Ep. 1156 - Donald Trump For Speaker Of The House
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
173.0237
Summary
Donald Trump has been nominated as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, and now we know who the next speaker will be, and it's a man named Matt Gaetz. Michael Knowles explains why he thinks Donald Trump would make a great Speaker.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
It has finally happened, the moment we have been waiting for in the House speaker race.
00:00:06.520
No, Kevin McCarthy has not yet won. No, we still do not have a speaker. But finally,
00:00:13.740
after days of anticipation, someone finally nominated Donald Trump.
00:00:37.060
Matt Gaetz, absolutely love it. And frankly, Donald Trump would be a great House speaker
00:00:44.080
for this time in history. The only job of the House speaker over the next two years,
00:00:48.860
while Democrats hold the White House and the Senate, is to gum things up for Biden.
00:00:53.960
Nobody would do that with a greater aplomb than the Donald. The anti-Trumpers would get him out of
00:01:00.500
the 2024 presidential race, probably. Maybe he'd just run for both. The pro-Trumpers would get him
00:01:06.180
two heartbeats away from the Oval Office. And most important of all, we would get to watch him make
00:01:12.180
snide remarks and funny faces at Joe Biden during the State of the Union. Matt Gaetz,
00:01:16.940
I am sold. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:01:27.640
Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Grip, who says,
00:01:31.580
regarding the vote for speaker, see how hard it is to rig an election when there's no drop boxes
00:01:36.240
and you verify the identity of everyone who's voting? It's amazing. It's so weird that there's a
00:01:42.300
different set of rules when the congressmen want to vote than when we, the hoi polloi people,
00:01:47.680
get to vote. When the congressmen vote, there's definitely election security. They know who's
00:01:52.880
voting, that's for sure. And they got the precise numbers and they keep doing it until they get it
00:01:57.680
right. With us, though, they don't really take those kinds of measures. It's enough to get your
00:02:02.700
blood pumping. When you want to get your blood pumping in the morning, you got to check out
00:02:05.260
Black Rifle Coffee. Right now, go to BlackRifleCoffee.com, use promo code Knowles. Black Rifle
00:02:11.260
Coffee Company set out on a mission to make the best cup of coffee to ever fill your mug.
00:02:17.700
They wanted to sell enough premium coffee to be able to build a support network for veterans,
00:02:21.940
first responders, and law enforcement. Thanks to your support, that dream has become a reality.
00:02:27.400
This year alone, your support has helped Black Rifle Coffee expand their team of active duty service
00:02:32.220
members, veterans, and veteran family members. They were also able to donate over 120,000 bags
00:02:38.280
of coffee to veterans and first responders, all thanks to you. If you want to continue supporting
00:02:44.060
this terrific company, go to BlackRifleCoffee.com and use promo code Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S at checkout
00:02:51.440
for 10% off your purchase and your first coffee club order. Black Rifle Coffee is roasted by a veteran-led
00:02:57.700
team of brilliant coffee graders here in the U.S. The coffee is truly one of a kind,
00:03:01.800
but it's your support that gets gear, funding, and supplies into the hands of those out on the
00:03:06.060
front lines. Go to BlackRifleCoffee.com and use promo code Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S, for 10% off.
00:03:11.020
You can also find Black Rifle Coffee in grocery and convenience stores near you. Black Rifle Coffee,
00:03:16.340
America's coffee. Also, I should wish everybody a happy January 6th, a really, really wonderful day.
00:03:24.440
Obviously, it's wonderful every single year that we celebrate January 6th, but just to imagine
00:03:30.420
how glorious it must have been to be there at that blessed event, that day when wise men came from
00:03:39.440
all over to worship their leader, the true leader of us all. It's just so fitting and so right. So I
00:03:48.180
hope everybody is enjoying a blessed Feast of the Epiphany, and I look forward to it next year.
00:03:54.100
Already, on this January 6th, this glorious blessed day, I am already looking forward to
00:03:59.840
January 6th next year. By the time that rolls around, we might still be voting for the Speaker
00:04:05.660
of the House. There is no evidence that this is going to be resolved anytime soon. Don't forget,
00:04:14.200
the establishment told us that this was all going to be over on the first ballot. Kevin McCarthy was the
00:04:21.500
anointed Speaker. He was going to get it. Some of the House Freedom Caucus people could
00:04:26.200
throw a fuss about it, but it didn't matter. Kevin McCarthy had the votes. And then he didn't have
00:04:31.720
the votes. And in part, this is because the red wave that was supposed to take place in November
00:04:35.100
was not quite so red, not quite so wavy as we thought it would be. So all of a sudden, McCarthy
00:04:40.280
needed the votes of those 20 members of the Freedom Caucus, and they were not so ready to give up
00:04:46.200
their votes since the negotiations apparently broke down over the summer. So if you want to hear more
00:04:50.440
about the machinations behind all of this, I conducted an interview yesterday with my friend
00:04:55.360
Lauren Boebert. That's on YouTube. It's on the RSS feed as well. And obviously, of course, on Daily
00:05:00.600
Wire Plus. So now here we are. First vote, McCarthy doesn't get it. Second vote, he doesn't get it.
00:05:06.680
Third vote, doesn't get it. They adjourn. Next day, one, two, three, he doesn't get it. They adjourn.
00:05:11.700
Next day, now we're on the 10th or 11th ballot. They're going to be voting again today,
00:05:15.500
and people are pulling their hair out. This is terrible. It's the downfall of American democracy.
00:05:20.440
This is the fall of our sacred democracy. Oh, no. It's amazing that they would say that on January
00:05:25.720
6th. Amazing how history repeats itself. And yet, when you look at history, it's really not all that
00:05:32.340
unusual. 1923, so 100 years ago, it took nine ballots to elect a speaker. 1833, 90 years before
00:05:42.160
that, it took 10 ballots. 1839 took 11 ballots. 1821, 12 ballots. 1819, 22 ballots. 1859, 44 ballots.
00:05:55.060
1849, 63 ballots to elect a speaker. And 1855, it took 133 ballots to elect a speaker.
00:06:04.160
This has happened before. It's okay. It will be all right. We will end up with a speaker of the House.
00:06:13.600
It just might not be the anointed speaker of the House that the establishment has rallied behind.
00:06:19.920
It might not be. And it's, you can make all the arguments in the world for why Kevin McCarthy
00:06:25.320
deserves it, and why Kevin McCarthy has labored in leadership for years and years, and how Kevin
00:06:29.900
McCarthy is much more conservative than John Boehner or whoever. It's fine. I'm not even disputing those
00:06:34.100
things. The job of the speaker, the job of someone in congressional leadership is to lead.
00:06:41.080
The first test of that is, can you get enough votes to put yourself in office? If you can't,
00:06:48.500
then you're probably not up to that job. Now, speaking of potential speaker Donald John Trump,
00:06:56.300
one consequence of this speaker fight is it does suggest that Trump's hold on the GOP is slipping a
00:07:05.220
little bit because Trump has vocally supported Kevin McCarthy. He has campaigned actively for him.
00:07:11.080
He has called the members of the Freedom Caucus, who are the holdouts, and begged them to switch
00:07:16.780
their vote to McCarthy. And it hasn't worked just yet. So I'm not saying that that means that Donald
00:07:22.120
Trump is not going to be the nominee in 2024. I'm not saying that Donald Trump is not the most
00:07:25.880
important Republican or the head of the party. I'm just saying that kind of a situation would not
00:07:30.660
have occurred in 2018. In 2018, if Trump picks up the phone, tells you to do something, you're going to
00:07:35.120
do it. So it means that there is a lot more at play, that the party is not just operating as a
00:07:42.140
kind of deterministic machine where we the people have nothing to say about it. And I think that's
00:07:47.060
a pretty good thing. If we're going to live in a democratic republic, then give it to me. Don't give
00:07:54.240
me a facade that seems like it's a republic, but actually it's just some corrupt kind of oligarchy.
00:07:59.340
Give me the real thing. I want campaigning. I want electioneering. I want fighting on the floor of the
00:08:04.640
House of Representatives. I want congressmen yelling at one another and wheeling and dealing
00:08:08.800
and smoking cigars and back rooms. I want all of it. And I think there's a reason that you saw a lot
00:08:14.320
of this in the 19th century. There was a raucous kind of democratic culture in the 19th century,
00:08:21.080
a little bit too raucous toward the middle of the 19th century. But it was a real period of change
00:08:28.340
within the parties and within the relationship of the people to their government. And so I'm all for
00:08:33.860
it. That's fine. Give it to me. If we're going to live under a democracy, I guess that's what we're
00:08:37.660
going to have. Now, speaking of the congressmen and Democrats, Democrat Representative Robert Garcia,
00:08:46.320
whenever we get a Speaker of the House, plans to take the oath of office not on a Bible,
00:08:53.080
but on a comic book. Representative-elect Garcia has said that he is eschewing the Bible.
00:09:02.560
He's going to swear his oath of office on the Constitution, on his citizenship papers,
00:09:08.500
on a picture of his dead parents, and on a Superman comic that he borrowed from the government.
00:09:14.300
Very childish, obviously, to take the oath of office on a comic. It's embarrassing. It's
00:09:24.280
humiliating for our whole country, and certainly for this guy.
00:09:29.560
There's something deeper going on, though. The shallow take on this is just, wow, this is an
00:09:34.460
overgrown man-child. What a joke. Our Congress, we're living in clown world. But there's something
00:09:39.180
deeper going on, because the purpose of swearing the oath of office is that you are swearing by
00:09:46.800
that which you worship, that which you hold most sacred, that to which you feel most accountable.
00:09:55.120
The whole purpose of the oath of office, it's not just some empty ritual that we do because
00:09:59.140
people used to do it in the old-timey days. We do it because what you were saying is,
00:10:03.340
I promise that I will work for the common good. I'll defend the Constitution. I won't be corrupt.
00:10:10.980
I'll pursue good and avoid evil. And I'm swearing by my God. May God help me if I do not do that.
00:10:20.040
Okay? And so if you believe in God, if you believe that such a vow matters, you're more likely to keep
00:10:27.540
your promises. But for the modern lib types who don't believe in God, it's not just that then
00:10:34.140
there is a void. It's that you swear by other gods. So the gods that he is swearing by here are
00:10:41.160
the gods of the state, his citizenship papers, even the Constitution. The fact that he would swear by
00:10:47.140
that means that what he holds most dear, what he holds most sacred, is the state, his ancestors,
00:10:54.480
and a myth. I won't even just call it a child's story, which Superman is, but a myth. That is
00:11:03.760
valuable. There is great value in the state. There's great value in your ancestors. There's
00:11:10.460
great value in myths. But it's a sorry comparison to God. And it's pagan too, is the other thing.
00:11:20.800
In pagan societies, in godless societies, people swear by the state. The state is held as the
00:11:29.140
supreme thing. Or one's ancestors. People, when they give up God, they engage in a kind of ancestor
00:11:34.980
worship. Or myths. You think of the old Greek and Roman myths, which are different from true religion,
00:11:42.520
which worships the one true God in a way which is logical. That's why we have theology.
00:11:47.520
The pagan myths do not have theology. The pagan myths are not identified with the logos. You
00:11:55.560
actually see this going back all the way to the ancient Greek writers, distinguishing between
00:12:00.340
the mythological stories of the gods and the true God, the truth, the logic, the first mover,
00:12:09.380
the creator. This is a natural consequence of a society that is giving up God and specifically
00:12:17.540
giving up Christianity, which has animated our civilization and has allowed our civilization
00:12:22.060
to become the greatest in the history of the world. And as we give that up, expect a lot more
00:12:27.660
confused people taking their oath of office on a comic book. And I tell you, I don't want to put
00:12:36.240
the good of my society, my future, my family, my state, my country. I'm willing to stake that on
00:12:42.980
God. I am not willing to stake that on a comic book. Okay? I trust that God will see us through.
00:12:49.680
That's where I put my trust. We write that on our money here. In God, we trust. That's our motto.
00:12:53.580
It's in the national anthem. In Superman, I do not trust. Now, when you want to put your faith in God,
00:12:59.920
I strongly recommend you check out the Bible in a Year podcast. Right now, go to ascensionpress.com
00:13:05.640
slash Knowles. If you're someone who has always wanted to read and understand the Bible, but you're
00:13:09.680
not sure where to start, then check out the Bible in a Year podcast from Ascension. The Bible in a
00:13:14.820
Year podcast is currently the most popular religion podcast in the United States. Millions of people
00:13:19.420
have listened to it, and twice it's hit number one on Apple Podcasts. It is the only podcast that I
00:13:24.560
reliably listen to. I'm on day 190, so it's probably going to be more like Bible in two years for me,
00:13:29.640
but you can take it at your own pace. In Bible in a Year, Father Mike Schmitz reads the entire Bible
00:13:33.680
in 365 daily episodes, providing helpful commentary, reflection, and prayer along the way. What better
00:13:39.780
way to start the new year? You can find the Bible in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz for free
00:13:44.160
in your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. Unlike any other Bible podcast, Bible in a Year
00:13:49.360
follows a special reading plan that organizes the books of the Bible in a way that helps listeners
00:13:53.820
understand the story. Get this reading plan at ascensionpress.com slash Knowles. If you want
00:13:59.520
to start reading and more importantly understanding the Bible this year, go to ascensionpress.com slash
00:14:04.940
Knowles to download the reading plan for free. That is ascensionpress.com slash Knowles to download
00:14:10.260
the reading plan for free. Speaking of comic books, I don't read comic books. I don't go see the comic
00:14:18.140
book movies except when the Daily Wire forces me to. I'm not a big fan. However, I have to defend the
00:14:24.540
comic books a little bit because there's a new hubbub over DC Comics in which apparently it's a
00:14:30.460
Batman comic. I used to really like Batman when I was a kid. And in the Batman comic, the Joker,
00:14:36.120
who is a man, becomes pregnant and gives birth to a mud monster who transforms into a child version
00:14:45.240
of the Joker and who he then adopts as his son. Apparently, some other villain in the comic book
00:14:57.020
pushes the Joker into a big pile of mud and the curse that this character puts on the Joker doesn't
00:15:04.240
work and the Joker becomes pregnant. And now some people are reacting and saying, this is DC Comics
00:15:10.200
going woke. This is pushing the transgender agenda in our comics and this is terrible. And I actually
00:15:17.160
have no problem with this. He's the Joker. He's the bad guy. It's okay, I think, in artistic depictions
00:15:29.480
and certainly in mythological depictions, which is what the superhero stories are, I think it's okay
00:15:35.400
when disordered experiences and desires and states of being are represented in the bad guys.
00:15:45.500
I would not be so placid about it all if Batman became pregnant. That would be pretty weird. That
00:15:51.780
would probably be pushing a woke thing. But yeah, the Joker is a pretty disordered guy and it's pretty
00:15:57.200
disordered for a guy to get pregnant. I have no problem when Milton in Paradise Lost represents
00:16:03.260
Satan as giving birth through his head to sin and death. It's kind of trans, I guess, but not really.
00:16:12.340
It's okay. It's a mythological depiction of something and something that's quite evil and
00:16:16.220
quite disordered. So if the comic books want to portray transgenderism as just bizarre and wrong
00:16:23.520
evil in something the Joker does, okay, that's fine. Something you should avoid. Now, if the Joker
00:16:29.300
becomes the hero, then I guess we have a problem. Speaking of gender identity, there's a group of
00:16:33.120
scientists that has just discovered that there is no biological basis for transgenderism. Can you
00:16:42.560
believe that these people get paid to do this? Can you imagine how much these scientists got paid
00:16:48.220
the funding they had to conduct this study to know what every three-year-old knows? That's amazing.
00:16:53.960
But it's good that they're doing it because our culture is so crazy that it takes courageous
00:16:57.360
scientists to go out and buck the politically correct norm. But this is an international group
00:17:01.720
of over 100 clinicians and researchers who have attested that there is no biological evidence for
00:17:08.660
gender identity. They've observed that no laboratory test can distinguish a trans-identified
00:17:15.440
person from a non-trans-identified person. What they write, quote, the assumption of the core
00:17:22.040
biological underpinning for gender identity and gender dysphoria remains an unproven theory.
00:17:26.860
While biology likely plays a role in gender non-conformity, currently there is no brain,
00:17:31.660
blood, or other objective test that distinguishes a trans-identified from a non-trans-identified person
00:17:37.140
once confounding factors such as sexual orientation, meaning desire, are controlled for. This is
00:17:42.980
according to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Okay, I'm glad that they're debunking
00:17:47.660
this idea that you'll sometimes hear this among the most eccentric and incoherent transgender
00:17:54.100
activists. They'll say, well, you know, the brain of a man who identifies as a woman, it's actually
00:18:01.100
closer to a woman's brain. Which is funny because the libs for years told us there's no difference between
00:18:07.500
the brains of men and women. Do you remember that? Do you remember in the days of feminism when we were
00:18:11.960
told there? Absolutely no. The only differences between boys and girls is that, is a few secondary
00:18:17.780
sex characteristics, but the brains are exactly the same. How dare you say that women have different
00:18:22.040
brains than men? Until they wanted transgenderism. And they said, no, of course the brains are totally
00:18:26.480
different. But there's never been any scientific evidence for that. The reason that some transgender
00:18:32.360
activists have made that argument is because they're materialists. And they're atheists. And they
00:18:38.200
don't believe in the soul. And they don't believe in metaphysics. And so they can't discuss these
00:18:43.060
issues of anthropology in a sophisticated way. The only thing they can talk about is just stuff
00:18:48.320
and matter. So they have to ground the soul, which is what they're really trying to talk about,
00:18:52.900
in something physical. And they know they can't ground it in the visible physical attributes of
00:18:58.160
a person. So they say, oh yeah, it's somewhere in the brain. Yeah, somewhere in the brain that you
00:19:01.700
can't see, that's where you find out that a boy's really a girl. But that never made sense.
00:19:05.240
And the more serious and intellectual transgender activists will be more honest. And what they will
00:19:12.580
say is, there's a difference between sex and gender. And sex is your physical state. And gender
00:19:20.240
is your non-physical state. So physically, you could be a man. But metaphysically, you're a woman.
00:19:27.540
And what they're really talking about there is the soul. And these guys are a little more
00:19:33.260
sophisticated and intellectual in the way that they're talking about it. But it still doesn't
00:19:36.500
hold up. Because then you have to ask, okay, well, what is the relationship to the body and
00:19:40.180
the soul? And the relationship between the body and the soul is that the soul is the substantial form
00:19:45.720
of the body. That the body is a symbol of the soul. And so the two are linked. And the technical term
00:19:52.780
for this is hilomorphism. This is how Aristotle describes the relationship between form and matter,
00:19:59.520
between the metaphysical stuff and the physical stuff. And very quickly, not to go down a long
00:20:04.660
discourse on ancient Greek philosophy, but very quickly, this conversation goes over the heads of
00:20:13.400
the transgender promoters. Because they want to talk about the soul when it gives them some way of
00:20:21.720
justifying their absurd idea that a man can really be a woman. But they don't want to go so far as to
00:20:27.100
have a serious conversation about the soul. They're not capable of doing that. Because when you do that,
00:20:33.520
when you raise this possibility that the soul is entirely different from the body, that the soul can
00:20:40.440
be in total opposition to the body, their argument, I think, at that point falls apart. But then it
00:20:46.860
especially falls apart. Because if you're saying, okay, these two things are entirely distinct,
00:20:51.120
and you want to bring them into conformity with one another, well, then that raises the obvious
00:20:56.200
question, okay, if my soul is one thing and my body is this other thing, why do I have to change
00:21:02.100
my body? Why can't I just change my soul? Why can't I just change my mind is really the question that
00:21:09.380
comes up. If I look like a man, but my mind tells me that I'm a woman, well, just change my mind. I change
00:21:15.960
my mind about things all the time. I go, I say, hey, I want sushi for lunch. And then my buddy says,
00:21:20.820
hey, actually, I want to get burritos. I say, okay, let's get burritos. There we go. I just
00:21:24.220
change my mind. It's very easy to change your mind. It's very hard to change your body. It requires
00:21:29.600
extremely painful surgeries, extremely expensive surgeries, sterilizing yourself, grafting off your
00:21:36.740
skin from your legs and your arms to create this grotesque caricature of genitalia. Why don't you
00:21:43.080
just change your mind? All of that falls apart. All of which to say, getting back to the scientific
00:21:48.060
document, debunking the biological basis for gender identity. Yeah, obviously that's true.
00:21:54.900
Obviously there's no biological basis for these sexual delusions of boys who think they're girls.
00:21:59.740
It's important to establish that, but it doesn't answer the question. The question of transgenderism
00:22:06.420
is not, is it physical? The question of transgenderism is, is it real? Yes, I know
00:22:13.680
gender identity is not in your brain somewhere. It's not in your hands. It's not, yes, but not every
00:22:19.220
real thing is physical. Love, language, geometry, most things that we hold dear are not physical,
00:22:28.400
but they are nonetheless real. So I think conservatives have fallen into this trap too. And I suspect a lot
00:22:34.220
of these scientists are relatively conservative compared to the culture. And they want to ground
00:22:38.780
everything following the enlightenment and following the scientific revolution and following
00:22:42.860
modern liberalism. They want to ground every single thing in something physical and say, well,
00:22:48.260
if it's not physical, if I can't see it under a microscope, then it's not real. Okay, I guess that
00:22:52.680
will help you make certain calculations about certain physical phenomena. But most of the stuff that we care
00:22:57.800
about in the world is not physical. We all behave every moment of every day as if we believe that there
00:23:05.660
is more to the world than just the physical world. So then we have to ask ourselves, okay, what is the
00:23:10.760
nature of the metaphysical world? And is there such a thing as gender identity there? Is the soul totally
00:23:17.300
distinct from the body? What religion are we living under? Okay, and because we, for most of our
00:23:24.280
country's history, we took those questions seriously and came to relatively reasonable conclusions about
00:23:28.280
that, namely various interpretations of Christianity, some far more precise, some a little less precise.
00:23:36.000
But that was what animated our country. That's what our founding fathers said. That's what the men who
00:23:39.300
developed not only our country, but our civilization said. Okay, I get that. That gives me a grounding
00:23:43.840
of who we are and what we're all doing here together.
00:23:47.480
As that has fallen apart because of our ignorance and sin and vice, as that has fallen apart, now we're very,
00:23:58.400
very confused. And men are chopping off their genitals and equally confused men are taking the oath of office
00:24:03.920
in the U.S. Congress on a comic book. Not great. We got to turn it around or else this country is going
00:24:09.680
to die. And one thing I can tell you is we all individually will die someday. That's why you need a will.
00:24:14.560
Right now, go to EpicWill.com. Use promo code at Knowles. It can be tough to stick to your New
00:24:19.640
Year's resolution. You set out with lofty goals, stick to them for about two weeks, then you fall
00:24:24.880
right back into your old habits. Lucky for you, I have a goal that you can accomplish today. Complete
00:24:30.080
your will with Epic Will. For just $119 and in as little as five minutes, Epic Will can help you create
00:24:36.840
your last will and testament, living will, and even healthcare power of attorney. Their step-by-step
00:24:41.480
online form makes it incredibly easy. All you need to do is fill in the blanks. Super-duper
00:24:45.720
important. I put it off for way too long. Fortunately, we've got it done now, and it is truly peace of
00:24:50.340
mind. If you got any stuff at all, if you got any wishes at all after you go, and especially if you
00:24:54.580
have kids, you got to get it done. 50% of Americans do not have a will. Choose today to be in the
00:25:00.540
smarter half. Go to EpicWill.com. Use promo code Knowles to save 10% on Epic Will's complete will
00:25:05.740
package. That is EpicWill.com. Promo code K-N-O-W-L-E-S. You will die. That is a spoiler
00:25:14.540
alert. It's going to happen to us all. Make sure you and your family are prepared. EpicWill.com.
00:25:19.000
Promo code Knowles. Speaking of our advertisers, and speaking of getting back to Christianity,
00:25:26.340
Bible in a Year, which you've heard me mention on the show many times, heard me mention today,
00:25:30.720
Bible in a Year remains one of the top podcasts in the country.
00:25:39.140
Bible in a Year right now is the number three podcast in the country, according to the charts.
00:25:44.120
Do you know what the number two podcast is? The Bible Recap, which is another Bible podcast,
00:25:50.720
this one put out by D Group. Do you know what the number one podcast in the country is?
00:25:56.200
Catechism in a Year, also with Father Mike Schmitz, who does Bible in a Year.
00:26:02.680
This one Catholic priest is the host of two of the three most popular podcasts in the country,
00:26:08.480
one of which is on the Bible, one of which is on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
00:26:13.260
And then the podcast that's wedged right in the middle of those two is the top three
00:26:16.500
is also a Bible podcast. This is great news. I know there's all terrible news in the culture
00:26:23.040
and in the politics. This is great news. What that tells me is not that our country is totally
00:26:30.920
fine right now. Not that actually we're still a serious Christian country that has our act together.
00:26:36.160
It doesn't tell me that. But it tells me that there is a longing in the country
00:26:41.140
to return to that which is true and good and beautiful. There is a longing. We're not there right
00:26:47.660
now. If we lived in a country that had its act together, spiritually, personally, politically,
00:26:55.120
I suspect that Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year probably wouldn't be the top three podcasts.
00:27:02.600
I suspect you might have some religion shows as the top podcasts. You might be Father Mike Schmitz,
00:27:09.060
but they would be more advanced. They would be on the lives of the saints. They would be on the
00:27:15.140
doctors of the church. They would be on more technical aspects of the faith, I think, probably.
00:27:23.460
Because we would all know our Bible really, really well. We would all know the Catechism really,
00:27:27.420
really well. The Bible in a Year podcast is, I mean, it's edifying for people who've been in the
00:27:33.820
church their whole lives. But it's also totally acceptable to people who are just questioning,
00:27:37.880
who don't even know what they believe. Catechism in a Year is that primer. Okay,
00:27:42.240
what does it mean to be in the church? What does the church say? What does the church taught
00:27:45.340
for 2,000 years? It's totally open and accessible and can be very basic for people,
00:27:52.000
which is a wonderful thing. Because it's people who have been raised basically without religion
00:27:56.300
who recognize, wow, something has gone horribly wrong here. Whatever, I don't know what it was,
00:28:05.700
but something broke in the last 70 years. And I want to get back to that thing that we lost.
00:28:11.980
That's absolutely great news. Speaking of enduring things, the oldest woman that had been living in
00:28:19.940
America just died. She died at the age of 115. And according to nurses, her final words were,
00:28:28.400
I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton. It's true. No, that part's not true.
00:28:33.640
But the oldest woman, the oldest living woman in America did die, 115 years old. And her actual
00:28:39.660
last words were not, I hope we're not about Hillary Clinton. I don't know. Her actual last words,
00:28:43.640
though, it seems, were about hard work. In the later years, not her very final breath that she uttered,
00:28:49.400
but in the final years of her life, people kept asking her, how did you live so long? And she kept
00:28:54.260
going back to this answer, hard work, and the love of my family, and good genes, and all of this. But
00:29:00.160
you know, working hard. And this is really, really important for us to remember. Because a lot of
00:29:05.500
people in our modern culture believe that the reason that we go to work is so that we can have
00:29:12.100
the weekends. For your career, the reason that you go trudge along all day at your job, that maybe
00:29:17.520
you like it, but maybe, probably more likely, you don't like your job all that much. The reason that you do
00:29:22.120
it is because you have to do it to make a little bit of money so you can get to the weekend, and then
00:29:25.460
you can watch some TV, and you can chill out and eat some potato chips, and then you got to go to
00:29:29.460
work again on Monday. And we're going to do that for 50 years, and then maybe if we're lucky, we get
00:29:36.880
to quit our jobs and sit on the couch and eat potato chips until we die. And that view, we're all tempted
00:29:43.100
by it at different times, but that view is not in accordance with our nature. We are made to work.
00:29:50.020
Ever since Adam took that fateful bite, humanity has been kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and by
00:29:58.220
the sweat of our brow will we earn our food. And it is good. Some people in my family and friends
00:30:06.280
have done just fine in retirement. More often than not, people go crazy in retirement, and there are
00:30:12.560
statistics on this that people very often will die shortly after they retire because they lose a sense
00:30:18.160
of meaning and purpose. We are meant to work. And there's even a strange phenomenon that I have even
00:30:25.460
noticed in the new year, which is that in the lead up to the holidays, people usually slack off a little
00:30:31.780
bit. People stop showing up to work as much. You kind of slow down. Okay, we'll get started again.
00:30:35.940
And then you hit the ground running at the beginning of January. And what's weird is I have found during
00:30:41.560
periods in my life where I'm slacking off a little bit, I'm far less energetic. Maybe I'm sleeping
00:30:48.920
more. Maybe I'm relaxing more. But I have lower energy than when I'm working hard and not sleeping
00:30:55.300
that much and I've got a thousand things that I've got to do. We are meant to work. Take that advice
00:31:00.940
from the oldest woman in America. I'm not saying you got to just put all your efforts to trudging away in
00:31:05.160
the widget factory or something. Far from that. But you're working for your boss to make your paycheck
00:31:10.540
and you're working for your family. And then you're working for God. There's a reason that there is that
00:31:16.180
old maxim that we all know is true in our lives. Idle hands are the devil's playground. Do not be
00:31:23.360
idle. Okay? People write in all the time about vices that they have. They'll say,
00:31:29.680
I've been an alcoholic. The main one that people write in about is porn or the hookup culture.
00:31:35.160
Because sex is so central to our nature. They'll say, oh, I'm addicted to drugs. Or I'm addicted
00:31:40.880
to social media. Or oh, I'm addicted to that. What's the common thread here? The common thread
00:31:45.840
to all of those things is that you do them when you're not doing anything else. That's when we
00:31:50.000
just sit around and doom scroll. So you got to work. And it's a new year. And people make all sorts
00:31:54.720
of resolutions that they immediately break. But when you look ahead to the year, you have to ask
00:31:58.960
yourself, what are we doing? What are we going to do? Frankly, I see this reflected in the
00:32:03.380
leadership fight. As I've said, I'm not a member of Congress. I don't, as far as political battles
00:32:08.960
go, this one is not super high up on my list. I think leadership fights really are just for the
00:32:13.280
members to decide. And they involve a lot more than political issues. But I like seeing this fight.
00:32:18.780
I am glad that the Republicans are not just sleepwalking idly into, well, this is what we're
00:32:24.580
told we're going to do. And we don't really have any say over it anyway. And so we're just going to
00:32:28.400
keep on doing the same old thing. Okay, I'm going to go do my TV show hit. And then I'm going to go
00:32:32.660
back and fundraise. And okay, whatever. No, I want to see my representatives engaged in real fights,
00:32:40.500
getting real concessions out of one another, talking about real issues. That is not a bug of
00:32:46.120
our system. That is a feature. Last year, Jordan Peterson joined Daily Wire Plus. He has been putting
00:32:54.320
the rest of us to shame with his output. You want to talk about energy. That guy is like the energizer
00:32:58.360
bunny. Seems like every day there's something new from Jordan. And it is very high quality too.
00:33:02.440
Specials such as Logos and Literacy, a special on marriage, and brand new episodes of the biblical
00:33:07.980
series Exodus. As I am speaking, Jordan right now is probably recording something new for us.
00:33:14.980
If you want to see it, you have got to become a member because you will only find it on Daily Wire Plus.
00:33:19.960
So head on over to dailywire.com slash Knowles to become a member and watch all of this and more.
00:33:28.360
Did you know that over 85% of grass-fed beef sold in U.S. grocery stores is imported?
00:33:33.320
That's why I buy all my meat from goodranchers.com instead. Good Ranchers products are 100% born,
00:33:38.920
raised, and harvested right here in the USA from local family farms. Plus, there's no antibiotics
00:33:44.040
ever, no added hormones, and no seed oils. Just one simple ingredient. That's meat. Best of all,
00:33:50.080
Good Ranchers delivers straight to your door for added convenience. So lock in a secure supply of
00:33:54.260
American meat today. Subscribe now at goodranchers.com and get free meat for life and $40 off with code
00:33:59.700
dailywire. That's $40 off and free meat for life with code dailywire. Good Ranchers, American meat
00:34:05.160
delivered. Finally, finally, we have arrived for the first time in the new year at my absolute
00:34:12.560
favorite day of the week. That would be mailbag day. Let's take it away with the voice mailbag.
00:34:19.980
Hello there, soon-to-be Speaker of the House Michael Knowles. I listen to your show pretty
00:34:26.600
much every single day of my life, and I hardly ever disagree with you. But the other day you brought
00:34:31.860
up New York's new burial composting law, and you said that it's a degradation, that it's disrespectful
00:34:37.380
to the dead, that we absolutely shouldn't do it. But as a conservative guy myself, I've always thought
00:34:43.480
that that's the right thing to do. I've always wondered why do we pump bodies full of formaldehyde?
00:34:48.380
Why do we screw their jaws shut? Why do we bury people in concrete tombs to preserve them forever?
00:34:54.480
It just doesn't make any sense to me. It seems that the natural thing that God desired was for
00:34:59.880
us to return our bodies back to the earth, to give back to his creation so that future generations can
00:35:07.200
have the nutrients the earth needs. So where's the disconnect here? Thanks.
00:35:12.400
The question I would ask you, first of all, thank you, not only for listening to the show, but for your
00:35:16.940
clear wisdom on who the next Speaker of the House should be. Not that I would ever want it. Okay,
00:35:22.320
not that I've, I've never sought that office. I would only accept it if the Congressman elected me
00:35:27.900
to it. The question you have to ask yourself on the composting is, why do you believe that God
00:35:35.680
intended for us to be thrown into the garden and have tomatoes grow out of this? You said,
00:35:39.960
it seems to me that God just wanted this to happen. Okay, why do you believe that? Is there a scriptural
00:35:45.940
basis for why you believe that? Probably not. Is there a basis in the tradition of the church that
00:35:54.640
would have you believe that? Certainly not. Why do you believe that? Maybe you believe it because
00:36:00.880
God says, remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. Yeah, that's certainly true.
00:36:05.900
But that's true whether you're put in a coffin or whether you're thrown to the dogs in the garden
00:36:10.960
or chopped up like mulch. You will return to dust. That's just a fact of the physical world. The
00:36:17.200
question is, how do we treat dead bodies? Do we treat them as the remains of people made in the image
00:36:26.800
and likeness of God and beloved family members and with some reverence, with some respect? Or do we
00:36:32.720
treat them like fertilizer? The composting law chooses the latter category? The composting law is
00:36:41.600
based on an anthropology that denies the soul, I think, that at least implicitly denies the soul.
00:36:51.860
It's based on a theology that is not Christian, at the very least, I think we would say. There have
00:37:00.040
been other religions in history that throw people to the dogs. Zoroastrianism would throw people to
00:37:05.100
vultures or to the dogs. But that's not our view. That's a different religious view. And so I don't
00:37:12.880
think that you need to embalm the dead. I don't think you need to pump them full of formaldehyde or
00:37:16.420
put them in special makeup or build a giant mausoleum for them. But I do think that we need
00:37:20.900
to treat dead bodies with respect and reverence. And we shouldn't just intentionally accelerate the
00:37:27.800
process of them turning into tomatoes so that we can eat them in some bizarre pagan ritual like
00:37:32.840
cannibal indigenous people do, where they'll eat a piece of their relatives or something.
00:37:38.200
That would be disordered and disrespectful, I think. And likewise, I don't think that we should
00:37:42.880
burn our dead either. It's certainly less egregious an offense than composting them. But I also think
00:37:49.520
it's quite pagan to burn the dead. I think it makes a mockery of the idea of the resurrection of the
00:37:55.140
body. Next question. Hi, Michael Arun here. You recently explained objective reality as not being
00:38:02.500
the only aspect of reality. For example, you explained that the sun may be the center of the
00:38:09.580
solar system for the purpose of calculation. But in a very real sense, the earth is really the center
00:38:15.620
of the solar system. Now, I like this idea. And I agree that we may give a bit too much primacy to
00:38:22.760
the idea of objective reality as opposed to, I guess, metaphysical reality. But what do we do
00:38:27.980
about the truth claims that are made by various religions? Just to use an example from your faith,
00:38:33.380
St. Paul says that Jesus is risen from the dead in a real sense. And if he is not, then your faith is
00:38:40.500
in vain. So my question for you is, do you believe that Jesus is risen from the dead in the same sense
00:38:47.360
that the sun is the center of the solar system or in the same sense that the earth is the center?
00:38:52.940
I think this will help me to much better understand this distinction between objective reality and
00:38:58.460
metaphysical reality. Thank you, as always, for your wisdom.
00:39:02.760
Arun, continuing to prove yourself one of my absolute favorite members of the Michael Knowles
00:39:08.140
show. And a really, really intelligent question. Not that we would expect anything less. A little bit of a
00:39:15.060
correction here, though. I think you're falling into the language trap that I'm trying to avoid,
00:39:22.640
which is conflating scientific reality or physical observation with objective reality.
00:39:30.020
And I think certain things can be objectively perceived in physical reality, but certain things
00:39:38.040
are also objectively true metaphysically. So I wouldn't say that the physical world is,
00:39:42.980
that's the objective reality in the metaphysical world is subjective. That's actually the thing
00:39:46.220
that I'm arguing against. But the rest of your question, I think, acknowledges that fact.
00:39:51.700
So the point, as you summarized it, is, yeah, it's true. When I look up and I make some calculations
00:40:00.980
and I make some scientific experiments about the physical world, I can discover that the earth
00:40:06.480
revolves around the sun. So that means the earth is not at the center of the solar system or at the
00:40:11.800
center of the universe. But metaphysically speaking, because man is the meeting of the
00:40:16.280
physical body with the rational soul, man is, in a deeper sense, the center of the cosmos.
00:40:22.660
So which is it? Is man the center of the universe or not? Well, because metaphysical reality is more
00:40:29.420
fundamental than physical reality, physical reality is contingent on metaphysical reality.
00:40:33.740
That's why it's metaphysical. It's beyond physics. I think it is truer and more profound to say that
00:40:40.920
man is the center of the universe. But for the purposes of making certain physical calculations,
00:40:46.100
I think it's fair enough to say that the earth revolves around the sun. Now, you ask about
00:40:50.400
my religion. What about the resurrection of Christ? Is that metaphysically true in some sense? Is it
00:40:58.740
kind of a really nice metaphor, but it didn't actually physically happen? Or did it physically
00:41:06.060
happen? It's not a metaphor, but it physically happen? In the person of Christ, you see uniquely
00:41:13.780
the perfect meeting of the physical and the metaphysical. They are both true simultaneously
00:41:20.840
in Christ. God, Christ is fully man and fully God. He metaphorically feeds 5,000 people with just a few
00:41:32.900
loaves of bread. He also literally fed 5,000 people with just loaves of bread. He metaphorically turns
00:41:38.720
the water of ritual into the wine of celebration and marriage. He also literally did that. He
00:41:46.440
metaphysically saves us, or metaphorically saves us, metaphorically rises from the dead and is
00:41:53.460
resurrected. That also physically happened. In Christ, it has to be the perfect meeting. Earlier on in the
00:42:00.240
show, I talked about the silliness of taking the oath of office on a Superman comic and pointed out
00:42:06.840
that this is kind of a pagan practice, that the pagan myths are just myths. What distinguishes the pagan
00:42:13.020
myths from the Christian story? Even according to the self-understanding of the pagans, in most cases,
00:42:23.000
the myths are metaphorical. Christianity is the true myth. The myths partake of literary genres such as
00:42:36.480
poetry or myth, I guess, or fable. Christianity, the gospels, are journalism, along with all the other
00:42:46.100
genres. But it's journalism. This man, at this time, did these miraculous things. And these other
00:42:55.620
physical men who were born in bodies and dates and times and real place actually saw them happen. And
00:43:00.440
there were 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrection. And there were 12 apostles. And they went all around
00:43:04.940
the world. And they spread this thing that actually happened. In Christ and in the sacraments that he
00:43:10.900
institutes, we see this perfect meeting of the physical and metaphysical. Next question.
00:43:16.420
Greetings to you, Nostradamus, from the Rio Grande Valley. Often you discuss how men ought to be men,
00:43:22.420
how we should be leaders for our families, and that as men of faith and good character,
00:43:26.920
we should exercise, with discretion, executive authority in our relationship or marriage.
00:43:31.940
Where, if any, have you made concessions with your wife, and why? Also, do you have tattoos?
00:43:41.460
I only have tattoos when I'm playing guitar at the Ryman. That's when I have tattoos. The rest of
00:43:47.020
the time, I do not have tattoos. How does that work? Well, it's a profound physical and metaphysical
00:43:53.120
conundrum, which I'm sure we can explore at some other time. In terms of making concessions to your
00:43:58.000
wife, of course, we all make concessions to our wife. I've certainly done that. And when I think of
00:44:04.180
my day-to-day life, sweet little Elisa makes most of the decisions. Ultimately, I guess I'm the
00:44:13.740
decider, to quote George W. Bush. But practically speaking, Elisa makes most of these decisions.
00:44:21.640
What are we going to have for dinner? Where are we going this weekend? What are the kids wearing?
00:44:25.680
What am I wearing, frankly? She makes most of those decisions. But because the husband is the
00:44:33.880
head of household, and man is the head of wife, husband is the head of a wife, as Christ is the
00:44:39.240
head of the church, there is this leadership role within a marriage. So what does that look like in
00:44:44.720
practice? Well, one decision where Elisa and I did not totally see eye-to-eye, and I just delegated it
00:44:50.440
to Elisa, because why not, was our bedroom furniture. Our bedroom furniture is a little more
00:44:57.240
modern than I like. It's still pretty trad, but Elisa, look, she spends more time than I do in
00:45:04.380
the bedroom. She doesn't spend most of her time in the bedroom, but she spends more time than I do
00:45:07.920
because she's there with the babies, and she's in the home, and so that's okay. She has a vision for
00:45:14.400
how the bedroom's going to look. Okay, that's fine. Rest of the house, where I spend more time,
00:45:18.520
I had a little bit more to say about those things. But beyond these little disputes that are
00:45:24.000
inevitably going to arise in any marriage, because two people are different, I think the more
00:45:29.200
important thing is that not only do you have to compromise, and you get this room, and I get this
00:45:36.260
room, and you got this dinner, and now we're going to this place, and now this. You actually,
00:45:40.280
you want to mold your wills to be in accord with one another. It's not merely that you need to come
00:45:48.160
to some kind of contractual conclusion about the particular things you're going to do.
00:45:56.500
Marriage is also about transforming the will so that your desires are actually ever closer to one
00:46:04.900
another. I mean, that is how you become one flesh, more and more so over time. And this is also,
00:46:12.200
by the way, to get back to the analogy that marriage is. Marriage is a symbol of the relationship
00:46:17.860
between Christ and his church. You, broadly, you and your wife in your marriage and your whole church
00:46:23.320
want evermore to conform your will to God's will. So it's not just that you want, that you're going to
00:46:30.580
do the things that God tells you to do grudgingly, but you actually want to cultivate the desire to do
00:46:36.360
what God wants you to do. And you want to tamp down the desire to do things that are contrary to
00:46:42.140
God's will. I mean, this is, of all the beautiful images in Dante's comedy, in the Divine Comedy,
00:46:48.240
this, to me, is the most profound and enduring and transformative, which is that you're actually
00:46:54.580
turning your will toward God, whose will is the love that moves the sun and the other stars.
00:47:06.220
Hey, Swarthy Mike, it's Damaris from Arizona, and I have a dating slash relationship question for you.
00:47:11.260
I am a young college-age girl. I'm very religious, and I don't hide that or make a point to hide it.
00:47:18.300
I tend to be very modest in my dress and my behavior and my thinking and in my speech.
00:47:23.120
And by all of today's standards, it would seem that I would be considered outdated and obscure.
00:47:31.280
With that in mind, I know you get a lot of questions about what girls look for in guys,
00:47:36.600
but I really like your perspective on what does a guy look or find most attractive in a woman,
00:47:41.900
and maybe more specifically, a religious woman. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you so much
00:47:46.620
for all you do. Thank you for the show, and proud to be a creme de la creme for the rest of my life.
00:47:51.660
Wonderful to hear from you. Thank you for writing in. I'm glad you specified at the end,
00:47:58.700
what does a guy look for in a religious girl? Because when you say, what does a guy look for
00:48:02.440
in a girl? I think you've got to be a little more specific. You've got to be more specific
00:48:05.460
about the guy, his perspective, time of life. What's he looking for exactly? What's he looking for
00:48:10.780
in a girl like you, Damaris? I think what one would look for is a serious woman.
00:48:20.640
You should be fun. You should make yourself look pretty as one does. You should do all of the kind
00:48:27.620
of normal things that go along with dating. But one thing that I always found to be a real turnoff
00:48:33.920
with women, and I continue to find to be a turnoff with women, even though I'm not on the market
00:48:37.440
anymore. I still chat with plenty of women. And one thing that I just think, oh, get this lady
00:48:43.880
away from me, is when women play a lot of games. When they're all sort of just trying to play these
00:48:51.300
little frivolous sort of games. I find that in just my daily life very off-putting, and certainly
00:48:57.840
in my dating life when I was single, I found this very, very off-putting. And the thing,
00:49:03.140
there are many things that I love about Sweet Little Elisa, but one of them in particular is Sweet
00:49:06.500
Little Elisa. She's a serious girl, okay? She's one of, if not the funniest woman I have ever met,
00:49:14.880
which I do find important, actually. And one of, if not the most perceptive women that I've ever met.
00:49:22.920
But she takes herself seriously. She isn't blown away on fads and games and passions. I find that to
00:49:30.720
be really, really important, okay? And when you look at depictions of love, particularly from the
00:49:36.500
courtly love tradition, where when we think about the literary tradition of love, this is really where
00:49:43.160
we take it from, from the Middle Ages. That is what these women are like. I mean, these women are
00:49:46.900
serious women. I just mentioned Dante. When you look at Dante's great love, Beatrice, Beatrice is a
00:49:52.040
serious woman, okay? Who is beautiful and graceful and feminine and all of these things. And also,
00:49:59.240
when Dante steps out of line, she kind of gives him a look. You know, and when Dante starts crying at
00:50:04.580
the end of purgatory, because he's about to lose his buddy Virgil, his guide throughout hell and
00:50:08.500
purgatory, she goes, hey, non piangere ancora, non piangere ancora. Stop crying. We gotta go. We gotta go up to
00:50:15.380
heaven. We gotta go to God. That's something to look for. Just be Beatrice. Is that so hard?
00:50:20.160
The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member right now.
00:50:26.880
It is Fake Headline Friday. I need your help to guide me along as Virgil guided Dante as I try to
00:50:34.760
discern which of the five headlines that my producer Ben Davies has given me is the fake headlines. So
00:50:40.440
head on over to dailywire.com. Use code Knowles at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.