The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1147 - Pokémon Is Dead, The Trump Digital Cards Are The Future

00:00:00.000 Two days ago, Trump promised a major announcement, all caps. Many speculated that he was going to

00:00:07.320 announce his running mate. Perhaps he would announce a slate of big endorsements. Perhaps

00:00:14.480 he would announce a coup d'etat. But instead, Trump announced that he would be selling expensive

00:00:22.560 computer cartoons of himself. Hello, everyone. This is Donald Trump. Hopefully your favorite

00:00:32.020 president of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington, with an important

00:00:36.900 announcement to make. I'm doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection right here and right

00:00:43.020 now. They're called Trump Digital Trading Cards. These cards feature some of the really incredible

00:00:49.300 artwork pertaining to my life and my career. It's been very exciting. You can collect your

00:00:54.400 Trump Digital Cards just like a baseball card or other collectibles. Here's one of the best

00:01:01.440 parts. Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing prizes like dinner with me.

00:01:07.560 I don't know if that's an amazing prize, but it's what we have. Or golf with you and a group

00:01:12.520 of your friends at one of my beautiful golf courses, and they are beautiful. I'm also doing

00:01:17.900 Zoom calls, a one-on-one meeting, autographing memorabilia, and so much more. We're doing a

00:01:24.300 lot. The prize is dinner with me. I don't know if that's an amazing prize, but it's what we've got.

00:01:30.660 I love it. I love it. It's obviously a troll. It's obviously funny. It's charming, in fact,

00:01:36.780 self-effacing, humble even. But that's all it was. It was just a big joke. Trump has always been

00:01:45.620 funny, and he was especially funny in 2016. But in 2016, he was funny with a purpose.

00:01:53.560 He made jokes about illegal aliens to argue for closing the border. They're rapists. They're

00:02:00.980 murderers. Some are maybe good people. Okay, but it's a joke, but it's a joke that has a lot of

00:02:06.520 truth to it, and it's a joke for a political purpose. He made jokes about trade deals

00:02:10.560 for the purpose of defending the American worker. He made jokes about the fake news for the purpose of

00:02:17.560 breaking the power of the lying press. Yesterday, Trump made a joke about superheroes to sell some

00:02:26.720 expensive JPEGs. We all want Trump to be funny, but no one wants Trump to be frivolous. He is entitled to

00:02:35.400 raise as much money as he can for whatever kind of pictures that he wants. Obviously, it's going to

00:02:40.040 be a very expensive campaign in 2024. But this whole thing is going to fall flat if no one knows what

00:02:46.620 that campaign is for. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:02:58.640 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Scott, who says,

00:03:02.900 are you tired of getting kicked out of restaurants who hate your guts just because of your beliefs?

00:03:07.640 Visit Jeremy's Steakhouse instead. Jeremy Boring, hopefully someday. I know it's very frustrating

00:03:13.640 that that restaurant in Nashville canceled our reservation because it's going to cost Daily

00:03:18.600 Wire so much time and money now that Jeremy is going to have to become Emeril Lagasse. Jeremy's now

00:03:25.100 going to have to go on this whole multi-million dollar detour to become Mario Batali. But listen,

00:03:29.560 I'm sure the restaurant will be great. $100 JPEGs are not going to win the 2024 presidential race.

00:03:36.680 I know we're two years out. I know that there's not very much that Donald Trump can do right now.

00:03:40.860 He is not in political office. So his rivals, notably Ron DeSantis, can do lots of things.

00:03:48.460 But Donald Trump can't seem frivolous. It's good when he seems silly. It's good when he seems funny.

00:03:55.360 It's good when he seems irreverent. That actually helps distinguish him from the rest of the

00:04:00.100 Republican candidates who just don't have as much razzle-dazzle celebrity as Trump does.

00:04:05.600 Trump's one of the biggest celebrities of the last 40 years. But the JPEGs are not going to win the

00:04:12.400 nomination, okay? I think right now of Ron DeSantis. Within the same week, Donald Trump releases the

00:04:18.340 $100 JPEGs. Ron DeSantis impanels a grand jury to investigate and prosecute the people who pushed

00:04:24.800 the COVID lies and the COVID vaccines. As a Republican voter, I care much more about the

00:04:32.520 latter than I do about the former. I don't know what Donald Trump can do right now, but he's got

00:04:38.300 to seem a little more focused, okay? And when I think about the 2016 race, it really wasn't all about

00:04:45.960 him. He would put his name on things. He would put his name on things like he's put his name on

00:04:52.580 things for 40 years now, big gold letters on top of buildings. But it seemed like that campaign was

00:04:57.940 about us. That was his motto. Remember, Hillary Clinton had, I'm with her. Trump said, my motto is,

00:05:04.420 I'm with you, right? He switched the subject of the motto. And you really felt like this guy

00:05:09.460 is doing this for us. He doesn't need to. He's going to lose money. He's going to get a lot of

00:05:15.880 agita. It's going to make his life worse in many ways, but he's doing it for us. Here, I don't really

00:05:22.940 see that. What is motivating the campaign? Is it fixing trade? Is it fixing immigration?

00:05:29.280 Or is it telling jokes? I like jokes. I like owning the libs, but I like doing it with

00:05:35.920 a purpose. Trump used to have that energy of, we're going to impanel the grand jury and we're

00:05:42.940 going to lock you up, Dr. Fauci. That's the subtext of impaneling the grand jury. The subtext is what

00:05:49.100 Trump said to Hillary in 2016. Hillary says, I wouldn't want to live in a country where Donald

00:05:54.300 Trump is president. He says, yeah, because you'd be in jail. Boom. Owned. Love it. Yeah.

00:05:59.280 That'd be great. Right now, DeSantis is taking that energy. Trump is not. Speaking of wielding

00:06:06.200 power, absolutely great news. Elon Musk is going on a banning spree on Twitter and he is banning

00:06:14.300 the libs. This all started because there was an account called Elon Jet that was tracking in real

00:06:20.140 time Elon Musk's private airplane. And this led to some very bad things. One, Elon Musk is already

00:06:26.680 getting lots of threats against him. But then Elon Musk also just had an attack that I guess was

00:06:33.700 supposed to be against him. It ended up being against his little kid. His son was in a car and

00:06:41.000 some black clad Antifa looking guy pulls up to the car, starts attacking the car. The car didn't have

00:06:47.960 Elon Musk in it. The car had his kid. And so Elon is fit to be tied at the moment. And he has gone

00:06:56.480 on a banning spree specifically against people who have doxed him or amplified voices that have

00:07:03.140 doxed him. So he's gone on a banning spree. He banned the left-wing propagandist and former Vox

00:07:09.600 journalist Aaron Rupar. He banned CNN reporter Donnie O'Sullivan. He banned New York Times reporter

00:07:16.060 Ryan Mack. He banned WAPA reporter Drew Harwell. He banned Intercept journalist Micah Lee. I don't

00:07:22.960 really know anything about Micah Lee. And he banned Keith Olbermann. Oh my gosh, it's just too

00:07:29.180 delicious. I just love it. I was on Timcast last night and as this news broke, we're all sitting

00:07:35.860 around there. And Luke on the show, huge libertarian. Me, I'm not so libertarian. And so a lot of people

00:07:44.000 raise these concerns. Well, what about free speech? I don't mean to make fun of them, but I like the

00:07:49.160 guys on the Timcast show a lot. They're friends of mine. But a lot of people out there in the media

00:07:53.500 as well, and especially the left-wing journalists, I say, what about free speech? What about the free

00:07:57.740 speech absolutism? I think I'm not a free speech absolutist. I think Elon Musk was 100% justified

00:08:05.840 justified in banning people who are doxing him and threatening his family. 100% justified.

00:08:12.880 I would like to thank Elon Musk for vindicating and enacting the view of free speech that I advocate

00:08:21.420 in my book, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, number one national bestseller

00:08:26.020 right now, right in time for Christmas. Do I, okay, maybe the bell is a little delayed when I'm on the

00:08:30.940 road? I'm not so sure. But in any case, thank you, Elon. The book will still arrive in time for

00:08:36.200 Christmas, depending on where you order it from right now. And you're seeing it play out in real

00:08:39.640 time. No one seriously believes that the First Amendment protects the right of leftist political

00:08:47.300 activists on the internet to endanger the lives of Elon Musk's children, okay? No way.

00:08:52.760 And I have to tell you, even beyond the principle of the whole thing, and in principle, Keith Olbermann

00:09:01.380 has no right to a Twitter account. But even beyond the principle, I do get a little bit of schadenfreude

00:09:07.940 when I look at these liberal journalists dealing with something that conservatives have been dealing

00:09:13.140 with for years. Keith Olbermann is at least as extreme on the left-wing side as Alex Jones is on

00:09:20.900 the right-wing side. Keith Olbermann is, in fact, much more extreme, much less reasonable as a

00:09:27.200 leftist than Alex Jones would be as a conservative. Absolutely great stuff. Tim made a really, really

00:09:36.600 good point on the show last night, which is that he said, the letter of the law is important, but it

00:09:43.320 requires judges to interpret it. And you could go even further. The letter of the law is important,

00:09:49.520 but I frequently reference Adrian Vermeule, the conservative Harvard law professor. He draws

00:09:55.220 a distinction between two senses of the law, lex and use. Going, speaking Latin, by the way, I'm not

00:10:02.520 just mispronouncing English words. Lex, meaning the law as written in a statute or in a constitution,

00:10:07.760 and use, meaning the background legal principles, the context in which that written law would exist.

00:10:13.580 The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life, okay? And when we look at Twitter right now, yes, there are

00:10:23.260 some rules that can be written down on paper. Here are the new Twitter guidelines. But it's always going

00:10:28.580 to require people to put that into effect. And I'll tell you, I trust Elon Musk, a sort of center left-wing

00:10:36.920 guy, maybe now center right. I trust him to put it into effect much more than I trust Vijaya Gadi

00:10:42.620 and all of the other lunatics who used to run Twitter, okay? And there's nothing unprincipled

00:10:47.440 about saying that. This is a human society. We live in a political community. People are always going

00:10:52.300 to matter. So yes, we need the right rules written down on the sheets of paper, but we also need wise,

00:10:57.840 prudent, just people to enact the rules that we have written down. We need to be able to speak with

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00:12:06.380 PureTalk, simply, smarter, wireless. Speaking of social media bans, more great news coming out of

00:12:14.680 Capitol Hill. The GOP Congress is moving to ban TikTok in the U.S. And you know, you know that

00:12:22.900 congressman cannot resist a good acronym. Initialisms and acronyms are absolute catnip

00:12:33.020 to members of the Congress. And so they have proposed the averting the national threat of

00:12:41.620 an internet surveillance, oppressive censorship and influence, and algorithmic learning by the

00:12:50.120 Chinese Communist Party Act, also known as the Anti-Social CCP Act. Boo! It's so stupid. But the

00:13:02.800 bill is very good. The title, perhaps a little silly. The bill, very, very good. This is being

00:13:08.760 proposed in the Senate. This is being proposed in the House of Representatives. Marco Rubio is

00:13:13.520 helping to lead the bipartisan charge in the Senate. This is a really important law.

00:13:20.120 The extreme libertarian position will be, well, we don't want the government interfering in the

00:13:25.360 market. And if people want to download their TikToks and jiggle on camera and just waste their

00:13:31.240 time doom scrolling for hours a day, that's their right. And now, we have the right within the

00:13:37.800 political community to set boundaries within the marketplace. And when it comes to TikTok,

00:13:43.160 we have, I think, an obligation to suppress TikTok in our country. Because there is a national security

00:13:49.840 risk from TikTok. TikTok is a way for the Chinese Communist Party to get data from us. And that's a

00:13:56.180 really, really bad thing. And TikTok is a way for the Chinese Communist Party to censor some of the

00:14:01.740 discourse within the United States to help control the public square, which in a self-government means

00:14:06.480 the Chinese Communist Party would have a fair amount of control over our political order.

00:14:09.820 But furthermore, TikTok is just bad. It is just digital crack, okay? When you look at the amount

00:14:17.980 of time per day that TikTok users are on the app versus, say, Twitter users, it is not even close.

00:14:24.580 And there's one study showed the average or median Twitter user is on the app for two to six minutes

00:14:30.100 per day. The average or median TikTok user, it's upwards of an hour, okay? It's a huge waste of time.

00:14:37.240 It's a total psyop. And we should wield the power of the state, by which I mean the political

00:14:42.700 community, to put a stop to that. People are not really benefiting from TikTok. And we can know that

00:14:48.040 and we can perceive that. And everybody deep down knows that it's true. And we should put a stop to

00:14:52.420 it because it's endangering national security. It's also endangering our psychology and our lives

00:14:56.880 and our productivity and our national soul. Speaking of dangers coming from China,

00:15:03.240 the House Intelligence Committee, GOP, has just come out with a report that you're going to be

00:15:10.600 shocked to hear this. If you're driving, pull over. If you're standing up, have a seat. Turns out

00:15:16.980 that COVID maybe didn't just start in nature. It maybe just wasn't a total accident because of a bad

00:15:24.500 batch of bat soup at the Wuhan wet market. You're going to be shocked to find out that COVID

00:15:31.020 actually may have come from the Wuhan laboratory. And that COVID actually may have been part of a

00:15:41.120 Chinese bioweapons program. You're going to be shocked to find out that the wild-eyed, crazy,

00:15:45.860 tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists were actually very likely right about everything regarding COVID

00:15:51.640 from the very beginning. Here's what the report says. Contrary to the implication of the intelligence

00:15:59.380 community's declassified report. Based on our investigation involving a variety of public and

00:16:03.780 non-public information, we conclude that there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to

00:16:08.500 China's biological weapons research program and spilled over to the human population during a lab-related

00:16:13.820 incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The IC, the intelligence community, failed to adequately

00:16:19.320 address this information in its classified updated assessment. When we attempted to raise the issues

00:16:26.220 with the IC, it failed to respond. There you have it. Now, why might the IC and other branches

00:16:33.000 of the administrative agencies in the deep state, why might they not be so interested in admitting

00:16:39.020 that SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, the Wu flu, whatever you want to call it, may very likely have been part of a

00:16:45.380 Chinese bioweapons program? Well, one, because the United States obviously is conducting similar research.

00:16:53.960 This became a big issue when certain biolabs were uncovered in Eastern Europe as part of the

00:16:59.660 Ukraine war. But two, because the U.S. funded the laboratory. Because the U.S. was funding this

00:17:08.380 kind of research on back coronaviruses and had subset grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology

00:17:14.340 through Peter Daszak and through EcoHealth Alliance. So you've got a combination here of

00:17:21.520 culpability and incompetence in the federal government. And so they don't want to admit

00:17:26.860 that they're doing that. And so they're trying to cover it up. They've been trying to cover it up

00:17:29.760 for two and a half years. I'm really pleased to see that the House GOP is coming in and

00:17:35.380 they're at least willing to talk about these things. We need to go further though.

00:17:40.640 Now, we need to be vindicated. We have been gaslit for so, so long. We need some vindication.

00:17:50.580 Okay. If all the House GOP does is obstruct Biden's worst plans and uncover this kind of stuff,

00:17:57.940 that will have been a great service. Speaking of things that hate you, things that hate,

00:18:06.140 I'm sorry, things that can hurt you. Speaking of things that can hurt you, Jay Leno has had his

00:18:12.200 face set on fire. We covered this a couple of weeks ago when it first happened. Jay Leno loves working

00:18:17.140 on cars and he had oil and gas sputter out of a car. And then there was a light that was already lit

00:18:22.480 and it lit his whole face on fire. He goes to the hospital and this guy just jokes about it. So he's

00:18:28.380 out of surgery. They seem to have fixed his face up fairly well. Leno says, quote,

00:18:34.600 eight days later, I had a brand new face and it's better than what was there before.

00:18:39.900 I'm sorry. I'll try that again. Eight days later, I had a brand new face and it's better than what

00:18:43.940 was there before. And he just says it as a joke, as a total throwaway. That's a very funny line.

00:18:49.500 He says, when you look at me, you don't really worry about what you look like. Look, if I'm George

00:18:54.000 Clooney, it's going to be a huge problem. They said it would be all right. My attitude is I trust

00:18:57.880 people who are the best to do what they have to do. He then said, the most expensive part of the

00:19:03.920 whole operation was the gasoline. We're in California. It's seven bucks a gallon. So he

00:19:08.600 just keeps telling jokes. I think he's already performing again. There were reports that after a

00:19:12.700 couple of days in the hospital, Leno was going around telling jokes to kids who were in the hospital.

00:19:16.840 It's just up on his feet, very buoyant. And a lot of people are looking at this and they're

00:19:21.280 saying, wow, this is great. Good for Jay Leno. I wish I had that attitude. For me, I stubbed my

00:19:25.980 toe. It ruins my whole day. For me, someone cuts me off in traffic. I'm still whining about it.

00:19:30.020 Jay Leno gets his face burnt off and he's telling jokes about it days later.

00:19:33.900 Wow, what a guy. I wish I could be like that. My question is, what's the alternative to being like

00:19:41.000 that? Yes, it's great. Clearly, Jay Leno has cultivated certain virtues that have allowed him to remain

00:19:49.540 buoyant. But my question is, for those of us who have not done that yet, what's the alternative?

00:19:55.900 We're just going to whine and be miserable all the time? Jay Leno is not only doing something that's

00:20:00.660 virtuous here. He's doing something that's wise and smart and in his self-interest. He's not going

00:20:05.060 to be benefiting by whining and crying all the time about what's happened, whether it's spilt milk

00:20:10.500 or burning his face off. He's just going to move on with his life. Now, speaking of late night hosts,

00:20:15.600 late night has really gone downhill since Jay Leno left. Stephen Colbert has a lot to say

00:20:24.380 about the potential 2024 presidential race. Because right now, Donald Trump not doing very,

00:20:31.240 very well. Right now, Ron DeSantis doing much better. But Stephen Colbert, he's already looking

00:20:38.040 ahead to what happens if DeSantis takes over Trump. New Wall Street Journal poll says that in a hypothetical

00:20:43.640 GOP primary matchup, DeSantis beats the former president 52% to 38%. Yay?

00:20:52.420 Also, maybe boo? It's hard to know who to root for here. It's like a poll between gonorrhea and a

00:21:00.660 slightly more racist gonorrhea. This is apologies to gonorrhea.

00:21:09.740 Tee hee hee hee. Gosh. Donald Trump. Donald Trump is Hitler. Donald Trump is the worst person to ever

00:21:18.040 hold the presidency. It's not just that we hate all the Republicans and conservatives. Donald Trump is

00:21:22.240 uniquely a threat. He's a fascist. He's a Nazi. We have to stop Donald Trump. But Ron DeSantis is just

00:21:28.100 as bad. And I told you this. You know, I hate to say I told you so. I said this all the way back in

00:21:33.860 2016. They're all pretending that Trump is the unique case. By the time Trump leaves office,

00:21:42.420 it's going to be the good old days. Oh, Donald Trump was bad, but he wasn't as bad as,

00:21:48.560 insert the name of the next Republican, just like they did to George W. Bush. When George Bush was

00:21:53.860 president, he was Hitler. Now he's all the good old days, George W. Bush. Just the same thing with

00:21:59.740 George H. W. Bush. They did the same thing to Ronald Reagan. They called him a white supremacist

00:22:03.420 and a Nazi and a skinhead and all the rest of it. I guess he couldn't be a skinhead because he had such

00:22:07.220 a beautiful head of hair. And so right now, actually, the only silver lining for Donald Trump in what's

00:22:12.980 been generally a pretty bad political news cycle for him, vis-a-vis the Republican primary and Ron

00:22:18.660 DeSantis, is they haven't really opened fire on DeSantis yet. So DeSantis is doing very,

00:22:24.600 very well in the polls. But the moment that they start to turn their firepower on Ron DeSantis,

00:22:29.760 you are going to see those numbers come down. I'm not saying it's going to be fair. It's really

00:22:34.160 never fair when the media do that. That is the game that they play. And so we've got to stay alert.

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00:23:42.620 Speaking of rolling with the punches, a House Republican representative, Carlos Jimenez,

00:23:53.060 is urging Elon Musk to move Twitter to Florida. Not to move the Twitter digital platform, he's doing

00:24:01.860 lots of moves there, but to move the physical headquarters to Florida. I think this would be

00:24:05.260 a great, great move. What Jimenez says is, quote, I'm writing to you as the former mayor of Miami-Dade

00:24:12.340 County, who now has the distinct honor of representing my community in Congress. We want to encourage you

00:24:18.000 to explore our free state of Florida and make the move to relocate Twitter to Miami-Dade County.

00:24:24.680 This would solve a lot of Musk's problems. If he moved the headquarters from San Francisco to Miami

00:24:35.680 or something, that would solve a lot of Musk's problems. You remember right now, Musk is being

00:24:40.240 investigated because he brought some mattresses to the office for overworked employees who want to

00:24:45.780 take a quick nap. Well, he's being investigated for that. The government in San Francisco, in California,

00:24:50.880 obviously very, very hostile to Musk. They're going to continue to launch investigations.

00:24:54.900 They're going to pass laws to punish him. And so what he should do is move to Florida.

00:24:59.960 It is a lesson that I've been trying to drive home for a while, but now we're seeing it play out in

00:25:05.860 real time. Politics is not just your friends online. Politics is not just about your affinity groups

00:25:12.880 and some meetup chat or something like that. Politics is about a political community. Man is

00:25:20.660 in some degree a physical being. And so the political community is also where we live.

00:25:27.800 If Elon Musk moves from California to Florida, he will have a much easier time conducting business.

00:25:33.760 Just like the Daily Wire has had a much easier time conducting business when we move from LA to

00:25:39.060 Tennessee. Just like all sorts of businesses have had a much easier time since they moved from Florida

00:25:44.540 to, from California to Florida, from California to Texas, from California to Tennessee. Elon,

00:25:50.860 now is the time to do it. It's going to be a lot easier to move because you fired or allowed to quit

00:25:55.400 huge numbers of the staff. You're selling off a lot of the merch. Elon is probably several steps ahead

00:26:00.580 of us in planning this out already, but let's do it. It would also seriously help the culture war

00:26:05.020 because we have to show these people that there are consequences to their terrible policies and their

00:26:10.820 terrible government. Take their money away. Take their power centers away. I don't like the idea that

00:26:18.360 three or four entities control the public square, especially because they're semi-private entities.

00:26:24.120 But I would feel a hell of a lot better if not all of those entities were based in Silicon Valley

00:26:29.500 surrounded by crazy libs. I would feel a lot better if at least one of those entities,

00:26:34.600 even if it's the smallest one, were based in a conservative state. Speaking of the GOP,

00:26:43.120 there's a big explosive report. This report is out from Red State. It says that the RNC has been

00:26:51.900 spending tons of money and it's largely a political attack on Ronna McDaniel, who is the current

00:26:59.000 chairman of the Republican National Committee. I assume this is part of the campaign right now.

00:27:04.500 There's a power struggle. Who's going to be the next GOP chairman? Is Ronna McDaniel going to

00:27:08.460 continue to serve? Is Harmeet Dillon, who's a friend of ours, a California Republican lawyer,

00:27:14.700 is she going to become the new head of it? There was a rumor that Mercedes Schlapp, who's a former

00:27:19.240 Trump official, who's married to Matt Schlapp, head of the American Conservative Union,

00:27:23.440 that she might run. Regardless of who's behind it, it's obviously an attack on Ronna McDaniel.

00:27:30.900 And I have to say, there are many reasons to attack the RNC and the House GOP leadership and

00:27:37.300 the Senate GOP leadership. This one seems a little bit weak to me. If you look at the money that was

00:27:42.780 spent on private jets, the money that was spent on limousines, luxury retreats, Broadway shows,

00:27:48.320 you know, it all sounds really bad in the headline. It's not a ton of money. The money that was spent

00:27:53.400 on private jets, half a million dollars. That's what? 10 flights? 10 to 15 flights? That's really

00:28:03.060 not a ton of money over this period of time, over a year for a major American political party to spend

00:28:09.460 on chartered flights. Because sometimes to get to fundraisers, to get to big events, to get there

00:28:15.000 on time to places where they don't have commercial flights. I don't know. That just doesn't seem crazy

00:28:19.360 to me. The floral arrangements, food and beverage, alcohol. Again, it sounds really bad. They spent

00:28:27.460 $36,500 on alcohol. Well, yeah, they're throwing events. They're raising money. This seems a little

00:28:34.020 bit weak to me. I mean, all is fair in love and war and politics, but the reasons to go after the RNC

00:28:41.500 or the failure of the RNC to support good candidates, to win elections, to counter the

00:28:47.900 Democrats' strategies in terms of ballot harvesting, in terms of changing the laws in certain states to

00:28:54.540 benefit one party over the other. That's why one would go after them. But spending a little bit of

00:28:59.740 money on booze at fundraisers, I don't know. That doesn't do a whole lot for me. You know what I think

00:29:05.720 would be significant? What you're seeing in Georgia right now. In Georgia, the Secretary of State

00:29:10.820 is moving to end runoff elections, which I think is great. Brad Raffensperger has just called on the

00:29:16.580 state legislature to eliminate runoff elections after last week, because we saw the Herschel Walker

00:29:21.320 and Raphael Warnock campaign. It was a really close call on election night, so it goes on for another

00:29:28.180 few weeks. Then it goes into December, and okay, Warnock barely edges it out. We need to get rid of this

00:29:34.660 stuff. Okay, the runoffs generally only serve the Democrats. Sometimes Republicans can win. I'm not saying

00:29:43.380 that it's always rigged against the Democrats, but I just think what conservatives and Republicans should be

00:29:47.880 aiming at is to reduce the size of the election. We need to get rid of the mail-in ballots. We need to get rid of

00:30:01.640 election season. We need to get rid of the runoffs. We need to get rid of ranked choice voting. We just

00:30:06.320 need to bring it. It's much easier to control for shenanigans when the election takes place on

00:30:12.620 election day and people have to show up. So any way that we can reduce the size of the election,

00:30:20.120 that is what we have to do. There's even more great political news, by the way, that's coming out

00:30:26.320 of Loudoun County. Before we take a break and go over to the member block, I do have to mention this.

00:30:31.840 In Loudoun County, the superintendent there has just been indicted. This guy, Superintendent Scott

00:30:39.800 Ziegler was the one who permitted ridiculous bathroom policies that encouraged a rape to take

00:30:47.620 place. A boy in the girl's bathroom at Loudoun County, all sorts of gender-bending craziness,

00:30:52.380 but that wasn't even the worst part. The rape was the worst part. But then the worst part from the

00:30:56.900 standpoint of policy was that the superintendent just moved the kid to another school. He knew

00:31:04.220 about it. He didn't really follow up on it. He just tried to brush the problem under the rug. And then

00:31:08.040 what happened? The kid raped someone again. It was all this big cover-up because it was so politically

00:31:13.960 incorrect to say that boys shouldn't go into the girl's bathroom and the gender-bending students

00:31:17.860 obviously have some psychological problems. Well, now that guy's being indicted. Love that.

00:31:22.980 This guy lied. There's more to say on this story, but this is a great use of political power. I mean,

00:31:30.960 I just keep coming back to this. In all of these fronts, when we're talking about social media,

00:31:35.080 when we're talking about local school boards, when we're talking about the national government,

00:31:38.700 when we're talking about woke corporations, we're talking about all of it, we need to wield our power

00:31:42.840 because if we don't, if all we do is issue strong statements or crack jokes, then the libs are going

00:31:50.400 to get away with it. And they're going to keep, keep on with their terrible policies that are

00:31:56.000 destroying the country. Okay. Now we are heading on to my absolute favorite time of the week. That

00:32:04.340 is when I get to hear from you in the voicemail bag. If you have not submitted a voicemail bag

00:32:08.260 this week, make sure you get it in for next week. You head on over to the Michael Knowles show page,

00:32:12.780 click on boop, boop, boop, submit a question, send in your voice mail bag, keep it under a minute. So

00:32:19.180 I don't, I don't need your whole life story. Okay. We got to be able to play it on air, but make sure

00:32:23.660 you head on over and do that. I had a huge year in 2022 guys. So did Daily Wire Plus. We released

00:32:28.640 Choosing Death, The Legacy of Roe. I put out Dr. Fauci's Unmasked, a great documentary, putting

00:32:34.940 the man himself under a microscope, if I do say so myself. And of course we put out What is a Woman,

00:32:39.860 Terror on the Prairie, Greatest Lie Ever Sold. Dr. Jordan Peterson joined our fold.

00:32:44.020 As great as that year was, we have so much in store for this coming year. You will see it all

00:32:49.480 if you are a member. If you're already a member, thank you. If you're not yet a member, now is the

00:32:54.460 time to join. This Christmas season, you can get 30% off new Daily Wire Plus annual memberships and

00:32:59.920 gift memberships when you use code HOLIDAY at checkout. What that means is there's only a short

00:33:05.240 time left to take advantage of our final sale of 2022. Go to dailywire.com slash Knowles. Use code

00:33:10.680 HOLIDAY at checkout to get 30% off new Daily Wire Plus memberships. That is dailywire.com

00:33:16.200 slash Knowles today. The voice mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to puretalk.com. Select a plan. Enter

00:33:22.100 code Knowles to get 50% off your first month. Take it away. Hey there, Michael. So my situation

00:33:29.840 is I am a young adult. I don't really do much of anything. I'm not interested in partying, drinking,

00:33:39.600 going to bars, none of that. I spend most of my time at church where everyone's either a lot

00:33:47.360 younger or older than I am. I recently moved to a new area for work, and I don't know how I'm ever

00:33:59.000 going to find a man. Like, I feel like I'm going to be alone forever because most young adults that I

00:34:07.500 know go to bars on the weekends or go out and do things and be social, I have maybe one friend who

00:34:15.900 I go out with a few times a month, maybe, and that's hiking. So, I mean, I'm not the most social

00:34:25.440 person. I'm not interested in compromising my beliefs, but I don't know how to meet someone with

00:34:31.200 the same interests as me, if that makes sense. I would love your advice. Thank you so much.

00:34:37.960 First thing to do, take some pressure off yourself, okay? You're clearly feeling from this pressure of,

00:34:45.340 I've got to go out. I've got to meet a man. This is it. This is one of my three times a month I go out.

00:34:49.140 It's got to happen. If it doesn't happen, now I'm going to die alone. It's okay. It's all right.

00:34:55.100 Relax. If you go out with that kind of attitude, you're not going to have a very good time. You're

00:35:01.560 probably not going to meet anybody, and you're going to be very, very disappointed. So, it's okay.

00:35:06.360 What you need to do is you say you don't really like going to bars and restaurants.

00:35:10.320 You do like going to church, but the people at your church are very, very old or very, very young.

00:35:15.360 So, I would recommend maybe looking for another church, or if you really love your church,

00:35:20.840 just different groups affiliated with churches, where you might find young people.

00:35:27.260 That is your interest. So, you can find people who share that interest there, and it's a very

00:35:31.100 good interest to have. God is a very good interest to have. I would recommend, I'm not sure if you're

00:35:35.460 Catholic, but if you are Catholic, I would recommend you check out a traditional Latin mass. I actually

00:35:40.240 would recommend it even if you're not Catholic. But that's not only because I find it to be the most

00:35:45.860 beautiful liturgy ever, but also because for your needs right now, that's where all the young people

00:35:53.420 are. The young, family-oriented people who are really interested in community are attending the

00:36:02.620 Latin mass. I know that seems sort of counterintuitive, but it's because young people, unlike the

00:36:08.340 boomers, are more interested, I think, in orthodoxy, in rigor, in truth. Not just the soft,

00:36:15.280 soap, hippy-dippy Age of Aquarius stuff, but they want all the sorts of things that you are

00:36:19.500 describing that you want. And so, that would be one venue. I assume, no matter what your

00:36:26.120 denomination is, that there is some version of it that attracts younger people. I hope. I'm actually

00:36:32.860 not totally confident of that, but one would certainly hope so. And then there are organizations

00:36:37.020 related to the church, volunteer, charitable organizations that might do that. Furthermore,

00:36:40.940 you can avail yourself of the dating apps. I'm not saying it's the best solution. I'm not saying

00:36:46.700 that I would be eager to do it if I were single, but that is where people are these days. And you

00:36:51.540 don't just have to go on some completely degenerate dating app. You don't just need to swipe right all

00:36:57.200 the time on some hookup app. There are apps out there where you can meet people who are interested in

00:37:02.020 longer term sorts of things. And I don't think there's anything wrong with engaging in the culture

00:37:08.960 within the parameters that the culture allows. Okay? And you can, don't abuse it so that you're

00:37:15.180 just hooking up all the time. But I know people who have gotten great marriages out of dating apps.

00:37:20.660 Okay? So that's what I would do. Take the pressure off of yourself, but just calmly, steadily pursue

00:37:28.740 the people and the interests that you want where they are. And sometimes that'll mean, by the way,

00:37:35.960 if you don't want to go out to a bar or restaurant, oh, it's a Friday night. I'm kind of tired. I just

00:37:39.400 don't. Well, maybe you should. Maybe you should push yourself with your friend that you go out with

00:37:43.540 to say, you know, we actually should be social tonight and go out and chat with some people.

00:37:47.400 But there are other ways too. You don't need to just meet your husband, your future husband at a

00:37:52.180 bar. Okay, next question. Hello, Michael. Happy Friday to you. I pray you and your family are well.

00:37:57.920 And I thank you for putting on your show. I enjoy it tremendously. I am curious to get your brief

00:38:03.040 thoughts on the age-old question of passion versus provision when selecting one's line of work or career

00:38:09.120 path. The background to this question is that at one time I was a hopeful academic. I had started a

00:38:15.140 doctoral degree and was excelling in European history. And my goal was to be a professor. And

00:38:20.320 that was my passion, really still is to this day. But through one thing or another, in God's

00:38:24.680 providence, I left academics, did not complete my doctoral degree and got into business ownership

00:38:30.020 instead. And I now run a small business that does very well. And I mainly left because I'm an

00:38:35.720 evangelical Christian and I have a wife and five children. And I felt that I could better provide

00:38:40.700 for and afford more opportunities for my family and my church through a business ownership than

00:38:45.860 I could through academics. However, I still oftentimes struggle with a deep sense of loss

00:38:51.820 or regret, thinking about the fact that I did leave what I love to do something that I love less,

00:38:57.400 but is better for others around me. So briefly, if you could give your thoughts on that concept and

00:39:02.320 how we should weight passion versus provision when selecting lines of work, I would appreciate it.

00:39:07.480 Thank you. Good example I will use is my friend Spencer Clavin. Spencer Clavin,

00:39:12.640 a genius academic. I have known him since his freshman year in college, my sophomore year in

00:39:17.440 college. And we have been friends ever since. Then Spencer went on, got his PhD at Oxford in

00:39:25.320 classics, I think in ancient Greek music criticism. You know, this guy is as academic and scholarly

00:39:34.060 as it gets. He doesn't teach at a college right now. He could have, but that would have made other

00:39:39.660 aspects of his life more difficult. He didn't want to have to move to Palookaville. He didn't want to

00:39:44.180 get on that really awful kind of track where you don't make any money and you don't have a ton of

00:39:49.480 control over your life. And there's all the sorts of problems that you're describing. And then on top

00:39:54.520 of that, you say you have to provide for your family. And so that's not going to cut it.

00:39:57.780 So what does Spencer do? He starts a podcast called Young Heretics, a fabulous podcast,

00:40:03.360 one of the few that I listen to. Spencer writes books. Spencer develops an audience by writing

00:40:13.060 on his blog. And so he feeds not only the financial needs of his life, but also the intellectual needs.

00:40:21.580 I mean, I feel you. I have plenty of academic and scholarly interests. I'm not an academic.

00:40:27.320 I do not work in academia at all. But I do try to make time in my day to read and to read certain

00:40:34.160 sort of esoteric or more academic things. And then I try to incorporate that into my daily life.

00:40:40.980 I host a talk show. I go around to college campuses. But I tailor those circumstances within my life

00:40:48.180 to the interests that I have, where if I pursued those interests, 100% of the time, I would not have a

00:40:56.700 great existence. I think you can do that too. I suspect. I know you're very busy. Demands of

00:41:01.160 business, the demands of your family are very busy. But you can work these things in together.

00:41:06.420 We've come to this crazy conclusion in modernity that we have to be increasingly specialized and

00:41:12.520 siloed and compartmentalized in our interests. You really don't have to be, I don't think.

00:41:18.060 You can work all of these things. You can work in your faith. You can work in your academic

00:41:21.720 interest. You can work in your family. You can work all of this into so much more of your life.

00:41:27.100 And that will give you, by the way, not only the satisfaction of pursuing your interests,

00:41:31.300 it will give you a much more integrated life so that you won't feel so schizophrenic all the time.

00:41:36.940 So that you won't feel like you're one person at the office and one person at home and one person

00:41:41.000 reading your book. But you're the same person moving and weaving all of these different facets of

00:41:46.120 your character in throughout the day. Next question. Hey, Michael. Being a Christian woman,

00:41:52.080 I want to take care of my husband and serve him to the best of my ability. And I know men are

00:41:59.100 different in some ways, but I just wanted to know what you think is the best ways that a wife can serve

00:42:05.460 her husband. Thanks, Michael. Wow. Whatever you're doing, I'm sure you're doing it just great. That

00:42:14.540 very question. I'm looking at Mr. Davies over here in the corner. You know, you can't see him. He's

00:42:20.220 off camera. Wow. Michael, just tell me, how can a wife serve her husband? Just by asking that

00:42:30.740 question, just by thinking of your marriage in those terms, you're doing it. Okay. How can a wife serve

00:42:39.240 her husband? And husbands should probably ask, how can I love my wife? How can I love my wife?

00:42:45.320 It's not so easy to serve your husband and really to serve your whole family all the time. So much

00:42:48.840 of the work that wives and mothers do is not glamorous and people do not always express their

00:42:56.260 gratitude for it. And it's this constant, steady work of these small acts of love that are just so

00:43:02.540 consistent that they create a whole universe. They create the whole context in which you live.

00:43:06.800 They create your home. And often men don't think, how can I love my wife? How can I always be loving

00:43:13.720 my wife? Even when my wife is nagging me about that thing that I don't want to do, or even when my

00:43:18.560 wife does something that I don't appreciate, or don't. And I think if you just ask yourself those

00:43:24.180 questions regularly, you're on the track to a good marriage. Next question. Hi, Michael. Katie here.

00:43:31.020 You may also know me as Satosha Catergator on Twitter or just Catergator in the member block.

00:43:35.760 I'm asking about someone who called in today to talk about the greater Idaho movement. I'm looking

00:43:41.080 at the map here, and I'm disappointed that it fails to cover more of my state, Nevada,

00:43:46.360 specifically places like Elko, which has legalized licensed brothels. Also, we have gambling and all

00:43:52.940 sorts of sinning. So, Prince Prison Michael, self-proclaimed sex symbol, chased and based.

00:43:59.780 What will you, as a leader, do to ensure that more of my state gets annexed? Also,

00:44:05.600 what will you do with the brothels once prostitution becomes illegal, as it should? Will you turn them

00:44:11.440 into cigar lounges, or will you do what powerful people in Vegas do, which is blow them up to build

00:44:18.440 something better? Looking forward to your answer. Thank you.

00:44:21.300 Well, I love your question, and I love your mode of addressing me as well. I appreciate that,

00:44:29.540 recognizing that I am, in fact, an international sex symbol, chased and based, swarthy as can be.

00:44:36.480 So, on that point, I'll answer the second part first. What would I do with the brothels? So,

00:44:39.960 we say, okay, we got to shut down the brothels. This is not good for anybody, really. There is a

00:44:44.900 Christian argument for not shutting down brothels. This was the argument made by Augustine and reiterated

00:44:51.180 by St. Thomas Aquinas, which is that if you don't have, if you move to outlaw prostitution and

00:44:59.320 brothels that already exist, then society will just go crazy with lust, and you'll have increases in

00:45:04.120 violence and rape. So, there actually is an argument for not totally outlawing these things,

00:45:12.640 although, obviously, what's going on in Las Vegas is just terrible. And at the very least,

00:45:17.180 I think everyone agrees one should curtail those kinds of vices, if not outlaw them altogether.

00:45:22.720 But then, assuming we do outlaw it, would I renovate them and turn them into cigar lounges,

00:45:27.680 or would I knock them down and build something new? It would have to be the latter. And it would have

00:45:32.880 to be the latter because if you allow some vestige of these things to persist, there will be a

00:45:40.280 temptation toward them. I think of a great book by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli called The Spiritual Combat.

00:45:46.620 And this is a 500-year-old book, very important to understanding the spiritual combat that we're

00:45:52.140 always in. And Scupoli writes that for so many sins and vices, we can look at them. We can confront

00:46:00.640 them head on. But when we're talking about lusts, when we're talking about sexual temptations,

00:46:04.700 you really do just have to flee. Okay, you've just got to run away. You will not be able to face

00:46:09.380 them head on. And I suspect that's because we are largely sexual beings. That is a real core part

00:46:17.780 of who we are. The drive for sex is a stronger drive. And the temptation toward lust is a stronger

00:46:23.460 temptation than, say, my temptation toward gluttony. Which I have that too. Okay, I got all of them in

00:46:29.220 spades. But the sexual drive is stronger. And so I would knock that down. And I would then, of course,

00:46:35.460 build the cigar lounge on the spot where they were out of different materials with a different sort

00:46:39.980 of design. How will we make the greater Idaho movement? How will we allow it to take over more

00:46:47.060 of your state? Well, I think it needs to go national. Okay, I think that we can't be so

00:46:52.520 short-sighted to say, well, we'll just open up the greater Idaho movement and have Idaho take over

00:46:58.580 just a few more little areas around it. No, it's got to go national, baby. We need the whole country

00:47:03.340 to be Idaho. It's like that meme of the astronauts, one of whom is holding a gun at someone's head.

00:47:08.360 The guy says, it's all Ohio. And the astronaut holding the gun says, it always was. It's all

00:47:14.340 got to be Idaho. Okay, and that way we will live in a good, flourishing, normal country and get rid

00:47:21.380 of Gomorrah by the Sea over there on the West Coast in California and all the madness in New York as well.

00:47:27.200 The rest of the show continues now. I have got a great written mailbag question from a retired

00:47:33.120 Jewish Christmas tree salesman that I'm very excited to answer. I just see that name right

00:47:37.080 up there at the top. So you'll have to head over to the members block to hear that question and

00:47:41.840 answer. It's also Fake Headline Friday. So Fake Headline Friday is, of course, where Mr. Davies

00:47:46.700 gives me five headlines. And I need your help to understand which one is the fake headline. We will

00:47:55.720 be doing that right now. Please come over and help me. If you're not a member, click the link in the

00:47:59.600 description and join us.

The Michael Knowles Show - December 16, 2022

Ep. 1147 - Pokémon Is Dead, The Trump Digital Cards Are The Future

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