The Michael Knowles Show


Ep. 1337 - Spirit Cooking Witch Hired By Ukraine


Summary

Bob Menendez has been indicted on federal corruption charges. According to the Department of Justice, the senator took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from a handful of New Jersey businessmen. The bribes, according to the indictment, included, "cash, gold, a home mortgage, compensation for a low or no-show job, and other things of value." And federal investigators have pretty good evidence for the charges.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Did you know that over 85% of grass-fed beef sold in U.S. grocery stores is imported?
00:00:05.240 That's why I buy all my meat from GoodRanchers.com instead.
00:00:08.900 Good Ranchers products are 100% born, raised, and harvested right here in the USA from local family farms.
00:00:14.600 Plus, there's no antibiotics ever, no added hormones, and no seed oils.
00:00:18.820 Just one simple ingredient.
00:00:20.360 That's meat.
00:00:21.280 Best of all, Good Ranchers delivers straight to your door for added convenience.
00:00:24.760 So lock in a secure supply of American meat today.
00:00:26.980 Subscribe now at GoodRanchers.com and get free meat for life and $40 off with code DAILYWIRE.
00:00:32.420 That's $40 off and free meat for life with code DAILYWIRE.
00:00:35.700 Good Ranchers, American meat delivered.
00:00:37.680 Democrat Senator Bob Menendez has been indicted on federal corruption charges.
00:00:42.660 According to the Department of Justice, the senator took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from a handful of New Jersey businessmen.
00:00:50.760 The bribes, according to the indictment, included, quote,
00:00:53.540 quote, cash, gold payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low or no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value.
00:01:04.900 And federal investigators have pretty good evidence for the charges since they reportedly found gold bars and cash stuffed throughout the senator's home and hidden in his clothing.
00:01:16.580 The purpose of the bribes was not only to enrich these three businessmen, but also, apparently, to benefit Egypt, which makes sense since Menendez was, until just a couple days ago, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
00:01:31.620 The same position that, coincidentally, Joe Biden held until he became vice president.
00:01:37.580 It also makes sense that the DOJ would go after Menendez now, not because his crimes are particularly new or urgent.
00:01:46.800 Prosecutors have known about them since at least 2015, when Menendez was first prosecuted for this sort of thing, though that case ended in a mistrial.
00:01:55.040 And in fact, Menendez's corruption has been widely known and even a Washington punchline for many years.
00:02:01.700 The man is obviously corrupt, but so is the DOJ, which is prosecuting Menendez now to take the heat off of Joe Biden, who committed the exact same crimes on a much larger scale.
00:02:17.260 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:02:18.260 This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:02:31.700 Welcome back to the show.
00:02:39.380 This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers.
00:02:41.700 Good Ranchers, which I had at dinner last night.
00:02:44.020 Had a juicy, delicious ribeye, and it was great, as always.
00:02:46.540 Get great meals at a secure price and $25 off your order with code Knowles.
00:02:50.860 K-N-A-W-L-E-S.
00:02:51.780 Go to GoodRanchers.com.
00:02:52.860 Use code Knowles today.
00:02:54.720 Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky has just hired a witch, an actual witch, to be an ambassador.
00:03:00.740 We'll get to that in one second.
00:03:01.980 First, though, I've got to stick to the corruption in Washington for just a moment.
00:03:06.880 A friend pointed out about the Menendez indictment that he almost didn't believe the charges because that is how low an opinion he has of the Department of Justice.
00:03:22.960 The DOJ is just so corrupt, I almost think Menendez might be innocent.
00:03:26.600 But it's not an either or.
00:03:27.920 Menendez is obviously corrupt, and we have all known this for a decade at least.
00:03:34.400 And the DOJ is also corrupt.
00:03:36.300 We've known this for at least seven, eight years now.
00:03:38.900 And it is clear as day to me that where those two corrupt entities meet and why we're seeing this explode right now is because of Biden.
00:03:49.080 Because Joe Biden did exactly the same thing that Menendez did at a much larger scale.
00:03:54.640 He took bribes.
00:03:56.060 Hunter was shaking down foreign entities, governments, and semi-private actors all around the world.
00:04:02.760 While Joe was in a very serious position of power, Hunter was flying on Air Force Two to do it some of the time.
00:04:09.560 Joe was involved on the phone calls, writing emails under pseudonyms sometimes, handwritten notes to Hunter's crooked associates.
00:04:16.940 And what was the endgame?
00:04:17.820 The endgame was selling American influence because he was in a position of power.
00:04:22.160 In the case of Menendez, he was just a senator on the Foreign Relations Committee.
00:04:24.840 In the case of Biden, he had been on the Foreign Relations Committee and then was the vice president in charge of Ukraine affairs.
00:04:30.740 Menendez was getting hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:04:32.860 The Bidens were raking in millions.
00:04:35.420 So why does Menendez get pinched now?
00:04:38.040 Well, it's because there's a ton of heat on Joe.
00:04:40.000 We've got terabytes worth of evidence that he did this.
00:04:42.980 And so we've got to have a little distraction.
00:04:46.000 There is virtually no news story that comes out of Washington that was not intentionally placed there.
00:04:51.500 Doesn't mean that everything's fake.
00:04:52.700 Doesn't mean that everything is a conspiracy theory.
00:04:54.520 But it means that the editors, the leakers from within the government, the political actors who are making the news, they do so with multiple purposes in mind.
00:05:06.460 Nothing is merely accidental and very few things are caused merely by circumstance.
00:05:11.820 There's even more evidence of Joe Biden's corruption.
00:05:14.020 We have an IRS agent now who's come out and said on the record that the Department of Justice blocked prosecutor David Weiss from charging Hunter Biden.
00:05:24.860 David Weiss is now the special counsel who's going after Hunter.
00:05:27.740 Previously, though, he was just running the DOJ investigation into it.
00:05:30.660 And you now have an IRS whistleblower who is saying that Weiss was stopped by the DOJ from charging Hunter.
00:05:36.760 This contradicts Joe Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland.
00:05:40.040 And Garland said he was given, he, David Weiss, was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own.
00:05:46.960 We've now got multiple whistleblowers saying that was not the case, which means that what we now need is an investigation of the investigations into Hunter Biden, which is what we had previously.
00:05:57.120 We had an investigation into the investigations of Donald Trump.
00:06:01.060 That was what John Durham was up to, investigating how the investigations took place.
00:06:04.600 And what the ruling class is banking on here is this is just going to be so complicated, it's going to go on for so long that people are going to stop caring.
00:06:13.720 And that's probably true.
00:06:15.180 So the thing to look for now is we've got whistleblowing on the investigation into the corruption because the investigation wasn't allowed to actually do its job.
00:06:23.900 What you can expect now is a lot more distractions, a la Bob Menendez.
00:06:28.080 Because we're still a year out, we're still more than a year out from the 2024 presidential election.
00:06:32.300 There are going to be so many more little butterflies sent out to distract us.
00:06:37.900 Now, some government actions, unlike the Hunter investigation, are not being stymied and blocked.
00:06:43.320 Some government operations are continuing without impediment, one of which, of course, is the funding of the war in Ukraine.
00:06:50.420 The Pentagon has just come out, DOD spokesman Chris Sherwood has come out and said, Operation Atlantic Resolve is an accepted activity under a government lapse in appropriations.
00:07:05.020 Of course.
00:07:08.060 The funding of the war in Ukraine has basically nothing to do with Congress.
00:07:12.600 Congress is still pretending that Congress still has the power of the purse strings.
00:07:17.100 Congress is still pretending that that that would be the House of Representatives.
00:07:20.820 The Senate is still pretending that it has the power to ratify treaties and make war.
00:07:26.320 But that's not really true in practice.
00:07:29.060 In practice, the House can whine and cry all at once.
00:07:31.520 The Senate can whine and cry all at once.
00:07:33.100 The Pentagon, the executive branch, is still going to continue to conduct this war in Ukraine.
00:07:37.840 And they're going to keep funding it.
00:07:39.440 Don't forget, back just a few months ago, we had that news story.
00:07:43.280 Six billion dollars discovered.
00:07:46.020 It must have been lost under a couch cushion.
00:07:48.160 It was meant for Ukraine, but they never got it.
00:07:50.320 So we're just going to give them this six billion right now.
00:07:52.240 And what was that story?
00:07:53.400 They didn't discover it under a couch cushion.
00:07:55.040 What they did was ex post facto, they changed the prices of the arms that we had sent to Ukraine.
00:08:00.540 Because they didn't want to go through the full political process of getting more money allocated to Ukraine.
00:08:04.360 So they said, oh, no, actually, we're going to go back and do some magical accounting.
00:08:08.340 All the guns and bullets and everything else we sent over there.
00:08:10.660 Actually, it was cheaper than we said it was.
00:08:13.760 And because we'd already allocated X amount of money for Ukraine, that means that we got six billion left over.
00:08:18.180 Okay, better send that over to them.
00:08:19.380 What are they going to do?
00:08:20.720 Even if they were stymied from sending any new amounts of money over there, they would just go back and change the prices again.
00:08:25.960 And they'd use some magical accounting.
00:08:27.880 And no matter what happens, if that government is completely shut down, I promise you, the war funding will continue.
00:08:35.740 Because a government shutdown doesn't actually shut down the government.
00:08:40.220 Because the people and the people's representatives have significantly less control over the government than many of them flatter themselves as having.
00:08:48.160 Speaking of our leaders in Washington and this war funding, Rand Paul, the obstinate Republican senator, has said that he is going to hold up funding over the Ukraine war.
00:09:00.400 Rand Paul says he will move to hold up any spending bill that provides any more money to Ukraine as the deadline approaches.
00:09:10.120 So you've already got the Pentagon saying, doesn't matter.
00:09:12.280 Rand Paul can stop whatever he wants.
00:09:13.560 We're still going to fund the war in Ukraine.
00:09:14.940 I hope that Republicans sign on to what Rand Paul is suggesting here.
00:09:20.040 Rand Paul is often the lone voice in the Senate.
00:09:22.900 And in part, this is owing to his libertarian purity.
00:09:27.280 He doesn't want to give his assent to lots of things that contradict his very specific political ideology.
00:09:33.880 In this case, though, I think that's a wonderful thing.
00:09:37.120 In large part because what it will reveal is that foreign policy is not conducted by the Senate.
00:09:43.260 It will just reveal the political reality that people who have been paying attention know, but people who think that the government is just what you learned in fifth grade civics class and the bill up on Capitol Hill, they don't realize.
00:09:56.460 Which is that, no, the foreign policy, a lot of domestic policy too, but the foreign policy in particular is conducted by people who are far less accountable to you than your senators.
00:10:10.240 Now, that doesn't look very good for our country.
00:10:13.280 And maybe you don't look very good because you've got aging spots, which is why you've got to check out GenuCell.
00:10:17.380 Right now, go to GenuCell.com slash Knowles.
00:10:19.820 As you might know, we are big fans of our friends over at GenuCell.
00:10:23.580 Don't just take my word for it.
00:10:25.180 Ella from Rockford says, quote,
00:10:26.820 I have age and acne spots and this stuff is fading both of them.
00:10:30.280 This serum is worth every penny.
00:10:32.280 Sunspots, brown spots, discoloration, even red inflamed patches all disappear in front of your very eyes.
00:10:37.800 Here's the GenuCell guarantee.
00:10:39.620 You will see results on day one or your money back.
00:10:42.480 Take advantage of GenuCell's most popular package, which includes the dark spot corrector plus the classic GenuCell bags and puffiness treatment, all at about 77% off.
00:10:51.040 So you can try the best skincare in the world for yourself, completely risk-free.
00:10:54.240 Go to GenuCell.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S.
00:10:56.480 Start looking years younger tomorrow.
00:10:58.520 Say goodbye to dark and liver spots, bags and puffiness under the eyes.
00:11:01.300 Crows feed at GenuCell.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S.
00:11:04.940 That is GenuCell.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S.
00:11:08.260 You know I especially love the founder of this company, who is a Coptic Christian from Egypt, who left Egypt for the American dream, and now brings a great product to you.
00:11:17.000 GenuCell.com slash Knowles.
00:11:20.160 Speaking of Ukraine, before I move off of Ukraine, I think Zelensky is just trolling us at this point.
00:11:27.460 I think that Vladimir Zelensky at this point is just trying to get Americans to root for Vladimir Putin, something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
00:11:36.160 But I think he's trying.
00:11:39.520 Zelensky, hot on the heels of hiring a radical transvestite American spokesman who, as the military spokesman for Ukraine, was threatening to kill American journalists.
00:11:52.040 Hot on the heels of that, Zelensky has hired an actual witch to be his ambassador.
00:12:01.000 You might say, Michael, witches aren't real.
00:12:02.980 First of all, witches are real.
00:12:03.900 But second of all, even if witches weren't real, this is a woman who does very explicit occult activities of witches.
00:12:13.880 Even if you don't think witches are real, this woman does think witches are real.
00:12:18.000 And Zelensky just hired her to be an ambassador, to be a face of the country.
00:12:22.060 It's not even like hiring her to be the cook, though she's very good at spirit cooking.
00:12:26.040 It's not even like hiring her to go do some back office accounting or something.
00:12:29.880 When you are an ambassador, your entire job is to be the face of your country, to represent your country around the world or around various sectors.
00:12:39.120 And he's hired a witch.
00:12:40.580 Her name is Marina Abramovich.
00:12:42.580 You've probably heard that name because of the WikiLeaks emails from the Podesta brothers.
00:12:47.540 Remember, Tony Podesta, a very powerful lobbyist and art collector and all-around creep if you look into the kind of art he collects and affairs that he's involved in.
00:12:56.080 And John Podesta was running Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016, and there was a WikiLeaks email inviting John by Tony to a spirit cooking dinner led by Abramovich.
00:13:10.120 And spirit cooking is just an occult satanic ritual.
00:13:13.260 At the time, the official fact-checkers, debunkers on the left, they came out and said, this is not a satanic ritual.
00:13:23.280 We know what it looks like.
00:13:24.540 It looks occult and witchy and weird, but it's not.
00:13:27.360 Marina Abramovich is an artist, and this is merely a performance art piece that happens to resemble and depict an occult or satanic ritual.
00:13:37.460 But Marina Abramovich actually contradicted that herself.
00:13:40.880 I have it pulled up right here.
00:13:42.260 The quote from Marina Abramovich, she said in a 2013 Reddit Q&A whether her occult contemporary art is merely art or if it's an actual occult ritual.
00:13:56.100 And what she said was, everything depends on which context you are doing what you are doing.
00:14:02.160 If you are doing the occult magic in the context of art or in a gallery, then it is art.
00:14:06.940 If you are doing it in a different context, in spiritual circles or private house or on TV shows, it is not art.
00:14:15.160 The intention, the context for what is made and where it is made defines what art is or not.
00:14:21.340 That's only half true.
00:14:22.620 I don't actually think that you can worship Satan ironically, and I do think that when we engage in art that is occult and satanic, that actually does endanger our souls.
00:14:33.440 But put that spiritual point aside for a second.
00:14:36.720 Let's just take her at her words.
00:14:39.540 The spirit cooking that involved the Podestas, the people running the Hillary Clinton campaign, was to take place in a private apartment.
00:14:46.100 So even by Abramovich's own standards, they were engaging in witchcraft.
00:14:52.080 They were engaging in an occult satanic ritual that was not merely art, which tells you everything that you already knew about Hillary Clinton and her circle of friends.
00:15:01.360 But it also tells you a lot about Zelensky.
00:15:03.420 What the hell is this guy thinking?
00:15:05.340 Why is he trying to get us to root for Vladimir Putin?
00:15:09.980 I don't want to root for Putin, but this guy's making it really hard not to.
00:15:13.260 And I can think of only two explanations here.
00:15:18.260 Either Zelensky is involved in this stuff.
00:15:23.480 Either Zelensky looks with a kind eye on occult satanic rituals.
00:15:27.980 Or, and this might be even more distressing, Zelensky knows that the American conservatives don't want to give him another penny.
00:15:35.060 The only people who want to keep funding his war or his, I mean, say it charitably, his defense of the Russians, which seems like a doomed endeavor anyway.
00:15:43.740 So the question, as far as I'm concerned, is just how much longer is this thing going to drag on?
00:15:47.940 But regardless, Zelensky knows that his bread is only going to be buttered by the Democrats.
00:15:53.200 And he thinks that the way to appeal to Democrats is to hire witches to be his ambassadors.
00:15:57.720 And I guess that's worse.
00:15:59.840 I guess the cynical read is even worse.
00:16:02.140 He thinks, well, you know, the only way to get the American Democrats to support us is to worship Satan and to get witches to be the face of our country.
00:16:10.920 That's a very sad thing.
00:16:12.880 It says even more about us than it says about Zelensky.
00:16:15.040 Speaking of weird stuff, hard pivot for a second, there's a survey out that shows that three-quarters of homosexuals believe that open marriages, quote-unquote, are acceptable.
00:16:30.080 Now, an open marriage, of course, is a contradiction in terms.
00:16:33.380 A marriage is a lifelong union.
00:16:36.000 And marriage, properly understood, is the union of one man and one woman who join together in a lifelong commitment before God, before the political community, for the good of the spouses, yes, and order toward the creation of children.
00:16:52.280 That's what marriage is.
00:16:53.520 An open marriage totally contradicts marriage.
00:16:57.040 But that's still a phrase that people use, and it's one that three-quarters of homosexuals apparently agree with.
00:17:01.180 According to a new Pew Research Center survey, 75% of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans find open marriages acceptable.
00:17:13.240 Straight people oppose open marriages.
00:17:16.640 Most of them do, at least.
00:17:17.900 54% do.
00:17:19.280 Only 29% approve.
00:17:22.040 29% is still way too high among so-called straight couples, also known as normal marriages.
00:17:28.420 But at least the vast majority of people who I, or the clear majority of people who identify as straight, oppose such a thing.
00:17:36.100 So why is there such a big gap here?
00:17:37.940 Because don't forget, among the so-called straight people, that includes a ton of Democrats, that includes a ton of liberals, that includes a ton of people who have no problem with so-called gay marriage.
00:17:47.860 That includes, you know, it's not just like radical, traditional, orthodox kind of people.
00:17:52.620 And still, a clear majority say this is unacceptable, whereas the vast majority of homosexuals say that open marriage is fine.
00:18:00.560 Why is there a chasm here?
00:18:02.780 It's almost as if we're talking about two completely different views of marriage owing to two completely different views of anthropology.
00:18:13.620 It's almost as if the radical redefinition of marriage by the Supreme Court in the Obergefell decision was not merely the expansion of the institution, but the abolition, the beginning of the end for the institution.
00:18:26.980 Because the institution has a definition, and when you attempt to expand it, you reach an impossibility that does nothing more than destroy the institution.
00:18:35.540 That is obviously what took place.
00:18:37.460 I grew up in New York.
00:18:39.960 I went to the gayest university in the United States.
00:18:41.960 I lived in Hollywood.
00:18:43.360 A disproportionate number of my friends have, let's say, alternative sexual views.
00:18:47.820 Little Light in the Loafers, okay?
00:18:49.740 And I'd like to make clear I have no phobias of any kind.
00:18:55.180 Love everybody.
00:18:57.220 Fair.
00:18:57.540 I'm a very loving, open-minded person.
00:19:00.680 But it is simply a fact that the union of two men and the union of two women is not and can never be the same thing as the union of a man and a woman in holy matrimony.
00:19:12.360 It's just not possible.
00:19:14.840 And according to this survey, everybody knows it.
00:19:19.960 The gays know it more than the straights.
00:19:22.280 Because they're saying, yeah, I don't actually want like a monogamous normal.
00:19:27.220 That's not how it works.
00:19:28.920 What are some of the reasons for this?
00:19:30.000 One of the reasons given in this article about Pew is that while men have more testosterone and so, you know, men have red blood, men generally when they're married don't cheat on their wives and certainly endeavor not to cheat on their wives.
00:19:42.700 But that's a restraining of their lower impulses.
00:19:45.980 When you've got two guys, though, you both have those impulses, unlike a man and a woman where men and women just have different views of sex.
00:19:54.840 It cannot be the same thing.
00:19:57.100 And the redefinition of marriage, which was sold to us as just, you know, being intolerant and inclusive and nice.
00:20:04.600 And why won't you just be open-minded, you bigot?
00:20:07.120 Well, no, we're just saying there's a point at which you're so open-minded that your brain falls out.
00:20:11.360 You have to acknowledge limits at certain points.
00:20:15.100 If a country doesn't have limits around it, if it doesn't have a border, then it's not a country.
00:20:18.300 If a concept doesn't have limits around it, it's not a concept.
00:20:21.880 It's undefined.
00:20:23.760 And marriage, certainly, if it doesn't have limits, it ceases to be marriage, as increasingly would appear to be the case.
00:20:32.220 Now, one of my favorite concrete expressions of love within my marriage is when I come home and sweet little Elisa cooks me a Good Rancher steak.
00:20:41.580 Right now, go to GoodRanchers.com.
00:20:43.000 Use code Knowles.
00:20:43.700 We all have a lot on our schedules.
00:20:45.740 You got the kids' baseball practice, science fairs, prepping for the holidays.
00:20:50.300 Well, the good news is you can take one big thing off your plate by putting great meat on your plate with Good Ranchers.
00:20:58.340 You care about what your family eats.
00:20:59.940 So does Good Ranchers.
00:21:01.240 That is why they've spent years building relationships with the local farms to source the best 100% American beef, chicken, pork, and now wild-caught seafood, too.
00:21:09.680 The best of the land and sea can now get conveniently delivered right to your door.
00:21:13.800 I love it.
00:21:14.220 I had it last night.
00:21:15.260 I had some juicy, delicious ribeye.
00:21:17.160 I also just saw our pal from Good Ranchers over at an event in L.A., and I was able to secure even more juicy pork that they're going to be sending me.
00:21:28.240 And right now, by the way, they're giving everybody two years of free ground beef to anyone who subscribes.
00:21:32.900 That's a $480 value.
00:21:34.600 No other meat company guarantees you.
00:21:35.780 It's the best quality on the market.
00:21:37.420 It's an insanely low price.
00:21:38.920 You can lock in your price.
00:21:39.860 It's ridiculous.
00:21:41.000 The deal won't last forever.
00:21:41.840 Go to GoodRanchers.com today.
00:21:43.280 Use code Knowles for $25 off.
00:21:44.780 Free ground beef for two years.
00:21:45.820 Subscribe to any box to lock in your price.
00:21:48.040 GoodRanchers.com today.
00:21:49.520 Use code Knowles for over $500 in savings.
00:21:51.840 Subscribe to Good Ranchers.
00:21:52.800 American meat delivered.
00:21:54.980 As you know, the spooky season is rapidly approaching.
00:21:58.480 There will be demons out on the prowl.
00:22:00.320 I guess there always are, but we'll be more conscious of it on Halloween.
00:22:03.640 I'm not just talking about the woke corporations, by the way, that look upon your values with disdain.
00:22:08.000 Let's un-woke Halloween with Jeremy's chocolates.
00:22:12.140 Our delicious chocolate comes in two forms.
00:22:15.160 You've got he, him with nuts and she, her, nutless, just as the good Lord intended.
00:22:22.060 Don't be a ghoul.
00:22:23.680 Head on over to Jeremy'sChocolate.com and order your chocolates right now in time for Halloween.
00:22:29.540 Turning our attention to the presidential race and actually, I guess, keeping our attention on marriage and what happens as a result of marriage.
00:22:40.640 You know, that usually creates children.
00:22:42.340 Well, the abortion issue is front and center.
00:22:44.840 And Nikki Haley has offered what I think she views as an alternative between the stark take on abortion that you see from the left and the Democrats and from the right wing and the conservatives.
00:22:56.600 Here's Nikki's take.
00:22:58.100 We haven't had 60 Republican senators in over 100 years.
00:23:02.700 We might have 45 pro-life senators.
00:23:06.360 So no Republican president can ban abortions any more than a Democrat president can ban these state laws.
00:23:13.020 So why don't we just find consensus?
00:23:17.280 Can't we agree that we don't want late-term abortions?
00:23:22.520 Can't we agree that we should encourage adoptions and better quality adoptions?
00:23:28.360 Can't we agree that doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortion shouldn't have to perform them?
00:23:32.680 Can't we agree that contraception should be accessible?
00:23:37.300 And can't we agree that no state law should say that any woman who's had an abortion can go to jail or get the death penalty?
00:23:44.960 Let's just start there.
00:23:47.740 We have to humanize this issue.
00:23:49.920 I am not going to be part of demonizing this issue.
00:23:52.320 It's too personal to everyone.
00:23:55.060 And the fellas have done that for too long.
00:23:57.060 No offense.
00:23:57.900 But it is time that we start treating it like the sensitive topic that it is.
00:24:01.540 Okay.
00:24:03.520 Some of what Nikki said there is correct.
00:24:05.400 Some of it is not correct.
00:24:07.220 Some of it I agree with.
00:24:08.680 Some of it I don't agree with.
00:24:10.780 The part I really don't agree with is when she says we need to stop demonizing this issue.
00:24:18.120 They're murdering babies.
00:24:19.960 They're murdering little babies, hundreds of thousands, upwards of a million per year.
00:24:25.220 If we're not going to demonize this issue,
00:24:27.540 then I guess we're just denying demons.
00:24:31.820 This is as demonic as it gets.
00:24:33.760 It's the sacrifice of innocent little babies to Moloch.
00:24:36.960 Okay.
00:24:37.220 That is as demonic as any issue can get on planet Earth.
00:24:43.260 But while I think that she is wrong directionally on that point,
00:24:52.320 I think Nikki is probably right tactically on this point.
00:24:57.540 Because what she's saying is, especially that first part, she goes,
00:25:01.420 we've never had more than 45 pro-life senators, actually hard, strong pro-life senators.
00:25:07.240 So it's just not going to happen, guys.
00:25:09.620 You're going to pursue a national law to outlaw all abortions, and it's not going to go anywhere.
00:25:15.700 And you might feel really good about yourselves by saying, well, I stood firm for the cause of life.
00:25:21.740 But the effect of it is not going to be anything.
00:25:24.980 Because you're never going to get that passed.
00:25:26.640 And there I think she's totally right.
00:25:28.260 And it's something that the conservatives and maybe the pro-life movement aren't going to want to hear.
00:25:33.920 But it's just a fact.
00:25:34.940 It seems to me pretty clear that federal law is most likely a dead end here.
00:25:42.060 You could still have some kind of federal rule on abortion, but that would come from the Supreme Court.
00:25:46.880 That's not going to come from anywhere else.
00:25:50.560 And it could come from the Supreme Court.
00:25:51.920 I was just, I flew out to LA just for a night a couple days ago to the Live Action Gala.
00:25:57.560 Live Action, one of the greatest pro-life organizations in the country, run by Lila Rose.
00:26:01.000 And Live Action in the wake of the Dobbs decision overruling Roe v. Wade has said that the new North Star is 14th Amendment jurisprudence.
00:26:10.380 To say that not only, as some textualists and originalists have said in recent years, not only is abortion not in the Constitution, not only should it be returned to the states.
00:26:19.100 But one could make a 14th Amendment argument and say the 14th Amendment provides equal protection under the laws.
00:26:26.420 And I know that there are going to be some people who say, well, the 14th Amendment was too broad.
00:26:31.320 It was intended to address this problem of slavery and what we do after slavery is abolished.
00:26:36.080 But it was so broad that it created certain problems within the Constitution, and I don't agree in principle, and it harmed the cause of federalism and the cause of subsidiarity.
00:26:45.000 And you can make all of those arguments, and I don't really even intend to dispute them.
00:26:48.680 But it is a fact that the 14th Amendment has shaped the entirety of our jurisprudence since then.
00:26:55.240 And the Libs use the 14th Amendment all the time to very bad ends.
00:26:58.140 So here, we could cite the 14th Amendment for a very good end, which would be saving little babies.
00:27:03.100 And there have been serious legal theorists, people like John Finnis, people like Robbie George, the philosopher at Princeton, who have made this argument, made it in an amicus brief on the Dobbs case, that the Supreme Court should go even further and ban abortion by reading the equal protection of the laws into the 14th Amendment.
00:27:20.600 That maybe could go somewhere.
00:27:22.700 I'm still somewhat skeptical of that, too.
00:27:24.160 That maybe could go somewhere, but federal law is just not going to happen.
00:27:30.300 Now, speaking of presidential candidates, there is a shocking new poll out of Washington Post and ABC, which shows that not only is Donald Trump leading the pack in the Republican primary, he's also leading Joe Biden by a lot.
00:27:43.320 And this poll is shocking according to the reaction to it and according to some of the headlines.
00:27:48.980 But it shouldn't be all that shocking if you've been following the Washington Post-ABC poll for the past number of months.
00:27:55.760 So head-to-head, right now in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, Trump has 51 support to Joe Biden's 42% support.
00:28:05.680 That's pretty big, up nine points on Biden.
00:28:09.520 This is good for Trump because he's now up three points since the last ABC-Washington Post poll in February, and Biden is down by two points.
00:28:17.660 But those shifts taken individually for the candidates are actually not statistically significant.
00:28:23.380 And even back in February, Trump was leading Biden, according to this poll, from a liberal outlet.
00:28:28.860 There's even less change since May.
00:28:30.620 The ABC Post did the poll in May, and in May they had the race at 49-42, Trump over Biden.
00:28:37.300 So everyone is so shocked now, but this is the way it's been for a long time.
00:28:41.600 And then just to put a button on it, in terms of the primary right now, Trump has 54% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents compared to DeSantis' 15%.
00:28:52.900 So he actually has taken a pretty big hit.
00:28:55.280 The last time the poll was done in May, DeSantis had 25%.
00:28:59.140 Now he's down 10 points to 15% and all the other candidates.
00:29:02.700 But DeSantis is the only one with any even semblance of a shot, according to The Post and ABC.
00:29:07.460 Every other candidate is in single digits.
00:29:10.800 What do we conclude from this?
00:29:13.360 We conclude, I think, that one argument made by Trump's critics on the right is an absurd argument.
00:29:21.460 And that is the argument that he can't win the general.
00:29:26.560 We hear this all the time from Trump's critics on the right.
00:29:30.300 They say, well, if we nominate him, he cannot win the general.
00:29:35.100 And so we are guaranteed to lose to Joe Biden or whoever the Democrat nominee is.
00:29:39.700 The people making this argument made the same argument in 2016, which is why I find the argument so absurd.
00:29:48.060 We know for a fact that Donald Trump can win the general because he did it at least once.
00:29:54.860 I say at least.
00:29:55.980 We'll leave it at that.
00:29:56.680 We know that he can do that.
00:30:00.400 Now, does this mean that I'm going to say he is going to beat Joe Biden again this time?
00:30:04.560 No, I'm not saying that.
00:30:06.680 In fact, I'm not even saying I think it's likely that Donald Trump would beat Joe Biden this time.
00:30:11.840 My reason being, they rigged the election in 2020.
00:30:16.620 They very clearly rigged it.
00:30:18.640 Even if you don't think that the rigging resulted in Trump's loss.
00:30:22.660 Even if you think Biden would have won anyway, it is simply a fact they changed a huge portion of the election rules right before the election to favor Joe Biden.
00:30:32.260 That's just a fact.
00:30:33.440 And so if we can't unrig that sort of thing, then Trump very likely might lose again.
00:30:37.840 But if that's your conclusion, then there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't rig it against any of the other Republicans.
00:30:45.440 Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, any of them.
00:30:49.740 Chris Christie, of course, the Chris Assants.
00:30:52.060 So that's not really an argument against Trump.
00:30:54.440 That's an argument against our democracy as it presently stands.
00:30:58.340 But you can't use that as a primary argument because that would be an argument from the structure of how the elections are held.
00:31:05.380 And by the way, if your argument is simultaneously that the Democrats really fear Ron DeSantis or some other candidate more than Donald Trump,
00:31:15.600 then you've got even less of a point here because then there's no reason to believe the Democrats wouldn't rig the election any less hard against the other guys.
00:31:24.820 Now, is the election hopelessly rigged?
00:31:30.020 I mean, do you really believe that Republicans have no shot whatsoever?
00:31:34.620 I'm not willing to say that.
00:31:36.600 We've done a good job.
00:31:38.300 Certain Republican governors, including Ron DeSantis, actually, have done a good job of undoing some of the rigging within their own states.
00:31:45.200 So I am cautiously hopeful that 2024 will be less rigged than 2020.
00:31:51.260 Cautiously hopeful about that.
00:31:52.600 And also, the Trump campaign is showing that it's getting a little bit more serious about working in the nitty-gritty details of these election rules itself.
00:32:03.280 We're seeing this in the primary.
00:32:04.900 One of the reasons that Trump is doing so well in the 2024 primary is not merely that he's good at appealing to people and the broad surveys say people generally like him.
00:32:17.460 One of the other reasons, this just came out really good report on this a few days ago, is that the Trump campaign is going in to the individual state parties and fixing the rules to give him an advantage.
00:32:31.020 One GOP observer says, parties are extremely keen on being more important in the primary.
00:32:37.660 That's why we're seeing more winner-take-all rules and seeing more early primaries or caucuses when they have the opportunity.
00:32:44.720 What that amounts to is a front-runner set of rules, something that benefits the front-runner and delegates being allocated quickly.
00:32:52.920 Josh Putnam, who's a political scientist, says the Trump team was unusually active in nudging state parties toward changes for 2020 that, one, made it easier for Trump to gobble up delegates as the nominating process moved through the calendar of contests.
00:33:05.620 And, two, made it much more difficult for multiple candidates to win delegates.
00:33:09.340 Another Republican lawyer, Ben Ginsberg, says the Trump campaign succeeded in changing rules, quote, in part because they knew what they were doing and, in part, because everyone else is asleep at the switch.
00:33:20.160 So, I don't think this is exactly favorable about Trump.
00:33:24.420 I think the point of the article was to say they're rigging it and they're not giving the other candidates a chance.
00:33:28.420 This actually makes me feel much better about a potential Trump nomination, which right now seems quite likely.
00:33:35.080 The numbers, in as much as they're moving at all, are moving in Trump's favor and away from his opponents.
00:33:39.340 So, if he is the nominee, the question is, can he win?
00:33:41.760 I don't know.
00:33:43.160 I don't know.
00:33:43.600 I wouldn't bet a lot of money that Trump beats Biden.
00:33:46.340 But hearing things like this, I'm beginning to think, oh, maybe he will have a better shot.
00:33:51.820 Maybe his campaign is actually doing the nitty-gritty things on the ground to make sure that they don't steal the election.
00:33:58.560 In elections, campaigns, and especially the Democrats, are always trying to steal things.
00:34:05.000 I've seen this.
00:34:05.840 I've worked on campaigns.
00:34:07.260 This is why we have poll watchers.
00:34:08.540 The whole reason that poll watchers exist is because we know that people try to steal elections, and they bus in voters from out of district, and they try to loosen voter ID rules, and they try to bribe people.
00:34:19.540 And they do all the things that you heard about Boss Tweed and the old Tammany Hall, political machines doing.
00:34:24.920 All the things that you've heard in democracies for all of human history, they try to do them here every election.
00:34:30.740 Sometimes it's easier, and sometimes it's harder.
00:34:33.180 And in 2020, it was much, much easier because we turned election day into election month, and we had widespread mail-in ballots.
00:34:38.080 And we had ballot drop boxes that were often illegally far away from where they were supposed to be.
00:34:43.460 And we had the infusion of Zuckbox, and you had the government answering to private entities that had a very liberal agenda.
00:34:50.980 And you had pipes bursting in Georgia, and you had days and weeks, weeks of ballot counting in some cases, a pausing of the vote when it looked too good for Donald Trump.
00:35:00.260 There was just so much rigging.
00:35:01.940 And I am hoping that the Trump campaign realizes that the election is going to be won or lost there, okay?
00:35:12.620 Yes, you need a good campaign.
00:35:13.760 Yes, you need to persuade people.
00:35:14.800 But look at the polls.
00:35:15.720 Biden is very unpopular right now.
00:35:17.880 And Biden would appear to be much less popular than Donald Trump.
00:35:22.920 So I think the popular support is kind of there already.
00:35:26.140 The question is, will the popular sentiment really matter in terms of the final election?
00:35:33.560 No, that election is going to be determined underneath bursting pipes.
00:35:36.920 Can the Trump campaign patch up those bursting pipes in order to make sure that the count matches public sentiment?
00:35:43.700 My favorite comment on Friday is from Dominic Zelenak, who says,
00:35:48.380 I can name three branches of government, BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard.
00:35:53.900 Very perceptive.
00:35:56.760 Very, that was a perspicacious sort of thing to say.
00:36:02.260 Speaking of our elected officials, before we go, this is a story I meant to get to on Friday.
00:36:05.220 We'll get to it now.
00:36:06.680 John Fetterman, the senator from Pennsylvania, who is now dressing like a plumber on the floor of the United States Senate,
00:36:14.680 and actually had Chuck Schumer changing the rules for him.
00:36:16.740 John Fetterman broke down crying on the floor of the Senate.
00:36:20.860 Because I live in a political environment, I was ridiculed and made fun of because I wasn't able to process things sometimes or say things saying so.
00:36:29.920 I'm so sorry that I'm sure many of you had to go through this kind of thing.
00:36:35.680 You know, I was lucky that I was lucky to go through my life, the vast majority of that, without this kind of disability that I have.
00:36:44.060 But, again, I can't imagine how the challenges, and I admire everyone that has to kind of live with these kind of struggles and prevail over them.
00:36:55.500 I have a great deal of sympathy for John Fetterman.
00:36:59.580 I'm not going to join the chorus of people just making fun of him for crying.
00:37:07.020 I'm sure he's in a great deal of pain.
00:37:08.760 I have no doubt that he sincerely was depressed when he was checked in for depression at that medical center.
00:37:14.580 And I bet he's going through a lot.
00:37:17.560 It's very difficult.
00:37:20.040 He is not fit to be a U.S. senator.
00:37:25.500 And he's in this role, and that is not conducive to flourishing, personally for him or nationally for us.
00:37:33.780 I'm not making fun of him.
00:37:35.500 I'm not calling him all sorts of names.
00:37:36.880 It pains me greatly when people feel bullied and insulted and low about themselves.
00:37:44.340 It pains me.
00:37:45.020 I hate that.
00:37:45.680 I hate seeing that.
00:37:46.500 I really feel for the guy.
00:37:49.760 I sincerely feel for the guy.
00:37:51.620 The solution to that is for him to resign.
00:37:54.380 He is not fit for the job.
00:37:56.540 If he can't figure out how to put on a jacket, if he can't conduct the basic business of the Senate, this is not the place for him.
00:38:08.360 And he got himself elected senator, and that's great, and that's an accomplishment.
00:38:13.540 But the circumstances of his life are such that he is not fit for this job, if the job of senator still matters at all.
00:38:20.940 I guess this is what ties in with the first part that we were talking about today, which is, does the Senate ratify treaties?
00:38:27.420 Does the Senate conduct war?
00:38:29.220 Does the Senate, or declare war rather, does the Senate really do the business of government?
00:38:35.120 Or is the Senate just kind of a facade?
00:38:38.680 Is it a little bit of a club that works around the margins and approves judges and has some modicum of power?
00:38:44.920 But is the business of government really conducted more in these agencies by unaccountable, faceless bureaucrats who don't really need to worry about government shutdowns, who don't really need to worry about elections?
00:38:57.060 Is the Senate just kind of a joke?
00:38:58.680 The longer that John Fetterman remains in the U.S. Senate, even with the pressure to do what little power the Senate has, or to wield what little power the Senate has, is going to be very hard on him.
00:39:13.240 And he's probably going to cry more, and he's probably going to break down more, and that's a sad thing.
00:39:18.600 But also, the longer he remains in the Senate, in this condition, the clearer and clearer it is that the Senate is not what we once thought it was.
00:39:29.200 It's the government happens elsewhere.
00:39:32.560 Speaking of broken institutions, there's a leaked video out of the Veterans Affairs Department.
00:39:40.940 It promotes abortion, and it says that pregnancy is not limited to women.
00:39:47.100 A person who is pregnant is more inclusive language.
00:39:51.820 However, many of the studies that exist to date have not so far included trans men or non-gender binary people identified as such.
00:40:02.120 Hello, my name is Emily Ashbaugh.
00:40:04.620 My pronouns are she, her, and hers, and I'm really glad to be with you today.
00:40:07.940 Some patients may be fearful, distrustful, or have preconceived beliefs related to reproductive health care, which may impact their decision-making based on their own experiences and the long history of reproductive injustice in this country.
00:40:21.660 Language has a profound impact on what people hear and learn.
00:40:25.800 When discussing abortion, please use these examples of clinically accurate language.
00:40:32.660 There are many ways the VA can provide abortions, including on-site with providers, ordering prescription medications, or performing abortion procedures in outpatient clinics and operating rooms where available.
00:40:45.300 If you were only listening on the radio or on podcast, you didn't see even the craziest parts.
00:40:53.900 It just writes out, write in this VA PowerPoint.
00:40:57.200 Not everyone who gets pregnant is a woman.
00:40:59.220 Don't use the kind of language baby or unborn child.
00:41:02.540 You have to say embryo or fetus.
00:41:04.500 Don't say chemical abortion.
00:41:05.700 Don't say medication abortion.
00:41:07.620 Yes, that's what we want.
00:41:08.780 Don't say womb.
00:41:09.640 Don't say womb.
00:41:11.280 Say uterus.
00:41:12.340 Don't say mother.
00:41:15.340 Say veteran or person.
00:41:17.000 Don't deal with the reality of this.
00:41:21.820 A related story back to the Senate is that Senator Tommy Tuberville right now is holding up the appointment of various people to the higher echelons of the military because of this crap, because the military is now pushing funding for abortions and to allow service members to try to do that.
00:41:42.340 Travel out of wherever they are to go get abortions and contradicting state laws that are pro-life and saying, no, no, no, we're going to make sure that if our employees are in your state, they're going to be able to kill their kids.
00:41:58.200 And Tommy Tuberville, Senator Tuberville pointed out, this is not helping the fighting force of the United States.
00:42:05.720 This is not important to the mission of the U.S. military.
00:42:09.400 And I am not going to allow any of these people to get their new appointments until you cut this out.
00:42:15.520 And he's being lambasted for it.
00:42:17.140 And this guy is a hero, man.
00:42:18.680 Tommy Tuberville is a hero and deserves all of our support.
00:42:21.360 And I recognize here that the Pentagon and the VA are distinct.
00:42:27.000 They're pretty clearly related and they clearly share the same infanticidal, insane ideology.
00:42:33.300 And we absolutely need to grind this to a halt until they stop this.
00:42:38.820 I want our U.S. military to kill our enemies.
00:42:41.600 I don't want the U.S. military to kill our own children.
00:42:44.420 That's a terrible thing.
00:42:45.760 And anybody who's complicit in this in the military needs to be thrown out.
00:42:49.260 And anyone who wants a new hire appointment in the military needs to say, no, we're not going to do this anymore.
00:42:55.760 This is a major cultural problem.
00:42:58.440 This cuts to the very core of who we are as a country and what our country is fighting for.
00:43:03.700 And I think Tommy Tuberville is doing great.
00:43:05.740 And I think every other Republican senator and any Democrat senator with a conscience should join him in this.
00:43:12.120 This is a much deeper problem than oopsie-daisy, some little regulation passed through the Pentagon.
00:43:17.620 But don't hold up our appointments for it.
00:43:19.920 No, no.
00:43:20.660 This is a clearly essential view, a sacramental priority of our present ruling class that has infected now the military.
00:43:34.080 And we've got to cut out that infection before moving on and allowing the military to address other challenges.
00:43:41.180 Absolute good job, Senator Tuberville.
00:43:43.060 Let's get—we need some Tubervilles for the VA, too.
00:43:45.760 The rest of the show continues now.
00:43:47.220 You do not want to miss it.
00:43:49.100 Become a member today and use code Knolls, K-N-W-L-E-S, at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.
00:43:54.840 You do not want to miss it.
00:43:55.000 You do not want to miss it.
00:43:55.360 You do not want to miss it.
00:43:56.060 You do not want to miss it.
00:43:57.760 You do not want to miss it.
00:43:58.620 You you do not want to miss it.
00:43:59.300 You do not miss it.
00:44:00.800 You do not want to miss it.
00:44:01.640 You do not want to miss it.
00:44:02.440 You do not miss this division for the audience.
00:44:02.760 You do not miss it.
00:44:03.360 You do not miss it.
00:44:04.520 You do not miss it.
00:44:04.720 You do not miss it.
00:44:06.940 You do not miss it.
00:44:09.280 You do not miss it.
00:44:09.780 You do not miss it.
00:44:12.320 The games you do not miss it.
00:44:12.960 You do not miss it.
00:44:13.220 You do not miss it.
00:44:14.060 So I do not miss it.
00:44:14.900 But OK.
00:44:14.960 You do not miss it.
00:44:15.380 You do not miss it.
00:44:15.420 You do not miss it.