Iran launches an attack on an US airbase in Iraq. The missiles flopped, and no Americans were killed, but the question remains: are we at war with Iran? We will examine what the strike means as well as the broader Trump doctrine. Then, Covington kid Nicholas Sandmann wins a big payout from CNN, as the fake news company settles a $250 million defamation lawsuit. Speaking of fake news, the media are spreading lots of it when it comes to the Australian wildfires, and finally the New York Times asks the right question and gives a dumb answer in the dumbest article on the Internet today.
Can't get enough of The Michael Knowles Show? Enjoy ad-free shows, live discussions, and more by becoming an ALL ACCESS member TODAY at: https://dailywire.com/Knowles
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Iran launches an attack on a U.S. airbase in Iraq.
The missiles flopped and no Americans were killed, at least as of this airing.
But the question remains, are we at war with Iran?
We will examine what the strike means as well as the broader Trump doctrine.
Then...
Covington kid, Nicholas Sandman, wins a big payout from CNN as the fake news company settles a $250 million defamation lawsuit.
Speaking of fake news, the media are spreading lots of it when it comes to the Australian wildfires.
And finally, the New York Times asks the right question and gives a dumb answer in the dumbest article on the Internet today.
All that and more.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is the Michael Knowles Show.
Are we at war?
Are we going to war?
Should we go to war?
Is war ever justified?
We will answer all of those questions today.
First, the facts, because from the moment that this attack was launched last night from Iran onto these US air bases in Iraq, there was a ton of opinion, a ton of fake news, very little in the way of facts.
What do we know?
We know that Iran lobbed more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Al-Assad Air Base in Iraq last night.
That's the bad news.
The good news is, as of right now, Wednesday morning, there are no reported casualties at all.
No American casualties, no Iraqi casualties, no casualties, period.
Obviously, information is coming in in drips and drabs, but that's the latest that we have.
You might be confused to hear that because last night left-wing media outlets, including MSNBC, Washington Post, Raw Story, a ton of them, We're reporting without any evidence, just baselessly promoting on television and in the newspaper, Iranian propaganda that they had killed or injured 30 Americans, 80 Americans.
Complete fake news, propaganda coming out of Iran, and MSNBC takes that propaganda and airs it without even trying to vet it.
Same thing with the Washington Post, same thing with Raw Story.
They said, and they would at least attribute the information to Iranian state media.
But that raises the question, why is the Washington Post just senselessly regurgitating Iranian state media while Iran is attacking the United States?
Why is MSNBC pushing Iranian state media on their television network?
I mean, the good thing is nobody's watching, but the good thing with the Washington Post is nobody's reading.
But how reckless, how irresponsible, what total fake news, what obvious, clear evidence that the mainstream media would rather take the side of Iran than take the side of the duly elected U.S. president, because they don't like him, because orange man bad.
We'll see, even before the attack, how clear this was in the New York Times.
But those are the facts right now.
There was a major...
Lots of smoke, lots of fire, missile attack on a US base, and yet nobody has been killed.
So what does that mean?
Are we at war?
Are we going to war?
What is the point of this attack?
We'll get to that in a second.
First, I've got to thank our friends over at Rock Auto.
You know why I love Rock Auto.
The main reason I love Rock Auto...
It's because even for me, I don't know anything about cars, they make it very easy to get auto parts online, always fair prices, no gimmicks, no you gotta wait for this sale or that sale, they're just always fair prices, and they're a family-run business.
They've been serving auto parts customers online for 20 years, which is pretty much as long as online has been around.
Go to rockauto.com to shop for auto and body parts from hundreds of manufacturers.
They've got everything, engine control modules and brake parts to tail lamps, motor oil, and even new carpet.
Whether it is for your classic or your daily driver, get everything you need in a few easy clicks delivered directly to your door.
Rockauto.com is unique.
It is remarkably easy to navigate.
This is a big key too.
You can quickly see all the parts available for your vehicle.
You can choose the brands, specifications, the prices that you prefer.
It's got a great selection.
I love that it's just reliably low prices.
They're not trying to get one over on you.
They're always going to give you the best deal.
Go to rockauto.com right now.
See all the parts available for your car or truck.
And then in the little box that says, how did you hear about us?
You have to write Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S, so that they know that we sent you.
Go check it out, rockauto.com.
Okay.
So what does this mean?
That they've attacked this U.S. base, multiple bases.
It doesn't mean anything new in particular.
Actually, fewer people were killed in this attack last night than have been killed in just the past few weeks by Iran.
Fewer Americans have been killed.
As of late December, there had been 11 Iran-linked rocket attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq, including in the Green Zone, over just the past two months, and they produced American casualties.
Last night was less bloody for Americans in our conflict with Iran than the previous two months.
You might not know that from watching the mainstream media or from watching the big fire and fury that was going on On videotape, but actually it was less bloody for Americans than the previous two months.
What does that mean?
It means that the White House strategy on Iran is working.
It means that killing Qasem Soleimani, who is probably looking up on us from the afterlife right now, was a good strategy.
Despite all the missiles and the fizzles and the fire and the fury, It actually appears to have de-escalated the conflict with Iran, which had been increasing for the past several months and really for the past several years.
There was a moment where the United States and Iran cooled their tensions.
They were not openly hostile to one another.
This is in particular after we returned to Iraq in 2014.
But the only reason for that was that we had a common enemy.
The common enemy was ISIS. And so we both fight ISIS. We stop the hostilities with one another for that period of time.
ISIS is dead.
Trump came in.
He said, we're going to kill ISIS. We're going to beat the crap out of ISIS. And we did.
We killed the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Then Iran starts the shenanigans again.
They kill an American contractor in Iraq.
They attack our embassy.
Qasem Soleimani himself is responsible for the deaths of over 600 American servicemen.
So what do we do?
We have the opportunity to get him.
President Trump makes the correct decision to take out Soleimani.
This was greatly feared by the mainstream media.
They lost their minds over this.
They said, this is terrible.
This is putting American soldiers in danger.
This couldn't possibly be worse.
What a terrible escalation.
What a provocation.
First of all, it was neither an escalation nor a provocation because we'd been dealing with Iranian attacks on us for years.
But then look at the effect of it.
Look at the actual effect.
Iran lobbed some rockets into the dirt.
And they give Iraq heads up, according to recent reports.
They apparently told Iraq that they were going to launch this attack, and yet there were no Americans that were killed as well.
So how will Trump respond?
Previously, before this attack last night, Trump said, you're not going to be able to predict our response.
We have the credible threat of force.
You thought we were just bluffing.
Then we took out your top military general.
He said that if you strike us, you go and try to kill some Americans, that we will hit not just military targets, not just oil fields, but cultural sites as well.
Everybody freaked out.
They said, this is a war crime.
You're not allowed to target cultural sites.
I did not freak out because I speak Trump.
I can interpret Trump for you.
Maybe it's because I'm from New York.
Maybe it's because I've been paying attention the last three years.
But when Trump says something, You've got to read it through the mind of a guy who at least had The Art of the Deal ghostwritten for him.
You've got to read it through the lens of a guy who speaks in hyperbole, who exaggerates, who understands that in order for threats to work, you need to have the credible threat of violence, but you also need to know when to bluff.
You need to know when to hold them.
You need to know when to fold them.
You need to know when to walk away and when to run.
And The way that Trump talks is you just never quite know what he's being serious about, what he's joking about, what is hyperbole.
And so did I fear that Trump was going to attack some 3,000 year old site in Iran?
No, I don't think he would do that.
But maybe he would.
I mean, that's the message he's sending to Iran, which is an important message.
That is how Trump talks.
That is how Trump should talk.
I think it's an effective strategy.
He has since walked it back when they said, are you going to commit a war crime?
He was sitting in the White House and he said, no, no, I probably won't commit a war crime.
Can you also clear up, Mr. President, whether Iranian cultural sites would be on any future target?
Well, as I said yesterday, it was very interesting.
They're allowed to kill our people.
They're allowed to maim our people.
They're allowed to blow up everything that we have, and there's nothing that stops them.
And we are, according to various laws, supposed to be very careful with their cultural heritage.
And you know what?
If that's what the law is, I like to obey the law.
But think of it.
They kill our people.
They blow up our people.
And then we have to be very gentle with their cultural institutions.
But I'm okay with it.
It's okay with me.
I will say this.
If Iran does anything that...
They shouldn't be doing, they're going to be suffering the consequences, and very strongly.
I love this.
I love to obey the law.
Yeah, okay, that's fine by me.
It's ridiculous, because we should be able to just absolutely glass the country and kill all the mullahs, but that's okay.
I will follow the law.
This is the way that you should speak if you are trying to get the mullahs to pull back their attacks on U.S. troops.
You need to keep them on their toes.
You need to remain unpredictable.
I mean, what is on Trump's mind when he's making these comments?
He's saying, we just took out their top general.
Hostilities have been building for years.
I want these guys to know that I will rain down fire and brimstone and hellfire and fury if they kill American servicemen.
I want them to know that.
And so he is conveying that.
And apparently it worked because as of right now, all those missiles landed in the dirt.
Nobody got killed.
Let's hope that that's true.
I mean, this is based on initial reports.
Let's hope that that continues to hold.
Regardless, until five minutes ago, until President Trump, the opinion that we should take a hard line on the mullahs in Iran, the opinion that these guys are some of the worst people on earth, the opinion that we should hit them so hard, they've never been hit harder in the entire history of Iran, was not a controversial opinion.
Until the left decided that anything Trump did was terrible.
Hillary Clinton, the guy that Trump, that's a Freudian slip, the lady that President Trump beat in 2016, years ago, in the recent past, expressed the exact same opinion on Iran that President Trump expressed.
Here is the former future president, Hillary Clinton.
Whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.
That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.
Of course, this is common sense.
This shouldn't be a partisan opinion.
Everybody held this view until the left decided orange man bad is their organizing principle.
The left is currently rallying to the side of Iran, not just on Twitter, not just by pushing Iran wartime propaganda on the airwaves and in the Washington Post last night.
They were doing this even before.
You can see it in two obituaries run side by side in the New York Times on the same day.
We will get to that in a second, then we'll get to the Covington kids, but you know that safety is very important.
No time has that been clearer than the last few days.
Ring's mission is to make neighborhoods safer.
Now, you might already know about their smart video doorbells and cameras that protect millions of people everywhere.
Ring helps you stay connected to your home anywhere in the world.
So if there's a package delivery or a surprise visitor, you will get an alert.
You'll be able to see, hear, and speak to them all from your phone.
That is thanks to the HD video and two-way audio features on Ring devices.
It's really helpful in that it makes you feel like a cool guy because you're like in the Jetsons and you can see your home from anywhere if you're at the office or on the beach, but it also makes you feel very safe.
When I'm on the road, I'm happy that sweet little Elise is a good shot.
But I want to be able to know that we can check in on the home, make sure everything is okay.
As a listener, you have a special offer on a Ring Starter Kit available right now.
With video, doorbell, and motion-activated floodlight camera, the Starter Kit has everything you need to start building a Ring of Security around your home.
Go to ring.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. That is ring.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. On the same day, the New York Times runs two obituaries.
This will show you what side they're on in our international conflicts and in our domestic conflicts.
The one op-ed is of Qasem Soleimani, the world's most notorious terrorist who we splattered all over the Baghdad airport just a few days ago.
Here's the title of the obituary.
Qasem Soleimani, master of Iran's intrigue and force, dies at 62.
The master of the intrigue.
The most interesting man in the world.
He does kind of look like the guy from the commercial who's the most interesting man in the world.
Here he did, until, you know...
Master of intrigue and force.
Oh, he's so handsome.
He's so brilliant.
He's so wonderful.
Dies at 62.
Okay.
Now...
Here is football legend Sam Weich.
Sam Weich, who was the last coach to lead the Cincinnati Bengals to the Super Bowl, but who was later fined by the National Football League for barring a female reporter from the team's locker room, has died.
Those are the two tweets.
Master of the intrigue and force.
That's how they refer to the terrorist who hates America who's trying to kill American soldiers.
A coach who led the team to the Super Bowl but was later fined for barring a female reporter from the team's locker room.
That's how they refer to an American football legend.
That's the New York Times for you.
That tells you everything you need to know.
So beyond the mainstream media, which have lost, in my view, whatever little shred of credibility they had left by pushing Iranian propaganda as they are attacking our soldiers.
Beyond the question of the mainstream media, the question is, are we at war?
Yes.
Yes.
Of course we are.
We've been at war for years, decades at this point.
We've been in a renewed conflict with Iran for months.
Killing Soleimani did not start that war.
It was a response to the war that Iran started.
The question is, should we be at war?
Well, the trouble with war is that your enemy has a say.
You're not the only guy who gets a say in war.
your enemy gets to have a part in that decision as well.
Should we be at war?
The answer to that is we must be able to deter our enemies.
Under Obama, we were not able to deter our enemies, and things got a lot more dangerous, and we got bogged down in a lot more conflicts.
Under Obama, when Iran provoked us and took our sailors hostage, how did we respond?
Did we kill their top military official?
No.
We sent them pallets of cash and apologized to them and thanked them so much for letting our sailors go.
Pathetic.
And it gets us more bogged down in quagmires.
Under Trump, they attack our embassy, they try to deliver us another Benghazi, and we kill their top military official, who was very likely going to be a leader of Iran someday.
We must be able to deter our enemies.
It would appear that we have deterred our enemies.
Because their response to our killing, one of the most important men in their entire country, was to throw some rockets into the dirt and make a big stink about it and get their lackeys at MSNBC and the Washington Post to push their propaganda, but ultimately, as of this moment, not to kill any American servicemen.
Or anybody.
Then the question becomes, is war ever permissible?
And this is a question that's been coming up on the right even these days, as well, of course, as the left.
I expect kind of moral incoherence from the left, but when it crops up on the right, that troubles me more greatly, because the right is supposed to know what's going on.
I mean, there have been people on the right, even on the far right, as the media calls them, who call themselves pacifists these days.
They say war is basically never acceptable.
And that is a morally indefensible position.
Pacifism seems all really nice and happy and huggy and feely.
It is an indefensible position.
C.S. Lewis, the great theologian, the great moralist, he put this very well in a book called The Weight of Glory, in an essay in that book called Why I'm Not a Pacifist.
The key passage C.S. Lewis writes, you should read the whole essay, it's really, really good, but the key passage is he writes, the doctrine that war is always a greater evil seems to imply a materialist ethic, a belief that death and pain are the greatest evils.
But I do not think they are.
I think the suppression of a higher religion by a lower, or even a higher secular culture by a lower, a much greater evil.
Nor am I greatly moved by the fact that many of the individuals we strike down in war are innocent.
That seems, in a way, to make war not worse, but better.
All men die, and most men die miserably.
That two soldiers on opposite sides, each believing his own country to be in the right, each at the moment when his selfishness is most in abeyance and his will to sacrifice in the ascendant, should kill each other in plain battle, seems to me by no means one of the most terrible things in this very terrible world.
Of course, one of them at least must be mistaken.
And of course, war is a very great evil.
But that is not the question.
The question is whether war is the greatest evil in the world.
So that any state of affairs, which might result from submission, is certainly preferable.
And I do not see any really cogent arguments for that view.
Absolutely right.
The question here is not between...
Wonderful, lovely doves who want us all to get along and those awful, terrible warmongers who are willing to send American soldiers overseas to go fight in these endless conflicts.
That's not the question.
The question, when you're looking at these wars, is what is the least bad option?
What is the lesser evil?
What is Going to protect American interests and secure peace over the long run.
And maybe not just for the next week or two weeks or three weeks.
This killing of Soleimani is a great example of it.
There were many people on the left and some on the right.
Some prominent people on the right.
Who said the killing of Soleimani is indefensible.
It's going to lead to all out war.
It's going to increase hostilities.
Trump realized that wasn't true.
Obviously anything can happen in war.
But we were already in a state of war.
The question is...
Will responding, will offering the credible threat of violence, will reestablishing deterrence increase peace and prosperity over the long run, or will it diminish it?
And it would seem that taking a hard line on Iran, killing their top military guy, has reestablished deterrence, even once all the smoke and fire clears from this missile attack where they send some rockets into the dirt.
It's an important lesson to remember because pacifism is so seductive.
It's because you want to seem like a peacemaker, but pacifism is not a terribly good way to make peace.
In the long run, strength establishes peace.
Strength deters violence.
And weakness, which is what pacifism is, weakness only encourages greater hostilities.
The key story today, I mean, the good news is, obviously, no reported casualties at this moment.
That the strategy worked, that Iran is making a big spectacle, but as of right now, things are looking okay.
That's the most important thing.
The underlying story here is the absolute corruption of the media.
The absolute disgusting media.
That would air Iranian propaganda.
But we already knew that the media were absolutely disgusting, the mainstream media.
How did we know that?
Because of another story that broke yesterday.
And this is the greatest domestic news story of the new year.
Probably the greatest news story of the last 12 months.
Nicholas Sandman, the Covington kid who was filmed on video standing...
At the mall in Washington, while a bunch of black supremacists were screaming awful things at him, and some maniac Native American activist banged a drum in his face, and this kid stood with total dignity and just took it.
Didn't cede his ground, but didn't provoke anybody else.
This kid was smeared all over the mainstream media.
Reza Aslan, a former CNN contributor, said he had a punchable face.
Everybody smearing this kid is a racist and a bigot based on nothing.
That kid has just settled a lawsuit, a defamation lawsuit with CNN for an undisclosed amount of money.
That lawsuit was initially for $250 million.
I can only imagine what this kid got from CNN. If he got 25 million, that's amazing.
That would be a tenth of the lawsuit.
Even if he got 5 million, I don't know, that would be incredible.
Because he's also got these lawsuits out at the Washington Post.
I believe he's got one at NBC. He's got them at all of these media outlets that smeared him.
As he should.
He should take them for all that they are worth.
Because even after it came out that the mainstream media had unfairly smeared Nick Sandman, they still didn't recant their terrible reporting.
They actually doubled down.
He did an interview, this kid, on the Today Show.
NBC's Savannah Guthrie asked him, during this interview, after it was clear he did nothing wrong, after it was clear that he was the victim, she asked him if he wanted to apologize for anything.
Do you feel from this experience that you owe anybody an apology?
Do you see your own fault in any way?
As far as standing there, I had every right to do so.
My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr.
Phillips.
I respect him.
I'd like to talk to him.
I mean, in hindsight, I wish we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing.
Wow.
What a terrific response.
To an absurd question.
She says, hey, okay, so yeah, we figured out that it was those black supremacists who were screaming terrible things at you, and yeah, this maniac was banging a drum in your face, and you were just sort of standing there.
So do you want to apologize for standing?
You're not supposed to stand.
You're supposed to lie down and let the left and the mainstream media trample over you.
So don't you want to apologize?
You're not allowed to stand.
You're a Catholic high school kid who was in Washington, D.C. to demonstrate against abortion and to demonstrate for life and to try to put a stop to killing a million babies a year.
You're not allowed to stand.
You're a terrible, terrible person.
So do you want to just apologize?
And he said, no, I'm not sorry for standing at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., I don't, I'm going to check my Ten Commandments here.
I don't, yeah, I don't think there's any, any commandment against standing.
Sandman's attorneys, Todd McMurty and Lynn Wood, filed, it was actually more than 250, it was $275 million lawsuit against CNN. They said, very accurately, CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than the Washington Post.
And CNN goes into millions of individuals' homes.
Here, I have to correct them.
CNN goes into a lot of airports.
It does not go into millions of people's homes because, as far as I can tell, not a soul actually watches CNN. But they do go into a lot of airports for some reason.
They go on.
CNN couldn't resist the idea that here's a guy with a young boy that Make America Great Again cap on, so they go after him.
CNN settles.
They've still got these lawsuits out at the Washington Post, NBC, Universal.
Those are also for $250 million.
And they're planning to sue Gannett, who are the owners of the National, of the Inquirer, rather.
Okay.
Good news.
I'm very glad to hear it.
At the beginning of the Trump era, we were told that the greatest threat of this moment is to the free press.
The greatest threat was to those wonderful people in the mainstream media.
Facts first.
We're apples, not bananas.
That was a CNN commercial.
We are the ones on the front line.
We're defending the Constitution.
B.S. These people are horrible.
They're horrible, horrible people.
I know that's a generalization.
It's generally true.
They push Iranian propaganda as Iran is attacking our troops.
They push Iranian propaganda on TV and in the newspaper.
They go after a high school kid for wearing a hat that says, make America great again.
That should be the least controversial statement in the country.
And they smear him.
They defame him.
They just lie about him.
And usually they would do it with impunity.
Except now, people are pushing back against them.
There should be, no one should believe even for one second anymore the lie that the mainstream media are brave, courageous defenders of the truth.
They're liars.
Are there good individual reporters?
Of course there are.
But the edifice, the entire system is rotten to the core and it must be dismantled and rebuilt again if you want to have any faith whatsoever in the institution of the media.
We've got to get to Hollywood because there is an amazingly brave man in Hollywood who, he's making the choice to save our entire planet By re-wearing a custom tuxedo a couple of times before discarding it and getting a new one.
It's an amazing story.
It comes to us from the fashion designer Stella McCartney.
We will get to that.
We will get to some other lies on climate change.
We'll get to the dumbest article on the internet today.
First, I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
Go to dailywire.com.
You get me.
You get the Andrew Klavan show.
You get the Ben Shapiro show.
You get the Mount Wall Show.
You get to ask questions in the mailbag.
That's coming up tomorrow, so get your questions in.
You get another kingdom.
If you get to the all-access story, you get to speak to us personally on the website.
And you get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
Who could ask for anything more?
Head on over to dailywire.com.
We'll be right back with a lot more.
Get your pen and paper out.
And just try to understand the amazing work of this living martyr, Joaquin Phoenix.
The fashion designer, Stella McCartley, posts a photo on the internet of Joaquin Phoenix.
She writes, This man is a winner.
Wearing custom Stella because he chooses to make choices for the future of the planet.
He has also chosen to wear this same tux for the entire awards season to reduce waste.
I am proud to join forces with you.
X. Stella.
Wow.
He...
I was really upset because obviously the sun monster is going to destroy the entire planet unless we all make our sacrifices to the god of carbon tax credits or something.
The world was about to end.
It was on the brink of Armageddon.
And then one man, Joaquin Phoenix, decided to wear a very, very expensive custom tuxedo.
And that alone, the fact that he would wear a really, really nice high-end custom designer tuxedo, that would have been enough.
Dayenu, that would have been enough.
But he went further to save our planet.
He's going to re-wear it like two or three times before he gets a new one.
Like two or three times.
Wow.
Wow.
You know, some people knock Hollywood these days.
They say they're just a bunch of craven egotists who prattle on about nonsense and political silliness instead of just doing their jobs.
But Joaquin Phoenix and Stella McCartney are saving the world.
I gotta get my custom tuxedo.
Maybe I'll wear mine four times before I throw it out and then I can be a living martyr too, a secular saint.
Obviously, this is a ridiculous story coming out of Hollywood.
The only thing that ever comes out of Hollywood is ridiculous.
And in Joaquin Phoenix's defense at the Golden Globes, he actually gave a pretty good speech about how if you care about climate change, you should actually try to do things yourself like, you know, not take private jets and fly commercial.
So I don't really mean to beat up on Joaquin Phoenix here.
I do sort of mean to beat up on Stella McCartney.
She's the one who made this ridiculous and stupid statement.
But it's indicative of what we're hearing from the left around the world.
Look no further than the fires that are ablaze in Australia.
Really awful situation in Australia.
Ton of wildfires over there.
A lot of animals being killed, people being killed.
I mean, really bad situation.
For weeks now, we have been told that Australia's devastating wildfires are caused by climate change.
NPR says, all these articles, how climate change is affecting Australia's fires.
ABC, how climate change has intensified the deadly fires in Australia.
Washington Post, Australia's apocalyptic fires.
Are a warning to the world.
The Atlantic.
Australia will lose to climate change.
BBC. Is climate change to blame for Australia's bushfires?
No, is the answer.
It's not.
Do you know who's to blame for Australia's bushfires?
The people who set the fires.
Because now we found out that police have arrested 183 people.
In connection with these fires.
And they've charged 24 people with deliberately setting the fires.
They've already charged them.
Police have taken legal action against another 159 people.
Among them are 53 who allegedly failed to comply with the total fire ban and 47 people who threw a cigarette or a match on the land and helped to start the fires.
Of course.
What did you think?
Did you think because possibly at the very, very worst case scenario, the earth has warmed like.002 degrees in recent years, that that was causing all of Australia to be set on fire?
Or was it the people who set the fires?
Obviously it was the people.
It wasn't this grand apocalyptic vision of climate eschatology that produces all of these models, all of which turn out to be bogus, that never actually predict anything.
New York City, not underwater, like the climate scientists, meaning Al Gore, told us it would be.
Florida, not underwater, like the climate scientists, meaning Al Gore and political activists, told us it would be.
Obviously, it's the people.
Of course it is.
But it doesn't deter them from pushing this narrative.
Because the purpose of the mainstream media today is not to report the news.
The purpose of the mainstream media is to push a narrow, specific, leftist agenda.
So those are the people on one side.
They push Iranian propaganda, they cover up the news, they try to ascribe major, serious news stories to their own Political narrative rather than to what's actually causing them.
And then on the other hand, you've got Trump, flawed though he may be.
Trump said something the other day that I think is really important when we try to adjudicate his presidency or when we try to figure out where we stand, especially in an election year.
Trump said, it's one of my favorite quotes he's said since he's been in office.
He was giving a speech to some evangelical Christians.
And he said, quote, I may not be perfect, but I get things done.
We've done things that nobody thought was possible.
We're not only defending our constitutional rights, we're also defending religion itself, which is under siege.
America was not built by religion-hating socialists.
America was built by church-going, God-worshipping, freedom-loving patriots.
Perfect.
Yes.
Obviously, his statement about America is true.
I also love his statement about himself.
People call Trump a narcissist.
People say he's completely absorbed with himself.
He can't see anything beyond himself.
He has no sense of what's going on in the world.
He's the worst, most wicked, most unethical, most immoral president we've ever had.
Does Trump have an ego?
Yeah, I think he's got an ego.
He slaps his name on every building he's ever looked at, okay?
Does Trump have a healthy self-confidence?
Yes, I think he does.
But as for his alleged narcissism, compare it to Barack Obama.
Would Barack Obama say, I may not be perfect?
Ever?
I don't think so.
I think Barack Obama is the guy who says, seriously, with a straight face...
When I am elected, the earth will begin to heal, and the oceans, the sea levels will recede, and we'll have peace and harmony in the world.
He said that with a straight face.
Trump says a lot of things about how he's the only one who can ever do anything.
Very often, though, he's kind of making a joke.
He's being hyperbolic.
Because at the same time, he'll say things like this, I may not be perfect.
Or a little while ago he said, I have never had a drink.
I've never had a beer.
I may be the only president who's never had a beer.
It's probably the only good thing you can say about me.
Can you imagine if I drank?
I'd be the worst.
It's almost verbatim what he said.
He was making a joke.
He had a little self-awareness.
People attack, the left attacks, Christians who support Donald Trump.
They say he's a terrible example.
He's not a Christian.
Guess what?
The simple statement, I may not be perfect, is a profoundly Christian statement.
It's a much, much more Christian statement than what we've heard in recent years from politicians.
A little touch of humility, beyond the bragging, beyond the hyperbole, beyond all the showmanship.
A little touch of humility.
I may not be perfect.
I don't have a beer.
It's the only good thing you can say about me.
That kind of thing.
It's a keen insight.
And it also shows you the moral clarity that that humility can give you.
To say, look, I'm obviously a flawed vessel.
I'm a flawed instrument here.
But we've gotten things done that are really good.
We're defending our constitutional rights, but we're defending religion.
Because America was not built by religion-hating socialists.
It was built by church-going God-worshipping freedom-loving patriots.
That's a beautiful piece of moral clarity.
And I think that for Christians who support Trump, we've known that the whole time.
We say, yeah, of course this guy is not some saint on earth, okay?
The guy has lived a pretty shady life in many cases.
But he's doing good things and he's got a little bit of self-awareness.
More than you could say...
For a guy like Barack Obama, more than you could say for much of the Republican field for that matter.
Okay, we've got the dumbest article on the internet today.
We've got to get to it in just our remaining few moments here because it's actually asking a very important question, but it gives a very dumb answer.
The question it asks, Richard Freeman is a psychiatrist who wrote this op-ed.
He said, why are young Americans killing themselves?
Suicide is now their second leading cause of death.
It's a scary number.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young Americans.
And this is in recent years.
You know, just in the past few years, among 12 to 17-year-olds, suicide is up 70%.
So, he gives the introduction, then he writes, How is it possible that so many of our young people are suffering from depression and killing themselves when we know perfectly well how to treat this illness?
There's the problem.
He's identified correctly the rates of depression skyrocketing, rates of suicide skyrocketing among teenagers.
That's all very odd.
But then he makes a mistake.
He says, we know perfectly well how to treat this illness, and we don't.
We know how to treat depression chemically, and sometimes you need to do that.
We know how to treat certain symptoms of depression through therapy.
But what about the root cause?
Not for any individual person, but as a social phenomenon.
I think that it is no coincidence that almost directly in the same time frame as religion has collapsed, particularly among young people who largely were raised without any religion, so depression has increased and anxiety and stress and suicidality.
And it's true among the whole U.S. population and it's especially true among young people.
I'm about to do this show.
We're launching this show.
In addition to my current show, we're launching a show on PragerU called The Book Club.
And the first book that we're doing for The Book Club is called Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
It's going to be a great episode with Dennis Prager.
Viktor Frankl's thesis in that book is that man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life.
The whole book is about living in this Holocaust concentration camp and then getting out in multiple concentration camps and then getting out afterwards and making sense of his life.
Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in life.
Now, there are competing theories.
Some say that man's search for sex is the primary motivation.
That's the Freudian theory.
Some say man's search to impose his will on people is man's primary motivation.
That's the Adler theory.
There are a lot of different psychological theories.
What motivates us?
It seems pretty clear to me, as Ronald Reagan quoted Winston Churchill as saying, that when great forces are on the move in the world, we learn that we're spirits, not animals.
That the destiny of man is not measured by material computation.
If you are going to try to treat this terrifying phenomenon going on in society, especially among young people, you can't treat human beings as bags of flesh, as clumps of cells.
We have flesh, we have bodies, but we're not merely flesh.
We're not merely our bodies.
We also have a spiritual dimension.
You might say that man is fundamentally a religious being.
We have natural religious longings.
Every single one of us, the most hardened atheist, has religious longings.
Which is why when you get rid of traditional religion, you don't just get cold materialist atheism.
You get a bunch of kooky superstitions, like the crystals and the chakras and the yoga and all of the, and mercury is in retrograde and all of this kind of craziness.
You know, often atheists and materialists will describe religious people, Christians, for instance, as superstitious.
Christians are some of the least superstitious people in the world.
We're the ones who are trying to ground our religious longings in fact.
You know, the gospels aren't just poetry.
The gospels are journalism.
And when you take that away, you get some of the craziest superstitions you've ever heard of.
I don't really understand what the crystal thing is, but there are a lot of crystals, okay?
Or the New Age religion, or Marianne Williamson.
Remember when she was running for president in the Democratic primary?
She was saying all sorts of kooky New Age stuff.
Man is a fundamentally religious being.
And even if you're a little skittish about religion, at least acknowledge the spiritual dimension of life, that our loves and our joys and our hopes and our dreams and every single thing that actually matters to us is not material, it's not physical, and you are not going to be able to treat something like depression.
You're not going to be able to treat despair, right?
Despair means the absence of hope.
You can't treat hope if you're only looking at man as a material being, because hope is not material.
Hope is metaphysical.
It's immaterial.
It refers to the spiritual.
He goes on in this article, he asks, what explains the epidemic of teen depression and suicide?
There are lots of theories, but few definitive answers.
Drugs and alcohol are always a popular culprit, but in this case, they are an unlikely explanation, as the studies cited above, controlled for drug use.
In addition, there's no evidence of a significant increase in the use of drugs or alcohol in young people during this period, of course.
Of course, the drugs and alcohol, even if they're involved, are a symptom of something else.
It's so funny.
This is a key characteristic of intellectuals and of cultural elites and of the mainstream media in our modern era.
They're intelligent people.
I'm sure this guy's got a very high IQ. Most of the people at the New York Times have a very high IQ. And yet they miss the most obvious...
Answers.
They often totally lack common sense.
What is causing depression?
What is causing this mental health crisis?
They say, we're trying to figure out all of the physical causes, but we can't find a physical cause.
Of course not.
Because the cause is metaphysical.
It's immaterial.
It's something beyond this world, and it speaks to the natural longings that we have for something beyond this world.
The only way that you are going to understand Your own health, your own psychology, politics, culture, questions of domestic politics, questions of war and peace like we're looking at right now.
Or if you examine them not merely on the physical level, not merely as though we're all just stuff.
But if you take into account all of the metaphysical things that actually matter to us, when you take that into account, all of it, war and peace and love and hope and despair, all come into focus.
All right, that's our show.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
Get your mailbag questions in.
See you tomorrow.
If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.
And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe.
We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies.
Director, Mike Joyner.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
Technical producer, Austin Stevens.
Assistant director, Pavel Widowski.
Editor and associate producer, Danny D'Amico.
Audio mixer, Robin Fenderson.
Hair and makeup, Jesua Olvera.
Production assistants, McKenna Waters and Ryan Love.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
Hey everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
A huge win for President Trump and America in Iran, and a brutal defeat for the terrorist Iranians and their allies, the American news media.
