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Michael Knowles
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Michael Knowles
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Donald Trump
Failed the west and the United States of America. It's a failed policy. It is what the WEF has stood for, which is export, offshore, far shore. Find the cheapest labor in the world and the world is a better place for it. The fact is it has left America behind. It has left the American workers behind.
Michael Knowles
Okay, Lutnick, totally right here. You can see all of the other panelists from the WEF here just looking at him. What? It's a mixture of just defeat. You can see the one guy in the middle, he's just looking with defeat. Oh, why do we have to listen to America? And then the bemusement, they don't know what to make of it. His point is, right though, this has failed America. WEF is not made up of radical leftists. I think there is a misconception for some people who see this shadowy gathering in Davos, Switzerland, and they think it's these radical leftists, these communist agitators who are trying to destroy the world. In a way, they kind of are, but they're not really radicals in the sense that the people you're seeing in Minneapolis who are punching cops and wearing black masks and calling for revolution, those are leftist radicals. The kind of people who meet in Davos are. You know, I hate to use vulgarity or profanity, but it's called for. Cuz this is a precise technical term. They're shit libs. That's what they. I don't really know the etymology of that term, but they're the kind of liberals who are elite, who sip champagne, who don't throw punches in the streets, who. They're the kind of liberals who have institutional power in the private and the public sectors. That's something specific to wef, is that it's a meeting of business leaders and government leaders who do want to bring about a left wing form of governance throughout the world. But it's not Maoists marching in the streets. It's a more elite, bourgeois, even insidious kind of liberalism. It's the liberalism of globalization. And so when Lutnick comes out and he says globalization has failed America, he's not talking about the last few years. He's not talking about wokeness. He's going back to the 90s or earlier. He's going back to the liberal ideology that says from now on, nations are not gonna matter as much. We're gonna be governed by these supernational international institutions like the United nations or the IMF or the World Economic Forum. And borders, therefore, are not gonna matter so much. And so we're gonna get a lot of mass migration and we're gonna get global trade that is not even established by sovereign nations, but is regulated by these international institutions. And we're just going to. We're all going to be kind of one world. And yeah, you're gonna lose your sovereignty and yeah, you're going to lose your traditions and your way of life and, and your specific national identities. But hey, we're gonna get more cheap stuff. And Lutnick comes to. Everyone agreed with this. Republicans and the Democrats agreed with this. In the 90s, everybody, the world is flat. It's great. History has stopped, but now we don't agree with this. The left is still kind of there. The establishment left, not the woke left. They've woken up from that. And even the right, the red pilled right, they've also woken up from that. Those two terms, woke and red pill, they speak to the same kind of thing. You've woken up from a fantasy, from a dream, and you're rejecting that liberal consensus. And so when Lutnick says globalization's failed, he says, look, the American worker was left behind. Our national identity is gone. We have a total fraying of social solidarity. We don't even know what it means to be an American anymore. On the 250th anniversary of our country. So what we are rejecting is not merely leftism, it's not merely liberalism, it's not merely some policy or other policy. We are rejecting the prevailing ideology that animates things like the World Economic Forum. A nice little start to the trip. Trump rolls up. Do we have the clips now, guys, or. No, I wanna wait till we have all the clips. I wanna hit the big winners from Trump. All right. No, there's one more, cuz I wanna get Trump's entrance here. So before we get to have a sense beyond policies regarding trade and immigration, whatever, what is the broader, deeper vision of the World Economic Forum? Yuval Harari sums this up. Well. Yuval Harari helped to contribute to Klaus Schwab's book. Klaus Schwab, who was the head of the World Economic Forum. Yuval Harari is sort of the court intellectual of the World Economic Forum. And he came out and he told everyone that as we look into the future, the future is going to be run by AI. Anything involving language, up to and including the Bible, religion is going to be taken over by AI. Here's what he had to say.
Yuval Harari
Do you know, as far as putting words in order is concerned, AI already thinks better than many of us. Therefore, anything made of words will be taken over by AI. If laws are made of words, then AI will take over the legal system. If books are just combinations of words, then AI will take over books. If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion. This is particularly true of religions based on books like Islam, Christianity or Judaism. Judaism calls itself the Religion of the Book and it grants ultimate authority not to humans, but to words in books. Humans have authority in Judaism not because of our experiences, but only because we learn words in books. Now no human can read and remember all the words in all the Jewish books, but AI can easily do that. What happens to a religion of the book when the greatest expert on the holy book, he's an AI?
Michael Knowles
This guy could not make himself seem more villainous if he tried. I've thought this about Yuval Harari for a while. He leans into it, he's gonna be the Bond villain. He's going to be this figure who seems to herald the end times, you know. And he does. He leans into it. And he's not totally wrong about the influence of AI. AI has crept into all of your lives in one way or another. AI has crept into everyone's life and we even cooperate with it a lot. So in that way he's right. But he gets the fundamental things wrong here. First of all, he says Jews refer to themselves as the Religion of the Book, the People of the Book. That's a half truth that's sometimes true today. The Jews did not originate this phrase, the People of the Book. Do you know where the People of the Book comes from? It comes from Islam. It's a phrase from the Quran to refer to Christians and Jews and try to make Islam seem like it's part of that. But People of the Book is a Muslim term that then later Jews and some Protestants have re appropriated or appropriated I suppose appropriated for the first time. But when you get down to it, we would not say, forget about Islam, whatever Islam is, put that aside. Judaism and Christianity are not fundamentally are not essentially religions of the Book. They're religions of sacrifice. It is true since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Jews gather and conduct their religious services in the synagogue. But previously that was a religion of temple sacrifice. Christianity, crucially, is a religion of sacrifice. The centerpiece of the Holy liturgy is the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the Blessed Sacrament, Christ in the Holy Eucharist, body, blood, soul and divinity. I don't mean to diminish in any way the importance of the book, but John Paul II beautifully, I think, corrected this idea that we are the religion of the book when he said, no, no, no, we are the religion of the Word of God. We are the people of the Word. And so we have holy Scripture inerrant, authored by God. But the center point here is the Word himself, the Word which becomes flesh and dwells among us. That's what we are. And when you realize that Yuval Harari's statement is all the more jarring, is he says anything that involves language, that is to say anything that involves words, will be taken over will be conquered by AI. But if the religion that animates our civilization is the religion of the Word, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, then what he's saying is AI is going to conquer God. I'm not sure if he. He's a smart guy, so he might be aware that that is what he's saying. Even if he's not, even if this is inadvertent, perhaps, then it's all the more jarring. He says that AI will conquer God. And I think that's what a lot of these liberal, humanist, materialist, atheists, globalists, this is that ists believe. That's what they believe. This is the culmination not just of a few years or a few decades, this is the culmination of centuries of liberal thought. They're going to make their own God and AI is going to be their God and they're going to worship it. Just like in the Old Testament, we see pagans worshiping dumb idols, just as God tells us throughout the Bible not to worship these dumb idols lest we become dumb ourselves. And that's exactly what we've done. Which is why all of these fancy elites who went to very good schools and they have lots of money and they have fancy jobs, it's why they seem so dumb. It's why even guys like Yuval Harari, who's probably got a very high IQ and he's read a lot of books, it's why what he's saying seems so, so dumb. And it's why you need a guy like Trump to barge in there and tell them it's why you need to go to the imperial capital of global liberalism, which is to say Davos. And you need the Trump to walk in and say, hey, the emperor has no clothes. Which we will get to momentarily. First, though, I want to tell you about Policygenius. Go to policygenius.com knowles One thing that happens when you have a family is you start to worry about things you previously didn't worry about. You know, previously I thought, listen, if I die in a blaze of glory at the age of 27 wielding a sword, you know, conquering the Saracens, so be it. And then you have a wife and kids and you say, oh, I actually need to be alive. One, to provide emotionally and spiritually for them. But two, even just financially, like, I need them to eat. So do you have life insurance? Do you? A lot of times people put it off. They don't want to think about it. It can feel overwhelming to even know where to start. 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Donald Trump
And to address so many respected business leaders, so many friends, few enemies, and all of the distinguished guests, it's a who's who. I will say that I've come to this year's World Economic Forum with truly phenomenal news from America.
Michael Knowles
Okay? Phenomenal news. It's great. Hey, everybody. Nice to see all of you. Trump is friends with some people here. Sometimes Emmanuel Macron. Is he friends with Macron? Sometimes he is, sometimes he is. And odd is he. But there are some people in that audience who are avowed enemies of his. And so does Trump tailor his message to the Davos audience? Does he try to just win friends and influence people by flattering their liberal sensibilities? You know, maybe avoiding the rougher edges of Trumpism, you know, working on areas. I think, you know where I'm going with this. Working on areas of commonality where we all agree and putting out some of that stuff that, no, he leans into the Trumpiest Trump edges here, the areas where they are most likely to disagree, the things that in many ways are least relevant to them. And he leans into claims of the stolen election in 2020. That is how little a care in the world he gives. That is how much he wants to ram it down their throats that he's the boss and they're gonna listen.
Donald Trump
It's a war that should have never started, and it wouldn't have started if the 2020 US presidential election weren't rigged. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that they found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. It's probably breaking news, but it should be. It was a rigged election. Can't have rigged elections.
Michael Knowles
I love two parts of this one. I love that he doesn't back off of the observation that at the very least, I think most reasonable people would have to agree in some way. The 2020 election, where all the election rules were changed, in some cases unconstitutionally, as in Pennsylvania, in some way. At the very least, we would say it was R. One might go further. One might say it was like, really, really rigged. It was like, very intentionally rigged. But I love that he's not backing off this, and I love that he's saying it at Davos. This is the kind of claim that is most likely to offend there because it seems gratuitous, it seems superfluous. It offends their sensibilities that these processes of liberalism and democracy are perfect and beyond question. And he goes and he says, nah, the Democrats, the people who were talking here last year, yeah, they stole the election from me. Those dirty crooks. Those rotten crooks. Yeah, you know your friend Joe Biden and his cronies. Yeah, he stole the election from me. But don't worry, he got his comeuppance. And now I'm back here and you're gonna listen to me. But the second reason I really like this comment, he's promising concrete action. He says, yeah, people are gonna be prosecuted for that. And lest one think, oh, this is just some bluster, he's talking beyond the sale or something. He says, I might be breaking news when I say that. Now we all stop. We say, wait, is this just an ordinary DOJ investigation into some crooked county clerks or something? Or you remember one part of the claims made about the 2020 election is it's somehow related to the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela. And then we've just arrested Nicolas Maduro, the successor to Chavez, dictator of Venezuela, and he's gonna be prosecuted in New York. And is he. I don't. I don't know. What do I know? Is he suggesting that there is some. I don't know. And you're just on the edge of your seat, you say, what comes next? But then Trump gets down to business. What does he really want to talk about here? The World Economic Forum is about the world and the world order. Okay, so what are we gonna talk about? We could talk about the Ukraine war. He was already alluding to that a little bit when he was talking about the 2020 election. He says, had I remained in office, there would be no Ukraine war. I think that's true. I think Zelensky agrees with that. Putin agrees with that. So we could talk about that. We could talk about the Israel Gaza war, though that's basically over. Trump basically put an end to that. We could talk about war in Venezuela. That was over in about 88 minutes. But there is one territorial concern that is outstanding, and that is the fact that the United States wants Greenland. Trump, in particular, wants to acquire Greenland. This has been US policy since the 19th century. The state Department has wanted to acquire Greenland. We've tried to buy it multiple times over the years. It's been rebuffed. Trump says, we're going to have it.
Donald Trump
We never asked for anything and we never got anything. We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won't do that. Okay, now everyone's saying, oh, good. That's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland, where we already had it as a trustee, but respectfully returned it back to Denmark not long ago. After we defeated the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians, and others In World War II, we gave it back to them. We were a powerful force then, but we are a much more powerful force now. After I rebuilt the military in my first term and continue to do so.
Michael Knowles
Today, this is clearly quite intentional rhetoric. Sometimes Trump goes off script. He's great extemporaneously. We all love that about him. This is quite specific diction. There is this fear that the US And I've joked about this on Air said, you know, we're gonna send Don rumsfeld in an F35 light up nuke. You know, we'll be greeted as liberators in Greenland by the Eskimos. We're taking it, baby. This is Bush era neo con revanchism. Bring it here. And Trump has left open that possibility. But I don't think anyone, no serious person, seriously thought he was going to do that here. He forecloses it because he's getting a lot of pushback from the Europeans. And sometimes it's good to get pushback from Europeans, but you don't want it to be excessive or needless. And so he says, no, no, look, guys, I'm not gonna do a Maduro. I know it got real because of Maduro. I know it got real. I'm not gonna go in and kidnap the Eskimo leader of Greenland. I'm not gonna go take out Hamlet or Hamlet's successor. I'm not gonna pull a Claudius and kill the king of Denmark. I'm just. We need Greenland, guys. We've had Greenland before. Notice that. I think a lot of people are hearing for the first time we have controlled Greenland before, as in the Second World War. During the Second World War, Denmark gets overrun by Hitler. Denmark owns Greenland as a kind of a colony. And so at that point, Greenland is owned by an occupied country. The US Just came in and took it over, and then we just gave it back. And we gave it back because why, what does Trump say here? He doesn't just say, we won World War II. He doesn't even just use the shorthand that we typically use for winning World War II, which is, I defeated the Nazi. We defeated the Nazis. He says, we defeated Germany. Not just the Nazis, not just the political party, the Nazi Party. He goes, we defeated Germany the country and Japan the country. And he throws Italy in there. And Italy, the country. Italy. People forget that Italy was even in World War II because the Italians, they don't take war very seriously. Not since Octavian have they taken war all that seriously. And so they just, we're on this side now. We're on that side. Whatever. We'll be drinking and a smoking under the bridge. Let me know when the war is over. But he leaves that in there too. Why? I think this was tactical rhetoric. He's here at the World Economic Forum. He's speaking to delegates from Germany and Japan and Italy. And when he comes out and he says, hey, we are the World War champ, you know, we're the World War champ. We beat you guys, everyone in this room, everybody in Davos right now has something in common. You were either defeated or saved by the United States. That's the one thing all you guys have in common. From everywhere around the world, this kind of rhetoric, and it's subtle and it's gonna go over most people's heads, this kind of rhetoric is very specific and very effective. He's saying we are the global hegemon. And in the example that comes right before he deploys this rhetoric, he says we're a beneficent global hegemon. We are a magnanimous global hegemon. We had Greenland already. We were very nice and gave it back to you after we saved you. And as we still protect you today, Remember that time you got overrun by your enemies and we had to bail you out? Just like we are your military protectors today. Yeah. And we were real magnanimous. And we occupied Greenland because you needed us to. Cuz you all need us too. Cause we protect the world order. And guess what? You need us too again. Because hostilities are ramping up. There are threats to the liberal world order. It is just cracking up. That happens sometimes. History exists, history moves on, and sometimes balances of power shift. We're in one of these moments where people are preparing for war. We hope there isn't war, but we're preparing for war.
Donald Trump
And.
Michael Knowles
And guys, I'm not threatening you, King of Denmark, with F35s, but let's get real. We could take it if we wanted in three minutes. It's good for you, for us to protect it. Give us Greenland. Really. You know, Trump, he's known for his rhetorical bombast. But I think at this point, as he's dominated American politics for 10 years, I think we have to admit he's a pretty smart guy and he's pretty good at politics. And part of the advantage of the bombast is that it sometimes distracts from very particular, very effective rhetoric that is conveying wittingly or unwittingly is conveying very serious ideas. And this is one of them. Okay, now I want to get back to religion, as the liberals of the World Economic Forum say that AI is about to take over religion because Elon Musk, an ally of President Trump, has a beautiful observation he's just made about religion and human behavior. First, though, I want to tell you about Pure Talk. You need to go to PureTalk.com knowles K N A W L E S if your credit card balance is freaking you out after all the Christmas spending, I have something that can save you money right now. Cut your cell phone bill in half by switching to our sponsor, PureTalk's SavorPlan. Just 20 bucks a month for unlimited talk text. Three gigs of high speed data on PureTalk's superfast nationwide 5G network is a veteran led company that cares about giving back to those who serve. If you are active or former military or a first responder, you'll save an additional 20% every single month. I absolutely love PureTalk. I've had my PureTalk phone and planned for, I don't know, like five years now or something like that. It's just phenomenal. It's great, great. Best service you're gonna get so easy to deal with. I love that people speak English when you call them on the phone. And not just my friends, but customer service. And you can even take it overseas. Go to PureTalk.com knowles Make the switch today in as little as 10 minutes. Talk, text and data for just $20 a month. That is insane. And it's extraordinarily high quality. PureTalk.comKnowles you will save an additional 50% off your first month. PeerTalk America's wireless company Elon Musk has gone viral for an interview with Lex Friedman in which Elon, who is quite prolific, we would say when it comes to procreation, he has about a billion children, lots of baby mamas, baby's mama, sort of like attorneys general. But he knows a lot about sex, let's put it that way. And he made this delightful observation about sex.
Elon Musk
A massive amount of thinking, like a truly stupendous amount of thinking has gone into sex without procreation, which is actually quite a silly action. In the absence of procreation, it's a bit silly. So why are you doing it? Because it makes the limbic system happy, that's why. But it's pretty absurd really. But I mean, this is a lot of computation has gone into. How can I do more of that with procreation not even being a factor?
Michael Knowles
I love this clip. I don't know when this was filmed, it's going viral now. But I love this clip. I hadn't seen it before, it might be new, I don't know, but it looks a little younger there. But in any case, I love this clip because Elon, in his genius IQ with his immense intellectual curiosity, with all of his successes, has discovered something that wise people have always known, that nobody seems to know today, which is that sex is for procreation. It's not that it can't be involved in other Things. It's not that it can't produce other consequences, but what it's for is procreation. He's discovered what Norm MacDonald hit on in a very, very funny bit. He goes, yeah, you know, the thing about sex is that it's a filthy, shameful thing that's obviously only meant for procreation. I remember he did that bit, I don't know, five, ten years ago. And it shocks the audience. He may have done it in San Francisco, of all places. And he's right. That's what it's for. It's a silly thing. Just take the kids out of it. Let's say everybody's sterile, as we all kind of are intentionally sterile today, for the most part. He imagine just the action. I don't want to lead you into appealing to prurient interest and to impure thoughts, but just if you can. If you can make it not a lusty thing, you just think of. It's kind of. We call it bumping uglies. It's kind of a weird thing. And so if it's not for procreation, what's it for? Just feeling good, getting a fleeting titillation, producing some kind of endorphin or is that. That's what. It's just pure self indulgence, Is that. No, it's for procreation. And we can abstract this beyond sex, which is when you use things for what they're for, the world makes sense and you are generally happy. When we use things in ways that they're not for or that are contrary to their purpose, we're not happy and the world becomes absurd. Absurd meaning out of tune. It doesn't really make sense. We should take this. Sex matters a lot. Is it so essential to human nature? But we should take this just generally throughout society. What are nations for? Nations are for protecting its peoples for the common good of their peoples. So when a nation undermines the common good of its people, opens up its border, lets crime run wild, then the nation becomes absurd. Our nations in the west have become absurd because they're not doing what they're for. When education systems make people dumber, the education system becomes absurd. They're not doing what they're for. When religious institutions turn away from religious truth and they just try to mollify people or embrace the spirit of the age or something, they become ridiculous because they're not doing what they're for. You gotta do what you're for. So with Elon, he's totally right about sex. It would be good, though, if he took it further because. And I offer this fraternal observation with due humility and with great admiration for Elon. I think Elon is terrific. I'm a great admirer of his. But when it comes to procreation, he has this problem, which is, you know, he's got a lot of babies, Mama, and he's not married. And he should be married. He should be monogamous. He should do that not just because I'm, like, morally scolding or something like that, or trying to be holier than thou, but just because that's what sex is for, too. If sex is for procreation, for the begetting of children, well, that can't be the end of it, right? Because once the children come out of the womb, there's more to the story. They're still going. There's more to do. So that's why we say that sex is for the procreation of children, but marriage is for the procreation and the education of children, for raising kids through their whole lives. The kids that you're begetting as the object of sex, those kids do best in a marriage, it goes without saying, between a man and a woman. And the marriage provides that best environment for the kids when it's for life, when it's monogamous. So I would say one can just take it further, and one should take it further. Elon is completely on the right path. He's one of the few people in really prominent public life who's recognizing it today. So we should take it further. I think he's right. He's helping to lead the way. And how glorious would it be for our public life if he kept going and maybe took religion quite seriously later, too? Maybe that's part of it. I don't know. We'll see. Okay, now, speaking of procreation, excellent news coming out of the White House. Actually, I should say out of the Naval Observatory. Excellent news on multiple fronts. Tomorrow is the day. This is the big day. And what you need to do right now is go to Daily Wire, you need to download the app, you need to make an account. You need to join, because Pendragon is coming out. This show is the most ambitious project we've ever made. It spans two continents. It tells an amazing story. I'm so glad this is the story we're telling, which is before King Arthur, before Camelot. Such a deeply Christian Western, amazing story. And you can get 35% off an annual DailyWire plus membership right now. Or you can choose the pendragon pass get three months of DailyWire plus for just 30 bucks with one month absolutely free. The Pendragon Pass will also allow you to receive exclusive Pendragon collectible cards and automatic entry to win a trip for two to Budapest, which is one of the primary filming locations of the series and one of my very favorite cities in the entire world. Go to DailyWirePlus.com right now. Be there when episodes one and two of the Pendragon cycle Rise of the Merlin premiere tomorrow only on Dailywire. I did not pick this comment today because my derelict lazy producers didn't send them to me. They said they sent them to me. I don't see them. I did not see them. So we'll see who is right. We'll see if I'm calumniating them right now. But first, they've picked this comment from DK Outdoors. When life gives you lemons, you must prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Yeah, I like that. I like that. When lemons turn up in Minneapolis, you need to arrest them cuz they're collaborating with mobs violating the Face act. I agree. I totally agree. Okay, back to procreation Statement from the Naval Observatory yesterday. Seal of the Vice President of the United States. We're very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy. Usha and the baby are doing well and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in July and that goes on during this exciting and hectic time. We're particularly grateful for the military doctors who take excellent care of our family and for the staff members who do so much to ensure that we can serve the country while enjoying a wonderful life with our children. J.D. vance and Usha Vance love this. This is awesome. Please join me in a round of applause for the Vance's. This is great. At a personal level, this is great. 4 kids. I love it. I'm falling a little bit behind JD Right now. I think I got a sweet little Lisa and I, you know, maybe we gotta hurry things up. I don't know. Four is great. I think it was Fulton Sheen, the first televangelist who happened to be a Catholic bishop, who said that three is the ideal minimum of children for a family. And these days a lot of people don't have kids. A lot of people can't have kids for various environmental reasons or cause they waited too long or all sorts of reasons. Infertility is a very difficult thing. But three, that used to be the ideal minimum. Five kids, six kids, eight kids was not Totally uncommon. So four. This is really good. The vice president punching above the ideal minimum. I love it. That's very good. At a personal level, it's wonderful for them. May your fourth child be a masculine child. That's great. Okay. At a political level, I love this. If it were just the vice president's good news, you say atta boy and move on. But this is politically significant because we are mimetic creatures, because going all the way back to Aristotle, we recognize we're the social creature, we're political animals. We're not just abstracted individuals. What we do affects the people that are around us. That is why this kind of libertarian view, whether it's the left libertarians or the right libertarians, even when they say, well, how does what I do affect you? How does my doing drugs or redefining funny marriage or killing my baby? How does that affect you? Why do you care so much about why does it affect you? How does it affect me? Cuz I'm a human living in society. Cuz I'm a political creature, as are you. Cuz to quote Kamala Harris, we didn't fall out of a coconut tree. So anyway, we mimic each other not merely in our behavior, in our modes of speech, we learn to speak that way. We, that's just part of what is of the essence of humanity. We even imitate each other's desires. The example I often go back to, people want the Rolex watch. 99 times out of 100, they want the Rolex watch not because they know anything about horology, not because they know anything about the materials that go into the watch. They certainly not because it tells better time, doesn't tell better time than a $15 Timex or Casio. They want the Rolex watch because you want the Rolex watch. They want the Rolex watch or the Chanel bag or the Ferragamo shoes or the whatever, you know, the Mercedes Benz or they want these things not because of something about the thing themselves usually, but because people that they admire want them to and we imitate those desires. And so what does this have to do with JD's new kid? I'll tell you what it has to do. My friends in New York, by and large, they don't really have kids. If they do, it's like one kid maybe. You know why? Because their friends don't have kids. My friends in Tennessee, they have a lot of kids. Do you know why? Because their friends have a lot of kids and because they. I've even spoken to people about this they start to feel a pressure. My friends in New York, they think you're weird. If you have a bunch of kids. They think you have more than two kids, maybe more than one kid. They think you're a weirdo. There's a pressure not to have kids, and I think that affects people. Whereas here, especially if you're, you know, I'm in the more traditional Catholic scene, but there's a lot of people of a lot of religious backgrounds who have a lot of kids in Tennessee. If you don't have a bunch of kids now, you're the weirdo. And there's a pressure to have more kids. There is a social contagion to it. Our mimetic desire is fueled in different ways in different places. And having a young vice president and second lady who have by modern standards, a big family and are having a kid in the White House and the Naval Observatory, that's good. You're gonna see a boost in births. You will. You will see it. I don't know how modest or how great that will be, but we need this. It actually does matter what our leaders do. This is what the Republicans had right in the 90s when they impeached Bill Clinton. And now it's to some degree a moot point. Cuz our culture has degraded so much in part because of those things. But it matters what our leaders do, because we're gonna emulate them whether you want to or not. You look around now, before the Trump era, you go to a Young Republican convention, people are wearing Brooks Brothers striped ties. Now they wear that big glossy red power tie. Why? Because they follow the leader. So let's, you know, let's make sure that our leaders are popping out a lot of kids and exemplifying good behavior. I love it. Okay, speaking of kids, this is a weird one. The actress Pam Grier, I don't really know what she's been in, but she's an actress. Fairly well known actress. She was just on the View and she confessed. She got choked up. She said when she was a kid, her mother would tell her to turn away so she wouldn't have to see the lynched black people in the trees of Ohio. Listen to the harrowing tale. You faced a lot of racism growing up in Columbus, Ohio. How did that shape you? Whew.
Pam Grier
Well, the military wouldn't allow black families to live on the base, so you had to live in an apartment. And you couldn't take a bus, you couldn't afford a car.
Michael Knowles
You walked.
Pam Grier
Your dads walked to the base and Sometimes we would go from, you know, tree shade to shade to get back to the apartment, my brother and I, my mom with bags. And my mom would go, don't look, don't look, don't look. And she'd pull us away because there is someone hanging from a tree and they have a memorial for it now where you can see where people were and left. And it triggers me today to see that a voice can be silenced. And if a white family supported a black, they're going to get burned down or killed or lynched as well.
Michael Knowles
Yeah. Okay, so hold on now. If you don't. Some of you know the facts about this, which is why you're probably laughing, but if you don't know the facts, you look around, you hear the audience. Oh, oh, my goodness. And then you look around and you see Whoopi Goldberg, who I used to get a kick out of Whoopi Goldberg. But, you know, she doesn't know anything. And she's there.
Donald Trump
Wow.
Michael Knowles
Yes. Nodding her head. Yes. Wow. And then they turn to whatever. Sunny Hostin. Yes. Wow. Oh, my goodness. And then they turn to the chick who's the fake conservative on the View. She used to work for Trump 1,000 years ago. Alyssa Farah, I think, anyway, she's the fake conservative on the View. And even she. Yes. Nodding yes.
Donald Trump
Wow.
Michael Knowles
I was driving as a child and my mother would say, look away. There's a black man hanging from a tree. So I said, man, how old is this lady? Because I looked it up. It's not that there were never lynchings in America. There have been lynchings. Not a lot, actually. Really. People have it in their mind there were like millions of lynchings in America. That's not true. It was a pretty minor phenomenon, but still pretty gruesome. I suspect. If you saw lynching, largest mass lynching in American history was actually, oddly enough, of Italians in Louisiana. That's actually why we got Columbus Day. That's a story for another time. Anyway, there have been lynchings. Do you know when the last lynching in Ohio was? 1911. Not 2011. It was 1911. And so this lady, I don't know, she looks pretty good for her age because in order for her. I did the math. In order for her to have seen a lynching in Ohio. When do you start to remember stuff? Five years old. Four years old. Let's say four years old. Let's say this woman has distinct memories from when she was 4 years old. That would make her 119 years old. That was the last lynch. So does that woman look 119 to you? No, I think she's 70 or something or in her 70s. So that's almost 50 years too young to have even had the possibility. And even 1911, that was very, very late stage of, of the lynching phenomenon. I mean there are modern lynchings where like there's a ton of gang violence and stuff, people executing people and shooting them, you know, all over in left wing run cities throughout America. But the lynching, like specifically racial, hanging from a tree, that. Why does she believe this, this woman? She gets choked up, she's crying. Is she just lying? I don't know that she's lying. She's an actress. And one thing I will tell you, as a young man, I was an actor, I studied acting, I was classically trained at conservatories and I actually have now quite changed views on even the morality of acting now that I'm a little deeper into philosophy and theology. But that too is a topic for another time. The one thing I can promise you though, having spent a lot of time around actors and especially actresses, is that there's completely insane. They're completely insane. They're crazy. It's part of the job. You have to be, because to quote Wynn Hanman, one of the great acting teachers, assistant to Sandy meisner in the 50s, trained many of the great actors that are around today. You have to be a gullible fool to be an actor. Because to be an actor you have to live truthfully in imaginary circumstances. You have to hold the blaster laser gun on the spaceship and really believe it and really live truthfully planet Zebulon 5. And so this woman probably believes it. This is a kind of a self induced psychosis because the culture has said it's a racist country and blacks are being lynched all the time. And so she probably has this memory. I mean, actually part of acting training is creating memories for yourself that can inform your performance of the role, at least according to certain techniques of acting. So she probably believes it. The ladies on the View believe it, the audience believes it. A lot of libs believe that this is a kind of a self induced psychosis. These people are living truthfully, but it's in imaginary circumstances. And I think that accounts for a lot of the social problems we have. And so one great corrective to that is that President Trump has just announced he's going to bring back mental asylum. I know I'm running late today. I know I'm running late. I don't care. President Trump, give it to me There's.
Donald Trump
A reason for bail. Long tested signed an executive order to bring back mental institutions and insane asylums. We're gonna have to bring them back. Hate to bail those suckers, but you gotta get the people off the streets.
Michael Knowles
Love this. Love this. This is one of those things he's probably not gonna get a lot of credit for if it comes to pass, if there's not too much obstruction, he probably won't get a lot of credit for it, but it could be really important. And I even love the way he presents it. He goes, look, we gotta bring back the mental institutions, okay? You hate to do it. You hate to do it. Cause they're bad places. But they're bad places because mental illness is bad, because psychosis is bad. Some of that, I think, probably has a spiritual basis. Some of it might just be purely physical. But it's bad. It's bad. That's why we close them down. That's one of the reasons we close them down. But the question that I have is, what's the alternative? You hear this. I don't care. There are many liberals who watch the show and you hear this, and Trump says, I'm gonna bring back insane asylum and mental institutions. And you say, well, that's terrible. That's crazy. That's awful. There are all these abuses. Let me ask you, what's the alternative? Let me ask you a question first. Why did we get rid of the mental institutions in the first place? I'll tell you why. There's a very particular reason in the 50s and 60s, because we developed antipsychotic drugs. And the idea was, you take all these crazy people who are, in many cases dangerous to the community or dangerous to themselves, and in any case, can't live on their own. And you take these crazy people, you ply them with pills, and they get a little bit better, maybe a lot better. Maybe they can work in society. Maybe they can take care of themselves. Maybe they're not a threat. The problem is for virtually every person that you see on the street, every bum, every indigent, they don't take the pills, or they have other mental problems and spiritual problems like addictions and all. But in any case, the psychological remedies haven't worked, or they just don't avail themselves of them. So then what's the alternative? You have people setting women on fire in subway cars in New York. You have people. You have people going. You see this a lot, actually, on trains. You have people stabbing Irina Zarutska on the train. It's all blamed on mental illness, you have Repeat offenders arrested 40, 50, 60, 70 times just waiting a powder keg, waiting to go off to harm innocent people. What's the alternative to the insane asylum? You don't want to put them in jail. In some cases, maybe they haven't committed a crime yet or they've gotten out. So you don't want to put them in jail preemptively for a crime they haven't yet committed, but you can predict pretty well that they're gonna commit. What's the alternative? The alternative in our liberal society is hands off, nevermind, let them just be on the street. Hopefully the cold will finally just get them and they'll die of exposure. And I don't need to think about it. It's not my fault, I'll wipe my hands of it. Worst case, they like set some grannies on fire on the subway. But again, I don't take the subway. I take taxis and private cars. So I don't need to worry about that. It's not my problem. That's a response from the left and the right. On the left, they take it further. They say these people have a right. They have a right to, you know, commit obscene acts in the streets and they have a right to violence. You know, beheading people in the street is the cry of the unheard of, the oppressed or whatever. And then. But the people are guys on the right. Sometimes they'll say, yeah, not my problem, I don't want to hear about it. I'm building a big wall. I'm getting a lot of guns moving out of the cities. But it's a retreat from society which is contrary to our nature as social creatures who are inclined naturally to live in ordered society. So my answer is no. The proper solution, the caring solution that we ought to be able to agree upon on the left and the right is you got to take care of these people who can't take care of themselves for our good and for their good too. I love it. Very brave. This is a very courageous stance and he's going to get no credit for it. Okay, today's work from Home Wednesday. Don't know what that is. We'll get into what it is. This is my favorite new segment, but you only get it on Dailywire. Plus, you have to become a member. You have to become a member Dailywire. Then you have to download the app, then you have to follow me so that I get a higher follower count than Ben and Matt. Andrew. The rest of the show continues. Now, you do not want to Miss it. Become a member. Use code Noel's Canada Be really so check out for two months free on all annual plans.
Character from Pendragon series
What was it like, Marlon? To be alone with God? Is that who you think I was alone with?
Michael Knowles
Martin? I knew your father. I am yet convinced that he was not of this world.
Character from Pendragon series
All men know of the great Taliesin.
Michael Knowles
Who are my father. That the gods should war for my soul.
Character from Pendragon series
Princess Garrus, savior of our people. I know what the bull God offered you. I was offered the same. And there is a new part at work in the world. I've seen it. A God who sacrifices what he loves for us. We are each given only one life.
Michael Knowles
Singer. No.
Character from Pendragon series
We're given another. I learned of Yazu the Christ. And I have become his follower.
Michael Knowles
He's waiting on a miracle. And I think you can give him one.
Character from Pendragon series
Trust in Yuzu. He is the only hope for men like us. Aid to Britain never rests in the hands of the Great Light. Great Light. Great darkness. Such things mattered to me then. What matters to you now? Mistress of lies. You, nephew. The sword of a high king. How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born.
Michael Knowles
To wield.
Character from Pendragon series
So clinging to the promises of a God who has abandoned you. I cannot take up that sword again. You know what you must do. Great life, forgive me. The time has come to be reborn.
Episode Title: President Trump's Fiery WEF Speech Explained in 5 Minutes
Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Michael Knowles (The Daily Wire)
This episode centers on President Trump’s bold address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, dissecting his message to global elites, the ideological battle over globalization, and Trump’s continued challenge to the ruling liberal establishment. Michael Knowles explains key points from Trump’s speech, analyzes WEF’s worldview via Yuval Harari’s remarks on AI and religion, and explores recent news in culture and politics, from mental asylums to mimetic leadership.
"Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America." (05:07, Howard Lutnick)
"It's a more elite, bourgeois, even insidious kind of liberalism. It's the liberalism of globalization." (06:12, Michael Knowles)
"Anything made of words will be taken over by AI... If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion." (10:24–11:55, Yuval Harari)
"If the religion that animates our civilization is the religion of the Word... AI is going to conquer God." (13:30, Michael Knowles)
"To address so many respected business leaders, so many friends, few enemies, and all of the distinguished guests..." (17:54, Donald Trump)
"If the 2020 US presidential election weren’t rigged... people will soon be prosecuted for what they did." (19:21, Donald Trump)
"All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland... We gave it back to them... but we are a much more powerful force now..." (22:39, Donald Trump)
Trump’s speech weaves rhetoric of strength, grievance, magnanimity, and warning—the U.S. as both protector and arbiter in a turbulent world order.
"A massive amount of thinking... has gone into sex without procreation, which is actually quite a silly action... Why are you doing it? Because it makes the limbic system happy, that's why. But it's pretty absurd really." (30:25–30:53, Elon Musk)
"And my mom would go, don't look, don't look, don't look... there is someone hanging from a tree... triggers me today..." (43:53–44:36, Pam Grier)
"Signed an executive order to bring back mental institutions and insane asylums... you gotta get the people off the streets." (49:08, Donald Trump)
"The caring solution that we ought to be able to agree upon... is you got to take care of these people who can't take care of themselves for our good and for their good too." (51:00, Michael Knowles)
On WEF:
"They're shit libs. That's what they [are]... liberals who have institutional power in the private and the public sectors." (06:12, Michael Knowles)
On Harari and AI:
"If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion." (10:59, Yuval Harari)
On U.S. Global Dominance:
"We are the World War champ... everybody in Davos right now has something in common. You were either defeated or saved by the United States." (26:50, Michael Knowles)
On Purpose:
"When we use things in ways that they're not for or that are contrary to their purpose, we're not happy and the world becomes absurd." (31:45, Michael Knowles)
On Social Mimicry:
"Our mimetic desire is fueled in different ways in different places... It actually does matter what our leaders do." (41:05, Michael Knowles)
Knowles’ delivery is a mix of biting wit, polemical critique, and traditionalist moralizing, targeting both cultural leftism and feckless establishment conservatism. He emphasizes themes of purpose, leadership by example, and the need to reject globalist, technocratic worldviews in favor of American strength and societal order.
For listeners seeking a one-stop distillation of Trump’s WEF speech and the ideological battles shaping Western politics, this episode of The Michael Knowles Show offers a blend of spirited argument, culture war skirmishing, and debunking of progressive narratives.