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These are questions that take cultures thousands.
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Of years to answer. During Answer the Call, I take questions.
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From people just like you about their.
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Everyone. The Trump administration is threatening to disarm the transgenders and somehow it is the right wingers who are upset about it. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. Will we speak to our dead relatives via artificial intelligence in five years? AI necromancy. We'll get to that in one moment. First, though, it is an incredible time for basic white girls. Taylor Swift just got engaged. Starbucks PSL is once again on the menu. And my PSL candle is back, baby. That's right. Let me just. Ooh. It makes the end of summer go down so much smoother, so much easier because it's my season now, baby. You heard me. Go to thecandleclub.com knowles k-o w l e S Get my delectable pumpkin spice latte candle. Indulge in the early enjoyment of autumn with the rest of us basic white gals. You know what I'm saying? It's time for that little autumnal treat. Well, I need to get a better lighter. There we go. Okay. There we go. Now my studio will just smell. Will smell like. I feel like a PSL. Go to the. You gotta put the. The first candleclub.com knowles President Trump is threatening to disarm to take guns away from the trans identifying people. And it is. Everybody is a little bit upset with him, but it is especially the right wingers who are upset about this. This is one of those weird issues that crosses the aisle because the right obviously is skeptical of the entire transgender ideology. So anything that diminishes the transgender ideology, the right is for. But the right loves guns. And the left loves weird sex stuff. Is totally in favor of any weird sex stuff you can possibly Think up any way you can possibly contort your body to do something unnatural and deviant. Therefore. Except they hate guns. So now we're kind of caught in the middle. Seems to me pretty obvious that a guy who thinks that he's a woman, a guy whose grasp of reality is so tenuous, so loose that he doesn't know what his sex is, probably should not have a firearm. Now, the rejoinder to this, and I think it is a legitimate rejoinder, is this is the slippery slope. The rejoinder is, if you support your Second amendment right, which the libs have been going after forever, then you need to oppose any and all regulations that could in any way possibly take a single gun out of the hand of any American. Because it's always a farce. It's always a ruse. It's a way to take the guns away from the normal people. I get it. Our ideological opponents are underhanded, there's no question about that. However, just think about this. In principle, when people say, look shall not be infringed, as clear as day, you can't take the guns away. We already agree in principle that there are people who are not sufficiently in command of their reason to have a gun. Should a baby be allowed to go buy a gun? Should a baby? Should a baby. Listen, I'm a lifetime member of the nra. I have guns. Should a baby be allowed to go buy a gun? No. Should a severely retarded person be allowed to go buy a gun? Probably not. Should your grandfather with advanced dementia, who doesn't know what day it is, be able to go buy a gun? Would that be good for him? Would that do? No. No. I think we would all admit no. Transgenderism is a severe mental illness. It's not, as some of the slippery slope warriors are gonna say. It's not akin to a soldier coming back from war with ptsd. That's bad enough in itself. But PTSD is not the same as not knowing what sex you are. Okay? Some adhd, anxiety, even a touch of depression, things that are psychological diagnoses is different in kind from the severe mental illness that says that your perception is so screwed up you don't know what your sex is. That is real deep in the heart of man. And I don't think anyone on the right would disagree with that. I hope not. That is like not every horror movie ever. But all these serial killers, Buffalo Bill, Psycho, all this. What is the emblematic mental illness that those movies are grounded in? That those movies, which are based on real cases, which are based on Real people are grounded in the trans identity. The fact that you don't know even what sex you are. There are all these other issues that attend to that. You're not going to meet someone who thinks he's the opposite sex, who doesn't have a cascade of other mental illnesses and psychological problems that go along with that. Okay, so that's just the normative argument. Should we. Should they. Should we do this? Should we do that? The even stronger argument, I think, is President Trump's DOJ could today tell transvestites or not even transvestites, not even cross dressers and cabaret singers. We're talking, like guys who think they're the opposite sex. The DOJ today could say, you can't own guns and they would not have to pass a single additional law because the federal law already today says that you can be deprived of your Second Amendment rights or your Second Amendment rights can be circumscribed if you are mentally defective. People who think they're the opposite sex are mentally defective. Thinking you're the opposite sex is prima facie evidence that you are mentally defective and severely so. I don't mean to be too harsh to people who are a little bit weird or anything, but clarity is charity, and that's the truth. 18 US Code Section 922G4 says that the government can prohibit possession of firearms for anyone who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution. That's. Or, by the way, because sometimes libertarians will respond and say, well, if they're so mentally defective, they should just be committed to an institution. First of all, no one really believes that if you have a little brother who's severely mentally retarded, we don't think that it should be a matter of law that you send him to an insane asylum. Granny has a touch of dementia. You don't. You don't think that it should be a matter of federal law that you have to ship her off to some institution. It's okay to have people in society and care for them, but you have to circumscribe their rights inasmuch as they are not capable of exercising those rights, inasmuch as their intellect and will are damaged or defective. This would not require passing any new gun control laws. I'm totally opposed to all new gun control laws and have been, am now remain so into the future. What this would do, what Trump is doing, is simply acknowledging reality. That's what this is about. This isn't about changing the gun laws in any way. This is about acknowledging reality, which is why I'm so gung ho for it, because it would be establishing as a matter of federal law that transgenderism is a mental illness, a severe mental illness, and if you have it, you're mentally defective. And a lot of our problems in recent years have stemmed from or been associated with our refusal to acknowledge that fact. But, Michael, if we do this now, if we acknowledge transgenderism as a mental illness, why, by golly, when the Democrats come into power, they might acknowledge, I don't know, Christianity is a mental illness. Yeah, I take your talking points back to 2012. I'm sick of them. I am not afraid of exercising political power for the good today when the people have given us power because of some hypothetical evil that the Democrats might do tomorrow, that they almost certainly will do whether we act today or not. Aren't we done with this? This notion that we can never exercise power because of what the Democrats hypothetically might do in the future, even though the Democrats have already been wielding power unjustly and capriciously against us for decades? Enough of that man, that's loser mentality. I am not into that. But it does get down to a fundamental debate over what kind of country we are, how we interact with the government, and where we get our rights, which coincidentally came up in the Senate yesterday when Tim Kaine, the man who was almost one heartbeat away from becoming the second woman president of the United States. Tim Kaine, who since his doomed run for vice president, has become more and more like the Joker every single day. You look at him, he just looks like Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Tim Kaine took to the Senate floor, bizarrely to mock the notion of natural rights on which our entire country is based. Hold on one second. Go to helixsleep.com knowles. You know that sometimes I have sleep struggles. And you know when that is? It's when I'm on the road and away from home and away from my Helix mattress. Helix comes in and improves your nights and keeps you sleeping well all night long so that you wake up each morning ready to be your best self. What makes Helix different is they don't just sell you a random mattress. They actually match you with the perfect one for your body and sleep style. Whether you're a side sleeper, back sleeper, or somewhere in between, they've got you covered. All you have to do is take their sleep quiz and find your ideal match. And for those of you who sleep hot, the temperature regulation is a game changer. As we head into the warmer months. I absolutely adora Helix. You know, I'm such a good father. I'm so magnanimous that I have gotten one not only for my eldest son, but also for my middle son. It's just, it's wonderful. If you love your children, if you love yourself and your spouse, get one, get one now, get three. Right now is the perfect time to upgrade your sleep because Helix is offering a fantastic sale. Go to helixsleep.com knowles get 27% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com knowles 27% off site wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you helixsleep.com knowles Tim Kaine, embracing his role as an agent of chaos and movie villain, takes to the floor of the US Senate to mock the ideological foundation of the entire United States.
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The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the Creator. That's what the Iranian government believes. Believes it's a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Baha', Is, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities. And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.
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It's extremely, extremely troubling. Man. If he thinks that statement is bad, just wait until he reads Thomas Jefferson or really any of the founding fathers and framers of the Constitution or the thinkers from which they got their ideas or the long history of Christendom. He says the Iranian regime targets Baha' I and Jews and Christians and this and that. And that's true. In the American regime, we only target Christians, I guess. Is that an advantage? The American liberal regime only targets Christians and imprisons pro life grannies and nuns. But the Iranian regime, those theocrats, because you know the Iranians, they believe in God too. That's scary. We cannot. This is a radical notion. It's downright Muslim to say that we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. The ignorance is astounding. His utter unfamiliarity with the philosophical basis of the United States is jaw dropping, even though we should come to believe it in recent years because the liberals and the Democrats have made themselves out often explicitly to be anti American. But you'd think to be anti American, you would at least be familiar with what you're opposing. Tim Kaine, not even familiar with that this is the constant liberal attack on any non liberal government. The constant attack is you're basing your judgments of morality and rights on a religious basis. Why, that will lead inevitably to arbitrary rule, to tyranny, to oppression. You can't ground it in anything rational. This is, you have your morality, I have my morality. We can't know anything about morality. This is very scary. And that's why Tim Kaine's altern is to ground our rights in positive law. And he thinks that's gonna solve the question. Not in natural law, certainly not in a notion of our Creator giving us rights, but in just the positive law that really our rights just come from you and I electing our representatives, and then they vote on bills and they give us rights or they take our rights away and that's that. But you see the contradiction there. It's in the word rights. The very word rights refers to a conception of justice. It corresponds with notions of right and wrong, which then point to an objective moral order. It speaks to justice, people getting what they deserve. It speaks to something beyond the mere wills and appetites and desires of men. But then he denies that there's any objective basis for it. So he almost has to come up with a different word. Privileges, I guess. So we get our privileges from the government. But you can't say the word rights because the rights are pointing to something beyond the mere irrational desires of men, the sheer tyranny of will. But the reason that he doesn't do that, the reason that he and all the other libs still use the rights language, is because liberalism is a form of. Is a matter of faith as much as any theocracy. That's really what this comes down to. Liberalism, his form of government, his preferred form of government. Unlike the authoritarian Christian government, which he thinks resembles the theocracy of Iran, his preferred liberal form of government is at least as much a matter of faith, actually more a matter of faith as any theocracy or theocracy is government by cleric. So even just any government that is openly and honestly grounded in religion. Why do I say that? I was reading, you know, I refer to the great Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule on the show a fair bit. He's reading a great old essay of his in American affairs on the invisible hand. You know, we hear of the invisible hand in matters of economics, you know, the invisible hand of the free market, or the invisible hand in the marketplace of ideas. The notion that as long as you have more and more voices, more and more speech, that somehow the Truth is going to win out. I wrote a book arguing against that thesis, but that's a very popular view. Including on the right, or the notion that the invisible hand in a competitive mixed regime, in a competitive government with checks and balances, with a separation of powers, that that is somehow inevitably going to give you the best form of government, the greatest justice. And even that phrase shows you just how much a matter of faith. Liberalism is the invisible hand. The invisible hand is something we used to call providence. That's his point. It's a really excellent essay. I recommend you go read it. The invisible hand is just providence for atheists. The way that Tim Kaine is speaking about this, he simultaneously has to deny any objective order, morality, metaphysical basis for right and wrong in the things we do in society. He has to deny it. He has to say, it's all just about men. But in order to persuade you to go along with his political vision, he has to refer to that pre liberal and downright religious basis of justice. He has to refer to it as. And then, of course, liberalism just eats away at that basis over time. And we've spoken about that many, many times. This is the point you've always got to throw back to the libs whenever they say, well, you're being authoritarian or whatever. Not as authoritarian as you are. At least for me, when I refer to how I view politics and how I derive right and wrong, at least I'm pointing to a clear God that you can to some degree understand. You guys are hiding the ball even on that. You're demanding an extreme amount of authority over all of us, but you're not even grounding it on a good and logical God who loves us. You're just grounding it in, I don't know, the whims and caprices of Tim Kaine. Ugh. Not a good basis of government. Speaking of the invisible hand, President Trump is bullying Big Tech into investing a lot of money in America. Here he is at a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg just yesterday.
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Well, thanks for hosting us. I mean, this is quite a group to get together, and I think all of the companies here are building, just making huge investments in the country in order to build out data centers and infrastructure to power the next wave of innovation. So it's, you know, we don't often get together as the CEOs of the different companies, but it's good to see everyone.
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How much are you spending, would you say, over the next few years?
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Oh, gosh. I mean, I think it's probably gonna be something like I don't know. At least $600 billion through 28 in the U.S. yeah, it's a lot. No, it's significant.
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That's a lot. Thank you, Mark. It's great to have you.
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Thank you.
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So he's sitting there and he's just like Don Corleone. He calls these guys in. Mark Zuckerberg spent a lot of money to make sure Trump wouldn't win in 2020. Spent a lot of money. Some of that money was used to subvert the law. In the case of the ballot drop boxes. No big friend to Trump. I don't think he's a huge ally of the American right. At least he didn't think his bread was going to be buttered by the American right. He was working for the left. All these guys, and Trump calls them all down to the White House. He gets his power. He's elected with a popular vote. He calls them all down to the White House. He says, hey, fellas, thanks a lot of you came to my inauguration to come kiss the ring. Thanks for coming down for dinner. And then Mark Zuckerberg gets up there and he says, hey, yes. It's really nice, Mr. President, to be here with everybody. Really. We don't all have a chance to get together and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, nicety, nicety, nicety. And Trump says, yeah, how much money you gonna spend in this economy? How much money you gonna spend to accomplish my political goals in this country? Oh, yeah, sorry. I was just talking about how really nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real nice. We're all together. Raise a glass. Cheers. Where's the money? Where's my money? Mark? I'm actually. I was thinking about spending. Would $600 billion be enough? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be enough. That's a lot of money. 600 billion. I love this. And this ties in with what we were just talking about. The libs are gonna hate this and the libertarians are gonna hate this, because this is President Trump bullying business. And we can never have the state or the political power going into bully business. Cause that will distort the conditions of the ideal free marketplace. And that's not only inefficient, that's downright immoral. All hail the sacred invisible hand. Magnificent and gracious. Peace be upon it. You cannot have a politician interfere in the economy. Yeah. Why? Why is that? Why am I supposed to believe that? Because a great calamity will befall us. The invisible hand will become angry with us. Oh, no, I don't think so. I like markets to run efficiently. I Don't think we should have some command and control economy. But Trump was elected all the way back in 2016 because people came to the realization that we are a country with an economy. We are not an economy that has to be served by the people. You don't want to put the cart before the horse. We don't have a country in order to maximize GDP and economic efficiency and markets and all. No, the markets work for us, okay? And sometimes there are going to be distortions in the markets. That's true. Inevitably, that's true everywhere other than in an economic textbook with ideal utopian conditions that never exist in practice. There were issues with labor, there were issues with trade, There were issues with America's role as the global hegemon and how we related to other markets around the world. And Trump came in and he said, I'm gonna fix that and I'm gonna prioritize American workers and I'm gonna prioritize investment in our country and I'm gonna promote certain industries in order to maintain parity and advantage. Hopefully with some of our adversaries, like China and Mark, you're gonna invest money in this country. Okay? That's the right way to do things, man. That's really. That's recognizing the political moment. It's turning away from the idol worship of mammon and lucre and the ideological conceptions of liberalism and the free market, and it's getting back to some kind of basic conservative politics. Love it. All right, now the rest of you, where's my money? Where's my money? Okay, Speaking of ever deepening conservatism, Florida's gonna end all vaccine mandates. And this is another issue that's gonna split the right. Just like the taking away guns from transvestites. Hold on one second. Go to preborn.com Michael M I C H A E L if you care about life, about moms in crisis and the babies they're carrying, this is for you. Because I know sometimes we wanna help, we wanna pray, we just don't always know how. That is why I wanna share something that really moved me. It's called Heartbeat of Prayer from preborn. It's a 30 day devotional that walks you through real stories. Women facing the toughest decision of their lives and how God met them there. Every day you'll read a true story, reflect on scripture and be guided in prayer. It's simple, it's beautiful, and. And it helps you stand in the gap for moms and their babies right from wherever you are. If your heart's been stirred. Maybe this is your next step. You can get your free copy of Heartbeat of Prayer right now@preborn.com Michael M I C H A E L that is preborn.com Michael M I C H A E L It's free. It's powerful. It's one way you can be part of something that truly matters. Right now. This is an organization that I personally support. I think they do magnificent work. I encourage you to give whatever you can right now. Head on over to preborn.com Michael that is preborn.comm I C H A E L as you know, this year we are celebrating a decade of the Daily Wire. Not by looking back, but by launching what's next. First up Monday, for the first time in years, we are bringing in brand new Daily Wire talent with the premiere of the Isabel Brown show. Then next Wednesday night, the main event, Friendly Fire. All of us getting together to do what friends do. Argue, debate, punch each other, maybe smoke a few Mayflower cigars. Do not miss the premiere because inside Friendly Fire is where we're dropping the good stuff. New series, new projects, huge announcements, surprises we've been holding back until now. This is the start of the next decade, and you do not want to miss a single moment. Join now@dailywire.com My favorite comment yesterday is from the drummers workshop. Norm's music says a Cory Booker engagement is when your gym teacher and your other gym teacher get married. That's not nice. I'm sure she's a lovely gal, but it's Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. It's when your English teacher marries your gym teacher and a Cory Booker engagement. It's your gym teacher and your other gym teacher. That's at least what people would expect. Speaking of deepening conservatism, Florida has announced that it will end all vaccine mandates. All vaccine mandates. Not just the COVID vaccine. The old clot shot. Fauci Ouchie. No, no. We're talking about all the vaccines. Governor DeSantis has pushed this. And his surgeon general. Is that his surgeon general, the chief public health officer in the state, Ladapo is very impressive. For decades now, Florida has required kids who go to schools to get a ton of vaccines. That includes mmr, measles, mumps, and rubella. That includes polio, chickenpox. You didn't have to get the chickenpox vaccine when I was a kid. When I was a kid, you got chickenpox and hepatitis B. In case you're sharing any needles or going to brothels in the fourth Grade. The state came out on Wednesday and said those mandates are going to end. And they went even further. They compared the mandates to slavery, said, all of them will end, every last one of them. Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? This is going to excite a lot of people on the right. Unfortunately, I think it might do so for all the wrong reasons. This is one of these issues where I might agree in practice with getting rid of the vaccine mandates, but I don't agree with it in principle. And a lot of libs and squishes, they will agree with it in principle, but not in practice. Isn't that weird? Isn't that kind of weird? In other words, even the left, they will say, well, look, we can't be authoritarian. We can't force people to do things that they don't want to do. Consent is the highest moral criterion. The greatest good in politics is the maximization of individual autonomy, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, to maximize utility, greatest good for the greatest number. We need to force kids to take these shots. But in principle, I disagree with it. But in practice, I agree with it, whereas my view is the opposite. I actually have no problem with vaccine mandates in principle. I don't. I know maybe it's gonna be an unpopular opinion. I have no problem with vaccine mandates in principle. George Washington in the Continental army mandated inoculation against smallpox, and it killed a ton of people. Okay? There's really nothing conservative about this hyper individualism that says that the government can never mandate anything. I have nothing wrong with vaccine mandates in principle, and yet I do disagree with them often in practice. So it's like, in practice, I'm with the Florida government, at least to some degree here. But in principle, I'm wrong. And I don't want us to draw the wrong lessons from this. The idea that the government has no right to tell you what to do with your body is a fundamentally liberal idea. It is a liberal, individualist, atomizing idea that frays society, undermines order, undermines hierarchy, undermines power, undermines any coherent conception of the political. Okay? The government can tell you what seat belts to put on. The government can tell you what clothes you can and cannot wear. To some reasonable. You can't walk out in your birthday suit in the middle of the road. The government can tell you what drugs you can't put on in your body. Some people would argue, no, no, the most conservative thing in the world is to legalize fentanyl or something. No, it's not man. I'm not knocking the Florida policy. It might well be a good thing, but not for the reasons that everyone thinks. The reason that it might be wise to end the vaccine mandates is that the government that we elected is now leading investigations, thanks to Bobby Kennedy, into the safety and efficacy of vaccines. It's being carried out in a reasonably ordered way and there are questions. After Covid, our public health officials lied to us. During COVID they lied to us afterward, we discovered that. And so it is reasonable to take away some of their power to reduce the interference that they have in our lives. They lied to us specifically about the vaccine. There has to be some consequence to that, and the consequence is probably going to be that we're gonna question vaccine safety and efficacy. That's not our fault. That's the public health officials fault. But don't take the wrong lesson. The lesson to take away is not that we have no political right to enforce things. We do. When we even talk about the government. The government made me do this. The government made me do that. The government is in principle and to some degree in practice, a reflection of us, of the people. We elect these guys. We are at the very least citizens in this country. And the government does. They can do things. The question is, what is prudent for the government to do? Don't become a big lib. Don't do that. Now, on the point of vaccines, RFK Jr. Just got into a shouting match with Mike Bennett. Do you remember Mike Bennett? I think he ran for president. He's one of the many, many also rans among the Democrats in recent years. He has this cartoonishly boring voice. He just has like. The fact that this guy was a presidential candidate is shocking. Anyway, he gets into a big fight with Kennedy yesterday over vaccines.
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You can characterize it any way you want. I quoted them today. What I said was accurate. What you said were lies. You just a senator moving the type. Are you saying that the MRNA vaccine has never been associated with myocarditis or pericarditis? I am simply trying to tell. I am simply trying to say that the people that you have put on that panel, after firing the entire. Evading the question, you. No, I'm asking the questions here. I'm asking the questions. Oh. I'm asking the questions for Mr. Kennedy on behalf of parents and schools and teachers all over the United States of America. So much better than your leadership.
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Oh, my goodness.
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This conversation is about Senator, Chairman, Senator.
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They deserve the truth, and that's what we're going to give them for the first time in the history of that agency. Love that. Kennedy wins the exchange for sure. There was a while where Bennett was doing okay, and then he just became such a blowhard by the end of it. Or he revealed himself to be such a blowhard. Hold on. I have a question for you. I don't know. I'm asking the questions here, and you're. I'm asking the questions. No, no, I'm not blow. I am rubbering you. Or glue. And, well, what bounces off to me sticks to you. Sounds like a dying whale. When Mike Bennett speaks. Pathetic. Totally pathetic. And Kennedy gets him. Kennedy totally nails him as he says, hey, you know, vaccines aren't always safe. Right? He goes, oh, there you go. You're telling me that these vaccines have never been tied to myocarditis or pericarditis in teenagers, notably the COVID vaccine, in the last five years? Oh, I know. You stop adding me. It's. What is that? What do they call echolocation? Is that like the sonar that. Anyway, I don't know. I can't listen to Mike Bennett anymore. And I think people tune that stuff out because Kennedy can deflate it all with that one question. Hey, remember when you all lied to us about the vaccine you made all of us take 5 minutes ago? Remember when you made all of us take this vaccine that was untested, that we know was untested. Cause it was developed in five seconds. And you made everyone take it, even the groups that were not at risk from the virus that it was supposed to protect against. And then you lied about the safety risks and people died from it. And you lied about the efficacy. And first you said that if we got the vaccine, we wouldn't contract the virus. Then when that wasn't true, you said if we got the vaccine, we wouldn't spread the virus. Then when that wasn't true, you made the unfalsifiable claim, just like all of the foundational claims of liberalism that, well, it would have been a lot worse without it. Yeah. You remember that? Yeah. We're not gonna listen to you anymore. No, we won't. No, we won't. No, we won't. That's why people elected Trump campaigning with Bobby Kennedy on this issue. Totally. This is a similar issue. It's not that vaccines are necessarily terrible in practice. I have nothing in principle against vaccines, but there are practical consequences to public health priorities and public health actions. And when you lie about vaccines and when the vaccines fail, there's gonna be a backlash. You wanna blame someone. Mike Bennett, blame Yourself. Okay, before we go, just one minor point. President Trump has renamed the Department of Defense. It's now the Department of War. It used to be the Department of War, then it became this squishy, effeminate lib, Department of Defense, and now it's the Department of War again. And just another important point, because the libs are going to hate this and they're going to say that it's bellicose, it's belligerent to call it the Department of War. Au contraire, Mere. The phrase Department of War is much more inclined toward peace than Department of Defense. They changed it to Department of Defense because you want to make it seem like you're never launching an offensive war, you're never being the aggressor, but you'll defend yourselves when necessary. But we don't want any aggressive war. Oh, these belligerent maniacs, they want war. No, no, no. The Department of the Defense is much more likely to get you embroiled in a war than the Department of War is. You know why? Because the Department of War is honest. The Department of War tells you exactly what it does. It wages war. The phrase Department of Defense is Orwellian. That is an Orwellian phrase. When the Department of Defense ran the second Iraq War, was that honest? Was that a defensive war? Even the first Iraq War, was that a defensive war? Was the war in Libya, Was that a defensive war? No, it was a lie. Those were offensive wars. You can defend the justice or injustice of those wars all you like. My point is that wasn't defensive. Department of War is honest. Which gets to the irony of the Trump administration, at least in the eyes of the left, which is they all see Trump as being belligerent, bellicose and maniac and a cowboy. And actually, he's much more dovish. He's much more of a peace president than any of the Democrat presidents in my lifetime. Why is that? Because he's honest about what war is like. He's honest about the risks brought about by geopolitical strain and conflict. Because he's honest about it, because he's willing to back up his threats, you get more peace. If you want peace, prepare a Department of War. Finally, finally, we get to my favorite time of the week, when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to purertalk.com knowleskenner w l e S to get your free phone today. Take it away. Hi, Michael. I know you said a couple weeks ago that you believe in capital punishment as a Follow up. I'm just curious, what would your preferred method of execution be? And also what would your death row meal be? Thanks. I'd probably do a Philly cheesesteak. I don't know why that it's not even that the Philly cheesesteak is my total top favorite food. But I've thought about this question before, and I have come to the conclusion my final meal would be a Philly cheesesteak. And I would choose death by firing squad if I had to go by capital punishment. And I'd do it at least with a cigarette in my mouth. But I don't like cigarettes really. So I'd like to do it with a cigar or a cigarillo in my mouth. Yeah, that's the way to go. It's much more dignified standing up. Much more dignified than a lethal injection. The electric chair's a little spooky. Noose would freak me out. There's a Dorothy Parker poem about this. But I think firing squad, it's a dignified way to go. Especially after a nice tasty cheesesteak. Next question. Hey, Michael. My kid is getting bullied at school. She goes to public school. It seems like it's getting kind of serious. We've reached out to her teacher and her principal, and so far nothing's really been done about it. Should we consider moving to homeschooling or private schooling? Or are there other steps that we should be taking to address this first? Appreciate it. Thanks. Sorry to hear your kids going through that. I would look. I think a little bit of bullying, a little bit of razzing among kids is important in life. And the fact that we kind of extirpated it in the 90s and 2000s made a generation of weaklings. And that's bad. So a little bit of that, little bit of fighting in the schoolyard is probably good for a kid. Builds character, at least for the boys. However, there does come a point at which it can really screw up your life. I know people who were bullied where it really, really screwed up their life. And God forbid they fall into a depression or kill themselves. You hear these stories too, especially when it comes to a girl or with a boy. You want him to learn how to punch back. You need a boy to learn. I remember my mother told me this in elementary school. All the teacher said, if anyone ever pushes you or punches you, you come right to the teacher and you don't do anything. And I told that. And she goes, that's not true. If someone punches you, you gotta punch him. Back I said, oh, really? Fought six or something and I don't know, some kid like pushed me or I hit him back. And that's good. That's an important lesson, at least for a boy, but not so much for a girl. And it can be very, very bad. And especially if the school is unresponsive. I'd pull her. I would pull her. If it's really getting bad and there's nothing that's improving, I would pull her and send her to a different school if you can afford it, or homeschool or something for a little bit. But I would take it seriously. This is the proper conservative view. You're more, I don't know, tolerant of bullying than the libs. But in that way you actually take it more seriously because you recognize it actually means something and it can go too far. Next question.
- [41:07]
F
Hi, Michael. So I've been seeing this guy and he seems to have a lot of great qualities, but he often smokes weed. My question is, is that a deal breaker? On the same note, is it okay to date someone with the goal of fixing their vices or changing them? Like a conservative dating a lib or an anti weed person dating a weed smoker in order to try to get them to stop?
- [41:29]
B
Good question. It's not a good sign to put aside here. A wounded veteran with PTSD who has been prescribed medicinal marijuana, so called. Let's just put that. I'm not even weighing in on that issue right now. Put that aside. You're just talking about a young guy who likes to smoke the devil's lettuce. I think it's a bad sign. I mean, one of the moral arguments about this is it's different from alcohol inasmuch as you can have a drink or two drinks and not get drunk. I mean, Christ, you know, his first public miracle is turning water into wine for people who'd been drinking for days. But you can do that. You can also drink too much and get drunk. That would be a sin. But you can drink just socially have a drink or two and kind of loosens things up. But you haven't really lost control of your faculties. You can't really do the same with the sin spinach. If you're smoking pot, you're getting high, there's nothing unless you're doing a Bill Clinton thing. You're not. It takes you further and it just codes lib. It makes you more mellow, man. It kind of makes you a little less ambitious. It makes you a little less energetic, makes you a little more inclined to Eat a big bag of Cheetos. It codes lib. And so if he's just doing this recreationally, frequently at the beginning of your relationship, I wouldn't nag him about it, but I would just say, hey, this is deeply unattractive and you seem like a lib, and I find libs to be, like, gross. And I want a chad, I want a gigachad. So can you please. If you don't want to be a gigachad, that's fine, but I'm going to go get a gigachad. If you want to be like a huge couch potato lib, that's fine, that's okay. But then you need to go get a lib girlfriend with a septum piercing and 10 face tattoos, and that's fine. You go and we'll have. But it's not a good sign. Tell them, take up cigars. Take up Mayflower cigars. It's better for you. It's much more attractive. Next question.
- [43:32]
G
I want your further thoughts about Israel and its influence on America following your analysis on Trump's Israel used to control Congress statement. First off, many of the people who are against anti Semitism clearly act the stereotype for two examples, one a Jew, the other not. Congressmen like Randy Fine and Don Bacon have effectively proclaimed their fealty to Israel above America. We criticize Ilhan Omar for her obvious loyalty to a foreign country all day, but Republicans are largely and strangely quiet when it's for Israel and the Jews. They insist on giving real claims to people against Jews. Matt Gaetz once said, if you oppose the US Israel relationship, you face tremendous headwinds to get into government. An AOC was an example of an anti Israel congressman Trump used, but she voted to directly fund Israel and then put out a gobbledygook X post about how funding Israel was necessary and not funding their alleged genocide. Israel isn't shadowrunning our government like a wild spy movie. But if AOC is the normal anti Israel politician, if it begs the question about how much foreign influence and interests, particularly with Israel, are baked into our government. I love your thoughts.
- [44:48]
B
Oh, sure. All right. That was a little bit of a lot. We try to. This is not a knock on you, but try to keep the questions, if you can, under a minute, ideally 30 seconds, so that we can, you know, we gotta fit a lot of questions in the show, but it's a good question and it comes from Trump. This past week. He said, isn't it great? Look, I love Israel. Israel's great. They used to totally control Congress, and now they have no control over Congress at all, and everyone hates them. Israel's great. It was a compliment sandwich with this really funny thing in the middle. And this is how I think he defangs this issue, because there are some people who insist that the state of Israel has no lobbying in the United States. No influence whatsoever. None. That's totally crazy and ridiculous. And if you suggest that that's true, you're an anti Semite. There's that view that's obviously preposterous. Israel has a very strong lobby in the United States, or had a very strong lobby, per Trump's point. Then there's this other side that says, you know, Israel is pulling the strings, and every time I stub my toe in the morning, it's because some Jew in a schreimel is, you know, secretly conspiring to move my furniture. That's also not true. The reality is that the state of Israel, because of historical circumstance, among other things, just has this relationship with the United States. The state of Israel is founded by the United nations, which is seated in the United States. It was founded, it was permitted or licensed decades earlier by the British Empire. We are the successor of the British Empire. In many ways, we're kind of the same thing. And it was founded after the Second World War, which we won when we became one of the two superpowers of the world on our way to becoming the global hegemon. So we just have this relationship with Israel and we have. There are plenty of pro Israel people in the United States, plenty of Jews in the United States, plenty of Jews who hate Israel in the United States. So that's not exactly monolithic. But there's all these reasons that there are political headwinds that support Israel. But I think also you can't ignore the second part of Trump's comment, which is, yeah, they don't really have control anymore. Just look at the public opinion polling. Just look at the way congressmen are speaking about this now. Just look at, you know, look at, I don't know, any popular media left increasingly on the right, mainstream fringe. They all hate Israel. So, I mean, I think that would be evidence that. And maybe this will be a consolation to some people, that would be evidence that the state of Israel doesn't really have quite as much influence as not only as they once did, but as people seem to imagine that they do. It's the least popular view, as I always mention on the Israel Palestine conflict is my view is that things are just kind of murky and nuanced and these kind of extreme theories just don't really hold water. And that seems to be Trump's view as well. Okay, today is fake Headline Friday. The rest of the show continues now. You don't want to miss it. Become a member. Use code knowleskennerwlas at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.