I've tried not to work in politics on several occasions, because you know it's a drag. I mean it's a miserable people What you they don't like? You half the country, hate your guts, it's just too fun. I just can't help it They had welcome this is the Ben Shapiro show Sunday special. I am eager somewhat. To welcome to the show Michael Moles, the, as you know, him the host of the Michael Moshe Michael somewhat. Thank you for Stop Ben thank you for having me is. Is that word by the way? when I listen to show. I was here that the excellent Michael Knowles is that is that the that that's that's totally now. It means this. Okay. Well, look absolutely well! Okay, so you know, let's start with current events. Is that what you happening now, so you been watching these democratic debates every minute, so how you been doing it I've had too I don't drink. I've had to drink heavily. I will

that sniffing glue was still on the table. Yep has the experience been free? What what was your take away from the from the we see now two rounds democratic debates? What what's your take, which of my experience, is very simple? I put a little crystals all around my couch as I sit down, I get the orbs in the dream, catchers hanging from the ceiling, and then I channel the dark, psychic force. That is the two thousand and twenty credit presidential debates and then it all makes sense when you realize it's all a dark psychic force and that Marianne Williamson is the most sane person on that stage, then they all sort to make sense, because you know I mostly joking about Marianne Williamson, but she actually had, I think, was three of the most accurate s sentences in that debate. The most recent debate, the first one, is that one kid this is not going to decide the democratic

many a can. Nobody cares about the bean counting of how many zillions of dollars of our money they're going to spend on X Y Z, social program. The second one is about the dark, a psychic force, because it actually is the case that politics at bottom is cultural and then below. That is theological. There actually is a spiritual component to politics: it's not all just adding up numbers on a spreadsheet and then the third statement that I think she made correctly is that if Democrats don't change their strategy going is going to mean looking around that stage, which of those candidates is possibly going to be. I think this is totally right. I mean I pointed out that Mary Ann every sort of making fun of the whole Marianne Williamson Phenomena, but she's talking at a different level than the other Democrats and she's actually making. What is a more honest appeal for a lot of Democrats than the other are the Democrats are fighting with each other over? Is it Medicare for all or Medicare for anyone who, once or whatever and she's talking about no there's, there's deep rough waters in this country? We have to investigate that and get to the heart of it. She speaking to

turn in a way that Obama did in two thousand and eight actually, no one cared about a bomb on policy in two thousand and eight was about the hope and the feeling is like ice and she's doing a lot more of that than any of the other, and so it is kind of fascinating. I think there is something happening with her should not be the nominee, but I think that anybody who is able to map into even a remote amount, what she's doing it could create something fascinating, and I was not one of the day yes right and then- and there is night too, which was supposed to be rock them sock them robots, it's with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris basically ends up in pieces on the floor, but not because of Joe Biden you're talking about that cop Camilla Harris you're. Talking about that crooked cop Camilla, yes, Camilla had her candidacy, basically shredded by Tulsi Gabbert. It was it was that was the exchange of the night I mean everyone was waiting for Kamala and Biden and Biden pretty much collapsed under the weight of his own tabular. He didn't know how to say basic words. He he fumbled. Sentences it. Actually, I think Biden's performance shows a little bit of the cleverness of the Trump campaign handing him a sleepy Joe when

and the random is sleeping. So I thought why not creepy, Why not liar Joe? Why not plagiarist Joe? Why not ineffectual it's, because he actually comes off as old, tired and possibly senile. I mean he he he couldn't use it go to Joe three hundred and three thirty three didn't know the difference, being a text message and a a website and so the more interesting exchange was Tulsi and Camilla. There were some, actual substantive debates going on last night, I mean you heard debates over free trade. At the second night of the democratic debate, you heard debates over Sav empty over borders. There were these debates going on, but what it became lost, Lausten, think was the sloganeering of the Democratic Party. You know you hear so the universal basic Health care health care is a right, not a privilege. They're all going back to this. I think the central figure of the debate actually was Barack Obama to hear them talk about Barack Obama. I thought

gosh, this Obama guy sounds pretty good. Maybe this Obama guy should run for office as a Republican, because it's this lie of leftism. They told us in two thousand and eight going to Universal Healthcare. It is this it once and for all we're going to fix the health care system that whole Obama debate. We're going to do it, healthcare for everybody! Now we find out Obamacare was terrible. It didn't do anything, it didn't achieve anything. It's never enough with the left. They're always moving further and further to the left and so they'll say once and for all we're going to have Medicare for all we're going to universal health care, years from now, when they have another program that cost even more money and it takes even more of our liberty away. So you tell me you look at all these candidates. How do you think this this shakes out and who do you think, is the most plausible candidate to go up against Trump? If you revising the Democrats, who would you tell them to dominate so I called from the beginning, Kamala Harris. I thought comma

that was a pretty strong candidate she's a killer, she's willing to do anything to get ahead I'll leave it at that. I don't want to say anything untoward, but she's she's made some curious decisions in her political career, she's willing to fight she's, a prosecutor. She has, She died. I think she was an unsuccessful attorney general of California, now they're trying to make her out to be the toughest AG in american history. I think She's got lean into that. I think she's got to embrace that that's her whole career she's, a tough lawyer, she's choose a prosecutor. She was AG she's been in the Senate. For five minutes. That's her life. She runs away from her record. She's got nothing to run on, so I think she could be a good candidate but she's got to stop blowing in the wind. She's got to stop. One day saying we're to abolish private health insurance next day, we're not going to abolish it. We're going to opinion. Hole and figure out which way the wind is blowing if she cuts that that runs as herself, I think, she's a decent candidate. The other alternative is Elizabeth, Warren Elizabeth Warren,

Is this crossover appeal the mainstream boomer side of the Democratic Party kind of likes her? She kind of looks like Hillary Clinton. She kind of talks like Hillary Clinton, but she's got much more progress the credibility and she stole all of Bernie Sanders. Sanders's plans, so she's got a plan everything and it's because she went in and took it out of Bernie's desk drawer. That gives her appeal. I think the weakness for Elizabeth Warren there people people going to call me a sexist for this. It's her voice and the reason this isn't sexist is Eliza. With Warren is shrill Not all women are shrill. Kamala Harris isn't shrill, Tulsi Gabbert isn't shrill. Amy Klobuchar isn't shrill the second trillest candidate in this race is Cory Booker, who ostensibly as a man, so I think they both have to fix something about their candidacies

Emily needs to embrace her actual life story and Elizabeth needs to change just that. The tactics of campaigning just the tone in which she speaking, if they don't change those two things, it's hard for me to believe that any of those candidates are going to be President Trump. He has legitimate vote probabilities, but I just don't think they are rising to the occasion you for closing Biden is the nominee already. You think that Brian is going to be the nominee. I think I mean look if you look at the polls today. Joe Biden is the nominee right he's still at the top of the pack he's just so weak, and I think part of the reason is poll numbers are so high. Is he's been out of public life for a few years? Even when who was the vice president? He wasn't really in front of the public. How much they try to Matt's crazy uncle Joe every once in awhile, but Joe Biden is a doofus people forget the She ran in one thousand nine hundred and eighty eight and he dropped out 'cause he What does law school record? He plagiarized speeches from irish politicians. You just kind of a bumbling fool. Then he ran again in two thousand and eight, and he was

nothing, nobody wanted him. The only reason he got to be vice president is B Barack Obama hated Hillary Clinton so much he couldn't stomach the thought of her being his vice president. Now he's up again, I mean Joe Biden in his entire half century in politics. What did he accomplish ask accomplish, I think, is basically one piece of legislation that he can own. That was pretty good legislation. That's one thousand nine hundred and ninety four crime bill, and it's the one thing he's running so fast. If you look at those debates stages, there's a Joe Biden shaped Hole in the wall, he's running away from his record that fast, so considering all of that, the more that he's in the limelight, the Morres bungling his own record, the more his bungling, even the is coming out of his mouth. Hard to see how his poll numbers ever stay the same or go up. It just seems like, as you said quite rightly, I think his first day his best day, and I think he just keeps steadily sliding down, and the question is: can one of the other candidates jump up and beat him before the nomination is decided, so the

the other reason that you have gained notoriety is, of course, because you want to occupy the same August space because of course, Ocasio Cortez on the EAST coast of course, is a woman from the heart the Bronx, you know, her from herself described biography, grew up on the streets, Jenny from the block the only so that must've been you too, because you grew up in the same area, and I look. I obviously look like Jenny from the block. The only problem with a OSI's autobiography is that it's completely untrue, other than that, it's all good, but it's just completely untrue. So that's the problem with it. Actually AOC grew up about an hour hour and one slash two north of the Bronx in a town called Yorktown Heights, very ritzy, sir suburb very wealthy, not terribly ethnically diverse. I mean it's just what you picture the suburbs to be that's what it is. I grew up directly. Next sure in the sauce slightly less wealthy slightly, you know less affluent town and we grew up there for a whole lot. She was there until eighteen. She then went to a private college in Massachusetts

we then, according to Westchester Land records, moved back with her mother there until basically until she ran for Congress. I didn't I after college. I went down and lived in the city, so I'm actually pretty sure I've spent much more time in my life in the rational district in Queens and the Bronx that AOC currently represents, but I just can't pull it off as well. I don't know I mean, maybe I need to add multiple last names or dance on rooftop sorry, I don't know what it is. I just I don't have that real, that inauthentic authenticity that AOC has Well, I mean we can always hope that you can. You can breathe end yourself. In one day, you too can be a thought leader in the Democratic Party, mean you've already written the book on. So this is true, I mean you know. I think I've written the definitive work on reasons to vote for Democrats and yet Perez says that AOC is the future of the Democratic Party. Give me a little look. Man give me you know finally embrace some of the intellectual future of the So, since you are not the thought leader of the Democratic Party but

apparently a issues, let's talk for a second about the squad led by the illustrious brilliant world breaking. Thing so the democratic, He has embraced the squad, which is just an act of complete imbecility facility, but what do you make of their rise? What why exactly? Are they so popular among Democrats? Right now? Well, h, men can describe democracy is the theory that the people deserve to get what they want and they deserve to get it good and hard, and I think that's what you're, seeing with the rise of the squad for years decades and decades, the left has been embracing this awful petty politics of personal destruction, the Political is, the personal was one of the models in the nineteen sixties, impugn everybody's motives, accusing everyone of racism and sexism- and this is um- embracing identity politics. So what matters is not our ideas. What matters is just our skin color or genitalia whatever, and the Frankenstein's monster of this political experiment is the squad.

And so now, you're, seeing this turn on Nancy Pelosi, Nagra, seeing this turn on the Clintons, and I can't really feel bad for them. I mean they've been encouraging The sort of thing the whole time, and so now at the the chickens, are coming home to roost. For the democratic party. The thing about the squad it's interesting is people have been calling I on a Presley the Ringo Starr of the squad, and they do they. Kind of match up pretty well on on the Beatles you know so you've got a OCS, obviously Mccartney she's, the most marketable she's. The just pop. You know, L Hano Mark is John Lennon. I think she's the genuine radical. She is a very strange marital history and that rasheeda to lead is so she's. George Harrison so Almost brother is like the echo of this Yoko: is he the Yoko or is he or is he to Cynthia again kind of breaks down a little bit but and then obviously, you've got George you've got receded to leave the quiet one, you know she's

the shoes space that are somehow she plays the sitar yeah. That's right, I mean they're rise is a symptom of reality, tv politics and Paula next in show business have always gone together and they always will go together, but we're in the age of reality, tv politics where the king of reality, television is the president and these girls. I mean they could be a reality. Tv show it's all just petty the names, it's all accusing people of bigotry and all these different personal mode. They don't know anything about actual public policy right. It's mean AOC was asking one of her first major interviews. Tell me about any aspect of your policy. Tell me about your foreign policy and she giggles and says: I'm not really the expert, the major in economics you studied international relations in college she's, not

expert on either of the she doesn't know anything about either of those, because it has nothing to do with the policy itself. What the the left just this sort of push that to the side. Now, it's all just about personal character. It's all just about those feelings, man. I know what you think about feelings versus fact. In politics I lived that's what that's what you're saying you're saying that the total inversion of of this sort of politics that a self governing republic is should be capable. So we saw this sort of battle breaking out between Nancy Pelosi and the squad who do you think, ends up winning that battle. So if you asked me this a few weeks ago, I would have said Pelosi Poulos. He looked like she was going in for kill. She was waiting for a moment when the squad was particularly unpopular and she was to go in and just clobber them, and that fight had been

along pretty well and then what happens Donald Trump? He can't help but tweet and get involved in this fight, and this created a lot of political problems for the president. In the short term, he said certain things that just weren't true, he said things that had people calling him racist, all that all that it was unpleasant to deal with during that time. However, I actually think the cumulative effect of that was pretty helpful. The president, at least in so much as it rallied support behind the squad. So within a week or two, you see Nancy Pelosi hosting AOC in her office, big smiles. Everybody's hunky, Dory in the long run, this is the best we can hope for sometimes sometimes you're say we got to get a Seattle office, we gotta bill hunt more out of office no way Ilhan Omar needs to be the speaker of the house. I want her to be in every presidential campaign. I want to endorse every candidate because

say what you will about the squad at least they're honest. At least. The squad is honest about the radicalism of the left, about the radicalism of the democratic party. Other candidates I mean most famously Hillary Clinton- was really good at hiding that radicalism, she would say aboard. And should be safe, legal and rare didn't make any sense if it's, if it's it shouldn't be legal. If it's just like getting your appendix out, there's no reason for it to be rare. This squad ain't, like that they want abortion on demand without apology, Ilhan Omar is praying that people open their eyes to the evils of Israel. She says the only reason that anyone would support Israel as the Jews are buying them off. I mean that kind of dormant anti Semitism old forms of bigotry on the left is really coming out with them, and I want to give them a big microphone. I want them to come on my show. I want them to be the face of the Democratic Party, and that looks like that's what happen. How did you grow up to be a conservative? I

I understand that you're still very young and then there's still time. You may end up being a transgender liberal by the time this is all over, but Where did you start I'll only be how much trans gender liberal? If I ever want to run for office 'cause, I think it's the only way I'd be electorally viable at this point. I more or less came out of the womb with parted hair smoking, a cigar campaigning for Republicans. One of the first statement I ever learned as a kid from my Grand was read my lips. No new taxes, which was the line from George Duran Father, was George Hw Bush. It's true. No, he loved he loved Bush and he told me this. He taught me saying it's a grand old flag of singing around, like two years old, one thousand nine hundred and ninety six. It was the election of Bob Dole against Bill Clinton. I was campaigning around my first grade classroom for dole. I was the only person in this country excited about Bob Dole, including Bob Adult, because he was a war. Hero and Clinton was a degenerate draft dodger. I flirted with liberalism.

I had my rebellion for about Seven months when I was thirteen, I thought John Kerry might be sort of an acceptable human. I don't I'm not. I don't want to say it on the. I then came back as quite conservative and I went through all the stages that young conservatives go through. You know I was an Ein, Rand, objectivist type typed, about six months and I was a jerk to all my friends and then I became more interested in other aspects of conservative thought and the conservative tradition. And it was working on republican campaigns. That was my day job from when I was eighteen until till recent past, and I was an actor. I was an actor I was directing opera in college. I was doing plays with being terrible movies that are on channel seven thousand at three o'clock in the morning, and you know, I think both of those things are pretty related. Ronald Reagan said that politician has to be an actor and in the.

In the negative sense of this, it's because they're both vein, ridiculous sort of endeavors that are selfish and self centered. When they're done right, I actually think it's for the opposite reason. I think politics and acting or similar, because both have to be concerned with truth, Acting is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances, politics, hopefully, if you're a good politician, you're concerned with pursuing some kind of political truth. Ultimately, a cultural or even religious truth, and you have to like people if you don't like people, hey you're gonna hate, acting because all you're doing is building characters are analyzing the human condition and if you hate people, you were going to be a terrible politician, because you spend your time at spaghetti, dinners at the VFW. Will u haul her at the lions club or something if you don't like him, There are many other ways to make a buck or to get your name in the newspaper and

I think that's why you know, especially for Republicans, you see a lot of actors who are politicians and then democrats? You see a lot of politicians who are actors, but True in Hollywood, every Hollywood celebrity is endorsing some leftist crazy political agenda every other day they're holding fundraisers for some democratic candidate. I I think it is not just the politics of show business for ugly people. I think that the two are very similar yeah. I know that a lot of people who are watching or listening to this in their thinking, this Michael most guy, doesn't seem to execrable to me. So why Ben are you constantly ripping on Michael knows? For those who don't know the story of how you put out a blank book that sold two hundred thousand copies for no reason at all and about which I'm supremely better then maybe you ought to explain what exactly happened. What inspired you to write a blank book that sold two hundred thousand copies well, I am actually I should mention you play a key role in the story. I am. I know you want me to write this down, so I I have been researching this book for my entire life. It's called reasons to vote for Democrats, a company

of guide. There's an extensive bibliography in the back I quoted through city in the forward, and I said this is not a book to win the applause of the moment. This is a work for all time. Eternally true, and so the book has a two hundred and fifty or so blank pages that ten chapters The different areas of policy and politics that would be the reason to vote for Democrats. I put this up on the internet, a self published. It cost me no money. It was a stupid joke just to bother my democrat friends and family within three. Yes, this book becomes the number one best selling book in the world. It was actually blurbs by a friend of mine. Ben Shapiro blurbs this book called it a thorough work. This thing leaps to the top of the charts and then I I seem to recall this, as you were furious, because you've written what twelve books

yeah? I mean one million digits as you've written all these books, all with words in them. You see, the stack of blank pages starts to send some of the yearbooks best selling books, New York Times best sellers, and then this sells all these copies and you say, Knowlesi furious. I hate this. This is the worst thing can you gave me a literary agent, do yeah behind the scenes, I'm actually a nice person, but that breaks the it breaks this sort of fourth wall of the show. I think it's masochism, that's what it's got it. I think the explanation. There is no question that we continue to cut you checks, despite all of this ok. So let's talk second about trolling. So there's this amazing troll re on the right. I was the president. Trump is a troll. You are a master troll. I mean like grade a troll, so why do I think President Trump does that and do you think there's benefit to it? You want to actually have something to say you want to actually a message while you're trolling

and I think that's the key here, because some of these guys, who have just been provocateurs, have gone down pretty bad intellectual pathways, Little pathways and they just wash up in there nothing. So I think the the advantage to try. Bowling, I mean even that word. It's such a two thousand and nineteen word were really talk. Talking about is the advantage to a little humor in politics to a little levity, Impala This goes a long way. Obviously Ronald Reagan is one of the funniest presidents we've ever had he started most. Features and most cabinet meetings with a joke. It just cuts the tension. It makes so much easier. President Trump is actually the funniest president we've ever had. It's because he's a professional tv show host, I mean he's a product of show business for forty years. He just knows: had a had a use, a line to get an audience to laugh, and so I think that is very helpful. You know today hey everybody takes politics, so damn seriously, they think It'S- the be all the end. All of the whole world

battles matter, but Cs Lewis pointed this out had a society needs to talk about politics. If you don't talk about politics, the sickness could get worse, but if all you're talking about is politics then you've lost the point of the society in the first place. The reason we have politics is so that we and engage in culture so that we can worship God as we want to worship God, so that we can have relationship with our family and our communities and our civil society, and that those free associations that make America what it is a society that can't laugh a little bit and it's politics they can't take itself lightly, doesn't have that. You know the writer Gk Chesterton said the angels can fly because they can take themselves like it's not that they take themselves une seriously. It's not that they make a joke of themselves, but they can take themselves lightly, and if we can't do that in politics, the future does looks up right. Ok, so let's talk about your brand of conservatism, so there's a lot of date inside conservative circles over what exactly conservatism means: ravens, the younger generation and there's

open debate as to what kind of government we need more government involvement, what kind of culture need there's a battle between conservatives and libertarians. If sort of sum up. Your view of conservatism would look like. I would would agree with a lot of conservative thinkers going back to say Edmund Burke, who I think is the founder of kind of the modern era of conservative thought I think serve system is in many ways an inclination more than an ideology. I think that it is anti ideological. I think we try to shun doctrines and Dogmas and manifestos with five bullet points on them and say this is the sum total of politics. I think the conservative knows that's never going to sum up the whole world. I can't I can't boil down my entire experience of reality. My desire is what I wish for the country, the consecration, with which I view my country, that the loyalty, the the filial piety, that I feel for the United States. I can't boil that down

into one two or three bullet points. I think a lot of it comes out of a love for the tradition, and this is a big divide. You have some people in this country who love America for all her warts for all her problems for all the tragedies of history who say, I want America to move into the future by pulling on the best of her tradition. By living up to the best of her ideals and and being more to herself and then you have some people. Who say no America's rotten America was never that great. Like Andrew Cuomo said I I hate America, I don't like the flag. I think the Betsy Ross flag is racist. I think Jefferson and Washington. I think there were racist and terrible. I think that's a major divide and I think there is a broad space for the conservatives who We want to conserve America to speak you know there was a we've. Had this long debate in conservative circles, over which brand of conservatism gets to claim the room.

Mental there are the neoconservatives they've kind of fallen out of favor, the the rotarians right the traditionalists, the trump Ian populist. All of those it seems to me that there is that it it's wonderful about conservatism that there's that intellectual diversity, that It's a debate! That's constantly going on there. Maybe I favor a little bit more of the traditional side. Maybe you favor a little bit more of the libertarian side, maybe some people are more religious right or neo con or whatever, but we we're able to engage in all of that with a common love of country and a common seriousness of purpose that is radic play different from the left, which no longer has any intellectual diversity. It only has one they used to have the blue dog, so have socially conservative Democrats now they just have one idea, which is progressivism and you are seeing progressivism speed up with

every single day. It speeds up even further to the point that now we're calling for open borders were calling to dismantle I'm american sovereignty and we're disrespecting even the american flag is a symbol of the country is one of things. I fear, I think, is that the reactionary nature of our politics is is driving this a little bit on both sides, so obviously You know from the left. You see no reaction to President Trump. The left thought they were never going to lose an election after Barack Obama was president. They immediately lose the first presidential election after Obama's president and there's stunned by it, that they move into anti Trump territory. Anything Trump says must be bad, even if it's the most anodyne normal american call six minutes apple pie and motherhood in the american flag. They've decided they're against it because they're reacting to Trump and then- you seen on the right, a similar tendency, which is we have to oppose the left matter. What they're doing, and even if it means embracing some of our worst instincts, this is where I'm more worried about the conservative movement, then you seem to be, and that is that I'm

concerned that, in the in the correct attempt to stop the left, there's a willingness to embrace bedfellows that really alienating for future generations as well as morally problematic? In other words that end can become so so that you end up including people in the tent, who probably shouldn't be in the tent, simply to oppose the other side I I agree, we should kick out all the bigots. I I think anybody disagrees about that. But I don't really think that the right has embraced bigots, at least not in anything approaching the mainstream. I mean I guess these days there calling Steven Crowder a bigot, because he's as the men can't be women they're trying to kick him off of you too, but I mean the real big. It's the the racial politics Guys Richard Spencer ME, Richard Spencer is practically a creation of the left wing media and the mainstream. Yeah. He I don't know. Five years ago we had one hundred people show up to his conference. A year ago we had about the same number of people show up to his conference. I don't see

Mainstreaming of that guy, I guess what I'm saying is that there's a bit of a politics and convenience going on so, for example, for years, I was informed that Russia was a geopolitical foe of the United States, the minute that President Trump declares that Russia is not in fact, a geopolitical foe of the United States at least publicly, in terms of his actual actions he's treated. Russia certainly is a geopolitical foe of the United States. There's been a hoe, all brand of the Republican Party. That's come out and basically become quasi pro poor, thanks a lot of trade, I'm not I'm not totally. Sure of I mean I, I see your point on the Russia thing, but it's also I mean this is why I oppose ridge Videology or trying to you know, boil conservatism, capital seeds, raid down to five or so bullet points is because it is true. Russia was our number one geopolitical adversary for a whole century. I mean we fought a cold war against them. Then we won the cold war and even during the cold war you so regularly. We would play off

Russia, against China, in China, against Russia and obviously, today, that's more important than ever. So I think for a lot of conservatives after the fall of the Berlin Wall after the fall of so communism, you look around and you say Russia is awful. I mean it's glamorous it is a terrible terrible man, but the bigger threat comes from China. China is violating WTO tree is there illegally subsidizing their steel and aluminum they're, stealing our property. There, spying on us, they're regressing on some of our interests, and so we say you know if we put our focus, if we our focus away, maybe from certain interest it's in the Middle EAST. Even pulling away, maybe from aspects that Russia wants to intervene in to focus on China. That's where the real threat will be doesn't mean you totally. You know cozy up too long time, foes like Vladimir Putin, no, but it's a reordering of priorities, because the circumstances of politics have changed. Let's talk for a second about this debate. That's broken out, so you talk about sort of the Edmund Burke Russell Kirk,

side, a Michael okay job, exactly the type of the conservative movement may Patrick the name. This is the site, the conservative movement. That suggests that conservatism is really about honor, for tradition and for the past, and I would say, importantly about veneration the id that we have very little in the United States that binds together, especially now now as we discourage assimilation. Even as we increase immigration, it's very, but we no longer really have much shared religion. We don't have much religion at all and we no longer venerate the symbols that we once venerated the flag. The fourth of July fireworks and hot dogs and hamburgers We don't have that shared love of country and no country that I've ever seen in history of the world can survive without some sense of the sacred now, of course, because nature abhors a vacuum. You're getting new sacred things. You know I mean we've replaced what would be? Maybe the christian liturgical calendar with the secular leftist liturgical

calendar, so you've, gotten February, you've got black history month to celebrate, not all black people, not Clarence Thomas. I don't think he's being celebrated its to celebrate a particular view of black oppression in the United States. I you've got women's history month same thing, not to celebrate all women to celebrate, particular view of women's oppression in June. What do you have you have pride month? We're now celebrating the queen of all. Since we were celebrating that the deadliest sin of all, I think what we would all agree on is there is that's that aspect of government and of politics and of living together as a nation, and therefore I think what the question becomes between say the traditionalists and the libertarians is what what is going to be sacred in the country or or can we try to persevere without anything being sick well. This is why I ask about the role of government, because I that we largely agree on the sacred nature of many of the nationally binding forces

just wrote a book with words in it all about the sacred nature of history and how that has to be balanced with a limited government. In the absence of a virtuous people, you can't have liberalism in the first instance, we're starting to see a sort of root and branch approach to liberalism. However, that I'm not sure is stable and I'm on the way coming down the side. Well, I don't need because, on the one hand, you have folks are basically saying that liberalism itself- this is a Patrick in in case only as that liberalism itself is failed that it carries within it. The seeds, Lockean liberalism carries within it the seeds yeah of atomized individualism and that leads to libertinism, and that leads to the destruction of this is maybe at large we don't have any binding forces specifically because you have a liberty, rights, driven society and then on the other.

You have people say well. So what is the alternative that you're suggesting like government imposing virtue from about two? Where do you come down to what you think the role of government is not fine, well much much as Buckley did in the twentieth century. Maybe I propose a fusion, or at least a few that that I think proposes that it's not those two ideas are not as far apart as they may seem. Why is that? Because, in port for american conserve tips. We want to conserve the american tradition. You are largely conserving a liberal tradition, no one! doubts, the spirit of one thousand seven hundred and seventy six and the importance of liberalism- and I don't think anyone wants to- Well, maybe some people do, but I certainly don't want to rip that out root and branch, but never unless you also see that liberalism has led to this- atomization of the individual people have never been lonelier. Are you have a widespread epidemic of depression? Anxiety stress suicidality up. Seventy percent, even among teenagers in recent years,

this is a major social problem, the breakdown of institutions and the breakdown of love of country. Now The role of government comes in. I think the libertarian side is not fully grappled with this because I agree with John adams- that the constitution- is bill for a moral and religious people, and it's not fair for the governance of anyone else, and where do we get morality? Where do we get in virtue? And virtue is a personal habit? It's a personal choice. You have to do it. As the you can? Either discipline yourself or a giant government will decide order will occur. Make no mistake, but if you want to be a free people- and you want to govern yourself, you need to have that discipline yourself. Increasingly, we have seen this go away and you've seen increasing libertinism. You can view this virtually any social phenomenon that we're looking around at in twenty nineteen, where we can't even agree on the definition of what a man is used to be a man was not a woman. Now today is

man is not a woman secondary, definite and also sometimes when we just don't know the the role of the government comes in here, because the the way that you become a virtuous person, the way that you learn your morals, the way that you practice the habit of virtue is through education. I mean that's what the word education means. It's how you learn to behave and form your mind, inform your body and in the United States, broadly education is a matter of government of government is doing it there. Isn't there there's no kind of education that isn't forces would do that. We could all have private education and your parents are directing it, but that just isn't the case, and so what we need to ask ourselves is: what do we want? The government? teaching our kids I mean that is, it might not be a legitimate role of the government, but it certainly has been the role of the government for at least one hundred years, and in that time you, seeing the ability to even read the Bible in school? Forget prayer in school, even to read the Bible in school has has been washed away,

the Bible, is the bedrock of our civilization. If you haven't read the Bible, you can't understand any of the rest of it and if government is going to run education and they're not going to even expose children to that bed, rock to their own civilization, you're gonna, look down the road in twenty or thirty years and you're going to see a completely unrecognizable society we've been going around giving speech the colleges getting shot with fake bleach and and really enjoying yourself out there. No there's there's an interesting sort of debate. That's broken out about what the future of college you should be using to be hopeful and and I think optimistic about what colleges should be, I'm less optimistic. I think they should be circumscribed in authority. I think the colleges should basically go back to either being trade schools or to not existing, because the fact is that they have lost the thread there. They don't have the capacity or the willingness to teach western civilization anymore. If we're going to have those colleges well, they can exist, but they should be privately funded. Is, the state is no longer going to do any of that. What's your view on what should happen with call,

I'll tell you, I was more hopeful before I started my college tour than now that I finished it and weirdos are shooting strange liquids that I don't even want to know. What's in them at me, in most disappointed in in the colleges is not the students. Students are ignorant, that's the definition of a student. You go to be educated so that you can stop being ignorant and start to know some things. I don't even mind the crazy professors. Professors have always been crazy. They've had crazy, tassled hair and We would play a game when I was in college. We look down the street and say: is that person homeless? Or is he a professor? You can't? Sometimes you can't tell. The problem as far as I see it as the administration after I was sprayed with what, whatever at the University of Missouri Kansas City They arrest the guy; fortunately, they drag him out and the next morning the Chancellor of the university he sent out a letter apologizing to me, of course, right. Absolutely not. He smeared me as a bigot for sale

Men are not women. There was the title of my talk. He then said that my toy What does not go along with the University of Missouri. Kansas City's values Apparently their values are men or women. I didn't know that that's news to me and then he endorsed the actions of the. Colors the ones who were screaming from the beginning, endorsing the heckler's veto. This is anathema to liberal education, and then at the end he said oh yeah, but they shouldn't get violent lip service to this as far as I can tell there have been no punishments, no consequences for these kids. This this happened. Elite universities all over the country, the, Inmates are running the asylum here and you can't educate anybody. That way, I mean that's. The truth is arrogant. As a college president once said, You know at University of Chicago, which said we're gonna stand by free speech. They have these campus disruptions. They sent out that letter. You haven't heard a peep since Purdue University run by the great Mitch

there was all this craziness on campus. He called them in. All right. I've read your demands and they said well. This is the negotiation President Daniels and he said you're absolutely right. This is not a negotiation and he said, sit down, learn and be quiet, and you haven't heard a peep from Purdue either if the universities were willing to do that, I think of a liberal education is essential to a free society. I mean. Liberal means free, liberal arts or the arts of freedom. It's not where you go to learn how to become a carpenter, How are you go to learn how to become a lawyer or a doctor? You're under grad. Liberal arts is supposed to be where you learn completely impractical things, history, literature, mathematic, you learn about your civilization. You learn how to think. Then you go to a professional, school or get trained in some job and then you go out to the world a self governing.

Will not exist very long if we totally lose liberal education. The problem is, I think these universities are basically rotten to the core. I think we have to defund them. I think you- and I are complicit in this because we maybe we don't donate our universities, but we pay our taxes. I think we need to take away the federal guarantees of these loans, Obviously. If President Pocahontas gets into office she's going to have one dot six trillion dollars in in student loan forgiveness going to only exacerbate the, but you need a new model. I think they're, probably five universities in this country that are salvageable in good and doing the business of educating future american leaders. That's great. We should keep doing that. You know, let's not forget. In one thousand, nine hundred and forty five percent of Americans got a four year degree from college today, you've got sixty, plus percent of high school graduates are going to college. Many of them won't finish. You don't,

You don't need everybody to study the idiot. That way I mean it would be nice, but you actually don't need it. I would save those handful of colleges, I would defund all of the others would find some new method, that is of education that is more tailored to the individual students. So they don't need to take quarter million dollars in debt to not learn anything one of the things that spoken. A lot about is the failure. There's the universities to provide context it, but I'll contact with the ground president Trump, but this is particularly true. The field of history, where the university seemed to be teaching that everybody from history ought to be evaluated by the values that we currently hold. Thus, you are better person and Thomas Jefferson, because Thomas Jefferson held slaves. While you do not rolaids you're, a better person than John Adams, because John Adams condemned very forms reforms said that he saw, whereas you think that those forms of sin are ok, because they're consensual you that that seems to be the the generalized feeling among folks in history departments, all over the country has been an inordinate amount of time. Talking about a lot of historical figures

One of the historical figures that you've got most flat for for defending is Christopher Columbus. Maybe talk a little bit about sort of myth, ology surrounding Christopher Columbus, and why you feel he's being not given a fair shake. Mythology is the greatest word here I mean because I'm happy, I don't think that I say that Christopher Columbus is the greatest man whoever lived he wasn't. I'm I'm totally willing to went out his flaws. He had many flaws, but he's being blamed for things that he didn't do one of his biographers Carol, Delaney at Stanford. This was what she kept going back to when she wrote. She said people, especially on the left, I guess or attacking him. They call him a genocidal maniac, he didn't commit genocide. Now you can oppose stern exploration of the Americas. I mean, I guess that's what they're really talking about, but Christopher Columbus wasn't Adolf Hitler. They they. They say that he had a particular hatred of the native Americans. In reality, he he was often defending native Americans against the hard

which punishment sought by the Spaniards by his fellow travelers and even Bartolome De Las Casas, a Columbus biographer, the great defender of natives in the new world, constantly talked about how he was defending the natives, Christopher Columbus adopted a native American Son say whatever you want about his time as the governor of the Indies, I don't think he had a particular vial vicious, bigoted hatred of native Americans. If he's going to adopt one from his dead, comrade and raising MRS Evans son. This is True of all history mean this is we're now doing this to Columbus or two rap Washington and Jefferson. You know, President Trump in that difficult press conference at Charlottesville. He said you're talking about Robert E Lee now and we can all agree. We Robert E Lee, but who's next is it. Thomas Jefferson is at Washington and now you are seeing schools in California paying six hundred thousand dollars to paint over a Washington mural

at Notre Dame University, where I gave a speech defending Columbus. They have a beautiful priceless mural, of Olympus that actually shows the history of him, which nobody knows so this systematic you know multi faceted, mural they're, putting it draped over it, so that nobody is offended. Where does this end, and this gets back to the observative inclination, why I think conservatism is more an inclination than it is in Indy Aladji, it's an in nation, fundamentally of humility, of all of wonder of knowing I'm not the greatest guy that ever lived. I don't celebrate pride, I don't, take pride in myself. I I try to be as aware as I can, of my own flaws and the great gift of humility. One. The life is a lot better when you go through it and you you try to be home. But then you also look back on history. You say you know, maybe maybe I shouldn't throw stones at Thomas Jefferson.

He held slaves, I don't hold slaves. So that's one point for me: I do a lot of things that he didn't. Do that they're pretty bad Well, just judging society. In the 19th century there was widespread slavery in the United States. Many people opposed it, but there it was people going to say about us in two hundred years. The obvious example is we kill Milla? babies a year and we specifically target them for being mentally deficient. We can target them now for their sex. We target them for any reason at all. This disproportionately affects racial minorities, more black babies in New York City or then born. How is history going to judge us and if we want grace from our descendants. Maybe we should give a little bit of grace to our antecedents. You know, I think, generally with study of history and with the way we look at our country. I think that we or standing on the shoulders of giants, and many many people in this country think that were flying so

talking about college experience is obviously I'm an ivy leaguer you're, an ivy leaguer. What was your ivy league experience like? I went to Yale, basically just before it all collapsed. They start renaming colleges, students, freaking at their professors, which happen later on two thousand and fourteen two thousand and fifteen. I feel like I was the last guy. Sort of leap off the titanic is the thing is going down, and I wrote my essays on two topics, one and my this was my main essay was my love of cuban cigars It was how much I love I've smoked cuban cigars feature, not the title of it was the count of Monte Cristo. I talked about the kinds of cigars. Why I like them? What I thought they meant about the human spirit, so that was one essay well at that point they just had to have you obviously well at that time they were trying to be can smoking from campus, and I I mean you love you smoke pot, you probably

crack. You can do whatever you want if full sex weeks at Yale, Heaven forfend you smoke a cigar and I actually started club when I got there see some guys they want to be the head of the debate team. They want to be the captain of the football team that it wasn't going to be so I found club called the society for intellectual growth and re invigoration and uh. We convince them to fund my little cigar habit for about four years. Cuban said is it was wonderful and then, in order to get a little bit more money for my preferred vice I wrote a review of or in the Yale Daily NEWS. So I got them to pay for some of them too. I. I don't know how they didn't figure this out. Only when I graduated, I think that's when they finally obliterated smoking on campus. So you've been like a full time troll for years, and this is not like something new. It is You know freshman sophomore year thing was sophomore year. I had my first political job and I was working on a campaign in New York for my friend, Nan Hayworth, and she was

running a challenger campaign against the incumbent, John Hall, John Hall had been in this rock band in the 70s, called early and they did the songs like still the one that blah blah blah and they did. You know they did one dance with me. I want to be your partner, can't you see so I I started this classics of the genre classics of the 70s saccharin genre. I see or did this troll campaign. On the side of Nan's actual campaign and was The young voters for in Orleans Reunion tour a whole lot of d c back on the road and it was a lot of fun. I was ripping off their songs, rewriting them doing Youtube videos, and this was back when you could actually get organic traction on Youtube. Now, that's virtually impossible says doing this. Two people were paying attention. A few people thought it was funny, but they made the classic political mistake of overreacting. So I got lawsuit threats from the band. I got lawsuit threats from Emi Music. I got lawsuit threats from the congressman himself.

All of a sudden you go from five hundred people have seen this video to tens of thousands of people have seen this video, it's all over the news, and I thought well there's really something here, especially in new media. This is an opportunity for conservatives to affect the culture more broadly, but even political races in a way that we hadn't been able to before, because the gatekeepers of the main stream media kept us out so from there. I hopped on a few other campaigns I was. I was part of the draft campaign for Mitch Dan to get him to run in two thousand and twelve did a few commercials with Jimmy million of the rent is too damn high party. We were doing all these same kinds of strategies, and this was my day job as I was working in mainstream, show business trying to keep my mouth shut, hoping no one figured out that I was a conservative. The craziest moment of this whole thing happened when I go on an audition in New York. And they said it was for a live event and you had to speak some different languages

So I go in, I didn't know anything about it, no script and they said what languages do you speak. I said I speak this language that language and I joked. I said I also speak Esperanto, which is totally made up leftist stupid language from the 19th century. You can learn in three days, which is how I learned it. I said that probably doesn't matter, though, and they turned to me and said actually client number one speaks Esperanto. I said it's George Soros. They said how did you know that I said later, like five people on earth who sued, I guess maranto he's the only one who could afford to hire anybody anyway. Long story short, I end up. As a fake sommelier at George Soros is wedding, I am serving wine to George Soros Nancy Pelosi Co. Coffee and, on you know the head of the UN. I was in the belly of the beast center of leftist politics in the world No one knows who I am and what I can I'm like. He, Can I can listen? Do what what could you imagine?

this kind of sums up my relationship to politics. I've tried not to work in politics on several occasions, because you know it's a drag. I mean it's a miserable people. But you they don't like you half the country hate your guts, it's just too fun. I just can't help it What is your take on the president overall? What's he doing right? What's he doing wrong? What can he improve? On I'm honest, I like the guy I'm, you know, I'm a conservative. I tend to vote Republican. I you know I've. I've got a side here, so I I don't view myself as an I'm. Higher, that that isn't my I'm not I do have a team doesn't mean I'm just gonna carry water for the guy. I mean I criticised Trump a lot. I think we should criticize Trump a lot. I think it helps his presidency when we criticize Trump. I think it pulls him away from some of his worst inclinations. Sometimes it makes more precise. His views on on policy or at least it explains, maybe what conservatives have thought in our longer conservative tradition, because President Trump isn't

terribly ideological. It's one of the things that helps him in in his presidency. But then what we need to do is occasionally articulate more of the broad philosophical basis for some the things that he's doing so, I I think, is doing pretty well, I I would you know I I agree with the Heritage Foundation said he had been more conservative. In his first year he instituted more of a conservative agenda even than Ronald Reagan, maybe we can take that with a grain of salt, but he's he's certainly exceeded my expectations. There've been a few moment right. I felt there were some missteps missteps done some things. I don't really like certain pieces of legislation. You know he spent most of the timber, focusing on that that crime

well letting people out of prison. That's not a top priority for May I thought that was a waste of political capital. Some people in his camp thought that that was a great idea that was gonna appeal, more broadly to Americans. Okay, it's not neither here nor there for May the question for him. Looking forward to two thousand and twenty saying, everything's been pretty good, the economy is going pretty well record: low unemployment, relative peace abroad, two questions, one is the economy falter. If the economy falters, hard to see how he gets reelected so got to make sure the economy stays chugging along to the wall. Where is the wall. The wall was not just part of his campaign. This was a central campaign promise and we just got that Cbp report out a couple weeks ago- said that one mile, not one inch of new wall has been constructed, they've replaced- told wall, that's good, but they haven't built new wall, one because it's very expensive to because

there are environmental permits, you need to get three there. Zoning permits that look. I get that it's very hard, but that was the promise. The promise was a big beautiful wall. The present and has gotten some pretty good news on this front in in just the past couple of weeks. So in twenty- sixteen he campaigned more or less on two things. The wall and judges You remember how important the legacy give Antonin Scalia and all the Supreme Court justices were going to be for the two thousand and sixteen election was He just got a favorable decision from the Supreme Court. Five four decision, thanks to those two justices, that he appointed that opened up about two one: slash two billion dollars worth of Pentagon: thing for him to build the wall, so he could build one hundred miles of border wall. Maybe there will be more hick ups, maybe he won't be able to build a hundred miles before twenty twenty, almost certainly he wants, but if he can run on on just that decision and say see how important it what's the we got. Those judges see how we, if, if not for those judges, we would

we have gotten this wall funding, if not for electing me. Obviously, we wouldn't have a president who wants to build the wall. That's a step in the right direction, but he's gotta keep up the pressure on that if he doesn't show a clear path to building that wall I think he's going to lose a lot of credibility, even among those of us who want to support him now, one thing that You haven't mentioned anywhere in this sort of analysis of Trump is, of course, trump the man in two thousand and sixteen. I was deeply concerned about number of things back from one of those things was conservative policy he's delivered on a lot of those fronts, although obviously on spending he's blown it out, because no one cares about spending apparently enough to actually stop it. But I'm not gonna talk about policy with regard to Trump, because the fact is that what makes Trump a polarizing figure is not in fact its power. I see it as his character, and one of the things that I was always worried about was that he was going to poison the well with suburban women who is going to poison the well with young people by polling data. He's doing that. So the question going

Gordon I want to take on this- is how much has his character affected. The future hopes of the Republican Party, because they were growing demographics in this country, who look at the Republican Party and see President Trump and see his tweets, and What can president from do if anything, to mitigate that, because I think you can run on all the good policy you want if the american people are forced to do a referendum on Trump's character and then they were able to escape. By instead having a referendum on Hillary in two thousand and sixteen, but let's say the Democrats running default candidate like Joe Biden and he's basically just a piece of wood and they put up this piece of wood and they said and look at this horrible management. What can do or what should he do to mitigate the fact that the president does what the is it from says what he says? A lot of crap comes out of that mouth. You know. I think there are two questions that this brings up. One is the president of big it. Is he a racial? everyone calls him a bigot right. This is the mainstream media, always calls him a bigot, and he says

things that raise that question. I think it's clear from his life that he isn't a bigot you know he used to pal around with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. No one called him a bigot until he ran for President as a Republican, he's a white supremacist he's the worst white supremacist in history is the least effective because we have record low black unemployment record low minority unemployment. We have he's appointed plenty of ethnic minorities to his administration, his justice for Criminal criminal justice reform sure he married is has married off his daughter to a Jew. He is a town in Israel named after him, so not even just talking about bigotry toward black people, but they could record Jews bigotry. I just don't see evidence of that. I don't think NEO, Nazis and white supremacists get towns in Israel named after them. So on the question of see a bigot. I think it's clear, he isn't. Does he say things that make people call him a bigot? Yes, is he well possible for what he says. Yes, would they call him a big,

no matter what he said? Absolutely they would, and so in terms of the perception. They're gonna call every Republican every concert if everybody slightly to the right of Hillary Clinton, a big, that's too bad. The good news is, though, political memories are really short, so we're living in the eternal present I mean there are candidates who ran for president two thousand and sixteen, maybe you would remember who they are because you live in this. Ninety nine percent of people in this country have forgotten the names of many of the people who ran for president just last election cycle, so. What does this mean for the future of the party to the tweets matter? I don't think so. Does a little non traverse ease of the day matter? I don't think so. What matters is? Is he going to be effective in off? They said so many things about Ronald Reagan. A new controversy is cropped up of calling Ronald in a racist, but they set it all about him during the 1980s and then Ronald Reagan became a saint.

He was a ST on the right. Even many people on the left talked about what a great guy Reagan was one of the most popular presidents in american history. Why Becaus? His administration was affective at bring about economic growth bringing about morning in America, making Americans feel good about their country again. Making Americans love their country again at a time when people did, I feel so great about America gave gave us one slash four century of that kind of reputation and and that legacy from from Reagan. There are a lot of, levels to today I mean there. There is a great malaise in America there's a there's, a an epidemic of despair going on in America, you of the average life expectancy actually decreasing because of suicides and drug addiction. People just don't feel very, very good if President Trump, hopefully after eight years, is able to the economy boom fix our border crisis, make our country more of a stable country again

make Americans love their country again, not protest the american flag, but actually revere the american flag. If he can do that, if you can about a sort of morning in America. I think all the tweets are gonna fall away and people are gonna look fondly on this period. And that's gonna bode very well for either of the Republican Party or, more importantly, conservative ideas for the near future and then in twenty five years will have to fight it all again. So what one of the things that's been very troubling for people on the conservative side of the aisle who would like to see President Trump be Victoria, just get done? A lot of conservative things is the fact that he seems to step on himself an awful lot. There are a lot of situations where he is so obsessed. It seems with the trolling he's so obsessed with tweaking people that he goes out his way to tweak people he'll go out of his way for the joke, and we all have friends who are like this, but it can lose your job and it can also make sure that you're a lot more unpopular than you need to be, and Putting aside you know the question to his personal, his per feelings about race, which I think

a lot of folks remains an open question. The question of efficacy of efficiency. And how he presents himself. How do you think he's doing in that because there do seem to be two schools of thought on this one is he's, got the base the base He loves them, they're, never going to leave him and then there's people in the middle of the country and they look at his tweets and they're off putting and he's put himself behind the eight ball by continuing to do what he does and then there's the sort of more pro trump view, which is this is all strategy or maybe he's ready, So if there aren't that many people in the middle, where do you fall on that particular day? I think he's good at show business, which actually takes in a lot of those different opinions. Don't know that he's sitting there plotting out every single thing. That's going to happen. I think he just knows how to deliver a line. He knows how to make people react to him in a certain way, and so you're right, I mean a different politician who isn't Donald Trump? You gotta, number Trump is an american original. Some people try to emulate him doesn't work. Nobody is going to out Trump.

Trump Marco Rubio tried it in two thousand and sixteen didn't work out so a I'm kind of politician, Mitt, Romney style politician, might focus on economic issues, might downplay cultural issues. Immigration things like that. That's never going to work for Trump Trump is a product of the culture. So forget the culture wars. He is a cultural figure for the last four decades, and so I think what he's done is in some ways he's made himself unlikable. I have of people. Tell me I like what Trump is doing, but I hate the tweets. I where she would smile more? I wish you would talk about Mika Up Brezinski's face sure I see all of that, but what he does in his provocations in the tweets is one he speaks directly to the american people. He gives you a sense that you're really talking to him, sometimes he'll, say yeah. My one adviser wanted me to do this, but then my other adviser told me not to I think they're both idiots. This is what I'm going to do. I mean he sort of gives you a window with all the

spellings and all the strange capitalizations and all of the gossip, and even sometimes all of the cruelty to members of the staff you get the and what you get as a result of that at a totally provocative statements and actions. Is you get a left wing that today, hey is calling to de criminalize border crossings and left wing. That is pro testing the american flag at a broad level. We're not talking about one or two players in one or two sports: we're talking about a broad movement here, you're getting people to disrespect the United States to refer to the fourth of July parade as a fascist, endeavor, you're getting in not insignificant portion of this country to compare the United States to Nazi Germany, because is AOC and the squad or referring to immigration, detention centers as concentration camps, comparing it to Auschwitz or doctor, or something like that.

This means that, even if President Trump's approval rating is low, I mean in two thousand and sixteen we had two candidates with very low approval ratings, even if his is low he's running against people who are actually disrespect the american flag, the fourth of July. They might as well campaign against Apple pie and the country itself, and I think it puts him in a good position. We would probably agree. Trump. Has a lot Of weakness is going into this two thousand and twenty election. If the economy starts to falter, then he's got serious weaknesses. The only question is who could beat him and of this crowd? I don't see anyone who could especially the way That party is trending. So I want to ask about sort of your religion. I wanted to save it for now, because I didn't want people to literally kill over and die of boredom in the middle of this actual thing. So so I'm going to ask you to refrain from quoting doctrine too. Much, but I can't sleep in the know. No latin boy. Actually, the good thing is, I actually can't speak in Latin. So that's helpful, ok, perfect, but you

tell it to me in Esperanto, if you really want to. But how did you become a religious Catholics for awhile? You weren't? I would total atheist, total atheist. I was baptized when I was born cradle catholic. We were, I was always very interested in religion. Actually read the Koran before I read the Bible I was, I was always sort of fascinated with religious stories, but about the time I was thirteen. I fell away. I don't know I can't psychoanalyze myself. Obviously thirteen year old boys go through a lot of things, but intellectually at least I was can that religion was childish. This was at the time of the rise of the so called new Atheists, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Richard Dawkins, and your SAM Sam and all those guys and it was this very popular at the time. Looking back on it now, I think that their are arguments are perfectly tailored to thirteen year olds, but it's a thirteen year old and so at the time I was taken with them and

I went along with what is probably every popular atheism for about ten years, that I noticed something when I got to college everyone. There was very smart, I don't mean to say my classmates were stupid. They were really sharp. The smartest of them were christian or were the docks Jews actually, and I felt the smartest of them of all we're really interested in religious tradition, the little Catholic of the restored orthodox. They were liturgical, but they they really had thought it through. I thought that's strange. I thought all the smart people were atheists. I thought all the stupid people were religious. Then I heard some religious arguments, one by a calvinist philosopher, actually Alvin Plantinga, he popularized the modal onto logical argument. There are many other arguments for God, the thomistic arguments from Thomas Aquinas, there was a very nice protestant evangelist. Two handed me CS, Lewis, one day, just apparently accidentally as I'm walking across the quad, and I gave it a read, and I thought this is pretty smart and I became fairly convinced that God

lists, and it was only after all of those intellectual arguments had taken hold after I had appealed to my own intellectual pride hubris that the sense of the religious started to set him a little coincidence here and there there's a line from Alexander Pope who says all nature is but art unknown to the all chance direction. Which thou canst not see, and when you look back on your life, you see direction everywhere. What are the odds that this would workout in my own life, I've seen it a lot value. No, I mean the blank book at all these other things, so that got me interested coincidentally the place that I saw? That quote, was on a book a table at an event I was that was a signed First edition. I turned it over bill. Buckley had blurbed it and said save. This is a first edition I had been the Buckley fellow when I was in college. I looked at where the church was. It was right down the street. I started going in it just all clicked and this

with us. Now I guess years ago, at this point in the book, the more I think about it, the more endlessly I could think about it. I mean obviously that we cannot comprehend God we can't comp and the faith. I can't you could ask me a million questions about my faith that I I have no answer, for and Cardinal Newman said. Ten thousand problems doesn't make one doubt. I think that would, if I had a faith, that I could perfectly explain to you. I can promise you it's not a truth but it's something you learn your pal Andrew Bright bored. I never got to meet him. He said politics is downstream of culture and Russell Kirk. The conservative writer pointed out the cult and culture come from the same way, the culture is actually downstream of what the culture worships and that's religion- and it's been said many times that at bottom. All political disagreements are really theological. Disagree,

and you know this- if we'll we'll- have a cigar well you'll have a bubble pipe, but we'll have a drink or something like that. Are we just talking about politics the whole time? No way it always gets down to deeper questions and what I fear for ah society that abandons that is one have really shallow conversations to begin, but also everybody's gotta serve somebody. People have a lot of religious views, they read the Horoscope, they believe in crystal some of them are religions that are focused on their diet or on their yoga or on whatever everybody's gotta serve somebody, and so I think, you're a serious person. You should take those questions seriously because, ultimately eternally those are the questions that may so other religious question that comes up a lot, and this is not just for Catholics. Obviously, this is true for evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Jews, Well is the dealing of religious people with President Trump, so the religious people are sort of conflicted.

On this. On the one hand, President Trump has given them a lot of their priorities and when they look at the choice between okay man, who we think lacks character, but is not going attack, religion and folks, who may have more personal character, but also are going to spend their days attacking religion or calling us bad Christians for not applying their their sense of so values. That choice is pretty easy, but one of the things that I think that a lot of religious folks have fallen into is an inability to deal the cognitive dissonance. So it's turned into President Trump is, the be all end all will defend him, no matter what he says, because political warfare's political warfare and my great fear for a largest folks is that just the same for conservatives. Generally, you undermine your own credibility when you refuse to call out in so long is the centre happens to be promoting your particular viewpoint. How should religious ' will be dealing with this dichotomy in President Trump. Well, as always, they should do it honestly, but I think Trump in some ways gets a little bit too bad a rap and it's not 'cause he's this morally perfect person, but it's because he just- really really bad rap.

If I'm judging the integrity of my president, one of the key features that I'm going to look at is if he keeps his promises, he keeps his campaign promises There have been a lot of studies on this. The heritage foundation famously did one he's been pretty good on the promises, he's enacted a conservative agenda at a pretty fast, great. They said in the early days faster than Ronald Reagan. That shows integrity. That shows you know, specifically with the case of moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Every president said they were going to do it. It had been us policy officially since the nineteen nineties and we they were going to do it. W Bush campaigned on it. He didn't do it. Barack Obama campaigned on it. He didn't do it. Donald Trump campaigned on but I never thought he would do it. I said when I say you're not supposed to do what you said that you're going to do even when it comes down into trying to open up talks with North Korea even is down to things that you might not like like trade tariffs. True in a lot of what he's saying, I think that does speak to a certain kind of character. Now is he earth right?

merry lapse. Presbyterian yeah he might be, but who am I comparing him to what, when I'm looking at politicians, If I could be ruled by an angel, I would vote for the angel, but politicians generally are pretty sorted and corrupt people and Those who seek the presidency are often the most sorted and the most corrupt. So I don't see any conflict for me play PZ every single night. I don't pretend that Donald Trump is a living saint, a or an angel, but I'm really pleased what he's done and I think he's actually in the office demonstrated considerable character she's in just a second I'm going to ask you how we convince young people, because the polls among young people are particularly awful for Republicans were moving the wrong direction in terms of religion, young people. So what is the first step toward young people back? That will be the final question, but if you want here Michael Moses answer, you have to be a daily wire subscribing to subscribe over to daily where dot com and click subscribe? We can hear the end of our conversation. There also any subscribe to get my show you get nose issue. If that's something that after this, I could possibly want but go check us over

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