendment, whether in invisible ink or in the plain text a bit, also incorporating the Bill of Rights to the states. And it creates this kind of cascading effect of jurisprudence that really upends the whole political order. And so if you really wanted to start fixing stuff in American history, maybe that or for you, I don't know, you'd uphold Dred Scott or something.
- [42:49]
Michael Knowles
I don't know.
- [42:50]
Matt Walsh
Outrageous.
- [42:50]
Michael Knowles
Well, what is.
- [42:51]
Matt Walsh
What is.
- [42:51]
Michael Knowles
Same question posed to you. What kind of pinnacle. Turning point event. Oh, hey, turning point, there we go. What event might you not necessarily completely flip, but alter in just a little bit way that you think would set the country on a better trajectory historically?
- [43:10]
Matt Walsh
Well, now, this is a little Monday morning quarterback, and I'm not. I don't think this would.
- [43:15]
Michael Knowles
That's the whole premise of this question we're asking you. If you.
- [43:18]
Matt Walsh
Physic history.
- [43:19]
Michael Knowles
This is not realistic, but it's one.
- [43:20]
Matt Walsh
It's one thing to say I would not have ratified the 17th amendment. That is more plausible than what I'm about to say.
- [43:27]
Michael Knowles
Okay.
- [43:27]
Matt Walsh
Which is. I think there might be a chance that the Civil War could have been avoided. Every other country managed to get rid of slavery without a civil war. Yeah. Now, we were a little bit different. We were quite reliant on it. The cotton gin, you know, accelerated the primacy of slavery or the significance of slavery to the economy. We had this kind of interesting history, historical development that really gave you a North and a South. And so I don't know that it would have been avoidable. But there were a series of unfortunate events that led up to the Civil War. Had we been able to eradicate slavery in a. In a more orderly and conservative way without spilling the blood of 600,000Americans, I think a lot of the historical wounds and negative self perception that we have. Would. Would have. Would have evaporated.
- [44:17]
Michael Knowles
This is so not where I was planning on going here. But do you think. Do you think Wilberforce was successful in that because of proximity, things being closer together and you're able to talk to people more, as opposed to kind of the north and the south being so geographically distant?
- [44:32]
Matt Walsh
Sure. The geographical distance is symbolic of an ideological difference, which is that the south was the nearest thing. Russell Kirk talks about this. The south was the nearest thing we've ever had in America to the old world, to feudalism in an odd kind of 19th century form. But this is the opening of Gone with the Wind, the land of gentlemen and knights and cavaliers. So you have this old world kind of feudalism in the south, and then you have this Whiggish Yankee puritanical ideology in the North. Probably the true heirs of Northern Puritanism. Northeastern Puritanism is the left. Yeah. I think pretty clearly. And so you had these incompatible, really religious ideas. Yeah. And anthropological ideas. And that was gonna come to a head. Probably. It ended up coming to a head in this moment where just as slavery was waning, it became economically viable again. It got a second life. And because America was expanding west, it was gonna. You know, you had a major battle for power in the country. And so maybe I'm undermining my own answer, but maybe you just could not have avoided it in a way that other countries that were locked on their borders basically, and were a little more homogenous in their ideology, maybe they had an advantage that we did not.
- [46:04]
Michael Knowles
So to paraphrase what you just said, you would change the fact that maybe we didn't have to go to the Civil War, but we had to also.
- [46:12]
Matt Walsh
Now, what you would want. Yeah. Your answer, of course, would be, you wish we still had slavery. Obviously, you just said that correctly. No, that would be a big one. I mean, the. But there are so many others. Like.
- [46:27]
Michael Knowles
The.
- [46:30]
Matt Walsh
Mass migration of the 19th century. If we had seen down the pike what that would do, that would be. We should. We would probably think a little differently.
- [46:40]
Michael Knowles
But you would have been labeled as mean. That would have been very mean of you to do, you big meanie.
- [46:46]
Matt Walsh
I know, and I would.
- [46:47]
Michael Knowles
Every culture's the same.
- [46:48]
Matt Walsh
I'd be a little less swarthy because my Sicilian ancestors would not have made it here, which would be a tragedy for America. But, you know, when I think of these historical what ifs. What ifs, though, they don't do a lot for me because of something that we've lost a sense of which is the providence of history. So you think, let's go all the way back to Constantine. Let's go back to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
- [47:15]
Michael Knowles
Okay. Is this the one where he sees the sign from God and decides effectively in his mind he's going to be Christian? Yes.
- [47:24]
Matt Walsh
And attributes the victory to Christianity and then he legalizes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, then truly it's one of the most significant events in the world. Yes, because of a battle. But that's not the only one. The Battle of Poitiers, called the battle of tours. 732. Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne, repels a large Muslim army 150 miles outside of Paris. Had he lost that battle, which by all rights he could have, there would not be a Christian Europe. There would not have been a High Middle Ages or a Renaissance. It would be part of the Caliphate. 1571, Battle of Lepanto, same thing. That battle was won because Christians prayed the rosary in Europe. We were outnumbered in the sea, the wind. I mean, it's unbelievable. Battle of Vienna, largest cavalry charge in history. All these moments where my take on it is, we all like to play this parlor game. What event would you change in history? Yeah, yeah. Because we're all activists in modernity. But I don't think of myself as an activist. Yeah. And I actually prefer to not want to change the world at all. I want to understand the world. I want to read meaning into history. Because for the Christian, you know, we're. We claim to know history. We claim to know how it begins, how it turns, the incarnation and how it ends. We claim to know the end of history. In this way, the progressives are kind of just like a perverse version of us, which liberalism is kind of just a perversion of Christianity. So we claim to know that. Yeah. But we're still here. History is still unfolding. So what do we do? Well, there's a wonderful scholar, Giuseppe Mazzotto, who makes the point in a book about Dante. He says the task incumbent on the. The Christian Wayfarer is in this time of history where we're waiting for the end to scrutinize the signs of the times, to make sense of the signs that God imprints on the world. That's my view of it. So rather than say, what would happen if we, you know, hadn't passed the 19th or whatever, it's like, everything would be better. No, rather than just think about that, you'd say, okay, what does it mean? What does it mean that we did that?
- [49:22]
Michael Knowles
Then in A weird way, I feel vindicated in an id. Never mind. As I was gonna say, there's no. There's no more pretentious thing to say. An idea for a book, but the good guys always win. And kind of outline, hey, there's a reason that the Athenians won the battle of Marathon. And to all that forward, because the society was better.
- [49:46]
Matt Walsh
That was actually. That's a Norm MacDonald joke where really he goes. He goes, yeah, I'm reading this history book right here, and, you know, it turns out that the good guys won every single war that's ever been fought because the. The victors write the history.
- [49:58]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [49:58]
Matt Walsh
But I. I actually am writing a book on a similar topic, though you can keep that title. That's. That's not my title, but I like.
- [50:05]
Michael Knowles
Regardless of what your book's gonna be about, you stole it from me. Right? Yeah.
- [50:07]
Matt Walsh
Yeah, I know. Video proof. The cameras are the litigation. This is it. But. But I am. I am writing a book on. On Providence in history because I think that point is. Is very well said. You know, actually you're taking it to an even further logical conclusion, which is the good guys always win, at least in the sense of God's passive will. So it doesn't mean that we don't do anything. We have to act, we have to participate. You know, but really our participation is cooperating with God's will. That's what we're after.
- [50:36]
Michael Knowles
I was going to refrain myself from making a Calvinist joke, but this was great. We didn't do any of the gimmicky things. Can we do one gimmicky thing? I love gimmicks because I thought this would be fun.
- [50:47]
Matt Walsh
Yeah.
- [50:47]
Michael Knowles
I am a voracious reader of the New York Times, which is one of one in the conservative movement.
- [50:52]
Matt Walsh
You're also. Are you into sadomasochism?
- [50:55]
Michael Knowles
Yeah. I do it to punish myself for my sins. But I thought this was these. These my favorite parts in the New York Times is the Ethicist piece. Right to the ethicist. And then the ethicist gives you their.
- [51:08]
Matt Walsh
Opinion, the least ethical advice.
- [51:10]
Michael Knowles
So I would like to read an ethical question to you, get your answer, and then judge it against the ethicist in the New York Times.
- [51:20]
Matt Walsh
Okay.
- [51:35]
Michael Knowles
This is an iHeart podcast.