Chuck Schumer (3:54)

Free fries when you get vaccinated. I got vaccinated. You're saying I could get this delicious fries. Wait a minute. But there's also a burger element to this. Let me check with Bill Nedart. Is it too early in the day to eat a burger? This could be breakfast. Okay, I want you to look at this and think about again, some people love hamburgers. Some don't really want to respect all ways of life. But if this is appealing to you, just think of this when you think of vaccination. Vaccination. I'm getting a very good feeling about vaccination rate this moment.

Michael Knowles (4:44)

The irony of that little campaign pitch, of course, was that it made vaccination much less appealing because Bill de Blasio eating a hamburger was just a disgusting image. What is it with the New Yorkers and food? It makes sense in that New Yorkers think disproportionately about food. So I get that. But how cheap, how disgusting. And in fact, the Bill de Blasio pitch, get the shot and we'll give you a cheeseburger was more understandable because with the Fauci Ouchie, all you were risking was a fatal blood clot or a heart attack for a shot that didn't actually prevent transmission of the virus and wouldn't actually stop you from getting the virus and for young and healthy people was basically totally useless. At least in that case, that's all you are risking. With Schumer, though, he's saying, hey, if Trump levies these tariffs and really gets tough on the countries that are sending poison into our country and criminals, then okay, sure, your sons might not be poisoned. They might not overdose on fentanyl. And sure, we might not have actual Satan worshiping Ms. 13 gangsters going around marauding, robbing, looting, raping, pillaging and burning. And yeah, sure, that's all tr, but what about your guac? Who even likes avocados? Avocados don't even taste like anything. And Modela, Was it Modela? Corona. Corona's fine. It's not even that good. Ah, I know you love your children, but if you consider this cheap beer. Who wrote that? Someone wrote that for him. That's a bit. He did a bit there. He needed props. That is a carrot top politician act. What Democrat thought? Well, I'll tell you, the same Democrats that just elected one of the least, the least popular people in the country to help run their party. Which we'll get to first, though, before we get to the Democrats losing for the entirety of this show, I do want to get to a little bit of Trump winning. What is this all about? It's that Trump levied massive tariffs on Mexico and Canada and China. Trump has declared an economic emergency to place 10% tariffs on all imports from China, which is massive. We get a lot of imports from China, 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada. Energy imported from Canada, including oil, natural gas and electricity, will be taxed at 10%. However, there's also a feature within these tariffs that will allow him to automatically raise the tariffs if we get, as we probably will, retaliatory tariffs from Mexico, Canada and China. None of this should be a surprise to anyone. None of this should be viewed as Trump shooting from the hip. He promised this repeatedly on the campaign trail. And here is the pitch for these specific tariffs.

Donald Trump (7:38)

We're gonna tell Mexico you're killing tremendous numbers of our people by allowing China to send their fentanyl through your system and through your country. And we're going to give them a little period of time. But we don't want drugs coming across our border or any border. And whether it's Mexico or Canada or wherever, because they're starting now in Canada, they're starting to go up north. But whether it's Mexico or Canada, we're going to explain to them quickly that if you allow fentanyl and these drugs to come through, through your country, we're going to charge you large scale tariffs on everything you send into the United States.

Michael Knowles (8:26)

That was the pitch, the pitch from the beginning that this is about public safety, okay? These countries in particular, especially Mexico. But the fentanyl is coming from China and increasingly it's coming across the Canadian border as well. They're poisoning our country. But 75,000 people or more are dying per year of this in America every year. This is a major crisis. It's also about national security, though, and this is what we learned during COVID This ties us back to Bill de Blasio, I guess in the Fauci Ouchie and the Cheeseburger. During COVID we realized that being totally reliant on a foreign power, especially a hostile foreign power for all of our stuff, is bad national policy. Because the minute something goes wrong, I'm not even talking about the outbreak of a war. I'm talking about a virus leaks out of a lab in Wuhan. The minute something goes wrong, we can't get our stuff anymore. We can't get our consumer goods, we can't get some of our food, we can't get our medicine. We are totally beholden to another country. That's not good for any nation, especially if you are supposedly the world's superpower. If the world's superpower is totally dependent on some other country, guess what? That other country is about to become the world's superpower. So there's a big national security reason here and there is a long term economic reason to reshore some of our manufacturing. The critics of the tariffs are going to say it's gonna cause short term economic pain. That's probably true. I mean, that's how tariffs work. Tariffs work by raising the prices of certain things. Now, Trump isn't slapping tariffs on every imported good from every country in the world. So it's not that it's gonna raise the price of all consumer goods, but tariffs work by raising the cost of certain consumer goods. And in tariff theory, it's not exactly a one to one of you smack the tariff, and that's the amount the prices go up because the currency adjusts. And it's all very complicated and there are all sorts of numbers and I don't know, I didn't really pay attention to math class in college. But regardless of the nuances of tariff theory, yes, prices will go up on certain goods. That is how tariffs work. That can have a long term economic benefit. With Joe Biden. Joe Biden just gave away money frivolously and then Joe Biden mismanaged the economy and prices spun out of his control through inflation. That was reckless and needless and did not have any economic advantages. In this case, however, Trump is making the public health argument and the national security argument in part because he believes in the economic argument that we need to protect American industries. Because a nation that doesn't have its own industries is no nation at all. Or at the very least, it won't remain a nation for very long. There's so much more to say. First though, go to netsuite.com knowles what does the future hold for business? It's a little up in the air right now. Ask nine experts, you will get 10 answers. Over 38,000 businesses have found a way to future proof their operations with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP. Imagine having your accounting, financial management, inventory and HR all seamlessly integrated into one fluid platform. That is NetSuite. With this unified business management suite, you are not just juggling numbers, you are wielding a powerful tool that gives you the visibility and control to make quick, informed decisions. It's like having a map in a maze of market uncertainties. Real time insights and forecasting check. You will be closing your books in days, not weeks at the Daily Wire. We are proud to partner with netsuite because they are leading the way in future proofing operations for businesses around the world. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars, NetSuite adapts to your needs, helping you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Now, speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com knowles k a w L E S this is a must read guide for your business. The guide is free to you@netsuite.com knowles k n a w l e s netsuite.com k n o W L E S what about these tariffs? Is Chuck Schumer's doomsday prediction going to come true? Are we all just. Are we never going to eat guacamole again? I don't know. I don't care about guacamole. We're never going to drink Corona again. Again. I don't really care about Corona. No. I think probably the tariffs are going to work out pretty well in this case. Certainly in this case, the US And Mexico are not the same. I know we pretend in the liberal international order that all the nations are the same and America is on the same level as some random island nation in the South Pacific and we all get a seat at the UN. But no, we're not the same. The US economy is $30 trillion. The economy of Mexico is less than $2 trillion. Okay? America is the global hegemon. Mexico is much more reliant on the US Than we are reliant on Mexico. We're a big act I remember when the Beatles broke up, there's this story about Paul McCartney trying to bring the band together to stop a bad business deal that was going through. And his argument to them was, guys, we're a big act. You know, we're a big act. We don't need you to just take whatever bad deal they're gonna give us. You know, we're a big act, guys. That's what Trump is saying. We're a big act. We don't need to just sit back and take the Fentanyl. We don't need to just sit back and take the face tattooed gangsters. We don't need to sit back and take the poison from China. We're a big act. We can throw our weight around. All right? The way most people were taught tariffs in school was that we used to have tariffs, but then we realized tariffs are really stupid. So then we had free trade. And that was great. There are advantages to trade. We like free trade in certain cases. But to quote TRUMP In 2016, if tariffs are uniformly and always and forever bad, why does every other country have them? Okay, he's using them to good practical effect politically and economically. Now, turning to domestic affairs, Trump is also purging the FBI. The Hill is reporting the Trump administration forced out a number of FBI officials Friday, removing agents who worked on the criminal cases into President Trump as well as the various heads as well as the heads of various field offices. A source familiar said agents who worked on the Mar a Lago and January 6 investigations were escorted out of the Washington field office. The same source said officials in charge of the D.C. miami, Seattle, New Orleans and Las Vegas field offices were removed. Now this on top of what CNN is reporting. Acting Attorney General James McHenry said. McHenry wrote to these field offices and said, given your significant role in prosecuting the president, I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president's agenda faithfully. There it is. Mass purge at the FBI, the doj. Sorry. See you guys. And they're really upset. Now, a lot of these bureaucrats, a lot of these FBI and DOJ guys are really upset that they're losing their jobs. They probably should have thought about that before they raided the opposition leader's bedroom. Just a thought. If they didn't want to lose their jobs, they probably should have considered that before they raided Trump's wife's closet, upending centuries of American tradition while they were just following orders. Okay, well, they followed the wrong orders then. You know, they probably should have had more integrity in their jobs. They probably should have done more to defend the Constitution and our political order than they did. And unfortunately, they decided that they were gonna go be jackbooted thugs for Joe Biden and a bunch of crooks who thought that they were never gonna leave power. But they did get booted out by the majority of the American people. And so, sorry, guys. Learn to code, you're out of a job. But. But what about. What about our traditional constitutional way of life? Yeah, I don't know, man. I liked that, too. But then you started prosecuting the former president and the opposition leader, and then you justified his assassination, and he almost got murdered twice, and you tried to kick him off the ballot, and you investigated him, and you did this and you did that. So, yeah, all right, that's bad. You played very stupid games, Democrats. And now you get your prizes. The Dems are absolutely furious about this. Adam Schiff, one of Trump's favorite targets now in the U.S. senate. He tweets out. FBI director nominee cash Patel promised no retribution. The next day, we have this grotesque purge at the FBI. Bondi, President Trump's Attorney General nominee, said she would examine pardons on a case by case basis. Then Trump gave 1550 pardons overnight. Joe Biden gave out 8,000, by the way. 8,000 pardons. Commutations. Trump's got some catching up to do as far as I'm concerned. But then Schiff concludes their confirmation commitments mean nothing. Yeah, okay, whatever, man. Keep trying. A little reminder to Adam Schiff. Kash Patel has not been confirmed yet as the FBI Director. Pam Bondi has not been confirmed yet as the Attorney General. He's whining about promises that Cash Patel and Pambandi made. They're not even in office yet. And I think Adam Schiff knows this. I don't think Adam Schiff is a stupid person. I think he knows it. I think he's lying. I think he's real upset that all the scheming that the Democrats undertook, all of the corruption, all of the backhanded, duplicitous actions of the last four years, last 40 years or more, but especially the last four years, it's all coming back to haunt them. The Democrats, while they were sowing, they were so happy. Yeah, we're gonna raid Trump. We're gonna try to boot them off the ballot. We're gonna imprison pro lifers. We're gonna make them political prisoners. Yeah. Ooh, this is fun. But that was great when they were sowing, but now that they are Reaping. Now, you see, they have the misfortune of reaping that which they have sown, and they're much less happy as they do the reaping. As a general rule, if you are sowing bad things, the reaping will be unpleasant for you. And that is what Adam Schiff and all of the Democrats are learning now. Speaking of giving to people what they deserve, I mentioned this on the show last week. J.D. vance is. I had high expectations for him already, and he's blown them out of the water. J.D. vance is in real hot water because he was on national television and articulated a classical concept, a concept that comes from classical philosophy and Christian theology, specifically the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas about something called the Ordo amoris. We call it the Order of Charity or the Order of love. JD Referred to it as even a hierarchy of love. Here, just to refresh your memory, here's what he said. But there's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. Okay, so that's what J.D. vance said. Imagine my surprise when a Yale professor, a guy who was a minister, a politician in the UK who's now a Yale professor, Rory Stewart, tweets this. Out he goes, a bizarre take on John 15, 12, 13. Less Christian and more pagan, tribal. We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus and tell us in which order to love. So this is for those who don't know what John 12:13 is. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love than this hath no man, than a man lay down his life for his friends. Okay, JD Responds to this UK politician and Yale professor. He says, just Google Ordo Amores. Aside from that, the idea that there isn't a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense. Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away? Does anyone? Actually, JD Is making a point that I made on the show last week, which was that, you know, you're walking by a swimming pool, you see a little kid that you don't know drowning, you jump in and save the kid. But if you're walking by a big swimming pool and there are two kids drowning at the opposite ends of the pool. God forbid, one of those is your kid. You have an obligation to save your kid first. It's good to save the other kid. But people would look at you as a little bit weird. It would seem like you're violating a natural obligation if you prefer to save the stranger kid to your own kid. So then this other Yale guy gets involved. This other Yale guy comes out and he's one of the editors. I think he's the editor of the Yale Review, and he starts attacking JD over this. And I don't know, I just, I'm beginning to wonder if anyone presently associated with Yale even owns a Bible. Because, oh yeah, this other Yale guy said, you know, it's not really a Christian concept. St Thomas Cleverly, if unconvincingly, smuggles this Aristotelian idea into Christian theology. So, first of all, it's broadly Aristotelian. It's not even specifically Aristotelian, but it is broadly an idea that Aristotle sort of talks about. St. Thomas Aquinas talks about the Ordo Amoris specifically, explicitly. But also it is scriptural. There are many scriptural examples. But just to use a really prominent one, one Timothy 5:8, if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. So that's all I'll say about this. Again, I just really love this story. Not specifically for the substance of this or that saying that's come about, but because we are now talking about the hierarchy of love as a matter of national politics. Okay, we are. And we're doing it in Latin. Like when I voted for Trump, when I voted for Trump in 2016, people said, Michael, he's not a real conservative. Michael, you're betraying your principles. Trump, you're being deceived. Maybe he's not a real cons, he's not a real conservative man. Trump is. His VP is going on national television giving lectures about Thomistic philosophy in Latin. Okay, I think he's pretty conservative. This is about as good as it gets, man. This is a depth of conservatism that I did not think it was possible to reach at this stage in American public life. Just love it. It makes me feel so good. Even beyond all the great stuff that the admin is doing on immigration, on foreign policy, and on social issues like abortion, there's so much more to say. First though, go to preborn.com knowles. Did you know medication based abortion now represents over 60% of all abortions in the US even with varying state laws, these medications remain accessible by mail nationwide. I shouldn't even call them medications. They don't help anyone's health. They're poison. They just kill babies. At Preborn, their network of clinics provides free support services to women facing pregnancy decisions, including medication reversal options for those who change their minds after starting the medical abortion process. Through compassionate care and support, Preborn has helped over 300,000 women and their babies. Their work continues to make a difference one heartbeat at a time. But they need your help. Your monthly tax deductible donation of any amount directly supports their mission to provide these essential services. To contribute to this life affirming work. Dial pound250, say keyword baby or go to preborn.comknowles Every gift helps them to continue offering free services to women in need. That is preborn.comknowles k n w l e s or call pound250 and say baby. Folks, we released an interview over the weekend that has generated lots of controversy among eccentric people. You might remember one year ago, I interviewed a gal who had a multi million dollar lifestyle. She was one of the most prominent porn performers in the world, Nala Rae. And she all of a sudden said, hey, I'm giving up porn and I'm turning my life over to Christ and I'm giving it all up. And I just realized this is all terrible. So I said, oh, I should interview her. So I interviewed her and we had a nice long chat. And this drove some people totally crazy. They really, really didn't like it. And so I said, okay. They were still people still talking about it, some of these people a year later. So I said, all right, well, it's been a year. Let's check back in. Let's see how she's doing. I don't know, maybe her critics were right. Maybe, I don't know, maybe they weren't right. So we sat back down with her and some people are still upset about it, I guess. So. Anyway, this time Nala has joined with her husband to address the rumors, some lies perhaps, and the truth behind her journey. Check out this teaser. Really shook the Internet the first time you came on. I got in so much trouble for talking to you. I. I know you have and I appreciate that. They say very nasty things about you. Oh yeah, oh, we know you were a lying, deceiving prostitute. You said that you lied about everything. People were tagging me on social media and they said, see Michael, here's proof that she lied to you. Everything I've said on podcasts is Complete clickbait. Why do you think people want you to be lying? That happened to her. I can't believe that it's real because then that means I can change my ways and still get saved. She was brought up in the church. Is this mental illness? People have criticized you because they say you made all this money. Where is the penance? They say you should give all your money away. Watch the episode now on the Michael Knowles YouTube channel. Watch the uncensored ad free version. Subscribe and watch on Daily Wire plus now. Just when you think things cannot get any better, there's so much winning going on. Wow. On domestic issues, foreign issues. JD Vance Aquinas. Pilling the American public. This is great. Just when you think it can't get any better, the Democrats decide to elect one of the least likable figures in the country, maybe the single least likable figure in their own party, to be their vice chairman. David Hogg. David Hogg has been elected vice chairman of the Democrat National Committee. For those who do not remember who David Hogg is, he was this kid. Was this kid. Now he's a grown man. He looks a little bit like a kid still, but, you know, some of us have baby faces. He was a kid who was at a high school where there was a school shooting. And David Hogg made it his mission to go on as many TV shows as possible to talk about this school shooting. And as a result of his celebrity going on TV to talk about a shooting at his school, he became a kind of Democrat celebrity. And he ran with it. This kid decided he was gonna make gun control his big issue. Cause that obviously fit with the way that he found a little bit of notoriety. And so he went around and he screeched and he screamed. He made all these preposterous arguments about gun control that would not have stopped the school shooting or any other school shooting. He just did what he could to extend his 15 minutes of fame. And it actually did work. It ended up getting him admission to Harvard, even though some were skeptical of his scholarly credentials to get in. And he's now extended that 15 minutes. You gotta give the kid credit. What's it been now, like five years of fame? More than that, probably six or seven years of fame to become the vice chairman of the Democrat National Committee. Beautiful, great. A rich white kid who is frequently wrong, but never in doubt, who spouts off on the most limousine latte, liberal, luxurious kind of left political issues available to the party, who has basically nothing in common with the core voters that the Democrats are trying to reach. As the Democrats preen about entitlement and privilege, they pick one of the most entitled and privileged kids in his age group to become the vice chairman. Great. Great. I couldn't have asked for more. No, the one thing I could have asked for would be for him to be the chairman and maybe for that other guy, Harry Sison, the kind of the new David Hogg, for that guy to be the vice chairman or flipped, I don't know. But I'll take what I can get. This shows you the Democrats have learned precisely Nothing from the 2024 election and the electoral beatings will continue until morale improves. Now, speaking of Democrat leaders, this was a doozy as well. Al Sharpton, longtime racial shakedown artist, longtime huckster. Going back, I mean, I don't remember a time when Al Sharpton was not prominent, especially having grown up in New York. This guy was always shaking down some business for money. This guy was always threatening to call you racist or starting a race war in Brooklyn or something. This guy, he's been at it a long time with his nice expensive suits, slick backed hair. He's just picking up corporate America by the ankles and shaking all their pennies out. Al Sharpton decided to do something different. Instead of launching a boycott, Al Sharpton decided he was going to launch a buy cot b u y cot of Costco because while all of corporate America got the lesson from the election and from the past four or five years, while the rest of corporate America is ending their DEI programs while the government is now forcing them at the federal and state level to end their DEI programs because it's racial discrimination and it's stupid and it's illegal and everyone hates it. Costco decided. This pains me to say, because I love Costco. Costco decided they were going to keep up their DEI program and this was in part because of a weird shareholder vote that was opposed by other shareholders and Costco. I don't want to beat up on Costco corporate too much. I love Costco. I cannot overstate how much I love Costco and the $50 hot dog in particular, but just everything about the shopping experience. I love Costco. But when Costco votes to keep dei, this is what they're inviting into their shop. Al Sharpton leading a mob of ne'er do Wells footage thanks to Timcast. You hear what they're saying, Shop at Costco. Big mob of people, far as the eye can see. This is at a Costco in New Jersey. I don't know that I've been to that Costco in particular, we used to go on the other side of New York. We'd go to the one in Danbury, Connecticut. But all Costcos look exactly the same. This big mob walking through the store. Okay, shop at Costco. And then what happens? You couldn't have scripted this. They walk out of the store without buying anything. Play the footage, please. Thank you to Tim cast for capturing this beautiful footage. There they go. They're walking right past the self checkout. And you got the customers, customers of all races, all types, saying, hey, get out of here. We don't want you here. Get out. And they're all these miscreants are just walking through shop at Costco. I mean, we're not going to do it, but hey, we'll at least disrupt your shopping experience. I don't know, maybe pocket a thing or two along the way. The hot dog's a buck 50 and you get a drink with free refills. They wouldn't even buy that. These cheap. These cheap losers. Oh, my goodness gracious. You don't have to show up. I'm not saying not everyone needs to go shop at Costco. You should. It's great. And most everyone can afford the $1.50 hot dog. It's probably the best nutritional value in the entire country. But you didn't have to show the whole point. The whole point to showing up with Al Sharpton that day was to support the business. But this should be a message to all of corporate America and especially to Costco. These people don't support your business. These shakedown artists, these extortionists, these grievance mongers, these radical left agitators, they don't support your business. You know who supports your business? The paying customers of all races, of all ages. You could see them on that video. There were people there at the cash registers actually buying stuff. And they much like the Trump electorate. You couldn't identify them by their race or their age or their geography or their this or their that, but they were like normal, good people. Those people don't want dei. Those scam artists who just walked through your store, they're the ones who want dei. DEI is gonna ruin your business, okay? The American people don't want it. The state attorneys general don't want it. The federal government doesn't want it. Get rid of it, man. You are known by the friends you keep. You want to be known by Al Sharpton. This is just a little personal anecdote. There are three places that I am most frequently recognized. Maybe outside of the airport the three places where people are most likely to come up to me and say hello, mention that they're on the team, and, you know, give me a little attaboy. Cigar lounges, the traditional Latin mass, and Costco. Okay? The Costco shopper is conservative because Costco, you get really good values. It's not like you gotta be rich to shop at Costco. But to be a Costco shopper, you have to plan ahead. You have to go purchase a membership. You have to be willing to invest a little bit of money to save money down the line. You have to be prudent and responsible. You need to buy in bulk, plan your meals, maybe cook a little bit. You got to do all those kind of things. Okay? Those are conservative behaviors. It's not rich guy behavior. It's conservative behaviors. All right, Costco, know your audience. I love that you've kept my $50 hot dog for literally my entire life, but get Al Sharpton out of your store. Nobody needs that. Trump's war on wokeness does not stop there. We'll get to more in just a moment. There's a great, great exchange in the White House briefing room between Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, and Daily Wire's very own Mary Margaret O'Lohan. First, though, no matter where you're watching or listening to the show right now, take a second, hit that follow button right this very moment costs you nothing. Makes a massive difference in fighting back against the various algorithms. If you want the full show uncensored, uninterrupted and unshackled from big tech overlords, then you become a Daily Wire plus member. As a member, you get unlimited access to our whole library of premium entertainment, including the culture shaping documentary what Is a Woman? The hilariously offensive box office hit Am I Racist? And so much more. Go to DailyWire.com subscribe Join the fight right now. My favorite comment yesterday or Friday, I guess, is from love 1 another 4812 who says severely intellectually mentally incapacitated disabled is how we all remember the entire Biden administration. That's so true. It's not just a Biden initiative. In FAA hiring, as reported by news outlets and then repeated by President Trump, that was actually probably a description of the whole Biden administration. Trump's assault on leftism continues, as we saw in Caroline Levitt's second Daily Press beating, though she had a question from one of the excellent journalists in the room. That would be Daily Wire's very own Mary Margaret Olihan on what President Trump is doing to enforce some of his executive orders, notably the executive order prohibiting transing the kids. Thanks for having us. So I wanted to follow up on.

Caroline Levitt (37:37)

The gender executive orders that you mentioned. First of all, we know that President Trump has taken a bunch of steps to protect children from irreversible transgender procedures. Is he interested in backing congressional legislation on this point? And does the Trump administration have interest in investigating doctors who perform these irreversible procedures on kids, such as a double misunderstanding on a minor girl? Ms. Well, the President has already taken a very strong stance on this issue this week with the signing of his executive order. A few executive orders in this space. First, he made it the official policy of the federal government that there are only two sexes, male and female, and we have directed all federal agencies to comply with that policy. As for congressional legislation to support the president's agenda in this space and certainly ending the mutilation of young children, the chemical castration of young children, which is a barbaric practice that the vast majority of Americans do not support for young minor children, certainly the president would support Congress's efforts, as he has already made that very clear this week.

Michael Knowles (38:39)

This is really important and I hope Congress hears this. I really hope Congress hears this answer and I hope they hear this segment that I'm giving on this answer. Trump is doing a great job with the executive orders. He needs Congress to act. Trump can't actually just ban transing the kids with an executive order. He can threaten certain funding and that's all well and good and the White House has some discretion over that, but Congress really needs to act. And because this will largely be a states issue, Congress needs to act with the purse strings in particular. Okay, this is all about funding. The way that Congress from the federal level can stop states from mutilating, castrating little kids, setting them on a horrible course for their lives, and probably sending them to an early death. The way that the Congress can do that is by withholding precious funds from the states. This is something that Congress should do as a moral issue. But even if morality is not the most persuasive to members of Congress, this is something that Congress absolutely must do as a political issue. This issue is a complete winner for Republicans. I don't know that I've ever seen a bigger winner issue for Republicans other than maybe invading Afghanistan after 9 11. Maybe the country is all on board with stopping trancing the kids. Huge swaths of every voter demographic. It is a vast majority issue. Push heavily on this right now. If you're not doing it for morality or justice, at least do it for your own political self interest. Congress, move on it, baby. I mean, Congress is prioritizing some of the easiest wins that it can possibly manage because it's so hard to wrangle the congressional Republicans. It's like herding cats. Well, all right, this is an easy one then. You've passed the Lake and Riley Act. That was a big political winner. Matter of justice, too, but a big political winner. Well, this one should come in right behind it. Press hard now. Turning from the war on wokeness to the war on terrorists. President Trump has just hit ISIS in Somalia. He posts. These are his own words on Truth Social. This morning, I ordered precision military airstrikes on the senior ISIS attack planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia. These killers, who were found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our allies. The strikes destroyed the caves they live in and killed many terrorists without in any way harming civilians. Our military has targeted this ISIS attack planner for years. But Biden and his cronies wouldn't act quickly enough to get the job done. I did. The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that all caps. We will find you and we will kill you. I was told. Remember how I was told in 2016 that Trump's not a true conservative and then his VP ends up giving lectures on Thomistic philosophy, something probably a deeper degree of conservatism than we've maybe ever seen in the United States? Remember I was told that. Well, I was also told around the same time that Trump is an isolationist and he's gonna withdraw from everywhere around the world and he was gonna roll back American global leadership and the world was gonna fall into chaos and. Ah, he's an isolationist, huh? I don't know. He just blew up a cave in Somalia and took out a major ISIS leader. Doesn't sound very isolationisty to me. Actually. These two stories relate J.D. vance on the Ordo Amores and Trump blowing up a cave in Somalia even while he focuses on America first. Trump is not an isolationist. He just believes that we need to get our priorities in the right order. That's it. It's simple. It's not an either or. We can lead the world. We don't need to surrender our global leadership to China or someone like that. We can lead the world. We just have to take care of our own country. We just need to put ourselves first when that is appropriate. That's the problem. The left wants to put the rest of the world first. They want to Put Americans last. And while they're doing that, paradoxically, what that means is they are surrendering American global leadership and they're surrendering our own nation. That's the problem. But actually we can do both. I'll draw the point even more precisely. Trump has just gone off on social media, Untruth, social about South Africa. South Africa. Big focus on Africa for an isolationist. He tweeted out, or posted rather, to Truth Social. South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly. It is a bad situation that the radical left media doesn't want to so much as mention. A massive human rights violation at a minimum, is happening for all to see. The United States won't stand for it. We will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed. Wow. Why does Trump care about South Africa? Is he saying it's because South Africa is harming American national interest? No, he's not saying that. At least when Trump is attacking Canada or Mexico or China, he can say, well, it's cuz they're directly harming Americans and so I'm gonna interfere with their countries to stop them from harming Americans. That's not what's going on with his South Africa tweet. When he's threatening to withhold aid from South Africa, he's saying he's doing it specifically for justice in South Africa because South Africa is treating certain classes of people, namely white farmers, very badly. Like their top national leaders chant, kill the Boer, kill the white guys, kill the farmers. It's a bad situation and it's a violation of human rights at a minimum, he says. So he's talking about abstract justice in a far flung place on the other side of the world. What is this about? I was told, oh boy. I was told Trump's not conservative. Okay, that didn't turn out to be true. I was told Trump's an isolationist. That didn't turn out to be true. And I was told that Trump is a nationalist, a hyper or super duper nationalist, and I don't think that turns out to be true either. I think Trump is in many ways more an imperialist than a nationalist. This vision that he's articulating here in the South Africa tweet, that is a more imperialistic vision than a nationalistic vision. And that's good, to quote Bernie Sanders. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. Especially, you know, I talk about some of my favorite political philosophers and A lot of them come from classical antiquity. Some of them come from the Middle Ages. One of my favorite political and artistic poetic writers of all time is Dante. Dante writes a whole big beautiful political treatise on why empire is actually the ideal form of government. Not like globalist liberal empire that screws up everybody's rights and inverts the order of love and does all these terrible things. But well ordered empire, which is, I think, what Trump wants. And maybe that's why I like Trump so much. He doesn't want. The problem with the liberal, leftist, globalist empire is that it just inverts everyone's rights and inverts the proper order of things and it just screws up everything. But America is the global hegemon, okay? I first realized America was a global empire and I couldn't deny it anymore when I realized many years ago that we have something called Africom. African command, okay? Yeoman farmer, Nation state. Republics don't have Africom. Okay? I was driving around Hawaii on my honeymoon. I thought this is kind of silly that this is part of America, right? I'm in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This is kind of, come on. We have military bases all over the world. We are an empire. So we can either deny that or surrender that to China or something like that. I don't think that's necessarily a good idea. Or we can pervert that like the leftists and the globalists and liberals want to do. Or we can just accept that the ordinary course of politics is empire, that the modern idea of the nation state is actually just a kind of political contrivance arising from the Peace of Augsburg and the Treaty of Westphalia. It's basically less than 400 years old. And the modern national order really only comes after World War II. And the post World War II order is fraying. And the election of Donald Trump is actually evidence of the fraying of that order and maybe what we can have. And this is what I wanted from Trump from the beginning, and he's been delivering it from the beginning. And sometimes people didn't believe me, but I think they believe me now. What I told to CBS News when they had me on for a segment for CBS News Mornings. Paradoxically, people elected Trump because Trump is a representative of the normal. He is promising a return to normal. But normal, in both senses of that word, normal means common behavior. Normal also means ideals. And we want both, we want the common behavior to, to be brought back into accord with ideals. We want to just live in a well governed world. We don't want injustices to occur everywhere, needlessly. We don't want to mistake the order of love to mean that we don't have to care about the stranger. That's certainly not the message of Christianity. But we just want things in their proper place. We want to give to people that which they deserve in the right ways, in the right amount, for the right reasons. That's it. I had high hopes for the second Trump term, and my wildest expectations are being blown out of the water. Today's Music Monday. The rest of the show continues now. 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