All Episodes
Jan. 24, 2025 - The Michael Knowles Show
50:39
Ep. 1659 - JFK Files, Pardons, & Deportations: Trump's 1st Week EXPLAINED

President Trump officially declassifies the JFK, RFK, and MLK files; rumors swirl about Barack Obama and Jennifer Aniston; and a fake bishop goes on a media tour. Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/4biDlri Ep.1659 - - - DailyWire+: Join the celebration! Use code 47 at https://dailywire.com/subscribe for 47% off your membership today! "Identity Crisis" tells the stories the mainstream media won’t. Stream the full film now, only on DailyWire+: https://bit.ly/3C61qVU Order your Mayflower Cigars here: https://bit.ly/3Qwwxx2 (Must be 21+ to purchase. Exclusions may apply) - - - Today's Sponsors: Done With Debt - Start building the life you deserve! Visit https://donewithdebt.com or call 1 (888) 322-1054 and talk with one of their strategists. It’s FREE! Lumen - Take the next step to improving your health: go to https://lumen.me/KNOWLES to get 20% off your Lumen. Momentous - Ready to start living on purpose? Visit https://livemomentous.com and use code KNOWLES for 20% off your order today. - - - Socials: Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RwKpq6 Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3BqZLXA Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eEmwyg Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3L273Ek

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This is it, your final weekend to get 47% off new DailyWare Plus annual memberships.
Get unlimited access to uncensored ad-free daily shows, groundbreaking docs, movies, series, more.
Use code 47 at dailyware.com slash subscribe.
On the fourth day of President Trump's second term, he pardoned pro-life political prisoners, deported Haitian gangsters, and declassified the murder files of JFK, RFK, and MLK.
If Trump keeps fulfilling campaign promises at this rate, he is not going to have anything to do after about the middle of next week, which is a problem because a Republican congressman is trying to amend the Constitution to give President Trump a third term.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is the Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to the show.
We have Daily Wire's very own Mary Margaret Olehan, who, with the Daily Wire, broke a major story yesterday about President Trump and the pro-life political prisoners.
We will have Mary Margaret on the show from D.C. Now she's got a seat in the White House briefing room.
There's so much more to say.
First, though, go to donewithdebt.com.
Wish you could have jumped into last year's incredible stock market boom.
I get it!
When credit card bills and debt are piling up, investing feels impossible.
But here's some good news.
Done With Debt has your back with a fresh approach to tackling those money headaches.
Their team of negotiators and legal experts go to bat for you, working directly with credit card companies and lenders to slash those bills, wipe out interest charges, and get rid of those pesky late fees and penalties.
They've got a proven track record of putting more money back in people's pockets, money you could use to start building that investment portfolio that you've been dreaming about.
Think about it.
Instead of watching your hard-earned cash disappear into minimum payments, you could finally start growing your wealth.
Bottom line, done with debt helps turn crushing debt into financial freedom.
But some of their strategies are time-sensitive.
So do not wait.
Start building the life you deserve.
Go to donewithdebt.com and talk with one of their strategists.
It's totally free.
I've seen how debt can really be a burden in people's lives.
Go to donewithdebt.com That is donewithdebt.com This was it.
This was the issue that since President Trump's been inaugurated, I said, okay, this is all great stuff.
This is unbelievable.
He's signing all these executive orders.
He's killing DEI. He's letting the January 6th out of prison.
Okay, this is all great.
But when are the pro-life political prisoners, some of whom are elderly women, who all they've ever done is they pray in front of an abortion clinic and ask people not to murder their children.
And they've been rotting in prison because Joe Biden has targeted them.
76 hours.
That's it.
76 hours after he was inaugurated, with everything going on in the world, with all of the inauguration festivities, with all of the pomp and circumstance, all of the important initiatives, a mere 76 hours.
President Trump signs this.
Next, we have a set of pardons for peaceful pro-life protesters who were prosecuted by the Biden administration for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Do you know how many?
I believe it's 23, sir.
23 people were prosecuted.
They should not have been prosecuted.
Many of them are elderly people.
They should not have been prosecuted.
This is a great honor to sign this.
They'll be very happy.
So they're all in prison now?
Some are.
Some are out of custody.
It's ridiculous.
My man.
My man.
This is great stuff.
Further evidence that Trump is the most pro-life president in American history, period.
And you can say in American history because abortion was not a major political issue until Roe v.
Wade.
Until the Supreme Court intervened and decided to rewrite the Constitution, this was not a major issue.
Abortion was not an issue in the 17th or 18th or 19th centuries in America.
Where it was addressed by the law, abortion was illegal.
But beginning in the early 20th century and then finally peaking in the 1970s, abortion became a major political issue.
Since that time, Trump is the president who has shown up to the March for Life.
He's the only Republican president who's shown up to the March for Life while he was president.
He appointed the judges that overruled Roe v.
Wade, and now he has pardoned the pro-life political prisoners.
You know how much I hate to say I told you so?
In this case, I'd love to say I told you so.
Because during the campaign...
President Trump was speaking about abortion in a way that was a little mealy-mouthed, and it was a little vague, and there were some people who said, we can't support him because he's not pro-life.
Now, I understand some people were exerting pressure, and I'm all for exerting pressure.
You know, this is politics.
We've got to flex the power we've got.
But there were some people who said, Michael, how could you?
How could you sell out?
You unprincipled man.
How could you sell the pro-life movement down the river to support the mango Mussolini?
This man is not pro-life!
And what did I say?
I said, it is prudent during a political campaign to adjust your speech, not being dishonest, but to adjust your speech so that you can get elected because the winners go to Washington and the losers go home.
Don't look just at what Trump says.
Look at what he does.
I am confident he will be a pro-life president.
Took him 76 hours to prove me right and to prove the rest of us right.
A magnificent start.
And we are joined now by the woman who broke this story, Mary Margaret Olihan, Daily Wire's own, standing in front of the White House.
The White House, which is, the very look of it is giving me so much more joy these days than it did a week ago.
Mary Margaret, wonderful to have you with us.
So great to be here, Michael.
How did this all go down?
Well, we were excited to report yesterday morning after a couple days of feeling out sources and trying to get a handle on things and figure out if Donald Trump was going to sign these pardons of the pro-lifers.
We were pretty sure he was, but we were waiting for it to happen.
And yesterday we were able to report that, yes, Trump was imminently about to sign these pardons, pardon these pro-lifers, unjustly imprisoned by the Biden administration and the Biden DOJ because they were pro-life and as a response to the overturn of Roe v.
So we broke this a couple hours before it happened, and then sure enough, just like you showed, Donald Trump signed this executive order in the Oval Office.
He said that they were unjustly imprisoned.
This should not have happened, and he specifically pointed out that some of these prisoners were really elderly.
He's talking about, for example, Ava Edel, who's one of the pro-lifers prosecuted by the Biden DOJ. She survived a death camp, Michael, and yet she was...
Targeted by the Biden DOJ for her pro-life activism.
So Ava is just one of a number of pro-lifers who no longer have to fear that they will be targeted.
I spoke with Paul Vaughn last night, one of the fathers who was arrested by the FBI at gunpoint, and he told me it feels really good to be free.
Of course it does.
And I think it's not just Ava.
I think of Joan Bell.
Joan Bell is certainly in her 70s.
You know, they tossed her in prison for the crime of praying at an abortion clinic.
What exactly is the context here?
These people were arrested and convicted for violating the FACE Act, this 1990s era Bill Clinton nonsense law that basically just criminalizes demonstrating at abortion clinics.
You know, all these very tenuous kinds of rules around how you can protest at abortion clinics.
So I'm so happy to see the pardon.
Will there be any legislative movement to maybe repeal the FACE Act?
Well, there's a number of lawmakers, Senator Mike Lee and Congressman Chip Roy, who have both introduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act.
I know there's a lot of conservative groups and activists, including the Heritage Foundation, that are starting to say we should be repealing this legislation because, well, some would say it technically protects pregnancy centers and abortion clinics.
I think I and others and perhaps you would say, look, this has been disproportionately used to target pro-lifers.
Over the past several years, we have seen...
Dozens of pro-lifers imprisoned or targeted by the Biden DOJ using this law, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
And we've only seen maybe three or four pro-abortion activists who vandalized and targeted pregnancy centers prosecuted with the FACE Act.
So it's just disproportionate targeting of these pro-lifers.
You know, Pam Bondi said during her hearings with lawmakers recently that she would apply it equally.
I think some of us are hoping that she wouldn't apply it at all and that it would be repealed.
Exactly.
You say disproportionate, which is true, but I don't even think that encapsulates it.
You look at the Biden administration, this thing was exclusively used against pro-lifers.
Until the very end, there was a little pittance thrown at the pro-lifers.
To avoid a legislative consequence like this, where you have guys like Mike Lee, Chip Roy, saying, you know, this law has been unjust from the beginning.
It has never been applied equally, and we've got to get rid of it.
Really hopeful stuff.
We're getting a great ROI on President Trump already, 76 hours in.
And Mary Margaret, dare I say, we are getting a great ROI on you.
Getting these scoops down there in front of the White House, this is good stuff.
I look forward to many, many more.
I do too, Michael.
Thanks so much for having me.
Great to see you.
Okay, so Trump pardons the pro-lifers.
He then deports the criminals.
There are obviously many, many illegal aliens in the country.
We are told by the Libs that the illegal aliens are sweet, doe-eyed little children.
They're just dreamers who want to stay here and be good, law-abiding citizens.
Well, we have footage from some of these ICE raids.
I don't know.
They look more like nightmares to me.
These don't look like dreamers.
There's so much more to say.
First, though, go to lumen.me slash Knowles.
Are you ready to jumpstart your health in 2025?
I have discovered an incredible tool that gives me real-time insights into my metabolism through something as simple as my breath.
It's called Lumen.
Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach.
All you need to do is breathe into it first thing in the morning.
You will know exactly what's happening with your metabolism, whether you're burning fats or carbs.
So I blow into it, you know, and it says, your metabolism is a Mayflower cigar.
No, it doesn't do that.
It actually can filter that stuff out of my breath.
Lumen creates a personalized nutrition plan just for you.
You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time.
Lumen will give you tips.
To keep you on top of your health game for all those 2025 New Year's resolutions.
Your metabolism is your body's engine powering everything you do.
When you optimize your metabolic health, you can experience improved energy levels, better fitness results, and enhanced sleep quality.
I've personally found that understanding my metabolism can seriously transform my approach to health.
Take the next step to improve your health.
Lumen.me slash Noel.
Super easy.
Great use of technology.
Get 20% off your Lumen.
Lumen.me slash K-N-O-W-L-E-S for 20% off your Lumen.
Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this show.
Great footage.
This from Fox News of just one of the sweet doe-eyed little dreamers, also known as Haitian gangsters, who Tom Holman and Trump's deportation squad are shipping out of the country.
I'm not going back to Haiti.
One of those threats is this illegal alien from Haiti.
ICE says he's a gang member with 17 criminal convictions in recent years.
You feel me?
Yo, Biden forever, bro.
Thank Obama for everything that he did for me, bro.
ICE Boston quickly takes down its next targets, including this illegal alien from Brazil, who has an Interpol Red notice for armed robbery.
This Salvadoran illegal alien charged locally with rape and released by a sanctuary jurisdiction.
And this Dominican illegal alien charged with assault with a deadly weapon and heroin trafficking.
Officers also arrested this Guatemalan MS-13 gang member facing gun charges.
ICE says he was released from local custody just the day before.
Their detainer request was ignored because of sanctuary policies.
This is it.
This is illegal immigration in America, okay?
It's not the doe-eyed little dreamers.
It's not the sweet grannies, the abuela who's making paella, all minding her own business.
This is what illegal immigration really looks like in America.
And we need to make sure that we remind the Democrats every day.
The sweet little doe-eyed kids are not being deported.
These guys are being deported.
This is what the Trump deportation plan looks like.
Okay, so make the Democrats defend these people.
When the Democrats are whining and screaming and crying and refusing to enforce immigration laws in some of these cities, say, okay, well, play the tape.
What about this Haitian gangster?
What about this Guatemalan rapist?
What about these people with Interpol notices?
What about them do you think we should defend?
Make them defend.
They can't defend them.
This is how you do it.
And even if you say, well, look, I favor an overall restriction of immigration, and I actually do think that even the nonviolent illegal aliens should be deported.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, I get it.
I get it.
Sure, I understand the immigration issue from the 30,000-foot view.
But as we are kicking off the enforcement of the law for the first time in years, let's take the low-hanging fruit here, folks.
It's kind of like the abortion issue, actually, speaking to pro-lifers.
The Democrats always want you to fight the abortion issue on the first three hours of pregnancy.
Why would we do that?
Abortion doesn't occur in the first three hours of pregnancy.
And the abortion issue is not clear in the first three hours of pregnancy.
Make the Democrats defend the late-term abortions, in some cases the post-birth abortions, just plain infanticide, that they support.
When John Fetterman...
Votes against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
Make the Democrats defend abortion on those grounds.
It's so much clearer for the public.
Same here.
You want Haitian gangsters in your neighborhood?
No, you don't?
Okay, then I guess you support Trump.
Bill de Blasio, former mayor of New York, I think he briefly ran for president as a Democrat.
Bill de Blasio says these mass deportations are downright un-American.
I think what's happened is the frustration that people felt about their economic reality or the frustration they felt about the disorder at the border, which was real, that was honest frustration, that's going to be quickly replaced, I believe, by people saying, wait a minute, we never signed up for actual mass deportation and something that looks like a police state.
That's just not American.
Americans have a very strong libertarian streak, left, right, center.
Okay, it's just not American.
Actual mass deportation is just not American.
Now, you might argue that mass deportation is wrong.
That's what Democrats are arguing.
And there are even some libertarians and right-wingers who argue that mass deportations are wrong.
The one thing you can't argue is that mass deportation is un-American.
I don't know if you guys are history buffs or not.
Have you ever heard of the Trail of Tears?
I know a lot of people don't defend the Trail of Tears.
That was a mass deportation.
That was in, what, 1830?
Have you ever heard of Operation Wetback, when we actually deported a ton of Mexicans, like 100,000 or more Mexicans?
You might not defend Operation Wetback, in part because of the name, because it's an offensive word.
1954. That was a mass deportation.
How about the Palmer Raids of all the communists, 1919, 1920?
Because a lot of the communists were foreigners who were in America, deported lots and lots of commoners.
Communists, rather.
How about the Japanese?
We always talk about Japanese internment during World War II. You know, we also deported a lot of Japanese.
Again, you might say, well, that was all really terrible.
Okay, but it's American, though.
We sure did.
I'm noticing a trend here, huh?
How about the Haitians and the Cubans that we deported after the Marielle Boatlift in 1980?
That was a mass deportation.
You say, well, that's wrong.
It's anti-American.
Again, maybe you don't like it.
Maybe you can make an argument that some of these things were unjust, but the one thing you can't say is that it's un-American or anti-American.
Mass deportation is as American as apple pie, okay?
We've been doing it for a very, very long time.
And frankly, if you want to argue that these things...
I would encourage you to look into the details of them, to put yourself in the historical positions of the people making decisions at that time, and I wonder if you wouldn't make the same decision.
In fact, I know the Democrats don't seriously believe that lots of these decisions were unjust.
I just look at Joe Biden.
You know, the Japanese...
All internment and deportations occurred on FDR's watch.
It was an FDR policy.
And so now the Libs rend their garments and gnash their teats, and they say this was the worst thing ever, and they compare it to Hitler's concentration camps.
And yet, Joe Biden had a big portrait of FDR hanging above his fireplace in the Oval Office.
FDR is still considered one of the great Democrat presidents.
So anyway, I don't want to hear it from the Libs.
It's not American.
What are you talking about?
These foreign nationals in our country are not American.
The Haitian gang members and the Ecuadorian rapists and those guys are not American.
That's why they got to go, because they're harming Americans.
And the hits just keep on coming.
President Trump also announced yesterday that he has officially declassified the murder files, the FBI murder files, surrounding JFK, his brother RFK, and no relation MLK. Lastly,
sir, we have an executive order ordering the declassification of files relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That's a big one, huh?
A lot of people are waiting for this for a long, for years, for decades.
And everything will be revealed.
Okay.
Give that to RFK Jr. Sir?
Give that to...
Man, Trump is such a good showman.
He hands the pen that he signed the declassification with and says, hand that to RFK Jr. We're going to reveal what really happened to his father.
Because RFK Jr. has stated over the years that he does not believe the official story.
On the murder of his father, Robert Kennedy, or his uncle, Jack Kennedy.
Yeah, give that to Bobby.
Because RFK Jr., what a bizarre time we're living in.
RFK Jr., the Democrat son of the Democrat presidential candidate and attorney general, and the Democrat nephew of the Democrat president, is now working for Donald Trump, the Republican president, the most consequential Republican president of our lifetimes, perhaps.
Yeah, give that to RFK Jr. This order means that officials will have 15 days to, quote, present a plan to the president for the full and complete release of records on the JFK assassination, 45 days to do so for the RFK and MLK murder records.
There's nothing radical about this.
As I've said with so much of what President Trump has done, this is really mainstream, middle-of-the-road moderate stuff.
But the culture's moved so far to the left.
The culture's been so on the fringe that it seems kind of extreme.
But the release of the JFK assassination files has been the official policy of the United States since 1992. And the government has just ignored the law, has just never done it.
1992. I'll be precise.
October 26, 1992. Congress passes the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act.
It's signed into law by the President.
It says that within 25 years, last date possible, October 26, 2017, these records must be publicly disclosed.
Now, 2017, by my count, is about seven, eight years ago, and they weren't disclosed.
Well, there were some exceptions here.
They didn't have to be disclosed if the president certified that, one, continued postmoment is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations.
And two, the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
Okay, hold on.
Well, that means that you have basically any reason to ignore this law.
So there are all sorts of theories.
Trump says all will be revealed.
There are so many theories.
On the JFK assassination.
There's one theory which we were told, which is that it was a lone gunman.
And then the lone gunman was murdered by another lone gunman.
Lee Harvey Oswald gets killed by Jack Ruby.
But there are other theories.
Some theories that it's the deep state, a shadow government within a government.
Some say it's the CIA. Some say the military-industrial complex.
Some say it was Cuba or the Soviet Union.
Or Israel?
Or LBJ? Or George Bush?
Or the Federal Reserve?
Or mobsters?
Or I don't know.
And these are kind of mutually exclusive theories, a lot of them.
So anyway, it seems that all will be revealed.
This is a momentous occasion.
There's so much more to say.
First, though, go to livemomentous.com.
Use code NOLLS. Success is not built on resolutions.
Those are made to break.
It is built on taking action and building unstoppable momentum when it comes to optimizing your health span, living better and longer.
Certain things are non-negotiable.
Quality sits at the top of that list, and in the world of performance-focused supplements, Momentus stands alone.
Their commitment to NSF certification means every batch undergoes rigorous testing for heavy metals, harmful additives, and label accuracy.
It's why they've earned the trust of all 32 NFL teams and leading collegiate sports dietitians nationwide.
all the professional football teams, and me, your beloved podcast host.
While other brands chase trends and flood the market with endless options, Momentus takes a different approach.
They rely on research and expert guidance to focus on what truly matters, mastering the fundamentals with unwavering consistency, tailoring supplementation to your specific goals.
Protein and creatine form the cornerstone of this.
Momentus sources CreaPure, the highest grade creatine monohydrate available, an essential supplement for men and women seeking peak physical and cognitive performance.
If you want to be an Adonis like me, you know, you start thinking about that peak performance.
Ready to start living on purpose?
Go to livemomentus.com.
Use code Knowles for 20% off your order today.
My favorite comment yesterday is from Jesus or destruction.
It says, it needs to be more than just an executive order.
It needs to be codified into law.
Get on it, Congress.
So I don't even know what in particular that comment is referring to.
There have been so many executive orders.
But I broadly agree with the concept here, which is...
Trump's doing his part.
He's signing all these EOs.
He's fixing things now.
DEI in the government.
Taking down the pride flags from the embassies.
Whatever.
Declassifying files.
I guess that is already a law.
The government's just ignored it.
The release of political prisoners related to the FACE Act.
Okay, what about the FACE Act?
What about the legislative teeth that we could give these executive orders?
I agree.
Congress is doing a great job to begin with here.
Getting the Republicans together in Congress is like herding cats, but we need the Congress to get together and back up and codify into law what Trump is doing in executive orders.
Now, one member of Congress, my member of Congress, actually my representative and my friend Andy Ogles, is doing just that.
In fact, he's going even further than many of the Republicans were betting on.
Andy Ogles has just introduced legislation.
That would give President Trump a third term.
Cue the screaming, the shrieks, the calls of dictatorship.
What would this do?
Andy's resolution would amend the 22nd Amendment, which, since the middle of the 20th century, has limited the president to two terms.
It amends the 22nd to say, no person should be elected to the office of president more than three times.
Not more than two times, more than three times.
Nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms.
So hold on.
So what this does is it says you can serve three terms maximum, but only if you don't serve two consecutive terms first.
Which means that this amendment would not permit Obama to seek a third term, but would permit President Trump to seek a third term.
And before, I know, I can already hear it.
Well, the libs are screeching, but I can already hear the conservatives.
Some conservatives are going to say, this is outrageous.
This is an overreach.
This is compromising our liberty and our constitutional government.
This is hypocritical.
This is contrary to our principles.
This is undoing the revolution of the great St. Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan wanted this.
Ronald Reagan actually was more ambitious.
Ronald Reagan wanted to repeal the whole 22nd Amendment.
Ronald Reagan thought that the two-term limit...
He was outrageous, was un-American, was imprudent.
He wanted presidents to be able to run for a third term, a fourth term, a fifth term.
Okay, that's your St. Ronald Reagan.
That's Mr. Conservative principles.
So much for Andy overreaching, overstepping the conservative bounds.
But what about the Libs?
The Libs say, this is dictatorship, this is monarchy, this is terrible.
Hold on.
As I mentioned earlier, probably the most prominent And one of the most beloved Democrat presidents ever, certainly of the 20th century, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
How many terms did he serve?
He served for a little over 12 years.
He was elected to four terms.
He was the American monarch.
Libs still love him.
Joe Biden, every day of his presidency stared at his giant portrait.
A portrait that was larger than his portrait of Washington to the left, of Lincoln to the left, of Hamilton to the right, and of my, I don't have my glasses on, but it looks like Jefferson to the right.
Much bigger than all those guys was his portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Franklin Roosevelt, the only thing he would have opposed about Andy's resolution is that it placed too much of a limit on the power of the president.
Is Andy's resolution going to go anywhere?
It'll be tough.
I wouldn't gamble the House that this will actually amend the 22nd Amendment.
But don't tell me that this is totally contrary to the great principles of Ronald Reagan and the conservative movement.
It's not.
Ronald Reagan campaigned at the end of his term in office and after he left office to repeal the 22nd.
Don't tell me it's contrary to the beliefs of the Democrats, the party of Franklin Roosevelt.
Don't tell me that.
You can tell me you don't like the plan.
Don't tell me it's un-American.
Don't tell me it's anti-conservative, anti-liberal.
It's none of those things.
Now, speaking of Barack Obama, there's a rumor going around.
I have to get to it.
I have to get to it.
I'm sorry.
Are Barack Obama and Jennifer Aniston dating?
I don't gossip monger.
I really don't.
I don't like that.
Gossip's a sin.
So I only mention the story in order not to gossip.
There's all this gossip going around.
Barack and Michelle are on the ropes.
She didn't go to Carter's funeral.
She didn't go to Trump's inauguration.
Barack apparently knows Jennifer Aniston.
I don't know.
I don't really see any evidence of that.
So all these gossip mongers here are suggesting Obama is going to be divorced and he's dating Rachel Green from Friends.
I bring it all up.
They're public figures and I bring it up because I don't buy it.
I don't buy it.
Barack Obama's a Democrat, and the Democrats get a little loose with the rules, and they get a little weird with the sex stuff, so I guess it's not totally impossible.
Maybe I'll be eating my words, but I don't buy it.
I don't think Barack Obama is the sort of guy who gets divorced.
I don't think a politician as calculating as Barack Obama, the former two-term president, At least until a few months ago, the de facto leader of the Democrat Party, I don't think he just gets divorced because his heart's not in it anymore, and the heart wants what the heart wants, and I just want to be happy, and I just totally fell for someone.
I think actually the reason these rumors are going around is because there are many people who cannot believe that there are people like Barack Obama.
Who, for all of their flaws, for all of their faults and foibles and sins, are disciplined and place something beyond their personal giddiness at any particular moment or their emotional fulfillment or whatever.
The Clintons didn't get divorced.
You think the Obamas are going to get divorced?
I don't know.
The reason I'm talking about this story really has nothing to do with these individuals.
Gossip monger about the Obamas.
It's to make a point about marriage and about discipline and about public life.
It would be insane for the Obamas to get divorced, even if they don't like each other anymore.
And again, there's no evidence that they don't like each other anymore.
But even if they didn't, it would be completely insane.
For what?
They're not teenagers.
They're not undisciplined people who are pulled away by their passions.
I don't like the Obamas, but they actually, even the Clintons for this matter, and I certainly don't like the Clintons, there is something, however, to admire in their public discipline, in their respect for institutions, in their steadiness, in their extreme political ambition.
Bill lacked some discipline in certain areas, but they would not get divorced.
They just wouldn't do it.
They made a vow to God, even if they don't believe in God.
They made a promise to the public, even if they would lie to the public.
They will not descend into such obvious selfishness.
They care about their reputations too much.
They care about their public standing too much.
I kind of admire it.
So I don't know.
I could be eating my words.
If I find out that...
Barack Obama is going to have a second marriage to Rachel from Friends.
I'll be eating my words.
I just do not buy it.
Now, speaking of ladies on TV, that bishopress, that silly priestess lady who hectored Donald Trump during the National Prayer Service that I happen to be attending, she has gone on a media tour now.
She just went on The View to explain her preposterous rant.
Let me ask you this.
You seem to have more fearlessness than anyone in Congress right now, ma'am.
What made you decide to use that opportunity for this message, or did you have any apprehension about it?
Thank you, first of all, for allowing me to be with you today.
My responsibility that morning, yesterday morning, was to reflect, to pray with the nation for unity.
And as I was pondering what...
What are the foundations of unity?
I wanted to emphasize respecting the honor and dignity of every human being, basic honesty and humility.
And then I also realized that unity requires a certain degree of mercy, mercy and compassion and understanding.
Yeah, unity requires mercy and compassion and understanding.
And that is why I straw-manned the President of the United States' views, the views apparently of the majority of Americans, And that's why I took the opportunity at the National Prayer Service to give a diatribe about the supposed goodness of castrating little children and allowing Haitian gangsters and rapists to run roughshod over our citizens.
Because I just love unity, and I'm just so caring, you know?
Okay.
I don't think that's what unity is.
I think she undermined her own sermon.
I think she's confused about a lot of things.
For instance, she thinks she's a bishop, which is not possible.
I think that she was actually dishonest.
She says we have to be honest.
I think she was dishonest.
Maybe she just doesn't know the truth.
I think she has a rather tenuous relationship with the truth.
She was not humble.
She was quite prideful.
And she certainly did not achieve unity.
The question is how to achieve unity.
Do we achieve unity by pretending differences don't exist and singing Kumbaya?
That's what some people say.
Do we achieve unity by pushing radical leftism as she was doing?
I don't think that works.
I think we achieve unity by accepting reality.
That's what I think.
These people want to change reality.
They want to pretend that a little boy is a little girl and that a Guatemalan rapist is actually an American citizen.
A legal American citizen.
No, I don't think denying reality is going to achieve unity.
But the left thinks that.
I think if we all just agree to pretend, then we can be unified.
That's not going to work.
The way you have unity is by recognizing reality and encouraging people to accept reality.
Because reality is objective.
It's objectively true.
It's outside of our own subjective preferences and bizarre fantasies.
Reality can be agreed upon.
Subjective fantasies can't be agreed upon.
They're constantly changing.
They're not moored to anything real, anything solid.
Reality is going to do that for you.
Now, if you accept reality, you still might not be unified.
You still might fight all the time.
But at least you have a chance at unity.
With this lady's prescription, there's no chance whatsoever.
It is the final weekend.
You had 47% off your new Daily Wire Plus annual membership.
47% because, of course, we're celebrating Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States.
Our celebration will continue, but the deal ends Sunday.
All you need to do is head over to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
Use code 47. You'll lock in 47% off an entire year of Daily Wire+.
Every dollar you spend goes directly back into the fight to bring you the facts and a reshaped culture.
Go to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
Use code 47 at checkout.
Let's build the future together.
Finally, finally, we've arrived at my favorite time of the week, when I get to hear from you in the mailbag.
This mailbag is brought to you by Pure Talk.
Get your free Samsung Galaxy by visiting puretalk.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S today.
Hi, Michael.
This is Becca Howell.
I'm hoping you can help me.
I have an atheist friend who has gone from being completely able-bodied to being in a wheelchair with chronic regional pain syndrome in a matter of months.
As someone who suffers from chronic pain, I have done my best to encourage her that she will find her quote, new normal.
That it just takes time.
Despite this, she is severely depressed and is contemplating ending her life in the future.
I feel like a failure.
What advice would you tell my friend from a secular point of view to encourage her to continue living?
And what can you say to me because I feel like a failure if I can't convince her there's still life worth living, even if it's from a wheelchair.
Thanks and God bless.
Okay, really sorry to hear that about your friend and what you're going through as well.
That's really hard.
You've asked me to make a reasoned argument that will convince your friend.
Now, of course, I don't know that that is going to be the first way to reach someone.
You know, it's kind of like C.S. Lewis writes, problem of pain and a grief observed.
And they're both about the problem of evil and suffering.
But one of them is written on a sunny day, purely rational.
The other is written while C.S. Lewis is going through this really awful experience.
And when you're really going through it, the reasoned arguments don't always penetrate.
But here's the reasoned argument from, let's say, a natural standpoint, not a religious or supernatural standpoint.
From the natural standpoint, the first principle of practical reason, the first precept of the natural law, Is that good is to be done, good is to be pursued, and evil is to be avoided.
Because at the most basic level, we recognize that beings pursue their own good.
Okay, so we can deduce this principle, which is the first principle of practical reason, that good is to be pursued and evil is to be avoided.
From that, we can ask, what is one's own good?
Killing oneself would seem on its face to be contrary to one's own good.
But you might say, well, I'm depressed, or I'm in pain, so therefore maybe it's for my own good that I end my life.
Again, I don't think that really makes it up to muster, because by killing yourself, you've committed the ultimate evil against yourself.
But even furthermore, you have engaged in further evils.
You have divided the self against the self.
But a human being is a unified, integral whole.
So by making yourself...
The persecutor of yourself, by making yourself the victim of yourself, you have divided the human person.
That would be contrary to the good.
You would be engaging in an act of cowardice.
You would not be living up to the virtue of courage because you would be throwing in the towel.
You would be refusing to face hardship head-on and with dignity and with courage.
So that would be contrary to the good as well.
It is contrary to justice.
You can reason from the first principle of practical reason, from the first precept of the natural law, all the way to why you shouldn't kill yourself.
And there's no real argument against it.
However, I don't know how that's going to work because your friend is really upset and depressed and despairing and is in constant pain.
So what I would also say is just, hey, you're my friend and I love you and it would hurt me.
This also ties into a reasonable argument, which is that man is the political animal.
So when you kill yourself, you are absconding from your social duties.
We have duties one to another, to our families, to our communities.
And so when you kill yourself, you are depriving the community of your service.
You're pulling something away from the community.
So you could say that in a really personal way.
Just say, like, you're my friend and I love you, and it would really pain me if you did that.
You know, that's the more personal touch that might reach, but the reasonable arguments are there.
There's every argument for your friend to continue living and no argument for your friend to end her life.
Next one.
Mr. Knowles, today you are cancelled for your uninformed and strongly held belief that women shouldn't be in the fire service, which ultimately just works out to, I think it's yucky.
The reality is that more than 90% of what they do is medical, and women provide better medical care than men.
Of the 10% that are fire calls, only 1-3% of those are fires of note.
And of those 1-3%, only about 1% requires a rescue.
And if you shoulder someone and stand up in a structure fire, you die, because that's where the heat is.
Instead, a team of people is sent in to drag them out on their hands and knees.
That is the reality of the situation.
So firefighting is a team sport and women play a critical role.
Just ask my wife.
She's been doing it for 34 years.
Well, your wife sounds like a lovely lady, but I'm afraid your argument does not persuade me.
Because you say, look, the vast majority of calls that members of the firefighting world face are really not fire calls.
There are emergency calls.
You know, someone trips and falls at home and the firemen come because they can provide emergency services.
Okay, that's a good argument for women to be EMTs.
That's a good argument for women to be nurses and first responders who work with firemen but don't actually deal with the fires.
But that's not a good argument for women to be firemen.
My claim was not that women should have no association with the fire department or never ride in a fire truck.
My claim was women shouldn't be firemen.
That's crazy.
So yeah, they can be nurses and first responders.
I don't know that they always provide better medical care than men, but in some cases they do.
So yeah, in that case, that's great.
Now you say, when most of the fire calls don't involve pulling people out of the buildings, okay, I guess women can hold a hose, but men are better at holding hoses because hoses are kind of heavy, and men are physically stronger than women.
You say, well, usually you don't have to shoulder someone to drag them out of a building.
We're to haul them out of a building because that can actually hurt the person.
So really what you do is just drag the people out in a team.
Okay, that's true.
But men will do a better job dragging the people out than the women will.
Because men are physically stronger than women.
And then you say that my argument basically just comes down to sending women into burning buildings is yucky.
Now, my argument doesn't just come down to that.
My argument really comes down to men are physically stronger than women on one side.
But it does also involve a little bit of it's yucky to send women into burning buildings.
Because I just don't think we should be sending women into danger, into physical danger.
That's true.
But I think that's because I think there's a difference between men and women.
And I think that if a society...
That recognizes that the real dichotomy in man comes down to our sexual nature.
If we really think there's a difference between men and women, if we're not going to be trans or whatever, then we need to live that out.
We need to actually find distinctions between men and women in public life.
Or we can say, no, it's just about how strong you are or this or that or the other thing.
Okay, but then you are accepting the logic of transgenderism.
You're accepting the logic of...
Same-sex marriage and the logic of transgenderism and the logic of all of it because you're saying basically there's no real difference between men and women.
There's no knock on your wife.
I'm sure she does a lovely job for the vast majority of what people who are employed by the fire department do.
But when it comes down to being a fireman, when it comes down to being a man, you know, women are different.
Next one.
Hi, Michael.
In the days leading up to Advent, I spent some time in New York City.
There was a stand selling Make America Great Again hats for just $10, so excitingly, I bought one and put it on.
I did use discernment knowing that New York City has a lot of crazy people and I'm just 22 years old, but since I was with my husband, I reminded myself that if we let the deranged people of leftist society dictate what we say and do and wear, then they win.
Censorship wins.
However, when my husband and I sat down at a diner for lunch, a crazy lady got in my I wasn't looking to be a martyr.
I was just really excited about my hat and the fact that Trump won.
That reality wins.
You're so right about that.
I don't have the same strength as Hulk Hogan to defend myself.
I was so heartwarmed by the amount of people that came up to my husband and I throughout our day, literally stopping their cars to just say, hey, thanks for wearing that hat.
Like, hooray, we are patriots.
But I'm wondering, was this a stupid or unsafe thing to do in New York City?
No, obviously it was not because you were not physically assaulted or murdered or something like that.
And the worst you had was that lady come up and scream at you.
I have to tell you, too, it's really quite...
Charming and delightful and unexpected to hear someone with this bubbly, well-formed, very serious and articulate voice say the words C-U-N-T, but still in a kind of bubbly way.
And she called me this and also said I voted for a rapist.
But so it sounds like you came out of the whole experience perfectly fine.
Part of the prudence there was you were with your husband who could intervene.
If Hulk Hogan did come up to you and try to hit you or something like that, Hulk Hogan actually would not do that because he's a big Trump supporter, and I actually ran into him in D.C. twice.
However, the other good that comes out of you wearing your MAGA hat in relatively reasonable circumstances is it reminds us all there are no liberals.
This has been my wife's thesis for some time now, and I've come around to it.
There are no liberals.
She said, Mac, is anyone really liberal?
Because everyone I talk to is like, hush, hush, you know, I actually voted for Trump or whatever.
But then the majority of Americans voted for Trump.
I don't know.
If you just read the media, you would think that you were the only Trump supporter in the world.
And the vast majority of people are big libs who want to train the kids.
But no.
Even in New York City, people are coming up to you like, hey, yeah, you bet.
I'm on it, baby.
I'm on the team.
You know it.
So I like that.
When you just state your views publicly.
It can also give people courage to do the same thing.
Next one.
Hi, Michael.
I meant to send a question in sooner, but I had some trouble figuring out how to do it.
In episode 1645, when you were talking about the Muslim rape scandal, there was a part of the episode where you said England needs migrants because birth rates are declining, and obviously similar things are happening throughout the West.
I was just curious your thoughts on what led to this.
Is it because people have become more secular and are moving away from God?
Or is it feminism, MGTOW?
Why are all these Western nations choosing not to have children and then importing immigrants who don't care about their country and destroy it from within?
Thanks.
Good question.
The answer is yes.
For those who don't know, MGTOW is men going their own way, which is, you say, is it feminism?
Is it MGTOW? And men going their own way is just the...
It's just the male version of feminism, but they share basically the exact same premises.
And then you ask before that, is it people falling away from religion?
Certainly, but you wouldn't have feminism or MGTOW if you didn't already have people falling away from religion.
And then just at a really practical level that no one wants to talk about, it's because of contraception.
That's why the birth rates have fallen.
But we have contraception.
Because people have fallen away from religion.
God says, be fruitful and multiply.
In the scripture, we read about the sin of Onan, spilling one's seed.
In traditional Christianity, in orthodox Christianity, you see a call to be fertile, to be open to life.
You see this even in classical philosophy.
Our sexual nature is for procreation.
So if you use contraception, you're undermining the telos, the purpose of our sexual nature.
So all of that happens in the middle of the 20th century, and then the birth rates start to plummet.
But even that, people wouldn't so readily use contraception if they hadn't already...
Weakened in their religion, and our societies wouldn't tolerate such rampant contraception as some kind of right or something, as the Supreme Court invented in the 1960s and 70s in the Griswold decision and the Eisenstadt decision.
Which first found that married couples have a constitutional right to use condoms, and then later found, no, actually, everyone has a right to use condoms.
I don't know.
I guess the invisible ink in the Constitution finally appeared to the justices when they discovered these supposed rights written by our framers.
However, that's why.
You know, if people just, like, stopped using contraception all the time...
And if people just got married a little bit earlier, we would have a lot of kids.
We wouldn't have a birth rate problem, and we wouldn't have politicians who can scam us by flooding the country with all sorts of migrants.
But all of that ultimately would have to come back to a core belief.
It would have to come down to your first principles.
It would have to come down to your religion, the bedrock of all of your thought.
So there's a long way to go.
Today is Fake Headline Friday.
We have more written mailbag to get to.
This game that you need to help me with.
The rest of the show continues now.
Do not miss it.
Become a member.
Export Selection