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The Michael Knowles Show
Ep. 2017 - J.D. Vance Gets Smeared For This Viral Joe Rogan Interview
00:50:45
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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
AI executives face mounting death threats as one AI company suggests that their product might kill us all. So is it time to go full Luddite? Let's ask Rock. Then Vice President J.D. vance goes on Joe Rogan and gets slandered. Totally smeared for the dumbest reason. We will get into the viral clip in question. And finally Senator Rand Paul comes on the show to discuss the massive fraud hearing yesterday that the Democrats boycotted. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. Apple and Google News caught red handed suppressing all sorts of negative stories about the erstwhile Democrat senate candidate Graham Platner. This was pretty obvious to those of us who were paying attention but we will see how the machine is operating cuz now they totally turned on Platner basically have given up in Maine. Okay, before we get into anything because there is one story I haven't even mentioned yet and it's probably the most important story of the day. I think people feel this story most viscerally. But first this is a little preview of what it's about. I wanna talk about your betting. I wanna talk about Bolen branch. Go to bolandbranch.com b o l l a n d branch.com knowles When I was a younger man, when I was in my early 20s bachelor life, I came confess I was one of the people who thought that talking about bedding was ridiculous. I would go, I went to the cheapest shop, I would buy the cheapest sheets that were made of recycled bottle caps and sandpaper. And I just didn't. I said it's all the same, whatever, I'll pay $3 and it'll be great. Then I got a little older. I remain a simple man. I'm a simple man easily satisfied by the very best of everything. When I tried bowling BRANCH Almost, almost 10 years ago now, it all changed. In fact, this is no joke. I was with my in laws over my vacation last week and bowl and branch was a major subject of conversation because sweet little Lisa and I just got another bowl and branch comforter set we had already given as a gift to my in laws years ago a bowl and branch set. This is 100% organic cotton designed to be naturally breathable. It's so good you will be talking about it almost 10 years after you first try it out. There's no cheap weirdo like cooling technology or what. It's. It's just good stuff. The fabric itself is woven for the airflow. This summer sleep cooler with bowl and branch get 15% off your first order plus free shipping bowlenbranch.com knowles code knowles b o l l a n d branch.com knowles canada w l e s code knowles unlock 15% off boldenbranch.com knolls code knowles exclusions apply okay, before we get to the vice president, before we get to AI companies saying the product is gonna kill us all. Before we get to Senator Rand Paul, a story that is really spiking people's cortisol, especially men's cortisol. The European Athletics associations have just released new guidelines saying that broadcasters can't focus on female athletes assets anymore. Do you know what I'm talking about? They released this massive look at this massive tome with all sorts of really lurid illustrations about how broadcasters need to stop putting the cameras on the female athletes derriere and you know, general chest area and they wanna stop female sports from being so sexy. That is what the European broadcasters are saying. And they've released these pictures which are really, really funny. Cause it's, you know, the camera angles zooming in on women as they're bending over, you know, oopsie, I dropped a pencil or something like that. And they say this is really, really bad. Cannot do it. Where do we have. I'll go just to the top of this report. EBU Sport raising the bar Guidelines for respectful media coverage in women's athletics. The sexualization of women athletes through selective camera angles and and editing choices continues to be a significant concern across many sports broadcasts. Lingering shots on bodies, low angle cameras that capture revealing views and excessive slow motion replays that serve no technical or storytelling purpose are among the issues observed in the media coverage of women's athletics competitions today. And these choices carry profound implications. They shape audience perception by diverting attention from the remarkable achievements and technical skills of women athletes and risk perpetuating harmful stereotypes. First of all, let's just. Okay, let's take them in reverse order. Harmful stereotypes. What's the harmful stereotype? The harmful stereotype that women are hot. What do you mean by. We're just so used to these cliches, these silly politically correct phrases. What harmful stereotype is being perpetuated by sports broadcasters showing women's bodies looking good? The harmful stereotype that women are pretty. They are pretty. They generally are. Not all the time, but generally they are. And furthermore, keep going back. It diverts attention away from the remarkable achievements and technical skills of women. The argument that is being advanced here by the European Athletics associations is that the broadcasters are diverting audiences attention away from the remarkable athletic Achievements of women toward women's bodies. That's the first line there. Lingering shots on bodies. We need to stop focus in women's sports. We need to stop focusing on women's bodies and start focusing on their athletic achievements. What do you think an athletic achievement is? What do you think an athletic achievement entails? It entails the body. Athletics is about the body.
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J.D. Vance
That's.
- [06:17]
Michael Knowles
We're all kind of joking about this, you know, like, hey, come on, give me some more of those low camera angles or whatever. But even beyond the kind of lurid, lecherous jokes that pertain to this story, there is a real anthropological error that the libs are making here, which is they think you can divorce athletics from the body. You think that you can divorce women's sports from women looking good, as if to say you're diverting the sports from women being women. Athletics is about the body. Women have attractive bodies. You cannot separate women's athletics from sexual attraction other than the wnba. But nobody watches the wnba, so that's sort of a moot point. When we're talking about non WNBA women's athletics, you cannot separate it from attraction because women are attractive. Men and women are different. When you're talking about men's athletics, it's also all about their bodies, or, I don't know, mostly about their bodies. There is some strategy and skill and cleverness involved as well. But athletics are a physical endeavor. And so when you watch men's sports, it's also about men's bodies, but it's different because men are not sexy generally, and because women relate to men's bodies in a slightly different way than men relate to women's bodies. Because men and women relate to sex differently, because men and women are different, we actually are different. And that's, I think, what the PC regulators are trying to erase here. They're trying to pretend that men and women are the same. That's what they always do. That's what the trans ideology is about. That's what the LGBT ideology is about. But you're seeing expressed here in a silly way, when people marvel at the male form in baseball or football or whatever, they're doing something different than when people look at the female form in gymnastics or running, because the male and female forms are different. And the way that men and women relate to visual and physical cues are different. That's just how it is. You can't make women's athletics not sexy if you try again, other than certain sports where the women are not quite anyway, we don't need to get into that. You can't do that. So in as much as the broadcasters are saying stop focusing on women's bodies, they might as well say, stop focusing on women's athletics. Stop focusing on women's sports. Seems kind of like a Pyrrhic victory. Okay, speaking of women getting physical, a Canadian woman is in big trouble for slapping a teenager down the Jersey Shore because the teenager was wearing Trump clothing. So I've spent a lot of time on the Jersey Shore in my life. In fact, I spent multiple weeks of every year of my life until I was almost 18 years old on the Jersey Shore. I found out I was conceived on the Jersey Shore. That's too much information. I kind of wish I didn't know that, but I know this area very, very well. And you think of New Jersey, you say, well, New Jersey's very liberal, sort of, but there is a kind of working class, lower middle class, conservative ethos there. Trust me, I know. I've been part of it for a lot of my life. And this came to a head where some pro Trump person down the Jersey Shore, you know, real common sense, conservative kind of person, runs up against some huge lib chick, a lib chick who happens to be a foreigner. And the lib chick slaps the teenager across the face. So do you know what happened? ICE just arrested the offender. ICE just arrested this Canadian woman cuz her husband is American. Do we have a video? I think he posted a video to TikTok begging for help to spring his assailant wife from the clink. And I'm just doing anything I can to get her story heard and bring any help and attention to her situation so that I can get her released even. Even if that means back to Canada. My main goal is the safety and well being of my wife. And that is about it. Yeah, so you look at this guy, he's got problems. He's got multiple of the piercings on his lip, which is. It's not dispositive, but it's a sign that this guy is definitely a man of the left. And he's got this crazy wife who's assaulted a teenage girl for, for supporting the President of the United States. Anyway, this is great. The woman, the Canadian chick, should be deported immediately. I hope this guy follows her. I hope they have a nice life in America's evil top hat. I hope they don't bother us again. But this is the kind of decisive action you need. Think about the audacity of this woman. She's a foreigner, she comes here, she slaps a child for wearing clothing that supports the president of this country, the country that stupidly allowed this Canadian woman in. Really, it's like someone walking into your house, smacking your child and then complaining when you call the police on them. But this is what we need. We need more, more, more, more of this. We gotta ramp up the deportations. Since President Trump was inaugurated a second time, we've had 900,000 formal deportations. The numbers are really very widely based on how many informal self deportations they are. At Most that number's 3 million. We got 15 million illegal aliens in the country. And that's not even all of the problem. Because you still have a problem of assimilation from mass migration, which is illegal, which includes green cards, which includes worker permits. And you still have the problem of these like, crazy Canadians. Like, it's not just Ms. 13 crossing the Rio Grande. You're talking about these crazy Canadian chicks. That woman has no business being in America. Neither does her husband. I hope she is deported promptly. I hope the fellow follows as well. Now, speaking of violence, is AI going to kill us all? I know some people, they have these fevered imaginations. They're very worried that this new technology is gonna kill us all. And they are justified in thinking so. Because one of the biggest AI companies in the world, Anthropic, just released an advertisement suggesting that AI would kill us all. So we'll get to the likelihood of that happening. First though, I wanna tell you about Leaffilter. Go to Leaffilter. L e a f filter.com knowles k n a W L E S One of the most expensive habits that people have is trying to save money. I've been guilty of it myself. Cause I'm a fool. Freaking cheapskate, I am. So I want the new charger for my phone. I get the cheap one, I get the knockoff one. I think I'm saving money, but it breaks in three seconds. Then I end up spending more money. I've done it before, but on certain things I say, no, no, no. You buy once you buy, right? You don't replace it. You buy the best. Leaffilter is the best, okay? You can trust it. And when it comes to protecting your home, especially with gutter issues, you need the best, okay? Because bad gutters, bad filtration can cause foundation damage. It can really screw up your home. Trust me, before I found out about Leaffilter, I made mistakes in my life, okay? Leaffilter is the real deal. It's the og do not gamble on imitators. Right now. Start Protecting your home with Leaffilter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection at leaffilter.com knowles you will get up to 35% off. That's a lot of money. 35% off@leaffilter.com knowles knes minimum purchase required restrictions apply. See representative for warranty and promotion details. Is AI going to kill us all? According to one of the biggest AI companies in the world. Maybe. Can AI be trusted? Morning, house. Who's gonna hit the brakes if we need to? Then you go, whoa, whoa, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Pause there. Hold on. So you got. Pause it, pause it. What are you doing? Okay, so hold on. It opens up and you see this house on fire. Okay, that's kind of ominous imagery. Then you see the surveillance of people. That's kind of. And then, can AI be trusted? And then it just posts a picture of a cemetery. A cemetery with a ton of headstones and American flags. This is coming from the Claude AI X account, which is from anthropic saying, can AI be trusted? And the image is, it's gonna kill all of us Americans. Specifically all of us Americans. Keep going. If it ends up taking, like, almost all the jobs, then what does it mean to work? Wait a minute. Why do we have to have this stuff? If a machine can pretend to care better than I can actually care, how do we draw the line there?
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Rand Paul
If we all had a voice in
- [15:07]
Michael Knowles
it, then I feel like it would be better. Could AI help people stop feeling misunderstood?
- [15:16]
Rand Paul
Good.
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Michael Knowles
AI Helped me build more connections in the community. Can AI help me be a better teacher?
- [15:24]
Rand Paul
Better mom?
- [15:25]
Michael Knowles
Maybe it'll cure some great things. You know, things that we're not even at the cusp of understanding yet. Will it create a group of people that ask more questions? What if we started to be more human again?
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Rand Paul
We don't want to lose the most
- [15:42]
Michael Knowles
beautiful parts of life. Okay, so you see the thrust of the advertisement? It opens up with what everyone's actually talking about with AI which is, is it going to kill us all and destroy the labor market and make us all into dumb pagans worshiping idols? But then it ends with, but maybe it'll be great, and maybe it'll cure diseases and maybe it'll actually make us more human. That one. Give me a. I don't really see that one happening. But you see the AI company nevertheless acknowledging this fear as legitimate, because at the end of the ad, it validates it and said, yeah, there's hope in hard questions. You should ask the hard questions. They're legitimate to ask these hard questions, including will AI kill us all? And there's hope in that. Maybe there will be a good solution. But don't forget, Anthropic is the same company that refused to release its Mythos AI because its cybersecurity breaking features it deemed so dangerous that it could not open it to the public. Then China came in and created its own version of that. So the cat's kind of out of the bag. But nevertheless, Anthropic is so publicly at least cautious about the dangers of AI that they withheld one of their own products and they partnered up with the Vatican when Pope Leo released his encyclical called, what is it? Magnifica Monitas on human dignity and how we relate to technology and AI. So obviously Anthropic is taking this very, very seriously. And because people are taking this seriously, there's a report in the Wall Street Journal just this morning that AI executives are afraid for their lives. Wall Street Journal has the AI backlash has tech executives fearing for their lives. Violent threats against AI companies are rising and spilling over into real world security incidents. A security guard at Anthropic, same company, was rushed to stop the man sneaking into the lobby of the world's most valuable AI startup. The man had entered by following closely behind a badge swiping employee. He showed the guard an envelope marked with the name of a top Anthropic executive. The executive was, quote, going to be killed, he told the guard, and he needed to warn someone. According to records of the April 15 incident viewed by the Wall Street Journal, there was an attempted firebombing of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's house ended without violence or an arrest. They're on and on and on. You see a lot of these incidents. A Texas man threw a bomb at Sam Altman's house. He was charged with attempted murder and attempted arson. List goes on. So what we're seeing here, just for a little history lesson, is the Luddites. This is a return of The Luddites, the 19th century movement named after a legendary weaver, an imaginary weaver named Ned Ludd. And we use the term Luddite now to mean people who are bad with technology or who don't really like technology. I do it myself. I say, oh, I'm such a Luddite. You know, sometimes I leave my phone at my desk. I don't even carry it around. I'm such a Luddite. But that's not what the Luddites were. The Luddites were actually a pretty violent Movement where they were a bunch of mill workers in England who organized raids to destroy the machines that they feared were upending their lives and their jobs. And the way the Luddite movement was suppressed was when law enforcement and the military came in and shot them. So this is not like we treat it now as this sort of wholesome, generally benign, cute little quirk of history. Oh, you remember the Luddites. This was a violent clash between labor and police and the military that sought to, through bombs and violence, destroy the Industrial Revolution. So what does that mean for us? We're clearly in a moment right now where you're gonna see a return of that Luddite tendency. And it's perfectly understandable, even anthropic. The world's most valuable AI company is acknowledging that that impulse is understandable. Fears one, that it's gonna displace all of our jobs, and two, fears that it's gonna displace our. And I think one place that you are seeing the fight really come out politically is in this fight over data centers. The data center fight is really odd because it's one where the grand strategic objective and the political objectives are totally at odds with each other. If I were running for office right now, I would have to be very circumspect in the way I talked about data centers. I would actually probably have to be opposed to data centers because there is a major populous swell opposed to the data centers. And yet we need to build the data centers. We just have to build it. I'm not running for office right now, folks, so I can be as blunt as can be. I don't need to gussy this up in any kind of nice political, diplomatic language. We have to build the data centers because we're in an arms race with China. We are basically at war with China anyway. China does a lot of stuff to undermine us, including sneaking bioweapons into our country constantly. They do all these sneaky little death by a thousand cuts kind of war maneuvers, but we're also in an arms race with them over AI over computing. And so I think a lot of the anti data center propaganda that you're seeing is coming from China, because you have to ask yourself, cui bono? Who benefits most from a shift in public opinion or from new political actions? And in the case of the US not building data centers in the US the case of the US not pursuing AI in a computing advantage, the person that benefits the most is the Chinese. Chinese government. So I don't want to sound like a Democrat in 2016 everything is just Russian propaganda or Chinese propaganda. But it's important to understand how propaganda works. The way propaganda works is not by just inventing something out of thin air. The way propaganda works is not by just creating an imaginary problem and convincing a bunch of dupes to believe in it. The way propaganda, really good foreign political propaganda works is by seeing something that is real, recognizing a real tension, a real fissure in a political coalition, and then exploiting it. The more truth there is to political propaganda, the more effective it's going to be. This is why the Soviet union in the 1960s, when it was promoting all of the civil rights stuff, the reason that worked so well is not because the Soviet Union just hypnotized all of us. The reason that worked so well, why the Communists were exploiting black nationalist movements and civil rights groups. It worked so well because there were racial problems and there was a push for a civil rights revolution, and there was that. And the Soviet Union just exploited that. That's what's going on with the data centers. And so ultimately, I think the way that we have to think about this question, whether we're talking about anthropic or we're talking about people trying to murder AI CEOs or. Or a new Luddite movement, is the way that Toy Story handled this question. Actually, Toy Story was annoying because it was super racially and sexually woke. But on the point of technology, it was right, which is that you can't just blindly embrace technological innovation such that the tail wags the dog, and we're just mortgaging our economy, our political order, our very humanity towards some glittering machine. But likewise, you cannot stop the advance of technology. You can't smash the machines. You can't simply do that because you'll end up smacking your nose to spite your face. In that case, China will just gain the advantage. We'll lose our global hegemony. We will be in a much worse position because of it. You just have to approach these technologies in a way that is responsible and in a way that is takes into account the bad stuff that could come about as a result of it, in a way that is temperate, moderate, and prudent. Same thing with the data centers. People are concerned about the data centers, in part because it might raise their energy costs, in part because of concerns about maybe water resources, in part because they're ugly and they don't want it in their backyard, in part because it's gonna take a lot of land but not create a lot of jobs. All of those things are true. But I think those are relatively minor aspects of why people hate the data centers. Some of it is a little conspiracy thinking, which is also justified, which is that by building these data centers, you're feeding into this AI surveillance state that's gonna erode our civil liberties. That's probably true too. I think all of that though is relatively minor. I think the reason people oppose the data centers is cause they're a physical instantiation. They're a visible reminder and a symbol of this AI revolution that really seeks to upend our society and displace a lot of the things that we love. That's why they oppose them. It's not chiefly on economic or even political grounds. It's something deeper than that. It's about a social transformation. Okay? Now, speaking of massive political fights, the vice President just got into a ton of trouble because of one clip from his interview on Joe Rogan. Really, really good interview on Joe Rogan. And a clip that as far as I can see, has been totally misrepresented. I think he's being smeared, in my view, for pretty much the dumbest reason you can see. Before we get into that though, I want to tell you about Van Man. Go to Vanman Shop Knowles. Use code. Knowles. When was the last time you actually looked at the ingredients in your toothpaste? Not the marketing on the front of the tube, the ingredients on the back. Because I tell you, when I look at them, I can't identify half of what I'd be putting in my mouth, which will send you. If you're anything like me, that will send you down a rabbit hole. And that is one of the things that can lead you to the Van Man Company. Instead of making another tube of toothpaste full of ingredients that sound like they belong in a laboratory, they make miracle toothpowder with real grass fed cattle bone hydroxypatite. Do you know that compared to what else is on your toothpaste tube, hydroxyapatite is a lot easier to pronounce. It's actually though, a very simple, basic thing. It's the same mineral structure found in your actual teeth. No fluoride, no sls, no foaming agents, just real ingredients. I was always skeptical on this stuff. Sweet little Elisa. She pilled me. Shitalo pilled me. She didn't totally hydroxyapatite pilled me. I did that to her. Van man is where it's at on the natural toothpaste. I would just put poison in my mouth. Sweet old Lisa. No, no, no, can't do it. You gotta get the Van Man. Okay. Whether you're using their sweet onion shampoo or their chewing gum, one thing I appreciate about them is the philosophy staying the same across the board. Simple ingredients. Products that are not overly complicated. Really good stuff. Go to Vanman Shop Knowles. Use code Knowles for 15% off your first order. That is Van Man V A N M A N Shop Knowles. Promo code Knowles, Vanman. Real ingredients, no exceptions. Vice president went on Joe Rogan's show yesterday to talk about his book Communion. Great book. Very honored that the vice president went on the Michael Knowles show before he went on Joe Rogan's show. Big admirer of Joe, of course. He's the king of podcasting. So anyway, was very happy to see that very interesting interview on Joe Rogan. But the clip that's going viral has nothing to do with the book. Communion has nothing to do with the religious conversion which is the subject of the book. It has the clip going viral, as always seems to be the case on social media, has to do with Israel because Joe was pushing the vice president on this question of public discontent with Israel. Israel as a wedge issue on the right, and now a uniform issue on the left in that the left entirely opposes the state of Israel. And so it's really, really pushing the VP on this huge shift in public opinion. Used to be that the whole country supported Israel. Then it was that the left supported Israel a little bit. The right uniformly did. Now the state of Israel is underwater in public opinion polling with basically everybody other than boomer Republicans who watch Fox News, but with basically every other demographic. The state of Israel is underwater right now. So Joe Rogan asks Vice president about it. Here is the answer for which he's being smeared as anti Israel, perhaps even anti Semitic. Let me know what you think of this answer.
- [27:53]
J.D. Vance
But again, when I open up the pages of Time magazine and I see that there's a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing. And, oh, by the way, many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways. You know, my response to that is,
- [28:12]
Michael Knowles
well, go to hell.
- [28:13]
J.D. Vance
I'm going to do what I have to do for the American people. I represent Americans first. And that's the way that I've tried to do this job. And you know, Joe, the crazy thing is I'm like, people don't realize this. I'm actually in this. You know, there's this massive pro Israel, anti Israel debate in the United States of America. I'm like the reasonable moderate What I say to these guys is, look at public opinion. Look at the way young Republicans versus Republicans over the age of 65 approach this issue. Like right now, Israel is losing the public opinion battle in the United States of America. It is a simple and obvious fact. Donald Trump has said that publicly. It's a simple and obvious fact.
- [29:00]
Michael Knowles
Why do you think that is?
- [29:01]
J.D. Vance
Well, let me finish this point, okay? My attitude is towards this is Israel is an ally, like France or like the United Kingdom, we're going to have disagreements with them, okay?
- [29:13]
Michael Knowles
So here is the key. Let's just go through this point by point. Because I shouldn't be shocked at this point knowing how political propaganda works. But I'm not surprised. But it's still shocking that JD Vance is being smeared for this. He opens up, he says, I was reading in Time magazine that there is a massive PR campaign from the State of Israel and pro Israel voices to shape public opinion and push influencers to go after people who are criticizing the State of Israel. That's just true. How could you possibly disagree with that? There is an article in Time magazine about how Israel spent a bazillion dollars to pay Brad Parscale, who was President Trump's former campaign manager, to try to push the influencers and the opinion makers to get the American public to be pro Israel again. Now, obviously I think the State of Israel deserves a refund. Cause whoever they were hiring to do it didn't do a great job. But nevertheless, what the Vice President is pointing out is there was this lobbying campaign that is just obviously true. Am I crazy? Hold on, let me just. Maybe, maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm imagining something. Let me just pull up my. I've got my Google right here. Brad Parscale, Time magazine, Israel. Am I imagining that? Is that fake? No. Here we go. Time magazine, Trump's ex campaign manager, is running an Israeli influence operation targeting the MAGA base. That's true. And there's nothing wrong with that in the sense that if I were the PM of Israel, I would be doing the same thing. Especially as the support for the State of Israel is collapsing on the American right. I would do the same thing. I might hire different people who would maybe get the job done a little better. But nevertheless. Can anyone disagree with the Vice President there? No. Then it gets to what he thinks about foreign influence. He points out lots of countries try to exert influence on the United States. We are the global empire. That's just what happens. So he's not singling out Israel here. He's not targeting Israel. If anything, he's placing the Israeli influence efforts within their proper context, which is a charitable and it's the right thing to do. Certainly you couldn't call that anti Israel. But then here's the kicker to me of this whole thing. At the end, he says, look, there's this crazy anti Israel view. These are the guys for whom the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are like a newspaper article. And there is this extremely fanatically, ideologically pro Israel view, according to which Israel can do no wrong and we can never criticize Israel and all that. He goes, and I'm kind of the reasonable moderate. We have an alliance with Israel. We have shared interests a lot of the time, but we should treat Israel like other allies such as the UK and France. And this to me tells you everything about the people who are criticizing Vance for this. It's just so. It's either disingenuous or just profoundly ignorant. When the Vice President says, hey, guys, I have this sort of reasonable, moderate position on the state of Israel, I think it's okay to criticize Israel sometimes. I think we should treat them like allies such as England and France. You will recall, it doesn't take a PhD in history to know that the UK and France are literally our greatest allies. How could you possibly accuse J.D. vance of being unfair to Israel and attacking Israel? Here he is comparing Israel to literally our greatest allies that we've ever had. We come from England. We are a part of England. England is the motherland. There is no country on earth and can be no country on earth with whom we are closer than England, even when we fought multiple wars against England. Nevertheless, England remained very, very close to us. And we've had that special relationship for a long time. France is the country that gave us independence from England. France is the other country that we are closest to. It's just so cheap and disingenuous. I happen to think that the Vice President is correct here in his approach to this issue, because he's pointing out, he's saying, look, guys, I don't like looking at public opinion numbers. There's clearly some discontent that's going on here. There's clearly an effort to prioritize domestic issues over foreign issues. And a lot of people think that Israel is exerting too much influence on American politics. But we shouldn't just single out Israel and we shouldn't say that Israel isn't an ally. We should just recognize that they're allies, like our two greatest allies, and we should have a reasonable, moderate position here. And not go nuts. And for that he's being attacked, folks, especially on the really pro Israel side. If JD Vance is your enemy here, you don't have friends. That's really what this comes down to. If saying we should view Israel as an ally comparable to our actual greatest allies ever. And we should recognize we have shared interests, but sometimes those interests diverge and we should recognize that there's public discontent with some of the relationship. But we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater if we that guy is your enemy. You don't have any friends. Prudence is the paramount virtue of politics, and it's the one that everyone seems to be lacking all the time, other than people who hold the reasonable moderate position. Because the moderate position, we use moderate in this way to mean like squishy rhinos who just sell out to the Democrats all the time. That's usually when people call themselves moderates. That's usually what it means. But. But at a deep level, that's not what it's supposed to mean. At a deep level, in the Aristotelian sense, moderation is a virtue. It is the mean between two extremes which are vicious. It's the via media that is actually what you want. True moderation, not the squishy, fake modern moderation. Okay, Speaking of the Trump administration, great news from the Trump administration. On your money. You are going to get some more money if you help repopulate the country. In 1917, a handful of bitter, humorless radicals in Russia set out to demolish the family, the church, the rule of law, and they succeeded. For those of you not so historically inclined, we call this the Bolshevik Revolution. Matt Walsh's new episode, Real History lays out these events in uncomfortable detail with primary sources, contemporary accounts, and the actual words of the men who did it. Here is the part that keeps me up at night. It starts with the university students. Not the workers and peasants, but the comfortably bored university students looking for the next cause to fight. Matt describes this as the first rule of a communist takeover. Any revolution can become your revolution. You just have to hijack the unrest that's already happening. I don't need to draw a map out for you, so head on over. Go check out Real History with Matt Walsh right now on Daily Wire. Plus, Mr. Ben Davies favorite comment yesterday, I didn't see them yet. My producer, Mr. Ben Davies, his favorite comment from Chris Dolan is, I am not defending soccer, but apparently Michael forgot about the Falklands War when discussing the England Argentina rivalry. I know the Yankees and Red Sox hate each other, but sank each other's battleships. I get that's true. You're right. The Falklands War was, I guess, an important condition of the England, Argentina rivalry. But I don't know. I mean, that war was over in what, like, three minutes? It was over in about three and a half minutes. And I don't know, frankly, having spent a fair bit of time at Yankee Stadium, there has probably been more physical violence that came about as the result of the Yankees Red Sox rivalry as anything that was seen in the Falklands War. Okay, before we get into all the other very important stuff, I wanna get into President Trump's address tonight. The Trump accounts. It's very important for your money. I am very pleased to be joined by one of the senators who most cares about your money, protecting your money from criminals who are trying to waste it. One of the few voices, not the sole voice, but one of the very, very few, of fiscal restraint in Washington. Lot of good that does him in a town that only knows how to waste more and more of your money. That would, of course, be Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Senator Paul, good to see you.
- [37:22]
Rand Paul
Hey, glad to be with you. At least you didn't introduce me as a dreaded moderate, you know, but heaven for fam.
- [37:30]
Michael Knowles
No, I would never accuse you of that.
- [37:32]
Rand Paul
As you were talking about moderate and extremism, you know, I was reminded of the famous quote, you know, extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. But there's still a lot to be learned from Goldwater and the Conscience of the Conservative, one of the best books, really, on conservatism ever written.
- [37:48]
Michael Knowles
So true that it is a book that doesn't get enough play these days. In fact, I was just talking, speaking of the vice president, J.D. vance, I was just interviewing him, and he brought up. He said one of his favorite people in politics is Brent Bozell, who worked for Senator Goldwater and I think worked on that book. Everyone should go read Conscience of a Conservative. It's a great.
- [38:09]
Rand Paul
Yeah. One of my favorite quotes from it is, he says, I will not ask whether legislation is needed before I have first determined that it is constitutional. And that's something that is rarely heeded around here. It's like, well, houses aren't affordable, so we need a housing bill and we need the government to make houses. Like, well, how many housing bills have we passed in the last 30 years? And are they working? This is routine. No one ever looks to see if what they did 10 years ago works. They're like, oh, I have a great idea. Let's have the government make houses for people. It's like they're already doing it and they cost a million dollars for every house. It's a terrible program. Don't do more of it. But nobody ever bothers to even research whether the previous program trying to do the same thing ever worked.
- [38:56]
Michael Knowles
Well, Senator, who cares if it works in practice as long as it works in theory? You know, there's no reason to go check your work. Now. Speaking of checking the work, there was this hearing. It was yesterday, right? Yep. This hearing yesterday. The reason I have to check is because there was effectively a media blackout of this hearing and there was a media blackout of this hearing in part because there was a Democrat boycott of this hearing. This was a hearing on fraud, the massive fraud that the House and the Senate are looking into. The White House is looking into. Nick Shirley and other journalists have done a good job of exposing independent journalists, not the establishment media. I think we have a little clip of the hearing of James o' Keefe testifying. Senator Scott, Chairman, wouldn't a Democrat go next since the Republican just testified, if
- [39:44]
Rand Paul
there were a Democrat here? Yes.
- [39:45]
Michael Knowles
So there's no Democrats present at a hearing about fraud.
- [39:50]
Rand Paul
There doesn't appear to be a great deal of interest across the aisle, wouldn't it?
- [39:54]
Michael Knowles
Because in these hearings, I did one of these hearings about six, eight months ago, you know, they kind of trade off the Democrats or Republicans. Problem for your hearing is the Democrats just didn't show up. Why is that?
- [40:07]
Rand Paul
Well, one of them showed up for a few minutes and his whole point was that Nick Shirley was just a sensationalist and really that he ought to be ashamed of himself for doing this. And it's like, well, if he didn't broadcast this, if he didn't show it, and 43 million people didn't see his video, these people would still be stealing from us.
- [40:25]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [40:26]
Rand Paul
And they say, oh, we have government inspectors to do this. And I'm not against the government inspectors. They do provide some function, but they have no effectiveness in the sense that they can't affect change. They give some advice and write a report on it. It's like, well, how many people the camera have they ever hired to go look at the leering center to see if anybody's showing up there or to see anybody at the adult daycare or the autism center. And this was basic research that Nick Shirley did really, in a matter of days. And we asked him, how did you find this stuff? And he said, well, I looked up to see the biggest recipients of government dollars were Looked at the list and decided to go to the biggest ones and see if anybody came to their business. And he discovered they were all. They were a sham, hundreds of millions of dollars. They've arrested some guy in Somalia. They have 19 indictments. But the point I made is there's always me, bad people. What Nick Shirley did is incredibly important. We should continue doing it. However, there's something you have to do is you have to align the incentives to go after fraud. Right now, most of these programs are Medicaid and The government pays 90% of Medicaid for all the expanded people and the state government pays 10%. But they sign you up at the state level. So if the people signing you up to give you free stuff, to give you free health care, are not paying for it, they're not going to care about policing it. So this saves a lot of money for the federal government and would help with fraud, is make them all 50, 50 states pay half. Federal government pays the other half. It's not the final cure for limited constitutional government, but it's a big savings. And if the states were paying half like they traditionally did, they would begin to police it more.
- [42:05]
Michael Knowles
Well, speaking of the state level, we have our sponsor Kalshee has a question out, which is will any California state executives be federally charged with fraud? The current market chance, according to the prediction markets is 27%, which is frankly a little high compared to what I would have expected.
- [42:23]
Rand Paul
When you're talking about, I would compare it to buying Powerball. I think your chances of winning the Powerball are about as good as anybody in California. A Democrat in a uni party state prosecuting another Democrat are about as good as Powerball.
- [42:38]
Michael Knowles
Winning Powerball there, unfortunately, I think you're absolutely right. So putting that aside, barring some big change in Gomorrah by the Sea over there in California, what about the people who have actually committed the fraud? Because it's great that guys like Nick Shirley have shined a light on this. It's great that we're having hearings from Senator Paul et al and also the vice president leading the task force at the White House and all the rest of it. Fast forward 12 months, 24 months. What can we hope will be accomplished to punish the people who committed the crimes and to, to your point, realign those incentives to make sure that it doesn't happen to this scale again?
- [43:21]
Rand Paul
Yeah, well, I think it's important for everybody to know, either listening or watching your show or online is they get frustrated with Congress and say, well, why aren't you prosecuting these people? Why aren't they in jail? And it's like they fail to understand that Congress has no prosecutorial power. In fact, Medicaid, once the money for Medicaid is allocated, it goes to the executive branch. The executive branch wants Medicaid. The executive branch runs the Department of Justice. So people are always asking me why I haven't put Fauci in jail. Well, because I have no ability to prosecute anyone. I can point out the problems. I can have hearings. And this is just the limitation of the way our government is set up. So, yes, we should continue to prosecute them. That has to come from the Department of Justice. One thing I can do, and one thing I'm considering doing is really hiring people like Nick Shirley to investigate this problem for Congress. I'd like to send them out into the field, committee staffers, and let's start exploring this in a big way across the United States. Have the House involved, the Senate involved, and let's send people out and investigate it. And then as far as aligning incentives, you know, they're talking about a third reconciliation bill. They want to spend a bunch of more money buying more bombs, et cetera. I can vote for that if it's completely paid for. But one way to pay for it is to get rid of this 90% federal government paying for Medicaid. If you go back to 50, 50, it saves $800 billion over 10 years, 80 billion a year. So if they want my vote for more money for more bombs, I'll vote for it. But they're going to have to pay for it with a real pay for, not one that starts in five years or 10 years and plays some kind of budgetary game. Pay for it now with real savings, and I'll vote for more, for more spending, but I'm not just going to vote for more spending without any offsets, because the greatest threat to our country is actually our debt. The greatest threat to our national security is our debt. And, you know, I don't like Iran having a nuclear weapon. I don't like their government. But I also don't think that just the continuation of the war is necessarily going to get us what we want.
- [45:21]
Michael Knowles
No, I agree with that entirely. Speaking of voting, Senator, before I let you go, you mentioned earlier Senator Goldwater, who is obviously a presidential candidate. You are, Senator Paul, a former presidential candidate. We're looking ahead at Big Transformations 2028. Are you going to be running for president in 2028?
- [45:42]
Rand Paul
Good question. I haven't decided yet. I do think that there's a big danger to the Republican Party. I've been active since the 70s. I was active as a kid when my dad was in Congress. I went to the Republican Convention in 1976. And even back then when we were largely in the minority, there was at least a portion of the Republican Party that was free market, that liked Milton Friedman, had read Hayek, had read Mises, had read Bastiat, had read Henry Hazlett. And I give all those books to my interns now because I want another generation to understand free market economics. But that is dwindling. You know, the people have gotten, they've, they believe in other, what I would consider to be false gods that they're all for now. And you know, they're for government owning business in the NDAA, there's a provision to give the executive branch 500 million to buy defense industries, portions of defense industries. Already the government owns part of intel, the government owns part of Nvidia, the government owns part of US Steel. People, we rightly are criticizing Democrats nominating socialists in New York. Well, socialism is owning the means of production. So owning a portion of the means of production is a step towards socialism. We should be opposed to it. But this is a real problem. And so as far as running for president, I don't know. But I am somebody who believes international trade makes us richer. I'm somebody who believes that capitalism makes us richer. And the reason we are a great country is because of that history of individual liberty rooted in our belief that our rights come from our creator and that we should largely leave people alone in the business place. I don't know that that's being represented by some of the other people I see being put forward.
- [47:23]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, I think it's clear. You know, I don't think I have a Kalshi market prediction on this from our great sponsor Kalshi, but it is certainly the case. I mean, the American right has always had a lot of different factions and everything and there has been a turn away from a lot of what for decades was considered a kind of traditional conservative movement view. So it would seem that there is a big wide lane open. I'm not trying to manipulate the betting markets, but in any case, I hear your answer loud and clear. And Senator Paul, thank you very much. Keep up the great work on the, you know, rooting out the waste, fraud and abuse and all of this that your Democrats are boycotting and the liberal media are totally blacking out. I appreciate you Will do.
- [48:04]
Rand Paul
Thanks for having me.
- [48:04]
Michael Knowles
Thank you, Senator. Okay, today is Theology Thursday. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles K N A W L E S at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.
- [48:15]
Rand Paul
Sam.