The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1156 - Donald Trump For Speaker Of The House

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.

00:00:21.320 McCarthy. Gates. Donald John Trump.

00:00:26.960 Trump.

00:00:33.680 Gallagher. McCarthy.

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

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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 0.96

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, 0.79

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.91

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 0.98

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. 0.84

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 0.89

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 1.00

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, 0.85

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 1.00

00:17:54.100 activists. They'll say, well, you know, the brain of a man who identifies as a woman, it's actually 0.90

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 0.95

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 1.00

00:18:22.040 brains than men? Until they wanted transgenderism. And they said, no, of course the brains are totally 1.00

00:18:26.480 different. But there's never been any scientific evidence for that. The reason that some transgender 1.00

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. 0.99

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 0.95

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 0.77

00:21:36.740 skin from your legs and your arms to create this grotesque caricature of genitalia. Why don't you 0.82

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. 1.00

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 0.98

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 0.97

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 0.98

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00:25:19.000 Promo code Knowles. Speaking of our advertisers, and speaking of getting back to Christianity, 1.00

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 0.98

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 1.00

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 0.50

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.

00:33:24.320 That is dailywire.com slash Knowles today.

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00:33:44.040 ever, no added hormones, and no seed oils. Just one simple ingredient. That's meat. Best of all,

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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 1.00

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. 1.00

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 0.99

00:37:00.040 been other religions in history that throw people to the dogs. Zoroastrianism would throw people to 1.00

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. 1.00

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 0.98

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?

00:43:38.340 Thanks. Love the show.

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. 1.00

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 0.99

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.

00:47:04.420 Next question.

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 0.83

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 0.99

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. 1.00

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 1.00

00:48:37.440 anymore. I still chat with plenty of women. And one thing that I just think, oh, get this lady 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:49:46.900 serious women. I just mentioned Dante. When you look at Dante's great love, Beatrice, Beatrice is a 0.95

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.

00:50:45.880 dailywire.com slash Knowles.

00:50:50.160 Sap каждым.

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00:50:52.940 Man.

00:50:53.500 The Real League.

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The Michael Knowles Show - January 06, 2023

Ep. 1156 - Donald Trump For Speaker Of The House

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