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These are questions that take cultures thousands of years to answer. During Answer the Call, I take questions from people just like you about their problems, opportunities, challenges, or when they simply need advice.
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How do I balance all of this grief, responsibility? How do you repair this kind of damage?
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My daughter Michaela guides the conversations as we hopefully help people navigate their lives. Everyone has their own destiny. Everyone.
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For the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this delusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely. The whole preposterous ideology at every level. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. Momentarily we will have Dailywire's own Mary Margaret Olihan on to discuss an exclusive story about the political failures that led to and exacerbated this mass shooting yesterday. A trans identifying shooter shooting up a church full of little children, killing multiple children, injuring many, many other children. What caused this? It's not just the transgenderism. There's ideology, there's practical politics. There is a spiritual component that not enough people are talking about. We will get into all of that today. I mentioned transgenderism off the top because it is dispositive proof of severe mental illness. To identify as transgender is proof positive of severe, severe mental illness. And to ignore that or worse, to affirm that, as we have been doing in recent years, is not only cruel to everyone involved, including the person who identifies that way, but it's extremely dangerous, as some people have warned for years now and as we're seeing proven truer and truer every single day. We'll get into everything that happened. We will get into all of the facts from Minneapolis. We have journals, we have manifestos, we have videos, we have pictures. And a lot of people who are just rushing to take One partial view of what happened are missing a lot of really, really chilling but very, very important details. Before we get to that, we're gonna jump right into the political with Daily War Zone, Mary Margaret Olihan, live from the White House, who has some insight, some exclusive insight into, into the political failures that caused this problem. Mary Margaret, thank you for being here.
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Hey, Michael. So great to be with you.
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So before in the rest of the show, we're gonna get into exactly what happened, how it happened, all the details about the shooter and so on. Tell me a little bit about the politics, because there were Minnesota politicians who were leaping to pontificate about this moments after it happened. Sorry, Mary Murray, just the little preface, especially coming here from Nashville, but we had a shooting at a Christian school, A trans identified killer shooting at a Christian school. How is it possible that especially in the wake of that tragedy, this sort of thing could happen?
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Well, you would have to wonder, Michael, because after one of these absolute atrocities taking place, you would think that school officials and lawmakers all over the country would want to make sure that our children especially are safe. And actually there were some in Minnesota who reached out to Tim Walsh and said, please take measures to protect our kids at non public schools. Obviously, a lot of steps were taken to protect children at public schools. But when you have these private, independent, Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim schools, these kids still need to be protected too. And so we reported yesterday, we exclusively broke this news that leaders at independent and Catholic schools in Minnesota had reached out to Tim Waltz and said, please help us. There is a critical need for protecting our students. And this letter that they sent to Tim Waltz came only a week after this trans identifying shooter in Nashville killed children at Covenant Christian School in this tragic mass shooting. So they sent this letter a week later. What I'm told, and I spoke with the leaders that sent this letter is that they met with Tim Walsh. He expressed interest in helping them in wanting to secure these schools for children. But ultimately nothing was ever done. And so they were left in the lurch with these security measures. And I spoke with both of these leaders and they said that they were really disappointed that nothing had been done and that they expressed their sincere and deep sorrow for the incident that took place yesterday. This tragic shooting of these two children and these two parishioners and their deaths are being mourned by people all over the country. And then the injuries to all these other young children and the lasting impact that this will have on that community and these parents is just devastating. So, you know, we see all of these politicians talking about how thoughts and prayers are not enough, but these children were literally praying as they were killed. And these leaders are telling me that they had asked for help in this situation and it wasn't given to them. So we felt like this story was really important to report in the wake of this shooting and to help people understand that, yes, students at private schools, students at Catholic schools, Jewish schools all over the country, they are facing serious threats. And in this case, we have found two different shooters in the last several years who identify as transgender. They're in their 20s. They have a very obvious history of mental health issues. I would like to know, Michael, and I'm sure you would too, what kind of medications this shooter was taking. I asked this during the Nashville shooting. I asked the coroner who had the body of the Nashville shooter, was this shooter on so called gender affirming drugs, in her case testosterone? I never got any answers there. And I think in this case, we really deserve answers on what kind of so called gender affirming hormones this shooter was taking and what therapists and doctors he had been interacting with, because they are also to blame in this situation as well, of course.
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And just on the point of Tim Walls and the local authorities here, I guess this is what's most infuriating about the political response to me and I think to a lot of people is immediately, and we'll get to it later in the show. You had the Minneapolis mayor come out and lambast people and really mock people for suggesting that we pray and say, oh, they were praying in a church. You know, I think there was implicit mockery there of children praying in a church. A lot of good that did them. Where's your God now? That's basically the implication and the alternative that is proposed by these politicians is forget your prayer, forget your God, forget your thoughts. We need political action. We need to take strong political action. And then you come out with this report and you say, well, they requested political action. You didn't provide it. So where are your politicians now? Well, fine, yeah, please give us political action. You failed.
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Absolutely. I mean, you saw the vice president speaking about this on Twitter this morning, actually, or X as we call it now, talking about how prayer is being misunderstood by all of these people who are speaking out against it. Prayer in the most fundamental sense is asking the help of God, not just for God's help, but in ultimately living a virtuous life and ultimately, hopefully for many people, going to heaven. A lot of these people who are talking about prayer act as if it's just a thought. When in fact most religious people who are praying to God believe they're actually speaking to God. And a lot of these lawmakers are misunderstanding that. But when you have these children were literally praying as they were killed. You have these, these elderly parishioners. I believe there were two or three elderly parishioners in their 80s who were praying at daily Mass. I go to daily Mass as often as I can. I'm sure you do too, Michael. As a Catholic, this is a vulnerable space. This is a very deeply sacred space for Catholics and they're worshiping God in this space. They should never have had to deal with this horrible shooter coming and targeting them for their religious beliefs, as it appears. I had someone compare it to me yesterday to the scene in the Patriot where this really tragic scene where the church is burned down as these faithful Christians are inside praying. It's not unlike that. You know, this trans identifying shooter barricaded the doors so that some of these people couldn't get out. It's just incredibly tragic. And so I think to every American, to every Catholic around the country and around the world, this is a deeply, deeply sad and unsettling day. And to people of faith around the world, it's a reminder that you can be targeted for what you believe, especially if you adhere to Christian beliefs, as we have seen in the last several years.
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Especially, especially if you're Christian. You're totally right, Mary Margaret. We will be following it all the rest of the day as you're at the epicenter of American politics. Thank you for taking the time. So there are a number of aspects to this story. There's the trans aspect. We'll get to that. There's the ideological aspect, there's the spiritual aspect. And people are taking a partial view. They're not connecting the dots. Hold on just one Second. Text KNOWLES to 98. 98. 98. Is the continued divide between President Trump and the Federal Reserve putting us behind the curve again? Can the Fed take the right action at the right time or are we looking at a potential economic slowdown? What does it mean for your savings? Consider diversifying with gold through Birch Gold Group. For decades, gold has been viewed as a safe haven in times of economic stagnation, global uncertainty and high inflation. Birch Gold makes it incredibly easy for you to diversify some of your savings into gold. If you have an IRA or old 401k, you can convert that into a tax sheltered IRA in physical gold or just buy some gold to keep in your safe. First thing to do is to get Educated Birch Gold will send you a free info kit on gold. Just text my name, Knowles Knes to the number 989898. That is Knowles K, n o w l e s to 98. 98. 98. Consider diversifying a portion of your savings into gold. That way, if the fed can't stay ahead of the curve for the country, at least you can stay ahead for yourself. You know, I'm a little bit of a gold bug. Have a fair bit of gold in my portfolio. You ought to educate yourself on the subject. You can start that by Texting Knowles Kenna Wles to 9,898. 98. What do we have on the mental health side of it? Well, this person certainly not gonna say his name. He's a fella, he thought he was a woman. And apparently we have a record from his parents ordering his name change. So this is an order granting the name change of a minor on behalf of this man for the name change to a woman's name. The mother, I guess, reportedly requested this and said it was because the kid. The kid, he was 17. Identified as a. As a woman. So you have the family going along with it? I have some sympathy for the families in this case because a lot of them don't know any better and they're told by a doctor that if you don't pretend that your kid is the opposite sex, the kid is gonna kill himself. That's a standard procedure for doctors to fear monger. In that way, it's ridiculous to suggest that if you don't lie to your children and tell them to live out of conformity with reality, his life will get much worse. But in any case, we know that the shooter was trans identifying. We also know this is the other aspect of his mental health. We know that he was obsessed with other mass shooters. So I'm gonna be reading little parts of his journal and manifesto and things that we've had translated because some of it wasn't even in English, but he wrote, lately I have been entranced into the world of mass shooters. I've known about these events for years, even at the time being morbidly obsessed. And there are many, many. That's just one line, gives you the point. Obsessed with these mass shootings. So two things on the mental front. One, he was trans as a kid. Two, human beings are mimetic creatures. We imitate others. This is why one fears in the wake of suicide or a mass shooting or any major national event that there will be copycats. It's just a memetic aspect of our nature. We know that both of those factors very much at play here. Now we get to the ideological motivations is instantly in all of these cases, you have the left trying to blame the right. You have the right trying to blame the left. You have to say, he's a Trump supporter, he's a far right person. Occasionally you'll get the right getting out ahead of its skis. What do we know? We know that on his gun he wrote kill Trump now. Kill Trump now. So you'd say, okay, it looks pretty much someone on the left, right? Then you have on the scope right above Kill Trump now. It says. Also it says f optics. F optics. So this, if you're not very, very online, you might not have heard this phrase before, but it's a phrase that could be used by the left or the right to say, hey, I'm not going to couch my views in a way that is politically palatable or that is mainstream f optics. I'm gonna. I'm just going full bore. So there you say, well, I don't know. That could cut left or right. Then there's this line, bowl pilled. I don't know what bol is referring to here. It might refer to a bowl like you smoke marijuana. There are other drug references in the guns, I don't know. But the suffix pilled does code more right wing. You say, oh, he's red pilled. People even jokingly say, oh, I'm seltzer pilled, I'm cigar pilled, or something like that. So there you say, okay, well, this is someone who's at least fluent in right wing langu. But also this person quite explicitly says, kill Trump now. So that seems very left wing. Then another drug reference says vape God on one of the magazines. Hate you, frowny face. Vape God. Vape. Either could be nicotine or it could be more likely marijuana. Either way, there's a drug reference there. Then is a reference to Israel must fall above. What is, to my mind, even more interesting. It says, like a phoenix, we rise from the ashes. We'll get to what that means when we discuss the spiritual implications of all of this, which of course, the establishment media are totally missing. But Israel must fall. Now there too, you say, okay, it sounds like someone on the left. The people who are marching against Israel, the people who in public opinion polls are most anti Israel, generally are on the left. But there are people on the right that are that way too. It's generally Greta Thunberg and ikefia. It's generally Columbia Graduate students. But there's some people on the right who are anti Israel, too. Especially people who are extremely on the right, on the fringier part of the right. Okay, then it's not just Israel. This person writes, six million wasn't enough. So this is a reference to the genocide of Jews in the Second World War. Now you say, okay, it's not just someone anti Israel. This is someone who is anti Semitic, who actually hates the Jews as Jews and wants them to be exterminated. Not so much what is called a Holocaust denier as a Holocaust promoter. You know, there was a Holocaust and you need more of it. So then you say, okay, the person is anti Jewish, anti. But then what's weird is also on the magazine or on one of the guns, it says, remove kebab. Remove kebab is a kind of online reference to getting rid of Muslims. So you say anti Jewish, anti Muslim, and then shoots up a Catholic church full of Catholic school children. So now you're seeing something broader. It's not merely anti Semitism. It's not merely Islamophobia or whatever. It's not even merely. Though it is primarily anti Catholicism. Obviously, it was an attack on a Catholic Church, but it seems to be this broader attack on God. It seems to be. And then, I mean, you see other little lines here, such as life, burn Israel, remove kebab. There it is. There's also a name on the gun. I'm not gonna say the name once again, but it's the name of the guy who shot up the Pittsburgh Synagogue. And then, final point on the ideological motivations. A lot of the journals are written in Cyrillic. It's not even written in our Alphabet. It's written in, like, Russian. And the New York Post translated some of this. He wrote, free Palestine. If I carry out a racially motivated attack, it would most likely be against filthy Zionist Jews. I hate those entitled penny sniffing. It's a word that starts with K. It's a family show. It's a wholesome show. We won't say the word starts with K. You know, refers to a certain ancient nomadic tribe for good. Would be a target or political. Of political or societal significance. Targets like Musk, Trump, or some significant exec. And then here's the key to me, I can't really put my finger on a specific purpose. It definitely won't be for racism or white supremacy. So ultimately, this person is concluding, look, it's not really ideological. It's not really. It's not really. It's about Trump because he's the biggest guy in the world. It's about Elon because he's a really popular. But it could be some exec. It's not about racism or white supremacy. You know, it's not. It's not even just, I hate the Jews, I hate God, I hate the Muslims, I hate. But it's. And then what's strange is the anti Christianity is not even the most pronounced aspect of the journals and on the. On the guns. But that is the object of the attack. It's low Catholic school children. Ultimately, the church is what's attacked. The body of Christ is what's attacked. Which is what gets to the real point here. It's very difficult to code this ideologically left or right, because of the Trump aspect and because of all the Free Palestine stuff, I guess you would say it codes. This person codes more left wing. The person's trans identifying that is simply left wing. That's not a right wing thing. So you'd say the person is a leftist. You'd say the person is anti Trump. That's all true. But I don't think this is primarily ideological because New York Post continues to translate on the spiritual aspect here. I don't want to do it to spread a message. I don't want to shoot up this church to spread a message. I do it to please myself. He writes, I do it because I'm sick. I don't think I could just take myself out. He wants to kill himself. He says, I don't think I could just take myself out. I would need to do something with my final act. So he says, look, I'm pretending this is for some political cause or whatever, but it's not really. It's not really to spread a message. It's not to start a race war. It's not to get rid of all the Jews. It's not for Palestine. It's not to depose Trump. It's I want to kill myself. And I want it to be a spectacular event that gets a lot of attention from the journal Here we have a translation. This is from Daily Wire. He says, I consider myself to be a pretty knowledgeable person, not just on firearms, lol. I consider I definitely had a big ego and a bit of a superiority complex. So here is a real warning sign because you have an admission of the queen of all vices, you know, the deadliest of the seven deadly sins, which is pride. Pride, which is the primordial sin. Pride, which goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Pride, which really invites the devil. In really invites the devil in. He then goes on, I won't read all of it, but just to give you a sense of this, I want people to kneel under me, begging for their lives. This is the kind of prideful fantasizing of making oneself into God, a full reenactment of the primordial sin. I want to feel power over people. And he writes, over the most helpless people, over the people who are the most vulnerable little Catholic school kids in church. Okay, it gets creepier. But this is, you know, bear with me. You know, if you. If you don't have a strong stomach, skip ahead 30 seconds, 60 seconds. The spiritual aspect is the most important, though. He writes on the. On the magazine, one of the magazines for the children. Ha ha, ha, ha ha. He then writes, I referenced this a little earlier. He writes, israel must fall, but then specifically says, like a phoenix, we rise from the ashes. Forget about the Israel part for a second. Like a phoenix, we rise from the ashes. This is directly connected to the trans identity here, and the trans identity is directly connected to the spiritual aspect of this crime. Because some people seem not to have understood transgenderism itself is a form of suicide. We often say people who are trans activists and anti trans activists will both point to say, if you identify as trans, you are much, much more likely to kill yourself. And the pro trans activists say, see, that's why we need to normalize transgenderism, because it's so difficult for them that they kill themselves. The anti transactivist activists will point out and say, well, even after the transition, even after the surgeries, even after people accept this, they're still just as likely to kill themselves. But both of those are actually missing the point. It's not just that a trans identity inclines you to kill yourself. Transgenderism itself is a liturgical form of suicide by which a person comes into being like a phoenix rising from the ashes by killing the natural self. The natural self, which is then literally referred to as a dead name. If you've ever spoken to a trans identifying person, they'll say, don't call me the name that I have on my birth certificate. That's my dead name. That person is dead. This new person has been born. And it's a liturgical form in the sense that it is related to a spiritual conception and it's public. It's a liturgical form of suicide. Transgenderism itself is suicide. And you're seeing a description of that right there on the gun. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Israel must fall. You know, even forget the modern nation state of Israel for a second. Just think of Israel in its deepest spiritual meaning, Israel as the people of God. Whether we're talking about the temporal Israel, the spiritual Israel, the new Israel, Israel, the people of God must fall. Forget about. There are gonna be some people who say, well, I don't like the nation of Israel, or I don't like the Jews or what? Just get over your own prejudices for a second. Just think of what the word means we're talking about. The people of God must fall like a phoenix, we rise from the ashes. This is deeply disconcerting stuff for anyone who has a religious sensibility to him at all. And it gets much, much worse because we have an explicit expression of this guy talking to demons. Hold on one second. Go to goodranchers.com, use code knowles. You know how much I love good ranchers. In fact, I had Good Ranchers last night. I had a very, very delicious New York strip steak from good Ranchers. As I, as I do frequently. You know, when I was a kid, steak was kind of rare, you know, well, pun intended, I guess. But it's expensive, you know, it's a kind of a special treat. And good Ranchers has been able to deliver 100% American sourced local farm and ranches. Beautiful, delicious meat. 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Get 40 bucks off plus free meat for life when you start a subscription. Knowles code knowles. 40 bucks off free meat for life. Good ranchers.com, welcome to the table. So before, before we get to the image of the demon, this is, this is really Jarring. You get a guy who. He's writing all these kind of, like, funny lines. The big one, Tm fart. Ninja. Like the N word. I'll say, ninja. F u eat. S h I t. People look at that and they'll say, well, that's just kind of random verbal ejaculations. It's more than that, actually. When you say these kind of stupid, meaningless things with the random smiley faces and all this, it's not just an expression of some little joke. It's an expression of nihilism. It's an expression that nothing really means anything at all, which is not neutral. It's not just kind of funny or. That's an expression of despair. I remember one time, this was years ago, I was at the Apple store in Grand Central, and a guy, I hate to call this guy out, but one of the guys working there, he had two tattoos on his fingers. One was a weird little mustache, and one said, s h I T. Cray, cray like crazy, you know? And I thought most people think, oh, it's a harmless or kind of meaningless tattoo. The meaninglessness is the point. This guy, to some degree, mutilated his body over nothing. I actually. I'm more put off by tattoos that are apparently meaningless than the ones that are explicitly aggressive or violent, because the meaningless ones suggest a kind of nihilism. A nihilism that nothing really matters and nothing makes any sense. That's what you're seeing here. Then you have a magazine that says, where is your God? Where is your God? This kind of reminder, this spiritual aspect. And then maybe the most disturbing to me, even more disturbing than the journal entry about the demon, there's one of the shotguns says Baruch Khazad, which is a line from Tolkien, a line from Lord of the Rings. And then above that, take this, all of you, and eat. Take this, all of you, and eat of it, are the words of our Lord at the Last Supper, when he's instituting the Last Supper. And it is the word that is said during the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Take this, all of you, and eat of it. This is my body, which is given up for you. This is when we eat the body and blood of Christ, which Christ tells us we have to do. We have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. We have to gnaw his flesh, or we don't have any life in us. He tells us this in John 6, and he institutes the Eucharist in the Last Supper. Those are his words turned to a satanic inversion here. By writing it on something that will dispense bullets into the mouths of little children who are awaiting to eat our Lord, the bread of life. I don't know how else you could describe this other than as demonic and satanic. But then you get the most clearly demonic image. This is from the notebooks, and it's this picture of the shooter with his long hair and his gun on his back, looking into a mirror. And what he sees in the mirror is a demon, is a devil. Looks kind of like Baphomet, you know, one of the really popular demonic images. He's saying, this is what I see. And this is what has led people to suggest that he might have been possessed or at least obsessed with demons, or at least afflicted by demons. And then what's written there is, when will this end? Help me, I don't want. And this is the eeriest to me, this is in Cyrillic, so it's been translated. Who am I? That's the top left. It's the first thing on the notebook. Who am I? And this is very eerie if you have any familiarity with the Bible, because when Moses is talking to God in the burning bush, what does he say? He says, who shall I tell them that you are? And God says, I am. I am. That I am. And the first line there is, who am I? When we turn away from God, when we lose our connection from God, we're left with this pathetic question, who am I? When we recognize that we're children made in the image and likeness of God, then we recognize ourselves in God I am. We know our identity. When you have identity problems, as this person quite clearly had identity problems that were expressed in a social, faddish way, that were expressed in a political way, and that is expressed ultimately in a religious way, because all politics comes down to religion. That's the question. As he's looking at himself in the mirror, seeing a demon, he says, who am I? And then there's a video. I went back and forth on whether or not even to play this video on the show. I think I have to play it because this gets to the final point here on religion, on this spiritual aspect. There is a video. Again, I don't know that it's confirmed. Confirmed, but it is being reported that this is a video of him planning out his attack. I'm just going to play you a few seconds of it. Yeah, watch my nine millimeter go bang.
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I'm the walker baby why so quintessential.
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So for those of you who are only listening again, I'm not a guy who sees demons under every rocks. I really don't. I interviewed an exorcist, Father Dan Rehill, and that video has gotten, I don't know, 8 million views, 9 million views, something like that. But one of the points that's worth watching too, especially right now, one of the points is don't blame everything on demons. It's CS Lewis's point. There are two errors in opposite direct to think that demons don't exist. The other is to think that demons are behind everything. And I don't. I don't think that it's hard to listen to that voice and not hear the demonic. It's difficult to look at that picture that he drew of himself looking in the mirror seeing a demon. It's difficult to look at that first question, who am I? And not to sense the demonic. And in that video, he has a target up on his wall. And at the top of the target, in the place of the head is Christ in the Passion with the crown of thorns on, bruised and bloodied. That's his target practice, I think. Impossible not to have a sense of the demonic here. So why do I mention all of that? The ideological, the identity, the trans aspect, and the religion. Some people have understood that each of these parts played a role in this shooting. What I think people are failing to connect the dots that they're failing to connect is they're all intertwined. And we labor under a delusion in secular, liberal modernity that these things can all be separated. And we labor under that delusion because we believe that the private and the public life can be perfectly neatly separated, that you can go be a complete degenerate in a constant state of grave moral sin in your private life. But that will have no effect on your public life or on the public life of the community. That's one of the lies of liberalism to say there's this firm, private, public distinction. And, you know, true freedom means you get to go do whatever weird, disgusting, depraved stuff you want in private. Just don't let it affect me. Just don't let me pay for it, you know, that's your right as an American. I don't care if a fellow wants to go by the name of Sally, as long as he doesn't let it affect me. How could it not affect you? He's a citizen. He's in the political community. Man is a social creature. Man is a political animal. It necessarily affects you because his behaviors, his habits, his vices, his misconceptions, his absurd identity is going to go with him when he acts in public, which is most of the time, because no man is an island entire unto himself. What does it matter to you what a man does in his bedroom? I don't stay up at night thinking about what people do in their bedrooms. But I do care about how people behave. I do care about what people think. I do care that my fellow citizens have a grasp on reality. And if they start to lose their grasp on reality, and if they start to engage in perpetual, exceedingly grave sin, that's going to darken their intellect, and that's gonna seriously mess up the country, and that is gonna endanger me, and it's certainly gonna endanger the body politic. Yeah, that's because I live in a society. This guy had an identity crisis. And furthermore, that identity crisis is going to go all the way down. He had a physical identity crisis. He didn't know if he was a man or a woman. That speaks to an anthropological identity crisis. He doesn't understand how the soul relates to the human body. The premise of transgenderism being that the immaterial soul is the true self. The body has nothing to do with the self, Though, paradoxically, the body is so important to the self that transgenderism impels them to chop themselves up and mutilate themselves to make the body look more like the perceived immaterial self. But that's just a false conception. And that gets all the way down to a religious identity. Are we mortal subjects of God, made in the image and likeness of God, with reason, endowed with dignity because we have intellect and will, or are we gods ourselves? And this has ideological implications because liberalism is the ideology of making oneself into a God. And this has political implications, too, because politics deals with practical morality and the implementation of ideology and anthropology, all the way down to religion and in public life. And because we've tolerated lies, because we've tolerated liberal and anthropological and philosophical and ideological lies, we see horrific tragedies play out in real life, on television and on podcasts, because we take the easy road, and we think that it's somehow charitable to lie. Kids are dead. That's what happens. You see this play out. Don't just take my word for it. Don't think it's just some kind of abstract deduction. You see this play out in the very way that the top politicians in Minnesota dress themselves and speak. Hold on one second. Go to masachips.com knowles. Did you know, way back in the day, all fries and chips were cooked in beef tallow until the 90s? When big food companies switched to cheaper seed oils. Now these oils make up nearly 20% of what Americans eat daily. Recent studies are linking them to metabolism issues. Inflammation makes you wonder if maybe we had it right the first time. So Masa decided to do something about the whole seed oil problem. They went back to basics with just three organic nixtamalized corn, sea salt and 100% grass fed beef tallow. No seed oils at all. They don't just avoid the bad stuff. They actually taste incredible. They are much crunchier. They are sturdier than regular chips. They won't break in your salsa or your guacamole. You also feel much, much better after eating them. You don't have that usual crash and bloated feeling. You will feel energized, like you just ate a delicious meal. The beef tallow makes them way more filling. It's just like a different thing. It's just a different. It's just the garbage that you've been consuming. Forget about it. This is the real stuff. Masa Chips is beloved by tens of thousands of customers, has been endorsed by leading health and nutrition experts. If you are ready to give Masa a try, you go to masachips.com knowles use code knowles k w l e s for 25% off your first order. Masachips.com knowles code knowles for 25% off your first order. Here's a not so fun fact. Disney, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount. They're all raising prices again. You might have noticed. Then there's DailyWire plus doing what we love to do, which is the opposite of what everyone else is doing. We are not raising prices. We're dropping them right now. You can grab an annual DailyWire plus membership for 40% off with code SOMMER that unlocks everything we've got, including the new episode of the Pope and the the Secret Vatican Files of World War II. And on September 8, you'll be the first to watch the Isabel Brown Show. Plus you'll get exclusive first looks at our brand new flagship show, Friendly Fire, where the entire Daily Wire crew goes head to head live, uncensored, unfiltered. Go to DailyWirePlus.com right now. Lock in 40% off your annual membership before the deal is gone. My favorite comment Yesterday is from Razzle07 says Michael wasn't just there to view a Cabinet meeting. He's been nominated the first secretary of Cracker Barrel Affairs. I would accept there are not many government jobs. I would accept that is one that I would Speaking of the government, little flashback Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan had this to say about the trans kids, mind you, a guy who was transed as a kid just shot up a Christian school, murdered. I don't even know if I've mentioned the murdered two. An 8 year old and a 10 year old. Injured 14 and 3 adults. This guy's in his 20s. Here is what the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota in the past has had to say about transing the kids.
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Because let's be clear, this is life affirming and life saving health care. When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grownups to listen and to believe them. That's what it means to be a good parent.
D
That's what it means. To be a good parent is to chop your kids gulions off. That's what it means to be a good parent because this is life affirming. Didn't affirm his life, didn't affirm the shooter's life, didn't affirm his victims lives. He killed himself anyway like a lot of these people do. Because the procedures, the surgical procedures, the hormonal procedures, they don't help at all. They don't save anybody's life, they make people's lives much, much worse. And they really don't save the lives of the victims of these lunatics who have manifest severe mental illness, who should be taken care of and who should have the community protected from. But furthermore, this woman, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan wore, you might have seen a little top of it there in that video, a shirt that said Protect trans kids with a dagger. Protect trans kids with a dagger. What does that, what does that insinuate? I don't think it takes a semiotician to recognize that this is a threat, this is a call to violence against the supposed transphobes, the people who supposedly want to attack trans kids by helping them, by telling them the truth. She's on the side of the shooter. She has put herself as explicitly as possible on the side of the shooter before the shooting. Mind you, I'm sure she regrets it now that she sees the consequences of her actions. Revolting, revolting person who should repent as quickly as possible. That's a button to point out we say religion and identity and ideology are not indistinguishable from another one, another. We have this idea, oh look, you can be a Christian but you can be a liberal leftist, you can be a liberal Democrat, you can support abortion, you can support redefining marriage, you can support mutilating little kids. You can't, you have to pick. It's not that any one political party has an exact lock or is an exact perfect match for the Christian faith. But there are political parties you can't join. There are political things you can't. There are candidates you can't elect if you're a Christian, you can't elect a candidate who wants to slaughter the babies and abolish marriage and mutilate little kids sexually. You just can't do that. And if you do that, you're apostatizing from your faith. Okay? And this is a reminder that ideology and religion and identity cannot be divorced from concrete politics either. You know, I know there's been this movement. You always hear this from political operatives. Big tent, you know. Well, you can be a trans conservative. You can't. I'm happy to take anyone's vote, no matter what he thinks. No matter, but you can't. That's not possible. It's a completely false ideology. It needs to be totally eliminated from public life. It's totally insane and it just doesn't go together. If you are a conservative and trans identifying, you are living in a contradiction. And I would strongly encourage you to just give up the delusion and keep voting Republican, but also just live in a way that is more conducive to your flourishing. The mayor of Minneapolis, really no, better than that. Lieutenant Governor Jacob Frey. Frey, Frey, whatever. He comes out, he does the Norm MacDonald bit. Norm MacDonald had this bit where he said, you know, my greatest fear is that a jihadi will get a dirty bomb and explode it over a major city, killing tens of millions of people, because then the blowback against peaceful Muslims would be terrible. That was the joke. And the people on the panel, they didn't get the joke. They said, yeah, we agree. Said, okay, moving on. Jacob Fry, the mayor of Minneapolis, did that joke. He said, you know, as a school full of little Catholic. Sorry, as a church full of little Catholic school children was just shot up by a trans maniac at killing two little kids, an 8 year old and a 10 year old, and wounding over a dozen others. The most important thing we can focus on now is not criticizing transgenders genderism.
C
And I have heard about a whole lot of hate that's being directed at our trans community. Anybody who is using this as. Using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity. We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone. We should be operating from a place of love for our kids.
D
No. If you in any way criticize Transgenderism. Right now, you are just a hateful person. We need to affirm the trans kids. Well, look what affirming the trans kids got you, buddy. Look what affirming the trans kids got. Do you think maybe if you had put this psycho into therapy and spiritual counseling and had someone do the opposite of what you did? What you did is you said, hey, hey, buddy. Yeah, you're really a chick. That's cool. Yeah, you bet. Gobble up all those drugs. Imbibe all of those delusions. Yeah, that'll help you. No evidence whatsoever that that works. You think that's charitable? Is that charitable to the kids who were killed? Is that charitable to that guy, the guy in his 20s who killed the kids and killed himself? I don't think it's charitable at all. I think it's this politician and people like him who are not making common cause with humanity. I think charity is clarity. And I think this guy's a liar and he's worse than a liar. He then goes. One of his very first statements is subtly but clearly to mock the victims for praying.
C
And don't just say, this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church.
D
There is no difference between what he said and what the shooter wrote on his magazine. You notice that? Because what he is saying is, where's your God, you stupid little kids? You stupid little kids. You were praying. You went to church. You went to the holy sacrifice, the holy sacrifice of the mass to pray to God. Where's your God now? That's what he's saying. That's the same thing the shooter said. Same thing the shooter wrote on the magazine. Revolt. Nauseating. A disgusting person and an incoherent person, mind you. Because if you can get past the nausea, if you can push your lunch back down after listening to that bile, you have to ask yourself, what point is he making? The point that he's making is, don't pray to God. Don't ask intercessory prayer. Don't pray in a way that is even merely to bind your sufferings to the sufferings of Christ. Merely, I say, don't pray in such a way that is to conform your will to the will of God and help you grow in sanctity and virtue. Don't do any of that. We need political action. This is enough of this prayer. We need political action. Buddy, you're already the mayor. You're the mayor. They elected you. Not only are you the mayor, your entire state is Run by your political party. It's Minnesota. Minnesota. That's the only state that Mondale won over Reagan in.84. Reagan wins 49 states. Minnesota is the one blue state. Minnesota is as Democrat as any state in the country. You control the whole thing. Where are you? I thought your promise was if you stop praying, stop going along with your silly religious delusions and you just elect us, we the competent progressives, we're gonna solve all your problems. Well, where were you? Where were you? At Annunciation Church? Looks like you failed. You have the temerity to accuse God of failing. You have the temerity to accuse the prayers of little kids of not being efficacious. Where the hell were you? You didn't do anything. And in fact, your political leaders denied security to the church and to the schools. It's so boggles the mind. It so rattles the conscience. And it is a clear reminder that there is a connection. Not even between the religion and the ideology and the identity and the political action, that there is a connection between sin and the intellect. Sin darkens the intellect. So much so that we're the most advanced culture ever. We're the most advanced culture ever. We can put satellites into outer space. We can put a man on the moon. We have magical devices in our pockets that let us communicate with anyone on the other side of the world. And we don't know the difference between a man and a woman anymore. And we're going to encourage people into delusion and despair and deeply demonic things because we can't even tell the most basic aspects of human nature anymore. Whatever this is, whatever political order we're in right now, I think we need to turn around. I think people have sensed that for a long time. And I think we've now reached the culmination of all of those errors that we have been increasingly frustrated with. And these people, they need to leave public office. And these ideologies, they need to be eliminated from public life. We can no longer tolerate those ideologies and those identities. And we need to get back to normal. And we need to figure out who we are. And the only way you're gonna figure out who you are is by looking at the being who is being himself, who is I am. That I am. The rest of the show continues now. It is, fittingly, Theology Thursday. You don't wanna miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles at checkout for two months free on all annual.
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Amazon presents. Kelly versus Roommate's deviated septum. Absolutely. Annihilating a college student's sleep. A roommate's snores can sound like a werewolf mid transformation, but Kelly shopped on Amazon and saved on a sleep machine, weighted blanket and noise canceling earbuds. Looks like Kelly just got her doctorate degree in crushing sleep. Save the everyday with college deals on Amazon.
Episode: Ep. 1803 – Trans Shooter Murders Catholic Children at Mass
Date: August 28, 2025
Host: Michael Knowles (The Daily Wire)
Featured Guest: Mary Margaret Olohan (The Daily Wire)
This episode centers on the tragic mass shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis, where a trans-identifying shooter killed and injured multiple children and parishioners during Mass. Michael Knowles examines the political, ideological, and spiritual factors behind the event, sharply criticizing the role of transgender ideology, what he describes as political inaction, and society’s spiritual decline. Joined by Mary Margaret Olohan, the episode draws connections between political decisions, mental health, religious meaning, and the shooter’s personal history, suggesting a linkage between societal trends and acts of violence.
[01:10–06:44]
Immediate Political Response:
Knowles and Olohan critique Minnesota politicians for offering “thoughts and prayers” while allegedly ignoring prior pleas from non-public schools for increased security after previous similar shootings.
Failure to Act:
Olohan reveals an exclusive that independent and Catholic school leaders wrote to Governor Tim Walz seeking help just a week after the Nashville Christian school shooting. Despite interest, “nothing was ever done,” leaving students vulnerable.
“These leaders are telling me that they had asked for help in this situation and it wasn’t given to them.”
— Mary Margaret Olohan [05:08]
Religious Targeting:
Emphasis on the sacred nature of the space for Catholics and the trauma inflicted on worshippers. Olohan points out the similarity to the tragic scene from The Patriot, describing the targeting of people at prayer.
[09:25–16:40]
Transgender Identification as Mental Illness:
Knowles asserts that “to identify as transgender is proof positive of severe, severe mental illness.”
Family and Medical Involvement:
Knowles refers to the shooter's mother granting a legal name change at 17 for her trans-identifying child and criticizes how families are pressured by doctors to affirm gender identity at risk of their child’s mental health.
Fascination with Mass Shooters:
The shooter’s manifesto included lines such as:
“Lately I have been entranced into the world of mass shooters...morbidly obsessed.”
— Michael Knowles, paraphrasing the shooter’s journal [12:00]
Mimetic/Copied Violence:
Knowles discusses the risk of imitation inherent in these high-profile events, both in shootings and suicide.
[16:40–25:00]
Incoherent and Contradictory Messaging:
The shooter’s writings and markings included leftist and rightist references—Kill Trump Now, Free Palestine, “6 million wasn’t enough” (antisemitic), “remove kebab” (anti-Muslim), and anti-Catholic elements.
Anti-Religious Sentiment:
The primary victim group was Catholic children and parishioners, suggesting a broader attack against the notion of God.
“It was an attack on a Catholic Church, but it seems to be this broader attack on God.”
— Michael Knowles [20:07]
Spiritual Despair and Nihilism:
Manifesto passages indicate the shooting was not for a specific ideology but driven by self-loathing and desire for spectacle.
“I do it to please myself...I do it because I’m sick.”
— Michael Knowles, quoting shooter [22:30]
Pride and the “Primordial Sin”:
The shooter confessed to a “superiority complex” and wishing for power over the most vulnerable, which Knowles argues is a reenactment of “the primordial sin” of pride.
[25:00–30:00]
Trans Identity as Metaphorical Self-Destruction:
Knowles frames transgenderism as a “liturgical form of suicide,” an attempt to kill the natural self and resurrect a new identity.
“Transgenderism itself is a liturgical form of suicide by which a person comes into being like a phoenix rising from the ashes by killing the natural self.”
— Michael Knowles [27:45]
Symbolic Messaging:
The phrase “Like a phoenix, we rise from the ashes” on the shooter’s weapon is linked to this spiritual death/rebirth motif.
Desecrating Sacred Symbols:
The shooter wrote Eucharistic phrases from Jesus (“Take this, all of you, and eat”) on a weapon, which Knowles decries as a “satanic inversion.”
[30:00–34:00]
Shooter’s Art and Self-Image:
The episode describes a disturbing drawing where the shooter, looking in the mirror, sees a demon.
Religious Parody and Inversion:
The shooter set up a target for shooting practice featuring Christ’s image with a crown of thorns.
“It’s difficult to look at that picture that he drew of himself looking in the mirror seeing a demon...and not to sense the demonic.”
— Michael Knowles [30:28]
Loss of Identity:
The shooter repeatedly asks “Who am I?” in journal entries, paralleling biblical questions of identity and reflecting deep confusion and alienation.
[34:00–38:47]
Critique of Liberalism’s Compartmentalization:
Knowles rejects the idea that personal delusions and private sins (such as gender ideology) can be isolated from public, societal consequences.
“We do care how people behave...If they start to lose their grasp on reality…and engage in perpetual, exceedingly grave sin, that’s going to darken their intellect and seriously mess up the country.”
— Michael Knowles [36:00]
[38:47–45:00]
Criticism of Affirming Transgenderism:
Playing a clip of Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, Knowles sarcastically lambasts her statement that “affirming” kids’ gender is what it means to be “a good parent,” noting that the shooter’s trajectory undermined the claim.
“Didn’t affirm his life. Didn’t affirm the shooter’s life. Didn’t affirm his victims lives.”
— Michael Knowles [39:16]
Interpreting Political Messaging as Threatening:
Flanagan’s "Protect Trans Kids" shirt (with a dagger) is interpreted as a call to violence, drawing a direct line between trans-affirmation and the shooting.
[43:38–45:50]
Mayor Jacob Frey’s Statement:
Knowles plays a clip of the mayor urging against hate toward the trans community and cautioning against “villainizing” any group.
Accusation of Mocking Prayer:
Both the shooter and the mayor are accused of mockingly questioning, “Where is your God now?” regarding children killed while at prayer.
“There is no difference between what he said and what the shooter wrote on his magazine.”
— Michael Knowles [45:34]
Political Inaction and Blame-Shifting:
Knowles points out that despite promises of political action over “thoughts and prayers,” those in power did not prevent the tragedy.
On Politicians Ignoring Security Requests:
"These children were literally praying as they were killed. And these leaders are telling me that they had asked for help...and it wasn’t given to them."
— Mary Margaret Olohan [05:08]
On Identity Crisis and Evil:
“He’s writing all these kind of, like, funny lines...It’s an expression of nihilism...nothing really means anything at all, which is not neutral.”
— Michael Knowles [32:00]
On Transgenderism and Suicide:
“Transgenderism itself is a liturgical form of suicide by which a person comes into being like a phoenix rising from the ashes by killing the natural self.”
— Michael Knowles [27:45]
On Inversion of the Sacred:
“Take this, all of you, and eat of it...turned to a satanic inversion...by writing it on something that will dispense bullets into the mouths of little children who were awaiting to eat our Lord, the bread of life.”
— Michael Knowles [32:45]
On the Loss of Meaning:
"The meaningless ones [tattoos] suggest a kind of nihilism...That nothing really matters and nothing makes any sense.”
— Michael Knowles [32:14]
On Political Responsibility:
“You have the temerity to accuse God of failing...Where were you? You didn’t do anything...your political leaders denied security to the church and to the schools.”
— Michael Knowles [45:34]
The tone is direct, impassioned, and sharply critical—particularly toward transgender ideology, political leadership, and what Knowles sees as society’s spiritual and moral decay. Knowles regularly invokes religious language and metaphors, drawing from both Christian doctrine and contemporary political talking points. The conversation is polemical and unapologetic, seeking not just to inform but to persuade and admonish.
This summary covers the major themes, arguments, and memorable moments from the episode, providing an informative guide for those who have not listened.