J.D. Vance (9:40)

Well, first of all, we don't want to achieve regime change. We want to achieve the end of the Iranian nuclear program. John. That's America's objective and that's what the President has set us out to do. The President, in the very tweet you mentioned or the truth that you mentioned, John, said explicitly that he's not trying to take out the Iranian Supreme Leader, he's trying to take out their nuclear program. And of course, we took a major step forward with that last night. And again, John, I think we have to back up and, and test some premises here. How do you achieve long term peace? How do you prevent spiraling Middle Eastern conflict? Is it through overwhelming military power targeted to an American objective, or is it by sort of walking yourself into these long term, protracted military conflicts? I think by choosing overwhelming force and overwhelming force tied to something that is important to the American people, that is the end of the Iranian nuclear program, we can achieve peace much more fully than if we sort of sit on our hands and hope that somehow if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, they're going to be more peaceful. That is a stupid approach and the President rejected it.

Michael Knowles (10:47)

Very, very well stated. I would say that that is probably precisely my view of the situation, that if the security concern has really risen to this level, that Iran is close to, or close to close to being able to get a NUC weapon, then America's, the global hegemon, has to intervene. But we don't wanna push all the way into Bush era nation building, planting a Madisonian democracy in Iran, which would be even harder than it was in Iraq, in Iraq where it failed. So we are not pushing for regime change from the US and it would have played very, very well until President Trump posted about regime change hours later. Hold on. Put a pause. I will get to that cliffhanger in just one moment. First go to oldglorybank.com you know, some companies are just now rediscovering patriotism and treating love of country like it's a hot new trend. Not Old Glory Bank. They have been pro America from the very beginning. Back when standing for faith, family and freedom actually cost something. 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So JD Vance comes out, says, look, we had overwhelming military force. We intervened. This is not getting broiled down in a war. This is instead just a strike to achieve a tactical end. And now we're done. No regime change. And then President Trump posts, it's not politically correct to use the term regime change. But if the current Iranian regime is unable to make America Great again. Why would there not be regime change? Three question marks, Miga. Three exclamation points. Make Iran great again, I take it, Miga. So are the President and the Vice President contradicting each other here? I don't think necessarily. I think perhaps what you're seeing is, is Trump leaving a carrot. I think what you're seeing and what you've been seeing from the beginning on Iran going back to the 60 day period when Trump, I think, quite sincerely, wanted to come to a nuclear deal, the Iranian regime didn't want to play ball. They called Trump's bluff and then unfortunately, Trump wasn't bluffing. Unfortunately for them, I think what Trump is doing here is leaving the Iranian regime a carrot. So J.D. vance comes out and says, quite rightly, regime change in Iran is not our top priority. If we can achieve our strategic ends without regime change, we're happy to do it because it's gonna bog us down. It could derail our agenda is the implication. Trump comes out and he says, look, you're not supposed to say regime change. Why shouldn't we? If this regime can't make Iran great again, maybe we need a new regime now. I think what he's leaving open as a possibility here is the Ayatollah could make Iran great again, but you gotta play ball with the United States. I think Trump knows he's made deal making enough of his identity for the last 50 years that he knows that in order to achieve a deal, you don't only use the stick, you use the carrot. You have to give people not only a threat, but an incentive. If you go along with what I wanna do, we're gonna reward you. The only incentive left that Trump has to offer the Iranians is, is that he won't destroy their regime. So the threat obviously is maybe we will destroy your regime. But we've already got the economic sanctions, we've already dropped the bunker busters, we've already destroyed. Maybe we've destroyed your nuclear program. It's actually a little unclear. But hey, here's one incentive. If you play ball, we might let you stay in power. But don't call my bluff again. Don't call my bluff again because I'm crazy enough to take you out of power too. I think that's what's going on here. And I think in a helpful way for the Iranians, Trump is giving the Ayatollah the ability to save face here. Because what could the Ayatollah say to maintain his legitimacy and his credibility? At this point, he's Been completely pantsed by the United States and Israel. He's been completely humiliated. There's very little left of the regime to change in the first place. But if the Ayatollah can come out to his people, to his neighbors in the Middle east, to his allies in China and Russia and say, look, yeah, they took out most of my nuclear facilities, okay, yeah, that was really bad. But you saw Trump. Trump wanted to kick me out of power, and I held onto power. Take that, America. Take that, Great Satan. Yeah, you thought you could push me around. You can't push me around. I've held on to power. It just gives. It gives him something to be able to save face. But I think it's a credible threat, too. If the Iranians really don't wanna play ball, maybe they say, look, at this point, in for a penny, in for a pound, we're done. I've named my successor. They're gonna take me out. If not the Americans, the Israelis are gonna do it. Because even if the Americans don't want regime change as an urgent priority, you know, the Israelis do. They've said, I think it was the Defense Minister of Israel said, that the Ayatollah can no longer be allowed to exist because the Ayatollah struck that hospital in Israel. So, okay, look, maybe it's all over and we're not gonna play ball. Maybe we will have regime change, but I think Trump is leaving open the possibility, maybe we don't. Now, some members. Turning back to the domestic front, some members of Congress are saying that Trump's strike on Iran is illegal or unconstitutional. And whatever you think about the strike on Iran, as you know, I've urged a little more circumspection and caution on Iran, though I recognize we're a global empire. There are more forces at play than just particular ideologies. However, some people came out, like AOC said, this is unconstitutional. Unconstitutional. We need to open up impeachment investigations for what? Not just her. Hakeem Jeffries was suggesting this was illegal. Unconstitutional. A lot of top Democrats. So we'll get to whatever their argument is for a second, because I'm not surprised that AOC and the Democrats are calling this unconstitutional. But you have an ostensibly conservative Republican, Thomas Massie, making the same argument on liberal CBS News. The speaker of the House, who is from your own party, has really rejected this. He says the Article 1 power of Congress really allows for the president to do this. It was a limited, necessary, targeted strike. He says.

Thomas Massie (17:43)

Well, he's probably referring to the War Powers act of 1973. But that's been misinterpreted. There was no imminent threat to the United States, which was what would authorize that. And I think that's peculiar to hear that from the speaker of the House. Look, Congress was on vacation last week when all this was happening.

Michael Knowles (18:02)

You haven't been briefed on anything.

Thomas Massie (18:04)

We haven't been briefed. They should have called us all back and frankly, we should have debated this War Powers Resolution that Ro Khanna and I offered. Instead of staying on vacation and doing fundraisers and saying, oh well, the President's got this under control. We're gonna cede our constitutional authority.

Michael Knowles (18:21)

Okay, look, I don't have anything particular, particularly against Thomas Massie. I know they're in this fight now, Trump and Massey. Massie's a libertarian, so I have lots of philosophical and ideological differences with him. I think libertarianism is kind of silly. I'm a conserv. We have a difference of opinion on certain matters of first principle. But what he just said here, I've often thought he's an intelligent guy, he's got principled guy. Even if some of his principles are wrong. What he just said is ridiculous. That is like AOC level ridiculous. He says, well, this is such a libertarian argument. Sorry to our libertarian friends. I know there are many wonderful libertarians who listen to the show, but this is such a. This is like the worst of libertarianism. This is the utopian ahistorical libertarianism. He says, well, the reason Trump thinks that he had the right to these strikes is because of the War Powers resolution from the 1970s. The war powers Resolution, which says that the President can deploy troops and can wield the US military for 60 days and it's really 90 days. Cause you get a 30 day withdrawal period. But that's actually been misinterpreted. He doesn't really have that right. It's been misinterpreted. Now notice why he has to say misinterpreted. The reason is presidents have done. Presidents of both parties have done what Donald Trump did on Saturday night since the War Powers Resolution was passed. Every, I think every single president maybe with the exception of Carter. What a great example that was. What a great presidency that was. Jimmy Carter. Basically every single president since the War Powers Resolution was passed has done at least what Trump did. And usually more egregious examples of what Trump did. So Jerry Ford did what Trump did twice. Ronald Reagan did it three times at one time. The troops in Lebanon created a big problem. The Beirut barracks bombings which killed a bunch of U.S. troops. H.W. bush did it twice. Bill Clinton did it three times. George W. Bush actually did get authorization, though sometimes he arguably exceeded his authorization. What's funny is George W. Bush was actually among the most constrained in using the War Powers Act. Barack Obama did it twice. Joe Biden did it a couple times. Though it was a little bit murkier. Cause there were much older war resolutions or use of force resolutions for Obama and Biden, but they basically used it a couple times. So what is he arguing? What is Massie arguing here? He's saying, okay, since this war resolution was passed in the 1970s, it has always been misinterpreted. Basically, every president of both parties has used it in the wrong way. But I, Thomas Massie, I know the true meaning of the War Powers Act. And so I know that it has just been constantly misinterpreted for 50 years because no one asked Thomas Massie. Someone should just ask Thomas Massie, and then they would have been clear on what the law actually meant. And that's why what Trump did is illegal and unconstitutional. Give me a break. This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. If a law is interpreted by both parties and multiple presidents for 50 years as meaning one thing, some random libertarian member of Congress doesn't get to redefine that. Sorry. So ridiculous. That's why it's unconstitutional and illegal. This is also why people have problems with libertarians. This is why. Because, look, I was a libertarian once. We all were libertarians, many of us were, when we were teenagers. And people say, well, listen, these libertarians, they're so principled. They sometimes get things wrong in practice, but they're the ones who are truly principled. Some people, there are surveys that come out, they say, Thomas Massie is the most conservative member of Congress. That's not possible. It is not possible at once to be the most libertarian member of Congress and the most conservative member of Congress. Cause libertarianism and conservatism are different things, okay? But even beyond that, well, he's the most principled. He's got the most principles. Let me ask you something, and I say this with affection. I know it seems like I'm on an invective here. I'm just haranguing the libertarians. But I do so out of love, like jilted love. Because I was once, I thought like this. Pick your favorite libertarian politician. Just close your eyes. It doesn't have to be Thomas Massie. Close your eyes. Who's your favorite libertarian politician of any era? I'm not talking about a Republican. Who likes tax cuts. I'm not talking about a conservative who watched Milton Friedman videos. I'm talking about a real libertarian like that capital L libertarians claim this guy is a libertarian. Okay, close your eyes. Imagine that person. Now name one concrete political achievement that that person has ever done that that person can claim. Name one. I'm talking not will he change the culture he changed. No, no, no, no. I want like a concrete, actual political achievement for your most favorite beloved principled libertarian politician. You can't name one is the thing that's the issue, and you can't name one because libertarianism is a utopian political ideology that misunderstands human nature and therefore politics. Because man is the political animal, okay? That's why that's the problem. That is my issue. I like them. I think generally they have good intentions, but that's the problem. And Trump has taken that frustration and gone death con 3. To quote Kanye west, he has gone all the way. He has declared war on Thomas Massie. We're gonna take a beat. We're gonna take a beat. Pull over your car, sit down if you're standing up and go to simplerhaircolor.com knowles for those of you who have not been blessed with the genes for dark, luxurious hair, such as you see on your screen right now, there is still hope for you to keep the grays away. I'm going to tell you about simpler hair color if you're tired of those science experiments just to cover your grays. Simpler hair color gets it done without the mess or the mixing. Just gentler ingredients that work and make covering grays simple. The founders, Snehal Patel and Mitch Brown got tired of dealing with messy home dye kits and the harsh chemicals at salons, so they created a safer, easier hair dye formula made specifically for men. What makes it even better is you don't need separate products for your hair beard and touch ups. One can does it all and gives you up to four times more uses than those drugstore boxes. Plus, Simpler hair color has a full variety of shades to match any guy's hair and beard. So I can grab a can of full coverage brown black dye if that day should ever come. It's really important to have good hair. Okay. I Derive at least 97.3% of my terrestrial powers from from my hair. Say goodbye to grays the easy way. With simpler hair color go to simplerhaircolor.com knowles kanowlas use code knowles for 15% off your order simplerhaircolor.com knowles for 15% off make sure you use My code Knowles K N O W L E S so they know that I sent you. President Trump had this to say about Thomas Massie. It's a lot. I'll try to read it quickly. Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not maga, even though he likes to say he is. Actually, MAGA doesn't want him, doesn't know him and doesn't respect him. He is a negative force who almost always votes no, no matter how good something may be. He's a simple minded grandstander who thinks it's good politics for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, the highest level nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling death to America at every chance they get. Iran has killed and maimed thousands of Americans and even took over the American Embassy in Tehran under the Carter administration. We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the bomb right out of their hands and they would use it if they could. But as usual, and despite all of the praise and accolades received, this lightweight congressman is against what was so brilliantly achieved last night in Iran. Massie is weak, ineffective and votes no on virtually everything put before him Parentheses Rand Paul Jr. He's going after Rand too. Rand is catching strays during the attack on Thomas Massie. There he repeats the same thing, votes no on everything, no matter how good something may be. So you're getting this sense, I just love Trump's prose where it's just, it's like stream of consciousness. He is disrespectful to our great military and all that they stand for. Now he's really ratcheting up the rhetoric here. He's disrespectful to our military, all they stand for, not even acknowledging their brilliance and bravery in yesterday's attack, which was a total and complete win. Massie should drop his fake act and start putting America first. But he doesn't know how to get there. He doesn't have a clue. He'll undoubtedly vote against the great big beautiful bill, even though the non passage means a 68% tax increase for everybody and many things far worse than that. Okay, so here you're getting the sense, hold on Trump's just barrage against Massie and Massie's attacks on Trump. It might not just be about this Iran thing. It might be about a little bit more than those bunker busters on Saturday. He goes on. He goes on. MAGA should drop this pathetic loser Tom Massie like the plague. The good news is that we will have a wonderful American patriot running against him in the Republican primary. And I'll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard. MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, non productive politicians, which Thomas Massie has definitely won. Thank you to our incredible military for the amazing job they did last night. It was really special. Make America great again. Okay? Okay. Now, I know a lot of people love Thomas Massie. A lot of people are really upset with Trump, at least not a lot. A lot. But a lot of people, at least online, are really upset with Trump over the Iran bombings. So that's why Trump is coming out really hard against Massey. My point, regardless of what you think about the Trump Massey feud, is you should not be surprised by the Trump Massey feud. This has been going on for a long time. Thomas Massie was not a Trump guy. In 2016, Thomas Massie, being a libertarian, endorsed Rand Paul for president. And when he was asked what he thought about the state of the Republican primary, this is after Paul got out, I think he said he's really pessimistic. And he kind of grudgingly voted for the Republican ticket, but he didn't want to. He was really anti Trump in 2016. Then around January 6, the worst day in the history of this or any republic, Thomas Massie and five other Republicans in the House wrote a letter opposing President Trump's efforts to clarify what went on in that election. And it was somewhat balanced. But they were going against Trump around January 6th. Sorry, January 6th. And then in the 2024 primary, Thomas Massie was one of the first guys to come out and endorse Ron DeSantis and campaign for Ron DeSantis. So that's the backstory here. There's a whole backstory to this that goes on much further than the. Maybe further than the Iranian nuclear program. At least further than this episode in the Iranian nuclear program. So someone asked, they're like, why do libertarians play so well? Why does the Internet. Why do podcasters love libertarians? And the reason is libertarians always play really well on the Internet. The problem for libertarians is they play well basically nowhere else. That's why I remember. Yeah, what was it, 10, 15 years ago? There were all these think pieces. The libertarian moment. Is this the libertarian moment? No, there will never be a libertarian moment. If you think this is tough love, but, you know, you tune in to hear the truth. Okay. You don't tune in to be flattered or coddled. There will never be a libertarian moment. It will never happen anywhere. It's never happened before. It will never happen. The reason there will never be a libertarian moment is that libertarianism misunderstands human nature and views human beings fundamentally as isolated individuals atomized, rather than as what we are, which is social creatures who have not only entitlements and rights, but also obligations and primarily really duties and obligations. That's why, because it's a utopian ideology. So whatever you think about the Trump Massey fight, we'll see. I'm actually a little skeptical that the GOP could oust Massie. I think he's pretty popular in his district, so we'll see. But this is an outgrowth of a deeper philosophical debate, which is the debate between conservatives and libertarians. Now, speaking of political debates, Gavin Newsom is thirsty for a debate with JD Vance. He tweets out on Junetieth. Juneteenth, of course, is the day. It's the sacred feast after Juneteenth, but before June. T first Gavin tweets out, hey, J.D. vance. Nice of you to finally make it out to California. Since you're so eager to talk to me, how about saying it to my face? Let's debate. Time and place. Yeah, debate me, bro. Gavin Newsom really wants to be the Democrat nominee for president in 2028. I don't know if you'd noticed that. He really, really wants to be the guy. And he's doing pretty well at distinguishing himself from the rest of the field. It's mostly cuz there is no rest of the field right now for the Democrats. Kamala Harris, total going nowhere. Mayor Pete? I don't think so. Who Gretchen Whitmer is maybe the closest other thing they have to a candidate. So Newsom, just by process of elimination, I guess, is the leading guy in the field for 2028. But notice Gavin Newsom is trying to launch a 2028 Democrat presidential campaign by imitating what the American right was doing in 2015. First, he launches a podcast, and on that podcast, he invites on Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk and tries to suck up Tamaga. That's the first thing he does. The first tactic is, hey guys, check out my new podcast. The year is 2025. That's very 2015 energy. Hey guys, check out this. I got a cool new podcast, man. I'm cool and hip. And then the second tactic is debate me, bro, which is the American rights tactics from 10 years ago. I was part of it. I did that. A number of us did that. But buddy, come on. It's 2025 and you're governor of a state and you're trying to run for president as a Democrat. I don't know if it's gonna work. Kind of weak. Now, speaking of California Democrats, a true political achievement from a very prominent Democrat. Nancy Pelosi has outperformed every large hedge fund in the country last year. Her portfolio is the greatest example of financial acumen anywhere in the country. She raked in between 7.8 and $42.5 million in 2024. That's a pretty big range. This is according to reporting from the New York Post. That means that her net worth, along with her husband, is now somewhere in the neighborhood of $413 million, according to financial disclosures. That's pretty big because her 2023 net worth was $370 million. So that's a lot of scratch. How'd she make all that extra money? Well, we actually know, we have a few examples from reporting of how she made that money. She, for instance, dropped 5,000 shares of Microsoft, which was worth north of $2 million back in July. That was one of their largest sales in three years. That was just a few months before the FTC announced an antitrust investigation into Microsoft. What are the odds? What are the odds? That's amazing timing. Then the Pelosi's also sold 2,000 shares worth over half a million dollars. A Visa that was less than three months. Again, three months. That number is kind of interesting. Before the credit card company was hit with a DOJ monopoly lawsuit. Wow. Impressive. And then Nancy Pelosi exercised a call option in December that she had bought in late 2023 at a premium of $1.8 million, which allowed the Pelosi's to get 50,000 shares of Nvidia for 12 bucks a pop, less than a tenth of its market price. So they exploded because of Nvidia, which means that the couple paid 2.4 million for the Nvidia investment and it's now worth over 7 million. Wow, man, what am I thinking? I got, you know, buddy of mine, manages my money for a smart financial guy, but I guess I gotta fire him. I gotta hire Nancy Pelosi. Huh? You should too. It's amazing. No one, I don't care how loyal a yellow dog Democrat you are, no one can possibly look at this and say it's not corrupt. It's just not possible. Nancy Pelosi, even if she'd outperformed a hedge fund, she can't outperform all the big hedge funds and have it just be chalked up to her financial acumen. It's so, so corrupt. And so the Democrats are losing on two fronts right now. One, they don't know what they believe are the Democrats for securing our borders? Are the Democrats for open borders? Are the Democrats for Israel? Are the Democrats for Palestine? To talk about this recent, a recent issue in the Middle east, are the Democrats for supporting American labor and protective tariffs, or are the Democrats for free trade and forget about labor, which plays into the immigration issue too. They don't know what they believe and they're manifestly super duper corrupt, which is why tying it all the way back to what we're talking about, which is what most people are gonna be debating today, the Iran issue. It's why the Iran issue is so perilous right now for Trump. Because Trump has a great domestic agenda and he's racking up great domestic wins and he's assembled a great voter coalition that includes disaffected Democrats who came over with Bobby Kennedy on Maha, but also a lot with Tulsi Gabbard on opposing the Forever Wars. So Trump has a great domestic agenda and if he can go in, bomb Iran, take care of the nuclear problem and just move on, great. That's one thing. If we get bogged down in a regime change in Iran, so we boot out the ayatollah and then what? Maybe we don't know who comes in. Does Reza Pahlavi come in? The crown prince, the son of the deposed shah? Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't work. Maybe there's an election and maybe, I don't know, some other party wins. Maybe there's a Shia insurgency, maybe, who knows? Maybe it's not so easy to change regimes as we sometimes think it is. If he allows himself to be distracted by that, you could lose the domestic agenda at a moment when Democrats are historically weak. The Democrats have not been this weak in my lifetime. This is unbelievable. On the ideology because of wokeism and on the corruption front because of people like Nancy Pelosi and the Bidens and the Clintons are just so obviously corrupt. So Trump is walking a tightrope right now. That's why when his voice cracks a little bit when he's talking about God, your voice should crack when you talk about God. You should have on wonder. It's the beginning of wisdom that represents a real political uncertainty. If you are not yet a Daily Wire plus member, now is the time to change that. You get every single daily wire show, including this one. Most importantly, this one, at least an hour before anyone else. By the time the show's the news could have completely changed at this rate. Plus you'll get the show ad free and uncensored. It is more than just early Access and premium content. It's about joining a community of people who want the truth, respect tradition, and are armed with good old fashioned common sense. This is where like minded people come together to push back, speak up, build something the left can't cancel or burn down. If that sounds like you, join now@dailywireplus.com okay, my favorite comment yesterday, when was it? When were we here? Saturday is from Flexible Aspect, who says breaking news. A federal judge has demanded Trump retrieve the bombs and repair the nuclear facilities. That's true. That's all it takes. One federal judge out of 701 district judge. Okay, sorry. Send in the B2 again. Have him scoop up that bomb. What can we do? What can the executive of the United States do? Some random federal judges said we must. Okay, most important story, of course, of the last week, Jojo Siwa says that she was pressured to be a lesbian. Who is JoJo siwa? I don't know really. I think she's an actress and a singer. Something like she's a pop culture figure and she was a lesbian, but she's not a lesbian anymore because she posted a picture or her boyfriend posted a picture with a guy. She was like lying in bed with him all nuzzled up. And it wasn't even a girly boy. It wasn't even a guy who paints his nails or something. It was like a gigachad kind of looking guy. Very strange behavior for a lesbian. And she's addressed this. Jojo says, quote, when I came out at 17, 17, it's a minor. I said I'm pansexual because I don't care about gender. This is what she said to the Daily Mail. But then I kind of boxed myself in and I said, I'm a lesbian. And I think I did that because of pressure. As for where that pressure came from, she says, in a weird way, I think it came a little bit from inside the community at times, the LGBT elementop community, from people I know from partners I've had you just put in this world where you feel like because you now have said, oh, I'm a lesbian, you have to be a lesbian. And the truth is, man, sexuality is fluid, you know. Okay, clear away the gobbledygook from that statement. What is she saying? She's saying young people, kids, teenagers at least become gay because of pressure, peer pressure from the LGBT community. Is this Pat Robertson? Is this the religious right? Is this the church? Is this a terrible conversion therapist, homophobic, whatever, saying this? No, it's a girl who said she was A lesbian. Until five seconds ago, young girl said she was a lesbian as a teenager and now says, actually I wasn't really a lesbian, or the way I became a lesbian is because I was peer pressured into it by the lgbtq. I was groomed into it as a teenager by the LGBT community. She is saying exactly the same thing that the religious right and the social conservatives and the so called homophobes have said for decades. So what is it? Is she right? Choose your answer carefully. I know there are liberals and leftists and all sorts of people, LGBT elementop activists who watch the show, some of whom are paid to do that so that they can get clips of me. But some of them who watch it just out of their own choice. Keep an open mind. You obviously have one. One of two things can be true. Either what JoJo Siwa said is right, that kids are groomed by the LGBT community into adopting LGBT identities, into adopting weird sex stuff, or you have to deny the lived experience and the self professed sexual orientation and identity of a young queer girl. Those are your only two options. Which one is it? Which one? Ooh. Ah. It's a tough one, huh? What is it? Well, it's the former, but you could also do the latter. You can also deny people self identified sexual identities and orientations because there is such a thing as objective reality. We can know these things through reason. And it turns out that the whole sexual revolution was false. We talked earlier in the Trump Massey fight about false anthropologies, false conceptions of human nature. There is no falser conception of human nature than the LGBTQ identity. Just ask young erstwhile lesbians. They will tell you. Speaking of weird sex stuff in the sexual revolution, one last point. Really good news. I know there's some news or people don't. Is it good news? Is it bad news? Bombing Iran? Oh, there's some infighting on the right. Oh, maybe Trump's domestic agenda is imperiled. Oh, there's some perilous news that's come out. But I've got some unambiguously good news. NBC of all places, is reporting that the crusade against pornography is attracting a huge coalition, huge coalition of people, the strange bedfellows driving and winning the war on porn. Feminists, religious crusaders and alpha male influencers have turned the tide in the decades old battle over a content. Here's just one paragraph from it. Once viewed as a fringe moral crusade, the war against porn has ballooned into a multi pronged mainstream force over the past decade that now counts. Feminists, religious Crusaders, alpha male influencers, and a growing number of politicians among its ranks. And after several key social and legislative wins, the movement faces its biggest test. A Supreme Court ruling this summer is set to determine whether a Texas law, which mirrors legislation in over a dozen states and requires porn sites to confirm a visitor's age or face financial penalties in the name of protecting minors from explicit content, infringes on the First Amendment rights of adults. Does, does applying the same rules we've had for porn magazines and newsstands forever, does applying those same rules to the Internet, that is making sure little kids don't get this content, does that violate the First Amendment? This sounds like the people Trump. Trump violated the Constitution by doing what every president has done since the War Powers Resolution, which is obviously within his permission. Views Commander in chief. Does this. Is this when the, when the framers of our Constitution were writing the First Amendment, do you think they said? And this. Here we are gathered, gentlemen, to ensure that little children can be groomed into creepy, obscene sex stuff from the very, very youngest ages. We the people are here gathered to preserve creepy porn for children. That is why we fought, why we bled the blood of independence in the revolution. No, I don't think so. By the way, this coalition pace NBC news is nothing really new. Here is Katherine McKinnon, radical feminist, not a conservative, not a libertarian, even just a radical left wing feminist in 1995, explaining her view of porn. How does your position on this differ from that of the religious conservatives like Reverend Wildman and others who are in favor of censoring pornographic material?

Catherine McKinnon (45:19)

Well, it mainly differs because they don't support our ordinance, that is, they don't support our work.

Michael Knowles (45:25)

They don't agree with you go further than they do.

Catherine McKinnon (45:28)

Well, I don't know exactly what you would say about, I mean, we go further because our approach would actually be effective in doing something about it. Their approach is obscenity law, which has been in effect since 1973 and has done nothing, while the pornography industry has somewhere between doubled and tripled in size.

Michael Knowles (45:47)

Okay, so she says, no, no, I'm not like the religious right. I mean, I share all of their goals. The difference between me and the religious right, me, a radical feminist on porn, is I want to be effective. I want to go much further. So how does she go further? How do the anti porn feminists, the sex negative feminists, let's say, contrary to the sex positive people that we've heard so much about the last 20 years, how do they go further than the religious right? Here's what she says, are women and.

Catherine McKinnon (46:17)

Children or men being hurt on the basis of sex by the. Can you prove that someone is being hurt by this? For example, a white only sign?

Michael Knowles (46:28)

Right.

Catherine McKinnon (46:28)

It's only words, but it segregates, right? For example, cross burnings. They terrorize, they intimidate, they segregate. They do things. For example, lynchings. A lynching is to be watched. You've got a dead body hanging in the square after the thing has been accomplished. It expresses something. It expresses white spirit supremacy. It says, stay in your place, keep down. Okay? Now we have a pornography industry that does all that through a technologically sophisticated means, through pictures and words. That is all it is, and that is all it does. It's the same thing. And those are actual acts. That isn't what quote, unquote offends somebody. Charlie, if you hurt a woman screaming in the next room by being bounced off walls by a man she lives with, are you offended? I mean, that isn't what you say to yourself. You're experiencing the enactment of an abuse. You're witnessing it.

Michael Knowles (47:30)

Okay, I almost totally agree with her here, Catherine McKinnon, she's making great points here. In the 90s, she's more recently made kind of crazy points. She embraced transgenderism. She's a feminist. She's like a radical left wing feminist. But the point she's making here is really, really good. But I would go further than her. She says, I agree with the religious right, but I would go further than them. I say, I agree with her, the radical feminist, but I would go further than her. She's trying to preserve liberal proceduralism by saying, look, I'm not calling for censorship, really. I'm just saying there's a difference between offensive content and speech acts. She's trying to draw this hard line between anodyne speech and speech that has effect. So she says, when you've got cross burning or something that's doing something unlike other speech, it doesn't do anything. When you've got pornography where it's an enactment of an abuse that then appeals to men and arouses their lusts by the abuse, that's actually an act of doing something with words, not just. Not just what? Doing nothing with words, all speech does something. That's why I would go further than her. I would say all speech does something. That's the point of speech. I mean, our speech is in many ways what distinguishes us from the brutes and from the angels, for that matter. It is in many ways what distinguishes us as humans. Because it means that we, like the angels, are rational creatures. We can debate things, we can discuss things. We can use signs and symbols to talk about external realities, objective reality. But like the brutes, we're incarnate. So we can't communicate through osmosis or telepathy. We need to communicate through the physical world. So we need to communicate through sounds. And you need to be able to hear a sound and then have your physical senses take that sound in and then your mind can interpret it. And I would go further and say, no, that's all speech. Of course, all speech does something. If speech didn't do something, we would just be grunting like baboons. So that's why we need serious standards. And we don't need to preserve liberal proceduralism. We can. And this brings me to my broader point, my broader point, which is something pre liberal, maybe post liberal, but certainly pre liberal. You can have good government. In fact, I think you're more inclined to have good government without all of this liberal idolatry of procedure. You'll have procedure, you'll have due process, you'll have all of those things to a great greater, much greater degree than you do during liberalism. But we need to be able to do good things and avoid bad things. And if your ideology prevents you from doing good things and avoiding bad things, then you have a false ideology. And I think that's often what people see in the ultimate impotence of libertarianism or the kind of soft liberalism that you see on the American right. And I think that's what's really at stake in the Iran issue. There are some ideologues who just want to reduce the Iran issue to a cartoon caricature. You have some people who say, oh, this is just the Israelis dog walking. I mean, you have some people on really the fringes who say that, you know, this is just the Israelis owning our country and using us as their own military. And America has absolutely no interest whatsoever in nuclear non proliferation. And usually those people just generally don't care for the Jews broadly. And so there's that cartoonish side. Then there's another cartoonish side which says, well, you know, the only way that we can be free is if we topple the regime in Iran. That's the only. They threaten our free, they hate us for our freedom, and they pose an existential threat to us, and we need to go glass the whole Middle east if we want to have our freedom. That's also not true. But there is this nice place in the middle which is called reality. And that's where you have to weigh competing goods and where you have to try to have a practical political solution. You have, on the one hand, these utopians who say, well, the President can never wield the military as commander in chief, ever, whatsoever. The Congress needs to declare every war. And that's just not true. On the other hand, you might have some people who say, the President can do whatever he likes. That's also not true. There is a. There is a place in the middle beyond the stupid, sophomoric procedural debates of the ideologues. There's a place in the middle for debating substantive goods. And the way that you should check your ideology is to say, does my ideology permit me to do what I know is obviously right? Does my ideology permit me to avoid what I know is obviously bad? For many people, they will say no, then get rid of that ideology and live in reality, in the real place of politics, where the real decisions are made, where real leaders have to grapple with real issues and competing apparent goods. That's where Trump is right now. That's where our country is right now. And that's why it's good to ditch ideology and ground your political views ultimately in God, which is also what Trump is doing. That's why his voice cracked a little bit. Okay, today is Monday. It is Music Monday. The rest of the show continues now. You don't want to miss this. Become a member. Use code Knowles, Canada wles at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.