Transcript
Michael Knowles (0:00)
It is day 56 of Trump's second term and the hits just keep on coming. President Trump just vaporized. A top ISIS leader invoked a law from 1798 to deport hundreds of Venezuelan gangsters over the impotent protestations of an Obama appointed federal judge. And he announced his probable plans to annex Greenland. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. An Amazon delivery driver has gone viral for throwing a homeowner's packages on his stoop and screaming at the homeowner for a minute or two straight how much the driver hates the person. So anyway, we'll get to what that means, why it's gone viral, what it means for our politics. There's so much more to say. First though, go to donewithdebt.com when credit card bills and debt are piling up, investing feels impossible. But Done With Debt has your back. With a fresh approach to tackling those money headaches, their team of negotiators and legal experts go to bat for you. Working directly with credit card companies and lenders to slash those bills, wipe out interest charges and get rid of those pesky late fees and penalties. They've got a proven track record of putting more money back in people's pockets. Think about it. Instead of watching your hard earned cash disappear into minimum payments, you could finally start growing your wealth. Bottom line, Done With Debt helps turn crushing debt into financial freedom. But some of their strategies are time sensitive, so do not wait. Start building the life you deserve. Go to donewithdebt.com talk with one of their strategists. Totally free. And I know how debt can just weigh you down. The phone calls, the feeling that you can never dig yourself out. I mean, that's kind of a feature, not a bug of the system. So don't let it get you down and really mess up your life. You can do something about it. Go to donewithdebt.com that is donewithdebt.com the Alien Enemies act of 1798. Man. You know, people say that we conservatives, we just wanna go back in time, you know, oh, you just wanna relive the Reagan era. Oh, you guys just wanna go back to the 1950s with the Trump administration. You sometimes hear, oh, you wanna go Back to the McKinley era? President Trump himself has invoked President McKinley in a curious way that actually helps us understand the Trump administration. We'll get to that story a little bit later. But no, no, forget about even the McKinley era. We're going back to 1798, baby. Because the libs have tried to stymie Trump from deporting illegal aliens. And not just the nice abuela who makes street in your neighborhood, who you like, not just the guy that mows your lawn, that's an illegal alien, but he's a generally amiable fellow. We're talking about face tattooed human, smuggling, fentanyl, dealing absolute animals. Even those people, the liberal bureaucrats and judges will not let Trump deport. So Trump has invoked a law from the 18th century to make it easier to get these animals out of our country. Trump's order reads, here's just a little bit. It's obviously a long order. Here's just a little bit of it. Trende Aragua TDA is a designated foreign terrorist organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States. Put a pause here. How could you say they're conducting warfare? Well, they're killing people, they're breaking our basic laws, they're invading the country, they're poisoning people. Even the ones they don't kill, they poison with fentanyl, they're smuggling human beings, they're running brothels, they're doing all sorts of harmful stuff. But would you call that warfare? Isn't warfare the kind of thing that occurs between two nations? Or @ the very least between a terrorist organization and a national government? Not just street crime, not just prostitution, not just murder. Well, Trump explains TDA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming US Citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime's goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States. So what Trump is saying here is these cartels are not just operating as ordinary street criminals or even as ordinary organized crime. They are working with foreign governments. So they're working with the Maduro regime in Venezuela. They're working with hostile governments to undermine the United States. They're not working against those governments, that the governments are merely helpless to deal with them. They're actually working in concert with them. TDA is perpetrating, attempting and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States. No one could deny that. So the White House said they had 300 people who were in custody who were identified as members of the gang who could be deported. Soon an Obama appointed judge comes out, this guy, James Boasberg, and he says that Trump has to stop the deportations. He issues an emergency order, says Any plane containing these folks, love the folksy talk. These folks, you know, face tattooed, child smuggling folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, however that is accomplished. So even if the plane is about to land in Latin America, it's gotta, it's gotta go back up, turn around, go back to the United States. We will not allow you to, to deport these Venezuelan gangsters. The judge concludes, make sure it's complied with immediately. And then one of the greatest tweets ever posted on the Internet comes out. This by way of the leader of El Salvador, Nayibukele, who posts that headline and then just says oopsie, too late with a laughing face emoji. Because as you might recall us discussing on this show months ago, weeks ago, it feels like months in the Trump administration because so much is happening every day. President Trump has a deal with El Salvador. Nayib Bukele, the greatest strongman in Latin America, said we will take your prisoners. You don't know where to bring your prisoners. He even offered to take American citizen prisoners that we don't wanna deal with. But the Trump administration said okay, just the illegal aliens from Latin America, if we don't know how to deal with them, if our prisons are really light and easy and kind of a joke in the minds of these gangsters, and if we don't know exactly where to put these guys when we deport them, we're gonna send them to El Salvador. We'll pay a small fee for that. Because El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, if he knows one thing, it is how to deal with gangsters. Cuz he locked up, he undertook a mass incarceration program for face tattooed gangsters who, who had made El Salvador the most dangerous country on earth. And when he locked them all up and humiliated them, then went to their cemeteries and destroyed their gravestones, this guy is not joking around, okay? When he did that, El Salvador went from being the most dangerous country in the world to the safest country in the western hemisphere. Pretty amazing. So just the message this sends, first of all, that Trump can say, oh yeah, oh judge, you sent out that order. Oh, too bad. Actually, the plane's already in El Salvador and Bukele's dealing with them. We'll get to the constitutionality of that, the legality of that in one second. But even just imagine you're one of these gangsters, you're just any illegal alien, but certainly if you're one of these gangsters, your view is that the United States is a joke that you can just go right up to the border. This is the Biden administration. They're inviting you in. You go to the border, you present yourself to border patrol. Border patrol has to process you, and then border patrol lets you go. You don't even really have to sneak into the country anymore. You just walk up, say, hey, all right, I'm here, cuff me. You're gonna uncuff me in five minutes. Then I'm gonna go into the country. I'm gonna get lost. I'm not gonna show up for my court appearance. And now I'm just. I'm on the path to being an American citizen. I can do whatever I want. Your country's a joke. And by the way, even if I get arrested, you guys are gonna go really easy on me in prison. It's no big deal. The Democrats wanna abolish prisons in the first place. But even if I go to prison, those prisons are a joke. No big deal. Why wouldn't I break the law? That's what the gangsters are thinking. Then Trump comes out and he says, yeah, I just struck a deal with the strongman leader of El Salvador. And so what's gonna happen? I think we have B roll footage of it. When you land in El Salvador, you're gonna be ferried into one of Bukele's prisons by Salvadoran military, and then you're gonna be paraded around like the absolute animals that you are not gonna have any privacy and you're not gonna have the cushy luxuries that people in the United States demand as rights. You're gonna be treated the way you deserve to be treated. That sends a message to anyone who wants to consider crossing our border illegally, which is illegal. It's a misdemeanor the first time, it's a felony if you do it multiple times. And it's greatly offensive to, to the American people who, if they don't have the right to control their border, they don't really have any right of self government. They don't have really any political liberty. So the big question here is, can Trump violate this court order? Is this illegal? Is this unconstitutional for the plane to land in defiance of the court order? And you're gonna hear a lot of prattling on MSNBC and CNN and all the liberal news channels about the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the separation of powers. Ironically enough, those arguments favor Trump. The arguments from checks and balances and the separation of powers, they justify what Trump is doing. They do not justify what the judge is doing. The judge is overstepping his boundaries. The judge has no right to stop the President of the United States from executing the most basic aspects of his job. Protecting our border, the sovereignty of our nation. He has no right to do that. Checks and balances and separation of powers mean nothing if the Supreme Court just has the final say over everything. The liberals have been arguing in recent years that the Supreme Court just gets to do whatever it wants with some exceptions. When the Supreme Court observes that there's no right to abortion in the Constitution, then we need to take away all the Supreme Court's power. When the Supreme Court rules that Democrats don't just get to throw the former president and current leader of the opposition in prison, then the Supreme Court should have no power. But when it comes to stopping the enforcement of basic immigration law, then what the liberals are arguing for is not separation of powers and checks and balances. It's judicial supremacy. But we don't have a system of judicial supremacy. That's not in the Constitution, that's not in the Federalist. It's not what the founders and framers gave us. Judicial review is what they'll say. They'll say, well, the Supreme Court has the right of judicial review. And this comes from Marbury versus Madison, long standing precedent that the court has the right to interpret the Constitution. First of all, all three branches have an obligation to interpret and be faithful to the Constitution. But furthermore, judicial review in Marbury v. Madison is a self asserted right. It's the court saying, hey, we have a lot of power. So obviously there are some limits to that power. The court just can't say, hey, by the way, we have decided, we on the Supreme Court that we're the most important branch of government. We can do whatever we want. They don't get to do that. Okay? And this is what gives you a little clue into Trump's view of the second term. Great American presidents, great in the historic sense, really significant American presidents have ignored the Supreme Court on much shakier, more dubious grounds than Trump is doing. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, men who are considered among the great presidents of the United States, have ignored the Supreme Court with far less justification than Trump is ignoring the court. This federal judge, this random district judge, James Boasberg, when it comes to the deportations. Now the case is gonna go up to the Supreme Court. And I remain hopeful and confident the Supreme Court will side with Trump as they should. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to StopBox USA. Use promo code. Knowles parents need A solution to prevent their children from accessing in home firearms. That is why I strongly recommend Stopbox Pro. I love my Stopbox Pro and part of the reason I love it I was thinking about, okay, how does one store a firearm? Do you get the electric safe that maybe doesn't work when you need it? You certainly don't just leave it out. What do you do? Well, Stopbox is completely mechanical. That means no batteries to die, no electronics to fail when you need it most. I am blown away by how durable, how well crafted it is. It's all made right here in America. It means Stopbox is creating meaningful jobs and opportunities for American workers too. It is TSA compliant. You can securely transport your firearm when flying. Turns out TSA is not a fan of people throwing loose firearms into their baggage. Some friends of mine have gotten in trouble for such things. Plus the convenience of not fumbling with keys while maintaining security gives you peace of mind that you have never had before. I love Stopbox usa. The fact that it's mechanical just makes me feel much, much better that it's not going to fail. Okay, for a limited time only get 10% off your entire order, which when you use code knowles@stopboxusa.com, they're doing a BOGO here, so buy one, get one free for their StopBox Pro. 10% off and a free Stopbox Pro. When you use code knowles@stopboxusa.com, discover a better way to balance security and readiness with Stopbox. Also folks, go to thecandleclub.com you gotta get the smells and bells Candle. I was just down over the weekend. I was down in Florida at the Great Smoke. It's run by my friend Abe Dababna of Smoke Inn, one of the great cigar retailers and had a great time hanging out with some terrific cigar men. Got to meet some of my cigar heroes. Guys like Nick Perdomo, Nick Melillo. There are a lot of Nicks in cigars. Also got this great lighter from my friends at La Polina Cigars. So anyway, that's all good stuff. We'll have some more news on the cigar front coming later on, but for right now, I'll light my delicious smells in Bell's Candle with my brand new La Polina lighter. Okay, once Trump got rid of the face, tattooed gangsters sent them over to Bukele for Bukele to do whatever he wants with him. Then Trump turns across the Atlantic on the other side of the world to take out a top ISIS leader. This is Abdallah Maki Muzli Al Rifai, also known as Abu Khadija, and a second ISIS operative. He takes him out. Khadija was the chief of global operations and the delegated committee, Amir for isis, so officially the second in command for the Islamic terror group. And Trump just vaporized these guys from the sky. He tweeted out, or truth, socialed out. Today, the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq was killed. He was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid war fighters. His miserable life was terminated along with another member of ISIS and coordinated with the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government. And then this is the key for understanding the deeper level of politics. Here he goes. Peace through strength. All caps. So this reminds us, of course, of when Trump took out the leader of isis, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, during the first term. And he came out, he said, instead of doing the diplomatic thing, saying, you know, well, the United States government has conducted an operation that has neutralized and eliminated, you know, kind of that Obama thing. Trump comes in, he goes, he died like a dog. He was begging for his life. That disgusting, sweaty animal. And, you know, so he does another iteration of that here with this other leader of isis. But then he concludes, peace through strength. Two takeaways to understand about Trump here. One, Trump is good at multitasking. It sounds a little bit trite, but it's an important reminder. Presidents sometimes get tunnel vision, and they only focus on one or two, at most, three things in their administration. There's so much to do. Trump seems pretty good at multitasking. He's moving the ball down the field on a lot of fronts. On tariffs, on immigration, on resolving the war in Ukraine, on resolving the war in Gaza, on annexing Greenland. We'll get to that later. On taking over Canada, on maybe taking back the Panama Canal, on this, on that. He's pretty good. On deporting the 300 gangsters. On killing the leader of ISIS. The machine is moving very efficiently right now, and it's covering a lot of bases at the same time. But. And the second takeaway from the peace through strength line, Peace through strength, which is a slogan that Republicans have repeated for decades now, virtually every Republican repeats harkens back to the Reagan administration, goes back to Barry Goldwater. Peace through strength. Peace through strength does not work. If you always fight every battle everywhere. Okay, Peace through strength does not work. If you're constantly invading every country on earth for whatever reason, then you're not gonna remain strong. You're gonna be overextended. This is what happened by the end of the second Bush term is said, oh, look, we're fighting every war. We're trying to bring Madisonian democracy to the Middle east, and we're just overextended, and it's not working. The center's not gonna hold. On the flip side, peace through strength doesn't work if you never fight any battle. If you just say, we're gonna come get you someday, but you never actually make good on your threats, then your adversaries are gonna know that you're just always bluffing, and they're gonna take advantage of you. This is the special Trump genius. Trump is more of a dove, probably, than any president in my lifetime. I was gonna say maybe George H.W. bush, but no. George H.W. bush launched Operation Desert Storm. So Trump is the Republican least inclined to war of my lifetime in the presidency. And yet every so often, he drops the moab. Every so often, he kills the top Iranian general. Every so often, he goes in and vaporizes an ISIS leader. And so you never know, is he gonna do it? When Trump goes to Putin and says, if you invade Ukraine, I'll blow up Moscow, if you're Putin, you have some reason to think that there's some chance that the guy might just be crazy enough to do it. That's how peace through strength works. And it's a reminder that politics is not an abstract philosophical endeavor. It is a practical science. It is, in the words of the political philosopher John Gray, less an argument, more a conversation. I think it's a really helpful way to understand politics, practical politics. It's not just some argument that you make from a lectern with absolutely precise, rigorous logic that totally wins the battle, totally vanquishes one's opponents, and gives one absolute power. That's not how politics works. Politics is always a negotiation. It's always a compromise. It's always trying to find out what really people want, what's really making them tick, what they really mean when they say a phrase, the true meaning of what they're trying to convey. It's a conversation. And that's what Trump is doing here. Is he a dove? Is he a hawk? He's just. He's having a conversation. And really, when he does things like this, he's not only having a conversation with terrorists in Iraq and Syria, and he's having a conversation with Xi Jinping in China. He's having a conversation with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Fafo may guys, proceed at your own risk. Now, speaking of Trump's aggression and expansionism, Trump has come out and he's asked about one of the more eccentric projects of his second term. He's asked if he's serious about taking over Greenland.