Join us as we dissect recent stirring political narratives and their impact on public sentiment. From the potent messaging by Matt Walsh to the diverse opinions from an Ivy League setting, Mike and his guests navigate the intricate relationship between policy enforcement and empathy. Explore how today’s decisions shape tomorrow’s societal landscape as they discuss pressing issues like political violence, media portrayal, and the path towards a balanced discourse.
I think it’s possible. I hope it’s possible. And Mike, I come to you and it was just almost exactly 24 hours ago that we’re sitting here slinging topics back and forth like Kimmel and you tell me, Oh, what’s going on in your neck of the woods? And in the 24 hours since I’ve tried to find the capacity and the energy to do two things, to have the sort of Christlike outreach to people who can be reached, yet also to fight as Jesus would against evil. And it is outright evil to speak these words that inflame these lunatics. So it’s kind of a mixed bag approach. And I wonder what – I listened to so much of your show, which was done so beautifully, so tone perfect. So what’s in your head and your heart as we look at this 24 hours down the road?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, good morning. I was talking to my boss, as I often do on my way into work. And he was a guest in front of a bunch of college kids at an Ivy League college yesterday. and a lot of young college kids, and he said there was a resounding recurring theme from the young people in that room, some of whom he described as right of center or even conservative, that said that you older folks, you boomers, don’t recognize the optics of families being rounded up, terrified, and shipped back to their originating country. And Phil… acknowledged that these were not like leftist lunatics who were raging against the Trump administration, like so many do. They were saying, we wish there would be more compassion. We wish there would be more understanding of what illegal families, they call them migrants, of course, are experiencing. And, you know, Phil, of course, understands that. On the other hand, to me, as I heard that, and I took that in this morning in preparing to talk to you, I’ve been thinking a little bit about the comparison of where we are right now domestically to Israel and the Palestinians. For example, how do you have a two-state solution? How do you negotiate when you know that one of the sides wants you dead? You want to survive. You want to be left alone. Please don’t kill us. If you try to kill us, we’re going to have to defend ourselves, and then we’ll have to kill you. That’s what we’re seeing right now with Gaza. Well, how are we supposed to have compassion for a side that literally wants to kill us? Political violence, Mark, is here. And there are too many on the left who are now accepting and even justifying and even celebrating political violence. On the campus of Georgetown yesterday, you know what, they were posting flyers that said, hey, fascist, catch. That was what Charlie Kirk’s killer wrote on the shell casings. Now, they’re posting that now on light poles on the college campus of Georgetown that’s producing tomorrow’s doctors and lawyers and judges and attorneys. So there’s a poisoning that’s gone on. I have to just give so much credit to one of the most clarifying things I saw last night on social media, Mark. It came from Matt Walsh. Did you see his essay? I don’t believe I did. Can I share this with you? It’s just three paragraphs. By all means. I think everybody will appreciate it.
SPEAKER 02 :
And this is the gentleman who gave us the wonderful documentary, What is a Woman? Just a wonderful conservative podcaster, writer, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Daily Wire. Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh. Imagine that we have a Democrat administration. Now imagine that a right-wing radical shot and killed one of the most influential liberals in the country on live TV. Now imagine that thousands of other conservatives shamelessly celebrated that assassination and called for more of them. Now imagine that in the very same week, another right-winger shot up a country club while shouting MAGA. And another one shot up a news station and left behind a manifesto complaining about liberal bias in the media. Now imagine that a week after all of those attacks, a conservative sniper perched on a rooftop, fired into a Planned Parenthood clinic, killing or injuring multiple people. And imagine that this Planned Parenthood attack was just the latest in a string of them stretching back several months. Is there any doubt, asks Matt Walsh, how the Democrats would respond. Is there any doubt that they would wage a full-scale war on conservatives and have people like me frog-marched in front of the cameras in handcuffs and leg irons? Is there any doubt that they would declare martial law and label all right-wing expression incitement to violence? Is there any doubt that they would be rounding up conservatives by the busload and shipping us to Gitmo? Is there any doubt that they would have Fox News and every other conservative media company shut down and its executives arrested or sued into bankruptcy? Matt says, I’m not even advocating for Republicans to do all the Democrats would do if the roles were reversed. I believe in the rule of law. I know that they would throw the rules out, chuck the Constitution into the wood chipper, and ruthlessly persecute us all if conservatives engaged in the kind of systemic campaign of political terrorism that the left is currently conducting. I don’t want anyone to be persecuted. What I do want What we all want is for the Trump administration to do absolutely everything legally in its power to prosecute and punish every leftist responsible for committing, coordinating, funding, or inciting this epidemic of political violence. I want them to actually treat Antifa like the terrorist organization that it is and handle its adherents and affiliates the same way we handle ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Now is the time. Lives hang in the balance. Crush the terrorists. Do it now. What do you think?
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pretty brilliant. That’s it. I mean, that’s it. We’ll be back. There it is. Yeah, there it is.
SPEAKER 02 :
Some things just tie such a magnificent bow around it. That is superb. Can I go back into the portrait you painted of our boss, Phil Boyce, appearing in front of students? Sure. I want to reach out. It’s kind of funny. This is perfect, Mike. Thank you so much for that story. Because I’ve described the people who can be reasoned with and those who cannot. Those who cannot must be beaten into submission in the battlefield of ideas at the ballot box. I’m not talking about literally beating on anybody. But those ideas must be crushed. Now, if you’ve got a mush-brained 20-year-old at Brown University or Princeton or wherever he was… And the quote you gave me was, Mr. Boyce, you just don’t know how it hits us, the optics of watching people round it up. This is when it’s time to speak truth with love. You tell that young person. I know how shocking and jarring it must be after generations of a country that does nothing about illegal immigration to watch us actually do something about it. But we’re not going to deliver fruit baskets to people who are here illegally as we usher them back to their homeland. We are not going to give back rubs as we respond in the street to people who are illegal. sapping our resources and committing who knows how many heinous crimes on occasion. We’re not going to do that. This is what law enforcement looks like. So get used to it. Stop whining about it. Pull your head out. Read the room and recognize that these things are being done so that you, young man or woman, can grow up in a safer and more prosperous country. Fair enough.
SPEAKER 01 :
But let me play devil’s advocate because I totally agree with you. I’m not disagreeing with you. But devil’s advocate, can we do all of that with a modicum of compassion? What does that look like? That’s what I said to Phil. I mean, that’s what Phil and I were talking about. I said, what does that mean exactly? I said, I’ve already heard. In fact, Tracy right now as we speak is working with the attorney general here in Florida. I want to see alligator Alcatraz. As I understand it, it’s air-conditioned. There’s all kinds of accommodations. There’s a mess hall. There’s a cafeteria. There’s access to computers. They’re not in a gulag. They act like they’re in the middle of a swamp being eaten by alligators. No, no, they’re not. They’re in an air-conditioned facility, a migrant detention facility. But, but, but, but. Does it lie with messaging? You know, arguably, and I think it’s fair, many people said that Trump would have won 2020, by the way, for a variety of reasons. I know, I know, I know. But Trump would have won in a landslide had he expressed himself a touchy-feely kind of compassion that he, frankly, doesn’t really possess. But you’ve heard that, right? That if he was more compassionate about what the country was going through, if he had more… I don’t know, warmth. I don’t know what the word is.
SPEAKER 02 :
There’s a guy I know named Mike Gallagher who every time I kind of say something like that, gee, I wish he dot, dot, dot, if only he dot, dot, dot. There’s a guy I know named Mike Gallagher who over the years has told me, stop that fool’s errand. What he does, he does in his way. It absolutely rocks. It’s enormously popular. He runs the Republican Party. We’re better because of it. So stop these crazy thumb-twiddling, navel-gazing exercises where we go, oh, if only he. You were more touchy.
SPEAKER 01 :
I know. And he never will be. And you’re totally right. And let me tell you what I’m sickened about in having this conversation. It’s as if some lunatic in Dallas shooting up an ICE facility should make us say, ooh, maybe we ought to rethink our mass deportation. It’s insane. So the terrorists win. So the terrorists win.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, and he calls for compassion. I’m all about compassion when it’s called for and blah, blah, blah. But this whole compassion issue is gaslighting. It’s a concoction. It’s from the people calling for compassion are the people who just don’t have the spine or the brain to absorb what it looks like when American laws are enforced. Maybe.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. You’re right. I mean, I know you’re right intellectually.
SPEAKER 02 :
What other way can I be right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you’re totally right, but I also wonder about what does it feel like in the heart? What does it feel like to a young, impressionable 18? I know you’re right, too. Yeah, I’m not disagreeing with you. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. But we can’t look away from people who are saying… And here was the argument that Phil kept getting from these kids. And it was at Duke University, for what it’s worth. Here’s what he was getting from these Duke students. We thought he was just going to round up the real violent illegals. You know, the worst of the worst. Now, I’ve heard that. Jessica Tarloff says that all the time. By the way… Did you see Greg Gutfeld? I sure did. What’s left of her may be on that show tonight or not. I don’t know. Oh, my word. Look, that was like you. I got that tone from you last night where after this happened in Dallas, you said, I’ve had it. I have absolutely had it. This has got to stop. I’m done. But look, we’ve got to acknowledge political violence now has been normalized by the left.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure has.
SPEAKER 01 :
They’ve normalized it. They killed Charlie. And the question is, and Phil and I even talked about this, does Charlie’s assassination, it’s definitely a turning point. Does it make things better or does it make things worse? Are they going to do more?
SPEAKER 02 :
It might be both at the same time. And that incredible service on Sunday, I think hearts are growing. Following of Christ is growing. Charlie’s message is growing. And maybe the reverse side of that, the corresponding effect, the Newtonian physics here, is that on the left, they may get even more panicked. They may realize they’re painted even more deeply into a corner. Oh, they’re panicked. They may for a time grow even more reckless and violent. Oh, Mark, they’re panic. In word and in deed.
SPEAKER 01 :
Mark, we got a montage that we got queued up for today’s show from MSNBC. You should hear the way those folks are trying to spin Dallas. Well, now, we don’t know if anti-ICE really means he’s opposed to ICE. It might have been a joke. He might have been kind of toying with us a little bit. Right. Maybe it was gaslighting. Maybe it was MAGA and trying to… And we don’t know yet what he really was trying to do. I thought, what? I know. But think about this. You want to talk about optics? How about these optics? This guy hated ice so much that he went to Dallas and he killed one of the illegals that he’s trying to protect. Yeah. Yeah, shot into a van and killed and critically wounded. Yeah, it’s almost like, that’s almost like God saying, you want to see how misguided this is? I’ll show you. This is how misguided this is. So, look, and the violence against ICE has been ongoing. This is just culminating.
SPEAKER 02 :
And it will not stop. It will not stop.
SPEAKER 01 :
Not in the short term. That scares me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, that’s scary.
SPEAKER 01 :
I love you, man. I’m glad you exist. No, I’m glad you exist. It’s good to get through all this together with you. Do you know what this segment means? I mean, you just set my whole day. Don’t you dare take another day off for the rest of the year.
SPEAKER 02 :
I have no plans.
SPEAKER 01 :
You are stuck. Well, you go when I go, and I’m going soon. Look, I spent all night. I got the new iPhone 17 last night. Oh, man. Oh, my Lord.
SPEAKER 02 :
I just got a 16, and already you’re showboating me.
SPEAKER 01 :
I got a 17, so mine’s bigger than yours. What’s so great about that?
SPEAKER 02 :
What’s so great about that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, what’s great is spending the hours having to re-enter all the passwords and get all, it never, nothing ever transfers over the right way. They say it does and they lie. They lie. Oh, no, the passwords and all the shortcuts? Oh, I see.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, there are some things where I’ve got to, okay, there have been some things.
SPEAKER 01 :
Some things? That was up until midnight. Oh, my gosh, there’s this password and there’s that password and why doesn’t this blink? And you know what we’ve got to do?
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s a fast phone. It’s a cool phone. Tomorrow, Friday, please. I mean, Trump could resign, and we’ve got to do driverless cabs, okay?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, Waymo.
SPEAKER 02 :
Waymo, Waymo, Waymo.
SPEAKER 01 :
Here it comes. Waymo’s got to come to Dallas-Fort Worth.
SPEAKER 02 :
And you know I’m terrified, and that’s half of a bit. I’m half kidding around, but only half. But the thing that might have won me over, are you serious that if you’re at point A, point B, trying to get to the airport, Uber might be 80, and the Waymo might be about 15? Exactly. It’s cheap because there’s no drivers to pay. Kill me. Kill me, robot cab. I am in.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. Crash me into a wall. I just saved some money.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s it. That’s me. You found me. I love you, man.
SPEAKER 01 :
I love you. See you tomorrow.
SPEAKER 02 :
That is Mike. He’s ready to go. 10 o’clock soon as we’re done on 660 AME Answer. For full shows live and on demand, it’s the Salem News Channel.
