The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1544 - Olympic Boxing Controversy EXPLAINED In 3 Minutes

00:00:00.000 The U.S. and Russia agreed to a major prisoner exchange yesterday, the most significant exchange

00:00:05.160 since the Cold War. Four U.S. residents were released, mostly journalists, Evan Gershkovich,

00:00:11.380 Paul Whelan, Alsu Kormashiva, and Vladimir Karamurtza. In exchange, we released a bunch of

00:00:18.380 Russians, including spies, fraudsters, and a hitman. President Trump criticized the deal as yet

00:00:25.180 another example of American weakness under Joe Biden. But what really raised eyebrows was Joe

00:00:31.200 Biden's response. President Trump has said repeatedly that he could have gotten the

00:00:35.460 hostages out without giving anything in exchange. What do you say to that? What do you say to

00:00:40.340 President Trump now, former president? Why didn't he do it as president?

00:00:44.660 He didn't do it while he was president because they hadn't been taken hostage yet. One of them

00:00:54.380 had. But three of the four, Gershkovich, Kormashiva, and Karamurtza, were taken on Joe Biden's watch.

00:01:00.600 And they were likely taken hostage because of the war that Joe Biden invited and then mismanaged.

00:01:07.020 I am reluctant to give Kamala the credibility conferred by the incumbency. But with Biden's

00:01:13.860 inability to remember even basic facts pertaining to when he became president, one has to consider,

00:01:21.460 at least, invoking the 25th Amendment. Except for the fact that a conscious Kamala would likely be 1.00

00:01:29.340 as bad or worse as a demented Biden. And exhibit A is that it was Kamala's campaign that posted that

00:01:36.280 clip. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:51.460 Welcome back to the show. A California father has won full custody of his kid

00:02:02.500 after the little boy's mother tried to raise him non-binary, which is mostly good news. It's 1.00

00:02:09.360 basically a good story, but there's a lot of negative aspects to it, too, that no one's talking

00:02:13.620 about. We'll get to that in one moment. First, though, folks, preserve your cigars on the go

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00:03:11.800 Speaking of crime, Javier Millet, the leader of Argentina, is raising all sorts of eyebrows on the

00:03:23.000 left, on the right, by promising to use AI to predict future crimes. Argentina's security forces

00:03:31.640 have announced these plans to use artificial intelligence to, quote, predict future crimes.

00:03:38.120 And of course, the left and a number of people on the right are raising all sorts of a ruckus to say

00:03:45.120 that this is going to infringe on people's rights and this is, you know, like Minority Report or

00:03:49.020 something like that. And it's kind of funny because Javier Millet has positioned himself as the most

00:03:55.460 libertarian national leader in the entire world. So hold on. Doesn't this oppose civil liberties?

00:04:01.700 Isn't this some horrible, dystopian, tyrannical future? It's hard for me to get too worked up about this.

00:04:07.180 I actually think this is probably a good idea because I'm going to let you in on a little

00:04:11.240 secret. This is a very politically incorrect secret. You don't need AI to predict crimes.

00:04:19.820 I'm talking about broad neighborhoods type of crime. You don't need AI to predict that.

00:04:26.140 You just need common sense. You need pattern recognition. But we're not allowed to have common

00:04:31.880 sense or recognize patterns in our politically correct, woke, liberal, whatever euphemism you want

00:04:36.740 to call it, age. So if Javier Millet were saying that we're going to scan people's faces and then

00:04:44.540 we're just going to predict with 87% certainty that they might commit a crime in the future and then

00:04:48.480 we're going to arrest them. Yes, obviously that would be a violation of people's rights. That

00:04:52.680 would be Minority Report. That would be very terrible. But that's not what they're saying.

00:04:57.100 They're saying they're going to use AI, first of all, to find people who are on the lam.

00:05:00.860 So they'll scan people's faces to find out if they are currently wanted for crimes. That seems

00:05:05.160 like a good use of AI. And then furthermore, they're going to use machine learning algorithms

00:05:10.800 to analyze historical crime data to predict future crimes. That's a good idea.

00:05:15.360 That's good. The reason that we're not allowed to do that, the reason we're not allowed to look

00:05:19.720 at crime data and recognize patterns and then take proactive measures to police those areas is

00:05:25.320 because the moment you do that, you're accused of profiling. This is what happened in New York

00:05:29.680 with the stop and frisk policy. It turns out, you're going to be shocked to hear this, that

00:05:34.980 more crime is committed in Bed-Stuy than on Park Avenue on the Upper East Side. And it turns out

00:05:43.120 different types of crime. On the Upper East Side, they might be committing, I don't know, tax fraud

00:05:47.100 or insider trading. But the kind of crime committed in Bed-Stuy is a little bit more violent,

00:05:51.520 a little bit more street crime. However, you're not allowed to acknowledge that. So New York had this

00:05:56.380 policy. It was a very successful policy called stop and frisk. And the policy exists elsewhere

00:06:01.260 in the country. It's known as a Terry stop. It's based on a Supreme Court decision some years ago.

00:06:06.720 And it would allow cops to look at the people who were obviously committing crimes and just talk to

00:06:13.220 them a little bit. And in some cases, even frisk them. Because you go to some project in some awful

00:06:18.180 part of Queens or Brooklyn or the Bronx, and you see these gangsters, you know who they are,

00:06:23.920 and you know they're running drugs, and you know they're pimping women, and you know they're doing 0.97

00:06:27.780 all sorts of terrible things. So you stop and you talk to them. And this was called racist because

00:06:34.800 a disproportionate number of the criminals were black and Hispanic, or a disproportionate number 0.97

00:06:39.060 of the people stopped for these presumptive crimes were black and Hispanic. What they didn't tell you, 0.97

00:06:43.300 of course, was that the cops were black and Hispanic too. And the people who were calling in the crimes 0.92

00:06:47.400 are black and Hispanic too, because the neighborhoods are black and Hispanic. And so the focus was on 0.98

00:06:52.320 protecting the criminals on the basis of their race, but there was never any focus on protecting

00:06:56.580 the victims on the basis of their race. It was totally silly. So now we have to pretend. 0.98

00:07:03.120 This is why when you read about crimes being committed, Ann Coulter has a rule, which is that

00:07:08.680 if the longer you read the article and it doesn't mention the race, and it doesn't mention the sex,

00:07:15.900 you can be certain that the perpetrator is not a white man. Because whenever a white man commits a 0.95

00:07:21.520 crime, it's always the top of the headline, that's perfectly fine with political correctness.

00:07:24.780 But if it's a different race, if it's a woman, if it's a queer, you know, LGBT, LMNP, whatever, 0.99

00:07:30.400 then they don't mention it. Seems like common sense to me. And I think it's good. Call me crazy.

00:07:36.380 I guess I'm not the biggest libertarian in the world. I think it's good to have order,

00:07:40.400 peace, stability. I actually think that's pretty much the whole point of the state.

00:07:45.620 So I think that's fine. I have no problem with what Malay is doing down there. 1.00

00:07:48.360 Speaking of common sense, the plot thickens on this fighter, Imani Calif, who has fought at the

00:07:57.100 Olympics. Imani Calif, I think actually a fair bit of my segment on this fighter was censored from my

00:08:04.240 show yesterday because of the big tech rules around discussing this. So I'll be very careful in my

00:08:11.680 language. But this is a very important story. Imani Calif is a fighter who's fighting against women in

00:08:18.380 women's boxing. And the way this has been portrayed in the press is that Imani Calif is a man who

00:08:24.360 identifies as a woman who's fighting these women. And that's what a lot of the discussion has

00:08:28.320 surrounded. Now, there is some question, actually, as to whether Imani Calif really is a man.

00:08:33.900 There have been conflicting reports over Imani Calif's chromosomes, over Imani Calif's testosterone

00:08:43.480 levels. Is Imani Calif really a woman born with some sexual abnormalities or a man born with some

00:08:51.680 sexual abnormalities or intersex or maphroditic or what? And we don't really know. There's a lot of 0.65

00:08:57.340 conflicting information. We do know that Imani Calif was prohibited from fighting women according

00:09:05.140 to one of the major boxing associations. But then the Olympics cleared Imani Calif to fight this

00:09:10.740 Italian. And then they get in the ring for 46 seconds, one punch. And the Italian girl says, 0.96

00:09:15.700 I'm out. This person's going to kill me. I've never been punched that hard in my life. And so that's 0.90

00:09:20.380 why there's an uproar. So what I said yesterday on the show is very controversial. I said, look,

00:09:23.960 the leftists are all claiming that it's perfectly fine for a man, in principle, to box a woman.

00:09:32.540 The liberals, modern liberals, classical liberals, progressive liberals, libertarians, the liberal

00:09:37.440 types are saying it is wrong for a man to box a woman. Only women should box women. I said, but 1.00

00:09:44.540 there's actually a third perspective here. And that's the conservative perspective. And that's my

00:09:47.960 perspective, which is that women shouldn't box. It's wrong. I can't watch it. I think it's, 1.00

00:09:54.980 and I, furthermore, I think it is wrong politically for society to establish and encourage and fund and

00:10:02.300 promote spectacles in which women are getting their skulls cracked in. I think that's wrong. I think 1.00

00:10:07.900 that's disordered and disturbing. And there were many, many people who came out and said, Michael,

00:10:14.020 you're far too extreme. You're a far right authoritarian. Many people who would call

00:10:18.860 themselves conservatives said that I pointed out, I said, hold on, you want to conserve the great

00:10:23.540 tradition of women's boxing. When do you think women's boxing began in the Olympics? 2012, women

00:10:29.140 were banned from boxing in the Olympics until a dozen years ago. Okay. When do you think women's 1.00

00:10:34.400 boxing became a thing worldwide? Outside of a handful of rare occasions that were quickly

00:10:42.100 snuffed out, women's boxing only began to hit anything even resembling the mainstream 0.99

00:10:48.500 at the turn of the, of the second millennium, 1998 in the UK, 99, 2000. So hold on, you're telling me

00:10:55.960 that my extreme far right, authoritarian, fascist, conservative position

00:11:00.360 is something that everyone agreed with 25 years ago, that everybody, regardless of your political

00:11:06.460 views, you're telling me that you, you, I look, I'm a conservative, but I strongly support women

00:11:12.080 knocking their skulls in on TV. Your, your view, which is supposedly conservative today,

00:11:19.060 that would have been a radically leftist view 25 years ago, frankly, even a dozen years ago.

00:11:25.400 So I, all of that as context to say, what now? Imani Califf, some are saying is not really

00:11:35.260 biologically a man that actually there's some sexual ambiguity is raising the prospect that

00:11:40.220 this person might be intersex or might be a woman. And we just don't know. So what then

00:11:45.020 if this person is intersex, it's a rare, but, but real medical condition, you know, some with someone

00:11:51.260 with sexual abnormalities, should that person be allowed to fight? Or do we need yet another

00:11:55.040 boxing league? We need the intersex boxing league. Do we, or do we need, we just test testosterone 1.00

00:12:00.560 and then we meld the women's and the, and the men's boxing leagues or what, or what do you think?

00:12:06.040 Let's just, let's take it even further. Let's say this, this person is a woman biologically 0.87

00:12:10.320 and is just like the strongest woman ever. Let's say that the claims made by the Imani

00:12:15.840 Califf supporters are true. And this person is biologically, at least plausibly a woman. 0.98

00:12:21.140 And she's just for whatever reason, super strong. And, and that's why after 46 seconds,

00:12:27.800 this Italian lady had to jump out of the ring because she was about to have her skull cracked in. 1.00

00:12:32.560 Do you support that? You think that's good? Well, it's when it's two women, they agreed to fight.

00:12:38.580 So, you know, let's go crack her skull and let's watch that woman bleed from the head. 1.00

00:12:42.300 No, I don't, that's not my view. At least I think it's still wrong. Not because a man or a woman is 0.99

00:12:50.440 doing the punching, but because it is a woman who is being punched in a public spectacle. I think 1.00

00:12:57.280 that's just wrong. And if your best defense of that is, well, look, they agreed to do it.

00:13:02.820 Look, they wanted to do it. They agreed to do it. If your politics always comes down to

00:13:09.200 a matter of voluntary actions, you're a lib. And look, there are many such cases. There are a lot

00:13:18.860 of libs these days. We've, we've lived in liberal modernity for a long time, but that is a very

00:13:23.260 liberal point of view. Cause I think, call me crazy, call me an old fuddy daddy. I know this is, 0.69

00:13:29.080 this is my crazy extreme view that virtually everyone agreed with until not so long ago.

00:13:33.640 Uh, I think politics is about more than just acts of the will. I think it's about more than just

00:13:40.840 consent. Consent is an important thing, but I think there's more to it. I think people can consent to

00:13:45.980 things that are really bad and should be proscribed. I think, uh, like doing heroin, you know, I think

00:13:52.700 you could consent to that, but I think it's, that's bad. You know, I don't think we should legalize

00:13:56.960 heroin or, um, I don't know, snuff films, filming like dead people and people dying. I don't, you

00:14:05.240 know, I think that's probably bad being killed. You know, I don't know. That's, that's kind of,

00:14:08.880 I think, um, cock fights even generally you could, I guess you could get animals can't consent to

00:14:14.040 anything. The cock, the, uh, the chicken owners could, could I guess, you know, consent to it, 0.52

00:14:18.720 but I don't think we should dog fighting and stuff. I don't know. I just think there's a lot.

00:14:23.300 That's my conservative view. And furthermore, I think it is especially disordered to watch some

00:14:28.440 poor woman get her head cracked in for whatever reason by anyone. Call, call me old fashioned. 1.00

00:14:34.340 I'm just, I'm just one of those really old fashioned guys who thinks like everyone did in 2012.

00:14:39.740 There's so much more to say first though, go to balance of nature.com use promo code Knowles

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00:15:39.280 it yourself. Go to balance of nature.com promo code Knowles. Speaking of relations between the sexes,

00:15:46.400 this is a really funny headline. This is the funniest headline I've seen all week. This is

00:15:50.220 from the Washington Examiner. Why doctors say that Ozempic patients on birth control should use

00:15:58.500 condoms. So it seems like a Mad Lib, you know? Well, they are Mad Libs actually who do these sorts

00:16:04.940 of things. But it seems like a Mad Lib. You just fill in why doctors say that Ozempic patients on birth

00:16:11.820 control should use condoms. Okay. And I guess because the Ozempic weakens the efficacy of the

00:16:17.300 birth control contraception pill, so then you have to use a more physical, tangible method of

00:16:23.960 contraception. Again, we're talking about what a fuddy-duddy I am. You know, what an old-timey

00:16:29.720 figure. What if, just hear me out, what if you didn't do any of that? What if instead of

00:16:40.940 using condoms because the Ozempic is messing up your birth control, what if instead you just,

00:16:46.260 you didn't use any of those things, and then you got married, and you had kids, and you aged gracefully?

00:16:55.680 Is that, is that, can we even propose that anymore? Well, and I know, there's, you're going to say some

00:17:02.560 people need Ozempic because they're 800 pounds. Okay, sure. In some extreme case, some extreme

00:17:07.980 measures might be called for. Okay, sure, maybe. But you got to ask yourself, if you're one of these

00:17:14.340 people who's just maybe like a little bit overweight, and you get some Ozempic because you want to lose,

00:17:17.880 you want to look better in your swimsuit or something like that, and then you're taking the

00:17:22.980 birth control pill, and then, but the birth control pill's not working anymore, so you got to use the

00:17:26.780 condoms, and I guess you got to ask yourself, why are you doing any of that? Why? You're, you're taking

00:17:36.020 the birth control pill so that you can have promiscuous sex and not have children. Why though?

00:17:42.460 Why are you doing, I know why, I mean, because it like feels good, sure, but isn't, wouldn't it be

00:17:46.500 better to have children? Wouldn't it be better rather than go out and hook up with people who 0.69

00:17:51.400 don't care about you, who don't want any accountability, who don't want to realize love

00:17:56.540 between two people and make it so real that it actually becomes another person and welcome the

00:18:00.280 greatest gift that God can give you, you know, in this terrestrial plane? What's the point of it all?

00:18:08.680 What's the point? And even with Ozempic, taking out the extreme cases, just the people who are kind

00:18:13.540 of, you know, using it to lose some weight, why are you trying to look super hot when you're 50?

00:18:19.160 50-year-olds aren't supposed to be hot. You know, they can look beautiful. Women of a certain age, 1.00

00:18:23.760 men of a certain age can have an elegance to them, but you're not supposed to be on the cover of

00:18:30.500 Sports Illustrated when you're 50 or 60 or 70. That's not what it's for. And you're not, the

00:18:36.080 purpose of your sex drive, which is something so close to the heart of human nature, the purpose of

00:18:41.440 it is not to just like go out and meet some random person and bump uglies and then maybe not even get

00:18:46.160 that person's phone number. And then heaven forfends you get pregnant, you know, that would be, 1.00

00:18:50.600 constitute some kind of sexually transmitted disease, some horrible fate to

00:18:53.700 be avoided. That's not what any of that stuff is for. It's not going to make anybody happy.

00:18:58.200 Listen, I come from New York. I lived in LA. I went to a very liberal university. I have a lot

00:19:02.020 of friends who do this kind of stuff. None of them are happy. It doesn't make any, you know,

00:19:06.620 the people who are happy, the ones who are just kind of normal, generally speaking, that means

00:19:11.480 getting married, working to get married and being open to the possibility of life and having a family.

00:19:17.120 And I tell you, I've traveled the world. You know, I've, I've had lots of really wild,

00:19:21.580 wacky experiences. Nothing compares to looking my kid in the face. None of it. I've traveled to South

00:19:27.920 Asia. I've been in the Middle East or all over Europe. Oh man, it's cool. I've had a zillion

00:19:32.260 brunches. I've gone to a billion bars. It's, it can be fun. Not, not any of that equals one little

00:19:39.080 look from my cute little kid. Okay. And so many people desire that and they can't do that. It just

00:19:43.920 drives me crazy that people are actively cutting themselves off from it for tantalizing goods that are

00:19:49.920 really not so good after all. They're not really going to make anybody happy. Is it any wonder

00:19:54.520 marriage rates are collapsing? Birth rates are collapsing. The country's collapsing. Is it any

00:20:00.940 wonder? You could just ask yourself, why am I doing these things? Kind of crazy. There's so much more

00:20:05.840 to say. First though, go to preborn.com slash Knowles. It's been over two years since the overruling

00:20:10.920 of Roe v. Wade, which was supposed to be a great victory for the pro-life movement. But the number of

00:20:14.940 abortions has increased since then due to the fact that the abortion pill is now more

00:20:19.560 available. New estimates show more than 1 million babies were aborted in 2023. The abortion pill

00:20:24.620 accounted for over 60, 60% of them. Preborn is currently providing free ultrasounds and

00:20:29.920 life-saving resources to expectant mothers, helping them choose life for their babies. They are on the

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00:21:08.380 $5,000. I personally support this group. I encourage you to give what you can as well.

00:21:13.520 Preborn.com slash Knowles. Donate today. Preborn.com slash Knowles. Or down pound 250,

00:21:19.180 say keyword baby. Pound 250, keyword baby. My favorite comment yesterday is from RV MaxTube.

00:21:27.640 Says, it's funny that Joey, Joe Biden, literally said diversity, equality, and inclusion just before

00:21:33.740 saying Kamala's name. It's perfect. You couldn't have scripted it better. Kamala's a DEI hire. How

00:21:39.900 dare you say Kamala's a DEI hire? Biden said Kamala's a DEI. That's not my words. That's not

00:21:45.460 the Republican words. That's what you guys said. No, no, it's different. When he said it, he meant it

00:21:49.900 as a good thing. So then she was a DEI hire. But now that you're saying it's a bad thing, she's not a DEI

00:21:54.780 hire. Okay, got it. Speaking of marriage and family, there is a basically good story. A California

00:22:02.000 father has won full custody of his son, his four-year-old son, after the four-year-old's mother

00:22:08.680 tried to raise him as non-binary. Here's the story. So the story's mom started identifying that way

00:22:14.620 herself, to the best of my knowledge, and she started trying to call him they all the time,

00:22:19.280 weird, neutral pronouns like that, as well as some incidents where, you know, she tries to put

00:22:26.380 dresses on him or forces him to wear some sort of girly clothing or attire.

00:22:44.460 So it says,

00:22:45.100 The Cali dad told a host, I know he's a boy. He wants to be a boy. He gets angry when you say he's

00:22:49.580 not a boy. He was overjoyed to learn that his then-girlfriend was pregnant in 2019, but she

00:22:54.960 abruptly really changed, you know, and now she started identifying as a they-them. And he was 0.88

00:23:01.440 finally able to meet the boy when the boy was 15 months old. And then the boy's mother was arrested

00:23:07.220 for felony child endangerment, so that really motivated him to try to get custody. After some unspecified

00:23:12.220 incident, Child Protective Services recommended that the father be granted custody. And then

00:23:19.920 the New York Post points out this is not the first relationship to fail after one of these

00:23:23.860 trans ideology phenomena started to crop up. Yeah, that's true. So this is generally good. 1.00

00:23:32.720 Generally good stuff, right? Sure, the woman got pregnant out of wedlock, 1.00

00:23:38.800 but they chose not to kill the kid. That's good, you know? And then the father wanted to be involved

00:23:44.560 in the kid's life, but then the mother had all these sorts of problems. And so then he won the

00:23:49.420 custody. So luckily this derelict mother was not able to trans her kid, her poor little boy. And so 1.00

00:23:54.960 a lot of good stuff here. I can't help but notice, though, a through line in a lot of these stories,

00:24:02.120 custody battles over the trans ideology, a through line is divorced and unwed parents, right? Isn't 0.98

00:24:12.300 that, that's kind of the through line in a lot of cases, it's some divorced father suing his wife

00:24:17.240 because the wife now either has become a lesbian or the wife just embraces the gender ideology and 1.00

00:24:23.740 wants to raise the kid as, you know, they, them or whatever. And at the heart of basically all of

00:24:30.200 these stories is a cracked up family. So there's a cracked up family and no surprise, there's going

00:24:36.020 to be a cracked up ideology that's going to try to crack up a kid, of course. I wonder how many of

00:24:42.620 these cases of the, of the gender ideology would exist if we had significantly lower rates of divorce.

00:24:52.200 Even, even when it's not one parent trying to peddle the ideology on the kid or, you know,

00:24:56.360 fighting the other parent about it, just divorce traumatizes kids, you know, and, and then they spend

00:25:02.020 a lot of time online and they go on various social media platforms. I've interviewed detransitioners 1.00

00:25:07.140 about this and they spend a lot of time and they've got all these complex emotions to process and they

00:25:12.220 look for an outlet and this is, this is the latest identity fad. Just wonder if you, we're always trying

00:25:19.880 to, to treat the symptom of a social pathology, but we, we don't seem to get to the actual cause of the

00:25:27.620 pathology. So you see this, especially today, we were talking about this a little earlier, that everyone

00:25:32.680 agrees, all sensible people agree, we need to stop this transing the kids. You know, transing the kids 1.00

00:25:39.160 is really bad. Okay. Yeah, that's really bad. But what about transing the adults? The reason transing the 1.00

00:25:44.560 kids is bad is that a man can't become a woman. So if that's true, then, then why do we let the adults 0.99

00:25:48.940 trans themselves? Well, because our politics just all comes down to acts of volition and consent. 0.96

00:25:54.140 Okay. Well, if a kid looks up and sees that uncle Jerry is now uncle Jane, if a kid in the entire

00:26:00.020 popular culture sees constantly, uh, this propaganda that a man can become a woman, that's going to 0.71

00:26:06.180 incline him to, to believe that a man can become a woman. So you actually can't solve the transing the 1.00

00:26:11.680 kids problem without dealing with the transing the adults problem. But, but how do we get to the 0.95

00:26:16.160 transing the adults problem? Well, because we've said for decades now that men and women for all

00:26:21.320 intents and purposes are the same and interchangeable. We've done that by changing the definition of

00:26:25.000 marriage and pretending that a husband can be a wife and a wife can be a husband. And you can have 0.89

00:26:28.400 a marriage of two husbands or two wives. And even before that, we, we established this premise by,

00:26:36.060 by embracing feminism and the notion that a woman needs a man like a fish needs bicycle.

00:26:41.120 So it goes way, way deeper. And one of the fruits of feminism, maybe one of the causes of feminism 1.00

00:26:47.720 was the ease of divorce, no false divorce, which was unheard of in American history until relatively

00:26:53.580 recently. And what's driving a lot of this behavior and a lot of, a lot of the, these social

00:26:59.520 pathologies, probably divorce because the family is the bedrock political unit. So if you have a crack

00:27:04.840 in your bedrock political union, you're probably going to have a crack in your broader polity.

00:27:08.520 There's good stuff here, but we can't call this a win that a father got custody of his kid from

00:27:14.360 some crazy mother because there's so, there's so many problems beneath the surface of that news story. 0.93

00:27:22.240 Now, speaking of aging gracefully, president Trump has a great proposal in my humble opinion.

00:27:29.160 He just posted on Truth Social, seniors should not pay tax on social security.

00:27:35.860 Q, we've been a little tough on the libertarians today, but Q, some of the libertarians and the

00:27:41.780 beltway types who are really focused on entitlement reform, which is an important thing in, in due time.

00:27:49.260 Trump, I think is, is really getting it here. I think this is a really smart proposal. Why?

00:27:53.600 A lot of people don't even know that you have to pay tax on social security. You've had to pay tax

00:27:59.060 on social security since 1983. Ronald Reagan signed this into law, and the purpose of it was to shore

00:28:03.700 up the solvency of the social security trust fund. There is a tax of up to 50% on social security

00:28:10.560 benefits if your income is between $25,000 and $34,000. There's a tax of up to 85% on benefits

00:28:17.060 when income is over $34,000. That's according to the social security administration. So pretty low

00:28:22.120 threshold. Unmarried couples, up to half the benefits are subject to income tax. If the combined 0.72

00:28:28.200 income is between $32,000 and $44,000, past $44,000, you're talking about 85% of the benefits taxable.

00:28:35.160 So why not? What's the argument for continuing to tax social security benefits? Or rather, I should

00:28:44.000 say, what's the argument for Trump not making this campaign promise to win over the votes of seniors?

00:28:48.000 The argument is, well, this will lead the social security trust fund to become insolvent sooner.

00:28:52.960 Okay, well, let's look at the analysis. How much sooner? According to the Committee for a Responsible

00:28:58.420 Federal Budget, which is obviously quite opposed to proposals like this, the social security trust fund

00:29:04.780 is expected to run out in 2037. And under this new proposal, it would run out about a year earlier.

00:29:10.760 So the difference here, the difference for Trump in making this promise is, do I win the election or

00:29:17.560 do I lose the election? Do I win seniors who are motivated to vote or do I lose seniors?

00:29:24.020 And the difference from the perspective of public policy is, does social security run out in 2037

00:29:28.600 or 2036? It's not that big a difference, guys. We blow money on so much stuff. Taxing social security

00:29:36.280 or not taxing social security is not even close to the tip of the iceberg of entitlement reform.

00:29:41.520 Why not? The libs buy off groups all the time. And the libs do it in a far less just and defensible

00:29:47.580 way. The way the libs do it is they say, hey, college kids who are likely to make more money

00:29:52.480 than most Americans. Hey, college kids, you know, we're talking about, what, a quarter to a third

00:29:57.380 of Americans who are four-year college graduates. Yeah, we're going to forgive your student loans.

00:30:02.680 We're going to make the poorer people pay for it. And we're going to do it because you're likely to 0.97

00:30:06.260 vote for us. Whereas in this case, you have Trump saying, hey, senior citizens who've worked hard and

00:30:11.360 you paid into this system, we're going to let you get a little bit more of a benefit out of that.

00:30:15.840 To me, that's a no-brainer. Smart stuff. Now, I know that the ideologues are going to say,

00:30:21.320 well, no, that's irresponsible. And that's a violation of the sacred principles of,

00:30:26.120 of, I don't know, not the sacred principle of needing to cut entitlements or something. But

00:30:33.660 okay, good. You can, you can enjoy those sacred, rather dubious principles under the Kamala Harris

00:30:40.740 administration. And I don't know, I think I'd rather give seniors a little bit extra money

00:30:47.180 under the Trump administration, which is actually going to fix our problems because it'll have the

00:30:50.700 political power to do so. So much more to get to, but it's time to get to the mailbag.

00:30:58.380 Daily Wire is about to release its very first theatrical film. It's going to be huge.

00:31:03.440 Am I racist? It's not just a movie. It's an attack on the DEI industrial complex that's

00:31:07.000 infecting our nation. Mount Walsh went undercover, surrounded by professional race baiters and

00:31:11.000 diversity grifters. The guys who brought you What is a Woman are now asking the question that

00:31:14.940 makes liberals break out in hives. Pre-sale tickets are available August 14th. Mark your calendars.

00:31:19.300 Watch the trailer now. MIRacist.com. Get a taste of the madness. Our mailbag is sponsored by

00:31:25.220 Pure Talk at puretalk.com slash Knowles today. Take it away.

00:31:28.060 Hi, Michael. I just graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and I earned a commission into

00:31:37.200 the army as a second lieutenant. Since I don't start my army career until September, I decided

00:31:43.360 to take up a job at Starbucks to earn a little bit extra money and to truly understand how the

00:31:48.840 other side lives. Over the course of the past few months, I've grown quite fond of my job and have

00:31:55.700 decided to remain quiet on any political topics that come up while I am at work. However, since

00:32:01.500 it's my last week there, I'm really considering coming out to all of them as a staunch Trump

00:32:06.120 supporter. How should I go about this or should I just remain quiet? Thanks, Michael. P.S. I really

00:32:13.580 enjoyed when you came to our campus to speak back in the spring. Oh, well, it's wonderful to hear from

00:32:18.980 you again. Look, I like Starbucks. I know conservatives dunk on Starbucks and it drives

00:32:23.980 me crazy that period where they were de-Christmasing the Christmas cups and, you know, I know there

00:32:29.960 are problems with it. But overall, I think it's a good corporation and there are a lot of secret

00:32:34.360 conservatives at Starbucks. I know a lot of the baristas dress kind of crazy and everything, 0.97

00:32:38.640 but I've met a number of secret conservatives there. So, I see why you're fond of your job.

00:32:43.160 The question you got to ask yourself is, what purpose would coming out as a conservative serve?

00:32:51.880 If the purpose is to win over your colleagues, who you seem to like, even though some of them

00:32:58.960 might be pretty lib, then yeah, I think that's a good idea. And how do you do it? The way you do it

00:33:06.620 is not some kind of big reveal. Ha ha, look, I've been lying to you the whole time. Mega, mega,

00:33:10.860 mega. The way you do it is you just insert it casually into conversation. Oh, yeah, I like him.

00:33:16.340 I know people don't like Trump, but I think he's great. I think country is better off under him.

00:33:19.980 And you see what they do. If they like you, if you've grown fond of your job and you, you know,

00:33:23.940 you get along with your colleagues, they might, probably they'll try to chop your head off. But 0.96

00:33:28.820 one or two of them might just say, oh, interesting. I thought all Trump supporters were evil, 0.95

00:33:34.360 but I know this person isn't evil. So I guess maybe I have to reassess my premise. That's what

00:33:42.660 I would do. If your purpose in doing it is just some fireworks to say, hi, you know, suckers, I got 0.98

00:33:48.220 you. I wouldn't do that. There's really nothing to be gained from that. But if you're going to 0.97

00:33:51.760 persuade them, I think it's a good idea. Next one. Hey, Michael, this is EJ Colmel. I wanted to ask

00:33:58.000 you what exactly the establishment is supposed to be in the Republican Party. For all my life,

00:34:02.680 I've heard conservatives and Republicans complain about the establishment trying to undermine

00:34:07.180 conservative values in the Republican Party and serve their own interests. But I've yet to meet

00:34:11.460 a single person who can define what the establishment is. If we go by political or financial support,

00:34:17.360 then that would currently make Trump the establishment candidate from the outset,

00:34:20.820 because 90% of Congress endorsed him before the primaries began, and over half of the GOP donor class

00:34:26.980 backed him, along with almost every single major political pundit on the right. Yet I still hear

00:34:32.640 people talk about the GOP establishment trying to sabotage him, Trump. To be honest, it just seems

00:34:38.860 to me that establishment is just a buzzword people throw around to blame all their electoral problems

00:34:45.260 on someone else so they don't have to self-reflect or take responsibility for their own mistakes.

00:34:49.820 And to be clear, I don't reject the idea that we have elites in this country, or even the notion

00:34:54.620 that there are high-class donors or politicians out for their own interest. But right now, I see all of

00:34:59.900 those things being mobilized to silence any disagreement with Trump, rather than

00:35:03.900 it being used against him. So again, I'm left asking, what is the

00:35:07.840 establishment, and how do we define it? Thanks.

00:35:10.960 So, good question. No, the establishment is not just

00:35:13.920 political support. It's not just popularity. Establishment

00:35:17.780 refers to institutions. Think of like, you know, a church establishment in England,

00:35:22.040 for instance. So, the GOP establishment is made up, not of

00:35:25.900 individuals, not even of donors, exactly, but of institutions. And what are those institutions?

00:35:32.360 Some think tanks, I don't know, it's the Heritage Foundation, or AEI, or Cato, even.

00:35:38.000 Some media organizations, News Corporation, Fox News would be the biggest one among them.

00:35:43.360 Now, Daily Wire is pretty young, but I don't know, we've grown so big, so fast. In a way,

00:35:48.400 maybe, we're probably not exactly the establishment, but we could almost maybe throw our weight around a

00:35:52.900 little bit in these, maybe. Certainly, if we stick around longer, we might be able to throw

00:35:56.900 our weight around a little bit there. Certain lobbyist groups, certain trade organizations,

00:36:02.440 the Chamber of Commerce would be a good example of that. And so, when you examine

00:36:06.100 the established institutions, then you ask yourself, okay, who do they support? And in some

00:36:12.500 cases, look, Heritage seemed not to be super pro-Trump, but now is reasonably pro-Trump.

00:36:19.960 You know, maybe even more than, you know, moderately pro-Trump at this point.

00:36:25.600 Fox News was kind of anti-Trump until they had to be pro-Trump. They kept, in 2016, as in 2024,

00:36:32.960 they tried to find another candidate, and it didn't work, so now I guess they'll be kind

00:36:36.560 of pro-Trump again. You think of the National Review. National Review magazine, founded by

00:36:40.220 William F. Buckley Jr., considered the flagship magazine of the conservative movement. They hated

00:36:44.520 Trump. You know, they did the, they had the against Trump movement, and many of them were

00:36:47.560 still never Trumpers. Chamber of Commerce was a little opposed to Trump, maybe more than a little

00:36:54.300 bit opposed to Trump. And so, when you, and you could keep going, AEI doesn't seem to really like

00:36:58.680 Trump that much. You know, I don't want to speak for any of these groups, because there are lots of

00:37:02.140 different people within them, and someone at one of these think tanks or media outlets might say,

00:37:07.500 no, I'm very pro-Trump. But the institutions themselves were broadly, by and large, opposed

00:37:15.320 to Trump, which is the reason that Trump can still, even after having already been president,

00:37:19.940 having been the nominee, now he's the third time he's the Republican nominee for president,

00:37:23.500 he can still credibly claim to be outside of the establishment, because the establishment

00:37:27.720 is the institutions, and most of the institutions don't really like him that much. Next question.

00:37:33.120 Hi, Michael Simcha here, big fan of the show. So, you've been saying pretty consistently that

00:37:40.840 the war in Gaza and Israel is complicated, but you'd rather be on the side of people who are

00:37:45.700 not burning the American flag. I don't really see why it's very complicated. The Jews just don't want 1.00

00:37:50.760 to be killed, and Hamas, and largely the Palestinian population, vows to kill the Jews, as have many 0.96

00:37:58.760 people throughout all of our history. We just don't want to be killed, and that's why the whole notion 0.51

00:38:04.320 of a ceasefire is preposterous, because they don't want to have a ceasefire. They themselves say that

00:38:09.220 they want to kill all the Jews, and that's why we're going to fight to keep our indigenous land that 0.97

00:38:14.520 we've been living for thousands of years before Islam was even invented. So, I don't really see why 0.99

00:38:22.000 it's very complicated. Maybe you can enlighten me.

00:38:24.740 I can. It's a good question, though. The reason it's complicated is that the state of Israel was

00:38:30.960 founded in 1948, which is quite recently. And how was the state of Israel founded? It was founded

00:38:37.100 because of a push by the United Nations, and before that, the United Kingdom, and the backing of the

00:38:44.580 United States, which is the successor to the British Empire. What was this area of land before

00:38:50.900 the state of Israel was established? It was the British Mandate of Palestine, okay? What was it

00:38:59.820 before Mandatory Palestine? It was the Ottoman Empire, okay? What was it before the Ottoman Empire?

00:39:05.820 Well, if you go back far enough in history, you see a lot of people conquering this land, some Muslims, 1.00

00:39:10.800 then you get some crusades, and then you go all the way back, and you ask, okay, when was the last time

00:39:15.240 the Jews had political control, even some political control in this land? And you get back to the second 0.78

00:39:21.160 century. You get back to the Bar Kokhba revolt, after which, this was the third of the Roman Jewish 0.64

00:39:27.420 wars. The Romans basically destroy them, and many Jews flee and spread. And the first of the Roman 0.99

00:39:36.600 Jewish wars happens when? In the first century, and it culminates in the destruction of the Second 0.87

00:39:41.780 Temple, okay? And then there's fighting over the land even before that, which we all read about in

00:39:47.040 our Bibles, and you know, there's their Philistines, their Canaanites, and it goes back a while.

00:39:51.580 So, why is it complicated? Well, because the Jews have not had political control over this land for 0.78

00:39:57.200 something like 1,800 years. Now, you say, well, we're indigenous to this land. Sure, like maybe,

00:40:03.380 but the Iroquois are indigenous to New York State. That's not very persuasive. We're not going to give

00:40:07.280 New York State back to the Iroquois. So, then why should we support the state of Israel?

00:40:13.400 There's a religious argument, the religious argument that God gave the land to the Jews. Okay, 0.89

00:40:18.740 that's not going to persuade people who are not Jewish. It will persuade some people who are not

00:40:22.920 Jewish, but many people who hold differing religious views are not going to be persuaded

00:40:28.880 by the religious case for Zionism. How about the historical case for Zionism? Again, that is not

00:40:34.980 going to persuade many people who are not Jewish. It will persuade some Christians. It actually won't

00:40:41.040 even persuade some Jews, which is a separate matter. So, then what's the case for Israel? 0.62

00:40:47.380 My case for Israel, my pro-Israel case, is as a prudential matter, which is, for the Jews, 0.79

00:40:54.400 it would be nice for them to have a place where they're not getting pogromed all the time. You know,

00:40:57.880 it'd be nice for them to have a little bit of political autonomy. And two, you know, I think

00:41:06.020 I'd rather have our Jewish friends, you know, looking after the holy sites than other groups 1.00

00:41:11.220 sometimes are not as nice about the holy sites and don't make it as easy to go visit and everything.

00:41:15.440 And so, and as a prudential matter, we just sort of, there's more alignment between the political

00:41:21.460 views of the state of Israel and Western civilization than between, I don't know, like the pro-Palestine

00:41:26.260 movement. And oh, by the way, here's a rule of thumb. At the pro-Palestine protests, people burn

00:41:31.360 the American flag. And at the pro-Israel protests, they don't. So, even if you don't know anything

00:41:35.260 about the history of the region, you might say, okay, it looks like those guys are more on my side

00:41:39.560 than those guys. So, that's why I say, as a prudential matter, there's a strong case to be made

00:41:45.740 for defending Israel, but it's a complicated issue. Of course, it's a complicated issue. And I think to

00:41:51.340 deny the complexity of the issue is not going to persuade anybody. Next question.

00:41:58.120 Mr. Knowles, I'm wondering if you could help me with this quandary. Apparently, there are two

00:42:04.500 Michael Steele's. There's the Michael Steele who was the RNC chairman. And then there's the Michael

00:42:12.740 Steele who apparently is the MSNBC chairman and sends around pictures of Kamala Harris flexing 0.97

00:42:22.080 dressed like Captain America. Those two things seem polar opposite to me. And I'm wondering if you

00:42:30.220 could help me figure out what in the world happened to Michael Steele.

00:42:36.560 Yes. For those who don't remember, Michael Steele was the chairman of the Republican National

00:42:40.760 Committee during the Obama years. And he was succeeded by Reince Priebus. And then he became

00:42:46.660 a huge lib. Maybe he was always a huge lib, but now he goes on NBC and talks about how terrible

00:42:51.520 Republicans are. So, what happened? It's not just Michael Steele. This happens to a lot of

00:42:56.780 Republicans. It happens to a lot of Republicans because the people who run the Republican Party

00:43:01.720 very often feel that they have more in common with liberal elites than they do with their own

00:43:07.180 constituents. Many of them look with disdain on their own constituents. And part of the reason

00:43:11.940 is that man is a social creature. And these guys live in Washington, D.C. It's a very liberal town.

00:43:17.400 Or they live in New York. Or they live in L.A. even. Or they live in cities where there is some

00:43:24.800 political power. But especially Washington, D.C. And their friends are more liberal. And their social

00:43:34.860 milieu is more inclined toward liberalism than conservatism. And they go where their buddies

00:43:41.900 are. And they go where their paycheck is. NBC is not going to pay Michael Steele to go talk about

00:43:46.540 how great Donald Trump is. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it.

00:43:50.720 Become a member. Use code. And also check out for two months free on all annual plans.

00:43:53.420 Republicans are Nazis. You cannot separate yourselves from the bad white people. 0.99

00:44:10.300 Growing up, I never thought much about race. It never really seemed to matter that much. At least 0.96

00:44:14.280 not to me. Am I racist? I would really appreciate it if you love. I'm trying to learn. I'm on this

00:44:18.500 journey. If I'm going to sort this out, I need to go deeper undercover.

00:44:25.140 Joining us now is Matt, certified D.E.I. expert. Here's my certification.

00:44:29.860 And what you're doing is you're stretching out of your whiteness. This is more for you 0.98

00:44:33.140 than less for you. Is America inherently racist? The word inherent is challenging there.

00:44:37.060 I want to rename the George Washington Monument to the George Floyd Monument.

00:44:40.220 America is racist to its bones. So inherently. Yeah. This country is a piece of shit.

00:44:44.140 White. Folks. Trash. White supremacy. White woman. White boy. Is there a black person 1.00

00:44:50.540 around here? There's a black person right here. Does he not exist?

00:44:54.800 Hi, Robin. Hi. What's your name? I'm Matt. I just had to ask who you are because you have

00:44:59.120 to be careful. Never be too careful. In theaters September 13th. Rated PG-13.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 02, 2024

Ep. 1544 - Olympic Boxing Controversy EXPLAINED In 3 Minutes

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