Ep. 1808 - Of Course, We Should Disarm Transvestites
President Trump may take guns from trans-identifying people, Florida ends vaccine mandates, and Gold hits $3,500.
Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/4biDlri
Ep.1808
- - -
DailyWire+:
Order Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics) right now at https://bit.ly/4lVaMEA
The Isabel Brown Show, premieres September 8th. Watch at https://dailywire.com
GET THE ALL-NEW YES OR NO EXPANSION PACK TODAY: https://bit.ly/41gsZ8Q
- - -
Today's Sponsors:
Candle Club - Visit https://thecandleclub.com/knowles to see the Michael Knowles collection
Helix Sleep - Go to https://helixsleep.com/knowles for an exclusive discount.
PreBorn! - Get your free copy of Heartbeat of Prayer today and help save babies from abortion at https://preborn.com/michael
- - -
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
- - -
Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
These are questions that take cultures thousands of years to answer.
During Answer the Call, I take questions from people just like you about their problems, opportunities, challenges, or when they simply need advice.
How do I balance all of this grief, responsibility?
How do you repair this kind of damage?
My daughter, Michaela, guides the conversations as we hopefully help people navigate their lives.
Everyone has their own destiny.
Everyone.
The Trump administration is threatening to disarm the transgenders, and somehow it is the right wingers who are upset about it.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
The Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to this show.
Will we speak to our dead relatives via artificial intelligence in five years?
AI necromancy, we'll get to that in one moment.
First, though, it is an incredible time for basic white girls.
Taylor Swift just got engaged.
Starbucks PSL is once again on the menu.
And my PSL candle is back, baby.
That's right.
Let me just.
Oh, it makes the end of summer go down so much smoother, so much easier.
Because this is my season now, baby.
You heard me.
Go to the candleclub.com slash knowles, K-O-W-L-E-S.
Get my delectable pumpkin spice latte candle.
Indulge in the early enjoyment of autumn with the rest of us, basic white gals.
You know what I'm saying?
It's time for that little autumnal treat.
Well, I need to get a better lighter.
There we go.
Okay, there we go.
Now my studio will just will smell, will smell like I feel.
Like a PSL.
Go to the, you gotta put the the first, candleclub.com.
Slash Knowles.
President Trump is threatening to disarm, to take guns away from the trans-identifying people.
And it is everybody is a little bit upset with him, but it is especially the right wingers who are upset about this.
This is one of those weird issues that crosses the aisle because the right obviously is skeptical of uh the whole of the entire transgender ideology.
So anything that diminishes the transgender ideology, the right is for, but the right loves guns.
And the left loves weird sex stuff, is totally in favor of any weird sex stuff you can possibly think of.
Any way you can possibly contort your body to do something unnatural and deviant.
Therefore, except they hate guns.
So now we're kind of caught in the middle.
Seems to me pretty obvious that a guy who thinks that he's a woman, a guy whose grasp of reality is so tenuous, so loose that he doesn't know what his sex is, probably should not have a firearm.
Now, the rejoinder to this, and I think it is a legitimate rejoinder is this is the slippery slope.
The rejoinder is if you support your second amendment right, which the libs have been going after forever, then you need to oppose any and all regulations that could in any way possibly take a single gun out of the hand of any American because it's always a farce, it's always a ruse, it's a way to take the guns away from the normal people.
I get it.
However, just think about this in principle.
When people say, look, shall not be infringed, as clear as day, you can't take the guns away.
We already agree in principle that there are people who are not sufficiently in command of their reason to have a gun.
Should a baby be allowed to go buy a gun?
Should a baby, should a baby, listen, I'm a lifetime member of the NRA, I have guns.
I should a baby be allowed to go buy a gun?
No.
Should a severely retarded person be allowed to go buy a gun?
Probably not.
Should your grandfather with advanced dementia who doesn't know what day it is, be able to go buy a gun.
Would that be would that be good for him?
Would that do no?
No.
I think we would all admit no.
Transgenderism is a severe mental illness.
It is, it's not, as some of the slippery slope warriors are going to say, it's not akin to a soldier coming back from war with PTSD.
That's that's bad enough in itself.
But PTSD is not the same as not knowing what sex you are.
Okay, some ADHD, uh anxiety, even a touch of depression, things that that are psychological diagnoses, is different in kind from the severe mental illness that that says that your perception is so screwed up you don't know what your sex is.
That is real deep in the heart of man.
And I don't think anyone on the right would disagree with that.
I hope not.
That is like, you know, not every horror movie ever, but like all these serial killers, you know, Buffalo Bill, Psycho, all this.
What is the what is the emblematic mental illness that that uh the those movies are grounded in?
That those movies which are based on real cases, which are based on real people are grounded in.
The trans identity, the fact that you don't know even what sex you are.
There are all these other issues that that attend to that.
It's uh you're you're not going to meet someone who thinks he's the opposite sex, who doesn't have a cascade of other mental mental illnesses and uh psychological problems that go along with that.
Okay.
So that's just the normative argument.
Should we, should they, should we do this, should we do that?
The even stronger argument, I think, is President Trump's DOJ could today tell transvestites or not even not even transvestates, not even cross-dressers and cap racingers.
I'm talking like guys who think they're the opposite sex.
The DOJ today could say you can't own guns, and they would not have to pass a single additional law.
Because the federal law already today says that you can be deprived of your Second Amendment rights, or you, your second amendment rights can be circumscribed if you are mentally defective.
People who think they're the opposite sex are mentally defective.
Thinking you're the opposite sex is prima fascia evidence that you are mentally defective and severely so.
I don't mean to be too harsh to people who are a little bit weird or anything, but clarity is charity, and that's the truth.
18 U.S. Code, Section 922, G4 says that uh we the government can prohibit possession of firearms for anyone who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution.
That's or, by the way, because sometimes libertarians will respond and say, well, if they're so mentally defective, they should just be committed to an institution.
First of all, no one really believes that.
If you have a little brother who's severely mentally retarded, we don't think that it should be a matter of law that you send him to an insane asylum.
Granny has a touch of dementia.
You don't, you don't think that it should be a matter of federal law that you have to ship her off to some institution.
It's okay to have have people in society and care for them.
And but you you have to circumscribe their rights in as much as they are not capable of exercising those rights, in as much as their intellect and will are damaged or defective.
This would not require passing any new gun control laws.
I'm totally opposed to all new gun control laws, and and have been, am now, remain so into the future.
What this would do, what Trump is doing, is simply acknowledging reality.
That's what this is about.
This isn't about changing the gun laws in any way.
This is about acknowledging reality, which is why I'm so gung-ho for it.
Because it would be establishing as a matter of federal law that transgenderism is a mental illness, a severe mental illness, and if you have it, you're mentally defective.
And a lot of our problems in recent years have stemmed from or been associated with our refusal to acknowledge that fact.
But Michael, if we do this now, if we acknowledge transgenderism as a mental illness, why, by golly, when the Democrats come into power, they might acknowledge, I don't know, Christianity is a mental illness.
Yeah, I take your talking points back to 2012.
I'm sick of them.
I am not afraid of exercising political power for the good today when the people have given us power because of some hypothetical evil that the Democrats might do tomorrow that they almost certainly will do whether we want whether we act today or not.
Aren't we done with this?
This notion that we can never exercise power because of what the Democrats hypothetically might do in the future, even though the Democrats have already been wielding power unjustly and capriciously against us for decades.
Enough of that, man.
That's loser mentality.
I am not into that.
But it does get down to a fundamental debate over what kind of country we are, how we interact with the government, and where we get our rights, which coincidentally came up in the Senate yesterday when Tim Kane, the man who was almost one heartbeat away from becoming the second woman president of the United States, Tim Kane, who, since his doomed run for vice president, has become more and more like the Joker every single day.
You look at him, he just looks like Jack Nicholson as the Joker.
Tim Kane took to the Senate floor, bizarrely, to mock the notion of natural rights on which our entire country is based.
We'll get to that in one second.
First, I want to tell you about Helix Sleep.
Go to Helix Sleep.com slash Knowles.
You know that sometimes I have sleep struggles.
And you know when that is?
It's when I'm on the road and away from home and away from my Helix mattress.
Helix comes in and improves your nights and keeps you sleeping well all night long so that you wake up each morning ready to be your best self.
What makes Helix different is they don't just sell you a random mattress.
They actually match you with the perfect one for your body and sleep style.
Whether you're a side sleeper, backsleeper, or somewhere in between, they've got you covered.
All you have to do is take their sleep quiz and find your ideal match.
And for those of you who sleep hot, the temperature regulation is a game changer.
I absolutely adore helix.
You know, I'm such a good father.
I'm so magnanimous that I have gotten one, not only for my eldest son, but also for my middle son.
It's just it's it's wonderful.
If you love your children, if you love yourself and your spouse, get one, get one now.
Get three.
Right now is the perfect time to upgrade your sleep because Helix is offering a fantastic sale.
Go to Helix Sleep.com slash Knowles, get 27% off site wide.
That's Helix Sleep.com slash Knowles, 27% off site wide.
Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you Helix Sleep.com slash Knowles.
Tim Kane, embracing his role as an agent of chaos and movie villain, takes to the floor of the U.S. Senate to mock the ideological foundation of the entire United States.
The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the creator.
That's what the Iranian government believes.
It's a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Baha'is, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities.
And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their creator.
So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.
It's extremely, extremely troubling.
Man, if he thinks that statement is bad, just wait until he reads um Thomas Jefferson.
Or really any of the founding fathers and framers of the Constitution or the thinkers from which they got their ideas, or the long history of uh Christendom.
You know, he says the Iranian regime targets Baha'i and Jews and Christians and this and that.
So that's true.
In the American regime, we only target Christians.
You're I guess is that an advantage?
The American liberal regime only targets Christians and imprisons pro-life grannies and nuns.
But the Iranian regime, those theocrats, because the, you know, the Iranians, they believe in God too.
That's scary.
We cannot, this is a radical notion.
It's downright Muslim to say that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
It the ignorance is astounding.
His utter uh unfamiliarity with the philosophical basis of the United States is jaw dropping, even though we should come to believe it in recent years because the liberals and the Democrats have made themselves out, often explicitly to be anti-American.
But you'd think to be anti-American, you would at least be familiar with what you're opposing.
Tim Kane, not even familiar with that.
This is the constant liberal attack on any non-liberal government.
The constant attack is you're basing your judgments of morality and rights on a religious basis.
Why that will lead inevitably to arbitrary rule, to tyranny, to oppression.
It's you can't ground it in anything rational.
This is, you have your morality, I have my morality.
We can't know anything about morality.
This is very scary.
And that's why Tim Kane's alternative is to ground our rights in positive law.
And he thinks that's going to solve the question.
Not in natural law, certainly, not in a notion of our creator giving us rights, but in just the positive law, that really our rights just come from you and I electing our representatives, and then they vote on bills and they give us rights or they take our rights away, and that's that.
But you see the contradiction there.
It's in the word rights.
The very word rights refers to a conception of justice.
It corresponds with uh notions of right and wrong, uh, it which then point to an objective moral order.
It speaks to uh justice, people getting what they deserve.
It speaks to something beyond the the mere wills and uh appetites and desires of men.
But then he denies that there's any objective basis for it.
So he almost has to come up with a different word.
Privileges, I guess.
He said we get our privileges from the government.
But you can't say the word rights because the rights are pointing to something beyond the mere irrational desires of men, the sheer tyranny of will.
But but the reason that he doesn't do that, the reason that he and all the other libs still use the rights language is because liberalism is a form of is a matter of faith as much as any theocracy.
That's really what this comes down to.
Liberalism, his form of government, his preferred form of government, unlike the authoritarian Christian government, or which he thinks resembles the theocracy of Iran, his preferred liberal form of government is at least as much a matter of faith, actually, more a matter of faith as any theocracy or theocracy is government by clerics.
So even just any government that is openly and honestly uh grounded in religion.
Why do I say that?
I was reading, you know, I refer to the great Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermule on the show a fair bit.
He's reading a great old essay of his in American Affairs on the invisible hand.
You know, the we hear of the invisible hand in matters of economics, you know, the invisible hand of the free market, uh, or the invisible hand in the marketplace of ideas, you know, the notion that as long as you have more and more voices, more and more speech, that somehow the truth is going to win out.
I wrote a book uh arguing against that thesis, but that's a very popular view, including on the right.
Or the notion that the invisible hand in a competitive mixed regime in a competitive uh government with checks and balances with a separation of powers, that that is somehow inevitably going to give you the best form of government, the greatest justice.
And even that phrase shows you just how much a matter of faith liberalism is.
The invisible hand.
The invisible hand is something we used to call providence.
That's his point.
It's a really excellent essay.
Recommend you you go read it.
The invisible hand is just providence for atheists.
The way that we speak, the way that Tim Kane is speaking about this, he's he simultaneously has to deny any objective order, morality, metaphysical basis for right and wrong and the things we do in in society.
He has to deny it.
He has to say it's all just about men.
But in order to persuade you to go along with his political vision, he has to refer to that pre-liberal and downright religious uh basis of justice.
He has to refer to it.
And then, of course, liberalism just eats away At that, at that basis over time.
And we've spoken about that many, many times.
This is this is the point you've always got to throw back to the libs.
Whenever they say, well, you're you're being authoritarian or whatever.
So not as authoritarian as you are.
At least for me, when I'm when when I refer to uh how I view politics and how I derive right and wrong, at least I'm pointing to a clear God that you can to some degree understand.
You guys are hiding the ball even on that.
You're demanding an extreme amount of authority over all of us.
But you're not even grounding it on a good and uh logical God who loves us.
You're just grounding it in, I don't know, the whims and caprices of Tim Kane.
Ugh, not a good basis of government.
Speaking of the invisible hand, President Trump is bullying big tech into investing a lot of money in America.
Here he is at a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg just yesterday.
Well, thanks for for hosting us.
And this is quite a group to get together.
And you know, I think um, you know, all of the companies here are building, just making huge investments in the country in order to build out data centers and infrastructure to uh power the next wave of innovation.
So it's um, you know, we don't often get together as uh the the CEOs of the different companies, but it's it's uh good to see everyone.
How much are you spending uh would you say over the next 1200?
Oh gosh.
Um I mean, I think it's probably gonna be something like I don't know, at least $600 billion through 28 in the US.
Yeah.
It's a lot.
No, it's not significant.
It's not a lot.
Thank you, Mark.
It's great to have you.
Thank you.
So he's sitting there and he's just like Don Corleoni.
He calls these guys in.
Mark Zuckerberg spent a lot of money to make sure Trump wouldn't win in 2020.
Spent a lot of money, some of that money was used to subvert the law in the case of the ballot drop boxes.
He no, no big friend of Trump.
I don't think he's a huge ally of the American right.
At least he didn't, he didn't think his bread was going to be buttered by the American right.
He was working for the left.
All these guys.
And Trump calls them all down to the White House.
He gets his power.
He's elected with the popular vote.
He calls them all down to the White House.
He says, hey, fellas, thanks.
A lot of you came to my inauguration to come kiss the ring.
Thanks for coming down for dinner.
And then Mark Zuckerberg gets up there and he says, uh, hey, uh, yes, that's really nice, Mr. President, to be here with everybody.
And uh really, we don't all have a chance to get together and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Nicety, nicety, nicety.
And Trump says, Yeah.
How much money you gonna spend in this economy?
How much money are you gonna spend to accomplish my political goals in this country?
Oh, oh, yeah, sorry.
I uh sorry, I was just talking about how really nice it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Real nice.
We're all together.
Uh, raise a glass, cheers.
Where's the money?
Where's my money, Mark?
Oh, I'm actually uh I would say about spending uh would $600 billion be enough.
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be enough.
That's a lot of money, $600 billion.
I love this.
And this ties in with what we were just talking about.
The libs are gonna hate this, and the libertarians are gonna hate this because this is President Trump bullying business.
And we can never have the state or the political power going into bully business because that will distort the conditions of the ideal free marketplace.
And that was that's not only inefficient, that's downright immoral.
All hail the sacred invisible hand, magnificent and gracious, peace be upon it.
You cannot have a politician interfere in the economy.
Yeah, why?
Why is that?
Why am I supposed to believe that?
Because a great calamity will befall us, the invisible hand will become angry with us.
Oh no.
No, I don't think so.
I like markets to run efficiently.
I don't think we should have some command and control economy.
But Trump was elected all the way back in 2016 because people came to the realization that we are a country with an economy.
We are not we are not an economy that is that has to be served by the people.
You don't want to put the cart before the horse.
I don't, we don't, we don't have a country in order to uh maximize GDP and economic efficiency And markets and all.
No, the markets work for us.
Okay.
And sometimes there are going to be distortions in the markets.
That's true inevitably.
That's true.
That's true everywhere other than in an economic textbook with ideal utopian conditions that never exist in practice.
There were issues with labor.
There were issues with trade.
There were issues with America's role as the global hegemon and how we related to other markets around the world.
And Trump came in and he said, I'm going to fix that and I'm going to prioritize American workers and I'm going to prioritize investment in our country, and I'm going to promote certain industries in order to maintain parity and an advantage, hopefully, with some of our adversaries like China.
And Mark, you're going to invest money in this country, okay.
That is that's the right, that's the right way to do things, man.
That's really that's recognizing the political moment.
It's it's turning away from the idol worship of Mammon and Lucre and the ideological conceptions of liberalism in the free market.
And it's getting back to some kind of basic conservative politics.
Love it.
All right, now the rest of you, where's my money?
Where's my money?
Okay, speaking of ever deepening conservatism, Florida's going to end all vaccine mandates.
And this is another issue that's going to split the right, just like the taking away guns from transvestites.
We'll get to that in one second.
First, I want to tell you about preborn.
Go to preborn.com slash Michael, M I C H A E L. If you care about life, about moms in crisis and the babies they're carrying, this is for you.
Because I know sometimes we want to help.
We want to pray.
We just don't always know how.
That is why I want to share something that really moved me.
It's called Heartbeat of Prayer from Preborn.
It's a 30-day devotional that walks you through real stories, women facing the toughest decision of their lives and how God met them there.
Every day you'll read a true story, reflect on scripture, and be guided in prayer.
It's simple, it's beautiful.
And it helps you stand in the gap for moms and their babies right from wherever you are.
If your heart's been stirred, maybe this is your next step.
You can get your free copy of Heartbeat of Prayer right now at preborn.com slash Michael M I C H A E L. That is preborn.com slash Michael, M I C H A E L. It's free, it's powerful.
It's one way you can be part of something that truly matters right now.
This is an organization that I personally support.
I think they do magnificent work.
I encourage you to give whatever you can right now.
Head on over to preborn.com slash Michael.
That is preborn.com slash M I-C-H-A-E-L.
As you know, this year we are celebrating a decade of the Daily Wire, not by looking back, but by launching what's next.
First up, Monday, for the first time in years, we are bringing in brand new Daily Wire talent with the premiere of the Isabel Brown show.
Then next Wednesday night, the main event, Friendly Fire, all of us getting together to do what friends do.
Argue, debate, punch each other, maybe smoke a few Mayflower cigars.
Do not miss the premiere.
Because inside Friendly Fire is where we're dropping the good stuff.
New series, new projects, huge announcements, surprises we've been holding back until now.
This is the start of the next decade, and you do not want to miss a single moment.
Join now at Dailywire.com.
My favorite comment yesterday is from the drummers workshop Norms Music says a Corey Booker engagement is when your gym teacher and your other gym teacher get married.
That's not nice.
I'm sure she's a lovely gal.
But that's yeah, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, it's when your English teacher marries your gym teacher.
And a Corey Booker engagement, it's your gym teacher and your other gym teacher.
That's at least what people would expect.
Speaking of deepening conservatism, Florida has announced that it will end all vaccine mandates.
All vaccine mandates, not just the COVID vax, the old clot-shot fauci.
No, no, we're talking about all the vaccines.
Uh Governor DeSantis has pushed this and his uh surgeon general.
Is it a surgeon general?
The chief public health officer in the state, Ladapa, who's very impressive.
For decades now, Florida has uh required kids who go to schools to get a ton of vaccines.
That includes MMR, measle smumps, and rubella, that includes polio, chicken pox.
You didn't have to get the chicken pox vaccine when I was a kid.
When I was a kid, you got chicken pox and uh hepatitis B, in case you're uh sharing any needles or going to brothels in the fourth grade.
The uh state came out on Wednesday and said those mandates are going to end.
And they went even further.
They compared the mandates to slavery, said all of them will end, every last one of them.
Who am I as a Man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body.
This is going to excite a lot of people on the right.
Unfortunately, I think it might do so for all the wrong reasons.
This is one of these issues where I might agree in practice with getting rid of the vaccine mandates, but I don't agree with it in principle.
And a lot of libs and squishes and they will agree with it in principle, but not in practice.
Isn't that weird?
Isn't that kind of weird?
In other words, the even the left, they will say, well, look, we can't be authoritarian.
We can't force people to do things that they don't want to do.
Consent is the highest moral criterion.
The greatest good in politics is the maximization of individual autonomy.
Blah, blah, blah.
But you know, to maximize utility, uh, greatest good for the greatest number, we need to force kids to take these shots.
But in principle, I disagree with it, but in practice, I agree with it.
Whereas my view is the opposite.
I actually have no problem with vaccine mandates in principle.
I don't, I know, maybe it's not gonna be an unpopular opinion.
I have I have no problem with vaccine mandates in principle.
George Washington in the Continental Army mandated inoculation against smallpox and it killed a ton of people.
Okay.
This is there's there's really nothing conservative about uh this hyper-individualism that says that the government can never mandate anything.
I have nothing wrong with vaccine mandates in principle, and yet I do disagree with them often in practice.
So it's like in practice, I'm I'm with the Florida government, at least to some degree here, but in principle, I'm wrong, and I don't want us to draw the wrong lessons from this.
The idea that the government has no right to tell you what to do with your body is a fundamentally liberal idea.
It is a liberal, individualist, atomizing idea that phrase society, uh, undermines order, undermines hierarchy, undermines uh power, under undermines uh any coherent conception of the political.
Okay, the government does the government can tell you what seatbelts to put on.
The government can tell you what clothes you can and cannot wear to some reasonable, you can't walk out in your birthday suit in the middle of the road.
The government can the government can tell you what drugs you can't put in your body.
There's like some people would argue, no, no, the most conservative thing in the world is to legalize fentanyl or something.
No, it's not, man.
This might- I'm not knocking the Florida policy.
It's it might well be a good thing, but not for the reasons that everyone thinks.
The reason that it it's it might be wise to end the vaccine mandates is that the government that we elected has is now leading investigations, thanks to Bobby Kennedy into the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
It's being carried out in a reasonably ordered way.
And there are questions.
After COVID, our public health officials lied to us.
During COVID, they lied to us.
Afterward, we discovered that.
And so it is reasonable to take away some of their power to reduce the the interference that they have in our lives.
They lied to us specifically about the vaccine.
There has to be some consequence to that.
And the consequence is probably going to be that we're going to question vaccine safety and efficacy.
That's not our fault.
That's that's the public health officials' fault.
But don't take the wrong lesson.
The lesson to take away is not that we have no political right to enforce things.
We do.
When we even talk about the government, the government made me do this, the government made me do that.
The government is, in principle, and to some degree in practice, a reflection of us, of the people.
We elect these guys.
We are, we are at the very least citizens in this country.
And the government does they can do things.
The question is, what is prudent for the government to do?
Don't take, don't become a big lib.
Don't do that.
Now, on the point of vaccines, RFK Jr. just got into a shouting match with Mike Bennett.
You remember Mike Bennett?
I think he ran for president.
He's one of the many, many also rans uh among the Democrats in recent years.
He has this cartoonishly boring voice.
I he just has like the fact that this guy was a presidential candidate is is shocking.
Anyway, he gets into a big fight with Kennedy yesterday over vaccines.
You can make you can characterize it any way you want.
I quoted them today.
What I said was accurate.
What you said were lies.
You just moving the type of RNA vaccine.
It has never been associated with myocarditis or pericarditis and I am simply Is that what you're trying to tell us?
I am simply trying to say that the people that you have put on that panel after firing the entire question.
No, I'm asking the question seriously.
I'm asking the questions on Kennedy.
I'm asking the questions for Mr. Kennedy on behalf of parents and schools and teachers all over the United States of America.
So much better than your leadership.
Oh my goodness.
This conversation is about Senator Chairman.
Senator, they deserve the truth.
And that's what we're going to give them for the first time in the history of that agency.
Love that.
Kennedy, Kennedy wins the exchange for sure.
There was a while where Bennett was doing okay, and then he just became such a blowhard by the end of it.
Or he revealed himself to be such a blowhard.
Oh hold on, I have a question for you.
Oh no, no, no, no.
I'm asking the questions.
I'm asking the questions.
No, no, I'm not blowing.
I am rubber in your glue.
And well, what bounces off to me is fixed to you.
Oh it's like a sounds like a dying whale when Mike Bennett speaks.
Pathetic.
Totally pathetic.
And Kennedy gets him.
Kennedy totally nails him.
Because he says, hey, you know, vaccines aren't always safe, right?
He goes, oh no, you were on the line.
You're telling me that these vaccines have never been tied to myocarditis or pericarditis in teenagers.
Notably the COVID vaccine in the last five years.
Oh, I know you stop.
It's just what is that?
What do they call echolocation?
Is that like the sonar that anyway?
I don't know.
I can't listen to Mike Bennett anymore.
And I think people tune that stuff out.
Because Kennedy can deflate it all with that one question.
Hey, remember when you all lied to us about the vaccine you made all of us take five minutes ago?
Remember when you made all of us take this vaccine that was untested, that we know was untested because it was developed in five seconds, and you made everyone take it, even the groups that were not at risk from the virus that it was supposed to protect against.
And then you lied about the safety risks and people died from it, and you lied about the efficacy.
And first you said that if we got the vaccine, we wouldn't contract the virus.
Then, when that wasn't true, you said if we got the vaccine, we wouldn't spread the virus.
Then when that wasn't true, you made the unfalsifiable claim, just like all of the foundational claims of liberalism, that well, it would have been a lot worse without it.
Yeah, you remember that?
Yeah, we're not going to listen to you anymore.
No, we won't.
That's why people elected Trump campaigning with Bobby Kennedy on this issue.
Totally.
This is this is a similar, a similar uh issue.
It's not that vaccines are necessarily terrible in practice.
I have nothing in principle against vaccines.
But there are practical consequences to public health priorities and public health actions.
And when you lie about vaccines, and when the vaccines fail, there's going to be a backlash.
You want to blame someone, Mike Bennett?
Blame yourself.
Okay.
Before we go, just one minor point.
President Trump has renamed the Department of Defense.
It's now the Department of War.
It used to be the Department of War.
Then it became this squishy, effeminate lib Department of Defense.
And now it's the Department of War again.
And uh just another important point, because the Libs are gonna hate this and they're gonna say that it's bellicose.
It's belligerent to call it the Department of War.
Oh, contraire, Mayfrere.
The phrase Department of War is much more inclined toward peace than Department of Defense.
They changed it to Department of Defense because you you want to make it seem like you're never uh launching an offensive war.
You're never being the aggressor, but you'll defend yourselves when necessary.
But we don't want any aggressive war.
Oh, these belligerent maniacs, they want war.
No, no, no.
The Department of the Defense is much more likely to get you embroiled in a war than the Department of War Is.
You know why?
Because the Department of War is honest.
The Department of War tells you exactly what it does.
It wages war.
The phrase Department of Defense is Orwellian.
That is an Orwellian phrase.
When the Department of Defense ran the second Iraq war, was that was that uh honest?
Was that a defensive war?
Even the first Iraq war.
Was that a defensive war?
Was the war in Libya was that a defensive war?
No, it was a lie.
Those were offensive wars.
You can defend the justice or injustice of those wars all you like.
My point is it's not that wasn't defensive.
Department of War is honest.
Which which gets to the irony of the Trump administration, at least in the eyes of the left, which is they all see Trump as being belligerent and bellicose and uh maniac and a cowboy.
And actually he's much more dovish.
He's much more of a peace president than any of the Democrat presidents in my lifetime.
Why is that?
Because he's honest about what war is like.
He's honest about the risks brought about by by geopolitical strain and and conflict.
He's is because he's honest about it, because he's willing to back up his his threats, you get you get more peace.
You want if you want peace, prepare a department of war.
Finally, finally, we get to my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag.
Mailbag sponsored by Pure Talk on PureTalk.com/slash Knowles Kennedy W L E S to get your free phone today.
Take it away.
Hi, Michael.
I know you said a couple weeks ago that you believe in capital punishment as a follow-up.
I'm just curious.
What would your preferred method of execution be?
And also what would your death row meal be?
Thanks.
I'd probably do a Philly cheesesteak.
I don't know why that pop.
It's not even that the Philly cheesesteak is my total top favorite food.
But I've I've thought about this question before, and I have come to the conclusion my final meal would be a Philly cheesesteak, and I would choose death by firing squad if I had to go by capital punishment, and I'd do it at least with a cigarette in my mouth, but I don't like cigarettes really, so I'd I'd like to do it with a cigar or a cigarillo in my mouth.
Yeah, that's the way to go.
It's much more dignified.
Standing up, you know, much more dignified than a lethal injection, the electric chair is a little spooky, noose would freak me out.
There's a Dorothy Parker poem about this.
Uh but I think firing squad, it's a dignified way to go, especially after a nice, tasty cheesesteak.
Next question.
Hey, Michael, my kid is getting bullied at school.
Um she goes to public school.
It seems like it's getting kind of serious.
We've reached out to her teacher and her principal, and so far nothing's really been done about it.
Um should we consider moving to homeschooling or private schooling, or are there other steps that we should be taking to address this first?
Uh appreciate it.
Thanks.
Sorry to hear your kids going through that.
I would look, I I think a little bit of bullying, a little bit of razzing among kids is important in life.
And uh the fact that we kind of extirpated it in the 90s and 2000s, made a generation of weaklings, and that's bad.
So a little bit of that, a little bit of fighting in the schoolyard is probably good for a kid, Bill's character, at least for the boys.
However, there does come a point at which it can really screw up your life.
I I know people who were bullied where it really, really screwed up their life.
And God forbid, you know, they they fall into a depression or kill themselves.
You hear these stories too.
Especially when it comes to a girl.
Or with a with a boy, you know, you want him to you want him to learn how to punch back.
You want you you need a boy to learn.
I remember my mother told me this in elementary school.
All the teachers said, if anyone ever pushes you or punches you, you come right to the teacher and you don't do anything.
And I told that to my mother, and she goes, that's not true.
If someone punches you, you gotta punch him back.
He said, Oh, really?
That's six or something.
And I don't know, some kid like pushed me or put it and I hit him back, and that's good.
That's an important lesson, at least for a boy.
But not so much for a girl.
And it can be very, very bad, and especially if the if the school is unresponsive, I'd pull her.
I would pull her.
If it's if it's really getting bad and there's nothing that's improving, I would pull her and send her try to send her to a different school if you can afford it and uh or homeschool or something for a little bit.
But I would I would take it seriously.
This is the this is the proper conservative view.
You have to, you uh you're you're more uh I don't know, tolerant of of bullying than the libs, but you you in that way you actually take it more seriously.
Because you recognize it actually it actually means something and it can go it can go too far.
Next question.
Hi, Michael.
So I've been seeing this guy, and he seems to have a lot of great qualities, but he often smokes weed.
My question is, is that a deal breaker?
On the same note, is it okay to date someone with the goal of fixing their vices or changing them?
Like a conservative dating a lib or an anti-weed person dating a weed smoker in order to try to get them to stop.
Good question.
It's not a good sign.
Put aside here, you know, a wounded veteran with PTSD who has been prescribed medicinal marijuana, so-called.
Let's just put that, I'm not even weighing in on that issue right now.
Put that aside.
You're just talking about a young guy who likes to smoke the devil's lettuce.
I think it's a bad sign.
I mean, one of the moral arguments about this is it's different from alcohol in as much as you can have a drink or two drinks and not get drunk.
I mean, Christ, you know, his first public miracle is turning water into wine for people who'd been drinking for days.
Uh, but you can do that.
You can also drink too much and get drunk.
That would be a sin.
But you can drink just socially, have a drink or two, and kind of loosens things up, but you're not, you haven't really lost control of your faculties.
You can't really do the same with the sin spinach.
If you're if you're smoking pot, you're getting high.
There's not, unless you're doing a Bill Clinton thing, you're not you're it it takes you further.
And it it just codes lib.
It makes you more mellow, man, you know, it kind of makes you a little less ambitious.
It makes you a little less energetic, makes you a little more inclined to eat a big bag of Cheetos.
It it codes lib.
And so I don't if he's just doing this recreationally, frequently at the beginning of your relationship.
I would, I wouldn't nag him about it, but I would just say, hey, this is deeply unattractive, and you you seem like a lib, and I am I find libs to be like gross, and I want to Chad, I want a giga chad.
So can you please if you don't want to be a giga chad, that's fine, but I'm gonna go get a giga chad if you want to be like a huge catch potato lib.
That's fine.
That's okay.
But then you need to go get like a lib girlfriend with a septum piercing and you know, 10 face tattoos.
And that's fine.
You go and we'll have, but it's not a good sign.
Tell him take up cigars, take up Mayflower cigars.
It's better for you.
It's much more attractive.
Next question.
I want your further thoughts about Israel and his influence on America.
Following your analysis on Trump's Israel used to control Congress statement.
First off, many of the people who are against anti-Semitism clearly act the stereotype.
For true examples, one a Jew, the other not.
Congressmen like Randy Fine and Don Bacon have effectively proclaimed their fealty to Israel above America.
Recriticize Ilhan Omar for her obvious loyalty to a foreign country all day, but Republicans are largely and strangely quiet when it's for Israel and the Jews.
They insist on giving real claims to people against Jews.
Matt Gage once said, if you oppose the U.S.-Israel relationship, you face tremendous headwinds to get into government.
An AOC was an example of an anti-Israel Congressman Trump used, but she voted to directly fund Israel and then put out a gobbledygook ex post about how funding Israel was necessary and not funding their alleged genocide.
Israel isn't shadow-running our government like a wild spy movie.
But if AOC is the normal anti-Israel politician, it begs the question about how much foreign influence and interests, particularly with Israel, are baked into our government.
I love your thoughts.
Oh, sure.
All right.
There's a little bit of a lot.
We try to, this is not a knock on you, but try to keep the questions tough, if you can, under a minute, ideally 30 seconds so that we can, you know, we got to fit all that questions in the show.
But it's a good question, and it comes from uh Trump this past week.
He said, isn't it great?
Look, I love Israel, Israel's great.
Uh they used to totally control Congress, and now they have no control over Congress at all, and everyone hates them.
Israel's great.
It was this it was a compliment sandwich with this really funny thing in the middle.
And uh I I this is how I think he defangs this issue.
Because there's some people who insist that the state of Israel has no lobbying in the United States, no influence whatsoever, or none.
That's like totally Crazy and ridiculous, and if you suggest that that's that true, you're an anti-Semite.
You know, there's that view.
That's obviously preposterous.
Israel has a very strong lobby in the United States.
Or had a very strong lobby, per Trump's point.
Then there's this other side that says, you know, Israel is pulling the strings, and every time uh I stub my toe in the morning, it's because some Jew in a strimel is, you know, secretly conspiring to uh move my furniture.
Uh that's also uh not true.
The the reality is that the state of Israel, because of uh uh historical circumstance, among other things, just has this relationship with the United States.
The State of Israel is founded by the United Nations, which is seated in the United States.
It was uh founded, it's it was permitted or licensed decades earlier by the British Empire.
We are the successor of the British Empire in many ways, we're kind of the same thing.
And uh it was founded after the Second World War, which we won when we became one of the two superpowers of the world on our way to becoming the global hegemon.
So we just have this relationship with Israel, and we have uh there are plenty of pro-Israel people in the United States, plenty of Jews in the United States, plenty of Jews who hate Israel in the United States, so that's not exactly monolithic.
But there's all these reasons that there are political headwinds that you know support Israel.
But I think also you can't ignore the second part of Trump's comment, which is yeah, they don't really have control anymore.
Just look at the public opinion polling.
Uh, just just look at the way congressmen are speaking about this now.
Just look at the, you know, look at, I don't know, any popular media, left, increasingly on the right, mainstream fringe, they all hate Israel.
So I I mean, I think that would be evidence that um, and and maybe this will be a consolation to some people, that would be evidence that the state of Israel doesn't really have quite as much influence as uh not only as they once did, but as as people seem to imagine that they do.
It's uh it's the least popular view, as I always mention on the Israel-Palestine conflict, is my view, is that things are just kind of murky and nuanced, and these uh kind of extreme theories just don't really hold water.
