Ep. 1567 - LEAKED Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce "Love Contract" EXPLAINED
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Forget about the presidential race. Forget about the DOJ indicting two Russians for allegedly funding right-wing media personalities. We'll get to it, don't worry. I want to focus on a far more culturally significant story than any of that stuff. A person on the internet has posted an alleged PR strategy document outlining plans for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's breakup later this month. Is it true?

I don't know. Probably not. But maybe. Travis Kelsey's publicist, Jack Kitosian, has admitted to orchestrating showmances in the past. Five years ago, he told an Australian podcast that Hollywood routinely stages fake romances to promote projects or to turn the tide on bad publicity. And the whole Taylor Travis story has been a conspicuously blockbuster affair.

with the most popular singer in the world dating an all-American football star who won the Super Bowl the year they started dating. In this case, everyone involved is denying the report and lawyering up. But I would like to suggest an easy way that Taylor and Travis could put the rumors to rest. Get married. I'm not anti-Taylor. I am not anti-Travis. I know that some conservatives are because Taylor Swift is sort of liberal about

in the generally inoffensive and even somewhat charming way that virtually all young, single white women are liberal. And they usually get more conservative once they're married, which is another good reason for her to get married. But also, they're both 34. Marriage and kids are better and more gratifying than any amount of professional success, and serial purposeless flings get depressing real quick. For the good of their own lives, for the good of society, for the good of their personal brands, now is the time.

Travis should propose. Taylor should accept. The fanatical army of Swifties should follow suit. They should all have a bunch of kids and America should have a future. I'm Michael Knowles. It's the Michael Knowles Show.

Welcome back to the show. The president of the United States is back from his two-week vacation, and we have a very important clip of him mumbling and looking off vacantly and stammering around. There's so much more to say. First, though, text Knowles to 989898. Did you know there is nearly $1 trillion of infrastructure and pandemic funds yet to be spent?

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I mentioned there in the open that the DOJ has indicted two Russians for allegedly funneling millions and millions of dollars into right-wing media personalities over the past year or so, a little more than a year.

So my first reaction to this story is, where's my money? Huh? How come the Russians never want to offer me money? Not that I'm not requesting money from Russia. Please don't miss it. I'm not. You're right. I actually wouldn't. It probably wouldn't make sense for the Russians to fund me because I'm not obsequious about Russia or anything like that. But what about Lichtenstein? If anyone from the Lichtenstein government is listening right now, I want it to be very clear.

If you legally fund me, there is no end to the amount of Jacobite propaganda that I will promote. I will talk about the Bonnie Prince Charlie. I will talk about the House of Ittlesbach, the real Stuart line of succession from King James II of England. I'll do, I will do it. I will play Jacobite songs on the show. I will also do all of that if Lichtenstein does not fund me. So I guess this is why the other guys make the big bucks.

And over here, I got to keep selling cigars, you know, keep the lights on. What is the DOJ alleging exactly? Merrick Garland said that two Russians who worked for Russia Today, which was a Russian state TV channel that did operate in the United States, but then with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine was sanctioned and was booted out of the U.S., that they secretly funneled money to a company called Tenet Media.

And the company hired a bunch of personalities, many of whom have come out and talked about this since this indictment dropped. The way the indictment is written, it just says, you know, Founder 1, Founder 2, Commentator 1, Commentator 2. So they hide a lot of the names because the only people who have formally been indicted are the Russians. But people like my friend Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, a number of people have come out and explained things.

you know, their role in being paid by this company. And they said, look, we were duped. You know, we didn't, they lied to us about who was funding it. Obviously, we didn't think the money was coming from Russia or anything like that. The DOJ comes out and really seems to suggest in the indictment itself that the commentators on the right, there were a handful of them, Dave Rubin, you know, there were a handful of them that they didn't know, that they got duped.

The company, the Tenet Media, did know, according to the indictment, and the amount of money that came in was a little under $10 million, which is a good chunk of change. However, if you look at the views that this generated, I think it's something like 16 million views. So you got the Russians paying...

what, 62, 63 cents a view. Basically, that's pretty expensive. That's over a whole nine-month period. It's really not a lot of views for a media company. The talent that were being paid were already well-established and had their platforms elsewhere. You know, people like Tim Pool and Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin. The company itself...

Some were pro-Trump, some were anti-Trump. There wasn't really a uniform message, as even the DOJ admits. So what's the upshot of all of this? You have a small number of right-wing media personalities and sort of independent, let's just say not left-wing media personalities, who were unwittingly receiving a decent amount, but not an insane amount of money from the Russians. They...

don't appear to have changed their editorial stance at the direction of the Russians. They were just doing shows that they were already kind of doing anyway and producing the same sort of content that they were producing anyway. And it didn't really generate all that much buzz. Most people, even on the right, have never heard of this company, Tenet Media. If the indictment is totally true, some shady illegal stuff definitely went on at the company. But what's the upshot of all of it?

Well, the upshot is the left is going to say that the entire right is being paid by the Russians or something, which is the same line of attack that they were trying to use in 2016.

The upshot of it is this indictment is coming out now. Why is it coming out right now? Why is it coming out just days after a prominent Democrat in the state of New York was allegedly caught working as an influence peddler for the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, working in the Democrat governor of New York's office? Why is it coming out just weeks before a presidential election?

Might it have something to do with the fact that Democrats launched their first salvo against Donald Trump all the way back in 2016 by saying Donald Trump is a tool of the Russians. It's Russia, Russia, Russia. He colluded with the Russians. And then that completely fell apart. There was an investigation. There was the Mueller investigation, special counsel. All of it came up with nothing. Then they tried...

Then they accused him of colluding with the Ukrainians. They called him an insurrectionist. They tried to kick him off the ballot. They tried to throw him in jail. They established the justification to assassinate him, and he nearly was assassinated. And now I think they're just back to Russia, Russia, Russia. So the timing is obviously to damage Trump. And the irony is the person running Tenet Media had been discouraging people from voting for Trump. So if you start to look into this story at all,

That's not to say that there wasn't dodgy stuff going on. There definitely was dodgy stuff going on if the indictment's true. But if you start to scratch and you look for the actual political significance of this, it's basically nothing. A small number of right-wing and independent content creators were paid to continue producing the same kind of content they were producing and being paid much more money for elsewhere. And the content got a relatively small number of views. And the top of the company,

was against Trump. That's basically the takeaway. It's not that necessarily this is an unjust prosecution. It might perfectly well be a just prosecution. But the timing of it is not about justice. It's not about stopping governments from influencing elections. All sorts of governments try to influence US elections, and the US influences all sorts of foreign elections. It seems to me the DOJ is going after this company

with ties to that country right at this moment, because this is a highly politicized DOJ. Merrick Garland is a political operator and a henchman for Joe Biden. And it seems to me they're trying to influence the presidential election. I don't see how you could include anything else. Now, speaking of contrarian takes in independent right-wing media,

Tucker Carlson has gotten a ton of attention recently. He's gotten a ton of attention for many years because he's an extremely prominent right-wing thinker and speaker and communicator. But he recently got attention because on his podcast, he hosted a guy named Daryl Cooper. And Daryl Cooper is a popular historian and writer and podcaster and all that. He goes by the handle MartyrMaid on Twitter. And Daryl Cooper came out with this provocative...

statement, declaration, that Winston Churchill was the chief villain of World War II. I thought Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War. Now, he didn't kill the most people. He didn't commit the most atrocities. But I believe, and I don't really think, I think when you really get into it and tell the story,

Right. And don't leave anything out. You see that he was primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did, becoming something other than an invasion of Poland. You know, Germany, look, they they put themselves into a into a position. And Adolf Hitler is chiefly responsible for this. But his whole regime is responsible for it, that when they went into the east in 1941, they were.

They launched a war where they were completely unprepared to deal with the millions and millions of prisoners of war, of local political prisoners and so forth that they were going to have to handle. They went in with no plan for that. And they just threw these people into camps and millions of people ended up dead. Okay.

A lot of people are offended by this interview. You would say, Churchill is the chief villain of World War II. Obviously, the chief villain has to be Hitler or maybe Stalin, but you'd put Churchill, he's the hero of World War II. What is one to think of this provocative and extremely viral interview?

There's so much more to say. First, though, go to ramp.com slash Knowles. Managing your business finances can feel like trying to balance the federal budget. But unlike our friends in Washington, you actually have to make the numbers work. It's time to ramp up your financial game with Ramp. Ramp is a corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. First off, Ramp gives you control like you wouldn't believe. We're talking issuing cards to every single employee with limits and restrictions that you set.

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Get $250 when you join Ramp. Go to ramp.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S, r-a-m-p.com slash Knowles, ramp.com slash Knowles. Cards issued by Sutton Bank and Celtic Bank members, FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. I haven't listened to the whole interview. I've listened to parts of it.

I've followed... Well, obviously, I've followed Tucker for years, and I've followed Daryl Cooper's work for years, too, a little bit. You know, I follow him on Twitter. I haven't delved into his podcasts or anything, but I've seen little comments here or there. They're kind of interesting. If you like contrarian takes, this will certainly be a very interesting interview for you. I think...

Mr. Cooper goes a little soft on the mustache man in his take, but of course it's a contrarian take, so he's going to be emphasizing the alleged perfidy of Churchill and de-emphasizing people like Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini. There's a really important point that he makes here, and I think this is the underlying reason why people find this kind of take interesting, which is that the Second World War...

It gives us a lot of the modern mythology of the West. Wars very often make up the core of civic mythologies, going all the way back to the Trojan War.

The first great myth in the West is the Iliad, and the Iliad is this legendary account by Homer of the Trojan War. The Trojan War is almost certainly a real event. Troy is a real city. The Trojan War was a real event. But then the Homeric epic is a legendary, fantastical, mythological reading of that event, and it forms the core of the Greek mythology.

But there are other wars that have formed part of this mythology. I think of the Punic Wars in ancient Rome. Cato, the elder, saying, Carthago delenda est, Carthage must be destroyed. And Rome goes in there and completely obliterates Carthage. Carthage had sacrificed infants and done all sorts of terrible things. And also was an economic rival power to Rome, which is another reason they went in there to get them. Other wars make up big parts of mythology.

I think in the West of, well, the Crusades, certainly. Maybe at the height of Western civilization and Christendom strength, the uniting action was the Crusades, going back to retake the Holy Land and protect Christians in the Holy Land from the Muslims who had invaded.

I think of, well, speaking of the Battle of Poitiers in 732, where Charles Martel, grandfather to Charlemagne, Charles the Hammer, goes in and turns the invading Muslims back 150 miles outside of Paris, just a century after Islam had begun. Or I think of the Battle of Lepanto, 1571, when the Holy League was vastly outnumbered by the Ottoman Turks, and the Pope prayed the rosary, and it was understood that Our Lady...

interceded for us. And this is where you get the feast, certainly in the Catholic Church, of Our Lady of Victory, Our Lady of the Rosary. The Battle of Vienna, largest cavalry charge in history. These important wars. And in modern times, World War II is the war. It's the greatest war ever. Clear good guys, clear bad guys. We haven't had such clear wars since then. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq. But World War II, that was the one. And this guy...

Daryl Cooper is questioning that mythology. And he would say, right, that's the point. We have to cut through this mythology because this mythology isn't historically accurate. Now, whether or not the myth is historically accurate, I think it's an interesting point they're making. That's why people are talking about it. But I think there's a big mistake that people are falling into here, which is,

And myths develop, myths change. When I say myth, by the way, I'm not saying something that isn't true. There are true myths. There are literally true myths. There are figuratively true myths. I mean a story that constitutes a basis of cultural identity. And so...

There's a modern impulse to debunk myths, and usually that's on the left. The left has been making all sorts of these arguments against Churchill for many decades now. He wasn't a good guy. He was a bad guy. I like him because he wore bow ties and smoked cigars, but all these sorts of ways to debunk the heroism of Churchill in the same way that we debunk the heroism of

I don't know, the founding fathers or the debunk the heroism of Christopher Columbus or of the conquistadors or whatever, the pilgrims. There's this movement to debunk the myth, but we need myth. So some new myth is just going to come in. You get rid of the mythos and the heroism of George Washington, you're going to get the mythos and heroism of George Floyd. Okay, but there's going to be some kind of myth here. So what happens?

If people successfully debunk or get people to turn against the myth that in part developed out of the Second World War, what's going to replace it? Probably what many of these guys would say is, well, we have to debunk it because that myth has led to some liberal policies. And there's this really problematic part in the myth, which is that we teamed up with the communists. So you can say Hitler, evil, extremely evil, in modern parlance, in the kind of mythological speaking about it.

Hitler is considered to be the absolute incarnation of evil. So, you know, today, if you want to call someone the most evil that one can possibly be, you don't call him the devil. You don't call him Satan. Our culture no longer believes in the devil. You call him Hitler. Hitler is the devil for all intents and purposes in the mythology. And so, and Hitler was an extraordinarily evil person. So how do you make sense of the fact that we teamed up with the communists? Stalin was also extraordinarily evil. And what does it all mean? Well, the, the,

Cultural mythologies are going to develop over time. You know, they've developed since the Iliad and through the Punic Wars and through the Crusades and all the rest. It's going to continue to change. But where I fear the right is being imprudent and could be and needs to be more cautious is however the mythology changes, we have to be on our own side. We have to take our own side. It seems to me inhuman and quite liberal to try to put yourself above your own country, above your own nation.

To say, well, actually, this other country was right. Or actually, these other guys were the good guys. I think it's a very simplistic way to look at history to say, here are the good guys, here are the bad guys. And then people who have more sophistication, they say, well, there are no good guys and bad guys. But I think the people who have the most sophistication here observe, we must be the good guys. However the mythos is going to develop, we have to be the good guys.

We have to be the protagonists in our own story. If we are not, there will be a civilizational suicide. That's what that amounts to. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to yaf.org slash air, A-I-R. You know Young America's Foundation. I have partnered with them for years. I've given speeches all over the country, many dozens of speeches probably at this point. And there are all sorts of great moments that come out of them. There is lib-owning with Facts and Logic.

There are crazy protests. There are, I like to believe, moments that have edified some students, even persuaded people, changed some minds, brought them over. Well, all those moments are made possible.

Through that partnership with YAF, and now you can join in. Matt Walsh on The Daily Wire's newest film, Am I Racist?, is hitting theaters soon. You have the chance to see it free and before everyone else, thanks to YAF. Head to yaf.org slash air, A-I-R, that is Y-A-F dot org slash A-I-R, to see if there's a free early screening near you. That is YAF.org.

Y-A-F dot org slash air. Beat the crowds. Save some money. You don't have to wait in line. You do have to pay for the popcorn and the drinks. Y-A-F dot org slash A-I-R. Also, subscribe to the Michael Knowles Show YouTube channel. Smash the like button and ring that bell. Speaking of the future of civilization, Pope Francis coming out with a very important observation in Indonesia.

He has praised Indonesians for having babies. The Holy Father says, your country has families with three, four, or five children that keep moving forward. This is reflected in the age levels of the country. Keep it up. You're an example for everyone. For all the countries that may be, and this might sound funny, where these families prefer to have a cat or a little dog instead of a child. So the left has just spent how long?

attacking J.D. Vance for criticizing the caricature of a childless cat lady. Pope Francis just did the exact same thing. Not to be cruel to the people who want to have kids, but they can't have kids, or people who maybe wanted to get married, but were not able to get married for whatever reason. Not people who like the companionship of a cat or something, but for the people who choose animals over children, who want to replace children with animals, who don't, who want...

who don't want to involve themselves with people who prefer fur babies to human beings. This echoes comments the Pope made earlier this year in Rome. The Pope said in May, homes are filled with objects and emptied of children, becoming very sad places. There is no shortage of little dogs, cats. These are not lacking. There is a lack of children. Very true. Very, very true. Not everyone is called to have children. Some people are called to religious life. Some people are called to a consecrated celibacy. But most people are called to have children.

And you're supposed to have children for most people. Those who are not called to have children or those who through circumstance are unable to have children because of infertility, perhaps, or, you know, not getting married or for whatever reason. Nevertheless, everyone is obligated to involve themselves with people.

We are obligated as a matter of moral duty. We're also, we should be eager to do this because it is good for us and it makes us happier and it makes us more fully human because we are the social creature and we exist within society. We are most fully ourselves. We are most flourishing as individuals when we are with other people. We become most perfectly individuals in relation to other people. We can't know our real identities absent that. We need...

It's really good to have kids. And if you can't, or for whatever reason you're not called to, you should endeavor to be a godfather or a godmother. You should involve yourself in the community. You should spend time with people and helping people and sacrificing yourself for people. It will make you happier. And it is the only way that the society can prevent its own death.

Now, speaking of good long lives, there's a new study out of China, actually, showing that mental resilience is more important even than diet for living longer. The seed oils, the trans fats, the carbs, whatever, it doesn't, no. Mental resilience is more important than any of that stuff.

This is published in BMJ Mental Health, research from Sun Yat-Sen University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. This examined data from a ton of people, 10,000 Americans, 50 and older, who participated in this study between 2006, 2008, followed these individuals for an average of almost 12 years, looked at their health outcomes. They found individuals in the highest quartile of resilience

of mental resilience had a 53% lower risk of death from any cause compared to those in the lowest quartile. If you're tough, if you're not, if you don't have meltdowns all the time, if minor inconveniences don't cause you to have a total despair, then you're much more likely to live a long time. Of course, this should be common sense, but I'm glad the science backs it up. And here's my question.

Do our schools, does our popular culture, does our society today train for mental resilience or mental weakness? Safe spaces. Do safe spaces make you more mentally resilient or mentally weaker? The hate speech laws, do they make us more mentally resilient or mentally weaker?

The affirmation of delusion, if you don't call a dude in a dress, she, you know, that he can bring you up with the DEI office or HR and can, or I don't know, might even get physically violent with you and might be justified by the culture in that. Does that sort of thing make you more mentally resilient or mentally weaker? Our whole society,

is training people to be less mentally resilient today. And we are being told that this is good for everyone's mental health. But the science says otherwise. The left always loves talking about, we need a conversation. We need a conversation about mental health. You know, we just...

We don't focus enough on mental health. I agree. We don't focus enough on mental health. We certainly don't focus enough on spiritual health, but mental health too. You're right. We need a conversation. That's why we need to affirm people and their transgender identity. That's why we need to affirm people's inclinations and orientations and this and that. Well, no, apparently that's bad for your mental health. If you try to protect people from legitimate criticism, if you try to protect people from reality,

It seems like that harms their mental health, their overall health, and it will likely lead them to an earlier death. Love this. Love this study. Let's train for some mental resilience. Toughen up. Buttercup should be the order of the day. Speaking of a lack of mental resilience, President Biden is back, I guess. The lights are on. I'm not sure anyone's home. He's back from his two-week vacation. He just gave some kind of press conference, but he...

He didn't answer any questions from the press. Here's how it ended. May God protect our troops. So he looks around confused at first. Then he puts on that vacant smile. He licks his finger to try to slowly pick up a piece of paper, put it in a binder. He's looking down, looking very confused.

He slowly looks at his handler. The handler's trying to push the press out like a bunch of cattle. Biden's there. He's kind of laughing. Why are all these people talking to me? What are they asking about? Huh? Important political issues? Hey, Johnny, where's my ice cream? Did I do a good job, Johnny? Can I have my ice cream now?

Totally ignoring the press. He's not even doing the usual Biden thing of kind of glad handing him or winking at him. He's not even looking at them. He's being led off stage, kind of very slow, stiff gate. Who is the president? Who is the president right now? This guy is not making any decision. He hasn't been in office for two weeks. He's just been on the beach in Delaware. Who is making the decisions right now?

If it's Kamala, that's bad news for her because things are not going well in the country. If it's not Kamala, who is it? Just a kind of blob, just a kind of machine. This is what happened at the end of the Soviet Union. You had all these really old general secretaries of the Communist Party, you know, the head of state in the Soviet Union. And they were all like a thousand years old and they all die within 18 months. And really what was running the country was just this bureaucracy of communism.

And we win the Cold War, we destroy the Soviet Union, and then it looks like we've become what we destroyed. How's that for historical irony? Now, in Biden's absence, Kamala is looking for inspiration. It would appear from the Republicans. This is an amazing story. Breitbart noted this. Kamala Harris proposes a small business tax break that House Republicans passed and Trump supported six years ago.

So we know that Kamala has already come out and stolen Trump's proposal to get rid of taxes on tips. We know that Kamala has come out and stolen Trump's proposal to enhance the child tax credit. Initially, Trump and Vance come out. We want this big child tax credit. The media attacks it. Then Kamala says she likes it too, and the media says it's a good idea. Initially, Trump says no taxes on tips. The media attack it, and Kamala endorses it. The media say it's a great idea. Well, now...

We have the small business tax break. That's going to be a great thing. I can't wait for Kamala Harris to endorse Project 2025. That's going to be the funniest one. When Kamala is just looking over Trump's shoulder. Trump doesn't even like Project 2025. But, you know, if he, I don't know, she gets her answers wrong. She comes out.

After months of being told that Project 2025 is the super-duper evil mega Hitler 2.0 plan to destroy the whole world, Kamala's going to come out and she'll say, I, listen, I didn't fall out of a coconut tree, okay? I'm a product of my circumstances, and that's why I endorse Project 2025. And the whole media are going to say Project 2025 is the greatest thing. She, though, she's going to try to do one better than Trump, so she'll say, I call it Project 2026. Ha ha ha.

And it's just got a little more Tabasco sauce in it. And the media are going to say it's great. Other than infanticide, the only novel, clear policies that the Kamala Harris campaign is promoting are policies she stole from Trump. Love it. Maybe that explains why a supposed Republican like Liz Cheney has endorsed her. Liz Cheney

just gave some remarks at Duke University. Said Kamala Harris is a radical liberal. Oh, I'm sorry. That's what she said in 2020. Well,

Well, I'll finish reading it just so you, Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney said in 2020, Kamala Harris is a radical liberal who would raise taxes, take away guns and health insurance and explode the size and power of the federal government. She wants to recreate America in the image of what's happening on the streets of Portland and Seattle. We won't give her the chance. Well, okay. All right. That was back in 2020. But let's hear what Liz, what is Liz Cheney saying about Kamala Harris now?

In one fell swoop here, he has put somebody on the ticket whose voting record in the Senate is to the left of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. So I think that the American people are going to look at the substance of this. They're going to look at what she stood for in the past. They're going to look at what she said during the primary election. And it's very clear she is a radical liberal. She's somebody that has said we ought to spend $32 trillion on Medicare for all.

If you look at her record as well in California, she did, in fact, essentially ban gun sales with executive action. And she threatened during the primaries to do the same thing if she's elected. OK, well, I guess that was 2022. OK, so 2020, Liz Cheney says this woman is awful. She's the most radical. She's the most liberal. She's bad for the country. Fast forward four years. Here is what she just said.

As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this because of the danger that Donald Trump poses. Not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris. Of course. What danger, what threat does Trump pose? He's already been the president. Did the world fall apart? Did the country fall apart? Did the economy tank? Did the world order crumble? No. No.

The economy was better than it's been under Biden. The world order was much stronger than it's been under Biden. The invasion of our southern border was far less pronounced than it's been under Biden. Everything was better. But Donald Trump has insulted Liz Cheney a lot. And he's, I think, really exposed her to be the squish in the shield that she is. He...

Trump ruined her career, I guess. Trump ruined Liz Cheney's career. And so for that reason, this principled conservative, Liz Cheney, just like all those other principled conservative never Trumpers, is willing to support the most radically leftist presidential candidate probably ever, certainly major party presidential candidate ever, just to stick it to him because of the principle of having wounded pride. That's the principle of these never Trumpers, wounded pride and revenge.

Now, if you missed it in the headlines, I'm not sure how you would have. Matt Walsh pulled off the troll of the century at the 2024 DNC. Matt strolled through a sea of confused libs handing out cards for Project2025.com,

It wasn't what they thought. Walsh actually got Don Lemon to promote Project2025.com on camera. Imagine Don Lemon's face when he realized that he just gave free publicity to Matt Walsh's new movie, Am I Racist? Speaking of which, Am I Racist hits theaters in eight days, September 13th. Head to AmIRacist.com for tickets and showtimes. My favorite comment, yesterday's from Nate Butler Music, says, the windows are the windows to your home, says Michael Knowles. Yes, that's true. It's one of my favorite quotes.

I want that to be on an inspirational poster. So the squishes, like Liz Cheney, they say, look, Kamala, I'm not saying she's perfect, but she's the best option available for conservatives because of this unique threat posed by Trump. Okay, so how is best option available conservatism going at the White House?

What does the White House make of recent elite colleges like MIT, Amherst, and Tufts reporting sharp declines in black and Latino enrollment and increases in white enrollment since the affirmative action ruling from the Supreme Court? The president and the Department of Education released guidance and resources to campuses to

continued diversity on college campuses obviously the state has suggested that that isn't necessarily working does the White House believe there is more it can do to prevent this trend from happening in other college campuses? So a couple things and this is really very important because we call that out that this could potentially happen when the Supreme Court made that decision their decision moved the nation backwards as you're all

laying out and what we're seeing right now in unpended decades of precedent that allowed America's colleges and universities to build vibrant, diverse environments. This is really bad. It's really, really disturbing. It's really, we warned that this would happen and now it's happening. That's a terrible tragedy that white teenagers aren't being discriminated against because of their race in college admissions. That's the great tragedy.

white people are being allowed into colleges. That's awful. Isn't that terrible? That moves America backward. If we don't actively discriminate against white kids, why America can never progress? That's progress? I don't find that to be progress. The irony of this, too, is that while certain black and Hispanic people

probably did benefit professionally or as a matter of their finances from affirmative action. And as white and Asian students were discriminated against and were financially and professionally and as a matter of education, just harmed by these policies. Many black and Hispanic students were also harmed by these policies. As the late great Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in writing on affirmative action,

There are all sorts of problems that go along with elevating students who would otherwise not be admitted into a university, who are otherwise not qualified to go to a certain university. The first being mismatch. But if a student is academically underperforms, but then gets an artificial boost to get him into a more difficult university, he might not be able to keep up. He might do poorly in his classes. He might take out

student loans just to go to the school. And then he might flunk out. So now he's saddled with debt. He's wasted a year, maybe two years of his life. For what? And then he goes to a college that he otherwise would be qualified for and does better there. That's one problem. The other thing that could happen is

If students are artificially promoted into these colleges, even if they don't have the academic chops, the only other thing that can happen is that the schools lower their academic standards or they create a bunch of fake departments for the kids who can't hack it in real academic departments. I'm thinking of the departments like gender studies and all those kind of studies departments. So you either harm the kids you're intending to help, you damage the university and the education of all the students,

And you certainly harm two races of kids who, through no fault of their own, won't be able to go to the good college because their skin isn't the right color. That's what the White House is really upset about. That now, that the discrimination is going to come to an end. Really? Any Republican...

Any principled conservative, any moderate, even any center left person who could vote for this disgusting, incompetent, radical, contempt, contemptuous administration, the Biden-Harris administration, has lost it, has lost it, or has been so blinded.

by a nasty ideology that they're willing to put up with all manner of failure and injustice. So, speaking of racial benefits and bonuses, there's a bill that just passed out at the California State Assembly that makes illegal aliens eligible for $150,000 in home loans. It's very difficult to buy a home right now.

It's often difficult to buy your first home, but it's especially difficult right now. AB 1840 expands eligibility in the state's down payment assistance program to illegal aliens, foreign nationals illegally in this country. It has passed the assembly. It's on its way to Gavin Newsom. My question is, why would Newsom not sign this? Why would he not sign this?

outrageous. It's offensive. Many Americans are feeling like foreign nationals who break our laws are getting more benefits than ordinary Americans who were born here or who came here legally and who work hard and pay their taxes and don't commit three quarters of the crimes in midtown Manhattan and are just following the rules and doing the best they can. They feel that illegal aliens and

And criminals are getting treated much better than they are. They're getting all sorts of government benefits. They're getting nice hotel rooms at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. And now they're getting $150,000 for home loans. And that's really outrageous. But why would Newsom not sign? I get why someone in Tennessee would be offended by this, even kind of normal, sensible New Yorkers. But if you're a liberal, if you're a true liberal, then you probably believe or are at least inclined to favor the view that

that national borders, they're not really important. They're not really meaningful. And actually, you know, look, America, this country was founded on stolen land. We took the land from the Indians and the whole country was built by slaves. And it's really unjust. And, you know, we need to pay some reparations to all the wonderful indigenous, much better people than we, who we've harmed. And so really whatever they want, come on. And who are we? We have no moral authority. We're not the good guys.

This is an important, we spent a bit of the show talking about these questions about the national mythology. Well, as it develops, how about we focus in on the, I think, historically justifiable, literally true aspects, but also important figurative images and stories that remind us that

We're on our own side. We're trying to do good. We must be the good guys. We want to be the good guys. We have certain rights. If we are to remain a political community, we've got to assert our rights. We've got to have some confidence. We've got to believe in ourselves. We've got to recognize that there is a distinction between us and all the other countries of the world, between our civilization and other kinds of civilizations. We've got to be on our own side.

and not just constantly attack ourselves, diminish ourselves, give away our whole country to everybody else. That's what we're doing now. That is the consequence of how we view ourselves now. And it is an urgent matter of practical politics that we change that story. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code NOLS, K-N-O-L-S, at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. ♪

Republicans or Nazis, you cannot separate yourselves from the bad white people. Growing up, I never thought much about race. It never really seemed to matter that much, at least not to me. Am I racist? I would really appreciate it if you... I'm trying to learn. I'm on this journey. If I'm going to sort this out, I need to go deeper undercover.

They all say I'm racist. Joining us now is Matt, certified DEI expert. Here's my certification. What you're doing is you're stretching out of your whiteness. This is more for you than this for you. Is America inherently racist? The word inherent is challenging there. I'm going to rename the George Washington Monument to the George Floyd Monument. America is racist to its bones. So inherently. Yeah, this country is a piece of shit.

White. Folks. Trash. White supremacy. White woman. White boy. Is there a black person around? There's a black person right here. Does he not exist? Hi, Robin. Hi. What's your name? I'm Matt. I just had to ask who you are because you have to be careful. Never be too careful. They gonna say you racist! Buy your tickets now in theaters September 13th. Rated PG-13.