Michael Knowles Says the MAGA Coalition Is Still Worth Fighting For | Sage Steele Show | EP 105

Summary

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The Sage Steele Show — EP 105

Guest: Michael Knowles
Title: Michael Knowles Says the MAGA Coalition Is Still Worth Fighting For
Date: May 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this candid and wide-ranging conversation, Sage Steele hosts conservative commentator Michael Knowles for a discussion spanning marriage, modern feminism, the culture wars, and the future of the conservative coalition—especially the MAGA movement—heading into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. They explore the intersection of personal choices, cultural shifts, faith, and politics, all with Knowles’ trademark incisiveness and humor.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Paradox of Feminism and Female Happiness

• Topic: The impact of modern feminism and career culture on women’s happiness.
• Highlights:
  • Knowles critiques the promise of “having it all,” arguing feminism “just makes you unhappy” ([01:00], [12:04]).
  • He references a Yale study on The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness to back up his point:

    “As feminism has increased, women have become less happy, both in absolute terms and relative to men. Everyone's getting less happy, but especially women.” — Michael Knowles ([11:38])

  • Sage shares her own personal and professional struggles balancing motherhood with a high-profile career, expressing fatigue and concern about “work-life balance.”
  • Both discuss how cultural messaging pressures women and men to deny their natural inclinations.

2. Culture, Tradition, and Gender Roles

• Topic: Traditional values in relationships and family life.
• Highlights:
  • Knowles describes his long relationship with his wife Alyssa and the virtues of high school sweetheart marriages:

    “Anecdotally, the best marriages I've seen have been high school sweetheart marriages.” — Michael Knowles ([07:21])

  • Sage discusses her daughter’s desire to marry and have children as countercultural but deeply affirming in today’s world ([18:01]).
  • Both reflect on the tension between career achievement and motherhood, with Sage noting,

    “There is a cost…and if we don't share that, because then it's pride.” ([25:03])

  • They denounce the notion of perfect “work-life balance” as unrealistic.

3. The Role of Providence and Limits of Liberalism

• Topic: How faith and an acceptance of personal and societal limits provide meaning and combat anxiety.
• Highlights:
  • Knowles explains liberalism as “trying to convince you there are no limits”—contrasted with a more grounded, providential worldview:

    “So much of liberalism really is trying to escape time. We'll never die. We don't have to age. The only person who doesn't age is Sage Steele.” — Michael Knowles ([27:06])

  • Both agree that acknowledging limits is liberating and that learning from regrets or tradeoffs is valuable.
  • Knowles muses on whether we find meaning or if meaning is given to us by Providence ([29:23]).

4. Practical Advice on Marriage and Relationships

• Topic: What makes marriages and relationships thrive (especially for Millennials).
• Highlights:
  • Knowles shares practical marriage advice:

    “Don’t sleep with other people. … Throw out feminism entirely.” — Drew Clavin’s advice via Knowles ([08:34])

  • He encourages complementarity between spouses, shared mission (grounded in faith), and honest dispute resolution, rather than “happy wife, happy life” or adversarial approaches ([35:03]-[41:47]).
  • On what young men and women should seek in partners: serious values, femininity, and shared focus on something outside themselves (ideally God).
  • On male chivalry and courtesy:

    “A gentleman is someone who never offends someone unintentionally. … Sometimes you have to give offense. If you believe anything...you're going to offend people.” — Michael Knowles ([46:50])

  • The benefits of cultivating virtue ("virtue ethics") over strict rule-following or pure utilitarianism ([47:54]).

5. Politics, the MAGA Coalition, and the State of the Right

• Trump’s Leadership and Response to Controversies:
  • Discussion of Trump’s controversial online posts, including the “face of Christ” image and spat with the Pope.
  • Knowles points out Trump listened to feedback (“he took it down,” which “never happens”) ([56:44]).
  • Recognition that “the art of the possible” means politics is rarely pure but about coalition, adaptation, and gratitude.
• Dangers of Right-Wing Fractures:
  • Internal conservative “podcast wars” and intra-movement fighting post-assassination of Charlie Kirk led to significant fractures ([61:39]-[66:05]).
  • The left’s willingness to excuse violence, contrasted with right-wing infighting:

    “When a leftist murdered Charlie, huge swathes of the mainstream left excused, justified and celebrated. That was a big wake up call...These people want to kill you.” —Michael Knowles ([65:26])

  • Knowles repeatedly urges unity:

    “Politics is a blood sport. And our enemies are increasingly unified...Are we going to allow ourselves to be wrapped up in our own frequently petty personal grievances, or are we going to unify and win?” ([66:06])

6. GOP Messaging and the 2028 Election

• Future Republican Leaders:
  • Knowles predicts J.D. Vance is the “heir apparent” for 2028, possibly with Rubio as VP ([74:30]).
  • Warns that Dem candidates (Newsom, Kamala, Buttigieg, AOC, etc.) are less appealing than any likely GOP ticket.
• On the Role of Media:
  • Knowles and Steele discuss how podcasting and social media have shifted conservative (and liberal) messaging and incentives ([70:51]).
  • The importance of diversifying and not relying solely on “the podcast class” for political communication ([72:39]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Limits and Regret:

  “Oh, you can have it all. But not 100% of both of them. Or all of it at the same time, something is going to suffer.”
  — Sage Steele ([28:07])

• On Classical Education and Leisure:

  “You should study something that is intentionally useless because the liberal arts education is for your leisure time…to grow your soul.”
  — Michael Knowles ([20:07])

• On Chivalry:

  “I'm standing up because I think that's the appropriate thing to do. And I want to live in a world in which that is how people behave.”
  — Michael Knowles ([45:08])

• On Unity:

  “There’s still a lot more juice to the MAGA coalition, so I would like to keep that together.”
  — Michael Knowles ([62:20])

• On Democratic Messaging:

  “When Trump said, at the State of the Union...stand up if you think America is for Americans...did one Democrat stand up? It was amazing.”
  — Michael Knowles ([69:37])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Feminism, Gender Roles, and Declining Happiness:
  [01:00] – [14:36], [16:33] – [29:23]

• Work-Life Balance and Regret:
  [24:08] – [29:23]

• Providence, Limits, and Liberalism:
  [25:56] – [29:23]

• Marriage Advice and Virtue:
  [34:34] – [47:54]

• Trump, MAGA, and Conservative Coalition:
  [52:31] – [66:06]

• Podcast Wars, Messaging, and 2028 Election:
  [70:51] – [79:49]

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Tone and Style

• Conversational, candid, at times humorous (lots of self-deprecation from Knowles, warmth and authenticity from Steele)
• Deeply personal as well as political, with references to classical literature, philosophy, religion, and lived experience
• Direct and unapologetic on hot-button issues, but always with an aim to understanding, learning, and unity

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Closing Thoughts

The episode ends with playful banter about childbirth, book deadlines, and the joys and challenges of family life and political engagement. Sage expresses appreciation for Michael’s insights and presence, while Michael returns the sentiment, emphasizing the value of substantive, good-faith conversation. They both underscore the necessity for the right to unify and for individuals to acknowledge limits, embrace tradition, and seek meaning beyond momentary achievement.

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This episode is a compelling must-listen for anyone navigating the intersection of politics, culture, faith, and family in contemporary America.

Transcript

[Michael Knowles]

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[Michael Knowles]

As feminism has increase have become less happy. This is a paradox. And feminism just makes you unhappy.

[Sage Steele]

Do you know who's really good at offending people?

[Michael Knowles]

Mentally ill Swedish. I know a few. I always pick the least popular position. I need to take some popular views and just to get my ratings up or something. When a leftist murdered Charlie, huge swathes of the mainstream left excused, justified and celebrated. That was a big wake up call that young Democrats in particular were eight times as likely as young conservatives to support political violence. These people want to kill you, Amor. Cal rato supreme della bella.

[Sage Steele]

Can he come back every week, please? No. You know what they say? I say no.

[Michael Knowles]

Politics is a bloodsport. The president needs to know that. This is not great. This to me is the hallmark of liberalism. Lowercase L, last 3, 400 years. Liberalism is. It tries to convince you that there are no limits. So much of liberalism really is trying to escape time. We'll never die. We don't have to age. The only person who doesn't age is. We.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah, we just got back from Italy. As I was saying. Okay, speak to me. Give. Give me, give me a line because this, this one is a. It's a history and Italian literature.

[Michael Knowles]

Those are my majors.

[Sage Steele]

Those were your majors at Yale?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Go ahead, Give, give me some Italian about how much you love my beautiful home set. Despite the construction out back that we're ignoring.

[Michael Knowles]

You want me to. In Italian. Of course you are.

[Libsyn Ads Announcer]

Yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. Amor calcorge. Amor canulo amato amar. Perdona mi bandona amorite. Oh, my gosh.

[Sage Steele]

Okay. My husband's right here, so this is appropriate. That is the sexiest language.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, when I was single in college, I did I break out a little Dante with the. It was the best I had. I wasn't an athlete. I wasn't that tall. That was the best I had, you know?

[Sage Steele]

Oh, my gosh. That is amazing. So I have tried. I can't roll my Rs. Like, I don't think it's teachable either, is it?

[Michael Knowles]

No. Well, sometimes people overdo it. So then you say, like, you know, mijiamo, Miheli Knowles della Riviera del cosa podira de la Russ. It's too much. You gotta have just a little. Just a little touch, you know?

[Sage Steele]

Where's your cigarette and your espresso?

[Michael Knowles]

My espresso's over there.

[Sage Steele]

Yes. We just shot espresso. That's what I learned, is how everybody smokes.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Like, it's just part of the culture at a very young age.

[Michael Knowles]

It's a much more civilized place. You know, I only now, for me, I'm a cigar man. I don't like cigarettes. I like. In fact, my voice is very raspy right now because I was just at the Premium Cigar association trade show, and So I smoke 10,000 cigars a day. But I'll tell you, I had this thought the other day. I've been traveling a lot, been working a lot. You know, I feel a little stress. I said, I need to promise my doctor to go back to smoking more cigars. I'm too stressed. I need medicinal cigars. Those. Those Italians, they live a very long time.

[Sage Steele]

They do.

[Michael Knowles]

They do.

[Sage Steele]

They drink the lot of wine.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

As well as the espresso. My issue. I have many issues, Michael. But the cigar thing, I told him, I'm like, do not come home if you smoke a cigar. I think it's disgusting. You better shower. You cannot kiss me. And you are, by the way, about to have your fourth child. Not you. Because men can't chest feed men. Can't do that. But your wife.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. You know, people do this, though, even conservative guys, they say. The guy will say, oh, you know, we're pregnant.

[Sage Steele]

We.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. Are we? Are y'.

[Sage Steele]

All.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

How's that going here in Tennessee? Are y'. All.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

So let's give your wife credit where credit is due, but that Means she had to ignore your cigar fetish long enough to get pregnant now, four times.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, look, nicotine is good for testosterone. This is the first time I have three boys. I actually feared I was too virile to produce a daughter ever. But luckily, one number four is a daughter. However, my wife doesn't love the cigars. She doesn't love them, but she encourages me to smoke them.

[Sage Steele]

But she doesn't love them because she knows what it does for you.

[Michael Knowles]

She knows what it does for me. It does relax me. It focuses me. It gives you time to be silent, maybe to read. You know, it's good to be social with cigars, too. I like to sit out alone, read, just think. Forces you to sit down for 45 minutes. And the. I've known my wife since we were 11 or 12. We started dating when I was 16 and my child bride was 15 and a half. Literally a child bride. I guess as I was quite young too. And however, I started smoking cigars when I was 15. So I told her, there are very few things I've loved longer than I've loved you. And there's a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling where he has to choose between his fiance and his cigar. And I don't want to ruin the ending, but open the old cigar box, get me a Cuba Stout. Things are running crosswise and Maggie and I are out. You know, he's going, he's comparing the dusky dark beauties with his, you know, kind of soon to be haggard fiance. And who does he pick? He picks the cigars. So I said, don't make me choose.

[Sage Steele]

Don't make me.

[Michael Knowles]

Don't make me choose.

[Sage Steele]

Yes, it'll be your fault.

[Michael Knowles]

That's right.

[Sage Steele]

Is it Alyssa?

[Michael Knowles]

Alyssa?

[Sage Steele]

Yeah. Yes. How phenomenal that you guys started dating. I mean, or people are like, oh,

[Michael Knowles]

my gosh, did you take a break in between.

[Sage Steele]

Did you take a break when you went to Yale?

[Michael Knowles]

So we were. When we graduated high school, everyone around us said, you have to break up. You have to break. You cannot date your high school sweetheart in college. So we did. We split for college and. But then we got back together not that long after, you know, certainly by the end of college. And the way I don't want to be offensive to some of my classmates, but. But, but there's nothing like four years of Yale girls to send you screaming back to your high school now. It's not. There are exceptions. I'm making exceptions. But yes, we got back together at the end of college and really, it's so What a perverse culture.

[Sage Steele]

Such an appreciation for Alyssa after being at Yale.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, but what a perverse culture we live in where, like, when we got back together, everyone around us. What they should have said is, of course, young love, true love. You stay together, you do this. And everyone said, you guys are weirdos. This isn't gonna work. You need to go explore and, you know, move apart and go date 10 billion people. That's what the popular culture tells you now. And they say if you marry a high school sweetheart, it's gonna be terrible. Look, of course, that happens sometimes, too. It's a fallen world. Anecdotally, though, the best marriages I've seen have been high school sweetheart marriages.

[Sage Steele]

Why do you think?

[Michael Knowles]

Well, I asked my grandpa this. My grandpa married his high school sweetheart, my grandma. They met in the ninth grade or something like that. And on their 60th wedding anniversary, I said, what's the key to a happy marriage? And he said, shared experience. He said, 54 months of pregnancy is a big experience. And he said, patience, of course. And my grandpa was a Navy captain, and he said, frequent absence is very helpful too. You know, a little absence makes the heart grow fonder. So those nine month deployments, actually, they'll either break you or they'll bring you together.

[Sage Steele]

Usually produce more children when you return. Indeed.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. You can time them. Yeah. To the date. And so I've found that, too. The other thing, I asked Drew Clavin for advice when I got married. I said, how do you have a good marriage? Everyone gets divorced now. It's like a fallen world. It's encouraged. You know, how no one seems to want that, but we're in this culture. He said, okay, I have two bits of advice. First one is, don't sleep with other people. I said, well, that's good advice. And he said, the second thing is throw out feminism entirely. I said, interesting.

[Sage Steele]

Wow.

[Michael Knowles]

And I talk to a lot of women, and only appropriately. Like, I'm not hitting the bar, you know, but I talk to a lot of women, and this really resonates with them that once again, in our modern culture, they tell you men and women have to be exactly the same, interchangeable. That's what leads to the trans ideology, which says they really are the same. But the feminism really burns women, really burns women in marriages, because women are told they have to go out and work even if they don't want to all the time. They have to contribute financially. They have to be just as emotionally resilient, and they're not nurtured. But there's still an expectation. They're gonna have to probably do most of the cooking, probably do most of the cleaning, probably do most of the nurturing, probably do most of the mothering. And so you say, well, that actually is a raw deal for women. And probably that does create tensions within

[Sage Steele]

a marriage, a thousand percent. Do you remember when. Drawing a blank on his name now, but the Kansas City Chiefs kicker.

[Michael Knowles]

Oh, Harrison Buckner.

[Sage Steele]

Thank you. Harrison, who's wonderful. Came out and somebody said at a commencement at a Catholic college.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm pretty sure, yeah, it was Benedictine Colle.

[Sage Steele]

I think it was like the message was appropriate, especially. I mean, it's factual, I think, and you can certainly have your opinions on it based on your experiences. But what you just explained. And he was at the right place to have that conversation to. He wasn't at Yale or Harvard or UPenn or something.

[Michael Knowles]

Run him out of town on rails 100%.

[Sage Steele]

They wouldn't even know who he is. And I'll never forget the vitriol that came back at him. Fortunately, he's strong in his faith and he's stood tall on what he said. He didn't change. But I've had a lot of conversations with women as well and had to look inward. I've had to do that. And especially when you're like, okay, I'm in this man's world and I have to show this was this crazy career dream I had. Not thinking about roles, women and men. And then, oh, you're in it, and I better think about that. But then if I want to compete.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And keep getting a paycheck, I better drop that, you know, feminine everything, I guess, passivity or.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

No, I can do this and I can compete, and I'm just as good as you.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

The problem is, where do you draw that line? And I know that's how so many women feel now because, okay, you can go to work, but do you just flip that switch off?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. When you go home, you're an integral human being. So, you know, you. It's not like you're going to live parallel lives.

[Sage Steele]

And.

[Michael Knowles]

And there's a famous study came out of Yale, the Paradox of Declining Female Happiness. Only these libs at an Ivy League school would call it a paradox. The conclusion of the study was, as feminism has increased, women have become less happy, both in absolute terms and relative to men. Everyone's getting less happy, but especially women. They said, this is a paradox. We have more feminism and women are unhappier. You say that's actually not a Paradox.

[Sage Steele]

Yes.

[Michael Knowles]

The feminism just makes you unhappy. And you say, well, of course, because in the workplace, what feminism says is female virtues are fake. They're not valuable. The virtues of nurturing, sensitivity, a kind of emotional intelligence. Not valuable at all. All that's valuable is the male kind of virtue, aggression. You know, I don't. All these kind of very active physical strength. Very important. And so women are expected to do both. Imagine if you told men for 50 years, the only virtues that matter are the womanly virtues. And your natural virtues are pointless. You're going to be expected to fulfill them anyway, but they're not to be valued. And you have to behave like a woman for 50 years. I think men would probably be a little irritated too, wouldn't they?

[Sage Steele]

Absolutely.

[Michael Knowles]

Not surprising.

[Sage Steele]

Dave, do you remember what was the name of that article? You know what I'm thinking of, Right. Your brother sent it, too, and it was. I'm sure Michael has read it, but it's some of the same principles, and I think it's. It almost takes courage these days to write it and to talk about as a woman.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And I think this woman at some point had been progressive, liberal and was like, look at what has happened over the last half century. And what you said, just plain and simple. Not even a scientific study with deep research, but you can feel the unhappiness.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, you know, it's funny, in women. You mentioned Harrison's great speech. And. And Harrison, he's all. He's got all these little businesses, too, in addition to football. And coincidentally, one of his businesses actually has partnered with my cigar company, Mayflower Cigars, and they make our smoking jackets. So. And I remember, I saw that speech. I said, that guy. I want to be friends with that guy. He. That he is a serious person. So that speech, which was supposedly so controversial, it was controversial even at the college, even among religious sisters. But it was only the older ones. It was the kind of boomer ones, the products of the 1960s. It was controversial among the older feminists. The women at that college were applauding. They were grinning ear to ear. Yes. And I think this is a real generational gap here. The generation that came about in the 60s and 70s, they really bought the promises of this cultural revolution. The younger people, especially the younger women, have had to live with the consequences of the cultural revolution. They're rejecting it.

[Sage Steele]

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[Sage Steele]

It was beautiful. And it was almost like I sat there gasping like yes, yes.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, she's another Yalie too. I don't know why Yale keeps coming up in this one. That's weird.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah, well, yeah, I couldn't get in there. So, next. I have two daughters and a son. I always say that Nicholas should be sainted because he's in the middle of my two psycho daughters. Yeah, this is what you have coming. A young daughter. No, but she's gonna be great because she has three brothers.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, I Know, I now feel bad, especially for her future boyfriends. That's really who I feel bad for. But, yes, maybe her, too.

[Sage Steele]

As it should be. My oldest is almost 24. My youngest just turned 20, and my son is 22 in the middle. And again, my daughter, I mean, all of them had this mother who was like, no, I can do everything and I can do. And maybe it's not perfect, but I can do it. And I'm strong and I'm still, you know, the room, mom, for all your classrooms. I'm still making cookies and I'm still at the dance thing, and I'm on a plane and I'm on tv. And that's great. I do now think, like, I. I did what I thought was best at the time and, oh, by the way. Yeah, like the sole breadwinner for the family. Like, somebody has to do it, right? And lately she's like, mom, I know you just paid way too much money for my four year education at High Point University. $80,000 a year and vomit, puke, all of the things absolute criminal. And it was an incredible experience. And I love Nina. It's a great school. And she's like, I just want to get married, Mom. Just want to have kids.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

And I was like, yes.

[Michael Knowles]

Not yet. Not yet.

[Sage Steele]

Because, like, I'm a newlywed now. And now I need a couple of years before you bring babies into my life. I don't need to be grandma's age yet. Like, I'm not quite there.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, also, this is not flattery. No one would believe you're a grandmother. No. Sage, you look. I said this today as I was leaving the studio. You look 28 at most. 28 and a half. It's crazy. It's crazy.

[Sage Steele]

I just. Can he come back every week, please? No. You know what they say.

[Michael Knowles]

I do. I do. In fact. Yes, you're right. Maybe that's it. I mean, does that explain Black don't crack. You in particular, though.

[Sage Steele]

But I'm only half black.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

So part of me is cracking because

[Michael Knowles]

my white mom, that's a fear. Does this. Maybe it just means you'll crack much later. Like 75.

[Sage Steele]

That's the goal.

[Michael Knowles]

75 is.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah, that's the goal. 100%.

[Michael Knowles]

Anyway.

[Sage Steele]

See how I get off track? Hi, Add. Gwen was like, mom, I just want to get married and have babies. And again, I'm like, yes, yes. And I do want her to take those four years that taught her so much. I actually believe college is borderline more important for the socialization aspect. And Learning to be independent than the academic.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, I'll tell you that a lot of conservatives were very anti college in the last 10 years and, and especially anti humanities. Yes, I always pick the least popular position. I don't know, I need to take some popular views just to get my ratings up or something. But I always take this view. I said I'm not anti college, I'm not anti university. I'm anti what a lot of these Ivy League schools have become. I'm anti frankly, what most universities have become. But I love university education in principle, I think it's very, very important. And specifically I love liberal arts education. A lot of guys would say you should only go to school to study, to be an engineer or something, you know, pre professional. I said the opposite. You should study something that is intentionally useless because the liberal arts education is for your leisure time. That's what it's for. You can go train for a job.

[Sage Steele]

Great point.

[Michael Knowles]

I mean, to go, to really have almost any career, you don't really learn how to do it in school, you learn how to do it when you're working. And you could for most jobs, frankly, you could skip college and you could, frankly, you'd probably be better at your job if you didn't use those four years. But the liberal education exists to train you for what you do in your free time, how you think about the world, broadly, principle at least to grow your soul. And I notice these days, as liberal education has collapsed, we now pay 80 grand a year and they don't know how to teach you any of these great old things. People, they don't know what to do when they're not working. So they doom scroll. They're anxious, they're depressed, they don't know, they haven't cultivated the kind of loves that allow you to make sense of your leisure time. And even down to the fact that a true liberal education would mean that when your daughter says, you know, I want to be married, be a wife and a mother, that that wouldn't be weird. That of course makes sense. My wife has her Ph.D. and she knew, you know, well, it's a funny line because she was teaching at a university, doing online teaching for some years and then it was kind of a thing to do while we were trying to have kids. By the third kid she said, I have to quit. And I know, I know that there are people in academia who say, oh, that's a wasted PhD. Yeah, what a waste. Why did you do. And you think actually that's the perfect use of a PhD. That's what the education is for. You know that old line that the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world?

[Sage Steele]

Mm. That's. That's beautiful that she saw that and felt that yeah, too. Because I think a lot of women would be like, okay, I did spend all this money.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And all this time, and I need to keep using it. And then you see women who are in their late 30s, early 40s, and, oh, my gosh, I'm still single, or, oh, my goodness, now I can't have kids. And it's absolutely devastating, which is why, going back to Benedictine College and Harrison Butler, those young women were sitting there cheering and clapping because it's almost like we need to give them permission to say what my daughter just. Beautifully said. And I joke around a lot, and I am. I cannot wait, because she's gonna be a better mother than I was. Like, that's what I think all of us as parents should be hoping, you know, nothing against what we did and how we did it. We did what we thought was best, certainly in those moments, I think. But my goal is for them to be better than me in every aspect of their life.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, it's great. It brings to mind two thoughts. One, some people want to say, you know, that all women need to always be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. And. And I would say, not all women. Notallwomen. There is the one in a thousand Margaret Thatcher exception. You know, there's the Joan of Arc exception. You know, it's a wonderfully diverse world. Vive la de France. But it is the case that people kind of naturally are drawn to things. And so for. For a lot of these women especially, I think of my cohort, the millennial women. Really? Millennial. Gen X, I would say, really the two. Even if we have natural desires. It was drilled into these women's heads. You must have a career. You must put off getting married. You must have it. Must not have kids or not have that many kids. You must act like a man. Must, must, must. And so when. When these women are in their late 30s, early 40s, they say, shoot, I want to be married. I want to have a kid. I want, but I just. I can't. There's this impulse to say, well, what do you think was going to happen? You know, do you think the babies come from the stork? There's this impulse to. However, you have to have some sympathy or even empathy, because these women since kindergarten have been told, do this. It'll make you happy. Do this, It'll make you happy. If you do this other thing, it's going to make you very, very unhappy. And so when they get to their late 30s or 40s and they say, wait, that was all wrong, you say, well, it wasn't their decision entirely. This is what they were told by every figure in their life, the people

[Sage Steele]

that we look up to. I will admit this, and I don't know if it's smart for my business as I'm trying to build the show, everything, but I'm tired.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And I think back now on what I was doing when I was really. Well, when I was having my babies, when I went to ESPN, I had. My kids were 4, 2, and 11 months. And I'm starting the dream that I'd had since I was 11. You know, it took 11 years to get there of local TV and climbing. And then you get there and it's like, oh, I mean, stress, pressure and babies.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And I'm like, oh, I'm not missing any of it. I don't remember much from those days, Michael.

[Michael Knowles]

Wow.

[Sage Steele]

And it makes me sad because, I mean, those are the best memories, especially when they get to be older and jerks.

[Michael Knowles]

You're right.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. Which is about age 5, I think, is when.

[Sage Steele]

That's where you got a couple decades of it. And I do. I have shared that with Quinn. I have shared that with my daughter. And I want to share that with others, too. Not trying to push them in one direction or another, but just know that there is a cost. Yeah, there absolutely is. And if we don't share that. Because then it's pride. Well, no, no, no. What I did is we gotta share.

[Michael Knowles]

You're very right about this pride aspect. A lot of people just can't admit that they probably should have done something differently because. No, they feel like it's a failure or confession of failure. But it doesn't have to be. First of all, we were talking about providence earlier. I'm a big Providence guy, very much trusting God's providence. And we have to accept things as they are and try to improve. But you can say, I shouldn't have done that, or even just to say there was a cost.

[Sage Steele]

There was a limit to acknowledge the cost.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. This to me, is the hallmark of liberalism, lowercase L, last 3, 400 years. Liberalism is. It tries to convince you that there are no limits. There are no limits. Oh, you can have it all. That's what they especially say to women. You can have it all. But for all of us, there are Limits. I will not play on the New York Knicks. You know, I, I, this. I was watching baseball with my kids the other day, and we were looking at. Oh, gosh, who was it? One of the players is 36 years old. I can't believe his name escapes me.

[Sage Steele]

Is it Carl Anthony Towns?

[Michael Knowles]

No.

[Sage Steele]

Is he that old now?

[Michael Knowles]

Who? Yeah, no, it was. Gosh, I can't. He's. Oh, John Carlos Stanton. It was Stanton. It was like this, you know, And I said, yankees with New York Yankees. And I was like. I was like, man, that guy's so old by baseball standards. I said, wait a second. He's my age.

[Sage Steele]

He's exactly your age.

[Michael Knowles]

And I turned to my wife, I said, you know, it's kind of crazy to think there's a chance I might never play on the New York Yankees. I was told as a boy I could do anything I wanted to do. But it's not just that you can't for lack of skill or you can't do everything you want because of time, because of biology, because you're going to die sooner than you think. That fact we just deny to our detriment, you know? So I once heard it in a religious context, describe that so much of sin is. I think it was Henri de Lubach or Balthazar said, sin is just trying to escape time. So much of sin is, you know, when you do drugs, you over, drink, you look at porn, whatever it is, you're just trying to escape time and the anxiety that comes with time. So you try to, you know, put yourself. Yeah. And it really resonated. And so much of liberalism really is trying to escape time. We'll never die. We don't have to age. The only person who doesn't age is sage steel. We don't have to. We can always start over. In any. There's no. And you think, no, it's hard to start over. No, it. Actually, we do age. No, actually, we, you know, and there's no. Liberalism says that you're gonna be happy if you lie to yourself about that stuff.

[Sage Steele]

Exactly.

[Michael Knowles]

But, no, I don't think lies make you happy at all. I think that's why you've seen happiness decline, actually.

[Sage Steele]

And deep down, we all know the truth. I have said that to women a lot lately, and I'm trying to find a way to, no matter where I'm speaking or to whom I'm speaking, weave it in there. When they say you can't have it all, I'm like, oh, you can. But not 100% of both of them. Or all of it at the same time, something is going to suffer. I've thrown out that phrase, work, life, balance, because to me, balance means equal.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And there's just no such thing. There's none. And, you know, then you live to have regrets. But I also think, okay, fine, I don't want to regret. We can't. I mean, it's hard to say that, but I don't think we should regret. If you drink and drive and kill someone, let's regret that.

[Michael Knowles]

Okay.

[Sage Steele]

You know, things that are certainly egregious, but other things like, okay, we did our best in that moment with the knowledge that we had. And now I know without that journey. Yeah, I'm not here with you today. And certainly things could have been different, but now the beauty is, like, what we went through, now we get to share it with our kids and make sure that they see more, feel more, and maybe make different decisions. So that's a gift.

[Michael Knowles]

This. It's so funny you bring it up. It's providential, maybe, that you bring it up. This is my biggest intellectual and spiritual hobby horse right now. And I've been thinking about it obsessively, which is the role of Providence in our lives. Because Providence, on this question is a great comfort. If I know that God has ordered and continues to sustain the entire creation based on something that makes sense and is good, that really helps me sleep at night. When I think about all the bad things I shouldn't have done, that's a comfort. I still shouldn't have done them. But at least I know the story ends well. If I cooperate with God, I know the story ends well. But what a lot of people would say today, even sort of conservative people, they would say, you know, providence is wishful thinking. I was having a conversation with a family member about this yesterday. I said, yeah, things are pretty crazy how life works. It's all crazy and wacky and nuts. Then we get to the end of it. We look back and we make a story for ourselves. And that's really the debate. Are we making a story for ourselves? That is, are we imposing meaning on the world through our will, or are we looking back and seeing a story that somebody else wrote for us? Are we rather interpreting, pulling real meaning that objectively exists in the world out? And I have an answer to that. I mean, I certainly believe the latter, but. But to me, this is one of the real crises of our time. And I think it makes up for a lot of the skyrocketing anxiety, depression, suicidalities. Does the world make sense or not? Does it have a happy ending or not? And even if I want to believe that, can I bring myself really to believe it? I think you can, but I recognize it's a hard problem spring has sprung.

[Sage Steele]

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[Sage Steele]

These are, these are the conversations that we have to continue to have and in the way that you do your work every single day. And I think it is resonating again going back to so many young women. Okay, let's. Let me ask you this. You're 36.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

So you are around, you know, your age. What are you? Well, we opened up.

[Michael Knowles]

You, You. What am I?

[Sage Steele]

That's your gen. What?

[Michael Knowles]

Oh, I'm millennial. Don't make me admit that on camera. They're not going to like millennial.

[Sage Steele]

It's so annoying.

[Michael Knowles]

But you bring up, you brought up. You made me do the Dante thing at the beginning. Dante opens a divine comedy. He says, nel mezzo del camindi nostra vita in the middle of our life's journey. He's my age. He's actually a little bit younger than me. He's a little younger than me. I'm middle aged now.

[Sage Steele]

Oh, my gosh.

[Michael Knowles]

Is that outrageous?

[Sage Steele]

It's insane.

[Michael Knowles]

It's not possible.

[Sage Steele]

It's insane. Well, then I'm dead if that's the case. This is actually not happening.

[Michael Knowles]

It's seance, actually.

[Sage Steele]

That's what it is. Yes. Let's bring them all in. So what would you tell other millennial women?

[Michael Knowles]

I love giving advice to women. I love mansplaining. It's one of my favorite hobbies.

[Sage Steele]

I'm just saying, for so many young women, mansplaining, so many young women who are in this struggle and listening to the uber feminists out there with all the streaming content that they consume every single day with their scrolling and then what is really quietly bubbling up under the surface and coming to light where. Wait a minute. Those traditional values matter. So let's say you're single. What would you be looking for in a woman?

[Michael Knowles]

What would I look for in a woman?

[Sage Steele]

Yeah. I mean, based on the young men your age that you are speaking to, who a lot of young men are single at 36 still.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. Yeah. I would want a woman who gets it. It's so funny you ask me this, Sage. I was thinking about this this morning.

[Sage Steele]

I was thinking about being single and how great your life would be.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. No, really. Actually the opposite. I was thinking, thank God I'm not single, because even though, look, there are lots of cute, cute young ladies out there, I'm sure that's very fun. But to have to go through all of that now in this period of great confusion would be, look, in any age to go back, it would be a hassle. But in this period of great confusion, it's so tricky because there are a few buckets of girls, as I see it. There's the girl who tells you she loves whiskey, she loves hanging with the guys, she smokes cigars, she doesn't have that many female friends, she loves hanging with the guys, they call them pick me. It's a little try hard and I don't exactly want that. But then there's on the other end, there's this totally frivolous kind of girl, this sort of tee hee hee, saccharine, sentimental, you know, I don't know, in way kind of the sentimentality hides the conniving dark side of femininity to this, you know, that getting one over on a man, I have no use for that. I have no use for that at all. I want a serious woman. So it brings me back to Genesis. Eve is taken out of Adam's rib. And I think it was at Augustine who observed, she's not taken out of Adam's head, putting her above the man, she's not taken out of Adam's foot, putting her below the man, she's taken out of the rib. She's complementary with the man. And so I want a woman who is feminine. I want her to be complimentary to me despite my look. I play ukulele and I tap dance, but I'm not, otherwise I'm not that feminine. I want her to be feminine, I want her to be hot, I want her to look good. We're physical creatures as well as spiritual. Yes, but I want her to look good. We back away from that in modernity. Oh, it doesn't matter. It's on the inside. That counts. Yeah, that counts. But like these young men, these women come to me, they write into the show, they say, how do I go on a date? How do I do this? I have this checklist. Do you go to this kind of church? Do you want four and a half kids? Do you want this? Do you want that? I said it's not a job interview. Women are good looking and it's fun to be around them. You should have fun, you should find them interesting and delightful. So I really do want that part. And I want her to feel like another self. A friend is supposed to be another self. And we don't mean that in a narcissistic way. We mean that in the way that Aristotle, for instance, would view it as two people standing next to each other looking at the same thing. So the language we use today is shared values. I think that's kind of weak and shallow. It's still relativistic, subjective. No, there is a good and we need to be looking at it. This is why Fulton Sheen, the great Catholic bishop and the first ever televangelist, very prominent TV star Fulton Sheen, wrote this great book, Three to get Married, that you need three to get married. Your marriage has to be focused on God. And people think that's saccharine or Bible thumping or what. No, but it's just an objective fact. God is the divine logic, the reason of end, love and being itself. If your marriage is not about that, it's either going to become just about yourselves. Man wrapped up in himself makes a small package indeed. Or it's going to become about the individuals themselves. This is where young people dating now, straight people, they refer to the other one as my partner. So, well, my partner, like they have an accounting firm or like they're homosexuals or whatever. And I just think, I don't want to be either of those. I don't want to be an accountant. I don't want to be a homosexual. You want to be in love. You want to have a spouse, you want to have a wife. That implies complementarity. So that has to be grounded on something objective that is actually outside of you. Last bit of advice on this. As I fantasize about the horrors of having to date today, People don't know how to resolve disputes in their relationships, including their marriages. They don't know how to resolve disputes. On the one hand, you have this expression, happy wife, happy life. That's pre divorce. The minute you start saying that, go hire the divorce lawyer. It's just a matter of time. Get him on retainer. There's that or there's this kind of knuckle dragging thing, which is this idea that you're just always going to be fighting for your own interests and you need to get yours. And you know what? Three years ago you picked. We went to Chinese food for dinner, but I wanted to go to Italian food for dinner. And that's why you never let me go to, we're going to Italian food tonight. You don't want it or not. And that's very unpleasant. And I found the way to resolve disputes which inevitably come up in a marriage or relationship is to try to be reasonable about it. So you say, well, look, there's a right thing to do or a wrong thing to do. And sometimes you're going to Want to do the right thing. Sometimes you're not going to want to do the right thing. And it's objectively the right thing sometimes to get Italian over Chinese food or whatever. But even on the big questions, this recently happened to me. We were debating whether or not to get a new house. I don't want to get a new house. I love my house. I love my neighbors. I adore it. I think about it all the time. My wife, who's in the home more, who's raising the kids, she really thought about it a little bit more. Do I? We need this, we need that. We need another kid, we need this. I really didn't want it. And she said, well, I defer to you. You're the head of the household, but here's why I think we need the house. And I came to this conclusion, which is the right thing for us to do is to get the house, even though I don't really want to. But if you kind of leave it in this very ordered way, yes, the husband is the household, but he answers to somebody, too. And you need to just be reasonable about it. Putting that objective, eternal thing outside of yourself. To me, that's the whole key to relationships.

[Sage Steele]

Wow. So you're getting a new house.

[Michael Knowles]

So unfortunately, I'm getting happy wife, happy life.

[Sage Steele]

And he's on retainer.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

But for her to say I defer to you.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

She gave her very strong opinion.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

Which matters more than any opinion, I'm guessing, to you.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. It's pretty close. It's up there.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah. And I love that. I love. And like, I can learn from this, you know, I love that she stated her case and then trusted you.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

To certainly consider what she was saying and then what you want as well as I'm sure you know, then it's going to cost more money. It's going to be a change. And certainly the neighbors, it's. It's a great example of the importance of having a conversation.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. Thank you. Because I, you know, I. Even though. Even though it was very painful for me because I ended up doing something I personally didn't really want to do.

[Sage Steele]

Yes.

[Michael Knowles]

In part because my wife made her case for it and then ultimately because I concluded she was right and that actually was the right thing to do for us at this moment, and. But it was still somewhat painful. And yet every step along the way, to your point, that is how it should work, at least in my very traditional view of things. Yes, the wife does sad defer to you, but the only way a wife can do that is if she trusts that the husband is at least somewhat competent in making decisions, and that beyond that trust that there is love. And so when married couples will say, well, I don't do that because he doesn't. I don't trust his judgment, and he doesn't care about what I think, and I don't care about what he thinks, and da, da, da, da, da, da. And that's why we're going to Italian food tonight. That's why we're buying the house or not buying the house. I say, well, you know, the substance of this particular decision is totally secondary to the real problem that you have, which is that your marriage is not functioning. And a marriage is a real, tangible institution. It's not out there in outer space in the ether. It's not meaningless. It's very significant. But it's an institution. Just like the bank is an institution, just like the school is an institution. You have to maintain it. You have to have trust, without which an institution cannot exist. And so I would just say if you find yourself getting into these kinds of tiffs regularly, you have to recognize there's something fundamental that is wrong here. This gets us back to Drew's advice on marriage, which is throw out feminism. Feminism, which really, totally contradicts that view. And it's why it's very tangible, very practical advice. Because if you're not going to do that, if a wife is not going to defer to her husband, and if a husband's not going to love his wife, and if you're not going to do these things together, if you're going to keep everything apart, your money apart, your lives apart, if you're gonna keep all your desires apart, if you're gonna keep it all apart, why are you getting married? You don't have to get married. Yeah, but if you wanna get married, I'd recommend you really do it.

[Sage Steele]

Do it all the way. My Quinn, who now I just need you to meet. And she lives here in Nashville as well. She's fabulous. Babysitter if you need one.

[Michael Knowles]

I love that. I love that. Is she free this evening?

[Sage Steele]

She better be working. A few months ago, I was actually right before the wedding. So it was last summer. Quinn had some friends in town, and we picked them up, and they're getting in the back of the car. And Dave, my husband and I had fiance at the time, opened the door and the girls got in. And as he was walking around, the girls looked at Quinn and went, oh, my gosh, does he always do that? And Quinn looked at them and said, since the moment my mom met Dave, I have not opened a door. I'll never forget that moment because, first of all, I don't take it for granted because I'm not used to that. I'm not in any world that I have lived in over the past two years. Yeah. And so, again, it made me. Me so happy because she gets to experience and feel that now. And I'm like. I talked to her friends. I was like, see, guys, this is the expectation, and it isn't necessarily about the door.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

It's about the concept of I am a man.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And let me take care of you. So let me be. Be the man. Let me do that role.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's amazing that that was foreign to you, that you hadn't. You know, I remember once I was at a party, dinner party or something, appetizers and drinks, and we were younger. Gal walks in, and I stood up, and they looked at me like I had three heads. Now, my then girlfriend, now wife, knew what I was doing, but she said, oh, you don't have to stand up. And I sort of thought, now I especially have to stand up, actually, because, you know, the thing is, I'm not standing up to impress these other people sitting down. I'm not standing up even because that woman is demanding it of me. She's probably never seen it. The reason I'm standing up is I think that's the appropriate thing to do. And I want to live in a world in which that is how people behave. And so if I stodgy, conservative Michael, am not doing that, then I'm not going to live. So I'm just. I just think that's a nice thing to do, and it's amazing that it can take people decades to ever even experience that. But wouldn't you rather live in a world in which the man opens the car door for the woman?

[Sage Steele]

And by the way, he's not doing it because you can't.

[Michael Knowles]

Right.

[Sage Steele]

He knows you are fully able to do it.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

And so for all those millennial young men who have had to be browbeaten about feminism and then are fearful of. I don't want to offend them by opening the door. What do you tell these young men who, like, I understand why so many of them are confused and hesitant in many ways, and therefore, I mean, that's multiplying. That is what we're seeing. But there's a turn.

[Michael Knowles]

We felt this. There's a turn. It's happening. But I agree, there's still that fear. I don't want to offend someone, but I would say, no, no, no, it's both. You need to be much more courteous than you are, and you need to be more offensive. There's a great line about gentlemen. A gentleman is someone who never offends someone unintentionally. People think it's a gentleman, someone who never offends someone intentionally. No, no, no. Sometimes you have to give offense. Sometimes if you believe anything, if you stand for anything, you're going to offend people. That's how it goes. So you want to offend the right people for the right reasons. And I think it's really charming. A man holds a door for a woman, and the woman says, you think I can't open that door? I think you can, but I'm going to do it instead. Well, I don't want you to do it. Well, too bad. I'm going to do it anyway. Too bad. It's the right thing to do. It's kind of fun. And, you know, women, look, not that I understand the female psyche perfectly, but one thing women do like is confidence. They like confidence. And so then these poor men, they write in, they say, well, how can I be confident? I said, it's a little chicken or the egg thing. You know, when you're confident, you get the girl. It'll make you more confident. And so you're in a tough spot.

[Sage Steele]

But if you gotta ask, I have to tell you, I'm walking away.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes, exactly. And I just think, well, one way to be confident is to know what you believe, be able to act in that way. Not in a performative, flamboyant way, but effortlessly. This actually ties into even how we view ethics. But you need to be able to do that. And the women, if she likes it, good, and if she doesn't like it, if she gets kind of offended by it, all the better. That's kind of fun. That's called flirting. It's a great deal of fun. But this at a deeper level, at the level of ethics and just how you should comport yourself. This speaks to a form of ethics that has really been revived recently, which is an ancient form of ethics, very popular in Christianity, which is called virtue ethics. So in modernity, the two kinds of ethics are consequentialist ethics, utilitarianism, the ends justify the means. You know, got to crack some eggs to make an omelet. That's the ethics of Stalin and Hitler. Then there's deontological ethics, which is like the ethics of Kant, which is. It's the ethics of the neurotic conservative who says, well, there just have to be these formal rules for everything. And it has to apply to everyone, always, at every given time. And I can write all the rules on a napkin and beep, boop, beep boop. That's how we need to behave. And you think that's not how human beings work. The third option is virtue ethics, which is the idea that virtues are habits that we cultivate over time, such that when the moral dilemma hits, whether it's War and Peace or whether it's holding a door open for a woman, when the moral dilemma hits, you will have cultivated the habits of virtue such that you will have the right judgment in that moment and it will be effortless. And it's just part of who you are. You know, Heraclitus, a man's character is his fate. And that's what I would recommend to people. If you want to get the girl, the really good girl, not the kind of bad girl, if you want to get the good girl, if you want to get the high paying job, if you want to be the pillar of your community, the great volunteer, the great man of service, if you want to do that, then you have to first cooperate with God's grace. Because prayer is the first resort, not the last resort, but then two. You have to be the guy that deserves to have those things. And you just do that through little acts of habit all day when you're alone in your room and you think no one's looking at you.

[Sage Steele]

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[Sage Steele]

I'm good. I'm talking about for all you young men and women out there. And the bar must be higher. Again, this is from a mother who is now seeing things very differently. And I've threatened my girls. I'm like, you bring the wrong one home, I will cut him. Or will I cut you first? I'm not sure.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, certainly in short order. Both of them. Yeah, sure.

[Sage Steele]

Yes, Quickly. I'm a lot meaner than you think, so it's okay. Offend people. Do you know, left turn, right turn. Do you know who's really good at offending people?

[Michael Knowles]

I know a few.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah. Actually not two. Guess which one. I'm going to say, listen, you and I met for the very first time at the. At the Trump rally.

[Michael Knowles]

At the Trump rally, right?

[Sage Steele]

MSG at Madison Square Garden. And I was like, oh, Michael Knowles. Oh, my gosh.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, that was. Talk about Providence. That was great. Because we had our seat. First of all, they said you can come into the VIP section, which is very nice. It's MSG. VIP section is like 10,000 of your closest friends. And so I said, that's nice. I'm glad they got me the seat, but I'm not that. But then Sage gets the super. VIP gets the real, like, write down. And you invited me down. I said, this is fabulous. I gotta hang out with Sage more. Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

That's the first and last time I'm gonna have any kind of benefit like that. And I was coming off of the campaign trail, something I thought I would never do. First of all, heck, no. Would I do politics? Secondly, would I do it as loudly as I did with pink women for Trump jackets on The Road with Lara Trump and Tulsi Gabbard. Heck, no. And there I was. So that's the only reason why I had a front row seat. And I was so glad to finally meet. And it was with Dave Rubin and Phoenix as well. Yeah. And I look back at that day and that moment and, you know, almost locking arms with you guys, and it was so fun. And I just felt the energy and the patriotism and I was like. And that's the first time I put a MAGA hat on, by the way, and took a picture. It's like, take that.

[Michael Knowles]

Wow.

[Sage Steele]

Everybody.

[Michael Knowles]

Wow.

[Sage Steele]

I don't want to put that hat on right now.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. You're feeling. You're feeling a little edgy on the admin.

[Sage Steele]

I am. And I absolutely stand by this president.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, right, right.

[Sage Steele]

I am unwavering in my support and understanding more and more of why people say, see, see, this is why, obviously some of the insensitive posts, I think, around Easter, I think basically the picture where you're depicting yourself as Jesus, despite what the explanation was afterwards, there's so many smart people that are. That are alongside this man, and I'm not saying that they can change his mind on things. That's where I struggle, Michael, while saying, I will definitely. I know the right person is in office and I have zero regrets and I will continue to support. How do we balance that? Because I am one of millions right now.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes, no, of course. Especially this. This happens normally as midterms approach, people start to sour on the party they just elected. Now with Trump, everything's magnified by 10,000. So you know that. That was built in. But on the Easter posts, there were. There were really three Easter posts. The first one was when he threatened to blow up all of Iran and then said, praise be to Allah. And I have to say, I thought it was hilarious because he was doing, I think, a comedy bit where he was speaking the way Iranians speak. He's since said this on tv. He goes, I'm speaking their language. I gotta yell at them because they don't listen to any other language. And so he goes, I'm blow up this, I'm going to blow up that. All praise to Allah or whatever. Which one literally you could defend, because Allah is how Middle Eastern Christians say God. But two, I think he was kind of making fun of the way.

[Sage Steele]

Absolutely.

[Michael Knowles]

Said the great Satan, America will fall in fire a la la la. You know, and he was kind of mocking that. So anyway, that part I defend the picture, the picture which President Trump said it was him as a doctor, but I think most people thought it was him with the face of Christ or with his face on Christ. That was one where, when I saw it, it was right about to go to bed. I said, I have to say something about this. I'm always restrained. I wait 24 hours. I'm not very emotional or I'm disciplined in my emotion on these things. But I said, the President needs to know that this is not great. I don't think he had bad intentions. I don't think he meant to commit a sacrilege. I don't think he meant any of that. But he needs to know this is a guy who. We have a good relationship. You know, I don't personally know the president, but I mean, we, the coalition, we have a good relationship with this man. I don't think he wants to offend Christians, but he needs to know this is not it politically, spiritually, he shouldn't do it. And what do you know, a day or two later, I think it was a day later, he took it down.

[Sage Steele]

He did. Which never happens.

[Michael Knowles]

It never happens. I think it took a lot for him to do it. He realized that was not the right thing. So whatever the explanation, people are still angry about it. I say, look, he was responsive here. He never. He always doubles down. He never backtracks. And on this one, I think he realized, you know what? This ain't it. I'm going to take it down. And so I say, good, I'm glad you did that. Then the third part of it, as a mackerel snapping papist, a Catholic myself, he got into this tiff with the Pope, right? This was another one. Now, look, there are plenty of Protestants in this country. You got to go further, you know, get that. But frankly, there are some Catholics who, you know, who like, fights with the Pope. But I said, I don't think it's a great idea because, one, I'm a Catholic. I consider the Holy Father to be like a spiritual father, as do Catholics generally, but also politically. One in five voters in America is a Catholic. Trump won the Catholic vote more consistently with greater numbers than any Republican in history. He's the first Republican president to win the Catholic vote twice. Nixon did it once on reelection. Reagan did it once on reelection. Bush did it once on reelection. Trump did it twice. And I said, I'm not saying the Democrats started this fight, but the Democrats are exploiting it. They realize it is crucial to split Catholics from Trump. And I said, don't give them what they want. And even there Initially, Trump was pretty tough on the Pope. And then he was interviewed, he said, what about your fight with the Pope? He said, no, I don't. Look, the Pope can say what he wants. I want him to say what he wants. But I can disagree. And I'm sure he's a great guy. I've never met him, but I'm sure. And I thought, this is Trump. Trump learns a lot and he adapts. And I think on the Pope, you can disagree with the Pope if you want, but it's really this tonal thing. And he actually did change his tone in his Trumpy way. And so I think, look, there are big issues that are dividing a lot of conservatives. The war in Iran, not least among them. The riskiest thing Trump's done in his entire political career. The economy is always a little tricky, especially when the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Midterms were always going to be tough. Now they're going to be really tough. All these problems. And there are reasons why you might not feel so gung ho on being MAGA right now. But I would say, I guess your attitude is quite good on it, which is, imagine if it were Kamala.

[Sage Steele]

Absolutely.

[Michael Knowles]

Imagine if it were Joe Biden. Trump has done so much good. On releasing the political prisoners, releasing the pro life grannies who were being held by Joe Biden. On fixing the economy, all time stock market highs. On bringing the inflation down from 9% onto Joe Biden. On closing the border that stops 3 million illegals a year from coming in. On deporting 2 million illegals in his first year, the list goes on. He's done so much that it's easy to forget the good things. We focus on the bad things. And I say, look, when something's genuinely bad, like sacrilege, he should stop. But when he does, when he pulls it back, when he deletes it, when he corrects, when he does, I just, I try to give him a little bit of grace because politics is not abstract. It's not debate club. It's the art of the possible. This guy's literally taken a bullet for us. And I just say we need to pull him in the right direction. We can. And have a little, I don't know, a little respect, a little gratitude.

[Sage Steele]

I totally agree. As usual, you say it better than I can even think it. The. The former FBI director who passed recently and he tweeted, I'm glad he's dead.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Thank you, Robert Mueller. Those are the moments. Rob Reiner, who had been horrible to him and of Course, Mueller. I mean, people will never fully, I don't think, comprehend or admit the hell that he and many others put the entire family through. So I get the hatred. And it is completely unnecessary to say out loud, to tweet to billions of people. I'm glad someone dead. It is the lack of decorum that we know exists. Right. Here's my thing. So the message to MAGA should be what? Based on. Based on this. You know, I feel like if you say something like we are saying, where, okay, love all this, love that you're doing all. It's endless. I honestly believe that. And I can still say, this isn't cool. This bothered me. And it doesn't mean you're anti Trump now. And so what is happening? Because there are some people saying, hey, good here, not so good here. Then there's this faction, and I think it is super dangerous for our future.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Especially based on the timing right now leading into midterms, because the Democrats, they've always been better with messaging. They can always come and pounce and say, see, see, there's a split here. And all the biggest voices now are completely fractured.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

How do we soften a little within our own party to make sure that this doesn't completely backfire?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. The factional disputes are tricky because a lot of it is the product of media. A lot of it is just in like the podcast wars.

[Sage Steele]

Yes.

[Michael Knowles]

And. And so I try not to wade into the podcast wars when it's just intra podcaster. When something happens that touches the real political order, then I'm all about it. Then I really want to talk about. So Tucker recently, just yesterday or day before, said, I regret voting for Trump. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it. And it's because he's very focused on the Iran war. And so. Which is his sincere opinion. You know that I don't begrudge him as a sincere opinion. I don't agree with that. Take. I don't regret voting for Trump at all.

[Sage Steele]

Right.

[Michael Knowles]

But now he's speaking to the real political order. This isn't just like, you know, him and Ben Shapiro sniping at each other. This is something that really touches electoral politics, policy issues. Okay, well, we have to listen to that, because the conclusions from something like that are either we're going to go support Democrats. That's not me. I'm not going to do that. Or kind of political quietism to say, well, I'm not going to be engaged, which I think is a bad idea. I know plenty of people have done it throughout history, but I think it's a bad idea. I think you cannot cede the political territory for the left. The third thing you could do is try to start a new party or a new coalition. Good luck. It happens sometimes, but it's very difficult to do. And I think there's still a lot more juice to the MAGA coalition, so I would like to keep that together. So then what do we do? How do we actually revivify that? The Iran war is very risky. I mean, Tucker is right to see the riskiness of it. I don't think it's necessarily. It's not necessarily a bad thing, though I would have, and I did actually argue against it before, during and after. Not because I don't think Iran deserves it. They deserve it, sure. Not because this is a problem that Trump invented. This has been a problem that American presidents have dealt with since the 70s. But I just think that regime is sturdier than we give it credit for. I think Iran is a real country, unlike, say, Afghanistan or even Iraq. And so I think that's very difficult. The way I think to get past this coalitionally is to one, wrap up the Iran war. Keep it as limited as possible in scope. The die is cast where we are, but really try to limit that. Ramp up the deportations even further. Focus on 700,000 formal deportations, over a million self deportations last year. So you're up at 2 million deportations, plus the 3 is a net of 5. That's pretty good. Run on that and ramp it up. Focus on bread and butter issues. Health care is a real weakness for Republicans, real strength for Democrats, Even though they have no good answers, it's a real political strength for them. You have to focus on something like that. And then what I would go back to is the beginning of all this factionalism. When did the factions start hitting each other? When did the podcast wars kick off? It was after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and it was inevitable. He was holding a lot of that coalition together as an activist, as a media figure. And so when he goes away because a leftist murdered him, people are naturally going to vibe for position. People are going to take out their old petty grudges. Charlie was holding these people, some of whom hated each other together and keeping the genuinely toxic figures out. So why do I say we have to go back to that? You can't go back in time. It happened. It worked. Assassinations work. That's why people keep doing them. It's wishful thinking to say, you know, you strike me down, I'll be stronger than ever. That doesn't usually happen. You have to go back to that. Because it exposed something about the left that should wake us all up. When a leftist murdered Charlie, huge swathes of the mainstream left excused, justified and celebrated. We're talking about elected officials, we're talking about that lady who sits next to you at work. We're talking about your kid's teacher, we're talking about your waiter and your nurse. That was a big wake up call. That young Democrats in particular were eight times as likely as young conservatives to support political violence. That was a big wake up call because it means if the Democrats are permitted to get back in power because you're upset about egg prices, you shouldn't be upset about egg prices, they're down 60%. But if you're upset about the Iran war, if you're upset that we didn't get 3 million deportations, we only got 2. If you're upset for whatever reason, some of which are justified, these people want to kill you.

[Sage Steele]

Yes.

[Michael Knowles]

Not all of them, but a lot of them. And they are willing to use political power. Woke is not dead. It lies dormant and it is coming for you. When President Trump reentered office, we had pro life grannies rotting in solitary confinement because they objected to abortion with their prayers, okay? That's the degree of political threat that we're talking about. And so part of the reason I have an aversion to the podcast wars and look, I love political philosophy, but I want the practical here, okay? Because politics is not debate club. It's not merely debate club. Politics is a blood sport. And our enemies are increasingly unified. They're exploiting divisions on the right, some of which are frivolous, frankly. And they're ready to win and wield power. And the question that we have to ask is, are we going to allow ourselves to be wrapped up in our own frequently petty personal grievances, or are we going to unify and win?

[Sage Steele]

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[Michael Knowles]

Start your free [e-mail] I know what

[Sage Steele]

we hope, certainly, but I don't fully have the trust that we are, have the fortitude, intestinal fortitude, to be able to do it and do it the right way. I think with messaging, we have to go hard, unfortunately, on what you said, the number of people and how vocal they were celebrating Charlie's death, including, you know, high ranking public figures, politicians, et cetera, who had, I mean, they didn't even try to hide it. It was shocking. The inability. Now unwillingness. When you look at the State of the Union speech, for example, and people refusing to stand for an angel family, like, there's so many things from an emotional human level that the left is lacking and they do it proud. They don't even try to hide it.

[Michael Knowles]

No. When Trump said, at the State of the Union, I was in the room, it was brilliant. I mean, he played it very well when he says, hey, stand up. If you think that America is for Americans and not illegal immigrants, did one Democrat stand up? Did one. It was amazing.

[Sage Steele]

And, you know, I think they kind of went. It's like, well, if he's not, then I can't do it. And I was sitting there last day, but I was standing there like screaming, like, that was genius. It was so great. And right there and then, you know, everybody's clapping the standing O on the right. And he just sat there and just looked at them. Just disgusting. Can't stand. Can't have your dirt. Use that. Who do we have in Washington that can take these moments and continue to praise for all of the great things that he has accomplished? And to me, the border was the number one thing, because it's so much bigger than the border. It's safety, it's economic, et cetera, it's

[Michael Knowles]

national identity, it's sovereignty.

[Sage Steele]

It's so basic. Yes. Who can bring the message together the right way? Especially to get onto those social media platforms where, you know, the millennials and kids, 18, 20 year olds need to see the truth. Because the left, going back to Obama, in my opinion, when he took over Facebook, they've been brilliant with the messaging.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes, yeah, certainly. And I think part of the freak out on the right right now from a communication standpoint is the podcast class has, I won't even say largely, but has significantly turned away from the right. The podcast class was supposedly with the right in 2024. They called it the podcast election. We all got a lot of credit for helping Trump win. And now the podcast class is some of the big players have turned away from Trump or they're focused on totally different issues. And the reason for that is pretty basic. In 2024, the incentives for both groups, the politicians and the podcasters, were very tightly aligned because ratings do well when you are out of power, when you're in opposition, when you're with the most offensive, disruptive guy, when you get a lot of attention and eyeballs, when you're the underdog, obviously same thing holds for the politicians. But once the Republicans had won, unified government, House, the Senate, Supreme Court, White House, obviously, all of a sudden, the ratings start to drop off a little bit. And so you have to get increasingly more sensational, more radical, more oppositional once you get that way again. Now, in the old days of the old media, that would have been mitigated by networks, by standards, by the ability to be fired and deplatformed, by the requirement that voices work together in a coherent lineup. In the new media, this version of it, everybody's independent anyway. So there's only incentive to fight each other. There's only incentive to be the most oppositional, the most outrageous. So you just, you saw the interests diverge. I mean, I've thought about it myself. I know if you. Look, I'm happy with. I'm happy with the ratings I have. I'm very pleased to everyone who watches the show.

[Sage Steele]

Amazing.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. Thank you. But I bet you I could juice my ratings a lot, a few different ways, certainly, especially if I were in opposition to Trump. But there are plenty of other ways I could do it, too. And I said, well, I don't really want to do that. It's not worth it to me. What profiteth a man to gain a million new listeners but to lose his soul? I don't want to do that. So my interest in this whole space in political media is the politics more than the media. But you have to recognize those interests have diverged. And so what it means is all very long way of saying the Republicans have to diversify. It is great that Joe Rogan was so supportive of us in 2024.

[Sage Steele]

At the end, that rally in Pittsburgh, when they made the announcement, it was like, oh, if Rogan's on board, here we go.

[Michael Knowles]

Done. He's the biggest. And. And look, he might be supportive again in the future and maybe his views now. He was just at the White House the other day because he was happy about his drug bill. And so, look, he's an independent guy. He likes Bernie, he liked Trump. I think he's really an avatar of the median American voter. I think that's why he's so successful. He's so powerful on his platform. But maybe you're not gonna get him in the midterms. Maybe you're not gonna get him. I don't know, maybe a guy. Theo Vaughn is like a really interesting guy. He's really funny, but maybe you're not gonna get him this time. I don't know. Basically, you have to diversify a little bit. Trump did this very well in 24, by the way. Not just focusing on the podcasters, but on the Zoomer live streamers by folk and obviously traditional media, too.

[Sage Steele]

But thanks to Barron Trump. Right. I mean, thanks to his son who's like, hey, dad, there's this whole world that's really not being tapped into from the Republican side in particular. If you had to today, yes. Make a decision, you're part of the world that can say, yep, this is what exactly needs to happen for the party who is on the Republican ticket for the 2028 presidential election.

[Michael Knowles]

Vance is the heir apparent, full stop. I know that there's going to be all this kind of fighting. First of all, if you look at the polling right now, Vance is clear in a Way the favorite. The majority of Republican voters already say he's the guy. I think there's been a big operation underway to try to pit people against him, to try to create division in the administration. It's ridiculous. Rubio has already endorsed him. Rubio is the most popabile, not papabile, but the most viable presidential candidate in the admin. His poll numbers are still much lower than Vance and it doesn't matter anyway. He's already endorsed Vance. The President has already endorsed them as a ticket in a variety of ways, sometimes stronger and sometimes more softly, but he's done it repeatedly. And so I think there's substantial unity within the administration. I personally am a big admirer of Vance, but even if I weren't, he's clearly the guy. Just look at the numbers. He's the guy right now. Now, the danger for that is that a ticket like that rises or falls on the strength of the administration being the heir apparent in this bizarre non consecutive second term. The minute Trump picked him, he was essentially saying, this is going to be the guy for 2028. So obviously the Vice President has a lot at stake here for how the administration continues to perform, whether we're talking about the economy, we're talking about Iran, anything else. But I think it's him. Now, advance Rubio ticket is what the President has floated. That could be very strong. There are other Republicans. I mean, Rand Paul has said he's going to run because we always need the one libertarian, usually a Paul, to run. And that could be interesting for the Prime Minister. There was an Axios report that Senator Cruz might run. I'm a good buddy of Ted Cruz, I love the guy. But probably a senator versus an administration, especially if it's a popular administration with a presidential seal of approval, that's going to be a big uphill battle. Governor DeSantis, he's someone who is a governor, so he's outside of Capitol Hill, he's outside of the administration. Yeah, he might have burned his fuel on that 20 feels like it. It kind of feels like he's a very talented guy.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

So we'll see what happens there. But you know, people, they're talking about this like it's a real horse race. And I say, guys, look at the numbers, look at the unity of the administration. They've essentially picked Vance. And if that continues to hold, I think that is also a very good thing because he's very intelligent, he's very well educated on the issues. I think he's pretty close to the base and to the avant garde. So that could be a really great ticket. Am I being too simplistic about this? No. You agree?

[Sage Steele]

Absolutely not. It all makes sense. And I hadn't even really thought about DeSantis much, as much as I love him and as a full time resident of the state of Florida, that's one of the reasons I moved to Florida, is because of the way he chose to run the state, which every state should try to model, which is one of the reasons why we're here in Tennessee as well. I think maybe the most important reason why we cannot let a Democrat get into the White House is because I think the wife of the President would be called the first partner. It would be the first partner. We would have to say first partner. Granted, we would refuse to say first partner.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

However, that's what would happen. And who else on the left, I think, would they continue to catapult to make sure he or she got in office? I don't think they can do that with Kamala. I think there's too much water on the bridge there, even though she continues to stay there. But to me, it would be Gavin Newsom, and there is no way. But you know what? Jennifer Siebel Newsom, whatever name is. Keep talking.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes, I love that.

[Sage Steele]

Keep talking.

[Michael Knowles]

She is, you know, I gave her a little grace because I don't. It's gonna sound mean, but I don't think she's a Rhodes scholar.

[Sage Steele]

Okay.

[Michael Knowles]

I don't think she's. Has a PhD in astrophysics. And so she's this nice, pretty political wife. And she's saying, yes, she seems perfectly nice. Had this difficult background, early life associated with Harvey Weinstein. I don't know. Not something I'd wish on my worst enemy. And now she has to deal with Gavin Newsom. So that's a problem too.

[Sage Steele]

That's a choice.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. And so I. When she was just saying these fashionable leftist things, I said, whatever, who cares? She keeps saying them, though. I mean, she really seems to have gone all in on radical left wing social sexual engineering, all this. And I just in this obscenely woke. I mean, that's what the word's for. Weigh. And I just think, forget about Newsom. I can't put up with that. I can't listen to this for four years or eight years. We cannot do it. And so I think we have a lot of good Republicans as of right now. As of today, the 21st of April or the year of our Lord 2026, I think the party's still quite unified, despite what the Media said.

[Sage Steele]

Despite. With media. Exactly.

[Michael Knowles]

But even if all those guys I just mentioned, let's say for whatever reason, it weren't the Vice President or Rubio or whatever. Name all these guys. Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, anyone else from the administration, some of whom have run for president before. I think every single one of them. Them is orders of magnitude more preferable than anyone the Democrats can offer. The only ones we can name are Kamala and Newsom. Pete Buttigieg. Give me a break. Pritzker? No, thanks.

[Sage Steele]

Absolutely not.

[Michael Knowles]

Whitler, as they call her. Governor Whitmer and aoc. The fact that we're pretending that she's capable of being president just shows you that the party is looking very bad for them. And this is the other thing. The President's approval ratings have taken a hit. The GOP's approval ratings have taken a hit. The GOP, you know, we're just the worst party in the whole country. Except according to the public opinion polls, for the Democrats, whose numbers managed to be even worse than Republicans.

[Sage Steele]

Which is, which is, I mean, well deserved. And I do think that an AOC Jasmine Crockett ticket would be a. I mean, it'd be a dream. That's the kind of thing that wouldn't surprise me.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes.

[Sage Steele]

Honestly, now it seems like Jasmine Crockett is going back to being an attorney. And she's, you know her, the way she speaks is much more consistent. Yeah, well, it's interesting how that has changed.

[Michael Knowles]

I actually respect throw them out there. I respect that with Crockett because I remember the first time I heard Crockett speak, she just sounded basically normal, like a millennial left wing politician, but she sounded basically normal. And then I see her on camera and she starts just like, well, you know, we're doing this like this like Martin Lawrence Sinenay impression from the 90s. And I thought, who is this person? And then she goes back, she does an interview, she's like, well, actually in law school I learned, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, look, it's impressive that you have such a breadth of characters that you can play. But she lacks the key to that political skill, which is you need to do it imperceptibly. You need to be subtle about it. When Hillary Clinton, she sounds like Hillary Clinton, which is my Hillary impressionist thing. Just this awful moing demon from hell. And then she. But then, remember, she would speak in front of the. The black audience. I don't feel no ways tired. I come too far. And you think this is like, what? Look, pandering is what politicians have to do. But don't. If I'm making fun of you for it. You screwed it up. You didn't do it right.

[Sage Steele]

You know, it is just so disingenuous. But it does create quite good fodder. It is entertaining, if nothing else. This young man is about to have his fourth baby again. Not you.

[Michael Knowles]

But I deserve lovely, lovely wife.

[Sage Steele]

You do.

[Michael Knowles]

She couldn't have done it without me.

[Sage Steele]

That is a fact. When is the baby coming?

[Michael Knowles]

Baby's coming in the fall, which means that I have to do all of my work for the year before then, which I'm not gonna do. So I have a manuscript for a book that is due at that time.

[Sage Steele]

Goodness.

[Michael Knowles]

And this is full circle, because when my first kid was born, the book and the baby were due on the same day. And so my wife is there in the hospital, screaming in immense pain and labor, and I'm sitting there like a stone cold sociopath on my. I was in the room, but I was on my computer finishing up the edits. These nurses must have thought I was Patrick Bateman or something. And I said. I was like. I was there. I was like, oh, honey, you know, they're there. You know, you're gonna be fine. Yeah, Breathe, breathe. Yeah, yeah. And I'm there. And, you know, the crazy thing is, it'll probably be the exact same thing again.

[Sage Steele]

Well. So this is intentional, is what it sounds like.

[Michael Knowles]

It might be. Yeah, I know. Or providential. To get back to our conversation.

[Sage Steele]

Don't give yourself that.

[Michael Knowles]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. But truly, the book is due, I think, within two days of the baby.

[Sage Steele]

That's incredible.

[Michael Knowles]

So my wife gives birth to her baby, our baby. But she does. That's her giving birth. And my giving birth is. Is typing words onto my computer. And I think they're equally difficult, don't you say? You know, it's like we both. Don't you.

[Sage Steele]

Wouldn't you agree that is the perfect way to end this thing? I always say to people like, wait a minute. Do you realize that I have given birth to not one, not two, but three bowling balls?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, yeah, but. No, but I had to type some sentences on a computer, so it's, you

[Sage Steele]

know, it's really cute. I'm gonna pray for your wife.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. We're pregnant.

[Sage Steele]

We are pregnant. You are phenomenal is what you are. And I really mean.

[Michael Knowles]

Go on, get out of here.

[Sage Steele]

I really mean it. It's. What I enjoy, is, first of all, you taking the time to come here with wife and manuscript and daily shows, et cetera. But I love learning from people, and I learn from you. Watching you, I feel smarter or just dumber. On the other side of it, it's like, okay, I can't do that. So, no, when you're able to learn from someone and a different way to think about things is when, for me, it's so meaningful.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, that's very kind.

[Sage Steele]

Thank you.

[Michael Knowles]

And this was. The pleasure was entirely mine. And when I was going around at the Daily Wire this morning, I said, where are you going? Where are you getting out to? I said, I'm going to see Sage Steele. I'm doing a show. And every. Universally just like, oh, it's amazing. Tell her I say, hey, it's a shade. Steel, Steel, she doesn't remember you. She doesn't know you. What are you doing? But I said, okay, I'll tell her. Oh, she's the best. She's. And truly, this was. This might be the most effective excuse I've ever had to skip out of work for the day. No one said boo about it. They said, you're saying, do we do it more often? Then I'm in.

[Sage Steele]

Now that we're, you know, Tennessee neighbors.

[Michael Knowles]

That's right. That's right.

[Sage Steele]

Welcome. No, but thank you. No, that is not happening. Then you'll call me Jasmine.

[Michael Knowles]

I know I'm a little yank on. I know I can't do it. It's tough for me to pull it off.

[Sage Steele]

Thank you.

[Michael Knowles]

Good to see you.

[Sage Steele]

God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.

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