Biden blames everyone but himself for a major attack that killed a dozen U.S. servicemen, the New York Times calls black California gubernatorial candidate an “affirmative action” case, and Harvard picks an atheist to be its new university chaplain.
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Major terror attack rocked Kabul yesterday, hastening the American evacuation even further.
At least 12 U.S. servicemen were killed.
Many Afghans were killed.
and Joe Biden just gave a blurred speech blaming everyone but himself.
The attack was perpetrated by ISIS-K, an offshoot of the Islamic State, which is apparently the sworn enemy of the Taliban, which was the sworn enemy of the Afghan National Army, our allies, at least our allies, until it ceased to exist, against the Taliban, which is now apparently our ally against ISIS.
A changing, confusing, infuriating situation, underscoring all the more how little we have to gain from occupying that godforsaken country.
The cop who killed Ashley Babbitt defends his shot.
The New York Times claims California Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder only got into college because of affirmative action.
They're really heating up the attacks.
And the Biden-Harris approval rating plummets.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is the Michael Knowles Show.
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I have been more than fair to Joe Biden.
Thank you.
For the record...
Compared, I think, to any other conservative commentator, pundit, talk show host, politician, I have tried to be as charitable as I possibly can be to him.
I don't think that it's fair to blame him for everything in Afghanistan or even most things in Afghanistan.
I don't think it's fair to blame him that there was any chaos or violence in the withdrawal.
I think some chaos and perhaps even some violence were probably inevitable.
But he has bungled this As much as possible, every single step of the way.
To quote Barack Obama, don't underestimate how much Joe can F things up.
And he has.
And then he finally addressed the nation last night.
He was late to the address.
And it was the worst presidential speech I've ever seen in my lifetime.
Haven't been on this earth too long, but 31 years, been paying attention to politics the whole time.
It was the worst I've ever seen.
It was slurred.
It was lethargic.
It was meandering.
It was weak.
It refused to take responsibility.
Just the open.
Just listen to how he begins the speech.
A tough day.
This evening in Kabul, as you all know, terrorists attacked That we've been talking about, worried about, that the intelligence community has assessed, has undertaken an attack by a group known as ISIS-K. Is he awake?
Is he even awake here or is he just talking?
That's what I sound like when I talk in my sleep.
It's not a good way to start.
And it does matter.
I'm not just taking a cheap shot at him.
When the United States is attacked, when U.S. servicemen are killed by terrorists in a completely avoidable and bungled military operation, You need some energy from the commander-in-chief.
You need some clarity.
You need some force.
And he didn't bring it.
Then he confused the whole issue by referring to the distinction between the Taliban and ISIS. And how did ISIS get back here?
I thought we beat ISIS. And what is the Taliban doing?
And what's the relationship?
He left more questions than answers.
We've been made aware by our intelligence community that the ISIS-K An arch enemy, the Taliban.
People who were freed when both those prisons were opened has been planning a complex set of attacks on the United States personnel and others.
First of all, enough with the Taliban.
He calls them the Taliban every single time.
Only Democrats do this.
The conservatives refer to the Taliban because we speak English, but the Democrats refer to the Taliban and Pakistan and all these other stupid and Muslim, not Muslim, Muslim, because they want to sound cultured or cosmopolitan.
These are the sort of people who probably go to Italian restaurants, and instead of saying, hey, I'll have the spaghetti, you know, hey, could you give me a plate of the spaghetti?
They'll say, oh, thank you, I would have...
No, actually, they don't do that.
They just do it with certain words that are non-Western, and they think that this makes them more serious and cultured.
It does not.
Speak English, get the point out there.
The Taliban and ISIS and their arch enemies and the ISIS guys got out when those prisons were opened up.
Who opened the prisons, Joe?
The Taliban opened the prisons.
The Taliban opened the prisons to free the Taliban people, but then the ISIS people got out too.
So are they arch enemies or are they kind of working together?
Do they have a common enemy in the United States?
All of the above.
But now I guess we're told that the Taliban are our allies, which just proves the point.
What the liberal imperialists who have been pushing this endless war in Afghanistan have been telling us is that, look, we've got to go there.
There's the good guys.
That's the Afghan army.
It's the allies.
And there's the bad guys.
That's the Taliban.
We're fighting them.
We've got to kill them all.
And then they'll have peace in Afghanistan.
And then yesterday we get attacked, not by the Taliban, but by ISIS. That's another group.
And ISIS is against the Taliban.
So now we've got to completely switch and say, no, actually the Taliban, they're our allies.
They're our friends here.
The Afghan army doesn't exist.
It's just completely folded within hours.
So that doesn't exist anymore.
Now we're friends with the Taliban.
So what are we doing?
What are we doing?
Getting out is what we're doing.
Joe Biden meanders through this ridiculous speech longer and longer.
I won't subject you to it.
Then he goes and finally takes some questions from the press.
So is he taking a rousing round of combative questions in real time?
No.
He actually, you've got to give him credit for transparency.
He acknowledges that the questions are pre-approved.
Ladies and gentlemen, they gave me a list here.
The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O'Donnell of NBC. You have said leaving Afghanistan is in the national interest of the United States.
They gave me a list here I have been instructed to call on.
Instructed by whom?
Who are they who tell you to do this?
They, the people who instructed you to do this, are running the country.
You, manifestly, are not.
And you're not even competent enough to hide the fact that all of this is a show and it's all pre-approved.
At least the first questions are.
He then is asked, actually an excellent reporter here, it's hard to tell who these reporters are because they've got their masks on, but he asks him about Bagram.
He says, hold on, this is the question that my wife asked the other day.
My wife who says, I'm no foreign policy expert, okay?
I didn't go to West Point, but When you're leaving a country, wouldn't it be smart to get the civilians out before the military leaves?
Wouldn't that be a smart idea?
I don't know.
Maybe I'm crazy.
So, this reporter asks that question.
Did you personally reject a recommendation to hold or to recapture Bagram Air Force Base?
Here's what I've done.
Let's answer the last question first.
On the tactical questions of how to conduct An evacuation or a war.
I gather up all the major military personnel that are in Afghanistan, the commanders, as well as the Pentagon.
And I ask for their best military judgment.
What would be the most efficient way to accomplish the mission?
They concluded, the military...
That Bagram was not much value added.
That it was much wiser to focus on Kabul.
And so I followed that recommendation.
I actually couldn't tell.
Was that Wegman?
I think it may have been.
Excellent question.
Really excellent question.
Terrible answer, but really good question to ask him.
Hold on.
Was this your decision?
The buck stops with you?
Are you the one who made this call to abandon the airbase before the airlift?
Doesn't make sense.
And what does Biden do?
It's so pathetic, he blames his commanders.
He says, no, they gave me the advice, and so I did what they wanted me to do.
It's their fault.
Don't blame them.
The buck stops with them.
They're the president.
No, buddy, your job is to get advice from a lot of different people and then either choose whose advice you want to go with or come up with a separate answer yourself.
You're the decider.
Whatever you want to say about George Bush, I think George W. Bush made a lot of mistakes and I think a lot of the problems in Afghanistan are because of him and a lot of the confusion in our foreign policy is because of him.
But Whatever you want to say about George Bush, at least he was the decider.
At least he owned his decisions and stood by them.
Kind of proof that sometimes a wrong decision even can be better than indecision.
Biden won't do that.
He's got to blame everybody but himself.
Peter Doocy, one of the last reporters left in America, a reporter for Fox News, he gets up, asks Biden a question about responsibility.
Listen, Mr.
President, you've been dancing around and evading responsibility for this whole debacle.
Do you take responsibility for any aspect of the collapse of Afghanistan?
You set a deadline, you pulled troops out, you sent troops back in, and now 12 marines are dead.
You said the buck stops with you.
Do you bear any responsibility for the way that things have unfolded in the last two weeks?
I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that's happened of late.
But here's the deal.
You know, I wish you'd one day say these things, you know, as well as I do, that the former president made a deal with the Taliban, that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1.
In return, the commitment was made, and that was a year before, In return, he was given a commitment that the Taliban would continue to attack others, but would not attack any American forces.
Look, fundamentally, the problem, it all comes back to me.
I'm responsible.
But it was Trump's fault.
Democrats always do this.
They say, I'm taking full responsibility.
But really, we all know it was someone else's fault.
So they're trying to get credit for taking responsibility, but they evade responsibility entirely.
By the way, this raises a question.
A lot of this debacle is because we're pushing down to the end of August or maybe even later.
If the whole point was that they were going to get the troops out by early May, why didn't they do that?
If what Biden is saying is, yeah, you know, A lot of the reason that this is so violent and there are attacks and everything is because we stayed longer and that's why the Taliban is not going to give us another extension.
Well, why didn't you just get out when the United States said we would then?
Wouldn't we have avoided this then?
If you're saying that a lot of the reason that the Taliban had not been attacking American troops is because of Trump's deal, then why wouldn't you continue with that?
And then the worst moment of the press conference, then we can move on, but the worst moment of the press conference, do not let the left spin this, they're already spinning this, is he was asked to follow up by Peter Doocy, and Biden was so defeated that he just put his head down on his hands.
Because before...
No, no, no, wait a minute.
I'm asking you a question.
Is that accurate?
But Mr.
President, respectfully, since...
I don't think that the issue that...
Do you think that people have an issue with pulling out of Afghanistan or just a wave of things that happen?
So pathetic.
He can't even keep his head up.
He can't even keep his eyes open.
I mean, he was struggling to do that during the speech itself.
And now Ducey pushes back at all.
Very simple question.
And he puts his head down on his hands.
The left is spinning this image.
This is a devastating image for the Biden administration.
And the left is already spinning it and saying that he was praying for our troops.
That's not what happened.
You just heard the clip.
He was not.
He was struggling and failing to answer a simple question by a reporter.
Earlier in the speech he said, let's have a moment of silence.
But that's not what that image is from.
I had a blue checkmark yesterday.
Tell me, oh, no, Michael, you're so callous to make fun of this moment.
He's praying for the fallen servicemen.
He's not.
He's praying that the reporter will stop asking him tough questions and he's praying that he can get an answer to it.
But he can't because there is no answer.
The chances that this guy gets re-elected are collapsing day after day after day after day, unless there's widespread voter fraud in 2024.
If he even runs, there's a headline from Yahoo News right now, Yahoo Finance.
2024 odds slide for Biden-Harris.
Harris leads Trump by 2%.
Notice anything weird about that headline?
Notice anything?
The odds slide for Biden-Harris.
Okay, that makes sense.
Harris leads Trump by two points.
So they're assuming, first of all, that Trump is going to run and that he's going to do very well, actually, right?
Because it's neck and neck.
And they're assuming that Biden will not run for re-election because nobody can listen to that speech and think that this guy is even half sentient at this point.
I don't even just mean to make fun of him.
It's a tough job.
Can you imagine?
We all have tough jobs.
I'm sure you, in whatever you do in your job, I'm sure you're a good listener to the Michael Knowles show.
You've got your priorities in order.
You probably work very hard.
I bet you're tired at the end of the day.
I'm tired at the end of the day.
We all are.
And we're not running the world.
I guess Joe Biden's not running the world either.
It's a lot of stress.
And he just is not living up to it.
The only person I've ever seen not age in the presidency is Donald Trump.
It might have been all of the aspartame from the Diet Coke or all the preservatives from the fast food.
But the guy looked the same after the presidency as he did when he got in.
And that's just not true.
It wasn't true for Obama.
It wasn't true for Bush.
It certainly isn't true for Biden, who entered the presidency at 102 years old and now seems to be 150.
Really bad news for them.
Because Biden ain't looking so hot and Harris is profoundly unlikable.
Trump, speaking of the shadow president, Trump also gave a speech last night.
Take a listen.
As one nation, America mourns the loss of our brave and brilliant American service members in a savage and barbaric terrorist attack in Afghanistan.
These noble American warriors laid down their lives in the line of duty.
They sacrificed themselves for the country that they loved, racing against time to rescue their fellow citizens from harm's way.
They died as American heroes and our nation will honor their memory forever.
I want to express my deepest condolences to the families of those we have lost.
Today, all Americans grieve alongside you.
Together, we also pray that God will heal the other courageous American service members who were wounded in this heinous attack.
So, he goes on and on and on in a forceful, energetic, clear, actually concise way.
When I say he goes on and on and on, I don't mean he's droning.
He's not.
Everything he's saying here is clear, it serves a purpose, and he's got energy.
This in itself is devastating.
People are probably not going to show you this video that he released because he's been deplatformed by the liberal establishment because they can't tolerate that threat.
You know, Donald Trump, he's so unpopular.
He lost by more votes in American history and that's why we can't ever let any of you hear from him at all or ever let him appear on a ballot again.
Because of how unpopular he is, right?
Right?
Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
That's what a president sounds like.
I'm not saying Trump is the only president.
I think there are a lot of people who could have given a speech last night.
I think there are a lot of people who could have actually handled the withdrawal from Kabul.
Biden could not.
On top of this, we found out the Biden administration apparently gave the Taliban a list of U.S. citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies.
This is being reported today.
Ducey asked him that question.
Biden refused to Refused to give an answer.
Now, perhaps that's because he doesn't know what the answer is.
This is insanity.
The argument for it is, if you give the Taliban a list of the U.S. citizens, green card holders, and crucially Afghan allies in the region, then the Taliban will let them get to the airport, right?
Or, that's sort of the rosy optimistic view, or you just gave the Taliban a kill list.
What do you think it is?
Knowing what you know about the Taliban, which do you think it is?
Criminal incompetence or strategic.
This was a question that was raised.
Was this pure incompetence or was it subversion?
Or was it sabotage?
Or is the foreign policy establishment trying to stay in Afghanistan?
I don't know.
I don't want to ascribe to malice that which is equally explained by stupidity.
but either this is the most historically incompetent withdrawal ever in US history, or there were competing interests going on by the bureaucracy.
We were debating this last night backstage.
Ben made the point that the people don't control foreign policy.
The foreign policy is controlled by the blob and has been for decades, which then raises the questions.
The blob didn't want to leave Afghanistan.
The withdrawal has been so bunged.
We left an army's worth of equipment there without any explanation.
Is that just the first step in going back in?
It's a real question to answer.
Meanwhile, we've got a lot of violence going on here in the United States.
We've got a lot of national disintegration here in the United States.
The cop who killed Ashley Babbitt, the Trump supporter from the Capitol, he's speaking out for the first time.
So this cop goes on NBC News.
This is the cop who killed Ashley Babbitt, a Trump supporter in the Capitol.
She went into an area she wasn't supposed to, and she gets shot and killed.
We were told that the Trump supporters were violent, terrible.
They were killing cops.
Just none of that was true.
None of that was true.
Even the New York Times and Washington Post had to admit it.
The only person who was killed in the political violence of that day was Ashley Babbitt, a Trump supporter.
Here is the cop's defense.
I followed my training and I spent countless years preparing for such a moment.
You ultimately hope that moment never occurs, but you prepare as best you can.
I know that day I saved countless lives.
I know members of Congress as well as my fellow officers and staff were in jeopardy and in serious danger.
That's my job.
I don't think he killed countless lives, regardless that he saved countless lives.
I don't know about his claim, about his training, and he did what he was supposed to do, and maybe it was a fair shot.
I don't know.
I mean, an investigation or a trial actually would determine that.
But I don't think he saved countless lives.
Do you know why?
Because no one was killed that day except for Ashley Babbitt.
So you're telling me of all the people that were in the Capitol, of all the people in all the places, the only one who was supposed to be a deadly threat was Ashley Babbitt.
She was going to kill people.
No one else, not the horn guy, not the lectern guy, not any of the other people, just Ashley Babbitt.
And that's why this unarmed woman was shot to death by this cop.
And no one's asking questions.
I'm not even saying the guy should go to jail.
It is certainly the case that if it was a white cop killing a black woman or a pro-Trump cop killing a Democrat woman, the guy would be in Guantanamo Bay.
The guy would have had his life, he would have been doxxed.
We would have heard from him much sooner than this.
His family would be threatened.
He would certainly be in jail, at least, if not executed.
But it's a black cop defending the Democrats, killing a Trump supporter.
So, Totally fine.
There won't be a thorough investigation of this, and there should be.
There certainly should be.
He references his training.
Speaking of training, the New York Times is really descending to a new low against Larry Elder.
You know, Larry Elder, the libertarian, somewhat conservative candidate who's doing very, very well, friend of ours and doing very, very well.
Running in the recall for California.
So you remember LA Times called him the black face of white supremacy.
Then the LA Times came out and said, because he cleaned his gun six years ago, that he's actually like a wife beater or he's a threat to America or something like that.
Now, New York Times is upping the ante here by calling him an affirmative action case.
That's the line.
The New York Times writes, quote, Admitted to Brown University under an early affirmative action program.
Mr.
Elder, the second of three sons, stayed away from California for years, moving to the University of Michigan Law School and becoming a lawyer and legal recruiter in Ohio.
He's an affirmative action case.
He wouldn't have gotten into Brown otherwise.
You see, he only got in because he was black.
So says the New York Times.
By that logic, every single black person who gets admitted to any college in America, just about, It's an affirmative action case.
But they don't refer to all the other lawyers that way, do they?
You don't hear them refer to...
Forget even the lawyers.
Anyone who gets into any college in the country.
Affirmative action case, Nicole Hannah-Jones.
Affirmative action case, Joy Reid.
Affirmative action case, Maxine Waters.
No.
In fact, we're told that you're a horrible racist if you suggest that black people get into college because of affirmative action.
Now, we know that affirmative action gives an advantage to black students.
They don't need test scores that are as high.
They don't need grades that are as high as white students or Asian students.
So that seems unjust in and of itself.
But we are told if you ever call a black person an affirmative action case, you are a vicious, vile racist.
Unless you're the New York Times doing it against Larry Elder.
In which case, this completely cheap shot.
Larry Elder is a very intelligent guy.
I suspect he could have gotten into a good school on his own.
But Clarence Thomas made this point in his memoir.
He said, Clarence Thomas, one of the greatest jurists in the country, extraordinarily intelligent guy.
He graduated Yale Law School, top law school in the country, and he had trouble getting a job because people thought he was an affirmative action case.
And that's one of the reasons he hates affirmative action, because he says, I could have done it on my own.
New York Times, using that, using their own programs, which they say are compassionate, using it as a way to undermine this black guy on the basis of his skin.
Speaking of black men who need no affirmative action, Kanye West, baby.
I haven't listened to the album yet, but he's got a new album coming out.
It's called Donda.
Maybe we'll do an analysis of the album at some point.
He's got a cool new gadget that he uses to mix the album.
It's like this very innovative gadget that coincidentally a friend of mine built.
So that's cool in and of itself.
But what I want to focus on here is he had a listening party for this last night, and the central set piece is It was a chapel with a big cross.
And the action on stage, you actually had Marilyn Manson there, kind of representing the devil.
Because Marilyn Manson is probably the most famous Satanist in the country.
And it was representing spiritual warfare.
And I just thought, amid all the crazy madness that's going on right now, there is a little glimmer of hope.
There's always a little glimmer of hope, even as the world decays, which is that the most famous popular musician in the world is an outspoken Christian.
Some people are saying that Kanye is just pretending to be a Christian, just to be weird, just to be eccentric, just to keep people guessing.
I mentioned I have at least one mutual friend with Kanye West, others as well.
What they tell me is he's 100% serious.
He's 100% sincere.
And that is a wonderful thing.
We can't even admit all this craziness.
We can't lose sight of genuinely inspiring, encouraging moments.
Speaking of which, though, I can't leave on that high a note.
We will get to the mailbag in a second, but I have to note this.
Harvard.
Harvard University just hired a new chaplain.
You know, the chaplain is the pastor, the sort of religious leader at a university, in the military, wherever, at a prison university.
The new chaplain at Harvard is an atheist.
They just hired this guy.
Greg Epstein is a 44-year-old writer of Good Without God.
He is the new chaplain.
He's going to coordinate the religious life of Harvard.
He, who is an atheist.
And a lot of people are saying this is insane.
You know, the conservatives are saying this is insane.
The liberals are saying it's very clever.
It's so subversive.
It's so clever.
I think it's just common sense.
I think it's totally ordinary.
Because everybody's got to serve somebody.
The absence of religion, what people think is the absence of religion, is a religion of itself.
You can't help but make certain ethical, metaphysical claims about the world.
And the official religion of Harvard is atheism.
And the official religion of our country right now is atheism, by the way.
And so it stands to reason that the chaplain of Harvard and chaplain of other influential institutions in America would be an atheist too.
He's a lapsed Jew, but he's now, that's gone.
He's just an atheist.
Not surprising at all.
That's the most popular religion in America.
As the legacy media continue to spin the news, our newest podcast, Morning Wire, continues topping the Apple and Spotify charts.
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We'll be right back with The Mailbag.
First question from Christina.
Hi there.
Hi, Christina.
My husband and I were debating this morning whether or not women should be allowed to breastfeed in public without a cover and wanted to know your opinion on a subject.
He said it should be allowed.
I'm sorry, it should not be allowed because it's public nudity and it makes people uncomfortable and is not necessary as you could use a cover or a washroom.
I say it should be allowed because while there may be partial nudity, it's not a sexual act in any way and is necessary for the baby.
And if it makes people uncomfortable, they can just look away.
Thanks, we love the show.
Your husband's right.
It's a simple answer because...
Your argument is that, yes, men are attracted to boobs, but the act of breastfeeding is not a particularly sexy act, and it is not presenting said boob in a sexual way.
Right.
But the boob is still sexually attractive to men.
It doesn't change the nature of the thing.
It's not as though men are attracted to the female body only in certain circumstances.
We find the female body attractive in itself.
So, this is like sometimes you'll hear people say, we don't need to teach women to be more careful when they go out in a dark alley late at night.
We just need to teach men not to be sexual predators.
It's like, yeah, sure, that's a good idea, but you also need to teach people to be prudent and careful.
We don't need to teach...
We don't need to teach...
People to bring an umbrella outside when it rains.
We need to teach the sky not to rain.
Yeah, no, people should have an umbrella, and yes, you should take note of the weather, but things are going to happen.
This is a fallen world, and there are going to be, I'm not saying all men are sexual predators, but there are going to be predators, not even sexual.
There are going to be predators out trying to steal your wallet.
There are going to be people trying to steal your pocketbook in a dark alley, so you still need to take caution when you go down the dark alleyway.
And you are going to be It is a sort of sexual thing anytime any woman takes any part of her top off in public.
So I would just recommend those little cover-ups.
They're fine.
I'm not saying you need to wear a burka.
Just a little cover-up there.
I think it's good.
Obviously, women should breastfeed their kids, but I don't think we should tolerate public nudity because of that.
We can take care of lots of different aspects of society all at once.
From Max.
Hi, Michael.
Listening to your argument for leaving Afghanistan, I'd like to hear your response to a counter.
You say, because we have our problems at home, we should focus on those instead of problems elsewhere.
But isn't that the equivalent of arguing that because of all the problems in the church today, we should not focus on evangelization and spreading the faith to others?
What are your thoughts on this counter?
Thanks and love the show, deus volt.
No, I don't think it's a fair comparison because when we say evangelize, we're saying spread the good news of the gospel.
And the church, whatever her problems are, and there are many problems, The church still has the basic truth of the gospel to evangelize.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who we could recite the creed.
We know what the good news is, and so we can spread that, even if our bishops are jerks, and even if our episcopacy is falling apart, and even if Sue from the parish council is ruining things.
We still have the message to spread.
When it comes to America spreading her values to the world, what are the values?
Truth, justice, and the American way?
You're not even allowed to say that in a Superman movie anymore.
You haven't for 15 years.
What is the American value?
Is it the pride flag?
I bet a lot of people would say that's the American value.
We hang it up at our embassies all over the world, including in the Vatican, including in Kabul.
I don't feel that that represents me.
I don't think trans pride or something is a value that I want to spread.
But a lot of people believe that's what it is.
We don't know what the values are to evangelize anymore.
And so when I make this point on Afghanistan, I'm not making a prescriptive argument that we should and we must get out of Afghanistan right now and it's the eternally perpetually moral thing to always be out of Afghanistan.
I'm not saying that.
We're out of meddling in other countries' affairs.
I'm making the descriptive observation that we don't know what we stand for anymore.
We don't know what we're doing there.
That's why the people want to get out.
And until we figure out what it is that we stand for, we are simply not going to be able to project power overseas, which is what happened in Afghanistan.
From Alex.
Hi, Michael.
Please advise.
I've been eating an apple a day and Dr.
Fauci has not gone away.
Am I buying the wrong brand?
What's with Dem apples?
I have nothing to add to that.
That was really beautiful.
Beautiful.
From Camille.
Good morning, Michael.
Camille, hello.
I recently was discussing dreams and lucid dreaming with some friends.
A few of the more hippie friends were saying that dreams are premonitions a lot of the time and can reveal the true inner workings of your psyche.
What are your thoughts on dreams in general and lucid dreaming?
Thank you.
As always, is this what dreams are made of?
Well, dreams can tell you something about the world.
This happens in the Bible.
This happens through mythology.
You see this in myths, and probably some of us have experienced this in our own lives.
And whether that is because you're getting a direct message from God About what's going to happen.
Or whether it's because you're just intuiting something about the world that is then you're working it out in your dreams.
In the same way that prophets are not exactly people who predict the future.
They're just people who preach the truth because they can see the truth in a world that doesn't.
That can happen in dreams.
No question about it.
But then you bring up lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming.
Probably everyone has had a lucid dream at some point.
It's a dream where you can control what you do.
Right?
It's a dream where you realize you're dreaming and you're like, Oh, cool.
I'm going to fly.
Oh, cool.
Now I'm going to fly or whatever.
In those dreams, I think it's hard to say that's a premonition or something.
I mean, because you're controlling the action.
So they can be kind of fun, I guess, if you want to fly or whatever.
But yeah, I wouldn't take too much stock of that.
Probably those dreams will just tell you more about yourself and your own desires and what you would do when you think no one is watching.
From Matthew, Dear Mr.
Knowledge, I mean Knowles, After 20 years of U.S. and Allied presence in Afghanistan, how is it possible that the Taliban is still so well armed?
Guns, ammo, grenades, etc.
In the U.S., we can't even get reasonably priced ammo and Biden's attack on the Second Amendment is getting worse.
Sincerely, one round shy of a clip.
It's a good name.
Well, right now the Taliban is so well armed because we gave them an army's worth of stuff.
So it's true, you can't get ammo right now, but Mohammed, Mahar, Mohammed, Al, whatever, you know, has all of your ammo that you paid for with your tax dollars, or actually that your government just borrowed from China to send over there, and you're going to pay the interest on the debt.
I think getting to the heart of your question, which is why have we not completely wiped out the Taliban?
Or why have we not completely wiped out ISIS? Really, the only president who went hard to completely destroy ISIS was Trump.
He did a very good job.
Obviously, there are these little offshoots that keep cropping up.
But Obama, you'll remember, didn't just try to totally kill ISIS. And I think the reason for that is we no longer in this country try to win wars.
We just try to manage conflicts.
So I strongly suspect the foreign policy establishment does not want to totally wipe out ISIS and does not want to totally wipe out the Taliban and does not want to totally wipe out any of these groups.
They want to just kind of keep a balance of power going on so that they all keep sort of killing each other and no one's ever in control and it's always in a state of managed chaos.
That has been a major aspect of American grand strategy for decades now.
And I think the American people are questioning that because we'd prefer to win wars than just kind of manage declines.
But there's a big gap between the people who run our foreign policy and the American people themselves.
From Nick.
Hey, Michael.
Oh, no, Nick.
Hey Michael, me again.
So my relationship with my above-average girlfriend fizzled out, and let's be real, it's not me, it's her.
Uh-huh.
Now, normally after a breakup, I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes, ready to dive back into all the babes' DMs.
However, I've been thinking of trying something new.
Oh, yeah, you think?
Rather than the tried-and-true dating cycle of swipe right, spit game, meet up, talk sexy, get sexy, and finally weeks later answer this so-what-are-we question, I was thinking of getting more serious with a friend of mine who I've been close with but never close with, if you know what I mean.
Do you think this is a better strategy for finding a long-term ride-or-die bay?
Sincerely, by close, I mean we never hooked up, but she totally wanted to.
Nick, you've written into this show many times now, and I actually think that you're Colorful relationship life is representative of many millennials and Gen Zers.
You need to get married, Nick.
You need to marry this girl.
I strongly recommend marrying people who you're friends with and who you like and who you have shared experience with.
I think that's a good idea.
I think it's probably better than the swipe culture.
But in your case, Nick, Even if it's not this girl, I think you should walk outside, pick up a stick, and throw it.
And then the first woman that it hits, frankly the first person that it hits at this point, we live in a brave new world, marry that person.
And then stop dating and stop swiping.
And I'm not saying stop writing into the show, because I do get a kick out of your questions, and I think they're illuminating.
But you've got to...
You gotta get your life in order, Nick, okay?
Alright?
Millennials, you gotta get your life in order, generally.
From Jacob.
Dear Michael, I just moved to a new city to go to college, and I would like to go to some bars and restaurants to try to meet new people, particularly women.
However, my extreme social anxiety makes me terrified to go and talk to people directly, especially girls.
Do you have any tips for me to get over my social anxiety and fear of rejection?
Thank you, Jacob.
Yes, I do.
I don't think it's just you.
I think everyone feels this way.
Frankly, look, I'm a pretty social guy.
Even if I showed up to a new city and I'm going to a restaurant or a bar just to meet people, not just to sit by myself and smoke a cigar and read a book, but to actually go meet people, I would be nervous too.
That's an anxiety-inducing experience.
So what I would recommend, since you're starting college, is rather than just show up to a bar and say, hey ladies, come on, you know.
Hit me up.
I would recommend joining a club.
I would recommend joining some kind of activity, extracurricular or curricular, and meeting people that way in a little more organic way and then sort of hanging out a little bit.
So you're in a more structured environment and then that, I think, would lead more to being able to say, hey, you want to go get a drink?
Hey, you want to get a cup of coffee?
Now, you can just show up to a bar and get a drink, but I wouldn't I wouldn't go there just with the hope and expectation of meeting women and picking up a woman because you'll be really nervous.
You won't come across as confident.
You might come across as overeager.
I just don't think it's going to work.
So I would do it in a little bit more of an organic way.
And you don't even need to go find the chickies first.
I mean, maybe you join a club.
Maybe it's a political club.
Maybe it's a game sort of club.
I don't know.
Whatever it is.
And just...
Just meet people and just hang out and just keep it cool, you know?
Keep it cool, man.
Keep it light.
Build up a little confidence that way.
And then I think it'll happen more naturally.
From Daniel.
Michael, if language doesn't matter anymore, and definitions used since the first dictionaries are not properly used anymore, why are conservatives so worried about being called racist, homophobic, xenophobic, or any of the phobes?
What if we just treated them as children?
These things are only as damaging as the person being called them allows them to be, especially if they're founded in no truth at all.
Yeah, I think it's true.
I think there's a lot of truth to that.
We should not worry about being called racist or whatever.
The left doesn't, you know, don't be a jerk.
You know, don't hate people on the basis of their skin.
But knowing that, you don't care what people call you.
It doesn't bother me.
I don't try to prove to Media Matters or whoever that I'm not a racist or whatever.
I just don't care.
I mean, it doesn't interest me.
The fact is, though, it is the worst thing you can be called in American society today, so it does still carry power.
But I do agree we should try to rob them of that power.
One quick question before we go from Jessica Michael.
I'm a single 20-something woman.
I've got both girl and guy friends.
I don't try to be or act like a guy at all, but have always had a lot of guy friends in addition to my girlfriends.
I have sometimes been referred to as one of the guys.
Don't love that.
I never call myself that.
However, I'm still single.
I wonder if being seen as one of the guys is inhibiting my dating life.
If so, what can I do without completely being someone I'm not?
Sincerely, one of those bros is not like the others.
Yes, this will inhibit your dating life.
I'm sorry, maybe you do like hanging out with the boys more than the girls, but if you want to no longer be seen in that way, you need to hang out with the girls a little bit more.
I'm not saying ditch your guy, friends, but you are a girl, and you've got to do girl things with girls, and that will help you do girl things with guys.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
See you Monday.
See you Monday.
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, executive producer Jeremy Boren, our technical director is Austin Stevens, supervising producer Mathis Glover, production manager Pavel Vidovsky, editor and associate producer Danny D'Amico, associate producer Justine Turley, audio mixer Mike Coromina, and hair and makeup by Nika Geneva.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2021.
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