Charlie Kirk and Michael Knowles Debate the Two Trillion Dollar Stimulus Bill and America's Dangerous Dependence on China

[Music] well so we were gonna do this in person but social distancing so it we are on different sides of the same atmosphere actually I'm in Arizona not too far from you I'm gonna say this is this is probably the longest you've ever stayed in one place maybe your entire life definitely in the last few years oh no I actually did the calculations this is the longest time I have not been in an airplane since high school and no seriously it's been eight years since I've actually been in one place this long and now I'm starting to understand what normal non traveling people do like watch Netflix and I go to go to bed get regular hours of slave yeah yeah exactly yes how are you holding up in this existential crisis you know it's so frustrating here in LA because the trouble is every politician wants to one-up every other politician so right president Trump taking the virus very seriously so as a result of that Gavin Newsom is gonna take it seriously governor of California so he is going to institute some regulations then Eric Garcetti the mayor of Los Angeles he takes it even more seriously orders a lockdown all the businesses to shut down one hour later Newsom is not going to be one-upped he orders it across the whole state then Trump extends that he's not going to be one up gar City is gonna extend it for two months I mean at the rate that we're going we are never going to reopen Los Angeles ever again which frankly might be good for the United States well I mean it's may be but I guess I mean so you're holding up fine it seems like the daily wire is continually putting out very good content and thank you you know fortunately unfortunately Newsom said that podcasts are an essential service which I might dispute that look I'm happy to go along with that so so here's the loophole that every single restaurant needs to just start a podcast and that's a great idea as it is you know seriously as it goes back to this old story of how how silly government regulations are and how you can have unintended consequences one of my favorite stories I always use and you could steal it Michael because I stole it from somebody else but it's is this regulation in India where they had a snake problem you ever hear the story ever hear the story before hundreds yeah they had a huge snake problem so the British colonialists came in and they said all right we this huge snake problem here's how we're gonna solve the snake problem we're going to pay the Indians for every snake that they kill and bring in to the central authority or to their you know regional capital so you know enterprising India and said hey why don't we just start snake farms and start to you know repopulate the snake population and we tell them all and then we'll go bring them to the capital so then all of a sudden snake farms became like a cottage industry and they actually weren't killing those integer snakes so you know for all these government regulations and all these government rules there's always unintended consequences so we just we just got this big big government regulation relief bailout stimulus I mean we're talking about two trillion dollars when you look at what its levered up to be it's basically six trillion dollars something tells me you're not thrilled about that I don't want to speak for you but that's a lot of stimulus no look I I'm a huge supporter of the president he was put up against a wall to sign this thing and he got some really good things in it and there's just some awful stuff in it and I'm not alone in this critique sean hannity mark levin and others have you know have talked about this and look here's the essence of it is I'm a deficit Hawk and I'm a debt hawk and I'm not comfortable posting a trillion dollar deficit let alone a 3.8 four trillion dollar deficits let's just start with that and there is some absolute garbage in this bill Michael I mean just I mean for example let's just start with the basics of the National Public Radio and PBS which is basically an anti-trump anti West anti-american megaphones that are now getting another seventy five million dollars on top of the appropriations that were already giving them well the irony about this NPR now doesn't even want to carry president Trump's press conferences to update the public on the coronavirus and yet they're receiving money through the coronavirus relief package on top of it so they got a corona bonus and so that's three hundred and fifty million dollars for migrant resettlement so basically we're gonna fund illegal immigrant resettlement or it wasn't really clear what that was but Mays basically a slush fund for the reappropriation for nationals into our country the unemployment provisions are awful in this entire bill the whole yeah unemployment is it it's supposed to be a safety net not a hammock so you could conceivably and you actually will earn more money on unemployment than actually doing your job if you had a job the best part of the bill I will give some complement is the payroll protection part we're actually gonna pay businesses to keep employees on their payroll they're probably going to extend that that's only fifty billion dollars though of the six trillion dollars um the other part that I'm not enthused about and I did a whole podcast on I say all this by the way as unequivocal Trump supporter understanding he has to do this politically he has thought he had he was put up against the wall by US Congress he has to do this but I'm also gonna just you know share my critiques as I see them I'm not a big fan of bailing out fortune 100 companies especially companies that have billions of dollars in cash and command can't collateralize their assets when interest rates are super low so if interest rates are like 10 or 11 percent I get the whole argument against borrowing money sort of but interest rates are as low as they've ever been why can't these companies go borrow money in the private market and then come to the federal government as the last resort it seems like it was the other way around like let's go to the let's go to the federal government for basically cheap loans or bailouts or subsidized packages i I don't like that I think do you not do you not think I mean it just seems to me of all that there's a lot of stuff in this bill that I hate but of all of it that part I actually like are these these loan programs from the Small Business Administration and then in particular the 500 million dollar loan program that then the the Federal Reserve will lever up and turn into 4 trillion dollars in 100 well hold on a second first of all that I don't trust the Fed as it is second of all the SBA is widely by anyone who's dealt in small business no one likes the SBI no one's except the SBA and there's gonna be so much waste fraud and abuse in this entire package I absolutely guarantee it now sure if small business gets if small business cuz actual relief and this money flows maybe however I'm not convinced yet if so you heard this probably Michael in the last couple weeks I'm a private sector first guy government last guy and so you probably heard that banks are as capitalized as they've ever been right there is good there is well capitalized of Everman so why are and Wells Fargo and some of these other banks opening up for small business loan emergency relief assistance right now before the federal government comes in the federal government should be a backstop against the private loads if they're over levering themselves to actually help out this small business that might be in need I don't like the idea of opening the United States Treasury and a merger with the Fed which can create money at will by the way we are going to see some form of inflation it's impossible not to see some form of inflation with what they're doing right now it's impossible but taking the small business thing aside okay three hundred fifty billion dollars a lot of that will do some good a lot of that will also be misallocated waste fraud and abuse let's just focus on the big crony capitalist part of this though the the the small business on right now that has to wait weeks get this money from the SBA from Joplin Missouri or from Broken Arrow Oklahoma or from Tallahassee Florida they're not going to get the sweetheart deal that the big airlines and the airline manufacturers got they're just not I mean the deals that they have that Boeing and American Airlines and United and Delta got are pretty incredible and right now United Airlines conveniently said after the bill was signed they're gonna let people off they're gonna they're gonna furlough rice like hold on a second I thought the reason we gave you access the taxpayer money is not to furlough workers and so look I say this again with honest critiques of the bill not a critique of the president the president comes at from a good position of wanting to do what's best for the country and also being put up against a political impossibility I though as someone who does not believe in Keynesian economics who does not believe in demand we should be redistribution ISM which goes to my biggest critique of the whole bill this free cash for people is nonsense like yeah this is my big yeah yes yeah I had III no no no please this this is my big problem with it yeah I mean look it's not stimulated and so maybe there's an argument to me to be said like okay some people need access the short-term capital totally get that I I'm not discounting it and by the way I even as a free-market capitalist I think payday lending is awful and disgusting I think people that run payday lending and do these like 18 to 20 percent 20 percent interest rates I think that is engaging in usury and it's awesome I will exploit it yeah yeah it is so I get the whole idea of opening up capital for people that need it so why didn't they do this they say okay there's an optional interest free to two year bridge loan for individuals and families three to five thousand dollars if you need it why are they giving people money if even if they don't or need it not applying for it right this is like this is a blessing to me yeah this is the big problem because because you know the issue here is the most politically you know give it almost populist provision of this bill is sending people checks for 1200 or 2,400 even more money but it's I agree with you it there's no evidence that this is going to stimulate the economy in particular by the way if this thing drags on for what it's going to drag on for another 30 days now how far does 100 bucks gonna get and they're probably gonna extend it after that so that I really don't like but I find myself in the least politically popular position where I'm actually defending a lot of the business loans and even the airlines in this because you're in this position where it's not like a normal financial crisis that's cyclical that is often caused by decisions made by the financial institutions or made by the airlines you're in this I guess unprecedented position where the state governments and the federal government are forcing these businesses to shut down and even with the airlines who drive me crazy you know when you look at their cash on hand I think now who knows if they're reporting accurately but as of last week United an American or reporting respectively I think six billion dollars cash on hand and four billion dollars cash on him plus they obviously have a little bit in the way of credit but the trouble for them is they they sell their airline tickets so far in advance in the year because people are buying summer vacations for instance that now they you know usually they recoup people canceling trips up with those fees but they can't charge the fees now during the pandemic so they could see that cash disappear overnight you know I hate to defend big airlines I hate flying American as much as any any you know mode of travel but it you don't want to get into a position where you've got basically a liquidity crisis a crisis of just not having enough cash to turn into our other financial crisis right but but we don't we don't have a liquidity crisis the Fed is pumping in money so the pariah is not that so if they want to borrow go borrow I mean go to Barclays and open up a three hundred billion dollar line of credit I mean they're they did they even Purdue they even explore the private market or is their first stop to get on their private planes and go to Washington DC they probably the fastest way to the right airline by the way the greatest irony is some journalists should find out if these air CEO Stephen flew there on airline to go lobby for their airline seriously they might have might have won the private division of it you know no I kid you not I don't care it to you but I dime on a dollar that the United Delta and American Airlines CEOs didn't find their own dang airline to go more right there an airline by the way I don't want to see flight attendants or people disenfranchised however yeah I'm not I don't want sweetheart deals I don't want people that are able have access to proximity power to be rewarded more than others am i naive of course not that's going to happen I want to limit that from happening but here's the promise we don't have a liquidity problem the Fed is pumping in money at record rates I don't know like that I don't like that either by the way I don't like the idea of just instinctively going straight to the money supply and destroying middle America's purchase purchasing power because inflation is a tax but presumably at a certain point you know it's not like it's just putting the money out there it'll never come back I mean that the reason the Fed is levering up the 450 billion is presumably on the bet that a lot of at least most of that money is going to come back into the Federal Reserve at some point maybe we'll see I mean again the question is how much depreciation of a middle America's purchasing power is going to happen yeah so that's a future inflation does not affect the elites it doesn't inflation actually helps the elites and helps landowners people that know a lot of stocks and bonds now their argument we have all pensioners and people owned stocks and bonds totally but the purchasing power of the single mother right now in Kansas City yeah it Kansas City Missouri by the way not Kansas City Kansas City Missouri the single mother right now who's dealing in cash right who might be cleaning hotel rooms or might be doing minimum wage jobs her purchasing powers gonna go down dramatically with the infusion of capital I'm look I got my political upbringing in the 2010-2011 post financial crisis you know and i i'm of the opinion to be super hesitant with big massive government intrusions of capital and liquidity at any point any time and i say why don't we first go to the private markets and also try to diagnose what's actually the issue here the but there's another fear because I share your concern I hate going to the government as the first resort but there is a fear on time here right I mean you've got something that is is a completely contrived crisis from the government and you don't want to get into a position where business owners who maybe they have one or two weeks cash flow that they've got to sell their businesses or sell their property for pennies on the dollar because they don't have the cash to keep it around I mean that doesn't seem very fair well precisely but look again I agree in some sense but that keeping the look what are you going on the Fed is necessary whether or not it's a good long-term economic decision is debatable and I would probably say no but the the argument is this is but Michael we have d incentivize saving because we've lowered interest rates right so why don't why do business owners only have one or two weeks cash on hand because we've incentivized that by pumping and cheap money and not incentivizing saving right so certainly in the personal personal front yeah no of course but also I mean but a lot of small business owners run the personal through the business right there's very little they run escorts they run C Corp straight to their own person yeah that's true there's very little there's very little difference between it so here's my here's my big argument is it my big question about the stimulus bill is why 2 trillion why couldn't this be done in couple hundred billion dollar increments now the President did make a good argument let's go all big at once let's use a bazooka but we as conservatives when after the other administration when they passed eight hundred billion dollars a stimulus relief back in 2009 right no I see your point Charlie but the the reason the only reason I push back on this a little bit is because I do think the two crises are fundamentally different you know the in 2009 you had these financial institutions basically playing without the ability to lose you know they knew that if they won they'd get to fly in their private jets they knew if they lost the government would bail them out whereas in this case really it was nobody's fault I didn't charge Boeing how's that different than Boeing because the government's all going to shut down well but listen I'm not defending Boeing because Boeing has structural problems too but I mean in this particular case it wasn't Boeing's decision to shut down the global economy it wasn't Delta's decision and so just III agree that I'm fearful of crony capitalism but it does seem like a different situation so your argument is basically that government has created this crisis but didn't create the Oh a crisis no government played a role in the Oh a crisis but there was also corporate responsibility there as well sure but I my argument is government created both crises and so yeah but was not solely either right it's solely great in this crisis but it didn't so I create the last crisis well careful people that are correctly managed fiscally people that saved prudently there being those and they're being penalized right what about the companies that are super well capitalized let's take over technologies there's enough cash flow for the next 18 months yep how are they gonna get rewarded how is this going to incentivize saving in the future why do these companies have be levered up to the sky maybe they should be not going through mergers and acquisitions every 18 months so to your point it kind of just kind of push back a little bit and this is more of the not fundamentalist free-market argument but just kind of more of that school of thought shouldn't we also be praising as much as criticizing so there are companies like uber technologies the CEO says yeah we got enough cash for the next 18 months we are going to ride this thing out and their stock went up like people say wow I have confidence in that stock Apple for example their stock goes up tremendously in the last couple days despite yeah they've got more money than anybody right but so the question is from went from a corporate governance standpoint we have actually we don't build companies anymore we build deals big difference right so we build deals that help reward the merger acquisition firms reward the firms like Goldman and Sachs that they get their bonuses they get their one-off deals but the question is we should be building multi generation companies like we used to in Jack welter CEO of General Electric that one Jeffrey I met with CEO of General Electric well drove the company that was profitable with low debt that rewarded their employees like when henry ford ii built Ford back in the 50s not built for butthey extent expanded Ford and diversified it he was a hawk against debt in a lot of different way so here's my question Michael is is this new fiscal stimulus only gonna continue reward that kind of fiscal mismanagement could you yeah it's certainly good although I you know one one issue here is I mean good good on uber and good on Apple for having a ton of cash but we I don't think we can expect businesses to have 18 months worth worth of cash flow without laying off workers I mean and particularly in the case of uber they don't need to worry about a huge employee resource because it's a gig I think I think that's perfectly fair I just I'm just trying to when I was a little bit disappointed with Michael as being a huge Trump supporter by the way and I support him signing this bill cuz he has no choice yes yes against the wall for sure right yes it has to take the good with the bad and we got to do action I get that the presidency is different than Congress though Congress especially the Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body that's where my critique is right where is the deliberation over this where were the conservative dissenting voices that were talk about the lessons learned for post-2008 the lessons learned post failure fiscal stimulus in 2009 in 2010 right and also you could have done this piecemeal the other part of this and I know Michael you don't support any of this though but 25 million dollars for the Kennedy Center that's a job I should say it's beyond outrageous not to mention 250 million dollars for the Treasury so they can get the free cash for people and so look I'm not a fan of you bi I'm not a fan of demand-side this redistribution ism it's garbage it's nonsense it's bad economics it puts bad incentives it's also not stimulative I mean I took an assignment if unscientific survey here at the turning point USA headquarters of our young employees and what they're gonna spend their money on most of them are gonna pay down debt so basically it's the opposite assimilative right sorry for coughing I don't have Corona I promise you better not luckily we're in a social distance though but it might come through the prompter I don't know yeah I'm sure that someone's gonna propagandize the public you go there might be goodness gracious you're gonna see zoom stock it's gonna CNN yes but nobody I look good economics look economics is the worgen scarcity right and so but here's the other question and this is a super unpopular question I think that there should be a federal law saying that adversaries the United States should not be able to purchase asset to the country such as China so China should not China and Chinese nationals should not be able to take advantage of the market going down right now however if American Airlines broke up is that the worst thing in the world making a mistake this is not enough this is not a popular argument but it might be an economically sound one American Airlines just won on the most aggressive merger and acquisition campaign crusade over the last five to seven years they've brought US Airways they bought they bought everything they possibly could and they levered themselves up that might have been really really good for their stock price they bought back stocks by the way with the corporate tax cut that they got why are we now bailing out that bad behavior maybe if we went back when there was more airlines out there maybe airlines would actually be more competitive right well I will say I'd be more than happy to let American Airlines in particular go out because they have horrible customer service but that you better not take away it'll just allow some of them but this well but this bill this allows that is that the that is that we are now calcifying the bigs and the uglies that will continue to borrow money recklessly and by the way if anyone out there thinks you've been treated nicely by the airline of course unless you I mean Southwest people is the highest I actually can't stand Southwest cuz I actually know what seat I have well I know I feel like I'm gonna get trampled on Southwest when the people are stampeding down the aisle to pick a seat but by the way people say well your bags fly free I'm like fine your bags fly free yet it's some sort of social experiment this is a spacial conscientiousness to board the plane I mean I think it says dart it's it's so unbelievably Darwinian it's so uncivilized yeah it is and so but to close the point is that I I think that we jump the gun into a multi trillion dollar stimulus that we know we can't afford that will devalue the currency where I would have liked to see much more if we were gonna do something to things payroll protection all for them yeah Cenobite surest and the rules the unemployment stuff garbage and nonsense you're going to see a stickiness of people staying on the unemployment rule the Democrats put it there intentionally the reason they allowed those the the I mean this was this was actually the one point where some senators Lindsey Graham Ted Cruz and others fought back and said wait a second if you increase the unemployment's this much then you're actually disincentivizing employers from keeping the employees yes you're incentivizing employees to stay off and and coincidentally they're incentivized to stop working just up through the November election how coincidental is that well and so if if Senator Graham and the good guys like senator Cruz and others yeah say okay we're now gonna demand an immediate bill after this bill fixing that but we're gonna vote for all the good stuff that but I don't see that Michael I'm not seeing action to fix that we are going to have a stickiness to unemployment that is does that is destructive to the core fabric of the labor market in America where we're going to subsidize and incentivize people to not work that's not what and that's a bit you know the big issue here - you had the Senate vote unanimously I mean it was 96 to nothing and at least we know we know all of the people who voted for that but when you look at the house they refused to take a recorded vote these guys were so afraid of being on the record that they they wouldn't take a recorded vote so now any of them can take potshots at the bill but we don't know they very well may have voted for it because leadership told them - yeah I I don't like this whole idea that also we're not recording how people stand on Bill what is this I mean that's nonsense and so so look I I and they're already talking about another stimulus and look here's the long and short of it is that middle America real small business relief the best stimulus they could have Michael is the green light to go back to work we have to say warmers and so I understand it's not that simple and I understand there's you know all sorts of competing data and all that sort of stuff I however I am of the opinion like hey a posting a four trillion dollar deficit that should be something that should be deliberated so thoughtfully and critiqued so carefully not jammed through and passed in what I consider with some of the most egregious waste that I've seen in a bill in the history of the US and you know what's so scary here for conservatives is the precedent because listen you know I'm I'm fairly amenable to the bill I can get behind a lot of aspects of it but the the sticking point for me you're more amenable than me but I know I'm probably more amenable to it than you are but but the sticking point for me is we are now setting the precedent of the government on a massive scale sending direct checks to people because of a time of crisis well look maybe this is a real quickly this is a serious crisis at least an economical one but what about the next time yeah some but Michael I mean Medicare for all cost 32 trillion dollars but not 32 trillion dollars a year that's right number that number that Bernie said was over ten years so now we've set a precedent that three trillion a year for Medicare for all is not that much yep in fact it's perfectly affordable but ubi why not do it every quarter one every month and now again the smart alecks that always come in my you know podcast feed we're gonna say well Charlie that's a slippery slope argument okay well first of all I'm not saying it's going to happen I'm asking I'm telling I'm asking you the question why won't it happen so and I don't mean no one has a thoughtful answer also slippery slope arguments are good people will sometimes forget this is they say oh you're just a slippery slope like yeah well everything conservatives have been warning about on the slippery slope over the last 30 years actions happen drew yeah so I you know I'd like a little credit for the slippery slope thank you very much well it's it's also I mean it's using predictive logic I mean we know how the left operates it's not as if we don't have a blueprint of how the left is trying to use the state - first of all advance you advance their own self-interest to destroy your freedoms and liberties secondly to try to do whatever they possibly can to destroy our culture and destroy the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world so yes I mean it's an awful precedent and I I don't again I don't think there was the deliberation in the US Congress that was needed and necessary to be thoughtful about what this could possibly do for the freedoms and liberties of others and so here's the awful irony this whole thing Michael is that what we should have done again there's a lot of shoulda coulda woulda but why didn't we sell why don't we sell coronavirus war bonds why don't I go out I say no I'm not kidding you know it's a fair a suggestion ya know but here's the argument for why don't we go out and say all right here's a 3% interest rate higher than the t-bill right that's where they did under or the world war two by the way we did this under World War two and it worked great we are gonna finance a much as bill as we possibly can we're gonna open up coronavirus war bills and we will not borrow a dollar from China to pay for the virus that China created for the multi trillion owes you realize that we're borrowing money from China to try to solve the economic consequences of a virus that originated in China this is some trouble when with free money right this is the trouble when your biggest adversary is your largest creditor well right exactly we shouldn't we shouldn't buy we shouldn't bother any money from China in fact I could make an argument at the Fed right now should go buy all the debt from China and get them off the balance sheet completely I mean III would make if by the way if we're just gonna be floating trillion dollar coins around that's a really good purchase right now is that the Fed to go buy all the Chinese debt immediately and get them off our balance sheet so there's no leverage there at all what's the wait a second charlie I just heard you float an outrageous conspiracy theory that this virus came from China is that what you're saying you're saying the Chinese Corunna virus came from China I mean I was one of the for the record I was on the first people to call it the Chinese coronavirus okay and actually President Trump tweeted me early on and I was like loving my my feet of all these beautiful articles from Bloomberg Donald Trump up ending world order by retweeting conservative activists this is great but by the way China's America's greatest enemy lying is a feature of their society I'll make a delicate differentiation the Chinese Communist Party is different than the Chinese people that's pretty that's pretty self-evident but I have to you know kind of say that the CCP they're a ruling tyrannical their ruling tyrannical dictatorship that needs to be blunted and thwarted and counter-attacked we need to hold them accountable committee's tribunals international all that stuff is nonsense we need to we need to do something that is gonna be so aggressive that the ruling class of the CCP feels it so well you know why you know why it's a really counterproductive anyway when you go through these international organizations is for the last decade China has been taking over the international organization people people keep wondering why the World Health Organization is lauding China and touting the Chinese party line it's because they installed their own Patsy to head the w-h-o and I have some serious questions about our government not our president but our government so I just found out that the CDC has a Chinese office did you know this this is not the heck were they doing in January yeah seriously it's twiddling their thumbs I think you know eating better I mean what was this is with the de CDC here of a city called Wuhan I mean it seriously but we had a whole month where we literally have people stationed in there to try to monitor infectious diseases so look here China's got to pay yeah here's some ways that we have to make them pay a permanent tariff put on by the entire world to China of 25% of all imports and exports until they repatriate the entire global loss which is multi trillions of dollars recognized Taiwan immediately as a free and independent country that'll really tick them off all like this would that be wonderful kick off all the Confucius Institutes of our country completely and totally in categorically and put on a by executive order or congressional statute all manufacturing of essential services hence you know essentially pharmaceuticals and it's not be read ah Messiah back to United States of America that'll create 800,000 jobs and by the way after after 9/11 America woke up to the horrors of radical Islamic you know fundamentalism and we said we're not gonna take me where I take this lightly after 2008 we woke up to the horrors of how banks are not properly capitalized and how government lied to us for many many years yeah and also how ruling class dynasties are not the answer after this I sure hope that anyone who dares manufacture any product in China will be held accountable and by the way there should be a little window I understand you might be over levered on all this within a couple 18 months if you manufacture anything in China I want nothing to do with you nothing to do with you because these people are backwards you are going to be aligning with the greatest evil of our entire century it's time to bankrupt them and hold them accountable well you know it's funny because why not I feel just as fiery as you do if maybe I'm not exactly on board with every single one of the particulars you know one one line in the in the great debate among the right you know between the traditionalists and the the you know kind of more traditional conservatives and them more libertarian types is this question of international trade and trade with China but it seems like this is a distinction without a difference it's perfectly fair to say if you're the most hardcore free-market here or if you are not you wouldn't call yourself a libertarian you know ever it there's no contradiction there to say wait a second China is cheating China's our adversary China is in many ways waging a war on us cut it out we can't outsource all of our manufacturing to China but but look I'm a Milton Friedman guys so let me let me build it out for you I the first but one of the first things we know in trade is that both sides get equally rich right said both sides benefit from a trade I don't want China to benefit I want them to Sofia we can trade with them right that simple they're evil I don't want evil people to get rich by the way we've all been sold this lie that the more you trade with China the more Western they're gonna become they have a million it just hasn't Hanson tration camps not right they actually become more tyrannical they become more anti Western and so that I think that there needs to be a complete and total global recalibration hold them accountable makes you keeping pay G's you ping is now in the category of evil dictators the likes of which that I'm not going to name the names but you guys can name the names for yourself that's all I have to say you know it's a no yeah well it's such a good point that you're making on on the the previous economic argument they said listen if we just bill up China if we get them really rich on Western Goods and Western trade then all of a sudden one day they're gonna sprout into a Madisonian Republic and it just hasn't happened it's it's this backwards view of politics that I think a white wing for a long time had which was they ultimately kind of accepted the premises of the left they said look basically politics is just about money it's just about material goods it has nothing to do with culture it has nothing to do with eternal questions just give them more money they'll become westernized and look how that it's just shut so profound and so well put Michael I have to say because this is the neoliberal I and I'm the I look I have such respect for neil neoliberalism of course I do I mean our entire Western senator living is basically built around trade markets private property and you know fair and free elections as fair and free as they possibly can be but here's the lie that I was told for the last couple of years especially during the MIT Romney campaign was the more we trade with these you know these tyrants in China eventually they're all going to be wearing Levi's jeans sipping Starbucks tweeting about how well you know and basically never some countries actually do become more Western it's not it's not that that is incorrect I mean we've seen Eastern European countries that lived under the Soviet bloc truly truly become more westernized like Poland okay it surely can't happen get a little more natural similarity probably than the people and I'll give you I'll give you you know your whole the whole Catholic thing's some credit here I have a lot I have a lot of appreciation for the Catholic tradition and they believe in God in Poland so the idea of Liberty is actually in their book yeah the idea of being free from bondage China has no idea what it means to have a higher power so the only power they know is use you ping or before that Mao they are the largest atheist tyrunt tyrunt or dictatorship in the history of the world and so the more you trade with them the more money they have the more they're going to only play into their godless indulgences and so I I think the whole world needs to kind of reconsider that this whole lie - oh the more we trade with China the more that they're gonna become like us and eventually they're going to be watching Family Guy The Simpsons and drinking macchiatos and wanting to have fair and free democratic elections it's not happening yeah this is the big problem I mean this is why culture matters you know it's so funny I joked earlier that you're a conspiracy theorist but believe it or not I don't know if you saw this there's a Business Insider article that actually refers to you in print if you want to get your lawyers ready as a conspiracy theorist I've noticed this now on there were a lot of all of a sudden its cropping up on Wikipedia all over the left is referring to two totally mainstream right wingers totally mainstream ideas as conspiracy theories and in the case we mentioned the Marxist dictatorship the Atheist dictatorship there is a long-standing intellectual tradition of cultural Marxism it goes back probably to the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci yes that's a good accent these are pretty good accent you pronounce about him he wrote it frozen though what what are you right from well he wrote yeah he wrote his letter letters from prison his prison Diaries he wrote a number of essays on this notion of applying Marxism to the culture because the culture is a lonely way that you're gonna get the proletariat to rise up and be aware of themselves so this has gone a long time there are many many thinkers who fall in this camp they went all the way up through Herbert Marcuse and the new left in the 1960s and all the way today we see this in intersectionality and leftism anyway it's going on for at least a hundred years now if you look up cultural Marxism all of a sudden they will refer to even that as a conspiracy theory and I dare say that that's a conspiracy look I'm not gonna get into their terminology because I know what trap they want me to fall into but I will say this right I believe in facts truth logic history and and basically things you can prove and you can prove that there has been a a concerted cultural Marxist agenda that was written about the 20s and 30s advance for the Frankfurt School took over our schools and our universities and has tried to deconstruct it's the school of deconstructionism I mean you learn about you literally learn about this when you go to some high-priced institution and be trained to hate America and I mean look it's through post-modernism and Jacque they're there and all these things all these different thinkers and nonsensical backwards ideas basically around the idea that there is no such thing as absolute truth which of course you should always respond to do you believe that absolutely and apply your own logic to your own ranking right if there's no such thing as absolute truth and that can know that I definitely cannot be absolutely true well you don't believe your own nonsense you know what they mentioned because you mentioned the Frankfurt School which is this group of intellectuals who came over from Frankfurt came to America and then went back and they're a very left-wing and so part of the new conspiracy theory designation is they say it's anti-semitic because the Frankfurt School thinkers were largely Jewish and so they say if you mentioned cultural Marxism it's anti-semitic what they seem to be ignoring is that the father of cultural Marxism is an Italian guy named Antonio Gramsci who is very much not Jewish so you know they they hurl these epithets around racist sexist bigoted whatever and it's it's just a way Charlie to tell you to shut up of course it is no it's it's nothing more than a suppression tactic and a an offensive tool for them to try to stop debate dialogue discourse and essentially people that might be able to get garner or following to be able to actually have a platform yeah and and that you see this applied in every single kind of segment of society and the look when will probably there's so many problems that this Michael is that the people that are actually hateful bigoted and racist then gets diluted and gets put into the group like you I mean I actually try to exercise you know extra size like you exorcise demons from our ranks yeah all of a sudden with an O seriously yeah not not exercise but I trow sighs these people that you know you would know so we could talk about that actually and a little bit but the the the the I guess the question is it is the left try I think I know the answer but is the left trying to loop us all together because they don't know better or they or they do they know better and they're doing intentionally so they can just have domination the leftist domination basically yeah you know I'd like to give them the benefit of the dead because it's early surely is convenient and helpful to them to lump us in you know and everybody that to the right of Hillary Clinton is Hitler and it makes them easier to shut us up so there's a real convenience to it but I do also think in the left's defense that they simply don't know what we leave you know there was that study that came out a few years ago from John Haight who which showed that while the right generally understands the left the left actually does not understand the right and just anecdotally but don't forget the anecdote is data you talk to a lot of leftists and they actually don't know what you believe they actually don't understand the arguments that you're making so it's obviously a little bit of both but I I will give them credit for their ignorance I mean look I think I think some left us know better I think leftist followers don't and I think that the leaders do know better they know where the true hateful lines are drawn and they know they know but they don't even police the evil in their own ranks in fact they endorsed and tolerated I mean Linda Sarsour who's an anti-semitic anti Western anti she's a Jew hater is what she is she's Asian America Nader yeah yeah and I mean exactly and then she just promoted to be what spokesman of the comrade Sanders you know but the Makemake Bolsheviks great again red line whatever oh she would go to the women's March and hold hands with Gloria Steinem the great feminist what do the hijab and the hat have in common very little except they are both opposed to sort of traditional culture yes and the more you study the left the more you fight the left like you brilliantly do you understand that the left is not they're not united by truth and they're not united by values because they the left truth is not a left-wing value and they don't actually don't have values they're United by hatred that's all they have that's all the left has and so you can find for example you can find what is the most you could find why what people believe in what their nearest and dearest values are based on what they build alliances around and so we as conservatives build alliances around truth and commonality and goodness and optimism and love of America right but the left they build alliances around hatred they I mean for example you have with your sorry sue and glorious diamond if you set them in a room together and you said what are the things that matter to you most Sarris or would probably say implementation of Sharia law the abolition of Israel and all sorts of crazy you know basic you know fundamentalist ideas yeah we're glorious diamond would say free abortions on demand for every single woman you know always and basically we shout for abortion and that's right right precisely and so those things are at odds and then you add into there the transgender stuff what I mean they're totally at odds with each other but what they have in common is that we're bad they haven't gone in that the conservatives and the Americans and people that want to preserve Western civilization the Jo Christian ethic they want to destroy us they want to silence us they're united by their hatred that's what drives the left-right well you know though I will say in a word of Defense in the politics of opposition you know very often having a common foe does bring disparate groups together so it like it's a strange thing right on the right that there are people who are trad Catholic social conservative guys who wear suits and ties to church every Sunday and then there and have like 15 kids and they're at 25 years old I don't even know that's possible and then there are also guys who are atheist homosexual libertarian you know socially liberal whatever and yet they do have a coherent coalition because the common foe right for both of them is this woke leftist culture which is kinda silenced both of them I think the difference though Michael and I anticipated that counter-argument from you or for someone listening to this I would say the difference though is that person that might have be totally different than the the Catholic going Latin Mass ceremony attending like you you know wears a three-piece suit and recites the rosary backwards in original Aramaic I gotta work on my Aramaic I guess yeah yeah that was the language that Jesus that's true but the difference is that they actually have a love for America that's what really unites them and they right consider the let they if you go a level deeper the left is the greatest threat to that love though yes we're a certain the left the left the left doesn't have the love for the country and all they have is the hatred all they have is it the most elemental core of their alliances between the transgender D constructionists and the glorious diamond feminists and the Linda's our sewer Islamic fundamentalists is that they actually don't have a commonality of what they want to exist the commonality between your somewhat accurate depiction that you have the atheist you know and the Catholic 3-p going Latin Mass ceremony attending individual like yourself building a coalition is that if you actually break it down actually want in America that has markets and private property and Constitution yeah yeah very similar they find agreement that the left is the greatest threat to those things yeah no I think that's absolutely right and it's so much you know it's not just us Latin Mass going Catholics here it's also evangelicals evangelicals being the most reliably conservative voter base and I know you're doing a ton of work in that area with your with the Falkirk Center and what do you what do you see moving forward I mean do you think that we're gonna have a kind of Christian resurgence in America or are we going to fall back to it we have to and I have so much respect for my Catholic friends and you know I'm always kidding yeah when I say these thing you know and we have fun and I actually do have some very serious Catholic theological questions at the end of this all right lay em on me I'm ready I would love to have you answer and they're corona related but so no but look the the coalition of belief in a higher power and what you're willing to do about it and what especially for us Christians and I think it's nonsense when people say Catholics aren't Christians that's garbage I just want to say that as an EM angelical and by the way I have people that email that all the time like Charlie you have to stop calling Catholics Christians look my grandmother was a practicing my grandmother was a practicing Roman Catholic she believed Jesus Christ was king of the world and we might have disagreed on sacraments and disagreed on certain papal authority but Catholics I believe Jesus is king of the world you're a Christian yeah and you believe the savor the world that it's nonsense when people say anything different so I just want to get that out of the way but for those of us that believe that Jesus Christ is king and save the world and the son of God if we there's a huge problem happening right now in Christendom where there's this allegedly woke leftist Marxist garbage ideology that is coming through the church right now that is saying that oh Jesus was socialist that we need to have more left-wing social activism and by the way I will I will now criticize both the Catholic tradition and I will criticize you know evangelicalism we're in a Jellicle ism you have this happening a lot of mega churches and a lot of the kind of New Age churches in churches especially the bigger populations and especially in Methodist and Episcopalian and Presbyterian traditions now in the Catholic Catholic social teaching should not should not quote unquote Trump no pun intended the it just should Catholic social teaching can be can be helpful it can be supplemental but when I hear people talk more about Catholic social teaching than I do the actual Bible I get really really angry and and very often what they're talking about is their sjw social teaching sort of masquerading isn't the traditional yeah it's a church yes that's right that's right and so the here's what yours it needs to happen though is that we as Christians need to realize the most important thing in the history of the world is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior the most important thing the second most important thing is making sure you can do the first thing yeah so what seriously and the second thing is protecting religious liberty fighting the left which is the greatest threat to Christianity the history of the world I make the argument that God gives his people blessings and gifts America is one of those gifts God gave us this gift and so we have to ask ourselves the question what are we as Christians are we acknowledging it are we defending it are we strengthening it or we try to save it and most Christians unfortunately don't even vote no and and a lot of Christians vote incorrectly too many Catholics vote incorrectly and you and I talked about this in the past but the real Latin Mass attending Catholics that get deep into the liturgy and get deep into the tradition is Catholic Church they actually tend to be very conservative well because you know why I mean this is a point for any any like wishy-washy Catholics out there I think a lot of people because Catholics about 50 50 Democrat Republican I think they are not paying enough attention and maybe it's because their priests and bishops aren't directing them to pay that kind of attention but the Catholic Church has spoken pretty clearly about for instance abortion when there is an option you cannot vote for a politician who supports abortion so even socialism you know there are Pope's I know now it's a little confusing but Pope's especially 100 or so years ago I'm thinking of leo xiii wrote beautifully against socialism said it was a wicked Confederacy said it was a plague a pest that steals the very gospel itself no Catholic can vote for socialism it says so in the Catechism of the church yep jumped on a second John Paul the second was this was the quiet anti-marxist not so quiet at times the Polish Pope who helped bring who brought down the Soviet Union through private prayer and direct teachings of was it the second that was it the second Matt you would know this better than I but he actually would frequently quote the Pope that I just mentioned Pope Leo the 13th he wrote a pope john paul ii wrote a great encyclical called chant SE moose honest in which he says free markets are the most efficient means of allocating resources you know this is coming back to our we've come yeah right now yeah right a current problem current pope who is very misguided on economics and very misguided on the value of private property and and confusing and confusing about it yeah in contradictory and so so look here's what needs to have a for christians out there we have to be active and looking first timothy it says that you should pray for your leaders for for peaceable and essentially it says for peaceable lives essentially and and a direct translation back to the letter that Paul was writing to young Timothy who was trying he was basically mentoring was that you got to know who your leaders names are you gonna pray pray pray for them by name and get engaged involved you know many Christians complain about how the culture is degrading they don't know their school board members you know many Christians know seriously and and here's what's happening Michael and it's so exciting is that I actually think that our political are the political sense that we're making when you and I are podcast growth and your podcast is terrific by the way I love listening to it thank and your your speeches and what you're doing is actually pointing people back to Christ so the church has gotten it really wrong in the last 20 years well not not into really wrong I shouldn't say I'm talk about more evangelicalism and you could supplement this in Catholicism as you see fit but Christianity has had this misguided notion over the last couple decades we got a stay out of politics politics is impure just focus on the church just focus on gospel building I'm all for gospel building I'm all for the church however if you ignore the idea in Galatians 3 that the law is a school teacher to Christ what is the law standing for truth standing for simple society standing for the order remember the law originally in the Old Testament was a law for the people as a civil society Aristotle taught us that politics is the ultimate form of community and the absence of politics in the community is also saying the absence of the law and so what we did is the what we're doing Michael I'm sure you see this you're getting messages I'm sure I know you are emails and text messages charlie Michael thanks to you guys I'm now going to church thanks you guys that's great right but we don't always talk about the gospel we talk about it but we also talk about other things why when people hear things that make sense when they hear people taking stance on difficult issues and civics and politics and culture they want to know what the origination of that is and they want to at the furthest extent of that is and in Galatians 3 the letter to the people of Galatia you know the in Galatians Paul was saying you can use the law as a school teacher to Jesus and that's what's happening now and the church has to learn from that the church can grow the kingdom of Jesus Christ can grow the more we get involved in civics the more we get involved in politics not the lie that the church taught us the last couple decades well yeah you know I mean this is something that the left has always used they've said we've got you've got to get your religion out of schools and they started doing this in the middle of 19th century well it's nonsense because they don't get their religion out of schools they have the religion of secular liberalism capital S capital L with the great cardinal virtues of tolerance capital T diversity capital D right they're performing and now their own gender theory which is actually just a new form of Gnostic dualism an ancient discredited religion and so they're if they get to keep their religion in schools perhaps it would help us to and I'm just as just a modest suggestion maybe we allow students to read the Bible in schools you know the most important I've ever written that the whole culture is based on I go a little bit further I say that no no no I'm AB said that's publicly so who cares but every no school should get federal government money unless they require the Bible to be taught in schools I'm in sign me up you're so spot-on Michael leftism is a religion okay absolutely is a religion number two if you don't teach the Bible you're just you're now allowing your religion to censor another religion because the Bible is whether whether you like it or not it exists it's a historical document as MIT as much as a religious document but not only does it exist or our entire culture is based on it so that the just even if you don't believe in it as a religious text there's you can't understand Shakespeare if you don't read the Bible you can't understand Dostoevsky if you don't read the Bible you can't understand the entire history of the rest if exact you don't you can understand Viktor Frankl you can't understand any of these things so we're teaching everybody that these kind of moments of our culture without the foundation of it right and so the and this this is evidenced by countries that do not have the judeo-christian construct and do not have the Bible as a North Star and the inspiration of its leadership or its founding documents or its governance or most importantly its people they struggle with this idea of Liberty some of them are able to do it in some managed form but over time they struggle with it and this is it looked the greatest example of this is you're going to see India struggle with the idea of personal liberty and I love the country of India it's a great experiment of free markets and private property look the more people out of poverty than any of their country but still the caste system is very much built into the ethos and built into the structure of their society it just is and and the reason why America was different fundamentally and we don't talk about this as Jesus was the great liberator what Liberty Liberator is built into the idea of freedom from bondage and freedom itself Jesus wanted us to prosper and to be able to multiply and to be able to adhere to first and foremost his kingdom but when you build a society around the idea of religious liberty understand you just can't pick and choose your liberties if you ever legislate but you have economic Liberty and personal liberty all these different types of liberties all the sudden you're they're gonna have prosperity and so if you all of a sudden remove those books and those texts and just act as if oh yeah we just stumbled upon this Liberty thing it's the norm you're gonna have it right personnel we're standing we're standing on the shoulders of giants and we think we're flying I mean that's that's the real threat here and so I think it's great I mean I'm just so pleased that you you know work work on this and you talk about this and you're pushing it through the Falkirk Center it's very underwear faith in Liberty at Liberty University we want to get you involved with that Michael you would love that you would be oh it sounds great where we are there's a medical to use a nice word that I have not used yet today I have not used the word ecumenical if you don't know what it means look it up well speaking of you you mentioned that you wanted me to weigh in from my my vast and poorly forms knowledge of the Catholic tradition well to try to answer your questions I wouldn't say it's poorly formed but I do have a legitimate question so how is it that the the government edicts are shutting down Catholic churches how how are Catholics processing because I saw a specific article where priests were encouraging Catholics to not go to confession but go to straight to God isn't that the whole argument that we have Angelica's and Protestants have been making that the practice of confession is better done just to God and that this might actually be an exercise in the invalidation of going through a priest for confession no I don't think so you'll be surprised to hear that I think that but but introduction it does help to clarify the sacrament of confession because you're right you know I think a lot of especially Protestants but maybe a lot of Catholics don't understand what a confession is you cannot confess unless you first confess to God unless you first have a direct form of confession now if in this case the sacrament of confession right so to kind of forget that part so you know especially now where the sacrament of confession is closed off to people in most of the country and in Italy and elsewhere what you do is you can make an act of perfect contrition so you confess your sins to God you you express and pray your your sorrow your repentance for that and you make a vow that you will go to confession as soon as you can the reason for the sacrament of confession comes from a commission that Christ gave to the apostles which is he says I hear the keys to the kingdom of heaven what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven he breathes on the apostles he gives them the Holy Spirit and he says you have the power to forgive sins whose sins you forgive are forgiven and then crucially whose sins you retain are retained so it's not even like it's a sort of I would never accuse our Lord of speaking in a platitude in this way but here it's so clear that there's nothing platitudinous about it this is a real power that is given by Christ to his apostles and therefore to his church and so we we confess our sins to God we apologize in this moment we make an act of perfect contrition but then we go there because Christ did Institute real people and you know one thing that if people are trying to make sense of the sacraments one way to think of it is that their incarnation --all they're in the flesh you can't just do it over a zoom meeting you can't just like go to E mass or something maybe you try to and you have a spiritual communion during times of pandemic but you got to do the real thing and the reason for that is that Christ Himself is incarnation 'el right in literally in the incarnation that the divine logic of the universe takes on flesh becomes man and dwells among us and so that's that relationship between the physical world and the metaphysical world that come together in the sacraments so yet that's a deeper discussion for a different time I guess connecting with the corona side of it though why am I not seeing more Catholics push back against the idea that you can't get the Eucharist during this time don't would you make the argument you curse now more than ever thank you thank you so much you know the trouble you mentioned earlier Charlie that there are government mandates that are preventing the Catholic churches from opening and that's true in some places Bill de Blasio's threatening to permanently closed churches but the trouble for us is it was the bishops who made the decision to close the parishes it was it was not the government initially was the bishops and so you've had some people in the church hierarchy speaking out against this specifically wonderful Cardinals Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Schneider saying people need the Eucharist we need the body of Christ we need we need mass we need the highest form of prayer now more than ever and yet unfortunately you have other leaders of the church who have been more reticent now are they making it look prudence as a virtue they're obviously making a Prudential judgment here to say we need to protect public health by closing the masses but it seems to me there would be so many other ways to keep the mass open to keep the sacraments coming to keep the Eucharist available and still protect public health Hey and I just think that it as a Protestant looking at this from the outside I think it cheapens the argument to be perfectly honest you Michel that Catholics always make about the importance of the Eucharist yeah it sends the wrong message well I'm like okay so we're cool with home depot being open as an essential good with the body of Christ not so much that's right you can go to Walgreens but you can't go and write and participate in the highest f