Michael Knowles (3:50)

A tech industrial complex. Any idea who he's talking about here? Any idea? Joe Biden dedicated his final speech as president to just whining that Elon Musk backed Donald Trump instead of him. That was it. I also love Joe Biden ending not merely his presidency, his one term in office, but his 50 plus year political career. He ends it in true form with plagiarism. It's not quite plagiarism because he gives Eisenhower credit. He says, hey, Eisenhower said this thing and I'm pretty much gonna steal it, cuz I am Joe Biden. I've never had an original thought in my entire life. And whereas Eisenhower was warning about a real grave threat, I'm gonna warn about how irritated I am that the tech industry, which previously backed me as an oligarchy, now isn't totally in lockstep behind me. And that really makes me sad. All right, good night, America. Really, really silly. When Washington warned of avoiding entangling alliances, he had a lot of credibility because that's what he did. He, as commander in chief and as President of the United States, he recognized we want to work with nations, but we don't want to be permanently tied to nations. We don't want to get ourselves involved in a whole web of alliances that would drag us constantly into war. When Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex, he had a lot of credibility. He knew a lot about how the military worked, and as president, he mostly kept us out of wars. He tried to minimize how quickly we could be thrown into another global conflict in the early days of the Cold War. With Biden though, when he warns about oligarchy, all you can do is laugh. Even specifically tech oligarchy. Biden as vice president under Obama and then as president, wielded government power to bully tech companies into Backing the Democrats. The Democrat Party has done this for a long time. They've come in. You even had Mark Zuckerberg say that the FBI came in, pressured Facebook, told them, hey, you gotta censor certain stories. Hey, come on. Even, frankly, even the deep state under Trump was doing this, were undermining their own Democratically elected boss. So, yeah, sure, the tech industry has behaved like an oligarchy, but only to benefit Democrats. Then broadly though, this fear of oligarchy, Joe Biden has wielded the power of the state in an unprecedented way to try to put his opponent into prison. The former president at that time, number one threat to Joe Biden's political career, and now the future president as of a few days from now, he tried to put that guy in jail. Then he issued this extremely sweeping presidential pardon to say that Hunter Biden should not be prosecuted for any federal crime that he did or may have committed over a 10 year period. And what were those crimes? Those crimes were allegedly peddling American influence, raking in money from people overseas as bribes to Joe Biden and then allegedly kicking the money back to Joe Biden. Oligarchy. And then the piece de resistance. Biden, in one of his final acts as president, awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Soros. Being on behalf of George Soros is Alex Soros. Beware the influence of dark money in politics. Money from unelected billionaires who are going to twist our. Hey, is George Soros here? By the way, I have a medal to give him. Has anybody. Did anyone seen George? Old Georgie. I love George. Tell him. Thanks again. Anyway, back to my speech. The dark power and the oligarchy. Okay, all right.

Matt Walsh (7:49)

This is.

Michael Knowles (7:49)

When I was watching this speech, my first thought was, uh huh, yeah, okay, Right. That's the warning. Got it. Thanks. Bye bye. Whatever, Joe. Okay, uh huh. Got it. Yeah, we all be. We'll, we'll watch out. We will watch out. In fairness, we will watch out to make sure that the injustices that occurred on Joe Biden's watch and in some cases that Joe Biden's direction don't happen again. That's true. All right, thanks for warning us. Democrats are still really, really mad that they don't get to hold onto power. I think they really thought that they could. Michelle Obama will not attend President Trump's inauguration on Monday. And people haven't quite figured out why Michelle Obama is remaining. Mom. On the subject. She didn't go to Jimmy Carter's funeral. So some are saying, oh, she's out of town for that. She Said she had a prior engagement, but on the Trump inauguration, maybe she's trying to insinuate that whatever the conflict was for Carter's funeral is also keeping her out of D.C. but that was a while ago. It's not gonna really hold up. A source close to Michelle Obama told People magazine that Obama will not, quote, pretend for protocol's sake. In other words, she's not gonna go, cuz she just hates Trump that much. This source said, quote, there's no overstating her feelings about Trump. She's not one to plaster on a pleasant face and pretend for protocol's sake. Michelle doesn't do anything because it's expected or it's protocol or it's tradition. Yeah, we noticed. Breaking news. Yeah, we noticed. Michelle Obama has no respect for her country or her country's traditions or the American people who have given her family so much, undeservedly so, gave her so much, made her husband president for basically no reason, tolerated her frequent jibes and jabs at America. The fact that when Obama was running the first time and was elected, she said that it was the first time in her adult life she was ever proud of her country. You know, this woman who was so disgraceful as the first lady, America tolerated her. They made her fabulously wealthy again. Really, for no reason, not much reason, at least. Gave her husband the greatest honor that the country can bestow on someone electing that person president. But she won't do anything for tradition sake or protocol sake or for patriotism's sake, because Michelle Obama apparently doesn't care about anyone but herself and she will not be bothered to do anything, to even give a little bit back to the country that's given her so much. Yeah, that has long been evident. And that is part of the reason why Trump got elected immediately after the Obamas. Cuz we were sick of that. And we wanted people who would not just put their private interests first or their little hobby horses first, or their own ideological vengeance, their own ideological bitterness first, but people who were going to put America first. That was the slogan of the campaign. It was the slogan of the campaign this time. And it's why Trump was a breath of fresh air after the Obamas. Often you will have presidents who, subsequent presidents who are the opposite of the person before them. A great example of this would be Bush and Obama. They at least appear to be opposites. You know, Bush was kind of like a down home cool guy you'd have a beer with. And Obama had this air of the Ivy League, a very intellectual and Sophisticated and cultured sort of person. George Bush was seen as kind of like a nationalist cowboy. Boom, boom. And Obama would just go on an apology tour and say that America has no interest and we're so sorry. We want to give everyone around the world everything. Then you had a flip after that from Obama to Trump. And I think people are still just so sick of it. I'm not surprised Michelle Obama doesn't want to show up. Her party and her ideological faction have never been less popular. Now, speaking of events around the world and contrasting ideologies, I just had a fascinating sit down with a former KGB spy who lived in America undetected for a decade or two. Well, certainly over a decade, maybe over two decades. That would be Jack Barski. He's got an incredible story about his time in the kgb, the dangers of espionage, how he left it all behind and found Christ and what it means for American national security today. Check out this teaser.

Jeremy Boren (12:15)

All they knew was that a. I was a hardcore communist and that was. I was pretty smart. Being recruited by the mighty kgb, that I'm like James Bond, you know, I had loved this woman and I could shake her off like this.

Michael Knowles (12:28)

Do you have to be kind of a sociopath to be a spy?

Jeremy Boren (12:32)

That's a good question. I've never been asked that question.

Michael Knowles (12:35)

What is the mission that you were sent into America to do?

Jeremy Boren (12:38)

Open up a business. And the KGB knew how to launder money and come to the United States with $20 million. With this kind of money, I would have made it into the upper echelons of society. Right next to the Pentagon.

Michael Knowles (12:53)

Right.

Jeremy Boren (12:54)

I would have been a very dangerous spy. I thought I had become untouchable. With one exception, though, eventually a betrayal by a KGB agent. I became very depressed. One day I went to the altar at that church. I think it was my subconscious again forcing me to get up, go up there. And the pastor asked me, can I do something for you? And I said, I want to give my life to Jesus. It makes me almost cry.

Michael Knowles (13:22)

Sorry. Watch the full episode now at the Michael Knowles YouTube channel. Do not forget to subscribe for the ad free version on Daily Wire plus. We're winning. We're winning. The evidence is everywhere. The FBI has just announced that it's gonna close its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. In fact, the FBI began to take steps to close down this office in December 2024. Now we're seeing the final DEI officers being shown the door. This according to reporting from Fox News. Why we're talking already about how you're Seeing actions within the government anticipating President Trump's entrance. So the FDA bans red dye number three. Why? Trump's not officially in power yet. Well, the FDA is doing that cuz they know that Bobby Kennedy is about to enter and it's just not worth even fighting it. Let's try to curry a little bit of favor. You're seeing a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Why? Why is that happening days before? Why is it going into effect one day before Trump's inauguration? Is it because of Biden's diplomacy? No, it's because they know Trump is the new sheriff in town and they better play according to his rules. Why are you seeing the DEI office close before Trump takes office? Why are you seeing Jack Smith, who tried to put Trump in jail? Why are you seeing him resign from the DOJ before Trump takes office? Because they know that the new sheriff is in town and there's no use fighting it. This is the big difference to me between Trump's win in 2016 and Trump's win in 2024. In 2016, the left thought they could still fight and successfully undermine his administration. And they had good reason to think that. And they were largely successful that. In 2024, the left has no fight left in them. They've just given up. You saw this with the Democrat senators who were whining and crying and generally depressed at the confirmation hearings for Trump's nominees. You're seeing this in the policies that are being implemented already in the executive agencies. You're seeing this in the DEI apparatchiks being shown the door, shoot, we lost 2016. They could say it was a fluke. The election was bought by the Russians, it was undemocratic, it was wrong, it was illegal. We won't concede. Even Hillary Clinton, oh, it wasn't legitimate. Oh, no, it was. Somehow something went wrong with this election. But you know what? When you win the electoral vote overwhelmingly, when you win the popular vote, when you win, as I've noted before, one in five black guys, almost half of Hispanics, 40% of women under the age of 30, when you win huge portions of basically everybody, you're just. There is no question about that victory. And the left just seems so demoralized that what they're going to do is they're going to have a tactical retreat and they're going to try to figure out how everything fell apart. Now, speaking of the FBI, a celebrated left wing political cartoonist has turned out to be a pedo. Allegedly. And it's not just that he's A left wing political cartoonist. And he allegedly turned out to be a pedo. He was a political cartoonist who took aim at conservatives who warned against the left's sexual predations on children. So here's the cartoon for those of you who are just listening. One half of it is a guy wearing a MAGA hat. It says Modern American. And the line that he's yelling says groomer. Cause we on the right refer to elementary school teachers who are indoctrinating kids into transgenderism. We call them groomers. We refer to drag queens, transvestites who show up to the public library to read to young children as groomers. We refer to leftists who want to indoctrinate little kids into weird sex stuff. We refer to them as groomers. And so this cartoonist said, okay, on the one half you see this MAGA guy yelling groomer, while on the other half you hear a Nazi. And it's a Nazi brown shirt. It says Jugen Wer Deber. I don't know, my German's not very good, but it's the original German. And this cartoonist, he says, if you raise any questions about sexual indoctrination of children, you're a Nazi. And it turns out that that guy is a pedo. Allegedly. This guy is not just some random cartoonist. He won the Pulitzer Prize, he won the NAACP Image Award. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the LA Times, the Washington Post Writers Group. This guy is in the upper echelon, the very top tier of political cartoonists. Authorities claim that a search at this guy's home turned up, quote, 134 videos of child pornography linked to an account owned and controlled by him. This is according to NBC. They also found computer generated artificial intelligence child pornography. What is the takeaway here? The takeaway here is not just that this guy engaged in very evil actions. The takeaway here is not even that he's a hypocrite. Reminds us of Norm MacDonald's joke. You know, people say that Bill Cosby's greatest crime was the hypocrisy. I don't think it was the hypocrisy. I think it was the raping. And the hypocrisy was kind of lower on that list. But sure, the guy was a hypocrite because he was mocking the notion that these leftists had a sexual interest in children. He himself, he knew that he himself had one and was acting upon it. To me, it's not even just those two things. The big takeaway Here is that sin darkens the intellect. This is a traditional Christian teaching. Sin makes you stupid. It's not just that it's evil. It's not just that it offends God. It's not that. Just that if you engage in sins can lose heaven and you'll end up in hell and you'll offend God. It's also that it makes you stupid. You do stupid things when you're sinning. Anyone who's ever gotten drunk knows this. You act kind of stupid when you get drunk. Anyone who's ever chased women knows this. You know, you act kind of stupid when you're carousing and you're consumed by lust. Anyone who's ever, I don't know, any sin, really gluttony. You know, you act kind of stupid and you get really fat and unhealthy wrath. If you let your wrath run away from you, you can do things that are dumb, that are counter to your interest, that you'll be embarrassed of later on down the road. Sin darkens the intellect. Think about not just the wickedness or the hypocrisy that would impel someone who makes this cartoon to engage in that kind of crime. Just think about how stupid you have to be, the insanity of it, to do something that this guy could go to jail for many, many years. All the while he's calling attention to this fact. I mean, you'd have to be completely insane. But that's what happens when we engage in sins, especially really sick sins, especially when we follow sin down the path to this level of depravity. You do things that are just completely insane. And you can't help but do it because you've surrendered your freedom. You have so compromised your rational will that you are just driven on by your appetite, by your lower will that is irrational, no longer subdued by reason. And you do sometimes kind of silly, crazy stuff, or in some cases, really, really dark crazy stuff. In any case, not totally surprising. My favorite comment yesterday from Hudson Dean2812, Donald Trump turned YMCA from the LGBT anthem to the MAGA anthem. The power of this man. So true. So true. This is a tactic that I have really enjoyed for many years. It's, I think, the power of the pink polo shirt. You know, the pink polo shirt, Some would say it's effeminate. I say no. The pink polo shirt is this preppy facade that restrains the beast, the virile animal underneath. That's how I feel about, for instance, dancing on one's table in suede loafers with a martini glass. On the one hand, people think it's a little, you know, perhaps light in the loafers, literally. But on the other, I say no. That is but a facade to keep the inner masculine beast restrained lest he become too virile and out of control. Okay. Speaking of the intellect, the Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Besant just had a marvelous confirmation hearing and he completely destroyed Democrat Senator Ron Wyden with facts and logic. And tariffs, I believe these tariffs, you.

Scott Besant (22:22)

Can call it whatever you want in terms of trying to gussy it up. They're going to be paid for by our workers and small businesses. All through the campaign we heard they weren't, that foreign countries were going to pay it. I think that's baloney. It's going to be paid for by workers and small businesses. So your response?

Ron Wyden (22:40)

Yes, Senator, I would respect. Disagree. And the history of tariffs and tariff theory, optimal tariff theory does not support what you're saying. Traditionally we see that the current. If we were to say use a number that has been thrown around in the press of 10%, then traditionally the currency appreciates by 4%. So the 10% is not passed through. Through. Then we have various elasticities, consumer preferences may change. And finally foreign manufacturers, especially China, especially China, which is trying to export their way out of their current economic malaise. They will continue cutting prices to maintain market share.

Michael Knowles (23:32)

Beautiful answer. And Wyden's response to this, which was cut off, is, well, that's just all so academic. That sounds a little too academic for me. But I think tariffs are gonna just pass on prices, price increases to the American people. Well, sure, it is academic or it's scholarly or it's intelligent, I guess. Yeah, it is. And Besant clearly knows what he's talking about here. But this exchange to me typifies just, it typifies the usual debate over tariffs in America and it also typifies each side because the pro tariff side is bringing serious economic arguments, is actually drawing on political philosophy even beyond economics because we are not a society that serves a market, but rather we are a society that has a market to serve us and our political ends. And the anti tariff side, the pure pro free trade side, is making arguments that are really not much more sophisticated than whatever they were taught by their seventh grade history teacher. That's where I think a lot of it comes from. I think most people, if they've ever heard the word tariff, heard about it in seventh grade history class and what they were taught is that we used to have a mercantile kind of economic system, then we had this kind of economic protection into the 19th and early 20th century. But then we discovered free trade, and free trade was really great. We kind of had discovered it a little earlier, but we didn't really put it into practice. And then it worked, and it was really great. And tariffs are always bad, and free trade is always good. And Trump, in his commonsensical, not academic way, pointed out the flaw in this argument. In 2016, he said, hold on. If tariffs are always bad, how come every other country uses them? And by the way, we use them sometimes, too. George Bush protected steel. Ronald Reagan protected steel. So if tariffs are always bad, how come all of our adversaries, many of whom are killing us on trade, use tariffs? And yet Scott Besant gives a great answer there. He said, well, because tactically they work sometimes. And actually those price hikes are not always passed on to the American people. There are lots of good reasons for tariffs from the standpoint of national security. We learned this during COVID You cannot be totally reliant on a foreign country, much less a foreign adversary for your manufacturing, for your medicine, for your technology, for your food. In some cases, that's crazy. Cause then the moment that a conflict breaks out, you're gonna starve and you're gonna die of your diseases and you're not gonna have any resources that you need. But even from an economic standpoint, gutting your entire manufacturing base might not be a great thing. Even from an economic standpoint, not protecting your vital national industries might not be a great thing. Because as Besant says here, you might have countries like China that are dumping some of their goods below market prices to try to gain market share, illegally violating trade treaties. And then what are they going to do? The moment that they've totally captured the market, then they're gonna have control. They can do whatever they want. They can hike the prices, they can do whatever they want, or they can steal your intellectual property. It's another way that China's violated trade treaties and so on and so forth. And it's not just China. There are a lot of other countries that are cheating on trade too. This is an example of an issue where I think there's so many people who were just raised in late 20th century right wing propaganda that said, now beep, boop, beep, boop. Tariffs always bad. We love free trade all the time. Well, hold on. Abraham Lincoln founded the Republican Party practically, and he said that if you gave him a tariff, he would give you the greatest country in the world. Republicans were largely in favor of protection for A long time. Maybe there's a reason for it. I'm not saying that we don't trade with anyone. I'm not saying that trade is a bad thing intrinsically. But, guys, come on, let's restore a little bit of prudence here. Love it. Besant really humiliated those Democrat senators, and I think he's gonna be a good treasury secretary. More Trump picks. Trump has named his ambassadors to Hollywood. Do you do a double take? Ambassadors to Hollywood. What's that? He says, it is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone to be special ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California. They will serve as special envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years, to foreign countries, back bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I'll get done what they suggest. It will be like the United States of America itself. The golden age of Hollywood. I love it. First of all, why do we have ambassadors to Hollywood? Because we have ambassadors to all hostile foreign territories. If we're going to have ambassadors to, I don't know, Botswana or something, we might as well have them to Hollywood also, because see this here when he talks about the golden age of Hollywood. The golden age of Hollywood was an era in which Hollywood had to play ball according to national standards and norms. Sometimes it was suggested that the government ought to enforce these standards and norms. And then in response to threats from the government, Hollywood said, no, no, no, don't worry, we'll censor ourselves. And I know that censorship word is supposedly a bad word on the right. It's not a bad word to me. But it is kind of weird that during the period in which Hollywood censored itself, when we had the Hays Code, we had most of the greatest movies ever made. Just name off the top of your head, the very greatest movies ever made. With some exceptions, maybe with the Godfather is an exception, which was made afterward. Those were the greatest movies ever made. Maybe there's something to it. Maybe there's something to rhyme and meter and limits that actually allows an industry to grow. Because, by the way, before we had Hollywood self censorship, we had this era of completely degenerate movies. Like, you know that movie, what's it called, Freaks? The one where it's like Oogel Boggle. Oogle Boggle. One of Us, One of Us. And it was all kind of obscene and weird and creepy and filthy. Those are not the movies that play on Turner Classic Movies. Those are not the ones that you go back and stream and rent. They were no good. You want a golden age of Hollywood, let's send especially these guys. These guys are each in their own lanes. Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, great, great actors and filmmakers. I absolutely love it. Now, big question, big, big question here. Who is going to be the next senator from Ohio? Because J.D. vance is the vice president. He's going to be the vice president as of Monday. So there's an open Senate seat in Ohio and President Trump has just. Vivek Ramaswamy. Mm. How's that for a cliffhanger? I wanna talk about it more, but we gotta get to the mailbag. So maybe we'll talk about that on Monday. Monday is the big day. The Daily Wire. We'll be covering the inauguration live from D.C. bringing you every moment as Donald J. Trump has sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. Because 47 is the magic number we're celebrating. With 47% off new Daily Wire plus annual memberships, we are tossing in a free $20 gift for joining the fight. With Daily Wire plus, you get all of our shows uncensored and ad free, along with unlimited access to exclusive movies, documentaries and series that are reshaping culture. Do not miss it. Use code 47@dailywire.com subscribe for 47% off your new membership today. Finally, finally, we've arrived at my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. The mailbag is sponsored by PureTalk. Go to PureTalk.comKnowles. you'll save an additional 50% off your first month. Take it away.

Caller 1 (31:16)

Michael. After listening to your episode 1645 about the horrors of Muslim rape gangs in the UK and throughout Europe and their government's response to it, I wonder how the people have not risen up and taken the law into their own hands. These globalist leftist Satanists are trying to subjugate the free peoples. I have read books and could write books about the jihad and their 21st century efforts to conquer the free West. These passive aggressive tactics of the offensive defensive strategy is easily understood by military men and psychologists. They come into our countries pretending to be helpless, then rape and rob our people. And when our people retaliate, they cry that they're the victims. This has been the method of jihad for centuries. We need a comparable crusade in the 21st century. A second Hijra is the only solution that will work short of going to war. Do you think that President Trump understands what is happening and will Put people in place, who will send them back.

Michael Knowles (32:21)

All right, well, very feisty question. Trump certainly understands the threats of radical Islam, that's for sure. Remember when he killed Abu Bakr al Baghdadi like a dog? Like a dog. The leader of ISIS died. However, to your broader point, that the only way to combat Islam, which has been warring with the west for roughly 1400 years now, that the only way to do it is to launch another Crusade. This would be difficult one, because the land now that would have been the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Holy Land that was to be regained in the First Crusade, is now not controlled by various Muslim caliphates, but is controlled by the State of Israel that was established with the backing of the Christian West. So that would complicate establishing a Kingdom of Jerusalem. But even to your broader point of maybe not just a Crusade, but something like a Reconquista, something like a Charles Martel or Battle of Lepanto or Battle of Vienna, repelling invading Muslim hordes, even then, it's difficult to see how it works because of one major problem that Christendom has, the society once called Christendom, which is that we no longer have unity. The First Crusade occurred. I was just recently, oddly enough, debating this point on Piers Morgan's show with some left wingers who were a little challenged on historical facts about the Crusade. But the Crusade began as Emperor Alexios in the EAS asked the Pope for support because the Seljuk Turks were running roughshod over Christians and killing Christians in the Holy Land and creating problems in the Eastern Empire. So the Pope, after the Council of Clermont, declared a Crusade. And the popular cries that came up at this announcement were, Dieu le vul or Deus vult, God wills it. And then there was a People's Crusade, which was this group of, of miscreants who decided to run off as preparations were being made for the actual First Crusade. They ran off, they didn't even know where the Holy Land was. And they, as Hilaire Belloq says, they died, well, merited deaths in the dusty sand of Anatolia. But then there was the real Crusade, which had some serious success, although it ended up actually weakening relations between the west and the east because the Crusaders got a little heavy handed with some of the imperial territories in the East. And then there were later Crusades, but really after the Battle of Hattin, it was probably lost. So the question right now is if we barely had anything resembling east, west unity in the 11th century. Now not only do we have to deal with division between east and west, we have to deal with division within the west because we've had the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago that cracked up the unity of Christendom. So who would lead the Crusade? The east wouldn't call for it. And the circumstances wouldn't exist for the east to call for it. Really? The east was essentially already conquered by the Muslims. And then in the west, would it be the Pope? Would the current Pope lead a Crusade? I wouldn't expect that. Would it be some Protestant pastor, some evangelical Protestant pastor? Is Pastor Keith going to lead the Crusade? I don't think so. Is the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican Church? I don't think so. So who's going to do it? You need unity to engage in such an endeavor, if even such an endeavor were prudent or possible. And it doesn't look likely. Okay, next question.

Caller 2 (35:43)

Hello, Mr. Knowles, fellow Catholic here. Given the current state of our border, which I do think needs to be secured in every way possible, I am also an immigration restrictionist myself. But I guess my question would be, as a fellow Catholic and someone that looks out for other Catholics as well, how do you think we should handle or not handle the refugee situation going on in Nicaragua, given that the persecuted Catholics and the ones in the other part of the world as well. Again, I'm in no way open pro open borders or I'm also an immigration restrictionist in this time. But any way you think we can manage this to protect Catholics would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your advice.

Michael Knowles (36:41)

Okay, good question. This is often how people ask this question, too. They say, look, I oppose open borders and taking in more people, but what about this group that I really like? And so in this case, we're talking about a group that I personally really like a lot and would like to help. So the issue you're identifying is that the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua has been a little tough on Catholics, in particular, arresting priests, that sort of thing. So how do we fix that? The best way to fix that would be for a strong US President to, through a system of sticks and carrots, diplomacy and pressure, get hostile regimes to get in line. And there are plenty of ways to do that, especially in Nicaragua. There's a lot of Western investment in Nicaragua, notably in the cigar industry. So it would be helpful if we said, hey, guys, we want to keep investing. You guys make a great product down there, but you gotta be a little less rough around the edges. How about we all work together? That would be one way to do it. That's ideal, too, because then people get to stay in their own countries. Now, in terms of what do we do with certain refugees, whether we're talking about Nicaragua or Venezuela or North Korea, what do we do? I don't think anyone is suggesting that the United States needs to totally close itself off to legitimate refugees. The problem is that the Democrats have lied about what a refugee is and they've pretended that millions of fighting age male economic migrants are somehow refugees, you know, little dreamer children or elderly women or anything like that, and it's just not the case. So, sure, should we take in some refugees, fine. People who are likely to get on board with the American program, people who are legitimately in need through America's grace and charity and mercy, we can let some small number of people in. But right now we take in what, between a million and 1.3 million legal immigrants per year, another, what, 2 million, who knows at this point, 3 million illegal aliens per year? That's just way too many people. So, okay, you take in 25,000, 50,000 refugees, okay, fine. If we get rid of all of the other migration and you go from 4 million people, 3 to 4 million people a year to 25,000 or 50,000, okay, great, that's a win. And you'll get people who are more conducive to your national flourishing anyway. Next question.

Matt Walsh (39:03)

There seems to be a debate growing amongst Christians on the abortion issue, and I'd like your take on it. And I'm going to put forward what I think is happening and maybe you can say if it's accurate or not. People who call themselves abolitionists seem to think that voting for a better law rather than the perfect law is a sin. In other words, if you vote for any law that might be better than what we currently have, but doesn't, federally ban abortion and levy major prison sentences against both the mother and the abortionist, then you are committing a sin. You are guilty of partiality, injustice or something. On the other hand, people like myself who are incrementalists, who understand that we, we have to take our wins when we can, and politics is a process. We seem more concerned with saving babies. So what's your point of view? And is this an accurate representation of the debate? Thanks.

Michael Knowles (40:02)

Well, taken to its extreme, the argument of the abolitionists amounts to political quietism, to pulling out of the political order. Because voting for any candidate, if you vote for a candidate who will tolerate continued use of cell lines derived from the stem cells of aborted b from the 1960s, then you would be just as guilty of partiality, injustice, wouldn't you. So if voting for a candidate, any kind of candidate, involves some kind of remote cooperation with evil, when you're talking about a global empire like the United States, then the only logical conclusion of their view is to just not participate in the political system, which, to my mind, could be deemed sinful in itself. It, at the very least, would be vicious. At the very least, it would be cowardly. At the very least, it would be imprudent. And I think it would be unjust, actually, for people who do have the right kind of idea to pull out of the political system. So, no, I'm not really taken with those arguments. I hate abortion and I'd like it to go away, but I'm not a. I'm not one for political quietism. I think that you need to get the wins that you can when you can get them. And I think you need to have the courage to deal with the difficulties and the vicissitudes of politics. I think courage is the virtue that is the prerequisite for all of the other virtues. And I think that pulling away because one doesn't get what one in one's limited reason considers to be the perfect policy. I think basically that amounts to a cowardice, even if people don't intend it or admit it. Okay, that's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. We will have so much more coming up right now. So you gotta go to dailywire.com, use code KNOWLES for two months free on all annual plans.