Loading summary
Transcript27 lines
- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
Sydney Sweeney knocks down a liberal journalist's leading questions better than the entire Republican Party put together. Kanye west apologizes to a rabbi for threatening to go Death Con 3 on the Jews some time ago. And another American mayor gets caught not being an American citizen. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles. Welcome back to the show. Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto has just had a really lovely apology from Kanye West. Kind of unexpected, I guess. We'll get into what that means, why Kanye's doing it. First though, I want to tell you about Balance of nature. Go to balanceofnature.com, use promo code Knowles. We all know we should be eating more fruits and veggies, right? Who's doing it? Who's doing it? That's where balance of nature comes in. Balance of Nature fruits and veggies supplements are the original way to get a balance of color, taste and smell from whole foods in a convenient form. What makes them really versatile is that you can take them however works best for you. You can swallow them with water, chew them, you can even open them up and mix the powder into your food or drinks. Inside each capsule you will find ingredients from 16 whole fruits and 15 whole vegetables that have been freeze dried, lab tested. No binders, no fillers, no flow agents, just pure whole food ingredients ready to go wherever you go. That is because Balance of Nature's supplement powders are made from 100% Whole Foods, delivering the natural goodness of fruits, veggies, spices and fibers just as nature intended. I love it, especially when I'm on the road. I was on the road last night, you know, I woke up very early. I'm not always eating great on the road. I Balance of nature offers me the ability to get that sweet little Elisa, a nice nutritional variety in a convenient form. Go to balanceofnature.com get a free fiber and spice supplement plus 35% off your first set as a new preferred customer using discount code knowlescanawles. Folks, this morning is a Mayflower cigar kind of morning because I'll tell you why. Ready? Ah. Now I will tell you why because last night I had a great time down in Jacksonville. I did an event with Megyn Kelly. Megyn's on this big speaking tour, encouraged in large part to carry on the legacy of Charlie. So we had a great time. I think that's going up on Meghan's show today. But because of all the craziness with the government shutdown and as of 7:00am this morning, Central 700 flights already canceled. I said I gotta get back for a lot of reasons. We have exciting stuff to announce on the show today. I have a great dinner that I'm going to tonight with my wife. Anyway, I said I've gotta be here. I don't care if I don't sleep yet again this week. You know what's gonna power me? All my nice little cozy clothing, my lovely studio, and this delicious Mayflower cigar. Now we might be all feeling really nice in our homes, in our enclaves, in our communities. There's a big problem in the country, namely, that our political order is completely falling apart. And one evidence of this is that we keep running into these mayors and superintendents and public officials who are not actually Americans. This latest one, right out of Kansas. Well, you know, I'll tell you. Here's the local news story. See for yourself.
- [03:35]
News Reporter
The mayor of Coldwater accused of election fraud. The charges come hours after he secured a second term in office. Attorney General Kris Kobach charged Mayor Jose Joe Ceballos with six felonies, three counts each of voting without being qualified and election perjury. Kobach claims Ceballos is lawfully living in the US but is a citizen of Mexico, making him ineligible to vote. The AG alleges the mayor illegally cast ballots in the August 2024 primary and November 2022 and 2023 general elections.
- [04:12]
Michael Knowles
In large part, our system right now is based on trust. Trust that when the person signed the registration or signs the poll books saying that he's a qualified elector or that he is a United States citizen, that the person is telling the truth. That's the line. This is the takeaway from this story from the illegal alien who was a superintendent in Iowa or Idaho or wherever it was. And this is the statement that typifies our political order right now. Our system is based on trust, and the system is no longer working. What conclusion must we draw from that? We no longer have a high trust society? I gotta give this Mayor Ceballos credit. He tried to hide it. His name's Jose Ceballos said, hey, Jose Ceballos, are you sure that you're eligible to be the mayor of a town in America? I. Oh, yeah, totally, man. Don't call me Jose. You know my name. My name is Joe. Yeah, Joe DiMaggio. Ceballos, man. Okay, well, I trust you. I guess you'll be the mayor now. And then it turns out he's a citizen of Mexico. He's not an American. And you know what's so crazy about this? If he were a citizen of Mexico, he Could still be mayor. Notice what they're charging him for. They're not charging him for being mayor of an American town when you're not actually an American. Cuz I guess that's not against the law. They're charging him with voting illegally. It's not running that got him into trouble. It's not serving as mayor that got him into trouble. It's voting for himself. The voting is the one that you're still, I guess, technically not allowed to do. But hold on. I was told by the Democrats forever now that noncitizens are not voting in our elections. Buddy, not only are they voting in our elections, they're winning our elections. This is really distressing. So look, I hope they get him on this. I hope they ship him back to Mexico. I don't know, maybe he's a nice guy, but this is really, really bad. This further erodes trust in our society. Trust that really no longer exists anyway. We used to live in a high trust society. Now we live in a low trust society. And the consequences of that are not just that sometimes Mexicans end up serving as our mayors. The consequences of that are extremely widespread. You know when you talk to your grandma and grandpa and your grandma and grandpa say, you know, when I was a kid, we didn't lock our doors at night in our neighborhood. And now we have to. That's not just because the time keeps ticking on their watches. That's not just because there's something magical about the year 2025 that did not exist in the year 1945. The reason that we have to lock our doors at night now in neighborhoods where we used to not have to lock our doors at night is because we're no longer a high trust society. The reason that we have massive regulation and all sorts of rules and big nanny government coming in. You know, Zoran Mamdani in New York, he just said, there's no problem too big for government to solve. There's no issue too small for government to care about. The reason that government is getting involved in so many things that it didn't used to get involved in is because we used to be able to get away with it. Because we all trusted each other. Because we were all kind of the same in myriad ways. And now we're not the same in basically any way. This is the inevitable consequence of becoming a low trust society. How did we become a low trust society? Mass migration was a big part of it. We now have foreigners, people who don't share our customs, often don't share our language. Sometimes don't share our religion, don't, don't share our common patriotism, our heritage in this country. As a result, you gotta legislate every nitty gritty, tiny little thing. You gotta double check every little thing next time a liberal says to you, this is ridiculous. We've never had an issue with noncitizens voting before. This is a made up problem. Conservatives are imagining this. We didn't used to have to check this, why do we have to check this now? We have to check this now because we're no longer in a high trust society. Now we're in a low trust society. So if you don't like that, if you don't like voter id. I wish we didn't need voter id. We didn't used to need voter ID all the time. It wasn't as pressing an issue because our communities were more tightly knit, we knew each other, we had a more robust civil society. We had front porches where people would walk down the street at night and people would have conversations. All the stuff that your parents and grandparents talk about that we no longer have. We don't even build houses with front porches anymore. That has changed the political order, that's changed the calculus and I don't like it. I like societies where we can all kind of trust each other, where kids can go ride their bikes all around. Even when I was a kid, I could ride my bike all around town. It was no big deal. Now parents don't really let their kids do that. When I was a kid, we'd go all over the place, trick or treating. We just had Halloween. Now have you noticed the decline in trick or treating? Have you noticed the rise of a horrific phenomenon called, what do they call it, Trunk or treating? Trunker treating. Where parents within actual communities that trust each other, they'll all just go to a parking lot and they'll have their kids walk around the parking lot to trick or treat in cars. Why? Cuz they don't trust the people who live next to them anymore. Cause they don't know who it is. Maybe it's a boarding house filled with a bunch of illegal aliens. A boarding house run by Trend Aragua or something. That happens. Maybe it's just that we. Maybe it's just that you don't wanna send your normal kid to the house with the weird rainbow flags. And in this house we believe in blah blah blah kind of signs. Maybe it's because a huge number of Democrats justify political violence against Republicans and our children. And then the Democrats who openly say that we elect attorney general in Virginia. I get why parents wanna do trunk or treat. I wouldn't do it myself, but I get why people do it. I get why people lock their doors at night. I get all of it. I get why we need voter id. You say, look, yeah, we didn't used to have to do that. Now we do. And so if you like me, don't like that. And I think they're playing democrats who don't like. I bet they're playing liberals who don't like the fact that we now live in a low trust society. That then you have to do things to restore the political order that we used to have. And it's not all that complicated. It ain't rocket science. You need to drastically reduce all immigration. You need to enforce standards and norms. You need to promote civil society. You need religion in the public square. You're not gonna have a high trust society if you don't have public religion. You need to get on the same page. You need to stop promoting political violence. You need to punish people who do promote political violence. You need just, you just do all the normal things that normal countries do. I think restoring a high trust society is worth doing. I think doing all those things is good anyway. But there is a good that certainly people in the center and even a lot of people on the left would like. We actually can agree on that political goal. Okay? Now we have to do the things that get us to that political goal. Unfortunately, the society is so declined in trust that you have very prominent political figures going on relatively prominent political news channels explaining how they can't even trust the police. We'll get to that in one second. First though, I want to tell you about equip foods. Go to equipfoods.com Michael Knowles all one word, folks. I hate protein bars. I hate them. They don't taste good, they taste weird. That is why I love equip foods. Prime bar. The team, the whole team, they all want to be beefcakes like Mr. Davies. Well, we've all found a delicious, convenient way to get more clean protein in our day that keeps us energized for hours. Equip foods prime bar, first of its kind. Grass fed beef protein bar with only real food ingredients and absolutely nothing to hide with 20 grams of clean protein. Start today, my listeners will receive an exclusive discount on prime bar which has become the go to protein bar on the market. 20 grams of protein in every bar. Grass fed beef protein using just 11 clean ingredients like collagen, beef tallow, colostrum naturally sweetened with dates and honey. No whey, no seed oils, no artificial additives. Rigorously third party tested for contaminants. They have all sorts of great flavors. Chocolate mixed berry. Go for the chocolate, I say. Tastes like dessert but it's the cleanest protein bars on the market. I just love them right now. If you want to try aforementioned cleanest protein bar on the market already sold out once, but we got them for you@quickfoods.com Michael Knowles Use code Michael Knowles at checkout. Get 25% off one time purchases or 40% off your first subscription order for a limited time. Equipfoods.com Michael Knowles use code Michael Knowles M I C H A E L K N I W L A S at checkout. Folks, I have something so, so exciting. Many of you for years at this point have written into me and you've said, michael, I like your sweaters. I like your jackets. I like your sweaters. And I'm flattered by this. Thank you. I think it's very important to dress well. You don't want to be fussy about it, you don't want to be a dandy or anything. But I think proper dress conveys respect and both of those things are all too rare commodities these days. So I'm going to give you the answer. I have great tailors in New York. They have made me very nice pieces, including this sweater. But they made me a lot of stuff. And it's knit in America, it's knit in New York. They fit right, they feel right. They're very, very high quality materials. 100% Italian merino wool, extra fine, 100% cashmere. Really nice stuff. And so because people have written it over the years and said, hey, come on, let me know, I want a little of that, you know, a little riz, I want a little of that wardrobe. I said, okay, I'm gonna hook you up with my tailor. Introducing. I love this. This is almost as exciting as introducing the candle line which is completely sold out. Sorry. Or the mayflower cigars which are back in stock and which I'm smoking now. The Michael Knowles collection of fine sweaters. I have worked with these tailors to bring you a line of classic garments. 100% pure cashmere, 100% fine merino wool, extra fine. Actually knit in New York City. The kind of sweaters you will wear for years. The kind that look just as at home at a university library as they would with dinner with your in laws, maybe at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Available now exclusively at the Daily wire shop. Now I want to tell you something. I've reduced the margin on this as low as I can. They ain't cheap, they ain't cheap. And they're not cheap because they're not cheap. That's why you know me, I'm very, very frugal. I am of the opinion buy good and buy once. We live in the age of fast fashion where you get some cheap sweater for like 60 bucks and then you gotta get a new one next year cause it frays and it falls apart and it's blends of ugly materials or it's like plastic or whatever. No, this is the good stuff. Okay? Four sweaters, all timeless, all knit. In America, wonderful gifts if you want it. Look, they might sell out. So you know, that has happened sometimes. If you want it, I would move on it fast. My offering to you. Don't worry. If you don't want them, I'll keep them for myself. Dailywire.com shop today. I've wanted to do this one for a while. I'm glad it finally came to pass, especially right before Christmas. Speaking of high trust and low trust societies, Simone Sanders, who is not just a bloviating left wing talking head on tv. Simone Sanders has been a senior advisor to President Biden to would be President Harris. She was vice president at least is a very serious Democrat figure. She just goes on MSNBC to explain how the police don't make her more safe. You don't think more police make streets safer?
- [16:20]
Simone Sanders
No, Joe, I'm a black woman in America. I do not always think that more police make streets safer. When you walk down the streets of Georgetown, you don't see a police officer on every corner, but you don't feel unsafe. So what is it about talking about places like Southeast D.C. right, Ward 8, if you will, that people say, well, we need more officers to make us safe. I think we have to rethink what safety means in America.
- [16:43]
Michael Knowles
What is it? What is it about those places? She's saying as a black woman, she's kind of doing the Karine Shapier thing. Any question she gets, Kareem Champier says, well, I am a queer black woman. I am a black queer woman, okay? Simone Sanders says, police don't make me safe. Their job is to make us safe. But they don't make me safe because I'm a black woman. What's the evidence for this? She goes, well, I'll tell you why. Because in Georgetown they don't have police all over the streets. And Georgetown is really safe. But if you go to Southeast D.C. they have a lot of cops and it's less safe. Okay, maybe this is an honest misunderstanding on her part. The difference between Georgetown, really nice part of DC and less nice parts of DC is not primarily that there are more or less cops there. It's that there are more criminals in the less nice parts. There are fewer criminals in Georgetown. There are more criminals in the less nice parts. If you take the cops away from the less nice parts. Her theory is that crime will go down if you add more cops to Georgetown. Her theory is that crime will go up in beautiful Georgetown. So there is a way to test this theory, I guess. We've already sort of tested this theory, which is President Trump took control of Washington D.C. the federal city, and he added more cops and troops to the streets and crime went way, way down. The D.C. local government was trying to argue the crime had already been going down. We found out the reason the crime seemed to be going down on paper is cuz they were cooking the books. And now you have cops under investigation for cooking the books in D.C. but we all saw what happened. I've been to D.C. since then. Trump adds the cops. Crime goes down in D.C. but let's test it. You want to? Let's just test it. If Simone Sanders theory is right, then if we add cops to Georgetown, we should see a massive spike in crime. I'm sorry to make the elite of Georgetown the guinea pigs here, but I'm willing to do, I feel confident to do it. Let's just try it. Let's do one month, let's add a bunch of cops to Georgetown and let's. I really feel bad about this. Let's take the cops away from the less nice parts of D.C. and let's just see what happens. Because you know what we all know is gonna happen. Crime is not going to change at all in Georgetown unless the cops start investigating insider trading or something. Crime is not gonna change in Georgetown. Crime will go back to where it had been in the less nice parts of D.C. and then that's my offer to Simone Sanders. I'm sure she watches the show all the time. That's my offer. And then when that happens, can we all agree that cops make you more safe? You have a thesis, you have a hypothesis. It's easily testable. We will come to a clear conclusion. Can we all agree on those terms and then agree to accept the conclusion? Because we all know across races, across sexes, across geographic boundaries, we all know that the cops make us more safe. And there are a handful of political hacks who are arguing otherwise because, I don't know, they want to spur on some kind of anarcho tyranny that allows them to take even more power. Whatever it is, I don't care. Let's test it. Do we agree on the terms, Simone Sanders? Do we agree on the terms, liberals? Okay, then let's try it. Let's watch that crime spike in Georgetown. Oh no, there's cops here. We gotta start robbing liquor stores. Speaking of racial politics, you know Shannon Sharpe, he's some sports guy or something, I don't know, he got in hot water for some sex scandal recently. I guess he has a podcast, cuz everyone has a podcast. Some guy goes on Shannon Sharpe's show, a black guy, to explain how he intends to track down the descendants of the white people who reputedly purchased the this guy's ancestors as slaves. He's going to go track them down. He's going to hunt them down in their current homes.
- [20:55]
Guest or Interviewee
Found the white family that purchased the first black wood of my bloodline off the slave ships in Charleston.
- [21:03]
Michael Knowles
Yep, that's what we came off of.
- [21:05]
Guest or Interviewee
If I wanted to today, I could find the white wood descendants in southern Georgia and pull up on their house one day. I will. Yeah, they ain't got no money though. I zillowed. They crib, they broke. That's the thing we're gonna talk about with slavery, man, is that it was a lot of white people fumbled. Like, yo, if they fumbled the bag. Yeah, you had working for you, you still couldn't come up how you broke. And you had slaves.
- [21:41]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, that was bad. That was gold.
- [21:43]
Guest or Interviewee
They fumbled, bro.
- [21:46]
Michael Knowles
They fumbled. I actually love this clip, cuz. Look, they're making jokes, but there's a little bit of truth to the jokes, right? And they're. The truth to the joke is leading them to make an argument that they are then undermining with the conclusion of the joke. But the first part, I think they're being pretty serious, you know, Are these white people, they're the descendants of the guys who bought my ancestors. And I hate that. I hate that. I'm gonna go track him down. And then you see Shannon Sharpe, There he goes. Yeah, the slave ships, that's what we came off of. And if you look on his wrist, he's wearing what appears to be a Patek Philippe Nautilus watch, possibly in a precious metal, that's like $100,000 watch. And he's not laughing at that part. He says, yeah, he's got the watch up there. He Goes, yeah, that's what we came off of. I don't think you came off that ship. I don't think the guys who came off those ships are buying Patek Philippe. Their descendants are some of them. And then you get to the punchline of the joke, which is, yeah, you know, the thing about those white people, I want to go track them down. They don't have any money, though. They don't have any money, which is a fine conclusion to come to. The people who came here as slaves are rich and famous and dripping in gold jewelry, some of them. And the people who bought the slaves, their descendants don't have any money anymore. So what conclusion are we to draw from this? I don't know that they intend this to be the conclusion, but the conclusion is obviously that the racial politics of reparations and constant hand wringing over slavery or whatever is ridiculous. It's totally impractical. There's no way really to ascribe guilt to someone whose ancestors did something 400 years earlier. Even in the case of slavery, it's difficult because one of. I think actually the first guy to be recognized as an owner of a slave arbitrarily for life was a black guy. He was an Angolan guy. It's got one of these kind of funny little quirks of history. So let's say you're descended from white people and black people, or even slave owners and slaves. To what degree are you owed reparations? To what degree are you guilty or victimized? And should you have people show up to your house or should you show up to other people's houses? It's very, very silly, but it also shows you why people need to forgive. You know, we're talking about high trust societies. One of the reasons that you have to forgive people, why our Lord calls on us to forgive others as we ask forgiveness of our Father in Heaven to forgive people's debts and sins. The same meaning in the Lord's Prayer as we would have our debts forgiven us is because otherwise it'll just destroy you. So I'm glad these guys are laughing about it. In the end. A lot of people aren't laughing about it. A lot of people are seriously talking about reparations, for goodness sakes. Gavin Newsom in California is talking about. He just established a massive reparations office for a state that entered the Union as a free state. In fact, the entry of that state into the Union was one of the causes of the Civil War because they never had slavery. This is a real practical instantiation of that if people in America don't just kind of like get over it and have charity for one another and recognize one another as countrymen, then you don't have a society. Practically speaking, you don't have a society. And if you want to go show up to people's houses and demand all sorts of stuff and say, well, your ancestor was mean to my ancestor, whatever, I don't think it's going to work out very well. And if we start playing that game, I want Shannon Sharpe's watch. It's a nice looking watch. Speaking of notable Hollywood conversations didn't have this. Oh, actually there's two Hollywood conversations I want to get to Kanye apologizing to a rabbi and even more importantly, Sydney Sweeney destroying a liberal journalist. We'll get to that in one second. First though, speaking of Christian forgiveness, I want to tell you about the St. Paul Center. Go to stpaulcenter.com America do you know why I woke up at 4 o' clock in the morning, 4:15 today? To get back to Nashville. I did it to go to the St. Paul Center Gala. I love the St. Paul Center. It is one of the great organizations in this country. So timely. Founded by Scott Hahn, magnificent theologian, America has reached a cultural and spiritual crossroads. People are looking for the truth. And in their search, more and more people are turning to the Bible for answers. Bible Across America is a nationwide Bible study, the biggest Bible study in the country. Hosted by the St. Paul center for Biblical Theology. Seven week Bible study exploring the personal challenge of affirming Jesus as teacher and Lord. Join the movement and learn to share your faith confidently starting November 5th. All right, you're two days late. It's okay. Do it right now. You sign up@stpaulcenter.com America I have two books on my desk at home. I have a daily devotional and I have the Ignatius Study Bible with all the wonderful commentary by Scott Hahn. Do it. Sign up right now. It's really, really wonderful. Stpaulcenter.com America Sydney Sweeney just sits down for an interview with some lived journalist and she's gonna get grilled over the jeans ad, over her perception as not being a faithful left wing liberal Democrat campaigning for Kamala Harris or whatever. And you get a little nervous in these situations because whenever anyone in Hollywood steps out at all politically, just not totally toeing the party line for the Dems, they get grilled on it and usually they cave. Usually they fumble, usually they apologize, usually they say, no, I didn't mean that. I'm just, I'm not like those Republicans. No, I don't. I'm a Republican, but I don't like Trump. No, I didn't mean to say. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Now watch Sydney Sweeney.
- [27:32]
Liberal Journalist
The President tweeted about the jeans ad or Truth Social about the jeans ad. And that just seems to me like a very crazy moment for anyone. And I wondered what that was like. It was surreal. It was surreal. But the risk is that, you know, there's a chance that somebody will get some idea about what you think about certain issues and feel like, I don't want to see Christy because of that. Like, do you worry about that?
- [28:07]
Michael Knowles
No, no.
- [28:08]
Liberal Journalist
The criticism of the content, which was basically that maybe specifically in this political climate, like white people shouldn't joke about genetic superiority. Like, that was kind of like the criticism, broadly speaking. And since you are talking about this, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically. I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.
- [28:36]
Michael Knowles
I love her. I love her. I love her so much as my sister in the mystical body. I love her as my fellow countrymen. I'm not saying anything inappropriate or untoward. I love her. And I want every Republican politician, speaker, activist, layperson, I don't know, the ordinary to pay attention here. This was a masterclass. This woman, Sydney Sweeney, has better message discipline than the entire Republican Party put together. Look at this setup. This is perfect liberal interviewer setup from the kind of inflection, haha, and her kind of questions and her kind of feigned indifference, but absolute fury broiling underneath the surface says, oh yeah, you know, the President tweeted about your jeans ad. Isn't that. Wow. The President tweeted about it. Trump tweeted about it. Like, what was that like, Sidney? And you see the liberal journalist kind of like she's a little uncomfortable, she's trying to go in for the kill, fidgeting. And then Sydney Sweeney cuts to her. It's the new Anakin meme. It's the new. She's just totally in possession of herself. Doesn't flinch one muscle on her face. This is the value of good acting training, confidence. She's just there, doesn't flinch at all. What was your reaction to that? Oh, it was wild. Wild like good wild like bad wild like what? You kind of gimme something, don't you?
- [30:15]
Guest or Interviewee
Don't you?
- [30:16]
Michael Knowles
I mean, don't you think it's like. I mean, that ad was like kind of. It was like kind of like a little bit controversial. Wasn't it like, kind of. Don't you like, have any trepidation and regret? No. And then she goes in for the kill. The liberal journo is there. She goes, huh? Yeah. But like, look, like the criticism of it, the criticism, they always do this. It's so general. It's so passive. It's the passive voice. Very often. It's not my criticism. It's not. I'm criticizing you because it's not. My team is criticizing the criticism of it. Some critics say that it's inappropriate, ha ha ha. For white people to even joke about genetics or anything. I mean, we hear endlessly about black excellence. We hear endlessly about la raza and how Mexicans are the superior race. And we hear endlessly about all this kind of nonsense. But white people aren't allowed to do that, right?
- [31:13]
Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto
Ha ha ha ha.
- [31:14]
Michael Knowles
I just want to give you an opportunity, you know, like this thing that you've avoided talking about that really is nobody's business, cuz you're a Hollywood starlet doing a jeans ad. But like, I want to give you an opportunity to grovel and apologize to me and to be called liberal. I want to give you that opportunity. And Sydney Sweeney doesn't bat an eyelash. I think when I have something to say about an issue, people will hear it. And then the liberal jersey, I got nothing. I print it, frame it. It's already become a meme. But just study that. Study that. If you're in office, if you want to run for office, if you want to be an activist, if you're just like a guy with conservative views standing around the water cooler, study that. That's it. No apologies, no provocation, no prevarication, no equivocation. Am I rapping? I'm like becoming a rapper. We'll get to Kanye west in a second. Nothing. Total confidence. Don't give him an inch more than you have to. Don't. Yeah, but you did that Gene's ad, right? Yep. But like, surely you have something to say about it, right? Nope. This actually is a fact about acting, about good acting. Is a lot of people think that, like, to be a good actor, I don't know, you have to just like, be doing stuff all the time. You'll notice weaker actors in movies and on stage. They're always like, moving. They don't feel comfortable in their body. And there's a great power to stillness on a stage or on film, to intentionality. And she's got it in spades. Girl's a great actress and a great model. For how we should conduct political discourse, especially on the right. Really love it. Love it. Great stuff. Okay. Speaking of other notable Hollywood conversations. Yay. The artist formerly known as Kanye west, you know, he has had some things to say about a certain ancient nomadic tribe. I'm not gonna say what kind of tribe it was. A Jewish tribe. And so he's been going on for a year or two now about how he was gonna go death con three on the Jews, on how the Jews, like, control everything and he doesn't like them and whatever. He's kind of going on all this stuff. And I've pointed out that even, like, when he had that. He had that song, you know, Heil Hitler. And I said, I think people are misunderstanding this song. I think it's actually more artistic and nuanced than people are giving it credit for. And I think there's clearly some introspection in the song, and there's a great deal of irony in the song. And people made fun of me. Even people who liked that Kanye west was attacking the Jews made fun of me for my reaction to the song. And I said, no, I think I'm getting it. You know, I'm. This has nothing to do with Kanye as an artist or the Jews as a people, or I'm just, like, analyzing the lyrics and the music here. And I think I'm sending. Kanye is a pretty talented, popular artist and musician. I think there's something else going on here. And I was totally right. I was totally right. You know how much I hate to say it. So Kanye comes out and has this meeting with a rabbi who doesn't even appear to speak English. The rabbi's name is Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto. Here's what he said.
- [34:44]
Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto
I feel really blessed to be able to sit here with you today and just take accountability. I was dealing with some various issues dealing with bipolar also. And then you can. So it would take the ideas I had, and having taken them to an extreme where I would forget about the protection of the people around me or. And myself. So I wanted to come and take accountability sometimes with, you know, people aren't that knowledgeable about the bipolar and the cause or what causes it and the way you act when you have this disease. So it's like if you left the house and you left your kid at the house, and your kid went and messed up the kitchen and messed up the garage, messed up the living room. Now when you get back, it's your responsibility because that's your child, and that's.
- [35:55]
Guest or Interviewee
The way I look.
- [35:56]
Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto
At it. It's like, I gotta go clean, clean up the kitchen, I gotta clean up the living room, I gotta clean up the garage.
- [36:01]
Michael Knowles
So it goes on and on and on. I really love this and I wanna be very clear about what I love about this. Cuz there are two types of behavior that I hate. One type of behavior I hate are the groveling humiliation rituals where you go, you know, you say something and you get all this blowback and then you have to make a fake apology. Whether it. And often it's on racial lines. Al Sharpton would do this all the time. So, you know, you make some comment about black people and then, you know, it's, you don't really feel bad about it. You don't, you didn't intend any harm. It's not like a, it's not really a big deal, it's blown out of proportion. Then you gotta go and like kiss up to Al Sharpton and apologize to the black people generally. And it's like this humiliating thing. And it's just a way basically for one group to demonstrate power over the person who has transgressed. Or it could be the Jews. You know, you gotta go, you make some comment that's perfectly innocuous and not intended to offend anyone. And you gotta go show up to the ADL and kiss up to the adl, some of the worst people on the planet, and give some fake, insincere apology to the Jewish people broadly. You never really intended to offend them. It's just a nasty sort of thing. That's not what this is. Because that's one error that I hate. There's another error, which is when you do something that is legitimately wrong and immoral and unchristian and you don't apologize. And there are all sorts of reasons people don't apologize these days. Because you don't want to give people an inch. Because often people don't accept apologies. Christ tells us to apologize, you know, to have humility, to, you know, forgive those who trespass against us. As I mentioned earlier, as we seek forgiveness from our Father in heaven, you know, to go try to make right with our brother and all the rest of it. Not just seven times, but 70 times. 77 times. 7 million times. What Kanye is doing here is like a manly thing to do. He's sitting there and he's saying, yeah, look, I didn't mean to do all that. That was kind of rough. And you know, look, I'm bipolar. And I love his analogy too. He goes, it's kind of like, you know, you got a kid and your kid screws up the kitchen and then you gotta go in and clean it up. Well, yeah, I'm the kid. I'm the kid and the adult here. And so I gotta. And I didn't mean to call for like going DeathCon 3 and the Jews. He's not going out there and saying, like, I love Israel. It's the greatest country ever. And he's not going out there and saying, like, I'm gonna convert to Judaism or something. You're just saying I did something that is legitimately wrong. I shouldn't have done that here. I'm not excusing it. Here are some reasons why I did it. And anyway, pal, hey, anyway, to you particular rabbi, I'm sorry. And I'm gonna sit here like a man. I'm gonna say that. And then the rabbi accepts his apology. That's kind of a nice thing. I like that. You can't really do that in the culture that doesn't accept apologies. You can't really do that in the culture if you're like a kind of weak, squishy person. But if you're Kanye, who. I've said, I said Kanye is going to reinvent himself many times. He's a very interesting artist. He's eccentric. He's all these. You're going to confound expectations that way. I thought it was a nice exchange. It is good on him. As someone who is Catholic, I don't really care that much about the state of Israel. I mostly care. I mean, I care about it as a matter of justice and like, nation states and everything. World order care about, the holy sites especially, but very philo Semitic. Love the Jews as a people, even though some, like the ADL or whatever are quite annoying. But this is nice. This is really nice to see. And Kanye is gonna irritate everybody with this. He's gonna irritate the people who don't wanna forgive him. He's gonna irritate the people who genuinely hate the Jews. And that's probably how you know he's right. But good. It was really nice. Friendly Fire returns Wednesday night, November 19th at 7pm Eastern on Dailywire. Plus, what is friendly Fire? I'm glad you asked. It's the show where Ben Shro, Matt Walsh, Andrew Clavin and I get together to disagree for the entire Internet to watch and comment on in real time. This time, we are world premiering the official trailer for the Pen Dragon cycle, the Rise of Merlin. You've seen the teaser, now get ready for the trailer that will blow you away. It's all happening on Friendly Fire, Wednesday, November 19th at 7pm Eastern on Daily Wire. My favorite comment yesterday is from the Drummers Workshop, Norm's music who? Look, I picked the comment before I saw it was him. And then I said, this comment's so good, it had to be him. We need to have him. We need to give him a producer credit on the show. He has so many great. But anyway, his observation was about the New York election. He said, like Sinatra said, if you can Mecca here, you can Mecca anywhere. It's up to you. New Yorkistan. It's true. If you can Mecca New York, you can Mecca anywhere. It's so true. I'm a sucker for a good pun. And it's a good point. Finally, finally, we've arrived at my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Our mailbag is sponsored by PureTalk. Go to PureTalk.com knowlescanawles Switch to America's Wireless Company. Take it away.
- [40:43]
Mailbag Caller
Hi, Michael, My question for you is about Christian morality. I'm Jewish, so I don't really know much about it, but from what I understand, you and the Christians believe that's the only way a person can get into heaven is by accepting Jesus in their life in some way. And no matter what they've done in their lives, if they accept him, they go to heaven. Now, the problem is, by that metric you can take Hitler and all his henchmen, and if they would have accepted Jesus before they died, they could all be sitting in heaven and the 6 million Jewish people who they murdered would be sitting in hell. And that is in objectively evil stance and unacceptable. And my question for you is, how can a system with such a sense of morality be a good thing? Thank you for taking my question.
- [41:56]
Michael Knowles
Excellent, excellent question. You have to rewind to figure out this question because your question is presuming things that you really have to examine. First of all, what do we mean by go to heaven? You mean be saved? What do we mean by be saved? We mean escape the consequences of death. What is death? Death is an observable fact. We die.
- [42:18]
Guest or Interviewee
We're mortal.
- [42:20]
Michael Knowles
And we believe, and Jews believe, that that was not always the plan, that we die because we sinned, because we sinned in the Garden of Eden. We were going to live in paradise forever in the Garden of Eden. But because our first ancestors sinned, sin pervaded the world, and therefore death pervaded the world. And that's just a fact. And no One denies it. We die. We all sin and we all die. So that's how we begin. But we might be saved. How can we be saved? Can you save yourself? Can you save yourself of your own doing? Or are you not capable of saving yourself? Do you need a savior? Seems to me pretty clearly you can't save yourself. You can't really stop yourself from sinning, at least committing venial sins. And if you're not in a state of grace, it seems to me you can't stop yourself from committing mortal sins. And I think this is just. Again, I'm not. This isn't like pie in the sky. This is pretty practical. I think you can observe that fact. You can't really save yourself. If you want to get a little more abstract about it, you, by sinning, commit an offense and incur a debt against God, who is perfect, who is all good, who is infinitely good and infinitely perfect. And you can't pay that debt. The debt is too large. You don't have the resources to pay that debt, so you can't save yourself. And practically we can observe that. So you need a savior. We don't deserve salvation because we sin in the course of justice. None of us should see salvation. So how do we get salvation? Well, God sends his only begotten son to die for us. And it's pretty easy to get salvation in the sense that we just take his yoke upon us, and his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Now you say, okay, all right, I get all that. Maybe I even agree with all of that. And maybe you would even admit that all of that is prefigured in the Old Testament, that God gives us the law, but we can't actually accomplish the law because we continue to sin. And so we now understand that the law is not the means to our salvation. The law is the means of showing us our sin and our need for grace. And God gives us that grace, which is great because the grace is more of a sure thing than our saving ourselves. So now what? Well, first of all, faith looks like something. Faith entails works. Faith without works is dead. As we read in James 2:24, right? Man is justified by works and not by faith alone. It's actually the only time that the phrase faith alone appears in the Bible. Martin Luther added the word alone after the word faith in his version of the Bible, but it wasn't there. He had to add that word in. The only time it actually appears in the Bible is when James writes, man is justified by works, but not by faith alone. Now, don't take that to mean that you can earn your salvation, and that's not what justified actually means in that context. And that's a broader conversation between Protestants and Catholics. That's quite interesting, but beside the point. Right now, faith looks like something. You follow Christ, you do take his yoke upon you. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. But you have to do stuff. And there are works that are fruits of your faith, and there are sacraments that our Lord gives us. He gives his apostles and their successors the ability to forgive and retain sins. He gives us the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. He says, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life in him. If you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. My flesh is true food, my blood is true drink. And people have trouble with this. This is a stumbling block for a lot of people. A lot of them go away, but not the apostles. Because Peter says, lord, to whom shall we go? Then he institutes this at the Last Supper. So it's all there for you. Now you say, well, hold on. That means that if Hitler had accepted Christ, he would go to heaven. And if Hitler's victims or any evil man's victims don't accept Christ, then they don't go to heaven. And maybe that's true. I guess that's kind of on dubious premises, though, because Hitler didn't accept Christ, to our knowledge. He was an enemy of the Church. He wanted to kidnap and possibly kill the Pope. He said the Pope was his personal enemy. And. And he endeavored to destroy the Church in Germany. And he tried to create his own false Christianity called positive Christianity, which took Christ out of it. So it doesn't really work that way. Now, does this mean that you just have to, like, say some magic words and then you're saved? No, not exactly. It's about a revolution of the heart. It's about repentance, which is changing one's mind, changing one's direction. It's about love, you know, it's recognizing that what is figured in the Old Testament is all good, it's all true, not a jot or tittle changes. But it is a figure to point us to something else. It's a figure that shows us our sin, to point us to the need for grace. It's a figure that shows us what the Messiah really means. And we, in our terrestrial myopia, we expect a terrestrial savior, a terrestrial kingdom, a terrestrial king. But we get so much more. There's a spiritual kingdom that we can look to. And that is Jerusalem. Sorry, that's heaven, which is the spiritual Jerusalem. So it's all kind of there. What's kind of funny about your question, which is a very, very good question, is implicit in your question. Implicit even in the idea of heaven, is all of the stuff that comes along with it. And ultimately the source and summit, which is Christ. It's all there. It's not something to be angry about or to be ashamed about. It's something to be grateful for. And it comes from the, I think, inescapable premise that, no, we can't save ourselves and we don't have to, which is a great thing. We should thank God for that. Okay. There's so much more I want to get to in the mailbag. That question was so good, though, that I. Well, maybe we'll get to more in the membrane segmentum. Today's fake headline. Friday, the rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code knowlescanner WLAS at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.