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The Michael Knowles Show
Ep. 1991 - Unhinged REACTIONS: Karmelo Anthony Found Guilty Of Murdering Austin Metcalf
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Folks, very excited to say I will be at the Zeal for America 250 rally this June 13th. I will be there with His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke for a powerful day of prayer and conversation as we mark America's 250th birthday. If you are within driving distance of La Crosse, Wisconsin, I strongly encourage you to be there in person. If you can't make it, we will also be offering a live stream so you can still take part. Go to CatholicVote.org America250 to get your tickets or to sign up to watch
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Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com
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Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available. This episode is presented by Good Ranchers this Father's Day. Skip the novelty gifts. Give dad something he will actually enjoy. Buy any Father's Day gift box from Good Ranchers and they will throw in free Wagyu Burgers. The best burgers I've ever had. Go to goodranchers.com, good ranchers American meat delivered Carmelo Anthony has been found guilty of first degree murder in the killing of high school athlete Austin Metcalfe. The facts of the case were never really in question or all available evidence showed that the bloodthirsty Anthony killed Metcalfe in cold blood with provocation and premeditation. But the fact that we're all breathing a sigh of relief that justice actually was served in this case highlights a deep problem. We're all just used to murders and other violent criminals getting off the hook, especially if the criminals are black and the victims are white. We will get into the details of the verdict as well as the responses of the murderers, many fans and defenders outside the courtroom. Then the US bombs Iran again after Iran shoots down an Apache helicopter and strange new facts emerge in Spencer Pratt's surprising, some might say implausible, last minute election loss to socialist Nidia Raman in la. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. Smash the like button and subscribe. Also, check us out on Spotify where you can download full episode audio and video to watch or listen whenever you want without using your data. Do not miss an episode. Also, great stuff on Capitol Hill yesterday. The head of the splc, the civil rights organization that is the largest funder of neo Nazis and white supremacy in the United States, he gets absolutely grilled by some of our favorites up there. We will get to that momentarily. First though, I want to tell you about Brickhouse nutrition. Go to takelean.com enter promo code Knowles this episode is sponsored by Brickhouse Nutrition. You've probably heard about those weight loss injections everyone's been talking about for good reason. The results can be pretty incredible. They work by helping regulate blood sugar and keeping your appetite in check. Plus, with summer swimsuit season right around the corner, everyone wants to show off. But here's the thing. Not everyone wants to deal with weekly injections, especially when you start hearing about some of the side effects that can come with them. That's where Lean comes in. It's a weight loss supplement developed by doctors and people are seeing some really impressive results. The ingredients in Lean are backed by research showing they can help lower blood sugar, turn stored fat into energy, and reduce those constant cravings and hunger pangs that make dieting so hard. One important thing to know Lean is not just designed for someone who just wants to drop a couple pounds. The doctors at Brickhouse Nutrition specifically formulated it for people who've been struggling to lose 10 pounds or more and more and are ready for something that actually works. Multiple producers and employees at the Daily Wire have tried Lean and they've already been so impressed with how effective Lean has been in such a short period of time. This summer, look your best. Let's get you started with 20% off and free rush shipping so you can add Lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Go to takelean.com, enter code knowles for your discount. That is promo code knowles k n a w-l e s@takelean.com Carmelo Anthony, 19 years old. He was charged with first degree murder in April over the April of last year over the death of 17 year old Austin Metcalf. This was down in Texas. They were at a high school track meet and Austin Metcalf goes into his team's tent and there's this guy Carmelo Anthony who's not on the team. He's in there. He's sitting in Metcalf's chair. He's not supposed to be in this tent to begin with. And so Metcalf and some of the other guys say, hey, get out of the Chair. Get out of the tent. He won't do it. He keeps provoking him. He says, you make me do it. You're gonna make me do it. Make me get out of this chair. And so Metcalf gives him a little shove. And Carmelo Anthony. Anthony pulls a knife out of his bag, stabs Metcalfe in the heart, kills him and runs away and is happily arrested. Horrible situation, but it's clear as day what was going on. So the judge in this case, Judge John Roach Jr. Allowed the jury to consider two charges. He was charged with first degree murder, premeditated murder. But he said, look, if you guys can't unanimously agree on the murder charge, you can also consider the lesser charge of manslaughter. Murder carries a sentence of five years to life. Crazy. Could you imagine five years for murder? Manslaughter is punishable by two years. Two years in prison, nothing up to 20 years. So the jury happily concluded the reality of this, which is that Carmelo Anthony murdered Austin Metcalfe. He was provoking Austin Metcalfe. This was premeditated murder. And implausibly, outside of the classroom, Carmelo Anthony has all these fans and supporters who are so upset. Here's one woman who goes viral for her reaction to the supposedly unjust verdict.
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What do you want us to do? What do you want us to do at this point? What? I'm lost for word. I don't know what to do. I got five boys. I don't know what. I ain't got nothing to tell them no more. You can't walk away no more.
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A
I got five boys. I don't know what to tell them. I don't know what to tell them to stop them from getting arrested and thrown in jail, potentially for life. I don't know what to tell them. Well, one thing I would recommend you tell them is don't stab people in the heart over nothing. That would be one thing you could do. I would say one thing you could tell your five boys is don't go to other people's places and then sit in their seats and then provoke them and then stab them in the heart and murder them. That would be one thing you could do. Because if Carmelo Anthony had not done that, he would not be in prison right now. She says, you can't walk away no more. He didn't walk away. In fact, the crucial fact of this case is he wouldn't walk away. He went to some other guy's seat, sat in the other guy's seat, wouldn't move. The guy asked him to move, he kind of push it, taps him a little bit. And then Anthony stabs him in the heart. It wasn't just this crazy lady. There were a whole host of these people protesting outside the courtroom, holding baseball bats, crazy stuff, chanting, carmelo, Anthony.
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C
Carmelo. Say his name. Carmelo. Say his name. Carmelo.
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What do we want?
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Justice. Where do we want him now?
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What do we want? Justice. You got justice. A guy murders another guy in cold blood and then really in full justice, the murderer would be executed promptly. This is a little less than justice in that the murderer will go to jail, hopefully for life, but maybe for a short period of time. So Carmelo, so you say, what is this about? And it's obvious and you're not really allowed to say what it's about, but what it's about is racial solidarity. It's not about the facts of the case. It's not about the criminal justice system. It's not about how we should treat murderers. It's about racial solidarity. And this is backed up by social science. For years now we've seen Pew Research has a good study on this. Black people in the United States have by far the highest degree of racial solidarity and the highest degree of racial consciousness for Black people. Over 70%, I think it's 72% of Black people in the US say that being black is important or very important to their identity. That number drops a lot when you look at Asians and Hispanics, but for both of them, that's north of 50% still. Then you get to white people and it's 15%. White people have essentially no racial consciousness and no sense of racial solidarity. So if the roles were reversed, ridiculous even to mention it, it's cliche and trite and absurd. But if the roles were reversed, there would be no mob of white people outside the classroom chanting justice for Austin. You know, if it had gone the other way, there would be none of that. That doesn't exist because there's racial solidarity, but really almost only for black people to some degree for Asians and Hispanics and none whatsoever for white people. So it's a big relief that the verdict came in and this guy who with many eyewitnesses, with no ambiguity whatsoever, in total cold blood, murdered this 17 year old kid. But the fact that we're relieved by the verdict shows us a problem. And the problem is there is a two tiered system of justice. That's the problem, that we're all, just by our anxiety, our anticipation of the verdict, we recognize that there's a Two tiered system of justice that if a white cop tries to arrest a black career criminal who's actively resisting arrest and something goes wrong and the black criminal dies. Let's say I'm just off the top of my head. Let's say the black criminal has taken four times the lethal dose of fentanyl and then resists arrest for 11 minutes and then dies in the process of finally being subdued. Just off the top of my head. In that case, we know that that white guy is gonna go to jail for life, even though he really didn't do anything wrong. We know that if a white guy subdues a black criminal who's threatening people on subway cars, his life is gonna be ruined, at least for many, many months. If not, send him to jail forever. And we know that the justice system in the United States and in the UK has endeavored to be more lenient toward black criminals. A two tiered system of justice. We just saw this with the Henry Novak case. The cops were told from the College of Policing, from the Organization of Police Chiefs in the UK and the Police Race Action Plan, they were told, go softer on non white criminals, mostly migrants from places like Pakistan, and be harsher on white people. You should reflexively believe the non white criminals over even white victims. That's exactly what played out in the Henry Novak case. And we see the same sort of policing here in the United states. It's a two tiered system. Speaking of the UK, the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, David Lammy, just debated our Vice President, J.D. vance, as J.D. vance came out and he pointed out how unjust all of the circumstances around the Henry Novak murder were, where a child of Punjabi migrants, just in cold blood, also a stabbing stabs this kid Henry Novak to death. The cops show up and they totally ignore Henry Novak and they make fun of him as he's bleeding to death and they're joking around with his murderer. So David Lammley says, no, no, no, Vice President Vance, you have this totally wrong. Obviously, this Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, he comes out here, he says, look, you don't understand, Vice President Vance, this is not. You just have the facts wrong here. This has nothing to do with mass migration. You don't understand, Vice President Vance. And I say, what are you talking about? It has everything to do with mass migration. The issue here is that you have a huge number of migrants from places like Punjab, a lot of Pakistani migrants, and you've imported some of the racial pathologies from the George Floyd case. But furthermore, even before that, you were going soft on the Pakistani rape grooming gangs that were operating with impunity for decades, operating for decades harming white English girls. And you intentionally looked the other way because you didn't want to be called racist. You had the College of Policing say you need to focus on white fragility and microaggressions. You had the UK Race Action Plan that came out and said, hey, we can't treat everybody equally. We don't want racial equality, we don't want colorblindness. So it is absolutely everything to do with mass migration. There's everything to do with these demographic shifts and a two tiered system of justice. Now, before we get into anything else, I also want to come back to the domestic policies. First though, I want to tell you about Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com One thing I've noticed as I've gotten older is that some of the best memories do not happen during the big events. They happen around a table. A family dinner, a backyard barbecue. Everyone hanging around after the meal is over because no one's in a hurry to leave. Fathers are often at the center of those memories moments. 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The gift boxes can be delivered directly to your door. You can even include a custom gift message. Go to goodranchers.com, choose any father's Day gift box and and the free Wagyu burgers will automatically be added at checkout goodranchers.com, american meat delivered folks. Very, very exciting. We have My Suit and My tie. This is the candle on sale@thecandleclub.com right now. If you order, you can scan a special QR code and you will be able to get our original My Suit and My Tie music video. Here's a little teaser. You're not. You don't get to watch it until you go to the Candle Club and buy the My Suit and My Tie candle. Okay, the producers inform me they finally found this clip. Take it away.
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I have spoken to J.D. vance. I spoke to him yesterday and I told him he was wrong. This has got nothing to do with mass migration. One, let's be clear that obviously since the early 2000s and post Brexit migration has come down. But murder, murder has come down too actually in our country. And two, the young man who perpetrated this crime was a Brit, born and raised in this country. Nothing to do with mass migration.
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What did you say to him?
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D
I told him he was wrong. Now we had an agreeable conversation, but we disagree.
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Yeah, okay. This guy was a Brit. Vikram Digwa was a Brit. Okay. Yeah. So first of all, his parents were immigrants. So okay, yeah, he's first generation born in the uk. But even if he had been born in the UK and his parents were born in the UK and his grandparents were born in the uk, which would be implausible. But let's say it were all true. The whole context around the murder was about mass migration. It was the whole context. The police guidelines were there to ignore the victim and to joke around with the killer because of mass migration. This is just that meme that so much of left wing discourse is the left pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible, we have to say that there's no racial component to the circumstances around the Austin Metcalfe murder. There's always a racial component. Whenever a white person can be even slightly plausibly, especially if you squint accused of any act of vague racial awareness against a non white person, then it's all about race. But whenever it goes in the other direction, including when the perpetrator makes overt racial comments, as in the case of the murder of Irina Zarutska on the train in Charlotte, North Carolina. There we have to totally ignore it. Which is just downstream of the fact that some races in America have massive racial solidarity and racial consciousness, others do not. And we just conveniently choose when we're going to apply racial criteria based on the prevailing liberal narrative. Totally absurd. Now, to the point that in the UK you have this video of a Sudanese immigrant who claimed asylum, who exploited a loophole to get into Northern Ireland beheading a man on the street in Belfast. That is not. You know, the Irish are tough people and they sometimes brawl a little bit. Beheadings are kind of a foreign thing. The nearest country to the UK where you see beheadings is like France in the revolution. Okay, this is a little unusual. We don't get a lot of that in the uk and we have to pretend this has nothing to do with immigration. Someone pointed out that we've now reached the hittings in the street stage of cultural enrichment. We have to pretend. No, no, no, no. Look away here. Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here. The establishment media are basically not even covering. This has nothing to do with mass migration. People vote for the Brexit. They say, we just want less migration. We just have too much migration. What happens? Migration goes up. Seems like what the people want, that the government just refuses to give them. On the crucial matters, you're seeing this in LA right now. Nidhia Raman. Nidhia Raman is the socialist candidate in la. Nobody likes her, nobody voted for her. The race really was between Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt. Karen Bass, who's a communist, who's now like an actual card carrying communist, who's now the incumbent mayor of la, and Spencer Pratt, who's this reality TV star, kind of Republican guy who was making a real insurgent campaign. So if you looked at the prediction markets, it looked like the runoff election was gonna be Karen Bass versus Spencer Pratt, Nidia Rahman. Just her numbers tanked after Spencer Pratt's excellent debate performance. So this is where I predicted. I said, look, Spencer Pratt's not going to become the mayor of la. Karen Bass is gonna remain the mayor. But I think that he got rid of Nidia Rahman. I think he destroyed her campaign. And this is one, you know, I hate to say I told you so. This is one where I was only half right. And because I was half right in the sense that Nidia Rahman now beat Spencer Pratt's out of the race, the runoff will be between Karen Bass and Nidi Rahman, meaning that whoever wins, it's gonna be a Democrat. But not to make excuses for my half right prediction. One thing I wasn't counting on was all those mail in ballots. And maybe I should have counted on that because Pratt was winning on election day, Pratt was winning. And then five days later, after they kept counting, all those extra votes turned out that Pratt was out. And that in itself is not Proof of cheating. That in itself is not proof of fraud. But when you get down into the numbers, you see something a little strange. Nidhia Rahman lost her own district. She's a member of the city council. She lost her own district to both Bass and Pratt. She came in third in her own district, actually. Frankly, I don't even know that she came in third. No, no, it's even worse than that. She came in, like, fifth. It was Bass, Pratt, Steyer, Becerra. You don't even see Rahman on the list. So they want us to believe that Nidia Rahman could lose her own district, but then win 40% of the rest of the vote in the city by mail. That's what they want us to believe. Democrats. I need to do a video on this. Democrats have been using absentees and mail in ballots to steal elections since the middle of the 19th century. This is the tried and true pattern by which Democrats steal elections. In this case, though, it's just so brazen. Nobody supported Nidia Rahman, and yet she pulls ahead. You want us to believe that her real constituency was just absentees with people who conveniently couldn't show up to vote from everywhere else in the city. But the place she actually represents you, You've got a bridge in Los Angeles to sell me. Do they even have bridges in Los Angeles? I don't. Do they have infrastructure there anymore? I'm not so sure now. Speaking of Democrat Ops, even more bad news for the splc, the Southern Poverty Law center, which markets itself as the preeminent civil rights organization in the United States. Then we found out some great reporting on this, most recently from the Post Millennial. The SPLC was paying for white supremacy. They were paying for neo Nazis. They had leaders of neo Nazi white supremacy organizations on SPLC payroll? SPLC said, well, no, we just wanted moles in the organization. But that excuse doesn't hold up when you're actually funding the leaders of the organizations. And now we're finding out that SPLC money went to. This is, according to the federal indictment, went to racist merchandise. Okay? Living expenses for some of these people. Recruitment of other neo Nazis and white supremacists. You can't let the supply run dry. Robes and hoods. The SPLC is paying for the hoods for the Klan and for the material used in Ku Klux Klan cross burnings. They're paying for the crosses. They might have been paying for the gasoline. So the head of the splc, this is kind of the opposite of nominative determinism. Nomen estomin his name is Mr. Fair. Just delightful. Mr. Fair perpetrating one of the least fair political ops in modern American history. He gets dragged before Capitol Hill. Some of our friends up there really rip him a new one. We'll get to that momentarily. First, though, I want to tell you about Preborn. Go to preborn.com knowles k w l E S Fatherhood changes you whether it happened exactly when you planned it or not. Most dads remember that moment when the reality set in. Someone is depending on me now. It's very exciting. It's also terrifying. I'm a father four times over now, and I tell you, it's really great every single time. For a lot of people, though, they don't totally expect it. Here's John's story, and I think it resonates with a lot of people. He said, me dad didn't even feel possible. I didn't know the first thing about being a good father. But then we found preborn. We talked to people who cared. We got a free ultrasound. John said that was the moment everything changed. The moment he realized, we can do this. I can do this. This Father's Day, you can help create that moment for another family. For just 28 bucks, you can sponsor an ultrasound through preborn. To donate, dial £250 and say keyword baby. That's £250, keyword baby or go to preborn.comknowles don't forget, when a mother and father see their child on the ultrasound, it more than doubles the baby's chance at life. This is the best ROI you're gonna get on any charitable giving. I personally support this organization. I encourage you to give what you can. Dial pound250, say keyword baby or go to preborn.comknowles first up, our friend, rising Republican star in Congress, Brandon Gill, grilling the head of the splc.
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E
Your organization said that restricting and banning abortion is a tool that the far right uses to maintain white supremacy. Do you believe that pro lifers are white supremacists?
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F
I believe that reproductive liberty is.
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Now, do you believe that pro lifers are white supremacists?
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I will tell you what I believe. If you're asking yes or no, I can't answer that question. Yes or no.
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E
I don't think that pro lifers are white supremacists. Do you?
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What I think is that reproductive liberty is a right that every woman should enjoy.
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How many babies in the United States that are aborted or Black?
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A
Black?
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About 40% of abortions nationwide are of black babies. Blacks represent about 13% of the population. Does that sound like something a white supremacist would oppose?
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What I would say again is that SPLC supports reproductive.
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Calling somebody a white supremacist is a pretty serious charge, isn't it? I mean, I would think you would be able to defend that if your organization says that. You clearly seem unable to.
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Mr. Gill, I'm not sure why you would think I'm able to do anything.
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Well, you're unable to do it because you're not doing it. That's why we would conclude it. But it's not really that you're unable to, it's just you're unwilling to. Brandon Gill, the guy gets better at this every day. He started out great at it already and he just gets better at it every day. Very simple. Straight down the middle. And notice the progression here. The SPLC has gone after all of us, okay? The SPLC and its Hate Watch blog and its Hate Watch lists, they've gone after all of us. Everyone slightly to the right of Barack Obama has found themselves. If you're in public life at all, you found yourself in the crosshairs of the splc. At one point the SPLC really targeted Charlie Kirk because he was so effective at organizing young people for real political action. So one of the many ridiculous things the SPLC has done is is accused pro lifers of being white supremacists. So Brandon, no histrionics, he's kind of like Josh Hawley in this way. Senator Hawley is very good at this too. Just total serious face. Hey, you said on your website that pro lifers are white supremacists. Is that what you believe? And the guy knows it's ridiculous. The guy knows that his organization is just a fraud. The SPLC is a fraud, top to bottom. The things it accuses of injustice are not unjust. The enemies that it says that it's going to topple, it's actually funding and subsidizing. It's just maligning all ordinary conservative Americans. He says, do you think pro lifers are white supremacists? And obviously the SPLC guy cannot defend his own organization cuz it's ridiculous. So then Brandon, he lets him flub and flop around and then he moves on. And he says to the kill shot, he says, well hold on. By far, black people disproportionately kill their babies through abortion. So pro life activism therefore disproportionately saves black people and it prevents them from being killed. In New York City, the majority of black babies are killed through abortion. This is why we say that the most dangerous place for a black person in the United States is in his mother's womb in New York. And so Brandingale points it out. He says, not only is it absurd on its face to call a pro lifer a white supremacist, but it's perfectly absurd. It's exactly the inverse of reality. SPLC guy has absolutely no answer. Darrell Issa then goes after the point I just mentioned about Charlie Kirk grilling the SPLC.
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G
Your organization has labeled Dr. King and Charlie Kirk and others. Do you regret that? Will you recant it? Or are you going to double down and say that these people, including the martyred Charlie Kirk, in fact, somehow deserve to be on your hate list for their constantly talking about bringing people together, talking about the teachings of the Bible and the like?
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F
Congressman Issa, as I said in my statement.
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G
Now, wait a second. No, no, I heard your statement. I only want an answer to Your question in 11 seconds left. Are you going to recant? Yes or no? Will you take back any part of that? Or is your hate list stand as your position of your organization, as its head?
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F
Today, the SPLC will continue to expose hate and extremism.
- [28:42]
G
Okay, we'll take that as the list stands.
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A
There you go. And this is the key. And this isn't just about embarrassing the head of the splc, which is fun to do. It's politically important to do. He's embarrassed himself enough, of course. But this is about the political import of all of it, and it really does come back to Charlie. The assassination of Charlie Kirk is the most egregious action of the mainstream left in my lifetime. It's not the most egregious action of the left. They're always fringe wackos. After 9 11, they said America deserved 9 11, but most of the mainstream left left did not say that. Basically, nobody on the mainstream left said that. Whereas after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, in fact, as it was happening, you had mainstream left wingers minimizing it, dismissing it, excusing it, even celebrating it. You had Matthew Dowd, the Democrat strategist on msnbc, the Democrat cable channel, saying, well, as Charlie's dying, he said, well, you know, I mean, this is what happens when you spread hate. You know, he kind of had it coming. That was essentially what the guy was saying. You had elected Democrats, you had Democrats in the media, you had Democrat activists, and you had the lady who sits next to you at work all saying, well, yeah, Charlie kind of had it coming. And so now to ask the head of the splc. Okay. Do you regret calling Charlie Kirk, this guy who was totally gracious and charitable to his opponents, who always just wanted to talk it out, who was as mainstream centrist as they come. Do you regret calling him a hater, saying that he was one of the real targets of your hate watch because he was spreading hate and division and injustice in America? Do you regret that, Charlie freaking Kirk? Do you regret that after he was murdered by one of your own, by a lefty? And the head of the SPLC refuses to do it, which gives away the whole game. If any of us were murdered, if any of us, not just people in public life, but, but private citizens, in as much as you have any effect on politics, in as much as you can be used to have any effect on politics, the mainstream left would celebrate your murder. Indeed they did. Brutal, brutal grilling on Capitol Hill for the splc, sure. But also just for the state of politics in the U.S. okay, speaking of political violence, the ceasefire is still on, but we're shooting at each other in Iran. But we're still in a ceasefire and we're almost at a peace deal, but we are shooting each other. And this because two nights ago the Iranians shot down a US Apache helicopter. According to President Trump, quote, I've just been informed by our great military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved. Both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must of necessity respond to this attack. Notice the language here. He's not saying, yeah, now we're gonna give him hell and glass Tehran and this is gonna be awesome. He's saying, look, we have to respond to this. You shot down one of our helicopters. I don't really want to respond because I want a peace deal, but you're making me respond. So we're gonna have to respond to some degree in a proportional way. Now the Iranians are half denying it. I've seen some people on the social medias try to argue that this was a false flag attack. And I see how they got there. And they're blaming Israel as everybody blames Israel for everything. But the way they got there was the United States wants a peace deal, State of Israel does not want a peace deal, and we're the co belligerents in this war against Iran. So I guess it's not that hard to make the logical leap that maybe Israel would benefit if hostilities between the US and Iran kicked up again. Because then you don't get the peace deal, then the war goes on, then maybe you topple the regime. The problem is there's no evidence for that. I see how you could get there in the abstract, but there's actually no evidence for that because Iran is half denying this, but half taking responsibility. According to Iranian state media, citing military sources, they said there would be a decisive response to any attacks based on the, quote, pretext of the crash of a US Military helicopter. Okay, so here it seems like they're really not taking any responsibility. But then Al Jazeera reports that Iran's foreign minister said the helicopter was not deliberately targeted. And the word deliberately is doing a lot here. So I guess it could have been the case that Iran. Iran seems to be saying, yeah, okay, we shot it down, but we didn't do it deliberately. We weren't deliberately. Maybe we were just shooting in the general direction of a perceived threat, but we weren't deliberately taking the helicopter down. Or perhaps more likely, this is an instance of division within the Iranian state, because don't forget, the Iranian government doesn't really control Iran right now. Certainly doesn't control the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps controls the Strait of Hormuz. And those are not the same thing. So what the Iran foreign minister might be saying is, look, we didn't. This wasn't a government order to shoot it down, but the IRGC went a little rogue, got a little big for their britches, and they shot it down. But we wish they didn't shoot it down. And we actually do kind of want a peace deal. Any of those possibilities are on the table here. And ultimately, this doesn't really change the calculation. There are a lot of war hawks here who don't want a peace deal, who want the Iranian regime to be toppled, who want us to go all the way, who are saying, this is ridiculous. The Iranians clearly don't want peace and they're not to be trusted anyway. And so we just need to go in and glass Tehran. We need regime change. Would that it were so simple. I guess my calculation from before the strikes began to the day they were happening when I was on air in this chair, and every week since then, my view has remained the same, which is that it would be great if we could replace the Iranian regime. Wouldn't that be great if we could do so easily, if we had a reasonable probability of success in doing that, which is one of the criteria of just war. But I don't think we do. I think the Iranian regime is more durable than that. I think they have 50 years worth of contingencies. And I think the last few months have really proved that it's not so easy to topple that regime. We've been hearing forever from the propagandists that, oh, 50,000 people are gonna march into the street and the Persians are gonna overthrow their oppressive regime. They've never done it. They just haven't done it. There has been resistance, and the resistance has been defeated by the regime. So I think it would be much, much harder to topple the Iranian regime. I don't see evidence that the regime that we would replace it with would necessarily be better. And I'm skeptical of the proportionality here, that the good to be achieved by regime change would outweigh the costs that would be incurred. So I think the US Position remains exactly the same, which is that we want to stop Iran's nuclear weapon. We certainly want to weaken the regime. That means degrading their ballistic missile program. But we're probably gonna stop short of regime change. Much, much the same calculation that we had in Iraq during the first Gulf war under George H.W. bush, a war that we should note was much more successful than the second Gulf War under George W. Bush. That seems to be the calculation. So, yes, we have to respond, but I think the President's being very responsible here. He's saying, look, of necessity, we have to respond to this, but our calculation does not change. Okay, Turning to domestic issues, one of the most absurd displays I've seen from the left makes the SPLC look like child's play. One of the top liberal journalists was just fired by Barry Weiss and her hostile takeover of cbs. One of the top liberal journalists is shocked, bewildered, that anybody could think that he and his colleagues were biased to the left. We'll get to that momentarily. First, though, very important note on Mayflower cigars. Father's Day is coming up. It's coming up faster than you think. 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Do it while you're thinking about it. You have to be 21 years old or older to order. Void where prohibited conditions and exclusions apply. My favorite comment Yesterday is from Rosiegirl. 2485 says Charlie Kirk spoke endlessly to college students about AI taking over their jobs and that their degree would become meaningless. Yeah, he did. And this was an area where Charlie and I, we disagreed a little bit, but ultimately I think we were kind of talking about the same thing because Charlie is such an impressive guy. He didn't go to college, he just right went straight into political action. He was very, very successful at it. But Charlie knew that he needed an education and he and I spoke about this a number of times. And so he would find it elsewhere, he would read on his own. He ended up doing the Claremont Lincoln Fellowship, which I recommended to him. I thought it'd be good for him. I thought it'd be good for the Claremont Institute, where Charlie could fit in what most people would get in a four year college education, frankly, more than most people would get in a four year college education. Charlie fit into about 10 days. So his knock on college was that the degrees were basically worthless today. But I guess my caveat to that, and where I really separate from the opinion of virtually everyone else on the right in the last 10 years, is it doesn't have to be that way. That's true. If you just study some trade at university, if you just study some specific kind of computer programming or engineering or whatever, that will become obsolete for years and years. You heard from the right, don't go to college. But if you do go to college, study engineering, study something really study business, study something really practical. And I said, no, no, no, it's the opposite. If you go to college, you should study something totally impractical. And the reason for that is a liberal education is meant to help you make sense of your freedom, to tamp down your lower appetites, to cultivate your higher will, to be filled with knowledge so that you can become free, because freedom is willing, predicated on knowledge. That's a very concise definition of freedom. And so getting back to that story we were talking about yesterday, these nerdy girls In Silicon Valley, AIs taken their job, so they decide to become hookers, is they say, well, I got one thing an AI doesn't have. I got a body. So I'm gonna sell that to the oligarchs in Silicon Valley. She's getting at something real, but it's that she's going in the wrong direction. The advantage that we have over the AI is our humanity. And so actually my argument is if you're going to go to college, in some ways it benefits you to study the humanities. It benefits you. One thing that a computer can't do, one thing that an AI can't do, that you can do or potentially can do, is write poetry. Because to write poetry, you have to come up with new metaphors, and to come up with new metaphors, you have to have sensory experience, and you have to have cultivated an intellect and a will to make sense of that. That's something you can get at a university. But if you just go through college like most people do today, yeah, AI is taking your job and you're gonna be 200 grand in the can. Okay? Scott Pelley, who has been at CBS's 60 Minutes for the last 150 years or so, he is one of the most influential, intolerably left wing, condescending journalists out there. He just got canned by Barry Weiss. He was very upset that Barry Weiss, a center leftist, not even a conservative, by the standards of the establishment media, she's Francisco Franco. But by ordinary political standards, she's not even on the right, she's not even conservative. She is like a lesbian libertarian. But by today's standards, that makes you Mussolini. Anyway, she comes into CBS and she says, hey, guys, you gotta get on the program. You gotta be a little bit more objective. You can't just be such blatant propagandists all the time. And Scott Pelley puts up a big hissy fit about this in front of the whole staff, reportedly. And so Barry Weiss says, all right, buddy, you're fired, you're out. Sorry, I'm not tolerating this. We're gonna restore some fairness to journalism. So then Scott Pelley goes on the New York Times podcast to whine and to make an absurd claim. What was the feeling about that particular opening salvo to the team?
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Oh, she, I am told, said something to the effect of, why do you think the country thinks you're biased? But she didn't offer any kind of a metric. You know what's your metric? Why do you think so? Do you have a poll? Is there market research? What are you talking about? Because we certainly didn't believe that.
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We certainly don't think that people think that we're biased to the left. Okay, first of all, he's doing that thing that liberals do. It's so annoying. And it's a consequence of the empirical age and the enlightenment and the scientific revolution, just taken to the most ridiculous extreme. But what they'll do is you'll say something totally normal, something totally common sense. You'll say, you know, the sky looks blue today. And what the left will say is, oh, yeah, do you have a source for that? Do you have a study? Do you have a peer reviewed study that proves that? Or to make it more realistic, you'll say, hey, I don't think a boy can actually become a girl. You know, this was an argument for the last five years. I don't think a boy can actually become a girl. What's your source? Excuse me? Because the consensus coalition of academic scientist colleagues of consensus, they actually say that a boy can become a girl. Where's your source? You say, I don't know. My source is my freaking eyes and my brain, bro. My source is called common sense, which you apparently totally lack. Yeah, what's your source and proof of that? Yeah, I think marriage is between a man and a woman. Do you have evidence? Yeah. Okay, here's some evidence. Everyone, for all of human history everywhere has thought that. Here's my evidence. The complementarity of the sex. And it reveals a shallowness of thought on the part of these people who were supposed to be the fancy guys who are really wise wearing neckties. A shallowness of thought that is deeply embarrassing. But then to go even further, he's asking, well, do you have evidence to show that people think that we're biased? And the answer is yes, actually, just right off the top. All sides. Media bias Rating rates CBS News as leaning left. Ad fontes media rates CBS News Roundup as leaning left. A study in the Economist found CBS Evening News using more Democrat associated language over time. And employee donations at CBS skew heavily Democrat. Pew Research just last year found that Democrats are much more likely to use and trust CBS News. 39% of Dems get news from it regularly. Republicans show much higher distrust for major networks, including cbs. Roughly a quarter of Republicans trust the big three networks, but much larger shares of Republicans do not. So even on the stupid question that he's asking, can you prove that people think we're a little biased. Yes, actually we can. That's what all the evidence shows and none of the evidence shows your prejudice. So just if Peli is this oblivious, he has no business being a prominent journalist. You don't need to be a philosopher to be a journalist. You don't need to be a theologian. You don't need to be a scientist. You don't need to be that competent in anything. But you do at least need to know the basic facts of public life. That's like the basic thing you need to know. And he doesn't know the basic facts of how the public perceives him, himself, his network. Great stuff from Bari Weiss. An absolute joy to see Scott Pelley whining and crying on air. Okay, so much more to get to but we don't have time. You know why? Because the rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member Use code Knowles Kenny Wles at checkout for two months free on all annual. Sam.