The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1640 - Squishy Republican Spending Bill Get Destroyed By Trump

00:00:00.000 Republican leadership in Congress just tried to pull a fast one on conservatives.

00:00:04.520 They tried to bully and extort Republican legislators into passing a 1,500-page,

00:00:10.700 $110 billion continuing resolution full of liberal nonsense that most Americans hate,

00:00:17.680 or else to miss out on disaster funding for their districts and Christmas dinner with their families.

00:00:24.500 Happily, the plan did not work, and we'll get into why not.

00:00:27.220 But the fact that they even tried this is so outrageous and also par for the course.

00:00:35.580 Republicans just won a landslide victory in November.

00:00:39.220 They won unified government, House, Senate, and presidency alongside the Supreme Court,

00:00:45.920 which they already had.

00:00:47.020 They won huge swaths of groups that have been Democrat for decades.

00:00:51.500 And the first thing they tried to do after they won was give the Democrats whatever they wanted.

00:00:57.960 These people refuse to win.

00:01:01.320 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:01:02.200 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:03.020 Welcome back to the show.

00:01:23.380 Great news.

00:01:24.380 The biggest porn company in the world is closing up shop in Florida.

00:01:29.240 And the reason why is really scandalous and tells you everything you need to know about the porn industry.

00:01:34.380 There's so much more to say.

00:01:35.360 First, though, text Knowles to 989898.

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00:01:47.580 This is a true story.

00:01:48.780 I called my buddy and my financial advisor the other day.

00:01:51.300 I said, hey, man, should we be taking more risk?

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00:02:04.560 And that was the start of what has become the Dow Jones' longest slump since 1974.

00:02:10.400 He texted me.

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00:02:45.660 What is this continuing resolution?

00:02:48.740 The continuing resolution pushed by Republicans along with Democrats, pushed by leadership, the firm it's sometimes called, the firm of the GOP and the Democrats, getting together to disregard the will of the American people and to undermine conservatives.

00:03:06.600 They have this plan to continue funding the government, to avert a government shutdown, to allow the members of Congress to go home for Christmas because, you know, the deadline was December 20th.

00:03:18.260 And do you want to be the one responsible for making all these members of Congress skip out on their families?

00:03:24.580 They don't get to see their kids open presents on Christmas.

00:03:26.840 Daddy won't be home to slice the Christmas ham.

00:03:30.600 No, no, let's just keep funding the government and let's give Democrats whatever they want. 1.00

00:03:34.820 Until Elon Musk came out and he said, hey, any Republicans who vote for this should be primaried in two years.

00:03:41.980 And then you already had a groundswell of grassroots activism, especially you saw this on X, owned by Elon Musk.

00:03:48.460 Then you had President Trump come out and say, no, cut it out.

00:03:52.220 J.D. Vance posted this statement from President Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.

00:03:56.740 I'll read it in its entirety.

00:04:00.520 If you're trying to figure out who wrote this, was it Trump or was it Vance?

00:04:03.760 I think the diction will tell you the story. 0.84

00:04:06.000 It says, the most foolish and inept thing ever done by congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025.

00:04:12.860 It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed. 0.74

00:04:15.400 Meanwhile, Congress is considering a spending bill that would give sweetheart provisions for government censors and for Liz Cheney.

00:04:22.940 The bill would make it easier to hide the records of the corrupt January 6th committee, which accomplished nothing for the American people and hid security failures that happened that day.

00:04:31.100 This bill would also give Congress a pay increase while many Americans are struggling this Christmas.

00:04:36.800 Increasing the debt ceiling is not great, but we'd rather do it on Biden's watch.

00:04:40.840 So already there, you see Trump is saying, look, there's this awful stuff because of the policies that last three years, really policies last three decades.

00:04:47.480 But make Biden hold the ball for that.

00:04:49.680 But all this other stuff is crazy.

00:04:52.980 If Democrats won't cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration?

00:04:58.540 Let's have this debate now.

00:05:00.740 We should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn't give Chuck Schumer and the Dems everything they want. 0.58

00:05:04.520 Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, set up our country for success in 2025.

00:05:11.680 The only way to do it is with a temporary funding bill and then in all caps, without Democrat giveaways.

00:05:18.200 And we'll get into some of those Democrat giveaways combined with an increase in the debt ceiling.

00:05:22.920 Anything else is a betrayal of our country.

00:05:24.700 Republicans have to get smart and tough.

00:05:26.420 If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them whatever they want, call their bluff.

00:05:31.520 Democrats say, look, you don't get to go home for Christmas.

00:05:35.020 All right, I guess we're not going home for Christmas.

00:05:37.380 It is Schumer and Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief.

00:05:40.440 This chaos would not be happening if we had a real president, which we will in 32 days.

00:05:43.700 Okay, Trump said it better than anything I could possibly add to it.

00:05:49.040 What do we mean by Democrat giveaways?

00:05:52.040 There's money for all sorts of nonsense.

00:05:53.640 The Democrats are pretending, even the establishment media, they're saying, this bill is all about funding the government and it's really about disaster relief. 0.89

00:06:02.280 These nasty Republicans don't want to give out disaster relief. 1.00

00:06:04.860 I promise you, Republicans are happy with disaster relief.

00:06:07.660 We want to give as much disaster relief as you want.

00:06:10.760 What we don't want is all the little pork for all the little Democrat projects. 0.97

00:06:15.220 What we don't want is to continue funding a huge bloated government, the American people voted in large part in November, to have Elon Musk and Doge come in and gut a lot of the government bloat.

00:06:28.480 So we don't want to increase the government bloat.

00:06:31.220 And then there's even ideological giveaways to Democrats like this one.

00:06:34.600 This one blew me away.

00:06:36.520 I have to give a hat tip to Benny Johnson who found it before I did.

00:06:39.580 The continuing resolution wants to start redefining all sorts of terms, adding new euphemisms into the U.S. code like this one.

00:06:50.380 Right now in the U.S. code, there's this term offender to refer to criminals.

00:06:54.440 Well, this continuing resolution, the purpose of which ostensibly is just to fund the government, give out some disaster relief, this continuing resolution would change Section 3 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, 29 U.S. Code 3102, to get rid of the word offender and replace it with justice-involved individual.

00:07:17.900 It seems like a minor thing, but it's not a minor thing because, as I've mentioned for years, the Democrats control the culture in large part because they control people's minds and they control people's minds because they control the words.

00:07:30.120 That's why Democrats are so insistent on euphemisms, on politically correct woke language, is by changing the words, you change people's perception.

00:07:37.960 This example is one that I cited on page two of my book, Speechless, as a particularly egregious example of leftist euphemisms.

00:07:49.940 Where is my bell? I said the word and my bell is not there. This is very unusual and I don't like it.

00:07:54.960 Whatever, we move on in this. Thank you. I'm glad that our control room is asleep right now. I guess they've started their Christmas vacation early.

00:08:01.300 Honestly, justice-involved individual is one of the most absurd euphemisms the left has used because a criminal, whatever you want to say about a criminal, is by definition someone who is involved in injustice.

00:08:14.440 He's the opposite of a justice-involved individual. They want to put that in there. There are other euphemisms.

00:08:20.260 The continuing resolution wants to strike the phrase homeless individuals and replace it with individuals experiencing homelessness.

00:08:29.420 It seems like a minor point, but why are we having this fight over the funding of the government, a battle potentially that will lead to the shutdown of the government right before Christmas?

00:08:40.840 We're fighting over the left's temper tantrum to include all of this gobbledygook nonsense euphemism?

00:08:49.860 Out-of-school youth? Out-of-school youth is to be amended in the U.S. Code to opportunity youth.

00:08:55.520 I guess you do. If you're out of school, if you're a dropout, if you're playing hooky, I guess you do have a lot of opportunity.

00:09:00.600 You have the opportunity to go do drugs. You have the opportunity to go commit crimes.

00:09:03.520 You have the opportunity to go back to school. I don't know.

00:09:07.980 This is what they want. They're so—say what you will about the left.

00:09:12.260 These guys do not give up.

00:09:13.980 They lost in a landslide in November, an electoral college landslide at the level of the presidency.

00:09:19.160 They lost the popular vote for the presidency. They lost the whole government.

00:09:24.100 And they still have the audacity to go up, say, just before Trump takes office, and say, hey, Republicans, give us everything we want. 0.98

00:09:31.520 And the crazy part is the freaking Republicans want to do it. 0.97

00:09:36.360 These people can't win for losing. 0.97

00:09:38.080 They have to be bullied into saying no to the Democrats.

00:09:43.760 Republicans hold all the cards.

00:09:45.620 We have not held this many cards in 20 years.

00:09:48.360 And the Democrats say, hey, even though you hold all the cards, you're about to take over the whole government, give us everything we want.

00:09:53.240 And they say, okay, yes, sir.

00:09:54.880 Yes, sir.

00:09:55.500 What else can we give you?

00:09:56.520 Can I shine your shoes while we do it? 0.99

00:09:58.420 So pathetic. 0.98

00:10:00.000 Speaking of crime, speaking of justice-involved individuals, 0.95

00:10:03.480 there's an article that I have to direct your attention to in The College Fix.

00:10:10.000 It's about little old me.

00:10:11.940 Headline, Michael Knowles creates unsafe campus for LGBTQ students, University of Illinois complaint says.

00:10:18.520 It's a wild story.

00:10:21.820 I actually have to apologize to The College Fix.

00:10:23.600 They had reached out to me for comment, and I'd forgotten about it.

00:10:28.060 And this happened so long ago that, I don't know, it just totally escaped my mind.

00:10:32.360 But the left doesn't give up.

00:10:35.000 I spoke at the University of Illinois like eight months ago or something.

00:10:40.000 I don't even remember when I spoke there.

00:10:41.840 And the leftists at that school are still salty about it, are still trying to use my speech as an excuse to ban conservatives from campus.

00:10:51.940 Here's what they say.

00:10:53.840 This should not be allowed, the unknown reporter told the University of Illinois campus belonging team.

00:10:59.260 If you pay taxes in Illinois, certainly if you send your kid to the University of Illinois, you're paying for something called the campus belonging team.

00:11:08.280 This should not be allowed, the reporter said, referencing Knowles' hate-filled rhetoric around LGBTQ plus people.

00:11:15.660 Notice, the unknown reporter is not citing any particular examples of rhetoric.

00:11:23.680 I don't know what my hate-filled rhetoric is.

00:11:27.040 I guess the one example they sometimes point to is when I, at CPAC, I said that for the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who fall on prey to this confusion,

00:11:34.260 transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology at every level. 1.00

00:11:38.140 Well, it's popped up in the news so much I've memorized that portion of the speech. 0.95

00:11:41.920 But you couldn't say that's hate-filled.

00:11:43.140 I said it's for their own good.

00:11:45.760 I said this is a false ideology.

00:11:48.160 It hurts especially the people who fall on prey to it.

00:11:50.260 So you can't say that's hate-filled.

00:11:51.460 You might say it's wrong.

00:11:52.440 It's not.

00:11:52.820 It's correct.

00:11:53.360 But even if you think it's wrong, you couldn't say it's hate-filled.

00:11:57.560 The impetus for the rhetoric is charity.

00:12:01.400 And clarity.

00:12:04.160 And clarity is charity, as far as I'm concerned.

00:12:05.960 The article goes on the event.

00:12:07.220 A speech titled, Abortion is not healthcare, occurred in mid-April.

00:12:11.160 But the fix recently obtained the complaint as part of a public records request for bias team reports from the university.

00:12:15.840 So I love this part because the speech wasn't on LGBTQ.

00:12:18.700 This is something, I think, the members of the LGBT LMNOP community need to get through their heads. 1.00

00:12:25.020 There's a lot of confusion in that community, but they need to get this one thing through.

00:12:28.780 Not everything's about you.

00:12:32.500 I love this.

00:12:33.560 This happens.

00:12:34.060 I go, I could speak on any topic.

00:12:35.800 On abortion.

00:12:36.640 I could speak on Christopher Columbus.

00:12:38.340 I gave a speech on the Crusades.

00:12:39.900 And the LGBT LMNOP activists come out and they say, this is an attack on me.

00:12:45.020 Ladies and gentlemen, not everything is about you, believe it or not.

00:12:49.100 I know you think it's all about you.

00:12:50.760 And you've turned this day of celebration you had into a month of celebrating you.

00:12:56.260 Now it's two months of celebrating you.

00:12:57.680 Now there have to be whole offices at every university and company to celebrate you.

00:13:01.420 And there has to be a flag.

00:13:02.160 But it's actually not all about you.

00:13:04.960 And if you have aberrant desires or fantasies about your own identity, that's unfortunate.

00:13:12.640 And, you know, perhaps that will be rectified at some point.

00:13:15.760 But in the meantime, it's not, believe it or not, it's not all about you.

00:13:19.320 The article goes on.

00:13:20.460 Allowing him to speak on campus creates unsafe environments for LGBTQ plus students, faculty and staff. 1.00

00:13:26.340 Another person alluded to the Knowles event in a complaint to the university saying the Daily Wire speaker has a known history of discriminating against trans people.

00:13:36.180 How can that?

00:13:36.820 I don't even know what that means.

00:13:38.320 They discriminate against trans people?

00:13:40.420 How do I discriminate?

00:13:45.040 Do I have trans identifying people on my staff?

00:13:47.240 Maybe I do.

00:13:47.780 I don't know.

00:13:48.040 I haven't asked them.

00:13:49.880 What does that even mean?

00:13:51.640 No, it's because I think that men and women are different. 0.99

00:13:53.820 That's it.

00:13:54.160 That's why they want to boot me off campus.

00:13:56.960 That's why they want to whine about it. 0.81

00:13:57.820 That's why a publicly funded, taxpayer funded university is trying to enshrine transgenderism as the religion that guides the vision of the whole campus. 0.87

00:14:08.580 And so I would like to make an addendum to my view that transgenderism should be eradicated from society. 1.00

00:14:15.420 Which is that, just from the perspective of the university, people who believe in transgenderism probably should not be in college.

00:14:25.960 Because transgenderism is an absurd ideology that contradicts physical science and also the most basic aspects of philosophy and anthropology. 1.00

00:14:37.660 If you believe in transgenderism, you probably shouldn't be in college. 1.00

00:14:41.400 You probably need to go back to remedial biology, philosophy 101, which you probably didn't even get in your school, basic anthropology.

00:14:51.820 I'm not saying you should never go to college.

00:14:53.620 At some point, it's perfectly fine to be educated.

00:14:56.260 But you're probably not ready for college if you don't know the difference between a man and a woman. 0.99

00:15:01.040 Just like you're probably not ready for a college writing course if you don't know what a noun and a verb are.

00:15:06.160 Certainly, if you believe in transgenderism, you should not be teaching at a college. 1.00

00:15:12.540 You don't know anything.

00:15:14.880 I think the basic job of a teacher at a university is to know some things and to be able to instruct students in those things.

00:15:23.180 If you don't understand the most basic aspects of the world, you shouldn't be teaching.

00:15:28.080 You shouldn't be an administrator.

00:15:30.880 And we, the people, whether we're talking about the trustees of private universities or whether we're talking about the taxpayer funders of public universities, ought to begin to insist upon that.

00:15:43.280 This is basic stuff.

00:15:45.380 The university has become a farce.

00:15:47.980 I give a speech on why it's wrong to murder babies and the LGBT LMNOP try to shut it all down. 1.00

00:15:53.360 That's a farce. 0.96

00:15:54.320 That is a disgrace to universities.

00:15:55.960 And we, the people who fund those universities privately or publicly, we need to correct that.

00:16:03.440 That's a responsibility that we have.

00:16:05.660 There's so much more to say.

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00:17:12.140 Speaking of weird sex stuff, great news coming out of Florida.

00:17:16.600 Pornhub, the biggest porn company in the world, the parent company of that company, 0.52

00:17:22.340 keeps changing its name because of the euphemism treadmill,

00:17:25.980 because what they do is intrinsically disgraceful and disreputable and harmful.

00:17:29.960 So they have to just keep changing the name so people can't catch up with what they're actually doing.

00:17:36.300 But they're pulling out of the state of Florida.

00:17:38.060 They're pulling out of the state of Florida because the state of Florida says,

00:17:42.560 we don't think kids should be accessing pornography.

00:17:45.220 And so we're going to institute just a really basic age verification law.

00:17:49.480 If you want to use this smut, you've got to just prove that you're not a child.

00:17:55.060 We've had those laws on the books.

00:17:57.120 For every other kind of pornography for many, many decades now,

00:18:00.400 you want to go buy a Playboy at the magazine stand if those still exist,

00:18:03.440 but you've got to show an ID.

00:18:04.220 So they say, certainly for this really hardcore extreme video stuff on the internet,

00:18:09.260 you've got to show an ID and then I guess you can look at it.

00:18:12.740 It's not good for you.

00:18:13.620 We probably should restrict that too.

00:18:14.960 But okay, you can look at it.

00:18:15.860 You just got to make sure you're not a kid.

00:18:18.200 And Pornhub said, we're out.

00:18:19.740 No, thanks.

00:18:20.520 We're out.

00:18:21.060 We're done.

00:18:21.900 And now this follows Pornhub's pulling out of a number of other states

00:18:26.660 because there have been many states that have passed these laws recently.

00:18:29.660 Alabama passed a similar law, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi,

00:18:37.380 Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia.

00:18:41.280 Where's my state of Tennessee?

00:18:42.300 Let's get on it, Tennessee.

00:18:43.480 And now Florida.

00:18:45.120 This is really common sense stuff.

00:18:47.540 This is not extreme far right social conservatism.

00:18:51.860 While Francisco Franco took over America, this is basic stuff.

00:18:55.140 We already had these laws on the books for my whole life until the internet came about.

00:18:59.900 Then both Republicans and Democrats tried to pass similar laws even at the federal level

00:19:04.320 in the 1990s and early 2000s.

00:19:06.880 That would be the Communications Decency Act, the Child Online Protection Act.

00:19:09.620 Those laws got gutted by liberal activist judges. 0.98

00:19:13.060 But this is what people want, and this is what we've had, and this is obviously common sense.

00:19:18.700 And there are two great political takeaways here.

00:19:22.140 One is a reminder.

00:19:24.640 We can do things to improve our lot.

00:19:27.600 We can do things to better our society.

00:19:30.940 If you've got a society where everyone's doing heroin all the time, you can just ban heroin.

00:19:38.260 Or at the very least, you can say you have to be 18 to do heroin.

00:19:41.680 If you've got a society full of drunks, this is a better example.

00:19:43.900 You've got all society full of drunks.

00:19:45.180 You can do things to restrict who has access to alcohol.

00:19:48.580 We already do that.

00:19:49.700 We do it for tobacco.

00:19:51.200 We do it.

00:19:51.780 It's weird.

00:19:52.700 Now we're restricting tobacco, but we're liberalizing pot and other sorts of hard drugs.

00:19:57.220 That's a whole other separate issue.

00:19:58.840 But you can do that stuff.

00:20:00.620 And certainly with pornography, which is very damaging to people, you can pass some laws.

00:20:05.020 And you say, look, all right, adults want to look at pornography.

00:20:07.380 We're not going to restrict that for whatever reason.

00:20:09.600 But for kids, we can all agree, right?

00:20:12.660 A five-year-old shouldn't be looking at this stuff.

00:20:14.300 Okay, good.

00:20:14.700 We're going to restrict it.

00:20:15.460 Now, the second big takeaway is it is very telling that the pornography companies would

00:20:24.220 rather stop doing business in a state than enforce an age verification law.

00:20:30.360 That's very telling.

00:20:32.880 It is very telling that these absolute devils, these litigious devils, too, whenever you try 1.00

00:20:40.300 to criticize these companies, these people threaten to sue you. 0.99

00:20:43.360 But they're devils. 0.92

00:20:45.040 There's no, that's easy enough. 0.97

00:20:47.260 I would happily, if I were subpoenaed to explain how these people are devils, I could give a

00:20:51.500 long lecture on that.

00:20:53.600 It's very telling that these litigious devils would rather stop doing business in these states 1.00

00:21:00.000 than accede to a basic age verification law.

00:21:03.680 Now, their argument, the porn companies say, no, no, it's not that we want kids to look at porn.

00:21:07.520 We just don't want to invade people's privacy by making them prove who they are to look at all this very damaging smut. 0.85

00:21:17.140 But that's telling, too.

00:21:18.960 Even if you don't want to go so far as to say the porn companies are happy to have kids look at their stuff.

00:21:25.300 Well, let's take the porn companies at their word.

00:21:27.740 Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

00:21:28.920 They don't want kids to look at their stuff.

00:21:31.120 The very fact that they say, we don't want even adults to have to submit this proof of age and identification tells you something about the product.

00:21:42.540 It's a shameful product.

00:21:44.180 People don't want to admit that they look at it.

00:21:48.400 That in itself is a good reason to seriously circumscribe how people can use it.

00:21:55.520 Tells you everything you need to know.

00:21:57.700 And some Republicans, it's Republicans who push these laws.

00:22:01.040 Some people in politics have the courage to restrict the use of this stuff and to protect kids and to just better society.

00:22:10.220 Do you have further, I know there are a lot of legislators who listen to this show.

00:22:13.000 I'm happy to report.

00:22:14.540 Do you have the courage to do that, too?

00:22:16.120 Well, get on the stick, kid.

00:22:17.080 There's 16 states have already done it.

00:22:20.340 Come on, let's go. 0.98

00:22:21.080 You're late to the party.

00:22:21.920 I want this in every state controlled by Republicans.

00:22:24.600 And frankly, I want these basic common sense laws that have already existed in many forms in every state in the country.

00:22:30.180 There's so much more to say.

00:22:31.040 First, though, go to leaffilter.com slash nulls.

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00:23:36.920 Speaking of young people, story out from the Daily Beast.

00:23:41.980 Says, here we are, there's so much, there's so many stories.

00:23:46.840 I have Pornhub's long explanation of begging,

00:23:53.440 please don't, please don't make us verify your age.

00:23:56.580 But there's also this story about young adults.

00:23:58.900 Young Americans have never been richer, but they face unprecedented problems.

00:24:04.880 Daily Beast says, young Americans are richer than ever.

00:24:08.800 We're talking about Americans between the ages of 25 and 39,

00:24:11.560 but they face increasing economic fragility.

00:24:17.480 Young adults, I'll just read the first paragraph or two.

00:24:19.960 Young adults, richer than ever before, but according to the Treasury Department,

00:24:23.780 they still feel an increasing sense of economic fragility.

00:24:27.200 Research released by the Department Wednesday showed the real median wealth for Americans

00:24:31.100 between 25 and 39 climbed to $80,500 in 2022.

00:24:37.200 That's just money in the bank.

00:24:38.500 That's impressive.

00:24:39.960 That's an increase from $23,750 in 2010, as measured in 2023 dollars.

00:24:45.620 So young Americans are much richer than they were 15 years ago. 0.97

00:24:50.580 And yet, a recent poll just found that Zoomers think they need to earn almost $600,000 per year

00:24:59.780 to consider themselves financially successful.

00:25:02.560 $600,000 per year is an amount of money that statistically no one has ever earned in the history of the world.

00:25:08.500 There are people who make that money today in certain places, mostly in America.

00:25:15.700 But it's taken with the population of the world as it is today,

00:25:20.400 certainly taken with the population of the world as it has been in history.

00:25:23.700 That's like no one.

00:25:24.980 No one makes that much money.

00:25:27.260 And Zoomers think they need to earn that to be considered financially successful. 1.00

00:25:32.380 What a paradox, the LAB seems to say.

00:25:38.100 The richer these young people get, the more worried they are about money. 0.63

00:25:41.060 How could that happen?

00:25:42.140 This has happened to almost every rich person that I know.

00:25:45.500 And I know a fair number of rich people.

00:25:46.900 And I know people who didn't have money, and then they became rich.

00:25:49.520 I used to not have money, and now I have a fair bit of money,

00:25:51.880 because I'm good at writing blank books.

00:25:55.260 I've seen it even in myself.

00:25:57.200 When I didn't have money, I didn't worry about money that much.

00:26:00.180 I didn't think about money that much.

00:26:02.620 Money was actually a worry when I was a kid, but it wasn't, you know,

00:26:05.840 at these crucial moments, it would be a real stressor.

00:26:10.540 But one didn't think about money all the time.

00:26:15.580 Certainly, when I was a bachelor, I didn't think about money very much at all,

00:26:18.260 even though I didn't have much of it.

00:26:19.940 The more money I've earned, the more I start thinking about money,

00:26:23.580 investments, where I put this, what happens if this gets cut out?

00:26:28.620 What if, will I make as much next year?

00:26:30.260 Well, that just happens to people.

00:26:35.220 And so you have to be on guard with that.

00:26:37.020 You know, the love of money is the root of all evil.

00:26:40.720 So sayeth the scripture.

00:26:42.280 It's not that money is the root of all evil.

00:26:43.700 Money can be a good thing.

00:26:44.500 We have to take care of our material needs.

00:26:46.620 But it's the love of money, the obsession with money.

00:26:49.260 That is really bad.

00:26:50.660 That's really evil.

00:26:51.560 But it comes from a good place.

00:26:53.760 The reason that people desire money is because they want peace.

00:26:58.920 That's what it is.

00:26:59.640 They want security and they want peace.

00:27:02.040 It's not really about the Lamborghini.

00:27:04.120 It's not really about the super fancy house.

00:27:06.120 It's that you want money so that you don't,

00:27:08.360 especially if you've ever experienced the scarcity of money.

00:27:11.360 You know, it can be a stressor.

00:27:13.080 It can be really tough.

00:27:14.360 You got to make hard choices.

00:27:15.940 You got to hang up the phone when the debt collectors call.

00:27:19.200 It can be really tough.

00:27:20.800 So what you're aiming at is you want security.

00:27:23.980 But what people find is there's really ultimately no security in this world.

00:27:28.320 So the more money you get, paradoxically, the more you worry about it.

00:27:31.720 It's almost as though the Daily Beast and the Libs are discovering money does not buy happiness.

00:27:38.080 You hear so much about the Zoomers as being stressed out, anxious, depressed, lonely, all the rest of it.

00:27:45.740 And so you say, well, if only they had a little bit more money, then they'd be happy, right?

00:27:50.400 No, that's not how it works.

00:27:52.440 That's not how it works at all.

00:27:54.340 If you aim at the legitimate good of security, it's ultimately going to have to aim at something beyond this world, beyond lucre.

00:28:01.900 That will not do it for you.

00:28:03.360 And if you don't have that, if you don't have a strong grounding of faith and understanding that this world points to something beyond this world, then the more money you get, the more worried you're going to be.

00:28:16.700 Speaking of money, Congress wants a raise. 0.74

00:28:20.560 Congress currently has a salary of $174,000 per year.

00:28:23.780 Congress used to get automatic raises to keep up with cost of living adjustments. 0.87

00:28:27.100 In 2009, Congress voted to cut that off.

00:28:32.080 So the current salary for a member of Congress or a U.S. senator is $174,000 per year.

00:28:38.580 Part of this continuing resolution would allow automatic pay raises to come back in, which could give legislators a $6,600 raise next year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

00:28:50.100 I have my absolute least popular take of the day, maybe of the year.

00:28:55.740 We're closing out the year with maybe my least popular take.

00:28:59.180 I don't care in principle if congressmen get a raise.

00:29:02.600 There's actually a strong argument to give congressmen a raise. 0.85

00:29:05.000 I'm not saying they should, but I don't bat an eyelash.

00:29:08.100 I don't lose one second sleep about this.

00:29:10.040 There are so many problems in that continuing resolution.

00:29:12.840 Congressmen giving themselves more money is number 999,999 on the list.

00:29:22.200 Because, look, there's an argument to pay congressmen very little, and there's an argument to pay them a lot.

00:29:29.120 If you pay congressmen very little, then the people who you are going to attract are going to be people who are independently wealthy.

00:29:37.020 President Trump doesn't take a salary to be president.

00:29:40.160 What does he get paid, a dollar a year or something like that?

00:29:42.840 He doesn't need the—he's not doing that job for the money.

00:29:46.440 When Mike Bloomberg became mayor of New York, he took a dollar a year.

00:29:49.140 These are very wealthy people, and so if you don't need the money, okay, pay them peanuts.

00:29:53.360 Then you're going to attract rich people.

00:29:54.680 But then don't complain to me when the government is run by rich people.

00:29:59.120 You wanted that because you don't want to pay your legislators any money.

00:30:01.680 On the flip side, if you pay a lot of money to your legislators, you will attract better talent that is not extremely wealthy.

00:30:13.600 Look, there are members of Congress who couldn't get a job, you know, standing with a sandwich board on the side of the road.

00:30:19.500 There are some people who are a little deficient in the IQ and hard skills category.

00:30:24.860 But there are members of Congress who are talented, intelligent people with strong resumes.

00:30:30.040 There are members of Congress who could easily make 10 or 20 times their current congressional salary in the private sector.

00:30:39.320 There are some people who maybe would want to run for public life, but who say, look, I can't justify taking such a huge pay cut for my family.

00:30:49.620 Especially for people who aren't super wealthy, but also aren't poor, the people who are kind of in the middle.

00:30:54.060 If you want people who are in the middle class to be running your government, there's a strong argument to pay members of Congress more.

00:31:03.500 Think about the fact that we pay the president of the United States $400,000 per year or whatever it is.

00:31:08.180 That is crazy.

00:31:09.320 This is, in principle, the most important job in the whole world.

00:31:13.080 You got Zoomers saying that unless they make 50% more than that at their widget job, they're not financially successful.

00:31:19.000 That's kind of crazy.

00:31:20.380 There's a good argument to pay the president millions and millions of dollars.

00:31:24.600 Now, you don't want it to be so high that it becomes kind of a kleptocracy.

00:31:30.460 And you have mediocrities who don't deserve the money, who are not publicly minded, just doing it so that they can enrich themselves.

00:31:37.800 My whole point, I know it's going to be unpopular, is this is a question for prudence and nuance.

00:31:45.840 And if you're going to argue about anything in that continuing resolution, make it something real.

00:31:49.900 Make it the redefining of terms.

00:31:51.940 Make it the handouts to Democrat pet projects that are contrary to our way of life and our rights.

00:31:58.360 But giving members of Congress some money to keep up with expenses.

00:32:04.440 For goodness sakes, Joe Biden has given us 23% inflation over three years.

00:32:08.900 I don't know that to me, it's I know it's I know no one ever wants to stick up for the poor congressman, but that one is easy.

00:32:15.020 Now, there are seriously dodgy things going on in the House.

00:32:18.960 The House Ethics Committee is signaling that it might release its ethics report on Matt Gaetz, even though Matt Gaetz resigned the House when President Trump put him up for attorney general before Matt Gaetz withdrew for attorney general.

00:32:31.740 Now, dizzying, what happened? Matt Gaetz is accused of doing all sorts of weird sex stuff and financial stuff, and he's accused of having a little bit of a dodgy past.

00:32:42.120 And the House Ethics Committee looks into this.

00:32:44.900 The DOJ declined to press charges.

00:32:47.800 So Gaetz comes out and says, look, I was exonerated by the DOJ under Joe Biden.

00:32:51.480 OK, I don't care what my colleagues in the House want to say about it, many of whom don't like me, even on the Republican side.

00:32:57.200 The DOJ said, I'm all clear, but the House Ethics Committee looks into it.

00:33:00.700 Gaetz resigns two days before the Ethics Committee report comes out.

00:33:04.200 That should be the end of it.

00:33:05.280 Why is the Ethics Committee going to release a report on a former member of Congress?

00:33:08.780 Well, they want to do it anyway because they hate Matt Gaetz.

00:33:12.480 OK.

00:33:14.160 It means that it means two things.

00:33:18.020 One, the Congress is being really petty here and they don't like Matt Gaetz and they want to ruin whatever future career he can have in the private or public sectors.

00:33:24.780 Two, this means some Republicans knifed Gaetz because the Republicans have the majority in the House.

00:33:32.540 The Republicans have the Ethics Committee.

00:33:35.420 The fact that now a majority of members on the Ethics Committee are signaling to CNN and other outlets that they might release that report means that you need at least a couple Republicans, one or two, to come out there and knife Gaetz in the back.

00:33:52.340 So what is Gaetz doing?

00:33:54.220 Is he going to take this lying down?

00:33:55.340 No, this is some real nice chess move.

00:33:58.440 Matt Gaetz, who quit Congress, who's about to launch a TV show on OAN, he said this was suggested to him, his exact words.

00:34:10.160 Someone suggested the following plan to me.

00:34:11.460 One, show up on January 3rd to Congress.

00:34:16.540 Two, participate in the Speaker election.

00:34:19.140 I was elected to the 119th Congress after all.

00:34:21.220 Don't forget, Congress is elected every two years.

00:34:25.900 Gaetz resigned from this Congress.

00:34:28.400 He was reelected to the next Congress.

00:34:30.740 He has previously said he doesn't want to serve in the next Congress, but he could.

00:34:34.840 If he wanted to, he could serve in the next Congress.

00:34:37.420 So he's saying, all right, I'm going to show up, I'm going to participate in the Speaker's race, because I think he suspects leadership is trying to knife him.

00:34:45.180 Then he's going to take the oath.

00:34:46.840 He said, then maybe I'll file a privileged motion to expose every Me Too settlement paid using public funds, even of former members of Congress.

00:34:54.500 Five, resign and start my OAN program at 9 p.m. Eastern on January 6th, January 6th.

00:35:00.940 Brilliant stuff.

00:35:02.340 And it seems fair.

00:35:03.960 If Congress is now in the business of airing the dirty laundry of former members, then it seems only right to apply that same standard to all of them.

00:35:14.240 I have it on good authority.

00:35:17.780 I have a number of friends who are members of Congress in both houses, or both chambers, rather.

00:35:23.840 And I have it on good authority that many, if not half of members, are actively engaging in untoward activities, whether it be with members of their staff, whether it be with lobbyists.

00:35:38.720 But they're doing naughty things that they shouldn't be doing.

00:35:43.100 Matt Gaetz is saying there have been Me Too settlements paid out using public funds.

00:35:48.520 Okay.

00:35:49.800 You want to air Gaetz's dirty laundry as a former member of Congress?

00:35:52.700 Maybe he's going to come in there and file a motion to air out all that dirty laundry.

00:35:57.460 And then we'll see who votes no on that.

00:36:00.140 Pretty, pretty brilliant stuff.

00:36:02.900 You know, tonight is the night.

00:36:05.420 Turning Point's annual AmericaFest kicks off live from Phoenix at 6 p.m. Central on Daily Wire+.

00:36:11.840 Join me, along with Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, many more people, as the full power of conservative media joins forces for four incredible days.

00:36:23.460 You can watch every minute live on Daily Wire+.

00:36:25.820 I am going to be speaking tomorrow, so it's going to be very exciting.

00:36:30.340 I forget exactly what time my speech is.

00:36:33.040 Sometime tomorrow, though.

00:36:33.940 We'll be out in Phoenix.

00:36:34.760 Stay tuned for that.

00:36:36.140 You catch it on Daily Wire+.

00:36:37.460 If you're not a Daily Wire+, member, now's the time to join.

00:36:39.440 Get six months of Daily Wire+, for free when you purchase an annual membership.

00:36:42.800 That's a full year of uncensored daily shows, groundbreaking entertainment, investigative journalism for half the price.

00:36:47.740 Every dollar is used to battle the left and build the future.

00:36:50.700 Go to dailywire.com slash join today for half price.

00:36:54.720 My favorite comment yesterday is from Autumn Endings, who says the really mind-blowing thing in regard to the murder of Brian Thompson is that a young liberal I know who is against the death penalty regards Thompson's murder as justified.

00:37:08.740 Yeah, of course.

00:37:10.880 The left is against the death penalty unless it's outside of the judicial system.

00:37:18.600 They don't support legal killings.

00:37:21.720 They support extra-legal killings.

00:37:24.360 They oppose the death penalty unless it's for innocent people who have not been convicted of capital offenses or babies.

00:37:32.180 They support the death penalty for innocent little babies and civilians in the name of advancing a political ideology and anyone they don't like.

00:37:41.160 But actual criminals who have been convicted of capital offenses by the civil authority, which does not bear the sword in vain,

00:37:46.320 that's the only group that cannot be executed.

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00:38:18.220 Limited time only, exclusions do apply.

00:38:20.880 Now, speaking of the Ethics Committee, one last point on the Ethics Committee.

00:38:27.320 Jordan Conradson, who is the chairman, sorry, Michael Guest, who is the chairman of the Ethics Committee,

00:38:33.320 was just confronted by the journalist Jordan Conradson, and he was asked a series of questions about this move,

00:38:40.120 maybe to release the Ethics Report on Gates.

00:38:42.920 The final question that he asks him is the kicker.

00:38:46.620 Jordan Conradson with the Gateway Pundit.

00:38:48.920 So, I wanted to ask you, why did the Ethics Committee vote in secret to release the Matt Gaetz Report?

00:38:56.320 As you know, I'm bound by confidentiality.

00:38:58.820 I can't talk about anything that happened within the confines of ethics.

00:39:03.300 I can neither confirm nor deny anything.

00:39:05.860 What about Susan Wild?

00:39:07.520 I mean, she's leaking details. 0.53

00:39:09.300 Is that acceptable?

00:39:10.540 Again, I can't talk about anything as it relates to...

00:39:13.340 Well, how about this?

00:39:14.340 In your opinion, what is ethics?

00:39:16.500 What does ethics mean?

00:39:18.260 Is ethical to target political opponents?

00:39:21.120 I love that final question.

00:39:23.200 So, you know, the chairman of the committee,

00:39:26.860 I don't want to talk about anything.

00:39:28.040 I don't know anything.

00:39:29.020 See you later.

00:39:29.580 Of course, he's going to brush off a journalist.

00:39:31.840 The final question to me is the kicker.

00:39:33.600 He says, in your opinion, what is ethics?

00:39:37.140 And what's his answer?

00:39:38.480 He doesn't have an answer.

00:39:39.380 He walks away.

00:39:40.020 And it occurred to me, the libs and the squishes don't have an answer to that. 0.68

00:39:46.500 Because ethics has a definition.

00:39:48.700 Ethics is the science of the moral rectitude of human acts

00:39:52.500 in accordance with the first principles of natural reason.

00:39:58.040 To bring that down to earth, it is the science of human action,

00:40:04.800 the morality of human action, in accordance with the natural law.

00:40:09.400 The things that we just all know intuitively to be true,

00:40:13.460 that are written on our hearts, no matter where you are in time or space.

00:40:18.400 That's what it is.

00:40:19.400 The libs and the squishes don't believe in the natural law. 1.00

00:40:24.460 They think that, they don't really even believe in natures.

00:40:27.020 They think that human nature is constantly evolving and changing.

00:40:30.140 They don't think that there are any universal moral truths that we just know intuitively

00:40:33.260 because they're inscribed on our hearts.

00:40:34.340 They don't believe in that.

00:40:34.940 Many of them don't believe in morality, objective morality.

00:40:41.480 They think morality is just some kind of consensus that we've all come to 1.00

00:40:44.900 because we're either stupid or selfish. 0.98

00:40:48.300 And it just kind of works for us, but it's not really grounded in anything real. 0.99

00:40:53.240 Some of them don't even believe in human action.

00:40:55.440 They believe that everything is deterministic.

00:40:57.660 We don't even really possess free will.

00:41:01.560 So they don't, they don't really believe in ethics.

00:41:04.040 They don't believe in virtue.

00:41:05.160 They don't believe they, so the question, what is ethics to these people?

00:41:09.620 Probably stumps them.

00:41:12.500 Ironic, ironic to, uh, to be judged by an ethics committee that doesn't know what ethics is.

00:41:17.520 Now, speaking of ethics, speaking of the law, uh, Pennsylvania, I got to give a hat tip to end

00:41:23.820 wokeness here.

00:41:24.400 Pennsylvania, uh, is one of, uh, I think, I think multiple states offering race-based grants

00:41:34.020 for businesses.

00:41:36.040 I'm really excited, uh, for not just our membership, but the region and the Commonwealth as a whole.

00:41:41.480 I think that these resources and the new programming and the grant funding is going to really help

00:41:46.140 organizations such as the nonprofits that are doing the work in the trenches, helping these

00:41:50.400 small businesses really thrive.

00:41:52.140 But I'm really excited also, the fact that there's going to be some dedicated resources

00:41:56.340 to helping with-be entrepreneurs figure it out.

00:41:58.940 It's a tough lift to figure out what you want to get into and how you can help your community,

00:42:03.120 uh, thrive.

00:42:04.480 And so I think that these resources dump going into these organizations, they're going to

00:42:08.440 work with these individuals to help them figure it out.

00:42:10.420 It's going to create a ripple effect.

00:42:11.940 That ripple effect is going to help them get started, lift them up.

00:42:15.000 But also, it's going to create jobs, much-needed jobs in these communities.

00:42:18.840 It's going to help these communities thrive with the disposable income that these jobs are going to create.

00:42:23.300 Okay, it all sounds great.

00:42:24.280 The chyron there, it says,

00:42:25.560 New Grant Program to Help Minority-Owned Businesses with Startup and Expansion.

00:42:29.020 But of course, if the grant program exists to help minority-owned businesses,

00:42:34.300 that, and what, what are they talking about?

00:42:36.340 They're talking about black people, Hispanic people, non-white people. 0.77

00:42:39.040 Then that means, by definition, that the new grant program does not help white-owned businesses.

00:42:46.340 That the grant program is designed to disadvantage white-owned businesses and to advantage non-white-owned businesses.

00:42:54.120 Even the notion of white-owned or black-owned or woman-owned is kind of silly because often businesses are owned by multiple people

00:43:00.980 who have, to use the language of the left, intersectional identities, lots of overlap.

00:43:05.700 So what does that even mean?

00:43:07.080 It's unclear. 0.97

00:43:09.040 The purpose of it, though, is to say white people are bad and we should not offer them particular help. 0.93

00:43:15.680 And all the other people are good and we should give them an advantage over the white people. 0.95

00:43:19.780 Now, if one has a broad political imagination, one actually could see a case for discrimination in favor of certain races.

00:43:30.880 In principle, I'm not saying you do, but in principle, the left's argument, you say,

00:43:36.640 black people have been kept down for hundreds of years and they've been discriminated against.

00:43:40.900 And as a matter of restorative justice, we need to discriminate in their favor, 0.97

00:43:45.220 which means necessarily you're discriminating against other races.

00:43:48.320 But that is the case that is made, at least in moments of candor, by the left.

00:43:53.860 Is that it is moral, it is good to discriminate against certain races in favor of others. 1.00

00:44:00.680 But no one in public life, no one in the political class really makes that argument because in America, that argument is considered distasteful and unpopular.

00:44:11.540 And on paper, it's unconstitutional, even though it happens all the time.

00:44:16.000 So they can't, on the one hand, they have to say, we don't discriminate against anyone on the basis of their race.

00:44:21.940 We support Dr. King, who says, I have a dream that one day it won't matter if you're black, white, or brown.

00:44:25.920 But what they really want to do is discriminate against white people or discriminate against men or discriminate against whomever in favor of other races.

00:44:34.720 So you've got this conflict.

00:44:37.320 You've got a contradiction between the uppercase C Constitution and the lowercase C Constitution that actually embodies the way in which we live.

00:44:46.000 You have two opposing views of morality, of ethics, and they don't make sense together.

00:44:53.220 Which means that, getting back to the point on ethics, you don't really have a moral or ethical standard.

00:44:58.640 You just have private interest.

00:45:00.800 You have unreasonable political action, usually for selfish interest rather than for the common good.

00:45:07.740 But it's masquerading as some kind of highfalutin moral philosophy.

00:45:12.740 Now, there's a story I mentioned yesterday, and I really want to get to it before we go, especially around this time of year, because people get a little sad and lonely around Christmas.

00:45:21.700 It's just part of it.

00:45:22.440 Now, Christmas is also one of the happiest times of the year as we await the coming of our Lord.

00:45:27.360 You know, we celebrate the central event in the history of the world.

00:45:30.100 But, you know, people, they miss, you know, their grandma.

00:45:32.460 You know, they miss, like, happy memories of childhood.

00:45:34.620 They miss even unhappy memories of childhood.

00:45:36.160 So, people get a little sad, a little bit lonely, and this is especially true today when people broadly are sad and lonely, they're getting more depressed, they're getting more socially isolated.

00:45:45.000 That's especially true for people over the age of 50.

00:45:47.100 But there's a new poll and some research out from the University of Michigan showing that friendship after the age of 50 can be a matter of life and death.

00:45:55.320 According to this study, 75% of older adults say they have enough close friends, so that's good.

00:46:02.980 But those who say that they are in poor mental or physical health are significantly less likely to maintain social connections.

00:46:12.520 Among the individuals reporting fair or poor mental health, 20% say they have no close friends at all, which is double the rate overall.

00:46:21.540 They're much, much more likely.

00:46:22.720 The people who are sick are much, much more likely not to have friends.

00:46:25.320 18% of those with poor or fair physical health report having no close friends, suggesting that health challenges significantly impact social connections.

00:46:34.160 Our culture is particularly at risk because we are so individualistic.

00:46:39.480 We have, for a long time, but especially in recent decades, taken up an ideology of individualism.

00:46:47.260 I'm going to do me.

00:46:49.160 I'm going, you know, I'm not going to surround myself with bad people.

00:46:53.120 I'm going to focus on me.

00:46:54.980 It's all good.

00:46:55.560 It's going to be about me in the future.

00:46:56.820 I'm going to focus on my business and my wants and my comfort and me, me, me all through the night.

00:47:00.780 I mean, mine, I mean, mine, I mean, mine.

00:47:02.020 That's in the ideology of the popular culture now.

00:47:05.180 And it's killing people.

00:47:06.920 It's in the ideology on the left.

00:47:08.540 It's in the ideology on the right.

00:47:09.880 We need a fundamental shift in how we understand politics, society, and the human person away from the liberal idea that we're essentially individuals toward the classical idea that we're a social creature.

00:47:20.360 That is no longer a matter merely of abstract political philosophy.

00:47:24.720 That can be a matter of life and death.

00:47:27.440 Today is Theology Thursday.

00:47:29.100 The rest of the show continues now.

00:47:30.400 You do not want to miss it.

00:47:31.120 Become a member.

00:47:31.560 Use code KnowlesKinna.

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00:47:41.640 Thank you.

00:47:42.640 Thank you.

00:47:52.060 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - December 19, 2024

Ep. 1640 - Squishy Republican Spending Bill Get Destroyed By Trump

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