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The Michael Knowles Show
Ep. 1997 - I Hate Soccer, But Even I’m Rooting For USA… Lib Congressmen Can't
00:52:36
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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
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. They will throw in free Wagyu burgers. Go to goodranchers.com, good ranchers. American meat delivered. The World cup is happening apparently in America. And I ordinarily wouldn't care or even know that fact except for the strange phenomenon that it has prompted. While America hosts and competes in the big soccer tournament, foreigners from around the world seem to be falling in love with America. All while American politicians, Democrats are rooting for other countries to beat us. Not even just privately. Publicly. They're going on TV and talking about how they are rooting for other countries to beat us for all of soccer's sins.
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Co-host or Guest
Fufu.
- [00:49]
Michael Knowles
FIFA has provided the perfect example of everything wrong with our ruling class. Then soccer. Speaking of gay sports, the New York Yankees celebrate a mafia run hepatitis factory for Pride Month. A new CNN poll shows Democrats hate America and President Trump's original enemies turned sometimes supporters turned enemies again. Fume as he touts the Iran deal at the G7. Nature is healing. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles. Welcome back to the show. Joy Behar on the View apparently has a crush on J.D. vance. And what's most amazing about this, the number two guy in the American government, one of the faces of maga, conservative Republican policy, goes on the extremely left wing daytime talk show and one of the most extremely left wing mainstream figures in America actually starts to like him. Like he persuades her a little bit. And somehow this is being used as an attack against Vance. It's a major political coup. This is an extremely impressive political display. Somehow it's being used as an attack against Vance, but it's really also an attack against Trump because the old fault lines from 2016 in the GOP, the they are reemerging again. I'm not sure if they ever actually went away first though. Before we get to any of that, I want to tell you about Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com one of the things I've noticed as I've gotten older is that some of the best memories don't happen around the big events. They happen around the table. A family dinner. And not just because of your family. Mostly because of the delicious meat. You say, ah, forget about my kids, forget about my family. Remember how juicy that steak was? Ah, what a sweet memory. That's what I think about when I put my head on my pillow. No no, no, I'm kidding. I'm somewhat kidding. I'm a little bit kidding. It's nice to share the meat with your family too. I love good ranchers. And what's so great about good ranchers? The quality is unbelievable. It's from American ranchers. It's not injected full of a bunch of nonsense. The people who run the company are just wonderful people. And the prices are so good. It's individually wrapped so you don't waste meat. And the prices are so good. When I was a kid, truly having steak was a very, very special occasion kind of thing. We get it from this butcher, and it was very like once a year, maybe twice a year. And good ranchers makes it so affordable. And the quality is so, so good. The other night I said, okay, I'm gonna have a little filet mignon. I'm gonna have a little ribeye, and best wagyu burgers you're ever gonna have. For a limited time, when you buy a Father's Day gift box from good ranchers, they'll include free wagyu burgers. That is right. Buy any Father's Day gift box. Get free wagyu burgers for dad. Gift boxes can be delivered directly to his door, and you can even include a custom gift message. Goodranchers.com, choose any father's Day gift box. Free wagyu burgers automatically added at checkout. Goodranchers.com, american meat delivered. This is an amazing display here. Soccer is happening. FIFA World Cup. I would not even really know this was going on had the Democrat politicians not done what would seem to be the stupidest political move you can imagine. Rooting against their own country. And yet, New York, New York's congressional district 13, you have an incumbent, Adriano Espaillat, Democrat. He's running against this woman, Darieliza Chevalier, Democrat. They both go on the local New York channel. They bring up the World Cup. They're Democrats, so they have to like soccer. And they're asked. This is a real layup question. Hey, Democrat, politician, U.S. representative. That's actually the title of a congressman. Hey, U.S. representative. And hey, lady, who wants to be a U.S. representative. What team are you rooting for in the World Cup? And they somehow blow it. World cup is here. The first match this weekend at MetLife Stadium, taking place in New Jersey, even though some people say it is technically New York, but what do you think will win it all? Who are you rooting for?
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Co-host or Guest
I like Mexico.
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Mexico.
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There you go.
- [05:04]
Michael Knowles
I'm rooting for Senegal. Senegal, okay, I'm rooting for Mexico. I'm rooting for Senegal. Not a hint of irony, total obliviousness to how impolitic this is. That answer, even from a Democrat politician, even from the most lib deep down hates America politician you would have ever seen. That answer was unthinkable before Trump. Even Obama. Obama obviously hated America. Obama ran for president the first time, don't forget campaigning, that he would fundamentally transform America, that that was what he wanted to do. And you don't try to fundamentally transform things that you like. You don't go to your wife at night and say, hey honey, love you so much, I want to fundamentally transform you. That's not what you say. So Obama was getting pretty close. That was a real break with precedent to say, yeah, I really hate this country. But even Obama, if you had asked Obama, hey, what soccer team are you rooting for? He said, well, I'm rooting for America. I'm President of the United States of America. There's no red America, there's no blue America. We're just watch soccer now. There's only gay America. I don't know what he said, but in any case, he would have rooted for America. After Trump and especially after Trump won the popular vote when he was reelected, the Dems let the facade down. The Dems just became so nakedly anti American that you now have U.S. representatives and would be U.S. representatives coming out saying, yeah, I'm rooting for other countries against our own country even as we host the tournament. If that doesn't sum it up, I don't know what does. And in this case, because America is the global empire, we have ceased to be what the founding fathers and the framers established, which was a country that had a common identity that increasingly over time would even lose the their state identities to just have one cohesive national United States identity. No factions. They didn't even really want political parties because they were afraid of factionalism. Now it's just the global empire where all of these different ethnic groups, all these different tribes come in and try to get whatever they can for their own kind. Or best case scenario, on the left, they just root for some abstract other faction, other party, other tribe, but not for the country. And the irony of this happening during the World cup is that while that's going on, you have foreigners coming to the country to watch the soccer games and the foreigners are falling in love with America. Phenomenon has taken over social media. There's a guy, Mr. K, this is translated from Japanese, I guess a Japanese guy. Comes in, posts a picture of a steak with that little basketball that you get at Texas Roadhouse. A little thing of corn says to those heading to America for the World cup, if there is a Texas Roadhouse near your hotel, head there immediately. It's a chain restaurant, but you can get the best cost performance steak, especially the ribeye, is the absolute best. And I'll be real, he's right. Texas Roadhouse is great for an affordable steak. Texas Roadhouse is awesome. I was driving with sweet little Elisa the other day and sweet little Lisa goes, you know where we haven't been
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Co-host or Guest
in a little bit?
- [08:11]
Michael Knowles
You know where I kind of want to go? I want to go to Texas Roadhouse. Oh, I love it. Those little rolls, I love it. I do. Now why do we like Texas Roadhouse? We agree with the Japanese guy because we love America. Texas Roadhouse is awesome, man. It's not just Texas Roadhouse. The big winner of these foreigners coming to visit. You have this guy Freddie, I guess Freddie's from Germany, takes a picture of Buc EE's. Both the superstore with the jerky and the beef and all the rest and the popcorn and all of it. And also the mile long gas stations. He goes, dude, lmao. This is a gas station. Freddie then posts another picture. He goes, dinner from Buc EE's at 1am Just got all that nice corn, those tasty sandwich. I love Buc Ees. I love Buc. My kids love Bucky. If we're on a road trip, they are much more excited about BUC EE's than they are about wherever we're actually going. One time we were at BUC EE's and the bucky Beaver was just chilling. Like the guy in the suit was there. My middle son, you would have thought he just met Elvis. He was so taken. It was a great experience. We had the same response that the German guy had. I promise you, not a single Democrat politician would have that experience. They would look down on Bucky's, they would say, this is gross American consumerism. It's all too big. It's so garish. It's so decadent.
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Co-host or Guest
I hate it.
- [09:27]
Michael Knowles
Me, me, me, me, me. Freddie, even not just buc EE's. Freddie found waffle House. And you know, obviously when you go, I love a good Waffle House too, but you gotta put your Kevlar on when you're going to Waffle House. Sometimes gets a little rowdy. Sometimes Waffle House punching above its weight on the old violent crime statistics. Anyway, Freddy goes, late night snack In New Orleans at Waffle House again, unfortunately, we had to eat in the parking lot. Cause you don't want to catch lead. We had to eat in the parking lot this time because they closed the dining area and only allowed takeaway. Okay, whatever. I love a good waffle Waffle House. I don't even eat the waffles. I eat the ham and the egg with the cheesy grits. It's great. Anyway, these posts on social media are getting millions of views, millions and millions of views saying, man, this is so good. You got our ruling class talking about how much they hate our country, how much they think our country sucks. And then you got foreigners coming in from the supposedly much more cosmopolitan, civilized places. So advanced, according to the liberals, like Germany and Japan, Europe, they come here and all the foreigners say, man, this is awesome. We don't have Bucky's. We don't have this kind of abundance now. They're not the only ones. There's another girl who's gone viral. Elsa. Elsa Thora, who says, Indiana is exactly how I dreamed America would be. Small towns, wide open spaces, cornfields, barns, cute houses, diners, water towers, friendly people, great food, American flags everywhere. So much more time for the next part of this adventure. Thank you, Indiana. Now, when I saw this one. Let me see, where is this? Do I have any? Yeah, here we go. This is from the Atlantic. The Atlantic hit on something that I wondered when I saw these posts, which is you can't believe anything you see on social media anymore. So are these real? Are these real? Are these organic? Or are they too good to be true? Or is it just something that we want to be true? So those first two, Freddie and the Japanese guy, those are apparently real. Those are real people. They've spoken to media, to press. That's a real reaction. Little Elsa here, though apparently little Elsa is an onlyfans chick. So maybe she really likes Indiana. Maybe she's just trying to promote her pornography website. There's another one. This one's gone really viral. This one, I knew the minute I saw it, I knew it was fake. This is another Japanese account, no Bonaga. This is usa, a hibachi restaurant. My American friends brought me here to enjoy the cuisine of my homeland. And I witnessed a ritual I've never seen in 800 years of being Japanese. And it talks about the whole hibachi experience. It goes on and on and on like a really cheap novel. And. And the minute I read this, I said, this is AI slop. The guy's probably not even from Japan. And it seems to be true. The Atlantic has this piece here. The World cup tourists are genuinely fascinated by America, right? Some of the people celebrating American excess are not what they seem. So they're trying to deflate this. The liberals at the Atlantic, of course, saying, hold on, these people don't really love America. But if you go on and read the article, they'll say, no, no, no, some of them are real. Some of the most viral ones are real. Some of them might have ulterior motives, like the OnlyFans chickens. And some of them are just AI slop, like Japan, Nobunaga. But even that doesn't make the point that the Atlantic wants to make here. Because even for the fake ones, the AI ones or the porn ones or whatever, the fact that those have gone so viral reflects that there is an appetite for American patriotism. Even if some of them are real, but even if some of them are fake, the fact that they've gone so viral reflect that. Americans love these stories. We are so starved for anyone saying nice things about America that we'll even buy the AI ones. We'll even buy the porn ones. We don't care. And the reason we're so starved for that is that our ruling class, by and large, hates us. And they don't even hate us in the kind of polite, WASPy, condescending way that they used to hate us in. They don't even hate us in the Obama way, the sneering way. Well, you don't want fundamentally transform America. They hate us in the like, I'm rooting for the other countries against us and you kind of way. And this is reflected in public opinion polls. And you don't need to just believe a daily wire poll or a Fox News poll. You can look at a CNN poll on this. We'll get to that momentarily. First, though, I want to tell you about Catholic match. Go to catholicmatch.com if you're a serious Catholic looking for a spouse, you've probably discovered a basic mathematical problem. The more seriously you take your faith, the smaller the dating pool becomes. Now, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Weeds out people that you're not going to have a good marriage with. The challenge is finding the other people who are looking for the same things that you are. So not just the hookup, not just long walks on the beach, though. Those are nice too. But, well, the hookup's not. You don't do the hookup. You want to get married. That's obviously why you're paying attention to a Catholic Match. Well, you if you want to match on the deeper issues, all the way down to liturgical preference. That is why Catholic Match has become the largest Catholic dating platform in the world. Built from the ground up for Catholics by Catholics. Every feature built around helping people find someone pointed in the same direction, spiritually, morally. In terms of family. Their customer service team is made up largely of stay at home Catholic moms, women who are personally invested in seeing more sacramental marriages come out of this platform. When you reach out, you're talking to someone who's rooting for you to find your spouse. If you are looking for a partner, check out the largest Catholic dating platform in the world, built for Catholics serious about their faith. It is free to download on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Go to CatholicMatch.com to get started. We've got Harry Entin over at CNN. What does Fourth of July mean to you? He on CNN is reading from a Reuters Ipsos poll. Here's how the Dems think of it. Here's how the GOP thinks about it.
- [15:11]
Co-host or Guest
What does July 4th mean to you? Celebrate America. Friends and family time Among Republicans. What do you see? You see the clear majority say it's a time to celebrate America, 65% among Democrats, however, the plurality disagree. Look at that. We'll display the flag on July 4th, the American flag. You come over to this side of the screen. Republicans basically are where they were 25 years ago, right? 64%. But look at that Democratic percentage absolutely plummeting. Just 27% of Democrats say they will in fact display the flag. What about this idea? Are you proud to be an American? Look at this again. The Democratic percentage absolutely plummets to just 29% of Democrats say they're extremely are very proud to be an American.
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Michael Knowles
That's the craziest number. That's the crazy. All of them are bad. Are you proud to be an American? Extremely. Very proud to be an American. January 2001, 25 years ago, 90% of Republicans said they're extremely or very proud to be an American. 85% of Democrats. So the Democrats were always less patriotic than the Republicans, but only a little bit. So if you have boomer Democrat relatives. I have plenty of boomer Democrat relatives or greatest generation Democrat relatives. They actually struggle to understand the right wing criticism that the left hates America. They think we're being hyperbolic and uncharitable, but it's not true. They just come from a different generation. And many of them have probably lost a lot of their patriotism too, because 25 years later, the GOP. The Republicans are exactly as proud to be American as they were a quarter century ago. The Democrats have plummeted by, what, 56%? 56%. Sorry, 56 percentage points. They are now less than one third as likely as Republicans to say that they're proud to be Americans. These people should not be allowed to vote. I don't even mean that as a joke. I don't even mean that as cute little hyperbole. These people should not be allowed to vote. If you don't love your country, you should not be allowed to vote. If you are not, bring it right back to soccer. If you are not rooting for America, you should not be able to participate in the American political process. This is the danger of democracy that the Framers were writing about. Let's not forget the word democracy appears a handful of times in the Federalist Papers. The Federalist, which was written to explain the Constitution and to sell the Constitution. The word democracy appears a handful of times, always in the negative, always as a danger, always as something to be cautious about. This is why in the early days of America, throughout much of American history, we didn't really vote that much. The people did not elect the President. The Electoral College elected the President. Technically, the Electoral College still does, but it's based on the voting of the people. So for all intents and purposes, we have an almost popular vote for the President anyway. That was simply not true at the beginning of our country or for much of our country's history through, the people did not elect the senators. The Senate was elected by the state governments, not by the people. Many, many people just could not vote. And now we pretend that voting is an end to itself and some sort of sacred right. But voting is an instrument. Voting is an instrument to get us a good government. Good government which is there for the common good of all. If you have well over two thirds of Democrats who are now saying they're not proud to be an American, they don't love their country, they're not rooting for their country. Why would we let them vote? They're telling us they are not interested in our best interests, they want us to lose. Why would we give them a say in our government? How do you actually disenfranchise the people who openly hate your country? I don't know. That's a little bit tricky. I guess. One way to do it is to deport a lot of people, if you can deport them. Another way to do it would be to denaturalize some people who Are we are denaturalizing some people right now who committed immigration fraud. One way to do it would be to restore our previous system of voting, which is that if you committed very serious crimes, you would lose your right to vote. One way to do it would be to install basic measurements, basic responsibilities in order to exercise the right to vote. Like you have to go get an ID card to prove who you are. Like you have to actually show up to the polls on election day. Like you have to care at all. Like you have to care at all. That would be one way to do it. But you cannot have a good country, you cannot have a thriving, successful country if two thirds of the people voting actively want to destroy the country. If 2/3 of the people voting don't, don't want the good of the country. We are starved for the legit foreigner posts and for the bot and even porn posts that say they love America because so many of the people running our country and participating in our elections openly hate the country. Unsustainable. Now, speaking of Democrats, there's one Democrat who I don't know if she's actually rooting for our government or maybe she's rooting for our country, but she does. Like, this is weird. She's one of the most anti Trump Democrats and she's apparently charmed by President Trump's heir apparent, J.D. vance. Here is Joy Behar. And then he sat down with a joke. I thought it was pretty good that his press team told him that this was a table of MAGA Republicans.
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Co-host or Guest
Yeah, that was funny.
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Michael Knowles
You told him during the break that he should run for President because he has a good vibe.
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Co-host or Guest
I think that even though for a Republican, mind you, I said to you in the beginning of this conversation, I don't think that he's a bad guy. So if he runs against say Gavin Newsom, that'll be an interesting debate to see. Those two. Cuz they're both intelligent.
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Michael Knowles
Joy Behar is super duper lib. I'm not saying she's like an antifa operative or something. She's more representative than that actually. She's a kind of not all that with it. Not all that informed, reflexive liberal who just has Trump derangement syndrome, who hates anything conservative and Republican. But J.D. vance goes on her show and she says, you know, I think that guy's intelligent. Furthermore, I don't think he's a bad guy. This is an amazing breakthrough because Democrats, I mean this has almost become cliche to understand it this way. Republicans tend to think Democrats are misinformed and sometimes they have bad intentions, like the ones who are rooting against America. But mostly they're misinformed. As Ronald Reagan said, it's not that our liberal friends are ignorant. It's that they know so many things that aren't so. Ha ha ha, that they just don't quite get it, and they don't understand us. Study after study has shown that the right understands the left much more than the left understands the right. We disagree with the left, but we know where they're coming from. We see how they arrived at their conclusions. It's just based on mistaken premises, both about hard facts and also about first principles. The left doesn't understand the right, by and large. And so the left has to conclude that people on the right are either impossibly stupid or malevolent, that we actually have bad intentions. Those are basically the only conclusions. And what's so notable about Joy Behar's response to Vance is she knocks both of those things down. She says, look, for a Republican, I think he's pretty good. Look, I don't think. I agree with him. I don't think. But he's not stupid, and I don't think he's a bad guy. I don't think he has bad intentions. And I pointed this out yesterday. I said the clip to me that really showed JD's prowess on the View was when he was talking to Whoopi, and Whoopi said, you know, what do you think about them erasing black history? And he said, well, Whoopi, what do you mean? And he didn't even say it in a condescending way. He didn't say, like, can you cite your sources?
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Co-host or Guest
Boom.
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Michael Knowles
You can't. Owned lib, destroyed facts, logic. Boom. She didn't say that. He just said, hold on. Even when the audience started to boo him a little bit, he goes, no, no, I'm just trying to. I just. I want to make sure I'm responding to your actual point so that we're not talking past each other. What specifically are you talking about? And it was so disarming, it was devastating because she had no answer. She ended up going viral because she said, I mean, I mean, there's so many examples that I can't pick even one. And it totally took the air out of that conversation. What's really amazing about the Joy Behar clip is you're seeing some people on the right who are attacking JD Vance for charming Joy Behar. I think, hold on. This is one of the most conservative people in American politics in Many ways much more conservative than the gop, in many ways, drawing on deeper wellsprings of conservatism than what has passed for conservatism in the last four or five decades. Kind of vaguely neocon, vaguely libertarian stuff. I mean, J.D. vance, in his new book, when he's talking about economics, is citing Thomas Carlyle. Okay. And he's drawing on wellsprings of conservatism that come from Edmund Burke, from the very beginning of Anglo American conservatism. And yet that guy was able to charm Joy Behar. That seems like a good thing. This is one of Donald Trump's superpowers. He does it in a very different way, and he's much more polarizing, of course, but he was able to pull people in who previously were on the left, who previously were disillusioned by politics, and he was able to pull them into his coalition. That's how he won. That's how he won the popular vote. The fact that Vance could do that in maybe the most hostile enemy territory on mainstream media from Joy freaking Behar, that's impressive. That gives me a little bit of hope for the future of the MAGA movement, conservatism, and the Republican Party. It's funny. You'll even hear from the people who are going after Vance. They'll say, we need to restore civility to our politics. We need to be respectful to our opponents. We need to whatever. And everyone wants you to be respectful until you're respectful to someone they don't like. Everyone wants their political avatar to be respectful until it's to someone that they don't like. But if you just show. I'm not saying you'd be obsequious. I'm not saying you flatter or anything like that, but if you can just have a basic level of respect, talking to some communist, talking to some wacko, talking to some radical or reactionary, if you can do that, it takes the temperature down a lot. Sometimes you can win people over. But the attacks that are coming in on Vance right now are really, I think, just the reemergence of all the old attacks that you saw on Trump back in 2016, and they're coming from many of the same people who hated Trump in 2016. I think as we move into the 2028 primary, which we're almost into right now, you gotta get past the midterms first, but we're almost into it. I think you are going to see the reemergence of all those fault lines. I think never. Trump really never went away I think Never Trump went a little bit underground. Never Trump tried to play it cool. Never Trump tried to get on the Trump train when that was the only viable path in Republican politics. But Never Trump, I think, is coming back and I think it's going after jd. We'll get to that momentarily. First though, I want to tell you about Bolen branch. Go to bolandbranch.com b o l l a n d branch.com knowlescode knowles there are certain purchases that seem completely ridiculous right up until you buy them. Then you immediately wonder why you waited so long. Great betting falls into that category. According to my wife. A proper comforter falls into that category too. I just ordered again another. Another new bowl and branch comforter set. And this was actually, this was my fault. We didn't order it exactly right the first time. And then all of a sudden I said, where's my new comforter from Bolan Branch? I'm gonna. Sweet little Lisa's gonna murder me. I promised her we'd get a new bowl and branch comforter. So I ordered it correctly. You gotta make sure you gotta order. Cause these are some of the nicest comforters ever made. They're so good. The sheets are amazing. I've slept on bowling branch sheets for like 10 years at this point. They're just the best. Multiple US presidents. Your favorite podcaster. The bedding is just fantastic. 100% organic cotton. It's so freaking good. And now you're gonna sleep like. You're gonna sleep like Michael. It's like you're gonna. You could sleep like a president or a podcaster. Sleep cooler this summer with Bolen Branch during their annual summer event. For a limited time, get 20% off site wide at bowl and branch.com knowles code knowles bolen branch b o l l a-n d branch.com knowles take 20% off bolandbranch.com knowles code knowles exclusions apply. President Trump at the G7 in France obviously very concerned about this Iran war, which has upended global energy markets, which has destabilized the Middle east even more so and which is really threatening the midterms. The conservative coalition Trump has secured this memorandum of understanding. They're flying to Switzerland this weekend to try to get the first stages of a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And this has caused a lot of consternation, including with the US's CO belligerent in the Iran war, which is Israel. And President Trump has a very good relationship with the state of Israel. The US has a Good relationship with the state of Israel, allies for a long time. Trump so beloved in Israel that they named a town after him in the state. Trump getting a little bit tough on the Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu.
- [28:45]
Co-host or Guest
And you'll see that when you see the agreement. But it's appropriate that we release the agreement. And we did send a copy to Israel, by the way. They've been a good partner. Again, I think they could do better with respect to Hezbollah. I'm not saying they shouldn't protect themselves. I'm saying when two drones are shot into the desert and drop harmlessly, you don't have to knock down drones buildings in Beirut. They could behave better and frankly, they could do a better job. I, I love them as a partner. They were terrific. But they could do a much better job with Hezbollah on that. I don't think they're doing well. And I feel very bad for Lebanon. Lebanon's been, you know, it was a great culture. It was a great. They had the professors, the doctors, the lawyers. It was an incredible culture, maybe the highest in the Middle east for years and years, centuries. And for the last 50, 60 years, they have been just trashed. They have been living in hell.
- [29:49]
Michael Knowles
So true. I've been to Beirut. Beirut's a great place. And they were destroyed by the Muslims. But it doesn't help when there's major instability in the Middle east, which includes the wars with the state of Israel. And so what does Trump say here? I think he says exactly the right thing in exactly the right tone. Because in the debates on the American right right now, you have these two crazy extremes that do not reflect reality. On the one hand, you have some people saying Israel is the worst country in the face of the world and absolutely perfidious and totally dominates Trump and they're blackmailing him and they really run the show and whatever. Just this very, very deeply anti Israel kind of stuff, really, which is anti Semitic at a certain point. I mean, at a certain point, it's no longer criticism of Israel. It's going into another realm. So you do have that, that really does exist. And then on the other hand, you have this totally obsequious, slavish devotion to a foreign nation where people will say they're our greatest ally that we've ever had and we have to back them in everything, and we have no divergent interests, and you can never criticize them. And that's totally preposterous, too. They're both forms of Israel derangement syndrome. They're both two sides of the same coin. And what does Trump say? Trump does not say, israel's awful and I hate Bibi and they're the worst state ever and they're pariah. He goes, no, no, they're a good partner, They're a good partner. I've gotten along well with them, I support them broadly, I have a good relationship with Netanyahu. But they're undermining America's efforts and America's interests right now and they need to cut it out. And he's using this issue of Lebanon where he's saying, look, he's already said this poet, he says, look, if Hezbollah is really hitting you hard and you need to respond to that, obviously, but you don't need to go knocking down buildings and whole blocks of a city when a drone lands in the desert. No one's even injured, especially in this case, cuz we're trying to secure a peace deal. And the reason this is such a hot issue right now is because while the US and Israeli interests are substantially overlapped a lot of the time here, they're diverging. It is in America's interest. It's not just that Trump wants it. It is in America's interest to end the war, for reasons that Trump explains momentarily, but it's in America's interest to end the war in Iran. There's still some open debate over whether or not it was in America's interest to start the war in Iran. But I think there's a plausible case that there really was to set back Iran's nuclear program. But nevertheless, now it's very much in America's interests. Even the Israeli state admits that to end the war. And it's in the Israeli interest to keep the war going because Iran poses a different kind of threat to Israel than it does to the United States. And with declining support for Israel and the United States, this might be Israel's last chance to really take out the regime. So I see it. But Trump says, look, we're getting the peace deal and you need to play ball, you need to be restrained. And then, so there's some people who say, well, how dare you tell the Israeli state that they can't respond. They're a sovereign country, they can do whatever they want. You say, well, not really, actually. I mean, they are, they're a sovereign country, but we, we fund their military, we are their chief, we're actually their only protector among the great powers on the world stage. We're their co belligerent in this war. We're the senior partner. They're the junior partner. And so if you're gonna take that kind of aid, if you're going to be reliant on that kind of support, if you're going to lobby us to go in and take out one of our chief shared threats here, then you need to play ball with us. If we're the senior partner, then we're really gonna be the senior partner, and you're gonna have to deal with that. That's how politics really works. Why was it so important to President Trump to end this war? He explains at the G7,
- [33:19]
Co-host or Guest
and I'll tell you what, Israel's fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they're not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you. And I suggest suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it.
- [33:44]
Michael Knowles
Okay, so hold on here. He's really, this is before he explains why it needs to end. He really turns it up here, right? Cause there's a lot of consternation coming out of the Israeli press and at the Israeli government. And he's saying, oh, yeah, you wanna play tough with me? I've been very good to you. I've been very good to you. We've been good partners. We had a nice relationship. You told me I'm the greatest president for the state of Israel ever. Now, when I need to end this war, and you're gonna try to undermine that, hey, I'll tell you what, maybe you know what I'll do? Maybe I'll give Lebanon to the Al Qaeda guy in Syria. What do you think about that? Maybe he would do a better job. Now, I think this is hyperbole coming from Trump. I don't think he's really seriously arguing that we're closer allies with the former Al Qaeda operative who's running Syria right now. Who, by the way, we all, with the support of Israel and the United States, we did kind of install him to oust Assad, because Assad in Syria had the support of Russia. So even that, you know, even that we were backing Jelani, the former Al Qaeda guy in Syria. Nevertheless, I think he's using a little bit of hyperbole to say, hey, hey, hey, I'm the boss, I'm the senior partner. And when you have a partnership like this, you gotta deal with that. Politics is not totally abstract. It's not the United nations where we pretend that every nation is equally powerful and equally significant on the face of the earth. We're in a kind of alliance here, and we have a bigger role in the alliance, and we have to end the war. Why?
- [35:02]
Co-host or Guest
If we didn't do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks. Two weeks, four weeks, two years. You would never have the hormone straight open. You would never have success. Your market would have, instead of going up at levels that nobody's ever seen before, would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before. Maybe except for 19, 19, 29 or whatever.
- [35:28]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, but we had. We could have done it a few more weeks, but we were running out of time. My pal Andrew Clavin was making this point yesterday on friendly fire. He said this war was always time limited. I mean, from the beginning, I was skeptical that it was worth even leveling the second round of strikes. The four DOE strikes last year were a different matter. But actually going in trying to decapitate the regime, I was skeptical because I knew that it was always gonna end this way. I feel completely vindicated. I hate to say I told you so, but I was completely right about my prediction of what would happen in Iran, which is you would ultimately be left with two choices. You would either have to accept an unsatisfying deal or you would have to go all the way. And I think there was greater hope that you could go all the way very quickly. You could get a total regime change. It would transform the Middle East. I mean, there was a chance. No one predicts the future perfectly. There was a chance that could happen. When it became clear within a few weeks that that wasn't going to happen, then you were going to end up in a situation where you could either have an unsatisfying deal, there's no question it's an unsatisfying deal, of course, or you could radically escalate boots on the ground, regime change, occupy 10 years, election overseers. Basically the same thing that happened in Iraq. And even if Trump wanted to do that, which he doesn't, even if that would be a good idea, which it's not, there was just no political appetite at all for that. So that wasn't gonna happen. So you had to take the unsatisfying deal. And you can still say for the people who say this was totally pointless, I say, no, no, hold on. We got a lot out of this. We completely destroyed Iran's military. We at the very least seriously set back Iran's nuclear program by 10 years. Maybe we might, and I hope we will get the nuclear dust. They won't get sanctions, serious sanctions relief if we don't get the nuclear dust. So we achieved a lot of shared goals for the US And Israel, but we basically got all of the US goals taken care of. The most important ones. We didn't achieve the most important Israeli goals, but we did achieve most of the important American goals. And now we're gonna move back. Why? Because the war was time limited. It was time limited by the markets. It was time limited by the fact that Iran actually does control the Strait of Hormuz. It's their most powerful weapon, much more so than a potential nuke. And because we're almost out of our strategic Petroleum reserve, I'm gonna get bad press.
- [37:35]
Co-host or Guest
I know that now. If I did the opposite, if I went out and continued to bomb them for another four, just bomb the hell out of them, I'd get bad press on that. No, they. There's nothing I can do. But what this does is it allows the ships to go. If we keep bombing, those ships won't be going. And you're talking about 500, 600, $700 million a day. It's a lot of money. A lot of money. That's why the world is okay. It's liquid, it's fine. Also, we run out of reserves in about four weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world and we would really run out. And there'll be a time when, when you wouldn't be able to get it. And you want to see bedlam. So for all those so called geniuses that want to show me how smart they are, ask them why didn't they blow up General Soleimani? Ask that of the General and a couple of other people that I like very much. But boy, are they wrong. Go ahead. How about you?
- [38:31]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, this is the key. And so many of the ideologues just totally miss this. There are real facts and resources on the ground here. And this is why. The question I asked to the people who were upset by this mou, what's your alternative? What was the alternative? Boots on the ground. That is the answer. But they don't want to admit that. So they'll say, no, we'll just keep bombing, okay, we'll just keep bombing. And then what? We'll just bomb forever. And we'll lose 20% of the world's oil supply just ad infinitum. And then we'll run out of all of our strategic petroleum reserves. And then gas will go up to 200 or $300 a barrel. And then we want a petrochemicals, we want to have fertilizer. And then what? And then we'll keep this open situation where the Iranians eventually are going to keep striking not only Israel but also our Gulf allies. And then we're going to weaken and probably lose the petrodollar. And then China's going to come in and clean it up. And then, and then, and then, and then, and then what's the end of it then? The end of it is the only thing we could do to deal a death blow to the regime is to invade the country with boots on the ground, take a bunch of American losses, inevitably and probably occupy the place for 10 years and almost perfectly recreate Iraq. That's what's gonna happen. And this is, you see Trump's frustration here. He says, all these geniuses who wanna tell me what they should have done, how would you have solved these discrete problems? None of them have an answer for it. So now what's very clever, and you're kind of seeing this play out in the political press, is Trump is right. They don't like that Trump is right. They want to oppose Donald Trump. The people who are very upset about this mou. And so they're trying to place the blame on someone else, they're placing the blame on J.D. vance. But ironically, it's just creating the exact same fissures that you saw at the beginning of the Iran war and frankly, all the way back to Never Trump, which we'll get to in a moment because we're about to be living in that world again for the next three years. First though, 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. But my favorite comment Yesterday, not from YouTube, it's from Spotify. Cuz I didn't realize that you could leave comments on Spotify and now I'm really tickled by that. And the Spotify comments are great. This is from White Pilot who says justice for the indigenous people of Britain. That's a great point. You know, and all this talk about anti colonialism, the rights of the indigenous. What about the indigenous people of Britain who are being colonized by a hostile foreign power? What about the MeToo movement? What about, you know, you have a quarter million British girls are raped over the course of decades, some of them murdered by a hostile foreign colonial power.
- [41:07]
Co-host or Guest
Why not?
- [41:07]
Michael Knowles
Where's the outrage we gotta defend the indigenous rights of the Brits. What you were seeing. Before we move on, before we move on from the G7, one last point. It's very, very funny. At the opening of the Iran war, a lot of people on the right were attacking. A lot of people, sorry. On the media, right, and the prominent right, a lot of the rank and file people on the right, they just kind of trust Trump, Trump's best foreign policy president of our lifetime. They weren't actually that outraged. But a lot of people in the media on the right and some political figures, they really hated the Iran war. I was always skeptical of it, I argued against it, but they were really incensed. And one thing they would do is they would blame not Trump, but the people around Trump. So they would blame the wicked advisors. And this is a classic tactic of politics. You never blame the king, it's never the king's fault. It's always those wicked advisors around the king who are giving him bad information. You see, we Catholics sometimes do this about the Pope. It's never really the Pope's fault. The Pope never really said or did anything wrong. It's just the wicked advisors around him giving him bad information. Well, same thing about Trump. So you saw this play out on the right at the opening of the Iran war. Wasn't exactly Trump's fault. Some people went for it. I think Tucker really started to go after Trump, but a lot of people were just kind of dancing around. It's the bad advisors, it's the people in the media, the people in the government. And what's so funny now is now the sides have completely flipped and all the people who were cheerleading the Iran war at the beginning are not only going against the Trump administration for the peace deal, but they're using the exact same tactic. They're saying, well, it's not Trump's fault, it's those wicked advisors around Trump, it's J.D. vance's fault. J.D.
- [42:46]
Co-host or Guest
vance.
- [42:46]
Michael Knowles
You think J.D. vance is doing this peace deal without Trump's approval, without Trump's knowledge? Is that all the arguments from the beginning, which is we're denying Trump's intelligence, we're denying Trump's agency, we're denying that Trump has a role in the world affairs. They're just doing the exact same thing now when Trump's doing something that they don't like and they're saying, no, it's Vance or it's Steve Witkoff or it's Jared Kushner, it's mostly Vance, cuz he's the number two guy. And Trump even made a joke about this. He was asked a joking question from Peter Doocy. And Doocy goes, hey, why are you putting Vance so front and center on this? And he goes, oh, it's very easy because if it works out, I'm gonna take all the credit. And if it doesn't go well, I'm gonna blame J.D. which is a joke. You know, in every joke there's a little bit of truth, but that's the argument that he's making. And what's very curious is you're seeing these. I guess it shouldn't be curious. You're seeing these fault lines reemerge in the gop, which is that the people who are most vociferously opposed to the Memorandum of Understanding in Iran, the Venn diagram of those people, and the people who really, really Opposed Trump in 2016, it's like a perfect circle. It's just, it's really the kind of. The Never Trump faction is the one that is most outraged about the Memorandum of Understanding. And they're directing a lot of their ire at J.D. vance, which tells you you don't need a PhD in logic to know that that means that J.D. vance, whether he wins or loses, whether he even gets a nomination or not, JD Vance is the heir to Trumpism. Cuz all the people who hated Trump specifically in 2016 really hate JD Vance in 2026. So that tells you that for better or worse, JD Vance is the heir of to the Trump political movement. You're gonna see these fault lines reemerge. It's not that they went away in 2016. It's not even that Trump really persuaded all of these people to support him or to change their views on tariffs or immigration or foreign policy or whatever. It's just that Trump was too big and he won over the people. And you could not be in Republican politics if you didn't play ball with Trump. And then when Trump the individual goes away, all of those fault lines are going to re emerge. This is just how it is in the conservative coalition. There are lots of different groups. The neocons and the Paleocons and the libertarians and the traditionalists. And there's not a ton holding them together. There was at least something holding them together during the latter part of the 20th century, which was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, which could get the traditionalists and the religious right opposed to the secular material atheism of the Soviet Union, could get the libertarians opposed to the collectivism of the Soviet Union, could get the war hawk Democrats the neocons opposed to the imperialism of the Soviet Union. But then the Soviet Union fell apart. The conservative coalition ceased to make a ton of sense. That's what we're heading back into. And a lot of these fights over the Iran deal are proxy battles over that. One last story before I go. Have to get to this. This is really, really funny. It's from the New York Times. The New York Times accidentally admitting that the Epstein scandal is not a Trump scandal. We'll get back to some of the kind of crazy conspiracy theories about Israel. They say they've got blackmail on him, on Trump, and they run the show and he's a puppet. They were. Epstein was a Mossad agent or whatever. And they say Epstein's got all this dirt on Trump. That's how they're all controlling the government. You say, I don't know. Can you show me some proof of that? Because I've got this New York Times piece right here. You have the Democrats basically making this argument that Trump is. He's part of the Epstein class. Whatever. Lengthy New York Times article, the Untold Story of Jeffrey Epstein's Death worth reading. Here's just a little. Take this actually from Forbes. Jeffrey Epstein's attorneys were in discussions with prosecutors before his death about potentially trying to get him a more lenient sentence if he gave up information that could help them in other cases. And who did they want to get? They wanted to get Trump. The New York Times reported Tuesday with notes suggesting Epstein wanted to pass along information about Donald Trump. Okay, well, here we go. We got it. Now, Trump, we know that Epstein was blackmailing people. That's what we thought initially. Then everyone said, no, no, he wasn't blackmailing people. Then Bill Gates just came out in testimony before the House of Representatives said, no, he was blackmailing me. So Epstein was in the blackmail business. Was he working for a criminal enterprise? Was he working for foreign state or states plural? Potentially. Was he just working for himself? It's unclear, but here's the reporting. It's unclear how far those discussions proceeded or who else Epstein could have information on. Epstein reportedly tried to determine if he had leverage against associates like billionaire Bill Gates. But the Times reports the late financier was preoccupied with trying to provide information about Trump based on notes he took at the time. Okay, well, here it is. There's a smoking gun. There's a smoking gun. Trump killed Epstein because Epstein had dirt on him. And Epstein's associates probably still have dirt on him. But hold on, here's the key. Epstein's notes suggest he didn't actually have anything noteworthy about Trump, who was then in his first term making only vague comments like Trump is a total con artist. Smoke and mirrors. He never had money. In other words, Jeffrey Epstein, who we're told was so close to Donald Trump, we're told they committed all these terrible crimes together. They spent all. He was a member of Mar a Lago. The best dirt that Epstein had on Trump are all the lame, stupid political slogans that you hear on MSNBC and on the View. He's a con artist. He lied about his wealth or whatever.
- [48:19]
Co-host or Guest
That's it.
- [48:20]
Michael Knowles
That's all he had. I've come to the conclusion, Donald, statistically speaking, Trump might be the cleanest person in America. Billionaire playboy, basically worked with the mob doing real estate in New York, you'd think. But they have nothing on him. They have nothing on him. The New York Times has to admit it. Jeffrey Epstein. The best thing Epstein has is he's a con artist. He inflated his wealth. Wow. Crazy. In any case, love to hate to say I told you so here my original thesis. Totally right. You remember what I said about Epstein? I said it for years. I said two things are true about Epstein. One of two things are true about Epstein. Either Epstein is a super duper triple agent for Mossad, MI6, CIA, KGB, FSB, whatever. Either he is this international James Bond Blofeld man of mystery, in which case you're not gonna learn anything more than you already know about him. Or he just kinda is what they said he is. This criminal guy who was self serving, in which case you already know everything you're gonna know about him. But this is the big 10 billion page New York Times report. We're getting the dirt on Trump. He had nothing. The Epstein scandal as it was in the beginning is not a Trump scandal. If it is any kind of scandal, it's a Democrat scandal. It's Bill Clinton who flew around on that plane all the time. It's Bill Gates, one of the biggest, most insufferable lib donors in the world. It's all those other people. It is not a Trump scandal. There have been some Trump scandals. This is not one of them. Okay, the rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. It's theology Thursday. Become a member. Use code Knowles Canada wles at checkout for two months free on all annual plan.
- [50:11]
Co-host or Guest
Sam.