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Feb. 22, 2021 - The Michael Knowles Show
48:35
Ep. 705 - Being Less White

A corporate training enjoins employees to “be less white,” Joe Biden writes off China’s genocide of the Uighurs as a “cultural norm,” and Dr. Fauci won’t let you hug grandma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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A whistleblower at Coca-Cola has leaked images from a sensitivity training slideshow that implore the audience to be, quote, less white.
Goodbye, pastel polo shirts.
Au revoir, cucumber sandwiches.
Penny loafers, I think I will miss you most of all.
But if woke corporations say that I need to be less white, then dagnabbit, I'm going to be less white.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is the Michael Knowles Show.
My favorite comment from Friday is from Andy Herron, who shows us the Democrats' favorite game of chance, rock, paper, scissor, science.
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Do I count as white?
This is a perennial question for those of us of Sicilian, more broadly Southern Italian descent.
We're a little dusky, as the poets used to say.
You know, we're a little swarthy.
So are we white?
Probably by the standards of a neo-Nazi or some racialist, probably we're not all that white.
You know, when Italians first came to America, Italians were broadly considered to be black.
It depended on what area of the country you were in.
Southern Italians were the victims of the largest mass lynching in American history.
So, you know, probably, I don't know, not so white.
But then by the standards of the woke left, definitely, definitely white.
So I suppose I'm kind of caught in the middle here.
And regardless, I'm sure Coca-Cola would like me to be less white.
The company is sort of denying that they had this sensitivity training.
I say sort of denying it because what they're saying is that this slide that the whistleblower leaked, this was not a mandatory aspect and a lesson of the training, but it was part of the platform that Coca-Cola had the employees use.
So it's kind of like a denial, non-denial.
In any case, sort of sounds like mealy-mouthed corporate talk.
For they did it.
This is the sort of thing they're doing.
So the slides included typical platitudes that you see today with woke, politically correct culture.
Confronting racism.
Understanding what it means to be white.
Challenging what it means to be racist.
Okay, this is the kind of bland thing we've seen before.
Another slide.
In the U.S. and other Western nations, white people are socialized to feel that they are inherently superior because they are white.
Now this one I'm a little more skeptical of.
We don't see mandatory corporate and university trainings to tell people of other races how terrible they are and how awful their race is.
We don't see other races becoming a popular and socially accepted synonym for bad.
You know, we don't, we don't, we don't see calls to eliminate Asian-ness or abolish blackness or anything like that, but you do see those same calls for whiteness.
So I think that second bullet point BS, and then the third one, this is the one that's really gotten Coca-Cola in trouble, try to be less white.
And this is the point I've made on this show a number of times, and I know a bunch of left-wingers who hate watch and hate listen to my show.
They do it just because they're masochists.
They want to get their blood up in the morning or something.
They have criticized this point.
They've said, Michael, it is crazy for you to believe that white and whiteness has become a synonym in our politically correct culture for bad.
But of course it is.
You know, when we analyze the history of this country in a more sophisticated time, we would have referred to concepts like original sin.
We would have referred to the tradition and how certain prejudices come down the line and they're no good and we have to get rid of them.
But because we don't have that, we don't have that moral language anymore, we don't have a coherent moral framework...
Everything is blamed on white supremacy or systemic white racism, and that's why we have to abolish whiteness.
And it's just a stand-in, a physical stand-in, for the metaphysical concept of evil.
I do want to give these left-wingers their due here, though.
There is some precedent for what they're doing.
I actually kind of understand the logic, which is that in the past, maybe if you've watched old movies, you would have heard this.
The word white was used as a synonym for good or virtuous.
And you more frequently would read this in old literature or hear this in an old movie, but you might hear the phrase, that's mighty white of you, meaning that's mighty good of you, that's mighty virtuous of you.
And so what the left-wingers are doing is they're not bringing the word back to a kind of value neutrality.
They're not bringing the word back to not connote virtue or vice.
What they're doing is they're taking a word that in...
The distant past was used to mean virtue and they're now using it to mean vice.
So how is one to be less white?
Let's say we take Coca-Cola's challenge and demand and we say, okay, I'm going to try to be less white.
What does that mean?
Well, according to the slideshow, it means to be less oppressive.
To be less arrogant, to be less certain, to be less defensive, to be less ignorant, to be more humble, to listen, to believe, to break with apathy, to break with white solidarity.
Wow.
Man, being white is pretty terrible, according to Coca-Cola.
But even if you believe their description, even if you take that for what it's worth, notice how you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
Because all of these demands that are being made in the process of being less white, they're contradictory, right?
On the one hand, they say, be less certain.
And then almost immediately afterward, they say, believe.
Break with apathy.
How can you be less certain and believe?
To be less certain is to embrace a kind of radical skepticism.
But then to believe, and you hear this in other kind of left-wing public campaigns, they'll say, believe all women.
Not weigh the evidence and, you know, give women the benefit of the doubt, but still, you know, take them seriously.
No, just believe all women.
So be less certain, be more certain.
But what they're really saying is, be less certain of your views, be more certain of our views.
And one of those views, by the way, goes in here, is this kind of radical skepticism that we can't trust anything anymore.
And this comes up on the left when you hear things like the questioning of objective truth.
They'll say, there's no such thing as objective truth.
It's all socially constructed.
There's no such thing as men or women.
It's all just socially constructed.
There's no such thing as a baby in the womb.
It's just kind of whatever we want it to be.
If you want the baby, then he's your baby.
And if you don't want the baby, he's a meaningless clump of cells.
It's this radical, radical skepticism and subjectivism.
Joe Biden is embodying this at The presidential level.
He just did this town hall on CNN and actually it gets to the same question of race and bigotry and even genocide.
Joe Biden was asked about China's genocide against the Uyghur people, the Muslim minority in China.
Does he condemn it?
No, he's not going to condemn it.
Why?
Because he's owned by China.
Practically the entire left is at this point.
But he attributes this genocide to, well, you know, that's just their culture.
You know, Chinese leaders, if you know anything about Chinese history, it has always been the time when China has been victimized by the outer world is when they haven't been unified at home.
So the central, vastly overstate it, the central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China.
And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that.
I point out to him, no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn't reflect the values of the United States.
And so the idea, I'm not going to speak out against what he's doing in Hong Kong, what he's doing with the Uyghurs in western mountains of China and Taiwan trying to end the one-China policy by making it forceful.
I said, he gets it.
Culturally, there are different norms in each country, and their leaders are expected to follow.
This is the most honest thing I have ever heard Joe Biden say.
I actually agree with everything he just said.
It's repugnant what he said, and it's repugnant that he's following this.
But his observations, first of all, that China feels they need a strongly unified China and they're willing to do everything, including commit genocide to do it, that's true.
He's right about that.
The other point, that no American president can be sustained as president if he doesn't attack China for this, I guess that's also true.
But what's so crazy is that Joe Biden is also describing that thought process.
So he's saying, so look, what I need to do, because I'm an American president, I need to go out there and pretend that I care about this, because otherwise the people won't sustain me.
But, you know, look, that's just China's culture, okay?
And that's just our culture, so I'm going to perform our culture, and China's going to do their culture, and whatever.
It's no big deal.
Just different cultural norms.
Not very convincing, Joe.
Because if you're going to criticize China for committing the genocide, you have to actually do it.
But Joe can't even muster that.
He's saying, yeah, okay, well, bad.
Yeah, it's no, I have to say it's bad.
Well, if you say you have to say it solely, not for the purpose of doing good or for the purpose of justice or the purpose of helping this minority in China, but for the purpose of, quote, sustaining yourself as president, then you're not really doing it, are you?
It's this total relativism.
It's this not so tacit admission that you don't believe in objective truth.
You don't believe in justice.
Because if you believed in justice, then sure, cultural norms can differ, but there is also a prevailing moral standard.
And it may be the case that liberalism imposes too much of a universal standard on the whole world.
But you can't go so far in the other direction as to say, there's no standard of justice that's true for all men.
No, Chinese people are totally different than us.
Look, it's just in their nature.
It's in their culture to be genocidal maniacs.
That's not in our culture, but whatever.
Live and let live.
I don't think so.
I don't think that's a very good idea.
Now, Speaking of President Biden, some people still don't want to acknowledge that Joe Biden is the president, but he is the president.
Some people want to point out that there were a lot of irregularities in the That there was no issue with the 2020 election.
No big deal with the way the election laws were changed beforehand.
Nothing weird happened in Pennsylvania.
Oh, forget about those strange vote counts in Georgia.
Nothing, nothing out of the ordinary here.
Steve Scalise, a Republican leader in the House, was on ABC on the news show this week.
And he was asked about the 2020 election and he's in a lot of trouble for his answer.
Clear this up for me.
Joe Biden won the election.
He is the legitimate president of the United States.
The election was not stolen, correct?
Look, Joe Biden's the president.
There were a few states that did not follow their state laws.
That's really the dispute that you've seen continue on.
And look, if you're Joe Biden, you probably want to keep talking about impeachment.
And anything other than the fact that he's killed millions of American energy jobs, that he continues to...
They just signed the Paris Accord that's going to kill manufacturing jobs in America.
But at the end of the day, when you look at where we are in this country, either we're going to address the problems that happened with the election that people are still...
Millions of people are still concerned about.
The Constitution says state legislatures set the rules for elections.
That didn't happen in a few states.
And so going forward, look, Joe Biden's the president...
But I mean, I mean, I towards what people are angry about.
No, no, but you can't, Steve, you can't say that.
Hold on, I want to get, you have to say what Steve Scalise said is 100% true.
Joe Biden is the president.
He won the election in the sense that the president is determined by a vote of the Electoral College that's then certified and then makes you the president.
And all that did happen.
So yeah, he's legitimately the president in that way.
But don't try to tell me that there was nothing weird about the 2020 election.
Pennsylvania election officials have violated the state constitution.
They changed election law so dramatically.
Many, many other states totally upended election law in the weeks preceding it.
The way in which the votes were counted was deeply unprofessional, rife and open for abuse.
The use of ubiquitous widespread unsolicited mail-in ballots That is rife for abuse, unprecedented in American history.
The extension of election day to election season, rife for abuse, undermines election integrity.
So don't tell me that there were no questions.
Of course there are questions.
Of course that's irregular.
And those irregularities were down to the benefit of Democrats.
But they're so insistent.
They are going to bully you.
They are going to try to get you to say, under no circumstances, is there anything worth questioning?
Don't let them do it.
Don't let them do it.
This is just political intimidation.
There is nothing unintellectual or dishonest or disloyal about pointing out that crooked election officials changed a lot of the rules in ways that they shouldn't have beforehand.
But you know who's in more trouble than Steve Scalise?
You know which politician is in much hotter water these days?
Ted Cruz.
He's in the hot water of Cancun.
The biggest controversy, biggest political scandal going on today.
No, don't you try to tell me about Andrew Cuomo covering up the elderly deaths in New York that his policies directly led to.
I don't want to hear about that.
I want to hear about the most damning, serious Political scandal that's going on right now.
Ted Cruz took his family down to Mexico for the weekend when the power was off.
Can you?
It's so outrageous.
I have refused thus far even to comment on this stupid non-troversy.
But now that it's a big enough story and Senator Cruz has publicly talked about it, so I guess, you know, If everybody's talking about it, I might as well do it too.
I have not spoken to Senator Cruz since all of this went down.
We haven't filmed a verdict show.
We haven't talked about it.
So this is just coming right off the top of my head here.
Nobody cares about this.
Nobody really cares about this.
A lot of people are pretending to care and a lot of people are talking about Senator Cruz flying to Mexico during the power outage.
But nobody actually cares.
Which is why I haven't talked about it until now.
Because I think this is an entirely contrived non-traversy.
A number of people texted me when the big story broke that Cruz went to Mexico for a few days.
And...
They texted me because, you know, I host a show with Senator Cruz and, you know, we're friends and so they wanted my opinion on all of this.
And I noticed to a person who texted me, the Republicans who texted me were defending Cruz and the Democrats were attacking Cruz.
In other words, the people who support Cruz were still supporting him and the people who hate Cruz's guts still hated his guts.
And nothing actually changed.
You know, Senator Cruz has said that it was a mistake to go, and I suppose as a matter of optics, you know, sure, I guess that probably was a mistake.
I take his description of it, and sure, fair enough.
However, does anybody really think Ted Cruz was going to climb a telephone pole with a wrench and start, what did they expect to happen?
That he was going to dust off the windmills or something?
No, of course not.
So he came back right away and he helped out and he passed out water and was assisting efforts.
Okay, that's fine.
But I don't want Republicans to take the wrong lesson from the New York Times attacking Ted Cruz.
This doesn't matter.
This doesn't matter as a substantive matter.
Cruz could do exactly the same work from an office in some hotel somewhere as he could from his house without power.
I guess probably could do more work right if the power's on.
This won't hurt him politically, I don't think.
I don't think this would hurt any sort of Republican politically.
I think actually quite the opposite.
I think when the left is training all of their sights on you, it means they're afraid of you.
I think that they did this to Donald Trump for four years, and now the big bad orange man is gone, and moreover, he's off of Twitter, so they can't keep attacking him for the things he's saying, and they're going to the next Republican.
And I don't think Republicans should back down from this kind of thing.
I think that when the New York Times is going after you for a bunch of BS, it shows that you're doing something right.
AOC cashed in on the optics here.
So AOC, obviously radical congresswoman from New York, decides that she's going to go to Texas for some reason.
And she's going to raise money and she's going to make herself a much bigger national figure.
Now, AOC, maybe not the brightest bulb in the pack, maybe doesn't have the best education in the world, maybe isn't the most honest person out there, sure.
Absolutely true.
But that woman is a good politician.
She knows politics.
This woman knows how to make herself the center of every story.
When the Capitol riot happened, AOC was in an office building down the street.
She wasn't even in the Capitol building.
She made the thing all about her.
She said she was almost killed.
She was almost tortured.
I don't know.
Maybe she didn't.
She was implying it, at least.
It was the most harrowing experience in the world for AOC, who wasn't even in the building.
She was down the street in the office building.
She's really good at this.
And AOC actually ties in here because she's always going after Cruz and she, you know, went down to Texas and made this a big deal.
The real reason that the media jumped on Cruz's flight to Mexico is because they're trying to distract from a legitimate political scandal, which is Andrew Cuomo.
Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, was hailed as the greatest Governor on coronavirus, even though, you know, the death numbers were always right up there at the top and the death rate in New York was always right up there at the top.
But for whatever reason, Cuomo, he was the gold standard.
Those are the words of Joe Biden.
And it turns out his policies directly led to thousands and thousands and thousands of elderly deaths in New York needlessly.
And, and maybe even, even worse than that from a His administration knew about it and they covered it up and now he's under a federal probe.
So this is a serious scandal and the media doesn't want to talk about that.
So they're going to focus on Ted Cruz sipping a margarita.
AOC, however, because she's a really good politician, she's taken this very subtle approach here.
So she's going after Cruz and doing that sort of song and dance.
She's also going after Cuomo.
AOC, probably the most nationally well-known politician in New York, Is calling for a quote, full investigation of the Cuomo administration's handling of nursing homes.
This is going to work out well for her, I think, any way she plays it.
No matter how the science on coronavirus changes.
By the way, Ben is going to be getting to the science of coronavirus and, more directly, why Dr.
Fauci should be fired.
He's going to get to that.
He's also going to be talking about being less white on today's show, so make sure to check that out later on today.
Also, join us this Wednesday, February 24th, for this month's Backstage.
We're going to have a great time sparking up stogies, drinking whiskey.
We entered 2021 with our debut into the world of entertainment.
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We'll be right back with a lot more.
AOC is calling for a full investigation of the Cuomo administration's handling of nursing homes.
.
She is such a clever politician.
Not a clever person, not necessarily book smart, but man, does she have a political gut.
Why?
the most prominent New York Democrat going after, I guess the other most prominent New York Democrat, attacking a member of her own party from her own state.
Why?
Well, in part, I think this is because the state democratic establishment in New York hates AOC.
They've threatened to redistrict her, kick her out of her district.
They've tried to go up against her.
She kicked out the incumbent, Joe Crowley, one of the classic New York establishment Dem politicians.
So they don't really like her.
I think she wants a little more political leverage when she can get it.
And also, by calling for a full investigation...
She's leaving herself an out.
This is something we talked about it last week that Democrats do.
Joe Biden is doing it right now on reparations policy.
He's doing it right now.
You've actually seen this beyond the federal level.
You've seen this in a number of localities where there are calls to take down monuments and statues of historical American figures.
And you'll see people will call for a panel to review and to study it.
And all this does is slow walk the decision so you can build political consensus for the radical position while still leaving yourself an out if you need it.
So if AOC says, I'm calling for a full investigation into Cuomo's handling of nursing homes, and then Cuomo's political fortunes rise again and it's advantageous to AOC to...
Cuddle up to him?
Well, then she can say, all right, there was an investigation and I think it's bogus and we all need to support Andrew Cuomo.
Or if she wants to keep the political pressure up on Andrew Cuomo, she can say, yeah, we had an investigation and this guy's got to go.
This guy's a crook and you should all vote for me instead.
It sets her up well.
Either way it goes.
It's a win-win for her.
Maybe she's not going to get invited to the Cuomo family Sunday dinner anytime soon.
But it doesn't matter.
What she's losing in the affection of New York State Democrats, she's gaining in the fear that they have of her because she still has so much power.
It makes her also more of a national politician.
She'll be considered someone who can go against her own party.
This is more than you can say for the White House.
Joe Biden, through his spokesman, Jen Psaki, who's not much more articulate, unfortunately, for Joe, than he is, Jen Psaki Is refusing to go after Andrew Cuomo.
Take a listen.
Does President Biden still consider Andrew Cuomo the gold standard when it comes to leadership on the pandemic?
Well, John, we work with Governor Cuomo just like we work with governors across the country.
He's also chair of the NGA. So he plays an important role in ensuring that we're coordinating closely and getting assistance out to people of his state and to states across the country.
And we'll continue to do that.
And there, of course, will be a process.
The investigations will leave that to others to determine, the appropriate law enforcement authorities to determine how that path is going to move as we look forward.
But we are going to continue to work with a range of governors, including, of course, Governor Cuomo, because we think the people of New York, the people of states across the country, need assistance, not just to get through the pandemic, but to get through this difficult economic time.
And that's where our focus remains.
All right, but Jen, my question was, does President Biden still believe that Andrew Cuomo is the gold standard, represents the gold standard on leadership during this pandemic?
Just a yes or no.
Well, John, the president, the president, well, it doesn't always have to be a yes or no answer.
Well, no, it doesn't.
It doesn't have to be.
No, Jen, it does.
Good on John Carl for pushing back here.
He goes, you're right, it doesn't always need to be a yes or no answer, but I'm asking you a yes or no question.
And it's a simple one.
Joe Biden made a declarative statement.
Andrew Cuomo is the gold standard on coronavirus.
It turns out not only was he not the gold standard, he's the worst governor in the country.
His policies were the worst.
They killed people at higher rates.
And...
He lied about it.
He covered it up, which is why he's now under federal investigation, unlike all the other governors who I guess were, what, the silver and bronze standards.
So, simple question, does Joe Biden regret his remark?
Does he change his opinion now and say, Cuomo's not the gold standard?
She's not willing to do it.
She has to just evade the question.
And I don't blame her for evading the question.
I think she actually, given the administration's stance, she does have to evade the question.
The problem with poor Ms.
Psaki is she doesn't evade the question very well.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden, dead wrong on coronavirus, dead wrong on the governors that are good on coronavirus, dead wrong on even conveying that message about coronavirus.
Joe Biden wants you to be very grateful to him.
Because before Biden came into office, oh man, COVID, it was a total mess.
We had nothing.
There was no vaccine.
Well, there was.
And we didn't have it under control.
We did.
And we had deaths in excess of the predictions.
No, that's not true.
The deaths were actually way below the predictions.
But in any case, you've got to thank Joe Biden.
Just over four weeks ago, America had no real plan to vaccinate most of the country.
My predecessor, as my mother would say, God love them, failed to order enough vaccines, failed to mobilize the effort to administer the shots, failed to set up vaccine centers.
That changed the moment we took office.
So notice the shift here.
Notice the shift.
They used to attack Trump because the deaths were going to be higher than the predictions.
But the predictions were like 2 million deaths, you know, within just a matter of months.
And that just didn't happen.
The real numbers were much, much lower.
So they couldn't go after Trump on that.
So then they went after Trump on his, his own policies, you know, the travel policies.
But Trump's policies reduced the number of infections and deaths, right?
Because Trump was the one who said, we're going to shut down travel from China.
We're going to shut down travel from Europe.
Actually over Democrat opposition.
So they can't, they can't really attack him on that.
Then they attack him on the vaccine, but Trump came out and said, we're going to have a vaccine by the fall.
It was the Democrats who said that's not possible, including Joe Biden.
Joe Biden, people are forgetting this now because the left rewrites history because they lie about it and then their lackeys in the media do the work of actually rewriting it and erasing the old questions and pushing that down the memory hole.
But Joe Biden was skeptical that there would be a vaccine, forget by the fall, that there would be a vaccine anytime in 2020, that maybe by the very end of 2020, maybe there'd be a vaccine.
But who knows?
The week before last, the head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Redfield, said it would be summer before the vaccine would become generally available to the public.
You said that he was confused and mistaken.
Those were your two words.
But Dr. Slaas, Slawi, the head of your Operation War Speed, has said exactly the same thing.
Are they both wrong?
Well, I've spoken to the companies and we can have it a lot sooner.
It's a very political thing because people like this would rather make it political than save lives.
This man is talking about a vaccine.
Every serious...
Every serious company is talking about maybe having a vaccine done by the end of the year, but the distribution of that vaccine will not occur until sometime beginning or the middle of next year to get it out, if we get the vaccine.
And pray God we will.
Pray God we will.
Mr.
Vice President, I want to pick up the...
You'll have the vaccine sooner than that.
I want to pick up...
This is an amazing clip.
I hope that you save it.
I want you, if you're watching this, take this, clip it out, save it to your desktop.
If you're listening on audio podcasts, record it on your phone, because they're going to try to get rid of this clip.
Chris Wallace says the head of the CDC and the head of the Operation Warp Speed, President Trump, say that there's no way you're going to get a vaccine out this year and it's not going to become available to the public until next summer.
What?
Are you saying that you know better than your top genius scientists?
And Trump says, yes, I do know better than them.
They're wrong.
We're going to get it out much quicker.
We're going to get the vaccine by the fall and we're going to get it out to the public not too long thereafter.
Are you crazy?
Oh my gosh.
And Trump said, no, I'm not crazy.
This is what's going to happen.
This is what's, I know this because I talk to these people in my office every day.
And you guys, you, Chris Wallace, and you, Joe Biden, and you, Democratic media, are just trying to make this political so that you can score some points.
But I'm right and they're all wrong.
The scientific establishment, the media, and the Democratic Party, wrong.
Trump right.
And guess what?
It turns out he was correct.
Then, Joe Biden, who's a little bit cagier here, right?
He says, well, you know, I'm talking about when the vaccine is going to come out.
We're not going to get that out for quite a while.
Now, the vaccine did start coming out, not long after, you know, to the public, not long after it was announced.
And by the way, when was the vaccine discovery announced?
Days after the election.
Sounds pretty political to me, too.
But even given that it was days after, you're talking about the early days of November the vaccine was announced.
Much sooner than Biden, the Democrats, and the media pretended it would be.
So all of this raises a question.
Forget that Trump was right and all the scientists, geniuses, and the media and the Democrats, but I repeat myself, were wrong.
When are we going to get back to normal?
You know, Fauci was asked, simple question, when can we hug our family?
When can we hug, when can we spend time with our grandparents and our grandkids?
And when can we just go back home?
Fauci does not give us the answer we want.
My parents have already gotten their second dose.
They're fully vaccinated.
Does that mean it's okay for them to spend time with their grandchildren, who obviously have not been vaccinated?
What's your recommendation?
You know, I'm not going to make a recommendation now except to say that these are things that we really do.
I mean, literally every day, Dano, we look at that, we look at the data, we look at what's evolving about how many people are getting vaccinated, and there will be recommendations coming out.
I don't want to be making a recommendation now on public TV. We want to sit down with the team, take a look at that, and you will be seeing relaxation of some of the stringencies as more and more people get vaccinated.
I promise you that, but I don't want to really do it right now.
Now listen here.
When people talk about follow the science, I've pointed out many times, Dr.
Fauci is half a scientist, half a politician.
And that's not some insult or anything.
That is his job.
If you're in public health, then you are dealing both in science, that's the health part, and politics, which is the public part.
So the CNN host asks Fauci a scientific question.
Does if...
The grandparents have been vaccinated.
Can you go hug your grandparents?
It's just a question about how the vaccine works.
And he gives a political answer.
He says, well, first he says, I don't want to give a recommendation just now.
Why not?
He's not saying, I don't have the answer.
He's not saying, I don't know what the science says.
He's saying, I don't want to give a recommendation just now.
And then he gives an even more political answer.
He says, we're going to be seeing how many people get vaccinated.
And then I'm going to maybe give a recommendation.
What does the total number of people vaccinated have to do with the particular question of your grandparents are vaccinated?
Can you hug them?
The risks of hugging your grandparents if your grandparents have been vaccinated do not depend on whether someone has been vaccinated seven states away.
It does not depend on the aggregate number of vaccinations.
The particular functioning of the vaccine in a particular circumstance.
Does not actually have all that much to do with the epidemiological consideration of how many people have been vaccinated.
But Fauci's goal here is a political one.
He wants the greatest number of people possible to take the vaccine.
So what he's going to do is withhold your ability to see your grandparents until you be a good little boy and comply and go get the vaccine, even if you don't really need it.
Let's say you're young and healthy and you're not really at risk.
He's going to hold your grandparents hostage from you until you do that.
And then he'll give his recommendation.
So Fauci was asked, are you a hypocrite, Fauci?
Have you been seeing your own family?
His answer, cold as ice.
Just to make it personal, I mean, you've been very open about the fact that you've been skipping holidays with your family.
You're fully vaccinated.
Are you seeing your family?
Right now, not yet.
Not yet.
I mean, I would look forward to it within a reasonable period of time as the rest of my family gets vaccinated.
I mean, obviously, I'm with my wife every day.
She has gotten her first dose, will soon get her second dose.
But my children, when they get vaccinated, obviously, I look forward to seeing them.
And I'm sure that by that time, recommendations will come out to guide us in a more precise way.
Recommendations will come out.
They're your recommendations, dude.
You...
You're the one giving them out.
Fauci, at the beginning of the epidemic, remember, he said, come on, I don't really need to wear masks, all that.
Masks are kind of stupid.
They don't really do anything.
And look, I washed my hands.
It's not a big deal.
It's fine.
Now he's saying, I'm not going to see my family for months and months and months.
In part, I think this is because he's a politician.
politician.
He doesn't want to get caught as he has been caught on the masks, violating his own mandates, right?
Fauci says you always have to wear a mask.
He wears a mask on the baseball diamond in the middle of the baseball field when he's dribbling the first pitch at the Nationals game.
But then when he thinks the cameras are off him in the stands, he's sitting next to friends of his that he doesn't even live with.
And he's got the mask off and he's chatting because he, he just thinks he's not going to get caught.
He's been photographed like this before.
So he doesn't want to get caught with the family.
In part, I assume this is his worldview, You know, for Fauci...
For an epidemiologist, if your chief goal is to prevent infection, then you're going to orient all of your actions and behaviors to prevent those sorts of infections.
Me, I'm not an epidemiologist.
I'm just a dude.
I'm Catholic.
We talked at the top of the show.
I'm of Italian extraction.
You know, I'm American.
I'm a New Yorker.
So because my identity is not chiefly wrapped up in not catching colds and flus and various viruses that go around, I prioritize other things.
I'm not, I have other goals and I have greater goals in life than not catching the coronavirus.
Fauci, namely seeing my family, seeing my grandparents, you know, I prioritize those things over not catching the, the Wu flu.
Fauci does not.
These are different visions, political visions, moral visions, and ethical visions.
And ours are better and his are perverse.
The question then becomes, when are we going to get back to normal?
Dr.
Fauci was interviewed on CNN, and this is a simple question, and actually, to the credit of the CNN interviewer, she asks it directly.
Fauci, tell us.
You know, we had 15 days to slow the spread.
It seems like that was a lifetime ago.
We're coming up on a year of 15 days to slow the spread.
When can life return to normal?
You and the president have suggested that we'll approach normality toward the end of the year.
What does normal mean?
Do you think Americans will still be wearing masks, for example, in 2022?
You know, I think it is possible that that's the case.
And again, it really depends on what you mean by normality.
Right.
That's what I want you to define it.
If normality is exactly the way...
No, Dana, it's important.
Good for her.
I like this lady.
She probably says a lot of liberal things.
I don't watch her show, really, ever.
But I love that she's pushing Fauci here.
Because she goes, okay, so, come on, dude, when are we getting back to normal?
Well, you know, it depends on what you mean by normal.
Right.
I'm asking you that question.
Why don't you answer it, Fauci, after 11 freaking months of this nonsense and you constantly contradicting yourself and changing your guidance at a moment's notice and constantly moving the goalposts another two weeks, another few months, another several years.
Tell me.
You tell me.
And then what does Fauci do?
Because he's caught.
Well, you Oh, yeah.
He's a classic back-slapping politician.
Anthony Fauci.
Oh, yeah.
Well, yeah.
No, it's a good question.
I know it's a good question, pal.
We've been asking it since last March.
And you have given answers, then contradicted those answers, then moved the goalposts, contradicted yourself again, sometimes outright lied, and admitted the lie, by the way.
You remember, people are going to memory hole this one too.
Dr.
Fauci said, don't wear masks.
Masks don't really do anything in a pandemic.
Then, when he changed his guidance, he was asked, wait, hold on, wait, why did you change your guidance?
He says, well, look, the reason I, I'll do it in the Fauci voice, well, look, the reason, although this is a paraphrase, I don't think it's a direct quote, the reason that I told people not to wear masks is because there was a fear that the healthcare workers wouldn't get the masks.
So even though I knew the masks were really, really good, and I, at least in my Fauci mind, believed the masks to be good, I only wanted certain people to get them, not other people.
So I told the other people that they weren't good, so that the people who I wanted to get the masks could get them.
That is a lie, right?
Well, and then he sort of tries to defend it and says, the science changed.
But we're not talking about the science here.
You made this political decision.
This political guidance here.
So she calls him on his BS. He finally sort of answers the question.
Normality means exactly the way things were before we had this happen to us.
I mean, I can't predict that.
I mean, obviously I think we're going to have a significant degree of normality beyond what the terrible burden That all of us have been through over the last year, that as we get into the fall and the winter by the end of the year, I agree with the president completely that we will be approaching a degree of normality.
It may or may not be precisely the way it was in November of 2019, but it'll be much, much better than what we're doing right now.
It'll be much, much better than what we're doing right now.
So says Dr.
Fauci.
Yeah, we might not really get back to normal, but it'll be better.
Don't worry, you'll like it.
Trust me.
The only thing I trust that Dr.
Fauci has said is when he said, I can't predict.
That's it.
Those three words, that's what I trust him to say.
The rest I take with a grain of salt.
Because the thing about Normality.
Normality has to do with norms.
Something we were talking about earlier in the show, Joe Biden, when he wrote off genocide against the Uyghurs in China as a cultural norm.
Norms are the sorts of things that Dr.
Fauci doesn't get to dictate, at least not in a healthy country.
Norms are the sort of things that we just all do.
Norms has to do with politics and culture.
We're supposed to have a say in our norms.
But we've become atrophied in our ability to exercise self-government here in the United States, and we've exported all those norms to Dr.
Fauci.
So we talk about the new normal, the masks and the no shaking hands and not seeing your grandpa, not going to church, that will become normal if we do it for long enough.
Some people might suggest that that's one of the reasons that politicians are exploiting the Wu flu and dragging this out, is to turn certain aberrant behaviors into normality.
The longer this goes, every minute that this goes on, it becomes more normal.
Now people feel abnormal if they walk into a store without some filthy cloth mask over their face.
Now people feel abnormal if they shake hands.
You know, from the beginning of this epidemic, just about, I have ignored...
All of these guidelines as best I can, with some exceptions.
You're not allowed on an airplane if you don't wear the mask, so I have to wear the mask.
But otherwise, I see a ton of people.
I go to events with lots of people.
I rarely, if ever, wear the mask.
I shake hands.
Basically, my biggest concession to the virus is I no longer French kiss strangers as I approach them on the street.
Other than that, Things are pretty normal.
Handshakes, hugs.
I'm seeing relatives.
I just don't care to listen to this twerp Fauci.
I just, this guy who would upend our political order and bully us into doing it and contradict himself while he's doing it.
But this is becoming the norm.
It's why time matters.
You know, in liberal societies, we kind of forget about time.
We delay having kids.
We delay getting married.
We delay doing this.
We delay doing that.
Because we just think we have all the time in the world.
We don't.
We don't.
Politically, we don't either.
President Trump is slated to speak at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.
He's apparently going to speak about the future of the Republican Party.
And this is very important.
Time is of the essence here because things are changing.
Norms are changing very quickly.
And we need to focus in on not just how things have been, And not just even how things were upended, but what kind of country we want in the future.
Do we want the technocratic liberalism of the Fauci's of the world?
Or do we want some different kind of norm going into the future?
And what are we going to ground that norm on?
I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but we can do some of that work to determine what country do we want.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
See you tomorrow.
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Copyright Daily Wire 2021.
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Dr.
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Also, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez takes a trip down to Texas to, quote, help during the winter storm.
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