How To Debate: Me vs. 25 LGBTQ Activists REACTION

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Michael Knowles Show – "How To Debate: Me vs. 25 LGBTQ Activists REACTION"

Introduction

In the February 16, 2025 episode of The Michael Knowles Show, hosted by The Daily Wire, Michael Knowles delves into his recent debate experience against 25 LGBTQ activists on the Surrounded podcast. The episode provides an in-depth analysis of effective debate strategies, the challenges of confronting large opposition groups, and insights into contemporary cultural and political issues surrounding LGBTQ topics such as gender identity, same-sex marriage, and adoption.

Debate Experience and Strategies

Michael Knowles begins by recounting his experience participating in a high-stakes debate environment where he faced over 20 opponents simultaneously. This setting differs significantly from traditional one-on-one or moderated debates, requiring a unique approach to maintain composure and effectiveness.

Michael Knowles [00:11]: "Oh, no. And heaven for a minute. What's it like to be surrounded by more than 20 people who want to rip you to shreds and devour your body?"

Knowles emphasizes the importance of preparation tailored to the debate format. In large groups, allowing opponents to "hang themselves" with their rhetoric is a key tactic. He contrasts this with the necessity of concise and decisive argumentation on cable news platforms, where overlapping dialogue demands brevity and assertiveness.

Michael Knowles [01:06]: "Pregnant people. Mm, mothers."

Key Discussion Points

1. Abortion and Gender Identity: The debate touched on the sensitive intersection of abortion and gender identity. Knowles argued that a minimal percentage of abortions are performed due to direct threats to the mother's life, challenging his opponent's use of inclusive language.

   Michael Knowles [01:10]: "Yeah. Does it bother you to use inclusive language? It's just interesting."

   He critiqued his opponent's focus on terminology, asserting the necessity of precise language to effectively communicate his stance.

2. Same-Sex Marriage and Adoption: A significant portion of the debate centered on the implications of same-sex marriage and adoption on children. Knowles contended that practices such as renting wombs or purchasing eggs undermine the rights of children by depriving them of their natural mothers.

   Michael Knowles [05:41]: "And that does infringe on the rights of kids."

   He challenged opposing viewpoints by questioning the validity and methodology of studies supporting same-sex parenting, claiming that more rigorous research contradicts popular beliefs.

   Michael Knowles [05:50]: "It is true. It is true."

3. Cultural and Anthropological Arguments: The discussion also ventured into anthropological grounds, where Knowles defended the traditional view of marriage and gender roles as rooted in natural law and human nature.

   Michael Knowles [09:30]: "Men and women are different and marriage involves one of each."

   He dismissed arguments about varied cultural practices by asserting that natural law remains consistent across different societies and historical periods.

Notable Exchanges and Speaker Attributions

Throughout the episode, unidentified speakers challenged Knowles' arguments, leading to moments of tension and criticism:

• Speaker 3 [00:18]: Criticized Knowles' language use, prompting a discussion on the importance of precise terminology in debates.

• Speaker 2 [01:47]: Confronted Knowles with extreme statements, to which he responded by maintaining his stance on Nazis being unequivocally bad.

• Speaker 4 [05:44]: Accused Knowles of misrepresenting scientific literature, leading to a back-and-forth on the validity of studies concerning same-sex parenting.

• Speaker 1 [12:08]: Labelled Knowles as a "fucking Nazi," a severe personal attack that Knowles addresses by clarifying his actual views and dismissing the misrepresentations.

Insights and Reflections

Knowles offers critical reflections on different debate formats. He praises the Surrounded podcast's intensive, multi-opponent structure for fostering robust discussions but laments the challenges it presents, such as limited time and the absence of a live audience. He contrasts this with cable news debates, where audience perception and succinct argumentation are paramount.

Michael Knowles [02:14]: "The way to win one of those debates is you have to be prepared to debate the moderator and win."

Additionally, Knowles highlights the importance of maintaining calmness and composure under pressure, especially when confronting opponents who may lack substantive knowledge, thereby strengthening his arguments with factual precision.

Conclusion

In wrapping up the episode, Michael Knowles reflects on the criticisms he received from various speakers during the debate. He distinguishes his approach from others by emphasizing his commitment to presenting his views calmly and respectfully, contrasting it with the more provocative and emotionally charged tactics he attributes to his critics.

Michael Knowles [12:52]: "I'm just stating my views, which are views that most people agreed with until very recently."

Despite acknowledging that his presentation might appear "dry and friendly," Knowles remains steadfast in his belief that reasoned discourse and factual accuracy are fundamental to effective debate.

Final Thoughts

This episode of The Michael Knowles Show provides listeners with a comprehensive look into high-pressure debate scenarios, particularly those involving contentious LGBTQ issues. Knowles' analysis offers valuable lessons on strategic preparation, the significance of language precision, and the necessity of maintaining composure amidst opposition. Whether one agrees with his viewpoints or not, the episode serves as a compelling case study on modern political and cultural debates.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker 1]

My Plato advocated book burning Fascism as a whole, really loves to hone in on small portions of society. And right now, I'm sorry, I'm gonna outright call you a fascist.

[Michael Knowles]

Oh, no. And heaven for a minute. What's it like to be surrounded by more than 20 people who want to rip you to shreds and devour your body? Well, I just found out when I flew to Los Angeles to appear on the Surrounded podcast. I don't understand the fascination with trans.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Bodies and what's happening in the bathroom.

[Michael Knowles]

I've engaged in plen of debates before. The surrounded debate was a little bit different than some of the others. For instance, when I'm having an unmoderated one on one debate, that's going to give me a different style of preparation. What you want to do is give your opponent enough rhetorical rope that he or she can hang him or herself with it. As happened with Bronte. On the subject of gender identity, the percentage of women who get abortions because the baby poses a direct threat to their lives. It's a very small number by far. Less than 1%.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

By direct threat to their lives, you mean they're going to lose their life?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Okay, well, Michael, do you know what the leading cause of death for pregnant people is?

[Michael Knowles]

Pregnant people. Mm, mothers.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Does it bother you to use inclusive language? It's just interesting.

[Michael Knowles]

I prefer to use precise language. So this, this was a great moment because we weren't even really debating trans identity or whatever. We were debating abortion, but she kept speaking and she got tripped up in this hobby horse of pregnant people. So in those kind of debates, you just kind of let them keep talking or maybe you gently pull them in to destroying themselves. That's very different than when you have a moderated debate are people who are.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Marching, shouting, Jews will not replace Nazis are bad. Can you say yes or no to this? Are you capable of that? I don't need to answer a question because I'm not on the stage. No, I did not ask you if Nazis were bad. And I understand those are big words.

[Michael Knowles]

People who are Nazis are bad.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

That's not what I asked you.

[Michael Knowles]

I've answered this five times.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

No, you haven't.

[Michael Knowles]

You're rewriting that. I didn't. Even Chris is on my side.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

I feel so badly for you. It's very easy to play a victim.

[Michael Knowles]

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

You can boo all you want to.

[Michael Knowles]

I don't give everybody a so there. The way to, to win one of those debates is you have to be prepared to debate the moderator and win. And in a live debate setting like that, you need to win over the audience. What's a little bit strange about the surrounded debate format is there's not really a live audience. There are just so many debate opponents that they themselves kind of constitute an audience. But you don't have a huge amount of time. The clock is running down and all of the other participants are ready to vote out the other person at any given moment. So it off foots you from all these other kinds of strategies. Now compare that to going on a cable news talk show or something like that. The cable news talk shows exist for people to speak over each other. Unfortunately, I don't like it, but that's just how the medium is built. You have to do that if you're going to participate in them. And so you have to get your points in, in a more concise way. You do have to clobber people. If there are multiple people in a debate panel, then you're gonna form coalitions. And you really don't wanna find yourself being the one surrounded by the people who are attacking you on cable news. Especially if you don't know what you're talking about. As unfortunately happened to someone that I was recently chatting with on Piers Morgan's show.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Oh my God. Are you really, are you really saying that the reason the Crusade, which was sent to the Holy Land to liberate the Holy Land from whom? From Jews and Muslims.

[Michael Knowles]

I'll tell you why the Crusade began. Because the Eastern emperor asked for help from the Western Pope. Because the Seljuk Turks were slaughtering Christians in the Holy Land. Because those lands were Christian before the Muslims invaded in the seventh century.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

So that's why those lands became. Those lands became Christian after the first Crusade. Okay, so let's make sure the lands were Christian.

[Michael Knowles]

Jerusalem, Islam didn't exist before the seventh century. What are you talking about?

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Okay, I could go. Listen, listen, I can go all day if you want to talk about the Crusades.

[Michael Knowles]

Can you though, go on? So in a cable news type hit, because it's all just a bunch of talking heads, facial expressions really matter. You need to be still, you need to be patient, you need to be calm. Calmness is really important. The moment you get a little agitated, especially when the camera is so close up on you, you start to look like you're unraveling, as perhaps you saw happening with my interlocutor there. And then if they start to say things that aren't true on a subject that you maybe know something about. And they don't know anything about, then it looks absolutely devastating. And that is the point of those. You need to make sure that whatever point they raise, you just smack it down in a way that is charitable but decisive. That medium is unlike the Surrounded podcast, which is 20 minutes for every single topic. That medium is one to two minutes max for the viral exchange that goes around the media. So fast forward to the Surrounded podcast. I have over 20 people who want to rip me apart, sitting all around me, ready to jump in, fighting for the opportunity, time limited to destroy my views with facts and logic. Here's how it went. So what about the right of a kid to have his natural mother and father? Because when the rubber meets the road in gay marriage, it's not just two people living together. You could always do that. It's not two people doing those things. You guys do that. You could always do that. It's the ability to adopt children and in some cases acquire children by going to the baby store and purchasing the eggs of one woman, renting the womb of another woman and raising children, depriving them intentionally of their natural mothers. And that's very wrong. And that does infringe on the rights of kids.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

I understand that you believe that, and.

[Michael Knowles]

All the scientific literature, by the way, backs that up.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

That's not true.

[Michael Knowles]

It is true.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Fact check that, please.

[Michael Knowles]

It is true.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Let's let them fact check that on video.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm happy to fact check it for you right now. No, the study that you're referring to is the Michael Rosenfeld study out of Stanford in 2010 and said that kids raised in gay households did just as well in school as the other day study and that. No, it was a major study, but it was wrong. It had a major methodological error and it's been corrected by multiple other studies.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

I would love to engage with you on that. Yes, in a sec. The majority of people in society are okay with these things. And society's laws should reflect what the majority of people are okay with.

[Michael Knowles]

The majority of people were okay with slavery for much of the 19th century. So should society's laws just reflect that slavery is bad?

[Unknown Speaker 4]

Gay marriage, gay adoption, things like that are not bad.

[Michael Knowles]

Gay adoption is very bad for the kids. I'm not even knocking the guys who want to do it. I understand there's a natural longing to have kids, but it's still bad for the kids. Okay, so you can tell he implicitly concedes the debate when he shifts the ground of it. So initially he says it is not true. It is not backed up by the scientific literature that it's bad for kids to be raised in same sex parent homes. And I say, no, it is. And I start to explain why, though he ends up cutting me off. So we couldn't really talk about many of the studies. And he says, well, never mind that most people think it's good, so it's good. And so he shifts it from. All right, let's see. Is there any rigorous scientific study that's actually looked into this? Oh, shoot. Maybe Knowles here actually does have some studies. Okay, well, never mind. Let's turn to public opinion surveys instead. But of course, you know, 50 million Frenchmen can be wrong, which is the point that I made. To him, people popularly have held views that have been quite wrong for history, and we've corrected them. But there are other studies, perhaps the most prominent of which came in 2012, which examined kids raised in same sex households and normal family households on 80 different measures of emotional and social well being. Whether they're going to end up on welfare, whether they're going to end up hooked on drugs, whether they're going to end up with anxiety and depression and all that sort of stuff. And it found out that on 77 out of 80 measures, the kids raised in the normal households fared better than the kids who were raised in same sex households. Even Jubilee tried to do a fact check on this to back up their point, but it's totally indefensible. Go to goodranchers.com use promo code knowles. I'm gonna tell you about my dinner last night. I come home sweet little Elise, and the boys had already eaten. But actually, I don't know if sweet little Elisa had totally finished eating because the boys are running around, they need this, they need that. So anyway, I go to get my plate and I see a nice, beautiful, delicious New York strip steak from good ranchers. So I go with the tongs. I get my steak, and Elisa says, don't take that whole steak, Mag. I haven't had that yet. I said, wait, hold on. What do you. You want me to cut this steak in half? I'm a grown man. I'm not gonna eat this full New York strip steak. No, I want to have some. I said, fine, I'm a good husband. I cut the steak in half, even though I want to eat this entire delicious New York strip from good ranchers. I take half. But then she tells me later, she goes, but there's also a little ribeye over there. You have some of the ribeye and then you have. I said, okay, that makes a little bit more sense. So I have both the New York strip and the ribeye. Both delicious. Frankly, I liked the New York strip a little bit more. Whatever you have from good ranchers, you're going to love it. It's the best meat you're going to get. The price can't be beat. It's all American. It's all really good, clean stuff. Not too late to start the new year. Right. Go to goodranchers.com right now. You will get free ground beef, chicken breasts or wild caught salmon in every order for a year plus $25 off with code KNOWLES KENNEWLES goodranchers.com promo code KNOWLES a key skill that you need to develop for any kind of debate is your BS detector. You need to be able to identify when someone is saying something that he knows nothing about has happened.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

In this clip going back to specifically same sex marriage, are you. You said you argued from an anthropology. Anthropology. That's like your basis of.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. Men and women are different and marriage involves one of each.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Yeah. Which specific culture are you referring to? Because we have so many cultures that have communal relationships in which people are raised. When you said in the act of procreation. Yeah. Have you ever heard of it takes a village raise kids. But I don't something that's just a saying.

[Michael Knowles]

No, no, I didn't say it happens.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Literally in specific cultures.

[Michael Knowles]

No, no, no. But when I say procreation, that's the act of creating the child. And usually there aren't three or four people involved in that. It's usually two people.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Yeah, but even those people that do create the child oftentimes were referred to as different genders depending on the culture that it is that you're observing.

[Michael Knowles]

Which cultures are. Which cultures are you referring to?

[Unknown Speaker 5]

We can talk about the Mayans. We could talk about certain Amazonian cultures. I recognize that they're not Western culture. So you might not mean that they don't exist.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, they no longer exist. The Mayans. Oh, right.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Because of colonialism. I'm glad that you're justified.

[Michael Knowles]

What was their view of gender? What specifically are you referring to?

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Specifically a social characteristic that we're all performing in right now. I mean, you can't say.

[Michael Knowles]

No, no, I'm not asking. I'm not asking your opinion. I'm asking what you brought up the Mayans. What did the Mayans think?

[Unknown Speaker 5]

That's just something that is.

[Michael Knowles]

But what did the Mayans think? You brought it up. You seem so confident about this. What did the Mayans Think about marriage and gender.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

People can look up right now. If you're right here, Google, Michael's trying to hone me down on trivia Night right now.

[Michael Knowles]

No, I'm just asking you to explain.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

What we're trying to talk about specifically are examples of.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm asking you to explain the point that you brought up. This is a really important point. And so he's not the only guy who's fallen into this error. But a lot of people in modernity, they think, well, no, surely there must have been a billion different views of marriage because people deny the natural law. They deny objective moral reality. So they just think, well, it just stands to reason that all these different cultures in history must have had totally different views. But the thing is, they haven't, because the natural law is real and human nature is real, and it doesn't really change. So when he says, well, the Mayans, I think, look at this guy. Say, this guy doesn't know anything about the Mayans. Okay, what did the Mayans think? And then he does this tap dance for three minutes because he can't answer the question. I enjoy engaging in all of these kinds of debates because I like ideas. I endeavor to seek the truth, and I like to persuade people of the truth as I see it. So I dig them all. But I, in particular, I liked this format. This format is great. I love this. And I'm just irritated that we didn't think of this first and do the show ourselves. Some of the interlocutors are a little more serious than others. But I really liked chatting with all of them, and they have a great deal of my sympathy.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

I think Michael Knowles is annoying, to.

[Michael Knowles]

Be quite honest, disrespectful and kind of unintelligent.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I think he's a f Cking Nazi.

[Michael Knowles]

The way that they usually dishonestly present my views is that I hate them or that I want to kill them or something like that, which I don't. And I've explicitly said that I don't.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

They say, oh, well, we don't want people to die. But they know damn well that the suicide rates skyrocket the second you remove access to gender affirming care.

[Unknown Speaker 4]

That was one of the most horrific experiences I've ever had talking to another human being. I'm very glad I did it and I'm never doing it again.

[Unknown Speaker 5]

Yeah, Michael's a clown. I've talked to Ben Shapiro. I've talked to Charlie Kirk. I've talked to a lot of conservative figures, and he is the worst at having some sort of cohesive argument. All he tries to do is push people's buttons to get these emotional responses that then he can turn into those viral clips.

[Michael Knowles]

It was all pretty funny and I suppose to be expected that they would call me Hitler or whatever, you know, an evil, stupid cretin. The one part that I disagree with is with the guy with the beard, Mason, who says, look, I've talked to these other conservatives and all the other conservatives are all above board. But that Knowles, you know, that Knowles, he's just bomb throwing and he's not really trying to pursue an argument. He's just trying to be provocative and get an emotional response. That is in fact, the opposite of what I do. Okay, I think I would probably have higher ratings if that is what I did, but I don't. If anything, I think my presentation here was a little bit dry and friendly and conciliatory. I'm just stating my views, which are views that most people agreed with until very recently. Views like marriage is between a man and a woman. Views like men can't become women. I even granted the premise that there's a distinction between biological sex and gender expression. As far as I know, I'm the only conservative who grants that publicly. Frankly, maybe the fact that I'm friendly about it is more irritating to them. If they just have to contend with the ideas themselves, it leaves them more vulnerable. I think that's my take on it.