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Aug. 7, 2017 - The Michael Knowles Show
42:08
Ep. 5 - The Revolution Will Be Televised: Trump TV Debuts

Trump TV debuts! Michael explains why conservatives should celebrate. Plus, Antonia Okafor, Roaming Millennial, and Jacob Airey join the Panel of Deplorables to talk Pence 2020, the surge in black female gun ownership, and how to tell if your child is transgender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The revolution will be televised.
On Sunday, President Trump launched a new News of the Week segment on his Facebook page to tout the achievements of his administration.
Left-wing propagandists at network news outlets who shill for Democrats nightly and broadcast across public airwaves have disparaged President Trump's Facebook post as propaganda and state TV, we'll discuss.
Plus, campus carry activist Antonia Okafor, roaming millennial, and for some reason, Jacob Aire will join the panel of deplorables to talk Pence 2020, the surge in black female gun ownership, and how to tell if your child is transgender.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
So, President Trump has launched what is now being called Trump TV.
It's a weekly segment to talk about his administration and give the real news on his Facebook page.
And CNN contributor Kayleigh McEnany was the one who launched this last night.
Let's take a look at the debut episode.
Kaylee has a really thick accent.
I didn't remember that on her.
Incredible.
I guess we got our feeds mixed up.
That is North Korean government propaganda.
But that is what Evan McMullin is comparing it to.
For those of you who don't remember Evan McMullin, which should be everybody, he was the spoiler candidate.
He was the so-called conservative who ran to throw the election for Hillary Clinton.
He was an old house Republican aide and a CIA officer.
And he tweeted, quote, "This is the type of propaganda you'd see in North Korea.
It erodes the people's ability to discern truth and hold government accountable.
You know, with Republicans like Evan McMullin, who needs Democrats?
He has spent every moment since Donald Trump was elected president trying to tear this guy down.
Every day is more hyperbolic than the next.
The notion that President Trump puts out a new messaging platform on his Facebook page now rises to the heights of North Korean state propaganda.
Evan McMullin brought up propaganda.
That's fine.
Let's look at some propaganda.
Do we have a cut of it?
...as we provide you the news of the week from Trump Tower here in New York.
More great economic news on Friday.
The July jobs report added a better than expected 209,000 jobs.
Overall, since the president took office, President Trump has created more than one million jobs.
The unemployment rate is at a 16-year low, and consumer confidence is at a 16-year high.
All while the Dow Jones continues to break records.
President Trump has clearly steered the economy back in the right direction.
On Wednesday, the President introduced the RAISE Act.
For decades, a steady rise in immigration has depressed the wages of American workers.
The RAISE Act will increase wages, decrease poverty, and save the taxpayers billions.
Americans deserve a raise, and President Trump is finally putting the American worker first.
Thank you for joining us, everybody.
I'm Kayleigh McEnany, and that is The Real News.
It's on American.
Watch out.
The secret police are going to be coming soon.
This is what Evan McMullin is afraid of, the terrible new state TV and propaganda.
And it is.
I am half joking.
It is obviously propaganda.
Propaganda is messaging and the use of information to advance a political goal or a political campaign.
Every political campaign uses it.
Every politician uses it.
That's why they have directors of communication.
That's why they have political directors, because they want to dictate the news cycle, get their message out there, and cut through their opponents who are...
All around them.
When it comes to President Trump, he has the entire deck stacked against him.
So, you know, if that is propaganda...
And by the way, propaganda is not a bad thing.
I think it's spoken of as some awful and un-American activity.
Propaganda, when there's a lot on both sides, is evidence of a healthy political system.
Now, Democrats want to limit political speech.
They want to restrict the right of people to air commercials and hold rallies and spend money advancing political speech.
But Republicans say, that's fine.
You...
Have a microphone for your message.
We'll have a microphone for our message.
We don't care if MSNBC is out there.
We're going to have Fox News refuting some of the issues that are coming out of left-wing news outlets.
If that is propaganda, and I suppose it is, let's look at other propaganda that might help the other side.
He's personable, he's handsome, he can be funny.
This is one of the brightest presidents, one of the most adept that we've had perhaps in our lifetime.
You know, abroad he has his great image for America.
Barack Obama, the rising rock star.
It's about Barack Obama, the rock star.
His rock star popularity.
He's so informed, he's circumspect, he's articulate, he's thoughtful.
I miss him so much.
He's so perfect.
The sea stopped rising.
Now, by the way, this wasn't on some Facebook page.
This wasn't the president posting a little video of an articulate and cute blonde lady to his own Facebook page.
This is the entire mainstream media.
So if we're worried about state TV, this is actual state TV. And by the way...
I think a lot of millennials don't know this, but there are airwaves.
Not everything is Hulu, Netflix, and cable.
There are these airwaves that are regulated by the government.
And these people on ABC, NBC, CBS are broadcasting on public airwaves.
They're shilling for Democrats every night.
They're attacking Republicans, and especially this president, every night.
And I don't begrudge them that.
I think that's just fine in the American republic.
But then to fly into fits of hysterics because President Trump decides to send his message out on his own Facebook page seems a little ridiculous.
Let's look at some more propaganda from those same public airwave networks.
If Trump wins, how about bursting into tears and screaming for the next 45 minutes?
America is crying tonight.
I'm not sure how much of America, but a very, very significant portion, and I mean literally crying.
Everybody is crying and so upset, and it is the end of their world.
Feels like the end of the world.
We were on Lifetime last night, and I was slowly getting drunk, is what happened to me.
How do we explain how this is possible?
How did this happen?
Experienced politician versus racist fake gynecologist.
Get your abortions now.
Because we're gonna be and we're gonna have to live with it.
You're awake, by the way.
You're not having a terrible, terrible dream.
Also, you're not dead and you haven't gone to hell.
This is your life now.
This is our election now.
This is us.
This is our country.
This is a different earth today than it was 24 hours ago.
It's a different place.
It just is different.
The woman who President Obama called the most qualified person ever to run for the White House couldn't break through.
The question remains, who can?
Deeper concerns tonight that the world's shining light of democracy has gone dark.
You see, that's not propaganda.
That's just the credible news coverage of those objective journalists who are under siege.
But President Trump sending a spokesman out and touting his achievements of the past week or two weeks, that is the threat to our democracy.
By the way, Marshall, great job bleeping all the swear words on there.
We should have used ZipRecruiter, I guess, but maybe next time.
This is also nothing new.
Both sides are not new.
The left-wing media complex, shilling for Democrats and flying into fits of hysterics, that's obviously not new.
That's been going on for decades.
But also releasing addresses on social media platforms or on your own outlets, there's nothing new about that either.
Here's President Trump giving a similar address himself.
My fellow Americans, as we celebrate American Dream Week at the White House, we continue to see incredible results.
This week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached an all-time high.
Never, ever has it been so high.
That must be all of those censors trying to cut out our President Trump clip.
I think you get the picture.
He's out there in that typical Trump subtlety, just going right down the list of all of the achievements that he's ascribing to his political leadership.
And that's just fine.
Successful presidents do this.
FDR had his famous fireside chats.
He gave about 30 radio addresses during his presidency to communicate directly to the American people.
From the Library of Congress, they said of those, they were an influential series of radio broadcasts Nothing wrong about it.
Politicians and presidents always use media, and that was a first major use of mass media.
JFK knew that he was excellent at TV. There is, I think, something of an apocryphal story that when he debated President Nixon in 1960, the radio listeners thought Nixon won and the TV listeners thought JFK won.
There's not a lot of evidence to support that directly.
But I think everybody agreed that JFK's excellent performance on TV was one of the reasons that he won that election, and also those dead bodies in Ohio probably gave it to him too.
But that was one of the reasons why he had a successful campaign, and it certainly helped him throughout his presidency.
Ronald Reagan used radio and TV regularly.
He would broadcast to the nation.
And from 1975 to 1979, I think people forget this.
He had a five-minute radio daily show where he would address different issues and prepare his own campaign.
Barack Obama was so good at using social media, he would appear on all of these different internet platforms, that awful Zach Galifianakis.
Between Two Ferns show he did that.
He actually had a strategist working on his GIF strategy, those little moving images.
He had somebody on his team working on how to put him in GIFs in the best possible light.
So there's nothing new about this.
And unfortunately for the right, GOP candidates have generally refused to do this.
We've been behind the ball dealing with the media probably since Ronald Reagan.
Famously in 2012, Mitt Romney was debating Barack Obama.
And there was a point of contention.
The moderator, Candy Crowley, entered herself into the debate, lied right through her teeth, lied on behalf of Barack Obama.
Mitt Romney was unable to refute that.
He didn't punch back.
Same with John McCain.
John McCain famously suspended his own presidential campaign.
To virtue signal during the financial crisis.
At that point, I think we all knew that Barack Obama had it, even if we thought he might have had it before that.
And President Bush, George W. Bush, famously refused to dignify the media attacks.
You saw some of them there against President Trump.
They were just as bad against George W. Bush.
He felt it would be below the dignity of the president to fight back against them.
Clearly that hampered much of the progress that could have been made during his administration.
It ruined his reputation throughout the country, and it hurt Republicans politically.
The idea here is that campaigns are never really over.
Barack Obama knew this very well.
He kept his campaign apparatus, Obama for America.
He renamed it Organizing for America.
He had the campaign running during his entire presidency.
It's still running now.
The man hasn't been president in a while, and nevertheless his campaign apparatus is still going strong, which is why politicians have political directors.
So, President Trump is using a campaign tactic here.
That seems just fine.
You know, some are saying this is more nefarious.
But I think here's some more evidence to the contrary.
Just a few hours ago, Kayleigh McEnany was named the RNC spokesman.
She's the new spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
This is a new way that they're going to get their message out.
Seems just fine.
She said, quote, while I've enjoyed my time at CNN, I will be moving to a new role.
Stay tuned next week.
She got in a few jabs about CNN being fake news, and she's moving to real news, as you heard in the clip.
I'd also like to remind all of us.
That it was the left who started using that term fake news.
We appropriated it from them, obviously to great effect, and we're having a lot of covfefe fun with it.
Mainstream media hysteria is probably a good barometer of the effectiveness of Republican strategies.
The angrier they get, the more we're punching them where it hurts.
Unlike some of our recent Republican leaders, here is President Trump's thought on how to fight the media.
But with me, we fight back.
I like it.
Let's fight back.
With that, let's bring on our panel of deplorables.
I don't know how I got so lucky, but today we have a truly excellent panel of deplorables.
We have Antonia Okafor, well-known campus carry activist and Second Amendment activist.
We have, again, somehow we've got Roaming Millennial coming to us at like 3 in the morning from wherever she is.
And then, because we're a charity here, we're very generous, we brought on the always funny and articulate Jacob Airy from Conservative News.
Antonia, will this strategy help Trump reach out to people he otherwise wouldn't reach, or is he just preaching to the choir?
No, absolutely.
I think it definitely is going to.
Just like Twitter, I mean, people still get upset.
Hey, you need to, you know, shut down your account.
But, I mean, I look at it every day to see what the real news is versus the fake news.
So, I think it's just going to help his cause, and it's going to help him in 2020.
So...
More power to them.
That's great.
When you go on to get news now, I used to go to different websites.
I still go to some news websites.
But when I want breaking news, I go straight to Twitter.
That seems to be the place where the news actually manages to break through.
Yeah.
Sorry, go ahead, Antonia.
Sorry.
I'm going to say I worked at IJR and literally it would be like, oh, he just tweeted that.
Hurry up, get it out.
So I think that's what most are doing right now.
And he's dictating the news cycle, which is something we haven't done in far too long.
Roaming, this might not be dangerous propaganda or state TV, but is it a little unseemly to put this cute, bubbly, articulate blonde on Facebook and have her tout your politics, or is that just good politics?
Well, I mean, I think if anything, we can all agree that the production values are somewhat tacky.
I think that would be accurate.
They're very classy.
What are you talking about?
But no, I don't see how you can look at this Facebook video post and say that it's nefarious or the equivalent to state-run propaganda, which, by the way, I mean, BBC and CBC in Britain and Canada, that's actual legitimate state-run media.
You know, this is a Facebook post, right?
I mean, it's not like they're commandeering the airwaves and broadcasting this You know, to televisions across the nation.
This is totally different, and I think, you know what?
Like with Trump's Twitter feed, yeah, there are people who would just be following it to agree with everything, who wouldn't be converts to the Trump administration, but there are people who Who are going to be kind of curious.
Like, hey, this seems kind of cringy.
Maybe I'll watch it just to laugh at it.
Maybe I want to see how ridiculous it is.
And they'll end up hearing things that they wouldn't have otherwise.
So, worth it either way, in my opinion.
An excellent showman.
He's a good communicator, and I follow it for the covfefe.
Jacob, it seems to me...
Hey, don't we all!
Jacob, it seems to me conservatives and Republicans, they don't want to associate that closely with him because he's uncouth, he seems a little classless, as Roaming pointed out, the production value could probably use a little work.
But they seem more concerned with this appearance than with achieving results.
Is that fair or am I too harsh on them?
No, I actually agree with you, and you know me.
I'm not a huge Trump supporter, but I actually think this is a good idea.
I think that it helps President Trump get his message out.
And like you said, the media hysteria determines its success, right?
WAPO's headline was real news, more like real propaganda.
It sounded like a teenage girl tweeting out something, and then The Mirror, Donald Trump, quietly launches his own propaganda.
He didn't quietly launch anything.
He put it out there right on his Facebook.
And I think that conservatives need to get on board with this, and we need to see more of it from conservative lawmakers.
Great.
On state-regulated TV, you have wall-to-wall anti-Trump.
He makes a Facebook post, and all of a sudden, he's a tin-pot dictator.
That's great.
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All right.
On Saturday, the New York Times, which is that former newspaper that Andrew Klavan's always talking about, reported that Mike Pence is seeking to challenge President Trump for the White House in 2020 with the headline, Republican shadow campaign for 2020 takes shape as Trump doubts grow.
I don't know who told them that, but somebody told them that.
There are reports that Kasich, Pence, Ben Sasse are eyeing the throne.
Bill Kristol is finally going to get this one out of here and form a committee not to re-nominate the president.
Pence has vigorously denied the rumors.
The New York Times is fake news.
I'm not surprised.
Roaming.
Is Pence going to run?
And if he does, would he have a chance?
Or is this just New York Times wishful thinking?
Well, I don't think he's going to run.
You know, that obviously looks awful for the Trump administration.
You're sitting vice president running against the sitting president in the primaries.
That's not going to happen, I don't think.
As destructive as the RNC is, I don't think they'd ever allow that.
But, you know, in terms of whether he would actually win if he hypothetically does run, I'm a huge Pence fan.
I think he's great.
He's, you know, constitutional conservative, pro-life, pro-second amendment.
Great guy in my book.
However, the people who are triggered by Trump They would go apocalyptic if it were actually Pence, right?
And I think Pence being VP is actually Donald Trump's anti-assassination protection.
The fact that if a leftist were to target him, guess who's president next?
It's Pence, right?
If you want to talk about- Most right-wing guy in the country.
Right.
So, as much as I like him, I don't think he'd actually have a chance of winning over people like independents who voted for Trump over Hillary in 2016.
I just don't see it happening.
Sounds like sour grapes.
Is that, Antonia, is that it?
Is this just sour grapes by the anti-Trump crowd?
Or is there some good argument on the right to kick out Trump and make him a one-term president?
Well, first, I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room.
I am at a gun range, and if you guys are hearing gunshots, it's because of that.
So...
I love at the Michael Knowles show panel, we have gunshots literally being fired in the background.
Also, Antonia, that makes you, I think, the coolest person I've ever met.
Sorry, go on.
Okay, well, that makes sense.
But yeah, definitely, with the Trump thing, I just think, come on.
The fact is, the New York Times, it was as if Washpo and The Hill, and everybody was like, let's just make sure New York Times puts it in first, just so people actually think there's credibility to this actual story.
I think more and more people, especially because of the Trump administration, are starting to delegitimize these type of news organizations that Put out stuff that are really just, like, really, come on.
I think most people know that there's a shadow campaign, or rather that they're just vying for their own seats later on.
It has nothing to do with trying to take Trump out.
I mean, even the candidates that we're trying to go against...
Oh!
Sorry, guys!
Oh, no!
Get your guns!
The lights went out on Antonia.
Get your guns!
I knew you'd be safe.
You're the best shot I know.
So even with those people who know that it's not going to be an issue.
So, yeah.
Of course.
Politicians are always looking out for their own political interests.
They're always checking out possibilities.
But, you know, right now we've got Bill Kristol, John Kasich, Ben Sasse.
They all seem determined to dethrone President Trump.
Jacob, is it time for NeverTrump to give it a rest and support the nominee of their party?
Not only the nominee of their party, the guy that their party and the rest of the country made president.
Have we had enough of NeverTrump?
I actually am in a unique position here because I actually was NeverTrump.
If you read on my blog, it's full of NeverTrump propaganda.
Honestly, though, yes, it's time to move on.
We tried NeverTrump.
He got elected.
It's time to back him when he does conservative things and call him out when he does left-wing things.
That's what we need to do.
And I honestly don't think...
I don't think people like Ben Sasse, maybe John Kasich, but I don't think – like Senator Ben Sasse, I don't think he's going to risk his political capital to run for the presidency.
I mean that would virtually end his Senate career, I think.
But we might see someone like a John Kasich or someone more on the outside, a former governor, a former senator, or maybe a House of Representatives congressman or congresswoman.
But I don't think we're going to see anyone substantial really mount a challenge against Trump.
Thought we were through with John Kasich.
Oh, here he comes back.
I mean, I think if there's one good thing we can say about this whole current Never Trump movement is that John Kasich's involvement is probably the best signal we have that it's not going to be successful, right?
So we can take comfort in that.
I love his political strategy.
His political strategy of running as a Republican and just criticizing every Republican that ever lived.
That's how we're gonna win their hearts and minds.
Well, we're very lucky now.
We actually have an expert on our next subject.
59% of African American households now view owning a gun as a necessity, according to Pew Research.
Jacob, I know you identify as a black woman, but we're going to have to talk about that later on in the transgender discussion.
Antonia, you are the expert.
Why the surge and why now?
I don't know.
According to all the other black liberals, apparently I'm not really black and also not a woman because I'm pro-life.
You had me fooled.
But since today, I'll humor you.
I'm a black woman for today.
Appreciate it.
That's good.
And also as a gun enthusiast and someone who is a big Second Amendment supporter, I've known this for a while.
It's just like the media is finally catching up.
With the actual statistics of like, oh, whoa, black women actually think it's important to protect themselves because a lot of them are independent.
A lot of them are not, you don't have a spouse or a father figure in the home.
I've gotten in trouble for saying that, by the way, but I actually grew up without a father in the home, so I also feel like I can say that.
How dare you, you racist?
How dare you, who grew in the situation that the statistics bear out, tell white liberals something that they know nothing about?
That's outrageous.
We're gonna have to edit this out.
I know.
They know best.
They know best.
Well, that is really interesting.
The numbers do bear this out.
Black women in America are much more likely to be victims of domestic violence.
Why do you think, though, right now, the race and sex argument for gun ownership is, is it just that the mainstream media is cracking?
People like you are vocal and strong advocates for sensible gun policy.
Is that what's doing it, or is some other force going on?
No, it's, oh, Trump is elected?
Huh, I know that this statistic has been happening for, like, the last five years.
Well, let's just talk about it as if it's happened the last seven, eight months, because then Trump is racist, and that helps our whole narrative.
So, yeah, absolutely.
That's the whole reason is because Trump is president and they really don't like the fact that black people are going to guns.
I mean, that's not part of the...
So, yeah, of course, they're going to talk about that now and that's what they're going to use.
Of course.
And as the rights of orange Americans have come to the fore in the Trump era, of course, these other racial and gender issues, they'll come up as well.
Jacob, you're from that gun-toting, freedom-loving wonderland of Texas.
What is the best argument against gun control?
There are these great arguments now for specific demographics, racial and gender.
There's the constitutional argument, self-defense, so on and so forth.
What arguments are going to work and what are going to let me keep more of my guns in this awful state of California?
I think we should start by calling out their false comparisons.
So, for instance, the Center for Disease Control, which is for some reason doing studies on guns, I don't know why, but they say, oh, well, Alaska has the second highest rate of suicides.
And Alaska is number one in gun ownership.
Oh, that must be the problem.
So if we institute gun control, people will stop offing themselves.
No, that's not the case.
That's a pretty cold and lonely place up there, you know.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think if we break down how foolish their arguments sound, Japan...
It has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
Guess what?
Gun control.
So I think that no matter what they come at you with, you just got to break down their fake studies, their fake comparisons.
That's what it boils down to, is just ripping up their arguments.
You are certainly the most cosmopolitan and worldly of us.
You're from Justin Trudeau land.
You're currently over in Asia.
Why do Americans love guns so much?
Why do we love guns more than everyone else in the world?
Is there some weird pathology about us, or is it because we love freedom?
Well, I think it's exactly about, like you said, loving freedom.
When you look at the history of the United States and the fact that there were wars where you've had to fight off tyrannical governments, I don't think it's any mystery why the U.S. has this pro-Second Amendment culture.
And, you know, regarding the fact that a lot of the people who kind of go after Second Amendment activists, how they claim to be feminists.
And Tony, I just saw on your Twitter feed before the show that you have, you know, hashtag empowerment.
And I think that's actually a great message, you know, that gun rights advocates can talk about is that, you know, there's that saying that God made men equal Sam...
Sorry, God created man, Sam Colt made them equal, right?
And I think, you know, if you are a woman, if you are for women's empowerment and equality, I can't think of no better equalizer than a gun, frankly, you know?
And I say this as, like, 110-pound woman who is fully aware that no amount of Krav Maga would ever make me any sort of a match for someone like The Rock, right?
And I think that, you know, people who point to places like Canada and say, like, oh, look, but it's so safe because they have no guns.
Actually, you know, on average, the average Canadian gun owner owns more guns than the American gun owner.
Those are fighting words.
I won't stand for that kind of pro-Canada, anti-American rhetoric on my show.
Yeah, you've got to step up your gun ownership.
You've got to buy more guns.
Not gonna do it.
We're talking eight or nine, right?
I mean, Yemen's kicking your trash in that area.
But I think it's part of what makes America so free.
And the idea that, you know, you have the right to protect yourself, you have the right to, you know, if it needs to be, protect your constitutional rights.
I think that is intrinsic to American culture and American history.
Yeah, Antonia, when white liberals are educating you about the experience of black women in America, how do they resolve the cognitive dissonance of, on the one hand, saying that cops are a racist bastion of white supremacy and we should demilitarize them, and on the other hand, only cops should have the guns, and black people shouldn't have guns to protect themselves.
How do they resolve that?
They don't, because they don't understand the fallacy of their own arguments.
And I'm just like, uh-huh, yeah, all right, thank you very much.
Then I use the word mansplaining, they stop immediately, I leave, it's all good.
But no, I mean, they really don't really understand the fact that, you know, and I used to be a leftist too, so I kind of understand where they're coming from and their language and what they're trying to do, and I always bring it back to like, oh, well don't you, and I'm like talking to a man, right, and I'm like, but don't you think, you know, as a feminist, As a feminist, don't you think that you should, you know, be able to enable a woman to be able to protect themselves because they're independent and they should have that right to it?
It's a woman's right, don't you think so?
And they're like, oh crap, okay, buzzwords that I usually don't know what to say unless I have talking points.
Alright, well, you know, you're a black man, I'm gonna step away and let you, I'm gonna say that you actually know what you're talking about and then go on social media and like, you know, subtweet you.
Basically, that's how it works.
And Antonia, you used to be a leftist.
What turns you into this gun-toting, you're sitting in a range while you do the interview, right-winger?
What was the motivation?
Well, first of all, I'm in Texas.
That'll do it.
You get to choose.
But yeah, definitely.
I mean, it just comes to the fact that, you know, actually, the gun rights issue is what brought me more away from the left, realizing that, yeah, it's about freedom.
And I think we do have this intrinsic, you know, feeling or this desire as Americans to make sure that we protect that freedom.
Some people need more time to get to the point that, yeah, guns for a lot of people, particularly for women, Especially on college campuses, and that's why I'm a campus carry activist, means freedom.
It means the freedom to have safety in my own hands, to be able to be empowered, not be a victim like the left really likes to perpetuate for women and for black people and for minorities, period.
Absolutely.
The last best hope of man on earth requires an armed and dangerous citizenry.
I agree.
So now we need to know...
Antonia, quick question.
Are there ever liberals who just tell you, Why don't you just call the cops?
But kind of fail to realize that, according to their own narrative, those cops will unjustly target you because of your race.
Is that something that you get?
Because I feel like there's so many cognitive dissonance here.
Roming.
Antonia's already told you she's not a black woman because she's a pro-life Republican.
She'll be fine with the cops.
Don't worry.
Yeah, that's true.
It's funny.
I always get that.
So I wrote a piece for the New York Times that went out like a week or two ago.
So most of them are white liberals.
Okay, so most of their argument was, oh, I don't want to be around her if she's shooting.
First of all, I was like, okay, NRA-certified ranking safety officer, but thanks.
And then also like, oh, well, you can just call the cops or the campus police.
And then you have, like, black liberals who will attack me.
They're the most vicious.
And they'll be like, well, you know, as a black woman or as a black person, that you're going to be more...
Sought after from police because you have a gun and there's no open carry and concealed carry is not for us as black people.
And I just want to be one day, I just want to put them in a room together and like have them, you know, talk to me with those two points and then just be like, there you go.
You guys are both the problem.
Last man standing wins.
So, yeah, it doesn't make any sense, but one day I'll figure out how to bring that together.
Maybe at Politicon next year.
Who knows?
Maybe I'll be invited.
I look forward to it.
Now, we need to discuss the most important issue of our day.
Forget healthcare.
Forget the economy.
Forget ISIS. We need to know how to tell if your child is transgender.
How is your child...
With gender experts, so-called gender experts, I believe it was in USA Today, they said, how can a parent know if their child is transgender?
What separates a young boy who might be transgender from one with a vivid imagination who likes to dress up in his sister's dresses?
What do you do if your daughter tells you she's a boy?
You correct her.
Now, my priest, George Rutler, actually brought this up in a column over the weekend.
Gender is a grammatical term.
It's a point of grammar.
It's not a point of biology.
Like in French, for instance, Pen, the word for pen is masculine, the word for pencil is feminine, but pens aren't men and pencils aren't women.
Now, actual gender dysphoria and intersectionality affect a vanishingly small minority of the population.
For everyone else, this has just become a social justice warrior point of discussion that only exists on blogs, basically.
Roaming, is this child abuse to force these confusing modern ideas of gender onto children?
I absolutely think this is child abuse, and I've addressed this before on social media, and I've had people, you know, say that I'm being bigoted, uh, racist somehow, so usually factors, you know, just being prejudiced in general.
And as someone who hopes to become a mom in, you know, the next five years, anything to do with children, childhood development, I care a lot about.
And if you actually look at the stats that childhood psychologists deliver, 9 out of 10 children, 90% of children who report a feeling gender dysphoria During childhood or adolescence, as adults, do not end up transitioning, right?
So that means that if you are actually transitioning your child based on their reports of not feeling like the right gender, you know, giving them things like hormone blockers, there is a 90% chance that child will regret that decision, right?
Just based on what we've seen so far.
You're mutilating.
You're permanently changing their body.
Absolutely.
It causes sterility, right?
These hormone blockers that prevent puberty, combined with, you know, let's say surgery at the time they turn 18, you are sterilizing them.
And I think if we're a society that agrees, hey, children can't consent to things like intercourse.
They can't, they're not responsible enough to do things like join the military or drive.
There is no way we can say that they are, you know, of a sound mind to make a decision like transitioning their gender.
And I think what is also really Interesting is that, you know, I fully believe that transgenderism and gender dysphoria, you know, it's a legitimate psychological issue.
Definitely seek treatment if you need it.
But they've also done studies on what kind of factors might influence things like reporting gender dysphoria at an early age, but not transitioning.
And, you know, it comes from a lot of the times issues in the home related to their parents and, you know, the The environment that they're raised in and how they view gender, you know, things like male figures not being present and stuff like that.
Like, there are actually studies about this that talk about this.
And, you know, the The idea that we have now where any time someone, you know, a girl might look like kind of a tomboy.
Boom, transgender.
Oh, my son likes pink instead of blue.
Boom, transgender.
My son is taking ballet classes.
I'll admit to it.
I was a little actor boy.
I can't, what can I say?
I turned out to a man.
Yeah, and as the father of a trans son, you understand this.
No, but seriously, if anything, those kind of ideas, those reinforce gender norms, which I thought these progressives were supposed to be about dismantling.
Absolutely.
Absolutely right.
And this brings up a hard point for conservatives because we want to be nice guys.
We want to be compassionate.
Obviously, these people are suffering from a serious condition that is really hard, and apparently there's not much of a cure for it right now.
But, Antonia, can conservatives embrace the logic of transgenderism?
Can we get on board with it?
Or does the argument for transgenderism and the transgender movement fly in the face of conservatism itself?
Well, I think, you know, just with the whole LGBTQ, whatever, such and such.
LMNOP. Yeah, LMNOP. I think, I mean, the studies show, especially with conservative millennials, that they are more accepting of, you know, the gay lifestyle, right?
Versus 10, 15 years ago, what it would just been like, no way.
Most people are accepting of it now, regardless of what ideology you have.
So, Who knows?
I think that's the next thing they're trying to push, and that's why they're going in schools and stuff like that, because they want to normalize it.
So 10, 15 years from now, our kids, and we have kids, are thinking it's a normal thing.
That's exactly right.
The lumping in tea with the LGBT has made it part of this movement for sexual freedom.
But it seems to me there's a big difference between being sexually attracted to the same gender, or the same sex rather, Supporting various sexual acts and living arrangements and denying basic biology and denying the innate sex of human beings.
It's probably easy enough for the right to get on board with certain aspects of that movement, but can we get on board with actually changing your sex?
Exactly.
I think, well, I mean, for example, when I became, when I was from a leftist who are more on the right side, I actually talked to a lot more gay conservatives.
Like, I knew about gay conservatives than I knew about anybody else who wasn't, you know, quote-unquote, not to be conservative first.
I went to Yale, so we only had gay conservatives.
We only basically had gay people in general.
That one in four may be more.
But yeah, most, of course, I think a lot of the people now in the conservative movement, there are plenty of, there are the Log Cabin Republicans who do a great job in activism.
Yeah.
Exactly, yeah.
So I definitely don't think that's the issue.
Another thing I noticed too is that now they're trying to put, you know, race into the whole thing.
Like with Black Lives Matter, they put the whole, you know, queer, transgender narrative into that as well as part of their agenda.
But now they put that, I think the flag now has, the rainbow flag It has a brown stripe, I think, to bring the whole thing as like, oh yeah, black people and brown people, you're part of this movement too.
And then if you are talking to actual black and brown people, they're like, uh, no we're not.
Because they're super conservative when it comes to that.
You're not thinking intersectionality enough.
You have to increase your intersectionality.
It's because you're a white male.
Who knew that black and brown was a sexual preference?
I suppose when you think of Antonia Okafor, then you certainly could understand the logic.
But in general, I don't see how they came to that conclusion.
Well, no.
I mean, that's just part of the whole thing.
And that's why I'm more vocal, because I know that as a black woman, they really don't like that I'm, like, messing up their narrative because that hurts their vote later on.
So they kind of, like, stick the other black liberals on me.
And then I'm just like, dude, do you even agree with this?
Like, hell no, but I just don't like you.
I'm like, okay, fine.
Fair enough.
That's a fair argument.
Now, Jacob, you know, our friend Ben Shapiro, he has the number one rated conservative podcast in the country.
It's number one.
But my podcast identifies as the number, not only the number one conservative podcast in the country, the number one podcast in the country.
Should I get a raise?
We lost Jacob.
I hope we muted him because he's disagreeing with that obvious premise.
Jacob, do we have you back?
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
And this whole thing of where people say, oh, I identify as this or identify as this, I can say...
I can identify as whatever I want to, apparently, and that's all right.
For sure, I live in California, but I identify as a Texan because I was born there.
Speaking of which, I'd love to know what the last flavor of Bluebell Ice Cream Antonia had.
I'm craving Bluebell Ice Cream.
You can't find it out here in this desert.
But anyway, yeah, I think this whole, we're identifying one thing.
It just breaks down when it comes to logic.
You can't say, oh, I'm this, and then just magically it happens.
That in itself is not logical.
Right.
I can't allow this bigotry to go on anymore.
Panel, it has been great to have you.
Antonia Okafor, Roaming Millennial, and Jacob Berry.
Get out of here now.
We'll see you again later.
Now it's time for final thoughts.
Speaking of propaganda, here is some of my own.
Many on the right are reluctant to associate too closely with the president because they consider him crass, uncouth, below the dignity of their rarefied social circles.
Forget about deregulation at the federal agencies, originalist jurists to preserve our imperiled First and Second Amendment rights, most importantly our right to self-government.
Forget a return to sensible national policy, both foreign and domestic.
Hammer the court intrigue.
Mock the bubbly blondes on Facebook, they insist.
But as Ronald Reagan noted, the person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and an ally, not a 20% traitor.
Rather than attack the president over tactics, and then attack him again for changing tactics, it seems far more adult and useful.
To hold the snark and support the only team presently capable of achieving our actual political goals.
In a phrase, despite the constant negative press, covfefe.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
We'll be back again tomorrow.
Join us.
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