The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1649 - Liberal Californians Turn MAGA？

00:00:00.000 Reminder, all of us at The Daily Wire will be live as DW goes to D.C. for the inauguration

00:00:05.500 of President Donald Trump. Watch live, join the fight at dailywire.com slash subscribe.

00:00:10.320 As the horrific LA fires continue to rage, at least 2,000 buildings now destroyed,

00:00:16.040 at least five people dead, some pundits are turning to the political implications.

00:00:20.580 The question sounds cavalier, but people are asking it anyway.

00:00:23.840 Is the destruction of Los Angeles enough to turn California Republican?

00:00:30.520 I'm Michael Knowles, this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:50.980 Welcome back to the show. Barack Obama has been palling around with Hitler, 0.60

00:00:54.540 this time at Jimmy Carter's funeral. Sorry, the man that Barack Obama's political party

00:00:59.780 has called Hitler for the last decade. That would be Donald Trump. Now, all of a sudden,

00:01:05.600 Obama is laughing, he's smiling, back slapping. I don't know. I guess he's buddies with Hitler now. 0.52

00:01:10.460 That's interesting. There's so much more to say, but first, go to expressvpn.com slash Knowles.

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00:02:29.720 My friend, Adam Carolla, has just come out with a bold political prediction. Adam, born and raised in

00:02:36.300 Los Angeles, has lived there, I think, his whole life. He says that the LA fires, which were brought

00:02:43.080 about by liberal policies in large part, will make typical LA leftists become conservative.

00:02:53.000 You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles. You all voted for Gavin Newsom.

00:02:59.420 And now you get what you get. Oh, now that your house is on fire. Well, now you're thinking about

00:03:05.560 something else. Now you want to know what's going on. What's going on around here? You didn't give a

00:03:10.680 about what was going on when other people's houses were on fire, but now you care. So here's what's

00:03:16.380 going to happen. All these people who were deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a

00:03:24.420 permit to rebuild. And they're going to get the 28-year-old from the Coastal Commission telling

00:03:30.660 them to go off. And then they're going to vote for Trump or whoever's Trumpian next. You see,

00:03:37.920 they're going to get turned. They're going to get turned hard.

00:03:40.820 Love Adam. I hope he's right. Would that it were so simple. I'm a little skeptical. I don't think

00:03:50.020 that's going to happen. I think he's right. Liberal policies led to all of this awful destruction.

00:03:57.820 He's right. When these people go to rebuild, the bureaucracy is going to be awful about it.

00:04:02.820 He's right. The bureaucracy is awful largely because of Democrats. I just don't think that even

00:04:10.800 the city burning to the ground is going to turn Los Angeles Republican. I don't think it's going to

00:04:17.080 turn California Republican because it presumes too much. The Democrats are incompetent at governing, 0.90

00:04:25.040 but they're not incompetent at electoral politics, usually, most of the time. And so I think what's

00:04:31.240 really going to happen is the Angelenos, the really wealthy leftist zillionaire Angelenos who want

00:04:38.340 to rebuild their homes. They are going to blame climate change. They're going to find a way to

00:04:44.320 blame Trump for the fires. They will. They're going to find a way to blame Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't

00:04:49.160 know, whoever the last Republican is who ever got elected to anything in California. They're going to

00:04:52.720 find a way to blame that person. And then they are going to demand that they rebuild faster.

00:05:00.160 They, but I think what's going to happen is these very wealthy Angelenos, maybe not even the

00:05:06.060 millionaire class, more like the hundred millionaire or billionaire class. They're going to put pressure

00:05:10.920 on Gavin Newsom. They're going to put pressure on whoever the mayor is. They're going to put

00:05:15.980 pressure on whoever the members of Congress are to get federal funds. They're going to use their

00:05:21.420 political capital to tell their employees, the politicians that they put into office, to figure it

00:05:27.180 out and give them their homes quickly. And the politicians are probably going to acquiesce because 0.78

00:05:31.380 the politicians know where their bread is buttered. So the Democrat party will be seen to moderate,

00:05:37.640 at least on the issue of bureaucracy and rebuilding. The Democrat party is going to adapt to the demands

00:05:45.340 of the market of votes. They're going to adapt to their constituents or at least to their donors.

00:05:50.500 But I don't think that even burning the city to the ground is enough to turn leftists in Los Angeles

00:06:00.540 Republican. I just don't think they'll do it. I wish, I wish it were that simple, but the Democrats

00:06:07.660 are a little too clever. The leftists in Los Angeles are not nearly clever enough. It's a one party town

00:06:14.960 and politics is dynamic. Now, some of these politicians are going to have to go. There's

00:06:20.320 no question. Gavin Newsom's presidential career is all but over. That guy thought he was going to be

00:06:25.660 the nominee in 2028. That desire is on life support. It's probably dead. Karen Bass, the mayor of Los

00:06:32.540 Angeles, she is done. She should resign. This is absolutely pathetic. It's getting worse by the day

00:06:39.540 because some sleuths on the internet have uncovered an old tweet from Karen Bass. This is February 19th,

00:06:46.940 2021. Ted Cruz fleeing Texas in the middle of a deadly crisis is part of a larger pattern of the

00:06:55.040 GOP abandoning folks in crisis. We need to build a movement to kick them all out. Karen Bass has been 1.00

00:07:03.600 in Africa while her city burns to the ground. She's been pretty MIA. In fact, Gavin Newsom,

00:07:08.600 while he was trying to save his own skin, decided to point that fact out in a press conference on the

00:07:14.960 fires. All of the folks behind me and the outstanding leadership of all the elected officials

00:07:20.900 as well. And forgive me one point, I'd be remiss. Thank you to Mayor Bass, who was on the phone

00:07:26.780 immediately this morning, making sure even in absentia that she's here organizing everything

00:07:33.300 she can to make sure we're successful as well. Absolutely brutal. Newsom there makes that point

00:07:41.780 at the end. He probably should have just left her out of it. I can't tell. Is Newsom here trying to

00:07:46.900 include her to give her a little political favor? Or is he tossing her under the bus saying, look,

00:07:50.620 I'm here. Hey, don't blame me. I'm here. Put the heat on Karen Bass. I know you're going to blame 1.00

00:07:56.020 some politician for this. Don't blame me. Karen Bass didn't even show up. She's in Africa right now, 1.00

00:08:00.500 but she, oh, don't worry though. She picked up the phone right away.

00:08:06.820 Gavin Newsom's a little slick. He's a little American psycho, isn't he? A little Patrick Bateman 0.99

00:08:12.460 to him. And so while pretending to be lauding Karen Bass, he does so in such a brutal way.

00:08:23.080 He does so in such an underhanded way where he really undermines her whole credibility.

00:08:27.780 Oh no. And hold on. I bet some of you are wondering where the mayor of LA is. Well,

00:08:33.640 don't you worry. She called me. I mean, she's on the other side of the world. She obviously doesn't

00:08:38.880 care about any of you, but she picked up the phone. So, you know, remember that it's not really

00:08:43.700 working though. Cause Karen Bass is catching a ton of flack, but Gavin Newsom's catching an insane 1.00

00:08:47.880 amount of flack as well. And Karen Bass not being there still did better than Joe Biden who showed up 0.99

00:08:55.860 and decided to talk about his great grandkids.

00:08:57.540 The good news is, I'm a great grandfather.

00:09:17.640 A little difficult to hear with that audio. It might just be because Joe Biden mumbles around.

00:09:37.320 He's also a little far away from the camera. You can hear that one part though.

00:09:40.580 Joe Biden gets on an airplane, flies into Los Angeles, which is extremely irresponsible.

00:09:52.900 He should not be there. It is bad for first responders that Joe Biden is there. You got a

00:10:00.020 city that's already shut down. They're doing everything they can to contain these fires and

00:10:05.020 that's not going very well. And so what do you need? You need the sitting president to come in,

00:10:10.260 compromise the airspace, compromise the roadways. How does that help? So that he can take a photo op,

00:10:20.220 make Gavin Newsom look a little bit better. I don't think he even really makes him look better

00:10:24.400 because Joe Biden comes out there and he just talks about his great grandkid. Congratulations,

00:10:28.000 Joe. It's great that you have a great grandkid. Great grandfathers should not be president.

00:10:31.280 People who can claim to be great grandfathers, I think by definition, they've aged out of being

00:10:41.580 president. That's all Joe wants to talk about though. I'm sure it's great. I'm sure he wants

00:10:46.980 to talk about how great it is to be a great grandfather and how much he loves mint chocolate

00:10:53.200 chip ice cream. And I'm sure he wants to give a hard candy to the kids when they come by the house.

00:10:57.740 That's the sort of thing that guys in their 80s should do. They should not be the president of

00:11:02.520 the United States. If it's possible to make Gavin Newsom and the Los Angeles political class look

00:11:09.320 worse, he managed to do it. There's so much more to say. First though, go to hometitlelock.com,

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00:12:24.160 Do not wait until it's too late. Speaking of presidents, Barack Obama is hanging out with

00:12:29.020 Hitler. Jimmy Carter died and now the former presidents are showing up to pay their respects. 0.83

00:12:36.880 And who does Barack Obama sit right next to? By golly, it's Donald Trump. You can see Al Gore

00:12:43.760 right behind them. Just so miserable. It's like, I was supposed to be president. 0.97

00:12:47.620 Why is that jerk? Why is Obama and Trump, why are they both allowed up there? Anyway, 1.00

00:12:52.620 forget about Al Gore. You see Trump, where he's relaxed. You see Obama just kind of chatting,

00:12:57.520 just hanging out. Trump's smiling. He laughs a little bit. Obama's smiling. They're cracking jokes.

00:13:05.180 Then even a little later on, it wasn't just pleasantries when Obama sat down.

00:13:11.820 You got Obama there. Obama's laughing. Oh, that Trump, he's a real cutup. That Hitler,

00:13:18.220 boy, Hitler, man. Adolf with a one-liner, nobody can beat him. His Rickles routine is top-notch. 0.89

00:13:27.680 They're really getting into it. I don't know. I wonder if those guys text.

00:13:30.460 But hold on. I thought, I thought that Donald Trump posed an existential threat to democracy.

00:13:38.840 I thought that he's a neo-Nazi who launched his, who at Charlottesville called Nazis very fine people.

00:13:48.580 And that is why Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign on that line. I thought that was the case.

00:13:53.780 I thought that January 6th was the worst insurrection, a near coup d'etat that almost shredded

00:13:57.880 the Constitution and installed a Hitlerian dictatorship in America. Barack Obama's

00:14:04.220 hanging with that guy? That's crazy, huh? You know why he's doing it? It's not because these

00:14:09.840 guys like each other. I don't think they like each other really at all. It's because Donald Trump

00:14:15.880 is normal. He's normal. I think that might be the biggest defeat from a messaging standpoint that

00:14:24.600 the Democrats have had to deal with for 10 years. Trump is normal. If you get elected

00:14:31.400 to two terms, at least two terms, as president, you're normal. If you win the popular vote

00:14:38.380 as a Republican for the first time in 20 years, you're normal. If you win huge swaths of all sorts

00:14:44.660 of different voter demographics, you're normal. This is what you heard from the left for years,

00:14:50.960 and from the squish right. You're right. We cannot normalize Donald Trump. He's normal

00:14:57.460 because he's normal. The former Democrat president's going to talk to him. Probably

00:15:02.620 the former Democrat president is friendlier with him than the former Republican president

00:15:06.680 because Trump's been a little harsh on the Bush family. The Bush family has been a little harsh on

00:15:10.520 Trump, but they're all in the same club now. He's not, he's no longer an outlier. Jimmy Carter,

00:15:16.420 when he would take pictures in the former president's club, Jimmy Carter often liked to stand

00:15:21.400 separate as though his presidency were fundamentally different from the corrupt presidencies that

00:15:28.920 followed. Reagan and the Bushes and Clinton, he was different. He's a better man, but they're all

00:15:36.960 together now. Trump's one of the guys. In fact, he won a more impressive victory, a much more

00:15:41.840 impressive comeback than any of those other presidents there. He's the most normal one of all.

00:15:45.720 Now, some Democrats are less inclined to reach across the aisle right now.

00:15:51.200 Notably, Elizabeth Warren. Senator Laiwatha is screeching at Pete Hegseth, President Trump's

00:15:59.900 defense department or defense secretary nominee, over the importance of diversity in the military.

00:16:07.580 Here's what Elizabeth Warren writes.

00:16:10.740 DOD officials have been clear that, quote, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the military are

00:16:15.240 necessities for the United States, and that the military must be able to attract, train, and

00:16:20.420 retain them for the services, to retain competitive edges. You, Pete Hegseth, have claimed that the

00:16:27.480 dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is, diversity is our strength. As noted above, 0.95

00:16:33.840 you also called for firing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and any general that was involved, 0.99

00:16:38.940 any general admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI woke SHIT. Additionally, 0.99

00:16:44.160 you complained in the War on Warriors that a woke military emphasizes the made-up military values

00:16:49.680 of diversity and inclusion and fails to recruit masculine men who make up a warrior class. She 0.96

00:16:54.100 goes on, but I don't have enough. I don't have enough patience to get through it. This is her thesis.

00:17:01.660 Diversity is an absolute necessity for our military. Diversity is the military's strength.

00:17:08.120 But I have one question. Why does the military wear uniforms? If diversity is the military's

00:17:18.060 strength, why do they wear uniforms? Shouldn't they wear diversiforms? Shouldn't they wear

00:17:27.380 individualistic, eclectic, expressive outfits? Shouldn't they wear, I don't know, leather and feather

00:17:36.040 boas? And why is it that they wear uniforms? Well, this question is answered on a Defense Department

00:17:43.160 website. You can type it right in. Why does the military wear uniforms? DOD says the military wears

00:17:50.440 uniforms to create consistency and a sense of camaraderie. The military wears uniforms because

00:17:57.800 uniformity is our strength in the military. Uniformity, cohesion, consistency, being all together, having

00:18:08.840 a common purpose, understanding each other, being the same. What do they say about the Marines? When you go

00:18:15.820 in for training in the Marines, they tear you down so they can build you back up and you're all going to be

00:18:22.020 the same and you're going to be a unified fighting force. That's why the military wears uniforms, also

00:18:28.840 because of international law, and that's why diversity is manifestly not our strength. I love

00:18:33.980 Elizabeth Warren here. You can hear the desperation as she just reaches for that tomahawk. She writes,

00:18:40.880 the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you know, all the generals, the admirals who are involved in

00:18:49.840 this. Our military, our DOD officials have been clear that diversity is our strength. Yeah, but Pete's

00:18:57.920 about to be their boss. No, but the authorities, claims Elizabeth Warren, all of the authorities at the

00:19:05.840 Pentagon claim that diversity is the military strength. Well, no, actually, the top authority at the Pentagon,

00:19:12.840 the man who's about to become the top authority at the Pentagon, he says you're wrong. So if you're going to

00:19:17.340 appeal to authority at the Pentagon, well, you're going to be appealing to Pete Hegseth, and Pete Hegseth is going

00:19:24.540 to say you're wrong, and Pete Hegseth is right. This is what they're really screeching over. They're really gnashing

00:19:31.140 their teeth over, is we are seeing a true changing of the guard. It's not just that the Republicans won

00:19:38.760 the presidency, but they lost the House and the Senate. It's not just that the Republicans won the

00:19:44.240 presidency and the House and the Senate, but they don't have the Supreme Court. The Republicans now

00:19:49.240 have unified government, and they can wield the power of the state to undo the terrible policies of

00:19:59.120 the last four years. Many policies that go back much further than the last four years.

00:20:04.500 That's what they're really screeching about. No, but all the experts. Yeah, well, now we're the

00:20:09.540 experts. No, but all the authorities. Yeah, now we're the authorities. But no, but the establishment.

00:20:16.080 Hey, you know what, lady? We're about to be the establishment. Hey, you like that? And you're about to

00:20:22.860 be fringe. You are on the outside. You are banished from the longhouse and from the teepee. Speaking of

00:20:30.940 members of Congress, Unusual Wales has a great little study out on our Congress. I sometimes think

00:20:39.080 that members of Congress are not always the most intelligent people in the world. There's some

00:20:43.520 real bright spots, but I would say the median IQ in Congress is probably lower than other institutions

00:20:51.540 in our country. However, members of Congress have a real genius for one thing. It's not passing good

00:20:58.040 laws. It's not really getting anything good to advance the common good. But they do have an amazing

00:21:03.920 genius for investing. These guys know how to pick a stock, man. This study shows, if you just look at

00:21:11.420 Congressional Democrats, Congressional Democrats' stock portfolios jumped 31% in 2024. 31%. Now, I don't know

00:21:20.500 anything about investing. I just have a guy who does it for me. But man, I ain't getting 31%. I'm not

00:21:26.420 getting a fraction of a fraction of that. 31%. That far beats the S&P 500. Then let's be bipartisan

00:21:34.340 about it because there are plenty of Republicans who do this too. If you look at the hundred or so

00:21:38.780 members of Congress who actively trade, only half of them beat the S&P 500. Most members of Congress

00:21:47.720 tracked with less active trading than previous years. And Nancy Pelosi, you know, top of the walk, 1.00

00:21:59.640 she's really, really impressive at her trading. There are a lot of Republicans in there too. 1.00

00:22:03.160 It seems a little corrupt, doesn't it? It's not illegal. Members of Congress are allowed to

00:22:10.760 trade stocks. And members of Congress are privy to a lot of information that the general public is

00:22:17.960 not privy to. They're allowed, in a sense, to insider trade. That's a great deal of corruption,

00:22:25.940 isn't it? How do you remedy that corruption? Do you prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks?

00:22:32.280 I guess you could do that. Do you give them a raise? You could just give them a raise.

00:22:35.820 Members of Congress could make a lot more money, most of them, in the private sector than

00:22:39.060 in government. Do you just raise their wages to make them competitive? Possibly.

00:22:43.900 Do you, I don't know, do you restore virtue? Do you restore civics classes? Do you restore

00:22:47.960 religion? Do you restore, I don't know, what do you do? That's not, I would be so happy if I could 0.99

00:22:53.600 just blame it on the Democrats. But I can't just blame it on the Democrats. It's a systemic problem.

00:22:58.260 I would be so happy if I could just blame it on California or New York or Illinois or some left

00:23:02.920 wing state. But it's not just a left wing state problem. This is a federal problem. The rot runs

00:23:08.360 deep. There's so much more to say first, though. Go to netsuite.com slash Knowles. What does the

00:23:14.560 future hold for business? Ask nine experts, you will get 10 answers. Bull market, bear market,

00:23:20.760 inflation's up, inflation's down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? I don't know,

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00:24:18.940 K-N-A-W-L-E-S, netsuite.com slash Knowles. My favorite comment yesterday is from William

00:24:23.980 Elliott, who says, don't forget that Karen Bass donated millions of dollars worth of firefighting

00:24:27.900 equipment to Ukraine and cut millions from the fire departments. I don't think she donated millions of

00:24:34.480 dollars of fire equipment to Ukraine. I haven't seen a number on how much fire equipment she donated

00:24:40.420 to Ukraine. I do know that LA, under her leadership, did donate excess, and now it doesn't seem to be

00:24:47.700 excess or surplus fire equipment, to Ukraine. But I don't know if it was millions. Surely, though,

00:24:53.660 they did cut the fire budgets by millions of dollars. And in any case, if they even sent one

00:25:01.800 hat over to Ukraine, one fire hose over to Ukraine, it's a fire hose that really could be used right now.

00:25:06.300 But this is indicative of a broader problem for the liberals, which is that they prioritize

00:25:12.040 everyone else over Americans, which is why President Trump's slogan, America First,

00:25:16.180 has resonated among most Americans, among the majority of American voters.

00:25:22.480 Now, speaking of investments, there's a little bit of good news. College tuition is decreasing

00:25:27.560 at state schools, and it's increasing at a slower rate at private schools.

00:25:32.780 This is according to the college board, which is hugely influential in college admissions,

00:25:39.520 shows that the average student attending an in-state public university this year will pay

00:25:45.080 tuition to the order of $11,610. That is down 4% from 10 years ago when you take inflation into account.

00:25:54.160 Now, when you factor in grants and financial aid, the savings are way bigger than 4%.

00:26:01.160 The savings are actually 40% over the course of a decade, from $4,140 to $2,480 annually,

00:26:10.760 according to those data. Now, at private colleges, the cost is still going up,

00:26:14.320 but the rate of increase is diminishing. So the cost has increased 4% over the last decade

00:26:20.300 when you take inflation into account. That's a big change if you look at two decades prior

00:26:25.840 when the tuition increase was 68%. What does this tell us? This tells us that the market still

00:26:32.100 functions. This tells us that there is a market correction going on. This tells us that college

00:26:38.460 is overvalued. The year after I went to college, so I guess my sophomore year of college,

00:26:44.060 college was the high watermark for college attendance in America. It was 2009. Something

00:26:51.700 like 70% of high school graduates went on to college, all-time high, and it has declined since

00:26:59.640 then, and it's really dropped off in recent years. Meanwhile, the price of college was going up and up

00:27:06.620 up. The conservative consolation, Russell Kirk tells us this, a lot of conservatives have told

00:27:13.620 us this, is that in the long run, reality reasserts itself. And it can take a while, and it can be

00:27:18.860 hideous, and it can be tragic, and it can cause an entire city to burn to the ground. But reality

00:27:23.540 will reassert itself in the end. You can't escape reality. Reality is undefeated. And here, college is

00:27:30.860 just not worth what people have been paying for it. So I was recently doing a panel with my friend

00:27:38.880 Charlie Kirk, and someone asked us about what she should major in in college to have a job in

00:27:45.220 journalism. And Charlie's answer was, don't go to college. And I kind of get it. If you're a Charlie

00:27:48.580 Kirk, don't go to college. You can launch a major political organization at the age of 18. Okay,

00:27:54.120 I don't think there are that many Charlie Kirks in the world. I'm pro-college, but not for the reason

00:27:58.440 that many conservatives are. Some conservatives will say just major in engineering or something,

00:28:03.040 just major in STEM or something practical. I don't think you should do that. You can go to

00:28:08.380 trade school for that. You can learn that on the job. That's not what university is for.

00:28:12.140 University is not to learn something useful, but to learn something useless, which has real value to

00:28:17.680 it. But the problem these days is even the really fancy schools, even the private schools, even the

00:28:22.680 expensive schools, often don't teach you philosophy, literature, history, almost never theology.

00:28:30.340 They don't really make you a cultured person. They don't really help you make sense of your freedom.

00:28:34.400 So the market's going to correct. And you're seeing that. Now you have data for that. It's no longer

00:28:38.780 just taking it on the words of conservatives who say, you know, this college isn't worth it these

00:28:42.620 days. Now, actually, most Americans think that now because the market is moving. You don't need to

00:28:48.500 just take conservatives' word for it that Trump is normal and he's a good president,

00:28:51.280 people like him. Most Americans think that. Reality is catching up. And the liberal politicians

00:28:59.200 are trying to catch up to reality. Just look at Barack Obama palling around with Hitler. Now,

00:29:03.280 speaking of advances in knowledge, there is something really creepy coming out of Timeshift.

00:29:13.120 Timeshift is a new facility billing itself as the world's first cryopreservation facility

00:29:21.100 based on cutting edge AI and cryptopreservation. So to simplify that, it's where you go freeze

00:29:28.580 yourself until they cure whatever disease you have. And you've heard about this in the past.

00:29:34.380 There have been eccentrics who have frozen themselves and it doesn't work. But the idea is, okay, if I'm

00:29:39.720 going to die soon, if I just freeze myself, then maybe I can remain an icicle until the scientists

00:29:47.300 figure out the cure to whatever I have. And then they can thaw me out, give me the cure and I can

00:29:52.460 live longer. And then, I don't know, if I get something else that they don't have the cure for,

00:29:56.060 maybe they put me back in the freezer and they put me next to the hamburgers and the ice cream and

00:30:01.420 then they thaw me out 100 years later and they cure whatever other disease I got. Okay, we've heard

00:30:07.200 about that before. Now, it's never worked, but this new organization says, no, we figured out how to

00:30:12.780 make it work. We're going to prevent cellular death. Okay. But what makes it even creepier is

00:30:18.140 they say that they have a solution to the big problem that this causes for the people around

00:30:24.540 the person who freezes himself. Namely, if you go and freeze yourself, well, all these people,

00:30:29.160 your daughter, your brother, your community, they lose you. You're in a freezer somewhere,

00:30:35.080 but their lives go on. And the solution, they say, is to use AI to create an avatar of the frozen

00:30:43.600 person's likeness to speak with family and friends in real time while their body is frozen. I've talked

00:30:49.560 to people who say that soon we'll upload our consciousness to a computer. And so even after we

00:30:55.920 die in the physical world, after our bodies decay, there will be a robot that is virtually

00:31:01.800 indistinguishable from us. And then our loved ones who are grieving our death won't really need to

00:31:06.740 grieve because they can just talk to the robot. And it'll seem just like the real person. It's almost

00:31:12.400 like you never have to die. Except, do you see the problem here? Do you see the fundamental problem?

00:31:21.180 C.S. Lewis talks about it in Abolition of Man. With every advance, there's also a retreat.

00:31:27.520 You say, okay, I want to live forever. I feel that I'm not going to live long enough.

00:31:33.460 So I want to live forever. But in order to live forever, I'm going to stop living right now

00:31:37.540 because I'm going to put myself in a freezer. But it'll be good because in the aggregate,

00:31:43.340 in the long run, I'm going to live forever. But actually, I'm going to cut my life off right now.

00:31:48.940 We think that we can conquer death, even putting aside the cryogenic freezing,

00:31:55.240 by creating an AI avatar. And then we'll be able to live forever in a certain way. The robot will

00:32:01.660 be indistinguishable from the human being. But in order to live forever, I cease to be me.

00:32:09.060 I cease to exist. In other words, there are a lot of dubious assumptions about anthropology and

00:32:16.560 philosophy that are at the heart of these scientific explorations. That's the problem with it. It's not

00:32:23.700 that it's not cool to freeze a person. I guess that's kind of cool that you could do that.

00:32:27.480 It's not that it's not cool that you can make a robot that seems a lot like

00:32:29.940 a person that you know. There's something interesting about that.

00:32:35.060 But you're assuming a lot of things about human nature. You're assuming, for instance,

00:32:40.000 that a human person is just the summation of our

00:32:45.120 synapses firing. You're assuming that the person is just the body, that there's no such thing as an

00:32:52.300 immaterial soul, a spirit. So if that's true, if we really are just a bunch of matter, then if you

00:33:00.180 can replicate the matter, you've replicated the person. The problem is that your premise is false.

00:33:04.760 At least I think your premise is false. I don't think that the only thing that matters is matter.

00:33:10.520 I think there's more to the world. These days, it's very popular to say that all that exists is

00:33:15.740 stuff. But I think that's ridiculous. I think dreams and love and mathematics and all sorts of 0.81

00:33:22.800 things exist that are not material. I think, for instance, that the soul is the form of the body,

00:33:29.160 the substantial form of the body. I think this is increasingly backed up by scientific discoveries,

00:33:35.620 particularly in the quantum field. But putting that aside, I'm no expert on it. It just seems to me

00:33:41.040 that actually all the old wisdom is being vindicated. I think that Aristotle's right and

00:33:45.540 these futurist weirdo atheists are wrong. But at the very least, we have to acknowledge that is

00:33:50.620 what's being smuggled in here. And we're not the first to predict it. C.S. Lewis predicted this

00:33:58.100 in the abolition of man. Many people saw that the more we advance, the more we seem to retreat. I got

00:34:04.140 in trouble because I made this point on the show that the dark ages were actually relatively weren't so

00:34:09.120 dark. And actually, when you compare, look, there are plenty of advantages to modernity. Okay, I like

00:34:14.680 modern dentistry a lot more than medieval dentistry, probably. But there are many ways in which the

00:34:19.700 modern era is much more barbaric, much more violent, much less civilized, conducive, much less

00:34:25.100 conducive to flourishing than the Middle Ages. Okay, speaking of the abolition of man, 0.98

00:34:32.620 here's just a quick story, really sad. A young female firefighter has sustained serious head 0.90

00:34:38.200 injuries while fighting the fire in LA. A 25-year-old woman sustained a major head injury.

00:34:43.920 She's being treated right now so we can pray for her. I hope she does well.

00:34:49.420 But this gets to the kind of dubious assumptions we're making about human nature. In this case,

00:34:55.180 the one that men and women are exactly the same. It's wrong for women to be firemen. It's wrong. 1.00

00:35:00.860 I'm not saying she doesn't have good intentions. I'm not saying she's not demonstrating

00:35:04.860 heroism and a kind of a virtue. But it's just wrong. I don't want to read that story. I don't

00:35:10.540 want to read that a woman gets her head knocked in fighting a fire. I don't want to read that a

00:35:15.820 woman catches a bullet from a jihadi fighting in Iraq. I don't want to read that. I think it's a 0.96

00:35:20.180 barbaric society that permits our women, much less now encourages our women to do this. I think men 0.60

00:35:26.520 and women are different. I think actually firemen need to be big and strong and burly. I think they 1.00

00:35:31.480 need to be big, strong, burly guys who can carry big, heavy hoses and equipment and carry people

00:35:38.340 out on their shoulders. And I think they need to be men who are more inclined toward physical

00:35:46.140 violence. Men who, when physical violence occurs to them, it's not quite so ghastly and horrifying as

00:35:55.660 when it happens to a woman. I think men and women are different. And I think the prioritizing of DEI

00:36:03.380 in first responders in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the country is just one more aspect of that,

00:36:11.120 of the political rot that's been allowed to set in. Nothing against the individual women who want 1.00

00:36:18.480 to do these things. It's very noble in some, in a way that they want to help, but it's disordered

00:36:24.860 the way that our society is now expecting them to contribute. It's disordered. It's contrary to

00:36:31.520 nature. And we shouldn't have to, we shouldn't have to tolerate it. What is a woman? The question 1.00

00:36:38.800 we've just been discussing sparked a cultural conversation. Now, Identity Crisis, a powerful

00:36:43.180 new film from the Daily Wire and Turning Point USA goes even deeper, exposing the heartbreaking

00:36:47.180 consequences of radical gender ideology while highlighting stories of resilience and courage

00:36:50.860 in the pursuit of truth. Starting now and for the next 72 hours, Identity Crisis is streaming for

00:36:57.420 free on X. We chose to make it free for 72 hours because this is a story everyone needs to see.

00:37:02.820 The raw, unflinching truth about how this dangerous ideology is affecting children and families.

00:37:08.720 Creating bold premium content like this is not easy. It's costly. It's bold. It's essential. That is

00:37:13.240 why the Daily Wire depends on your support to keep reshaping the cultural landscape. Follow

00:37:17.780 Real Daily Wire on X, watch Identity Crisis, spread it, share it, tell everyone about it.

00:37:23.120 Finally, finally, we've reached my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag.

00:37:27.160 Our mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to puretalk.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S,

00:37:31.020 to save an additional 50% off your first month. Take it away.

00:37:34.440 Hello, Michael. My name is Drew. I'm 13 years old. I've been listening to the show daily for three

00:37:40.880 years. I'm calling from Tampon Tim State of Minnesota, and my question for you is, how come

00:37:47.280 conservatives have fought for women's sports and defended them relentlessly from giant men 0.96

00:37:52.220 pretending to be women? Yet, we also make fun of women's sports constantly. I mean, even my mom 1.00

00:37:58.340 says we can't have women's basketball on, even if it's to make fun of it. We think it's dumb, 0.98

00:38:04.240 but also speak of it as if it's an incredibly important thing. We say that nobody watches 0.96

00:38:09.700 them, which they don't. But we also say how this is an invasion of an institution. But it's an

00:38:15.740 institution that nobody cares about to begin with. Well, I do agree with both of these points.

00:38:22.160 I could not defend them simultaneously in an argument. Love the show. Thank you for answering

00:38:27.220 my question. Really great question and really well stated. Both of those things are true.

00:38:34.240 We fight the imposition of men and women's sports, and we don't really care about women's sports. 0.99

00:38:40.280 That's true. Because what we care about is justice, and it is unjust for men to enter into women's 0.99

00:38:50.940 private spaces and associations and take their trophies and scholarships away from them. It's

00:38:54.920 unjust. It's disordered. It is grounded on falsehoods. It is harmful, often physically harmful,

00:39:03.040 to the women involved. It's harmful to the men who think that they're women as well because it leads

00:39:07.980 them and affirms them in delusion. That's why. It's just a matter of justice. I make fun of Canada

00:39:14.640 a lot. But if the Chinese dropped a nuclear bomb on Toronto because they don't like Tim Hortons, 0.76

00:39:22.660 I would come to Canada's defense. Not because I think Canada has its act together, not because I

00:39:29.980 think Canada is the most important nation in the history of the world, but because it would be rather

00:39:33.620 unjust for China to do such a thing. How that analogy came up, I'm not quite sure. But that's why. 1.00

00:39:39.240 It's about justice. You don't need to defend women's sports because you like the sports. You should defend 1.00

00:39:46.400 women's sports because you like the women. You want women to receive their due, to be treated in a just 1.00

00:39:53.240 way. Next question. Hi, Michael. Thanks for the show. I'm excited to hear your thoughts on this.

00:39:59.180 What would you do if you were in my situation? Or better, what should my husband do if this

00:40:04.480 situation ever comes up again? Today, we went out to eat with our nine-month-old baby, having a great

00:40:10.280 time, family-friendly experience, when two very inappropriately dressed people came in to eat. 0.54

00:40:17.340 They were wearing tight leather, bondage clothes, freaky face tattoos, piercings, collars, the whole

00:40:25.520 kit and caboodle. Now, we finished our meal quickly and left, but this is the kind of thing we don't want

00:40:32.780 our son to be exposed to. Thankfully, at this point in his life, he's too young to remember it, but

00:40:37.780 in the future, what would you have done? Thank you. What would I have done in that situation?

00:40:43.800 I would have requested of the waiter, or better, the manager, that the restaurant kick those people 1.00

00:40:51.120 out because it is inappropriate to wear leather sex gear into a restaurant. You wouldn't be asking

00:41:02.160 the restaurant to kick these people out because of their true identity, or even because of their

00:41:09.100 deviant desires or private behaviors. You would be asking to kick them out because they are not

00:41:15.800 comporting themselves in accord with the standards of the restaurant or public decency. So that's what

00:41:21.700 I'd say. I'd call them over and say, hey, you need to ask those people to leave, please. And if they gave

00:41:27.920 me pushback, I would explain it as I just did. And in fact, I was present when such a thing happened

00:41:35.560 in New York while protecting the establishment in question. I was with a coworker of mine in a coffee

00:41:44.180 shop in New York in a very Italian neighborhood. And I actually didn't see this episode happen.

00:41:50.140 I was in the bathroom when this happened. And when I came out, my coworker was laughing. And he said,

00:41:55.600 I got, you're not going to believe what just happened. In this coffee shop in an Italian

00:41:59.700 part of New York, they had, it's a pretty traditional area, but they had a gay flag 0.67

00:42:06.160 right behind the counter. And I go, I hit the bathroom. I was just getting a cup of coffee. 0.79

00:42:10.380 I go into the bathroom. While I'm in there, some big goomba just walks up to the counter and goes,

00:42:16.760 what's with the flag? And the guy behind the counter says, huh? What's with the flag? The guy behind

00:42:22.660 the counter says, what? Oh, you know, it's inclusion. You know, it's nice. We're welcoming

00:42:26.880 everybody. And the guy, the goomba says, get rid of the flag. There are children in here.

00:42:34.200 Nobody needs to see that. Get rid of that rainbow flag. I don't want to see that. And so the guy 1.00

00:42:39.700 behind the counter, I guess, was pushing back a little bit. Eventually the guy behind the counter

00:42:42.200 says, hey, you know, this is my shop. You can't tell me what to do with my flag. And the goomba says,

00:42:47.680 yeah, it's your shop, but it's my neighborhood. Get rid of that flag. And then I don't know. I

00:42:52.440 don't know what happened. We didn't, we left the coffee shop later. I just hit the head,

00:42:55.400 had my coffee. I left. I like that. I like that kind of thing. Yeah, sure. It's your shop. It's

00:43:02.580 my neighborhood. It's my country. It's my society. And it's your society and it's his society and his

00:43:07.780 society. And we are entitled to live according to standards. So that's what I would say. You don't

00:43:14.620 need to be mean about it. You don't need to be nasty, but you can be firm and reasonable.

00:43:22.080 Yeah, sorry. No sex gear in the Chuck E. Cheese. Take that elsewhere. Take that to some other 0.99

00:43:27.860 restaurant. Next question. Hey, Michael. Love the show. Just had a quick question about taking the

00:43:35.280 Lord's name in vain. A lot of people say, saying things like, well, Jesus Christ or, oh my God,

00:43:41.820 are taking his name in vain. But I don't necessarily believe that because when I was 16, I would tell

00:43:51.740 everybody I was God and then he almost killed me and it took repenting midair. I had a collapsed

00:43:57.680 lung from that. Then at 18, I was acting like a jerk with God and he set me on fire on Easter 0.99

00:44:04.960 Sunday. And then when I was 20, I was going around slightly mocking God and I almost lost my 0.99

00:44:11.020 hand. Ever since then, I have been very careful with my speech. I do say things like, oh my

00:44:17.520 God, G-A-H. Sometimes I do say, you know, well, Jesus Christ, but it's always in a respectful

00:44:22.700 way because I've almost died. Just want to know what you thought about that.

00:44:29.060 I'm a little bewildered, I suppose, by your account. Sorry to hear of your troubles, but

00:44:33.640 glad you've come out in the end. I suppose I would recommend that you not test the Lord your

00:44:39.780 God. So I'm not denying necessarily that these misfortunes that have befallen you have some

00:44:48.280 relation to the way you've behaved or spoken. I don't know that there's a connection, but I

00:44:53.860 wouldn't take the absence of some calamity when you take the name of the Lord in vain as evidence

00:45:00.080 that you are not therefore taking the name of the Lord in vain. You are. When you use God's name in a

00:45:05.860 trivial way or in a flippant way or certainly in a profane way, that just is by definition taking

00:45:12.420 the Lord's name in vain. You're using his name in a vain way. So God tells you not to do that.

00:45:18.580 And at a deeper point about religion, religion is not purely a subjective experience. Religion is an

00:45:26.160 objective thing. Religion is a habit of virtue that inclines the will to give to God what he deserves.

00:45:30.060 It's something that we can know something about. Religion is not, as many modern people believe,

00:45:34.360 just a preference. You know, you like chocolate, I like vanilla. It's not just an opinion that's not

00:45:40.280 grounded in truth. It's a legitimate subject of inquiry that is grounded in reason and reality.

00:45:51.960 We can know something about it with certainty. So all of that to say, don't take the name of the

00:45:59.900 Lord in vain and don't wait to have another piano fall on your head to follow that advice. Next

00:46:06.580 question. Hello, Michael. I would like to say thank you for your previous advice back in November.

00:46:12.000 I asked you if I should wait until my girlfriend and I were more financially stable to propose to her 1.00

00:46:16.660 or go ahead and propose now and just be engaged for a little while. Well, I took your advice. I was

00:46:22.120 able to buy a ring and proposed and happily she said yes. My question for you now is, do you have any

00:46:28.040 advice on things we should know or do before getting married? Thank you and God bless.

00:46:33.320 That's great. I'm really glad to hear that things have worked out for you. Yes, I do have advice.

00:46:40.600 You both should know what you are signing up for. You need to agree on what it is you are doing.

00:46:47.540 That's the most important thing to begin. Then you actually have to cultivate the habits that allow

00:46:52.000 you to do that thing. But these days, we don't know what marriage is. The Supreme Court doesn't 1.00

00:46:55.760 know what marriage is. People are real confused about marriage. Even more traditional people or

00:47:00.820 religious people, sometimes they're a little confused. You need to know what this is.

00:47:05.260 Are you equal partners who decide that you're going to help each other out and you're going to go,

00:47:12.880 I'm going to make the special vanilla cake for you on Sunday and you're going to always warm the

00:47:18.040 towel for me? Is it that kind of thing? Are you engaged in a relationship for mutual amusement?

00:47:25.180 Or are you a man who finds a wife and you come together and become one flesh and you're doing

00:47:32.620 something that has a head to it, the husband and a wife, and you come together for the begetting 0.61

00:47:40.920 and education of children and as a secondary matter for the mutual support of the spouses?

00:47:44.740 Just off the top of my head. What are you doing? Figure that out. The most successful marriages

00:47:50.780 I've ever seen involve two people who agree on what they're doing, where there's really little

00:47:59.220 ambiguity. Because when you get the basic stuff settled, then you can have real brilliance and

00:48:05.460 real creativity. It's like a poem. When you have meter to a poem, when you perhaps have a rhyme scheme

00:48:10.900 to a poem, when you know the form of the poem, it's within those limits. It's from those limits that

00:48:16.920 the real brilliance and creativity can exist. When it's just a kind of free verse, slam poetry nonsense,

00:48:23.600 the whole thing's incoherent and it will probably have you running for the doors. It's Fake Headline

00:48:28.820 Friday and I have more written mailbag to get to. The rest of the show continues. Now you do not want

00:48:33.800 to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knolls at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:48:38.860 I've often said that gender affirming care is health care. It is mental health care and it can

00:49:00.920 actually be suicide prevention care. I think I'm gonna take some medicine so I can kind of like

00:49:08.600 transform into a boy, get surgery. After the surgery, I didn't really feel any better. When it stopped

00:49:16.220 being a thing for adults and it started to be a let's teach this to kids. Total lie. Manipulation. It's

00:49:22.380 gaslighting. Please stop. He's a boy, not a girl. How could she do this to my son? What they're talking about

00:49:28.780 is hormonal therapy or sex reassignment surgery on children. I thought fixing me externally would

00:49:35.880 fix me internally. But of course I was wrong. The fact that the state thinks that they're

00:49:40.700 more important and have a better say in what happens to your child over the actual parent's

00:49:45.220 opinion is egregious. Puberty blockers, surgeries, big money makers for hospitals, for physicians.

00:49:51.160 All I want to do is hold my son. Are you asking me to lie to parents? And he said yes.

00:49:58.780 This is an weaponized use of a parent's sympathy and caring and concern by the left to destroy

00:50:05.880 your child. Let's tell kids that maybe they can be the opposite sex. Maybe they actually are the 1.00

00:50:11.880 opposite sex. It is an evil thing to tell children that happiness lies on the other side of puberty 1.00

00:50:18.880 blockers or double mastectomies. The left so badly wants to blur these lines. That's a five alarm fire.

00:50:24.880 It's criminal.

The Michael Knowles Show - January 10, 2025

Ep. 1649 - Liberal Californians Turn MAGA？

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