Ep. 1727 - This Was NOT the Return Kamala Hoped For

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Michael Knowles Show Episode: Ep. 1727 - This Was NOT the Return Kamala Hoped For
Release Date: May 2, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 1727 of The Michael Knowles Show, host Michael Knowles delves into the recent political and cultural shifts, focusing on significant policy changes, the resurfacing of political figures, and the ongoing societal debates surrounding gender identity. The episode weaves through various topics, blending policy analysis with cultural commentary, and features interactions with guest author Andrew Klavan.

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Major Federal Vaccine Policy Overhaul

Timestamp: [00:00]

Michael Knowles opens the episode by discussing a transformative change in federal vaccine policy spearheaded by Health and Human Services Secretary Bobby Kennedy. Knowles highlights that Kennedy's approach, which diverges sharply from decades of existing policy, emphasizes rigorous safety testing using placebos—a practice previously deemed unethical by government officials.

Key Points:

• Shift in Vaccine Testing: Kennedy mandates that all new vaccines must undergo safety testing with placebos, challenging previous assertions that such trials were unethical.

  "We know the vaccines are so safe that when we're testing their safety, we're not actually going to use placebos and controls because we already know they're so safe in the first place."
  — Michael Knowles [02:30]

• Public Trust Erosion: Knowles argues that this policy shift undermines public trust, suggesting that the absence of placebos in trials was a way to conceal potential safety concerns.

• Historical Context: He critiques the circular logic used by previous officials, questioning the consistency of vaccine safety assurances without rigorous testing.

Analysis: Knowles positions Kennedy’s reforms as a response to the credibility lost by public health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic, asserting that the new policies may reignite vaccine skepticism by revealing previously concealed shortcomings.

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Kamala Harris’s Public Reemergence

Timestamp: [05:50]

Transitioning to political figures, Knowles discusses Vice President Kamala Harris's return to the public eye following her electoral defeat and subsequent sabbatical. He critiques her remarks, which he views as incoherent and out of touch, using them to underscore broader cultural and political divisions.

Key Points:

• Harris’s Remarks: Knowles highlights Harris referencing a viral YouTube video of elephants during an earthquake, interpreting it as a sign of her diminished rhetoric and connection with constituents.

  "And you all see that YouTube video about the elephant, says the former future president Kamala Harris, who has not improved one iota since she left office."
  — Michael Knowles [06:07]

• Cultural Commentary: He uses Harris's comments as a springboard to discuss the challenges faced by public figures in maintaining relevance and coherence in their messaging.

• Critique of Identity Politics: Knowles emphasizes his stance against the liberal view of identity, advocating for a classical perspective that prioritizes community and family over individual abstractions.

Analysis: Knowles portrays Harris's resurgence as emblematic of failed political strategies within the Democratic Party, suggesting that her inability to effectively communicate reflects broader issues within liberal leadership.

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Epidemic of Trans Kids in Hollywood

Timestamp: [07:00]

A significant portion of the episode addresses the rise of transgender identities among children in Hollywood. Knowles expresses concern over the increasing number of celebrities revealing their children's transgender identities, framing it as a cultural epidemic influenced by social contagion rather than biological factors.

Key Points:

• Hollywood Trends: Discusses celebrities like Robert De Niro’s son coming out as trans and lists other Hollywood figures reportedly having trans or non-binary children.

  "Robert De Niro's son has just come out as trans. And this would appear to be a trend in Hollywood."
  — Michael Knowles [25:30]

• Critique of Parental Support: Knowles questions the efficacy of parental support for transgender children, citing medical literature that suggests transitioning may not alleviate mental health issues and may, in fact, exacerbate them.

  "If trans is a real aspect of biology or of human nature, we gotta evacuate Hollywood because it seems like this extremely dangerous condition..."
  — Michael Knowles [30:15]

• Cultural Implications: He argues that the prevalence of transgender identities among children in Hollywood is a result of societal pressures and ideological influences rather than genuine self-discovery.

Analysis: Knowles approaches the topic from a skeptical standpoint, questioning the motivations behind the increasing visibility of transgender identities among celebrities' children and its implications for broader societal norms.

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Discussion on Family Dynamics and Parental Authority

Timestamp: [34:00]

In the mailbag segment, Knowles addresses a listener’s family conflict involving parental authority and secretive financial dealings related to a parent’s collections. He underscores the importance of upholding traditional family structures and the sanctity of parental roles.

Key Points:

• Listener’s Dilemma: A listener narrates a situation where the mother secretly instructed the older brother to sell the father's collections, leading to family discord when the truth emerged.

  "Is what I did by bringing the situation to light the right thing to do?"
  — Caller [34:06]

• Knowles’s Advice: He condemns the mother's actions as manipulative and destructive to family unity, advocating for confronting the issue directly with the mother rather than sneaking behind the father's back.

  "You should not have a parent saying to the kids, hey, don't tell your mother or don't tell your father about this."
  — Michael Knowles [35:04]

• Emphasis on Traditional Values: Knowles emphasizes the importance of respecting the paternal authority within the household and maintaining transparency to preserve marital and familial harmony.

Analysis: This segment emphasizes Knowles’s advocacy for traditional family values, highlighting the negative impact of subverting parental authority and the necessity of open communication in resolving family disputes.

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Guest Segment: Conversation with Andrew Klavan

Timestamp: [39:30]

The episode features a conversation with Andrew Klavan, a prolific author and commentator. Together, they discuss Klavan’s new book and broader themes related to literature, morality, and the transformative power of art.

Key Points:

• Book Discussion: Klavan introduces his book, which explores how dark literature and historical murders have inspired contemporary media and artistic endeavors.

  "I just wanted to study the way that art transforms the darkness of life into something illuminating and even uplifting when it's done by great artists."
  — Andrew Klavan [42:02]

• Morality and Art: They discuss the role of objective morality in literature, with Klavan citing Crime and Punishment as influential in shaping his beliefs about absolute moral standards.

  "This is a story about an ax murderer. And it convinced me that there was no such thing as relative morality, that morality was an absolutely objective thing."
  — Andrew Klavan [43:40]

• Critique of Modern Christian Media: Klavan criticizes contemporary Christian storytelling as lacking depth and failing to achieve the transformative impact of classic literature.

  "I can't watch modern Christian storytelling movies... it's just. So."
  — Andrew Klavan [40:10]

• Censorship and Morality: The discussion touches on the balance between free speech and societal protection, particularly regarding explicit content in public institutions like libraries.

Analysis: The conversation with Klavan complements the episode’s themes by exploring the intersection of morality, art, and societal values. It reinforces Knowles’s stance on objective morality and the importance of preserving traditional narratives against modern cultural shifts.

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Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

Timestamp: [45:30]

As the episode nears its conclusion, Knowles reiterates his support for policies that promote public safety and criticizes corporate decisions that, in his view, undermine individual and collective well-being. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining traditional values and structures in the face of evolving societal norms.

Key Points:

• Support for Starbucks Policy: Knowles defends Starbucks’s new dress code policy, arguing that it promotes uniformity and customer service over individual expression.

  "The business is not about making the employee feel really nice. The business is about serving the customer."
  — Michael Knowles [15:00]

• Critique of Individualism: He challenges the liberal emphasis on individual identity over community and family, advocating for a return to classical political values.

• Call to Action: Knowles encourages listeners to engage with content that aligns with their values and to support initiatives that uphold traditional societal structures.

Analysis: In his closing remarks, Knowles consolidates the episode’s discussions by advocating for policies and cultural norms that prioritize community, family, and traditional values over individualistic and progressive ideologies.

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Conclusion

Episode 1727 of The Michael Knowles Show offers a comprehensive examination of recent policy changes, political dynamics, and cultural debates. Michael Knowles presents a conservative perspective, emphasizing the importance of traditional values, skepticism towards modern social movements, and the need for structural integrity in family and societal institutions. Through policy analysis, cultural critique, and engaging conversations with guests like Andrew Klavan, the episode provides listeners with a robust exploration of the challenges facing contemporary American society.

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Notable Quotes:

1. "We know the vaccines are so safe that when we're testing their safety, we're not actually going to use placebos and controls because we already know they're so safe in the first place."
   — Michael Knowles [02:30]

2. "What pearls of wisdom does Kamala Harris have for us?"
   — Michael Knowles [05:50]

3. "If trans is a real aspect of biology or of human nature, we gotta evacuate Hollywood because it seems like this extremely dangerous condition..."
   — Michael Knowles [30:15]

4. "You should not have a parent saying to the kids, hey, don't tell your mother or don't tell your father about this."
   — Michael Knowles [35:04]

5. "This is a story about an ax murderer. And it convinced me that there was no such thing as relative morality, that morality was an absolutely objective thing."
   — Andrew Klavan [43:40]

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this summary are based on the podcast transcript provided and do not necessarily reflect those of OpenAI.

Transcript

[Michael Knowles]

A month ago, I sat down with Health and Human Services Secretary Bobby Kennedy at the White House and asked him if anything would change about vaccine policy under his leadership. His answer made international headlines. Everything he said was going to change. And yesterday, Kennedy made good on that promise with a major shakeup to federal vaccine policy. And what's gonna shock people the most, I think, is, is that Kennedy's new policy has not already been policy for decades. We'll get into what it is. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. Robert De Niro's son thinks that he's a woman. Not that De Niro's a woman, but that he himself, the son, is a woman. Who you looking at? You looking at me? You're looking at De Niro's son and there's nobody else here. So who you look at? Maybe you're looking at the daughter. We'll get into the epidemic of trans kids in Hollywood first, though. America's fastest growing news podcast, Morning Wire, is now available on video. Start your day with all the news you need in just 15 minutes. Watch on Daily Wire plus YouTube and Spotify or listen wherever you get your podcasts. There is much more to say. First, though, go to preborn.com knowles with Mother's Day just around the corner, want to share an amazing organization that's making a real difference for mothers in need. That is Preborn. Preborn's network of clinics provides love, support and hope to pregnant women who are feeling scared, alone or pressured about their pregnancy decisions. These choices can affect not just their baby's life, their own emotional well being too. When a woman walks into a preborn clinic, she is welcomed with compassion and offered a free ultrasound so she can see and hear the little life growing inside her. And most of the time, this powerful moment helps her choose life. This Mother's Day, you can help both a mother in crisis and her baby. Just 28 bucks provides one ultrasound. 140 bucks rather covers five. Every dollar goes directly to supporting these moms and babies. Plus, monthly sponsors receive photos and stories of the lives they've helped save. I personally support this organization and have for years. You should as well give what you can if you want to get involved. It's very easy. Dial pound 250, say keyword baby or go to preborn.com knowles make a difference this Mother's Day by supporting both mothers and their babies. That's preborn.comknowles Canada. W L E S Get involved today and impact generations to come. What's the big change in vaccine policy. What's the big change that the government has been resisting for decades that it took a radical fringe anti vaxxer like Bobby Kennedy to introduce? The potential change is that all new vaccines must undergo safety testing with placebos. That's it. And the big surprise for anyone who cares to read beyond the headline here, the big surprise is gonna be that we have not already been safety testing the vaccines with placebos from the beginning. How do you not use a placebo to check the safety of a vaccine? Or to test the efficacy of a vaccine for that matter? We use placebos in so many other kinds of trials. Why not in this case? Well, what the government says is it would be unethical to safety test the vaccines with placebos because that would mean that in these trials we would not give the vaccine to some people. And we know for certain the vaccines are so good that it would just be terrible to not give everyone the vaccine. Hold on, wait. Now you've just undermined the safety trial entirely. That's the most circular logic I think I've ever heard. We know the vaccines are so safe that when we're testing their safety, we're not actually going to use placebos and controls because we already know they're so safe in the first place. So why would we ever need to test their safety? And how do we know that they're safe? Because we said so, not because we undertook rigorous safety analysis. And anyway, Shut up and stop asking questions, you stupid sheep. Stop asking questions. Take you a shot. Take you a shot. Ah, sorry, Dr. Fauci just sprung out of my throat there. I guess that was really shocking. Interesting how the top health officials all have novel voices, eccentric, notable voices. That's Kennedy before him, Fauci. In any case, this is common sense. And the public health officials who squandered all of their credibility during COVID by lying to us repeatedly. They got the chickens coming home to roost right now because for a while it seemed like they were stuck. They couldn't ever admit that there might be some problem with vaccines, that maybe some people do get vaccine injured. That actually the government pays people who are vaccine injured. They kind of just try to sweep all this under the rug. They couldn't admit that their safety experiments, their safety trials, rather, did not use placebos because it would raise all of these questions. So now that Kennedy is introducing totally common sense, reasonable, modest reforms, I think it's gonna actually exacerbate the backlash against vaccines. Cause people are gonna say, wait, why haven't you been doing this from the beginning. It's starting to look like the government is hiding something. So we'll see. Kennedy, he didn't run pro vax. He didn't run anti vax. He ran pro science, pro safety trials, pro common sense. I guess that's the theme of the whole Trump administration. Meanwhile, Kennedy's former opponent in the Democratic presidential primary, or potential opponent in the Democratic presidential primary, and Trump's actual opponent in the presidential election, Kamala Harris, has reentered the public stage. She took a little sabbatical after she got destroyed in the election. She is now delivering her first major remarks since the election and since leaving the office of the vice president. What pearls of wisdom does Kamala Harris have for us?

[Kamala Harris]

In fact, please allow me friends to digress for a moment. Okay, it's kind of dark in here, but I'm asking, a show of hands, who saw that video from a couple of weeks ago? The one of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo during the earthquake? Google it if you've not seen it. So that scene has been on my mind. Everybody's asking me what you been thinking about these days.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, there is nothing to fear but fear itself, says Franklin Roosevelt. We shall go on. We shall fight on the beaches and in the streets, says Winston Churchill. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, says Ronald Reagan. And you all see that YouTube video about the elephant, says the former future president Kamala Harris, who has not improved one iota since she left office. She is trying to position herself as either the next president after Trump or at least as governor of California or something. But she has learned nothing. She has not improved. I'm not sure that she can improve. She might have peaked in her rhetorical skills. I didn't see the YouTube video, did you? I did not. Turning now to slightly more coherent women is a woman who has gone viral because she left America and moved to Africa. She doesn't like how America's racist and sexist and bigoted and terrible and awful. So she made good on the threat that so many leftists make that she's going to leave. In this case, she's going back to Africa. She's not from Africa. She didn't grow up in Africa. But she's an African American. She's going to Africa. Things must be so much better, right? She had instant regret.

[Unnamed Woman]

But, y'all, I'd rather go back to America and deal with the racism in America before I sit here in Africa and deal with the robbery, the fraud, the bullshit scams, the bullshit too. Expensive. The bullshit. Not having no snacks. The bullshit. Not having no food. The bush electricity. The bullshit. Hot water. The bullshit. What's called. They'll be coming down, the animals and scorpions outside the house. It's big spiders, it's big lizards, colorful lizards you ain't never seen before. All in the room with you, sleeping with you. Oh, all the people trying to scam you when you go outside thinking you rich, so they trying to get more money off of you. I'm really trying to wrap my head around this. I'm really trying to wrap my head around how are Americans coming to Africa and being happy. Please come comment down below, because for me, I'm ready to go. And I always used to say, if it's up to me, it will be. And I'm gonna go out to Africa and make happen. No, I don't want to. I want to take my businesses back to America. I want to open up shop back in America, open up my dentist office and all the stuff that I was gonna do out here in America. Daddy electricity. And the only time our electricity get cut off is when we don't pay the bill.

[Michael Knowles]

I think you get the picture. I. She goes on and on with a litany of problems in Africa. The spiders, the lack of snacks, the lack of food generally, just everything. It wasn't what she thought it would be. It's kind of funny. Totally predictable, of course, but it's funny. You don't want to feel schadenfreude. One hopes for her sake, she can make it back to America and have a good life. It's a reminder for all of us, though, you are what you are. You are what you are. I remember when I was a teenager, you know, on my father's side, we descend from the Mayflower, which is a great cigar company, and from Ireland, and on my mother's side, Sicily and Calabria. And I look Italian. I speak Italian. I was raised in a very Italian American culture. Did grocery shopping as a boy in the Little Italy part of the Bronx. So the first time I was 15 years old, I'm going to Italy with my grandmother, and I say, this is gonna be it. I'm gonna find home. I am gonna feel like I walked back into the comfy home of my ancestors. I'm gonna feel like a part of this. I'm gonna recognize myself here in this country. And you know what? It felt like I was visiting a foreign country. There were certain little things I recognized, but I'm not really Italian, you understand? Just like that woman's not really African. I'm an American. I feel actually a little bit more at home than I do in Italy when I go to England, a little bit more. Because America comes from England. Even there, though, it's a little bit different. And these days, if I'm not wearing a keffiyeh and saying, enchilada, everyone, then I really can't get along in England these days. But you are what you are. And we have this highly ideological version of our identity today. If you're a black person, you have more in common with a black African than with a white American. If you're an LGBT person, you have more in common with an LGBT Tibetan, if there are any, than you do with a Republican, conservative, traditionalist American or whatever. And it's just not true. You're an American. You are what you are. You can improve in some ways. You can grow in virtue and holiness. You can tamp down vice and sin. It's not that you're static, that you can't change, but you're an American. People who do not have a liberal view of politics understand this. This is the classical view of politics, that your identity is inseparable from your community. This is the classical view of politics that says that the fundamental unit is not the individual, but the family. That's the core community that you're born into. From the moment of your conception, you are part of that community. The liberal view of politics is that we're individuals. We're limitless. We can be whatever we want. Our identities can be abstract. They have no geographical grounding or traditional or cultural grounding. And it's just not true. You can be black as night, truly ethnically Congolese, as if you walked out of the heart of darkness. But if you're raised in America and then you show up in Congo, you're gonna feel like a fish out of water. Identity is about more than the abstractions in your head. And identity is about more even than the color of your skin. It goes a little bit deeper than that. And ironically, this is a lesson that Americans have forgotten. America, which talks about identity ad nauseam, doesn't seem to know the first thing about it. So then they do stupid things like move to Africa, and they instantly regret it. Cause they have spiders and they don't have a lot of snacks. There's a lot more to say and to do. But first you have to go to stopboxusa.com, use code KNOWLES. Owning a handgun can put you in a tough spot. You need it secure, but you need it accessible. 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And it can be almost any kind of black shirt you want. It could be short sleeve, it could be long sleeve. It can have a collar on it. It can not have a collar on it. Don't forget when you're working at Starbucks, you wear a green apron, so most of your shirt is covered up anyway. All they're really saying is you have to wear some kind of pants and the shirt that's already mostly concealed by your apron needs to be black. So it's a little more uniform. And in part, they say that they're updating the dress code so that they can deliver a more consistent coffeehouse experience, bring simpler guidance to partners, and allow those green aprons to Pop a little bit more. Okay. That was too much for a handful of frivolous and decadent Starbucks employees. Something that Starbucks loves to do is allow partners to be themselves or whatever that PR that they want to push. I don't understand how that's in good faith of letting us express ourselves. This is not a legal action. This is not a legal action. Starbucks can't have that dress code. It's not legal for a coffee house to have a uniform, is it? Now, I don't know if this guy graduated from Harvard Law. Maybe he did. Maybe that explains it. First of all, one of my most contrarian right wing opinions. I think Starbucks is one of the greatest corporations in the country. I love Starbucks. Starbucks. As my friend Alan Estrin pointed out, Starbucks created public bathrooms in every city on earth before Starbucks existed and you wanted to use a bathroom in a city, you'd have to pretend to be going to a restaurant. It was very awkward. You kind of slipped through to the back. Starbucks just made it so easy. Starbucks. The coffee tastes good. I know some people don't like it. It's good, it's strong, it's good, it's easy. Most Starbucks employees are great. I am one of the few very pro Starbucks conservatives. And that's not true. Many conservatives are pro Starbucks. I'm one of the few who will admit it. And it's good. This policy is good. You want uniformity. These malcontent employees are proving the point for the policy. Because I don't want to look at a bunch of weird stuff when I go into Starbucks. The purpose of the business. The purpose of business is to serve the customer. It's not about the employees. The audacity of these people to say, we Starbucks partners. You're not a partner, you're an employee. And you should be grateful to your employers for giving you a relatively great job. Starbucks famously is a really good job as far as working retail and fast food. It's actually apparently a really nice job. But it's not about you. The business is not about making the employee feel really nice. The business is about serving the customer. And so basic stuff, dress kind of normally. That seems totally reasonable to me. But there's a deeper point, actually, which the libs don't understand. What they're complaining about here is that they say my individuality will not shine through if I'm not allowed to wear bizarre, distracting clothing and, you know, I don't know, strip down naked in the store or whatever they want to do. Having to wear a black T shirt and Pants. That's too much. You're suppressing my individuality. Au contraire, mon frere. Or my sister or my. I don't actually, I can't. It's hard to tell the gender uniforms allow your individuality to flourish, just as limitations on a poem, rhyme and meter, for instance, allow the poet to better express his creativity. Just as limits give form and shape to things, so too a uniform paradoxically allows you to become more fully yourself. Because the T shirt you wear is pretty superficial. The pants or shorts you wear or don't wear is kind of superficial. That's not what you're about. That doesn't even go skin deep. It's above your skin. You are a rational creature. If you want to express your individuality fully, that's going to come from your rational nature. It's not gonna come from your stupid T shirt. This is true in churches. This is why people are returning to the high liturgies, I think, because the high liturgies, on the one hand, seem like smells and bells and distractions. Not really. What it does is by removing the personality of the preacher or the music director or whoever, it allows the real star of the liturgy, God, Christ, the Gospel, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, to be the star of the show. Okay, so I don't go to church to hear some guy give his personality. I don't go to church so that I can have some choir director, some really miserable and longing aching musician express her individuality. I go there for the Mass. The star of the show can come out with some uniformity. And for these Starbucks employees, the way that they can star in their show is serve the customers well and with their personality in the confines of a uniform, in the confines of the business, in the confines of serving the customer. The irony is the people who just dress normally and behave normally are much more interesting people 100 out of 100 times than the people who insist on making a big show of their clothing or whatever. The people who, in an effort to be non conformist, are the most bland and tediously conformist of anyone. God, I can't. I'm very excited. This is great. And if a handful of malcontent Starbucks employees want to quit, that's fine. I'll enjoy all the other great Starbucks employees that I see now. Speaking of people of dubious gender, Robert De Niro's son has just come out as trans. And this would appear to be a trend in Hollywood. If you want more of the Michael Knowles show and the Daily Wire, then it's time to become a Daily Wire plus member. Get exclusive access to my show, ad free streaming and early access to our biggest releases. Watch high quality films and documentaries made by filmmakers who actually care about truth and storytelling. Join a community that shares your values, not one that's trying to cancel Western civilization. Watch anywhere, anytime, on desktop and the Daily Wire app for mobile and TV. Join today at DailyWire.com subscribe My favorite comment yesterday comes from Leif Ericsson, a man who claims to have discovered the Americas before Christopher Columbus, but and I like Iceland, but. Well, we'll get into the historical Leif Erikson. Maybe some other time. The commenter Leif says, I am not sure if Michelle Obama is a man or a woman, but I would say that it's fair to assume that that she was referring to the interviewee when she said, as a black man. She says, it makes me feel so good as a black man. It warms my heart as a black man that you're raising your kid trans. And that's true. I don't think she was confessing to Guljuns in that expression. But what is really clear from that interview is that Michelle Obama, a graduate of Princeton, does not know how the English language works. That's a greater indictment now on that very point. Robert De Niro's son has just come out as trans. He posted a pic of himself with long hair that he's dyed pink, wearing a dress, still looking like a fella but doing his best to make himself look like a lady. And Robert De Niro was asked about this. People magazine asked him and he sent a statement. The statement said, I've loved and supported Aaron as my son and now I love and support Aaron spelled differently, not a a r o n but a I r y n as my daughter. I don't know what the big deal is, he says, I love all my children. Really? You don't know what the big deal is, Bobby? You don't know. You can say I'm pro trans. You can certainly say I love my kids. And you can even pretend maybe he is pro trans. But you don't know what the big deal is that your son, who's gone from baby to adult as your son as a dude, is now pretending to be a woman and going into women's bathrooms, presumably, and putting on dresses and pretending that a man can become a woman. You don't think that's a little odd? It hasn't raised an eyebrow for even you, but he's sort of famously furrows his eyebrows. De Niro. But come on no one believes that and it's part of an epidemic. I looked up just quickly, I googled what Hollywood celebs. How many Hollywood celebs have trans kids? I'm only. I'm going by mostly one article and only the names that I recognize. And I barely pay attention to Hollywood, so I might have left most of the names off the list. Annette Bening, Warren Beatty, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Lopez, Tori Spelling, Marlon Waynes, Naomi Watts, Lieb Schreiber, Rosie O'Donnell, Sigourney Weaver, St. Cher, Charlize Theron. Charlize Theron, whose kid apparently got transed at age 3. All of them have trans or pans or non binary or they have trans kids. Really? Is that worth. We were talking at the top of the show about how to conduct scientific studies. You know, you have a question, maybe a hypothesis you explore that isn't this kind of weird? Is there something in the water in Hollywood? Is it because they're on a fault line or something? If trans is a real aspect of biology or of human nature, we gotta evacuate Hollywood because it seems like this extremely dangerous condition where 41% of people who have the condition kill themselves. It seems to be concentrated in Hollywood, specifically in the Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills and among the really rich and famous people. We gotta get them out of there. Or maybe more likely, it's obviously a social contagion that's not grounded in anything particularly solid and real and it amounts to child abuse. When you encourage this. I feel for De Niro, actually. I know he's super annoying in his politics and his public statements, but I feel for the guy because even if his political views and his behaviors have led up to and encouraged his son's transing himself, you feel bad that's a bad thing to happen to your kid and you don't want that to happen. But when he says, I love my son, I support my son, who's now my daughter, and I love and support my son, you gotta ask yourself, is this the best way to support your son? If I told you, Mr. De Niro, let's hope that Robert De Niro is listening to this show. If I told you that all of the medical literature, the really reliable studies with the big data sets that, look at this, show that transing your kid actually does not improve anxiety or depression or suicidality, that actually it makes at least one of those things worse, anxiety that actually post transition suicide rates aren't any better than they were before then are you really supporting Your kid by lying to him? I don't think so. Are you really supporting your kid by indulging your kid's increasingly destructive behavior? No. If your kid said, hey, Dad, I identify as a fentanyl addict, and, you know, I was just born this way, or even I wasn't born this way, but I've come to develop and understand that my true self is a fentanyl addiction. And if you tell me I can't do fentanyl, it's gonna really hurt me. I'm gonna be really sad about that. Would you say, okay, well, here's some Fentanyl I don't want. You know best. You know, who am I to say that would not be helping your kid? So I really don't even mean to dunk on De Niro. I feel horrible for all of these parents, and I really feel horrible for the kids who they are wittingly or unwittingly abusing and whose lives they are wittingly or unwittingly ruining. But stop it. If you have good intentions, then they're in the wrong place. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And if you're just trying to get clout and fit in with social trends and recognize that, you know, a trans kid is the new Gucci handbag, it's just dura guerre, you know, it's all the rage. Then stop it. That's selfish and wrong and stupid and evil. So cut it out. Now, speaking of support for things, we talked yesterday on the show about how Trump has a mineral deal in Ukraine. Scott Besant, Treasury Secretary, just announced this, that there's a new deal. Trump tried to bring an end to that war. Russia and Ukraine didn't want to play ball. And Russia actually started sending missiles into Kiev, really accelerating as Trump was trying to bring peace. So much so that Trump tweeted it and said, vladimir, stop it. Stop it. What are you doing? 5,000 soldiers are dying a week. But they didn't want to play ball. They wanted to push Trump around. So, okay, Trump just struck a mineral deal in Ukraine, and Russia is furious about this. Medvedev, who is a top Russian official, was nominally the president. For a while, he and Putin switched places, but Putin's always been the power for the past 20 years. Medvedev, though, a right hand man to Putin, furious about this. According to reporting from Reuters. He says this deal, it's actually really bad for Ukraine, too, because he's forcing Trump, he's forcing Ukraine to pay for US Aid. And Trump has broken the Kiev regime To the point where they'll have to pay for U.S. aid with mineral resources. Now they'll have to pay for military supplies for with a national wealth of their disappearing country. We're not mad about this at all. Now they're pretty upset, I think, and Ukraine should be upset too. In as much as Ukraine has not accepted Trump's brokered peace deal, Ukraine might be a little upset too. Cause they do need to pay up a little bit. We're not just gonna cut them a blank check and allow them to drag us into a regional and potentially global war. But Putin, I think, is a real loser here because this is ensuring continued, advantageous, incentivized American support for Ukraine. And this is what Putin gets for jerking Trump around. Had Putin said, I'll take the peace deal, Trump, I'll do what you want to do, I'll take some concessions and then we can drag Zelensky along and we'll have a peace deal, then Trump wouldn't need this mineral deal. But Putin thought he was going to push Trump around and there weren't going to be consequences. And more to it, I think Putin made the mistake of thinking that Trump is ideologically motivated or at least is susceptible to the ideological motivations of his base. The Trump base, and I'm a member of the Trump base, is a little bit split on Ukraine. Some want to keep supporting Ukraine, some hate Ukraine or don't care about Ukraine at all. Some are even sympathetic to the Russian claims. So it's a mixed bag here. And I think Putin thought by pushing on the more pro Russian, or at least anti Ukraine part of Trump space, they could get Trump to go along. But Trump doesn't really play that way. Trump is not particularly ideological. Trump makes deals and Trump pushes people around when people try to push Trump around. And Putin, he thought he was being real slick and real cool and he thought that he could get away with sending those missiles into Kiev and blowing up the peace process. So you know what Trump's gonna do? Trump's gonna get a nice mineral deal outta Ukraine. He's gonna get some nice money for the United States if Russia doesn't wanna play ball. If Russia believes, as Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace, that Europe will never be a sincere ally of Russia, that you really can't have a getting along between the west and Russia, okay, that's fine. Well, now we got an incentive to continue to defend Ukraine. And Putin just wasted a couple missiles shooting them at Kiev because now no more Mr. Nice Guy. There are partisans on both sides of this war, making ideological claims for Ukraine, the greatest democracy ever. We have to stand with the great democracy of corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs. Give me a break. And there are some people saying, well, actually, you know, Russia really has a point because Ukraine is sometimes part of its historic land. And actually, Putin is kind of based and right wing and Ukraine is kind of liberal and yeah, whatever. Trump doesn't care about that either. Trump cares about hard interests. Trump cares about the American. He's not pro Ukraine, he's not pro Russia. He's pro America, and he's pro American. Hard interests. Show me the money, honey. Give me the minerals. And if you're gonna play ball with Trump, great. He can work out a deal with anyone. He can work out a deal with Kim Jong Un. But if you're not gonna play ball, all right, keep getting your young men slaughtered. Vladimir Putin, fine by me. They're not gonna work. This is a very different ball game than we saw in the previous administrations, Democrat and Republican. Now, on national security, one story I really do have to get to. Trump has just ousted his national security adviser, Mike Waltz. He's ousted him in a smart and delicate way. Sometimes Trump gets attacked for being mean, firing people by tweet, that sort of thing. In this way, he was very delicate with Mike Waltz. Mike Waltz, according to reports, was the one responsible for adding Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic, to a group chat with Pete Hegseth and with JD Vance talking about Houthi missile strikes. I mean, a huge error, huge error of judgment. Ultimately not all that consequential. The strikes went off just fine, but not a good look. And the media tried to get Hegseth because all they wanted to do is get rid of Hegseth, but Hegseth really had very little to do with it. So at the time, we said, okay, we'll see if anyone's going to get fired. If anyone was going to be fired, it was going to be Mike Waltz. But Trump didn't do it right immediately. He didn't give the the frothing dogs of the media and the left what they wanted. He waited a little bit. Now he's swapping them out. Reportedly, Waltz lost the confidence of top administration officials and Trump is gonna put him up for UN Ambassador cuz he pulled at least Stefanik out from the UN Ambassador nomination because he needs Elise Stefanik in Congress. So he's just kind of moving people around. Nothing too harsh here. What does this mean for US Policy? Grand strategy, geopolitics. Waltz was considered to be on the more hawkish even some would call him a neocon side of foreign policy. The admin has lots of rivals. It's got free traders, it's got protectionists, it's got warhawks, it's got isolationists and doves. This would be a win for the dovish side of the administration. For now it depends on who they put in to replace him. That remains to be seen. Now finally, finally we get to the mailbag, my favorite part of the week. Our mailbag is sponsored by PureTalk. Switch to [e-mail] Knowles Today get a year of Daily Wire plus for free with a qualifying plan. Take it away.

[Caller 1]

Hi Michael, I was looking for your insight in a recent family situation. My dad likes to collect things which takes up space in his and my mom's house. She has complained for years about this, but my dad has been resistant to selling. Over a year ago, my mother asked my older brother to to sell some of my dad's collections behind his back and she would split the money with him and told him not to tell my dad. A couple months later, my older brother told me and my younger brother about this arrangement. We told him we thought it was shady. He pushed back, saying mom told him not to tell, but eventually agreed to come clean. About a year later, the collection came up. When I was with my mom and dad and I realized my brother never told him, so I filled him in. This has caused somewhat of a divide in our family over who was right and who was in the wrong. Is what I did by bringing the situation to light the right thing to do? Or should I have listened to my mom and not told my dad and avoided the whole conflict?

[Michael Knowles]

You should not have listened to your mother. In this case, you might have acted a little differently, but your heart was in the right place. Your mother's behavior was egregious here. I mean, there's not a hint of irony. That's really awful. You should not have a parent saying to the kids, hey, don't tell your mother or don't tell your father about this. Hey, I'm gonna bring you kid into a little secret pact with me to encourage you to disrespect your other parent, in this case the father, supposed to be the head of the household. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna sell a possession that your father loves against his will without his knowledge. Really, really disgusting behavior that legitimately can threaten a marriage. So really, really bad stuff. Sorry, not to talk smack about your mom, but you brought it up and that's really bad. What I would have done though, because you have to honor your mother and your father is. I probably would have gone to your mother first. I wouldn't have gone to your brother. I would have gone to your mother said, hey, I heard you're doing this. This is bad. Don't do this. You're putting us in a horrible position. It's wrong of you to do this. You say this respectfully and I don't want to have to go rat and tell dad, but I have to honor him too. And if he keeps selling his stuff that he loves behind his back, I gotta do it. Do the right thing, mom. And honor your husband and respect your husband and don't behave this way respectfully. That's what I would do. Because this stuff, I mean, I'm not exaggerating. Who cares what the little trinket is or whatever that she's selling? It's the principle that she's forming an alliance with her kids against the father, the head of the household, totally inverting and perverting the family structure. Marriages have broken up for less. Okay, don't. That's what I would talk to the mother about this. Okay, next one.

[Caller 2]

Dear Michael, I'm a stay at home mom of three kids, four, two and six months up in America's evil top hat. A few weeks ago, my 4 year old pulled a book off the shelf at the local library and was looking at the pictures. I didn't see the title and was looking for books to take home and did a double take when I saw her looking at a drag queen and took the book away. Turns out the book is called the Bare Naked Book by Kathy Stinson. I flipped a few pages and there was a page on breasts with images of various women, including some with mastectomy scars and another page on male genitals. By God's providence, my child was not exposed to nudity. I was so angry and shocked, we immediately left. How do I respond to my library? I'd like to write something, but don't know what to say. While I think this book shouldn't be anywhere near kids at all, should I suggest it goes to a different section? My child should be able to look at any book in the kids section without supervision. I'd love your advice on what I should do. Thank you.

[Michael Knowles]

What I would first be tempted to do and might do if I were not, if my will got away from my reason for a second is I would destroy it or throw it in the garbage because that has no business I might burn it, actually. I might burn it in front of everyone in the town square. But that's not the reasonable thing to do. That's not the right thing to do. It's not your property. You don't have a right to do that. So what I would probably do, being a Vitalian distraction, always trying to find a little work around here, I would probably just hide the book in the library underneath a shelf or something or underneath a desk. And so no one should be exposed to that obscenity and that degeneracy. But I wouldn't steal it or destroy it. That would be my little Sicilian Via Media. Okay, now, what you might do, if you wanna make it, if you wanna write a letter, for instance, I would make it a public thing. I mean, that is disgusting stuff. So that's where I might turn to TikTok and say, you know, look, this is the library. The public library is a public institution. It's a political institution. Citizens fund it. Citizens have a right to set some boundaries around it. And if you're putting weird porn in the kids section, you shouldn't have porn in the adult section in a library, but certainly in the kids section, you gotta get that out of there. And so I would make a stink, and I would get people fired, and I would get state senators involved, and I would make it political, because it's the public library. It's a political issue, and you have a right as a citizen to do that. Now, my guest who's coming on right now knows a little bit about books. He's written about 750 of them. He also predates libraries. I think he remembers the construction of the library at Alexandria. That would, of course, be Daily Wire's millennial correspondent, Andrew Clavin. Drew.

[Andrew Klavan]

Hey.

[Michael Knowles]

Thanks for coming on the show.

[Andrew Klavan]

Hey, it's good to see you. That's the only way I can get to see you, you know.

[Michael Knowles]

I know. I keep waiting. You know, I have cigars piling up in my humidor because ever since you stopped your weekly sojourns to Nashville, I have very few people to steal cigars from me. So now I have a surplus. I don't. But you've been working. You have a new book.

[Andrew Klavan]

I actually like your cigars. I do. I have a book. I have an excellent, excellent book. Yes.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm also really grateful that you wrote this book, because this is the first time receiving the copy, because it's a nonfiction book, so I, as a philistine, can read it, can finish it.

[Andrew Klavan]

I know that's right.

[Michael Knowles]

The Kingdom of Cain, finding God in the literature of darkness. For those who don't know, Drew managed to turn a book about John Keats and Christ into a bestseller, which, like, a top bestseller. I didn't know any. Most people today don't even know who John Keats is. Some might not know who Christ is. But this is in the same vein, is it not?

[Andrew Klavan]

Yeah, but this is dealing with more popular entertainment. This has things about. It's really about murders. It's about famous murders in history that a lot of people have forgotten about so that they might learn something there. But they inspired movie after movie after movie, TV shows, novels. So you know Ed Gein, who inspired Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which in turn inspired the entire slasher genre. The. The Leopold and Loeb. I can't believe this is 1920s Leopold and Loeb. So I was at the trial, and this is. These are two guys who decide. Had read Nietzsche and decided they were supermen. They were young men lovers. They decided they were supermen, so they were going to commit the perfect murder and essentially reenacted Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and actually went and killed some little kid. And like the supermen, they were. They were picked up by the Chicago cops in about a week and carted off to prison. And this is inspired movie after movie after movie. You can probably see if you go through the course of maybe three years of movies and crime TV shows, you will see a story about two people who come together and decide to commit the perfect crime, either for the thrill of it or because they think that they're better than everybody else. And basically what I'm showing people. I don't know about you, but I can't watch modern Christian storytelling movies and things like that. I mean, it's just. So.

[Michael Knowles]

You mean because of how bad they are?

[Andrew Klavan]

Because of how bad they are.

[Michael Knowles]

How just absolutely insufferable and sappy. And. Yeah, this is the.

[Andrew Klavan]

This is the religion that inspired the greatest art literally ever. Right? So you've got, you know, you got Bach, you got Michelangelo, you got Shakespeare. I believe Shakespeare was. Was a Catholic. My. And like, I think it's. It's just imbued in his work and. And now, you know, you get there, you know, God is not dead number five this time. He's really not dead and all this stuff. So I. I just would like to show people that even the darkest literature, the darkest stories, that is not suitable for family entertainment can lead the way to actually understanding how God may be able to make something beautiful out of the evil of the world. That artists are sort of imitators of God. They're creators. They want to continue the creation. And so I just wanted to show you how these things fit into the imagination and how artists then took these horrible murders and turned them into these illuminating, absolutely Christ led books. You know, even the guy. Even the artists who didn't want them to be Christ led, they were so honest in what they were depicting that it actually shows you something about where our conscience as a collective. Where our collective conscience was in relation to God. So, you know, I mean, you. You know that one of the first things that turned me in the direction of faith was reading Crime and Punishment when I was 19. So this is a story about an ax murderer. And it convinced me that there was no such thing as relative morality, that morality was an absolutely objective thing. And I thought, like, if I went into a Christian bookstore and said, could you have that book about the axe murderer who's like, redeemed by a prostitute? You know, they like, I'm sorry, sir, would you leave the room?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, it's down the street. That's at the Knoxville.

[Andrew Klavan]

So I just wanted to study the way that art transforms the darkness of life into something illuminating and even uplifting when it's done by great artists.

[Michael Knowles]

Do you think that that book. Were you listening to the mailbag that I had just now?

[Andrew Klavan]

I was, yes.

[Michael Knowles]

Do you think that the book in the library with all the genitals in the kids section, do you think that that rises to the level of great art?

[Andrew Klavan]

Well, I actually found a similar book in the library of Alexandria which solves the problem of how it burned down.

[Michael Knowles]

Were they able to be quite so graphic on the vellum and the stone tablets?

[Andrew Klavan]

They chiseled. They were good chiselers, those guys. They knew exactly what they were doing. I think that this is so shameful. I hate to say it, but I actually agreed with you that you should make a serious fuss about it. I mean, the idea that, you know, it's so interesting that they keep doing this to kids. And then when you come out and read what they're putting in schools out loud, they tell you to stop reading it out loud because it's just too filthy, you know, so these are genuine perverts. And, you know, I love they.

[Michael Knowles]

They always say, you know, well, you're just trying to ban books and you're a philistine. And in practice, they're even good, normal people who say, yeah, we shouldn't ban books. Whatever. But. But then you have to tell them like, hey, sure, right, whatever. Read the book. Take a look at the. Take a look at the photographic obscene porn in the four year old section of the library or in the kindergarten part of the school library. And then you still agree we should have that because now you're not a defender of free speech. Now you are a child abusing pervert. Are you kidding me?

[Andrew Klavan]

Well, you know. You know what? I don't. I think porn can be banned. I think I would. I would shut down every porn site on the Internet. Except I don't know what they do for money at this point. But, like, I think that.

[Michael Knowles]

I know. Isn't it all free? Maybe not. They have only fans now where you. I don't know. That seems like they're really the biggest scam of all. You know, if there's one thing that the Internet provides, it's pictures of naked ladies. And now people are even paying for it. So, I don't know, they make money somehow. They make a lot of money.

[Andrew Klavan]

It's interesting to me that the same people who wanted to investigate Catholics who went to Latin Mass don't think. Think that banning porn is violating the first Amendment. That's the same people you know.

[Michael Knowles]

Drew, I have more mailbag that I want you to weigh in on. In fact, I want to hear your thoughts. There was a question at the top of the voicemail bag about this mother who made a deal with her kids to undermine her father's. The father's authority in Celeste. I want to get your thoughts on that because you all. Not only do you predate libraries, I think you were born before marriage existed.

[Andrew Klavan]

So, yes, before mothers existed, I just appeared. I was like, we're gonna get to.

[Michael Knowles]

All of that right now, and we're gonna get to fake headline Friday that Drew's gonna help me out on. But you've got to go, you hoy polloi. You need to go to dailywire.com using code KNOWLES and you'll get two months free or something like that. I don't know. You got a lie. Even if you had to pay for an extra two months, you should go subscribe. We have the Membrum Segmentum coming up, right.