The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 514

00:00:00.000 The market continues to plummet as the Chinese coronavirus locks people idle in their homes for

00:00:05.900 weeks at a time and the global economy grinds to a halt. We will compare the pandemic to the

00:00:11.880 left-wing policy agenda and see if we can tell the difference. Then a new study suggests that

00:00:17.460 the spread of the virus could have been reduced by as much as 95% if the Chinese government had

00:00:23.160 acted to stop it rather than to cover it up. Of course, instead of reporting on that study,

00:00:28.580 the U.S. mainstream media is simply parroting the communist regime's propaganda.

00:00:33.500 Finally, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:43.980 What a week. Has it been a long week for you? It's felt like a long week for me. I was trying

00:00:50.700 to recap everything that's happened this week and I realized there was a striking similarity

00:00:56.240 between everything we've been seeing in the markets and policy from our leaders and in

00:01:01.740 the agenda that the left-wing has wanted in this country for a hundred years. We'll get to that

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00:02:25.880 for more information. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped another 1,300 points yesterday.

00:02:35.040 The S&P 500 lost $7 trillion in value over the past couple of weeks. The economy around the world

00:02:45.640 and in the United States is grinding to a halt. Store shelves are empty. There are food shortages

00:02:52.180 at supermarkets. You cannot buy toilet paper. Countless people are losing their jobs. We just

00:02:59.120 heard from Marriott, just one company, right? Marriott, the hotel chain. They laid off tens of

00:03:04.700 thousands of people a couple of days ago. The government is now sending checks directly to

00:03:11.980 people who are not working, who can't find work or who have been told to quarantine. We are not

00:03:18.820 flying anywhere, right? We're not getting on airplanes. We're not traveling anywhere. We're

00:03:23.720 barely driving places. It occurs to me that this is AOC's dream. This is the green flu deal.

00:03:33.220 That's what we're living through. It's a nice little preview. You know, I've tried to keep a

00:03:37.880 normal attitude during all of this. I've tried not to let the panic run away from me. I've tried to

00:03:42.720 see the glass half full sometimes when everyone else is losing their mind and running around and

00:03:47.120 saying we're all going to die. The, or we're all going to, I've also said we're all going to die,

00:03:51.940 but I say we're all going to die because someday we're all going to die, not because we're all going

00:03:55.080 to die from this virus. The coronavirus chaos is nothing compared to what the green new deal would do

00:04:03.800 to our society. And I'm sort of glad that we get a little preview of this so that people stop talking

00:04:09.060 seriously about this policy proposal. Think about what, look around you at what you're experiencing

00:04:14.680 now. The joblessness, the being confined to your little apartment. You're not being able to travel.

00:04:20.880 You're not being able to buy certain things at the stores. You're not being able to work.

00:04:25.180 The green new deal would be that times a zillion. What does the green new deal do? Do you remember

00:04:31.120 this? This is not some fringe left-wing policy proposal. This was something being proposed by

00:04:36.180 someone that the chairman of the DNC says is the future of the democratic party. It was then

00:04:41.880 endorsed by I think virtually every single democratic presidential candidate and many, many prominent

00:04:47.920 members of the Senate. But the green new deal outlaws air travel. Green new deal outlaws most

00:04:55.280 automobiles. So it severely reduces car travel. The green new deal outlaws about 90% of American

00:05:02.360 energy. So right away, the minute that that goes into effect, the economy completely grinds to a halt,

00:05:08.460 right? You can't do things in the economy without energy. Think about, don't think just about the oil

00:05:13.560 industry, fracking. Don't think about that. Think about also every single industry that uses those

00:05:20.020 things, namely all of them. Yeah. According to the green new deal, people would receive direct

00:05:24.880 handouts from the government for not working. See, at least now under the current bailouts that are

00:05:30.620 being considered, the government is going to send you a check because it's a crisis because you can't

00:05:35.520 work because the government has stopped you from working. Under the green new deal, Americans would

00:05:40.160 receive those checks even if they don't want to work for people who, this is the language that AOC had used

00:05:45.800 originally, people who are unable or unwilling to work. So you just like don't want to, and then you

00:05:53.960 get a check from the government. And it's not just a one-time check, it's a perpetual check. And the green

00:05:59.360 new deal would cost $93 trillion. So the S&P loses $7 trillion over the last few weeks. That's pretty bad.

00:06:08.360 Now multiply that by 13. That's where you get the cost of the green new deal. So

00:06:15.580 while we're living through our green flu deal, let that be a preview of what happens if very

00:06:23.280 mainstream leftist policy proposals actually would be put into action, what that would look like for

00:06:29.680 our economy. This would be nothing but a little hors d'oeuvre, a little amuse-bouche for that dinner of

00:06:37.200 the green new deal. You, you ain't seen nothing yet. If you think this is bad, just, just wait.

00:06:42.640 If anything good were to come of this issue, you know, it would be causing people to face these

00:06:52.120 economic realities. All right. I, I mentioned on the show in the early days of this virus that,

00:06:59.340 that people sort of enjoy the freak out. You know, that people, they like the danger. They like the

00:07:05.100 uncertainty. They like that we're all in this together. They like that it's a little different.

00:07:09.480 It's shaking them out of their monotonous lives. It's, it's like when the power goes out in a

00:07:13.680 snowstorm and everyone pretends to be really upset about it, but actually you kind of like it.

00:07:19.200 You, it's fun. It's something new that only lasts for about a day or two. And then people start

00:07:25.800 really not to like it. Okay. You, you get sick of the speculation. You get sick of constantly talking

00:07:31.640 about it. You know, it's not so fun when people are losing their jobs. I know people,

00:07:37.280 multiple people whose paychecks have been cut in half already.

00:07:42.880 These are people who'd never thought that the economy grinding to a halt would touch them.

00:07:47.580 That only touches the little people. You know, the people who are working those jobs,

00:07:52.500 they're really vulnerable, but it doesn't touch all of us. Yes, it does. It touches everybody.

00:07:56.760 When the economy grinds to a halt, it has long, long standing effects very, very quickly.

00:08:03.800 I know a lot of, I mean, I know a lot of bartenders and waiters who are now completely out of work,

00:08:08.540 but even people who are lawyers, their salaries cut in half. Even people who are working education,

00:08:13.980 their salaries cut in half. All right. That's the economic reality. And of course it makes sense.

00:08:19.320 It's, you don't need an economist to tell you why this is true. If everybody stops working,

00:08:24.680 there's going to be less money. It's not like the economy is this abstract concept,

00:08:30.300 but it's also a very tangible, practical concept. If I work more, I'll get, I'll get more stuff.

00:08:36.760 I'll be more prosperous. I'll be able to eat better and dress better and move better. And if I work less,

00:08:44.100 I won't be able to do that because money doesn't just come from magic. It doesn't just come from

00:08:48.260 nowhere. It comes from the productivity that we all have. So if we all stop being productive,

00:08:52.680 guess what happens? All that wealth goes away. This is the economic reality. I loved Mara Gay,

00:09:01.400 that New York times editorial member who she, she said on the Brian Williams show on MSNBC,

00:09:07.320 that Mike Bloomberg could give every American a million dollars for the amount of money that he

00:09:11.780 spent on his campaign. And that was off by six orders of magnitude, but it actually shows us the

00:09:17.920 left's understanding of economics. Because when the left talks about money and public policy,

00:09:23.240 whether it's the presidential candidates or whether it's a commentator or it's a New York

00:09:26.360 times editorial board member, it's all the same to them. Seriously, they think a million and a

00:09:31.640 billion and a trillion. It's all the same. It all ends in illion, right? It's all got some zeros after

00:09:36.100 it. What's the big deal? Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail, when they're proposing

00:09:41.060 these $52 trillion policy proposals, Elizabeth Warren's plan, when you add it all up for healthcare

00:09:47.620 was $52 trillion. They said, how are you going to pay for that? She said, oh, come on. It'll be easy.

00:09:52.860 Don't worry. Come on. That's a dumb question. We'll figure it out. Guess what? It's a lot easier

00:09:57.320 to pay for something that's $52 million than $52 trillion. But they don't think of that. They just

00:10:04.140 think, oh, it's money. We're rich. We're rich. We'll, we'll have the money to pay for it. Well, guess what?

00:10:08.580 If the economy grinds to a halt, we're not going to be rich for very long. And speaking of our

00:10:15.160 elected representatives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the Wu flu, the, the Wubonic

00:10:21.060 plague has now infected elected representatives. So rather than being at the tail end of this thing,

00:10:26.420 we might only be at the very beginning. We'll get to what that means in a second, because I actually

00:10:30.440 think there's a silver lining to this too. First though, I've got to thank our friends over at Bambi.

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00:11:40.600 Okay. So now we've got public officials who have been infected with the virus. Before this,

00:11:46.600 we just heard they'd been exposed. Ted Cruz self-quarantined. Then I was maybe had to

00:11:52.700 self-quarantine because Senator Cruz met a guy who had been tested positive. And then

00:11:56.560 I obviously saw Senator Cruz in the same room. This isn't like that. These elected officials now

00:12:02.260 actually have the virus. That's representatives Mario Diaz-Balart and Ben McAdams. Diaz-Balart is

00:12:09.880 a Republican from Florida and Ben McAdams is a Democrat from Utah. They both tested positive

00:12:17.720 yesterday. And so now they're going to have to quarantine and live with the virus. Other public

00:12:24.920 figures who have the virus, Tom Hanks, Norm MacDonald, the comedian has taken to calling

00:12:30.960 coronavirus Tom Hanks disease, THD. Tom Hanks tested positive for it a week or two ago. Idris Elba,

00:12:39.660 the actor tested positive for it. Justin Trudeau's wife tested positive for it. Interestingly,

00:12:45.080 I don't think Justin Trudeau has, but Justin Trudeau's wife has. So anyway, there are these

00:12:48.820 well-known figures in public life who now have the coronavirus. This actually might be a great

00:12:55.860 opportunity to get some perspective on it. I think some people right now, the initial reaction is that

00:13:01.520 celebrities having the Wu flu is a terrible thing because now it's going to be magnified. People are

00:13:08.360 going to be even more nervous and neurotic and freak out even more than they already were. I think the

00:13:13.740 opposite is true. I think really, if the statistics are right and all the people who have been infected

00:13:21.380 are not going to face serious complications from it or death or anything like that, God forbid,

00:13:26.140 that seeing these public figures that we all know have the virus and then hopefully just recover

00:13:32.940 quickly will be a great thing to ease the public, make us realize we're not all going to die from this

00:13:39.100 thing. We're not all going to be hospitalized. We're not even all going to have severe symptoms.

00:13:45.060 And that's just for the people who will eventually get the virus anyway. It might be a nice way to

00:13:52.060 pump the brakes on all of the hysteria because I think people are sick of it. I think we enjoyed it

00:13:56.720 for a few days. We won't admit that we enjoyed it, but we enjoyed it. It was kind of fun. It was weird.

00:14:01.160 It was, it was so unexpected, once in a lifetime thing. And now people are really sick of this.

00:14:07.160 People are really sick of being quarantined. People are really sick of being told where to go

00:14:10.980 and what to do. People are really sick of having no food on the shelves, like we're living in Havana,

00:14:15.280 Cuba or something. And we need to get back to normal as quickly as possible. Now the mainstream

00:14:21.760 media, of course, are not helping this at all. The mainstream media are not reporting on any

00:14:26.460 relevant data when it comes to this virus. The mainstream media are not doing anything to

00:14:32.400 quell people's fears. Actually what they're doing, because they're too childish and partisan

00:14:37.640 to even report on the virus itself. They are instead focusing on a, an aspect of Chinese

00:14:44.420 propaganda and parroting that. The Chinese government is now saying it's racist to call

00:14:49.320 the virus Chinese. I wonder why they're saying that. We talked about this a little bit on the

00:14:53.640 show yesterday. Of course, China doesn't want any blame and they know that leftists in America

00:14:58.320 will carry their water for them. So now the media are, are parroting this line. They're completely

00:15:04.000 failing to do their job during this pandemic. So they're asking, is it racist to point out that

00:15:09.260 the virus is Chinese? I won't get into too many examples of this. We did it yesterday. John Nolte

00:15:15.320 on Breitbart has listed 53 examples of the mainstream media calling the virus, the Chinese coronavirus or the

00:15:23.340 Wuhan virus before they decided to, to be parrots for Chinese propaganda and say that that's racist.

00:15:29.380 Go check that out. It's really, really funny. The reason I bring it up is over the last day,

00:15:34.640 President Trump has now addressed this charge himself and we are seeing peak Trump. Grade A,

00:15:41.860 this is why we elected you Trump. He is asked by some reporter I've never heard of,

00:15:46.700 if it is racist to refer to the Chinese origins of this virus, Trump does not give an inch.

00:15:55.620 Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus? There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias

00:16:01.680 against Chinese Americans in this country. Your own aide, Secretary Azar, says he does not use this

00:16:07.900 term. He says ethnicity does not cause the virus. Why do you keep using this? A lot of people say it's

00:16:13.200 racist. It's not racist at all. No, not at all. It comes from China. That's why it comes from China.

00:16:20.340 I want to be accurate. Yeah, please. John, please. I have a great, I have great love for all of the

00:16:27.920 people from our country. But as you know, China tried to say at one point, maybe this stuff now,

00:16:35.180 that it was caused by American soldiers. That can't happen. It's not going to happen. Not as long as I'm

00:16:42.020 president. It comes from China. Great answer. Two big problems with that reporter's question. First

00:16:47.800 of all, she says, viruses don't have an ethnicity. That's true, but they do have a nationality.

00:16:54.020 Viruses do come from places. And the Chinese coronavirus came from China. Just like the West

00:17:01.020 Nile virus came from the West Nile. Just like Ebola comes from the Ebola River. Just like the Spanish flu

00:17:07.040 came through Spain. It actually didn't come from Spain, but Spain gave it its popular character.

00:17:12.340 So they do have nationalities. This one has an exclusively, it's not even like the Spanish flu

00:17:20.780 where you say, well, it started here and then it went here and then it became really a big problem

00:17:24.200 here. This virus just comes from China. It became a big problem in China. The whole reason that we're

00:17:29.080 dealing with it is because China didn't deal with it. It's a Chinese virus. That's the first problem

00:17:33.580 with her question. The second problem with her question is how offensive it is to Americans.

00:17:39.440 Because her premise is that if you refer to this as the Chinese virus, then Americans are just going

00:17:46.580 to start beating Chinese people in the street. That's what she said. She said, there are already

00:17:52.020 examples of hostility toward Chinese people. Why would you make it worse by calling it a Chinese virus?

00:17:57.520 As though Americans are just waiting. We are seething with bigotry and hatred. We, oh, give me

00:18:03.640 any excuse to just become violent against people of other races. Oh, president, please tell us where

00:18:11.120 the virus comes from so we can just become beasts and start beating people over the head. Are you

00:18:15.820 kidding me? What do you think of your countrymen? We are the least bigoted, most open and tolerant

00:18:21.700 society ever, ever in the whole history of the world. And this reporter looks at her countrymen

00:18:28.080 and says, oh my gosh, they're all animals. They're bigots. They're, they're beasts that

00:18:34.980 if you, if you, they're also idiots and they don't realize the virus comes from China. So if you tell

00:18:39.680 these dumb, violent rubes where the virus comes from, they're going to start clubbing people over the

00:18:45.420 head. You know, I think that if you took the average American, it would probably be much more

00:18:52.180 polite and have a much better view of the world and probably have much better manners than most DC

00:18:57.320 reporters. Okay. If we're trying to compare people here. So that was that lady. I don't know who that

00:19:03.020 was. Then another lady, another reporter asks president Trump a more hilarious version of the same

00:19:08.420 question. She asks if it, if it's racist to call the virus Kung flu. There are some, at least one

00:19:14.420 White House official who used the term Kung flu, referring to the fact that this virus started in

00:19:19.560 China. Is that acceptable? Is it wrong? Are you worried that, that having this virus be, be talked

00:19:25.400 about as, as a Chinese virus, that that might help? I wonder who said that. You know who said that?

00:19:30.500 I'm not sure the person's name, but would you condemn the fact that Kung flu? Say the term again.

00:19:35.740 A person at the White House used the term Kung flu. My question is, do you think that's wrong? Kung flu.

00:19:41.880 And do you think using the term Chinese virus that puts Asian Americans at risk that people

00:19:46.900 might target that? No, no, no, no. I think they probably would agree with it a hundred percent. It

00:19:52.920 comes from China. There's nothing not to agree. Okay. How about the last question?

00:19:56.740 Oh, here he is. Here is Trump doing the thing he does best, which is he just plays with those

00:20:05.260 mainstream media reporters like a little marionette on strings. So she says, somebody,

00:20:11.260 some unnamed person in your administration called the virus Kung flu, heaven forfend, grab my pearls,

00:20:19.700 made a pretty funny pun about the virus. Oh no, it's the end of the world. What a tear.

00:20:25.900 Pretty much David Duke, isn't it? It's like Richard Spencer's working for you because they

00:20:29.720 made a pun or something. And so Trump, he's really good. He doesn't laugh out loud. He keeps the

00:20:35.700 straight face. And he goes, who said this? And she goes, well, I don't know. So it highlights,

00:20:40.900 first of all, that these people don't have good information anyway. They're just passing along

00:20:45.120 innuendo and insinuation. They're not even going to say it was that person. It was that staffer.

00:20:49.720 So he goes, okay, all right. They move on past that one. He goes, and what did they call it? As if

00:20:55.620 president Trump hadn't heard it the first time? And he does it with a perfectly straight face.

00:20:59.440 What did they call it? And she starts to repeat her question. He goes, no, no, no. Just say the term.

00:21:03.820 No, you say the term. Kung flu. Yeah. Kung flu. Yes. Kung flu. So he gets this mainstream media

00:21:10.520 reporter to utter the phrase Kung flu to the president on national television multiple times.

00:21:18.100 And then once he's gotten her to say it enough times, Kung flu. And you just, you can't,

00:21:22.420 you can't keep up the mainstream narrative when you actually hear this. Because what the mainstream

00:21:27.140 narrative is, the White House staffers are using racial insults and attacking their fellow countrymen

00:21:36.840 who are Asian and it's bigoted and it's awful and might as well be the N-word, right? And that's kind

00:21:42.680 of the insinuation there. But then the reality of it is, it's Kung flu. It's just funny. Just a funny

00:21:47.980 term to refer to this Chinese coronavirus. And so he gets her to say it. And then anybody who's

00:21:53.700 watching it just thinks, okay, what are we angry about now? What are we supposed to,

00:21:57.800 they wouldn't even be able to be angry because they would be too busy laughing. And I think

00:22:02.020 President Trump certainly was laughing on the inside during that and probably laughed about it a

00:22:06.300 little bit afterward. Not to put too fine a point on it. It is obviously not racist to talk about where

00:22:14.020 the virus has come from. This is 100% the fault of the Chinese government. We will explain exactly how

00:22:21.800 and exactly how much better our lives would be, how much lower the death rate would be, how much

00:22:27.340 lower the hospitalization rate would be, how much better our economy would be doing if China had just

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00:23:56.660 President Trump is absolutely right to blame the Chinese for this. The Chinese are 100%

00:24:07.140 at fault. The government of China is what I'm talking about, by the way. I'm not talking about

00:24:11.100 the billion people living in China. I'm talking about the government, the communist party. It is

00:24:16.200 their fault. We should send the Chinese government the bill for all of the economic chaos. If they

00:24:22.920 don't pay the bill, we should plunder their wealth until we are made at least financially

00:24:28.120 whole for this. There's no way to be made totally whole. Think of all of the deaths.

00:24:32.940 Think of all of the hospitalizations. Think even beyond that of just the missed moments.

00:24:36.860 People's graduations are being canceled. People's weddings are being canceled. People's baptisms are

00:24:40.900 being canceled. Moments that are very, very important in life, ruined because of the damn

00:24:45.380 Chinese communists. We should take all of their wealth. We should, these people, the Chinese

00:24:53.060 government deserves to be taken out back like old yeller for what they have done in this crisis.

00:24:59.260 Okay. Nobody is reporting on this, but there is a new study that just came out from the University

00:25:03.860 of Southampton. Research found that if interventions in China could have been conducted one week or two

00:25:12.680 weeks or three weeks earlier, how much do you think the chaos that has been caused by this

00:25:21.040 could have been reduced? How much do you think the spread could have been reduced? If they reacted

00:25:26.320 instead of covering it up, if they reacted to stop it one week earlier, the spread would have been

00:25:32.080 reduced by 66%. If they had stopped covering it up and actually acted to stop the virus two weeks

00:25:40.180 earlier, the spread would have been reduced by 86%. And if those bastards in the Chinese government

00:25:47.180 had acted to stop this virus instead of covering it up three weeks earlier, the spread would have been

00:25:52.960 reduced 95%. 95%. You wouldn't have even felt it. We now have some deaths in America. Luckily,

00:26:04.540 the death rate is relatively quite low. You have more significant number of deaths in Italy and Iran

00:26:11.680 and it's spreading all over the world. 95% of that could have been wiped away if those horrible,

00:26:21.400 horrible people in the communist Chinese government had acted to stop it. Instead, what they did was they

00:26:27.720 pretended it wasn't real. They punished whistleblowers, doctors who were talking about the spread of this

00:26:32.960 virus there. They would not intervene to do it. And now the most appalling of all, the most galling of

00:26:38.700 all, the left in America, the mainstream media and elected representatives are carrying water for that

00:26:46.260 government. The government that killed people, the government that destroyed the global economy,

00:26:52.680 the government that intentionally allowed this virus to spread around the world,

00:26:56.260 the left and the mainstream media are parroting their propaganda. The Chinese government is writing

00:27:03.640 the talking points for CNN at this point. Okay. Absolutely disgraceful, absolutely disgusting stuff.

00:27:11.960 We need to be very clear about it. So when we use terms like the wubonic plague or Kung flu or

00:27:17.300 chop flu or the lung pass sicken or any of the other terms that are, you know, like pretty funny,

00:27:23.180 they're still somehow like a week later, they're still fairly amusing. Not only are they amusing,

00:27:28.180 it's very important because the Chinese government right now, as always, has been trying to dodge

00:27:33.220 responsibility. Now they're actually trying to put responsibility on the United States incredibly.

00:27:38.040 And we need to make sure that doesn't happen. And if that means that some of our useful idiot

00:27:43.500 friends in the mainstream media want to call everybody racist for stating simple facts about

00:27:48.880 a virus, that's perfectly fine. We cannot lose the narrative here. Okay. I hope you've had a chance

00:27:56.480 to see some of the new show that we launched this week called All Access Live over at dailywire.com.

00:28:02.340 That is the first episode. Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire God King Jeremy Boring kicked it off

00:28:07.040 on Monday. And then Jeremy and I did it on Tuesday. We're going to be doing episodes the rest of this week

00:28:11.840 at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. It's pretty wild. You know, look, we're all quarantined now.

00:28:17.460 We're all, you know, kind of locked at home. But it's a fun way to hang out, talk to you guys,

00:28:23.600 hear from you guys. And it's like, it's like we're all in a room. You know, my, my speech,

00:28:28.540 speaking tour was canceled this semester because of the Wuhan virus, because pretty much every major

00:28:33.640 speaking event was canceled for the next few months. And so this is one way that we can all hang

00:28:38.160 out and talk. And it's very cool. Look, we wouldn't have been able to do this even

00:28:41.000 10 years ago. But here in America, land of opportunity, technology has grown so great

00:28:46.380 that we can do that now. So we've had to accelerate the show launch in order to bring

00:28:50.180 you this content. Please let us know what you think of it. We will help you get through this

00:28:54.920 quarantine. You will help us get through this quarantine. We'll be a stronger country for it,

00:28:59.240 I hope. If you're around at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific tonight, join us on the All Access

00:29:03.660 Live show over at dailywire.com. Watch the live stream and join the chat because I've got to tell

00:29:09.800 you before we cut to the mailbag. There, there is one woman on the internet who's really convinced

00:29:17.100 me that it's all going to be okay. You know, she's convinced me what I'm going to do in my

00:29:21.080 quarantine. And I think she's, you should consider taking her advice as well. This is a woman who was

00:29:25.760 interviewed during a storm outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. And she explained, I think exactly

00:29:32.320 the attitude we should all have. We'll probably sit around and cook some soups and eat bread and

00:29:40.400 desserts and just get all fat and sassy. That's what I'm going to do. Can't get me down, Mayor

00:29:46.360 Garcetti. Can't get me down, quarantine. I'm just going to sit around, you know, maybe make some soups,

00:29:52.680 eat some breads and desserts and just get all fat and sassy. All right, head on over to dailywire.com.

00:29:58.820 We'll be right back with the mailbag. First question from Martin. Hi, Michael. Any figures

00:30:15.640 on the infection rates and death of other viruses doing the rounds this particular year? And is

00:30:20.740 coronavirus God's way of saying borders are good for you, you schmucks? Well, God is a Jew, so he

00:30:26.780 might use the word schmucks. The first part of your question, yes, many, many, many more people,

00:30:32.740 at least according to the official statistics, have had the flu this year. And many, many, many,

00:30:37.240 many more people will die of the flu this year than so far from the coronavirus in the United States.

00:30:43.100 We'll, we'll see if that holds up true. They're all telling us that the day after tomorrow,

00:30:47.280 the whole world is going to implode, but that date keeps getting pushed forward. So that's certainly

00:30:52.420 the case. The, the virus is more contagious than the flu, but it's less contagious than other public

00:30:57.980 health issues we've had in the past. Zika is one of the examples. So, uh, you know, it, it would seem

00:31:03.280 to be in this wheelhouse. We don't really have good data at this point, but the data that we have are

00:31:07.580 either inconclusive or they're contradictory, but nothing is suggesting to us that the world is going

00:31:12.440 to end. As for the question about, uh, open borders or not, this is a big wake up call on the borders.

00:31:20.020 You know, the left is telling us a lot of contradictory things when it comes to this,

00:31:26.140 but the left is telling us that we need to have totally open borders. Walls are evil. Walls don't

00:31:33.020 work and also quarantine yourself within walls. Otherwise you're going to destroy the country.

00:31:38.500 So apparently walls have the ability to stop the spread of the plague, but walls can't do anything

00:31:47.820 else. They can't, they don't actually work, but they're actually so important that you need to lock

00:31:51.960 yourself within four very small walls. That doesn't make a lot of sense. The other contradiction they

00:31:56.680 have during all of this is when we point out that maybe people shouldn't eat bats. Ben made this point

00:32:02.260 yesterday. He said, yeah, maybe don't eat bats. And then if we don't eat bats, we won't get these

00:32:05.600 kinds of diseases. And the left is furious about this. They say, how dare you? That's culturally

00:32:09.680 insensitive. That's politically incorrect. That's racist. I don't know how it's racist.

00:32:15.020 Speciesist maybe, but not racist. And I think Ben made the point. The left tells you, you can't eat

00:32:20.880 meat, that it's immoral to eat meat. It's so, it's so immoral to eat meat. It's immoral to drink milk

00:32:24.920 like Joaquin Phoenix told us, but it's very good to eat bats. I think bats are meat. And if you're going to

00:32:30.840 eat meat, by the way, bats would, should not be at the top of your list. Of course, the reason

00:32:35.680 they're doing this is the left just wants to take cheap shots because they don't like their own

00:32:38.660 country and they would rather carry water for communists than, than be fair to their own

00:32:43.700 countrymen. From Bennett, dear destroyer of the libs and austere political podcaster. I'm a high

00:32:49.940 school student who has recently received a nice long break because of the Wu flu. So I've had some extra

00:32:55.060 time on my hands the other day while polishing up on my early Hungarian history. A question occurred

00:33:00.540 to me. Is there any hope for a return to the fundamental nation state like those seen in

00:33:05.840 Europe during much of the second millennium? How can we go back or will we just have to bugger

00:33:10.380 on through this new secular system of world government until the end of days? Thanks for

00:33:14.080 your opinion. Great question. I think people misunderstand this a little bit. Probably not you, but a lot

00:33:20.060 of people do because they don't teach European history anymore in schools. The nation state as

00:33:26.300 we understand it today is a relatively new invention. It comes from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

00:33:33.180 Before that, that sort of ended the 30 years war. You had the wars of religion, but you also had

00:33:37.760 empire in, in much larger number. You had the Holy Roman Empire. You had various empires throughout the

00:33:44.080 West. And those are two different forms of government. The nation state is a different form of

00:33:49.200 government than empire, which includes many different, empire includes many different territories,

00:33:53.780 many different peoples, the nation state much less so. And now we saw the nation state grow and grow

00:34:01.240 and grow throughout all the way up until say the middle of the 20th century. Then after the second

00:34:07.320 world war, nationalism got a very bad name. And so you saw a move away from the nation state. This gave

00:34:14.660 you the growth of say the European Union, for instance, other international, transnational,

00:34:20.900 supranational organizations that really constitute more of an empire than anything resembling a federal

00:34:27.120 republic. Now, this kind of empire is very different than the old empires of Europe. The old empires of

00:34:33.880 Europe were religious. Think about the Holy Roman Empire or the Roman Empire before that, the actual

00:34:39.620 Roman Empire. Now, we've got secular empire. So the EU is not, it's not the representative of Western

00:34:48.260 Christendom. It's the representative of secular liberalism. And so it just looks very, very different than the old

00:34:55.260 empires. And the question we have now is, is there a future for that? Is there a future for secular,

00:35:01.800 globalist, modernist, liberal empire? I don't think there is. I think Brexit was one of the first shots

00:35:11.560 against that people. People don't like being told what to do by a bunch of secular bureaucrats in

00:35:16.660 Brussels. And then I think this Wuhan virus could be the final nail in the coffin. We're now seeing a

00:35:23.040 return to the nation state. And the reason for that is Yoram Hazani wrote a great book about this

00:35:27.800 called the virtue of nationalism, which is the nation state kind of uniquely in history manages

00:35:33.940 to balance freedom and order. So empire is really good at order, right? The Roman Empire kept the

00:35:42.660 order, kept the peace, but it's not great on freedom because in order to, to affect that order,

00:35:49.660 you have to trample on people's liberties to use our terms for it. Now, on the other end, you get

00:35:55.360 freedom. Freedom, you know, say very small republics or individual communities or individual

00:36:02.700 states are really good at freedom, but they're not really good at order. And so if you don't have

00:36:08.980 order, eventually you're going to lose that freedom too. The nation state is kind of unique thing between

00:36:14.280 say the city state or very small territories and empire where you can balance freedom and order. And

00:36:20.960 that's why I think it's coming back into fashion. And I think that's probably a very good thing.

00:36:24.300 From Paula, to end the toilet paper shortage, should we finally put the New York Times to good use?

00:36:30.060 Thanks. I would never degrade my body by touching it with the New York Times. Okay. I simply cannot

00:36:36.820 do that. Sorry, not going to happen. Next question from Jeffrey. Hi, Michael. I always hear a lot of

00:36:43.980 people on the left claiming unemployment is only low because people have to work two jobs because their

00:36:49.280 wages are so low. Do you have any insight? Yeah. People just don't know how unemployment works,

00:36:54.340 I guess. AOC, I think, made that point a year or two ago. She said, yeah, well, the only reason the

00:36:59.820 unemployment rate is low is because people have two jobs. If you have one job, you will be counted

00:37:07.200 as employed. Having two jobs doesn't cut the unemployment rate in half. It doesn't affect the

00:37:14.860 unemployment rate. It's about whether you are employed or not, not how many jobs you have. So,

00:37:19.180 so no, there's absolutely no merit to that, that observation. From Moe, Master Knowles,

00:37:24.920 do you think it is possible that Bernie will run as an independent when he loses the Democratic

00:37:29.860 nomination? Or will he fall in line and give O'Biden his coveted blessing? I don't think Bernie will

00:37:36.700 run as an independent. Bernie is already winding down his campaign. He's apparently turned off

00:37:42.700 online ads. That's not confirmed, but there are reports about that. He was asked about his

00:37:48.160 campaign the other day and he snapped at a reporter and said, I'm trying to deal with an effing global

00:37:52.540 crisis. Okay. I don't have time for these questions. So he's a little ornery about that. He went back to

00:37:57.580 Vermont allegedly to reassess the campaign. So it looks like he's winding it down. I don't think he's

00:38:01.940 going to run again. And also look, he rolled over last time, right? For all of Bernie's, I'm a hard

00:38:07.940 charging fighter. He rolled over in 2016 when they stole the election from him and he endorsed

00:38:12.460 Hillary. So he'll probably do that again. Bernie's career is marked by yelling and screaming and

00:38:20.560 saying that you're different than everybody and we need a radical change. And then ultimately not

00:38:26.240 really doing anything. I don't think Bernie really wants to do anything. Frankly, I don't think he would

00:38:29.760 want to be president. He doesn't want responsibility. He's never had responsibility in his life. The guy

00:38:34.600 didn't get a job until he was practically 40. All right. He got evicted from his apartment when he

00:38:40.820 was a young man in Burlington. Got evicted with his son because he didn't want to have to get a job

00:38:47.640 and pay his bills. So yeah, I don't think he even really seriously wants to be the leader of the free

00:38:52.800 world. He's a revolutionary yelling at people from the outside, but when it comes down to it, he'll roll

00:38:58.440 over. From Kelly, do you think this quarantine, people staying home, cooking for themselves, schooling

00:39:04.160 their children will bring some people back to a family centered life? Or will we go back to our

00:39:09.440 modern ways as soon as the gates are opened again? You've been my constant companion this year and a

00:39:14.760 comfort in troubled times. Thank God for you. That's very kind. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in.

00:39:20.260 I would like to think that this will bring people back to traditional ways, but I don't think three

00:39:26.160 days of sitting at home and ordering takeout is going to do that. Unfortunately, I don't think that

00:39:32.600 this bizarre quarantine experience is going to do that. I think it's much more akin to the lights

00:39:38.740 going out during a snowstorm, which when the lights go out during a snowstorm, it doesn't bring people

00:39:43.800 back to traditional family values. Part of the reason for that too is that in some ways the lights

00:39:50.940 going out has a better chance of bringing you back to a traditional family values because the power

00:39:57.440 goes out. So you can't watch TV. You can't just be on your phone. You can't just be sitting alone in

00:40:02.180 your room on Instagram. You've got to be with people, talking to people, candle lights on. Maybe

00:40:08.860 you read a book. Maybe you play a board game. Maybe you just hang out. In this case, we're stuck at home,

00:40:14.840 but we're probably just as socially isolated as ever. Maybe we're more socially isolated.

00:40:19.580 Part of that is too, most people don't live with their families, at least young professionals.

00:40:24.680 They live truly alone. So if anything, I think it's going to isolate people more. Sorry to leave

00:40:30.320 you on a down note there, but if we want to restore family values in America, it's going to be a little

00:40:34.080 tougher than that. From Jason, can Trump sign an executive order mandating that Mike Bloomberg must

00:40:40.020 send every American $1 million? Wow, that's an amazing number. And it's amazing because it's true.

00:40:48.540 I guess he can, man. You know, if we all lived in MSNBC world, then absolutely Trump could sign that

00:40:58.740 executive order. And look, frankly, in America today, probably he could sign the executive order

00:41:05.240 because we're totally fine confiscating wealth from anybody. I mean, that's pretty much the Democratic

00:41:09.260 Party platform. But in order to make the math work, you know, we'd have to be living in MSNBC land and

00:41:14.440 the Big Rock Candy Mountain. From Paxton, hey, Michael, I believe you have mentioned before that

00:41:19.640 you had an atheist phase in college, but later converted back to Christianity. What argument or

00:41:24.260 change was the tipping point that caused you to go back to God? The ontological argument.

00:41:31.300 Simple answer. It was a much more involved process than that. And it's funny now because

00:41:35.860 the ontological argument is not even the best argument for God, but it was the one that got me.

00:41:41.720 I think it's a sort of whimsical argument. It's a very charming argument. And even Bertrand Russell,

00:41:48.140 great logician and a very famous atheist, infamous atheist, couldn't find the logical flaw in it.

00:41:54.720 So that one got me. The ontological argument is very simple. It goes something like this.

00:41:59.460 God is the maximally great being. He's got all the great making characteristics, none of the corrupting

00:42:03.560 ones. It's not impossible that God exists. And it's better to exist than not to exist. So if God

00:42:11.600 has all the great making characteristics, then God must exist. It's so unsatisfying for people.

00:42:18.400 And yet I found it very charming. There are better versions of the ontological argument than that,

00:42:23.580 particularly the modal ontological argument. But anyway, that one got me. So it's worth checking

00:42:28.000 out, I think. And then C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, talking and noticing that all the smartest people,

00:42:33.680 the very, very smartest people I knew believed in God, believed in Christianity. And that was kind of

00:42:39.360 curious to me. And then exploring the much deeper intellectual tradition. And only after that, only

00:42:44.380 after I had sort of assuaged my hubris and intellectual pride, only then did the spiritual

00:42:51.480 component kick in. And that's probably the more important one. But it was a long process. Like

00:42:57.240 Hemingway says, things happen gradually, then suddenly. From Anna. Hi, Michael. I was listening to

00:43:03.420 the All Access Lockdown episode two, and you and the God King talked about free will and the examples of an

00:43:08.400 addict or a homosexual. As a young person who's been addicted to nicotine for over 10 years,

00:43:12.420 that level of addiction is still a choice. I know that I could stop tomorrow. It would be hard,

00:43:17.960 but I could do it. I have the choice or the free will to make that choice. I think that every

00:43:21.600 individual is born with certain temptations that challenge us more than those same temptations

00:43:26.040 challenge others, from drugs to sexual acts and even homosexuality. I absolutely believe that we

00:43:30.760 have the choice to control or abstain from those temptations. And that's how and why we are held

00:43:34.580 accountable by God. Could you expand on your opinion of this? Thanks. Yes, my opinion is you

00:43:38.880 sound like an addict. You said that just that key phrase you said, I've been addicted to nicotine for

00:43:44.520 10 years, but I could stop anytime. I know a lot of addicts who say they could stop anytime and the

00:43:50.160 majority of them cannot stop at any time. Maybe you can, maybe you're the exception. The point I think

00:43:56.300 still remains. Addiction makes it very hard to exercise your will. Now, Jeremy went to an extreme

00:44:04.140 and he said, I don't believe in free will. Now, I don't agree with that. I certainly do believe in

00:44:09.280 free will. I believe in free will like more than most people do probably. However, part of the issue

00:44:17.980 with our free will is that when we abuse our free will and we sin, or if you want to use a kind of

00:44:23.860 secular analogy here, we, let's say we get into an addiction, then it becomes harder and harder to

00:44:30.000 exercise our will because we come, become habituated to sin. And it's, it's why this is the

00:44:38.340 trouble with virtue is we think of virtue as just this abstract thing. We do, we help an old lady

00:44:42.800 cross the street. Good. We've, we're virtuous. No, virtue is a habit. You've got to do it more and more.

00:44:48.760 So when you freely choose to engage in virtue and you freely choose to do a good thing,

00:44:54.920 then it becomes easier to do the next good thing. It becomes a habit and then you live a virtuous life.

00:45:02.780 When you abuse your free will to do a bad thing, to sin, to be, to do vice, then it becomes much

00:45:10.740 easier to commit the next vice, to sin more, to go further down that rabbit hole becomes much harder

00:45:15.980 to pull yourself out. And so you can throw off the responsibility and say, well, I'm an addict.

00:45:21.880 Well, I'm, I, I can't help myself, but, and then that's true, but you've also freely made the choice

00:45:29.420 to practice those vices. So it's a complex relationship. The way I would describe the

00:45:34.080 relationship between free will and grace is like two people dancing a waltz. It's a relationship that

00:45:40.280 you can't, uh, separate. And so of course we must have free will in order for anything that we know

00:45:48.460 about ourselves and our society and our God to be correct. We must have free will, but the reality

00:45:55.040 of temptation, reality of sin has to be real as well. And grace, most importantly, has to be real

00:46:02.200 as well. How's that for a way to end the week? Hope you all survive quarantine. I'll still be around,

00:46:07.480 but I'll certainly see you if not before then on Monday. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael

00:46:12.500 Knowles show. See you then. Just get all fat and sassy. If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly,

00:46:23.840 even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word, please give us

00:46:28.800 a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on Apple podcasts, Spotify,

00:46:34.380 and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts,

00:46:40.240 including the Ben Shapiro show, the Andrew Klavan show, and the Matt Walsh show.

00:46:44.120 The Michael Knowles show is produced by Ben Davies and directed by Mike Joyner. Executive producer,

00:46:50.740 Jeremy Boring. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling. Technical producer,

00:46:56.260 Austin Stevens. Assistant director, Pavel Widowski. Editor and associate producer,

00:47:01.440 Danny D'Amico. Audio mixer, Robin Fenderson. Hair and makeup, Nika Geneva. Production assistant,

00:47:08.820 Ryan Love. The Michael Knowles show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:47:14.460 You know, the Matt Walsh show, it's not just another show about politics. I think there are enough of

00:47:18.740 those already out there. We talk about culture because culture drives politics and it drives

00:47:23.760 everything else. So my main focuses are life, family, faith. Those are fundamental. And that's what

00:47:31.200 this show is about. I hope you'll give it a listen.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 19, 2020

Ep. 514 - The Green Flu Deal

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