The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1658 - Trump Bans Gay Pride

00:00:00.300 America's golden age is just getting started. Be here with us for every moment.

00:00:04.860 There has never been a better time to join Daily Wire. Plus, use code 47 now for 47%

00:00:09.980 off your new annual membership. It is day four of the Trump administration.

00:00:15.300 The hits just keep on coming in no particular order. The pride flag is banned at all government

00:00:21.380 buildings. President Trump is sending 1,500 U.S. troops to secure the border. CNN is laying off

00:00:27.900 hundreds of employees. And the New York Times has been triggered into admitting that babies in the

00:00:33.220 womb are babies. And more. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:37.080 Welcome back to the show. That was just what's going on in the White House. Over in the House

00:00:59.700 of Representatives, Rashida Tlaib, Democrat Senator, or Democrat Congressman. That was scary

00:01:06.920 for a second. A member of the squad, Rashida, is screaming, shrieking, and crying over a bill

00:01:13.160 that would deport illegal aliens who rob people. There's so much more to say. First, though, 1.00

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00:02:22.240 Let's just jump right into it. I don't know. There are too many good things that have happened

00:02:26.400 over the last 72 hours to precisely order it. So first off, the Trump State Department under

00:02:33.220 Marco Rubio has a one-flag policy. Starting immediately, the State Department writes,

00:02:40.800 only the United States of America flag is authorized to be flown or displayed at U.S. facilities,

00:02:47.620 both domestic and abroad, and featured in U.S. government content.

00:02:53.320 Now, that's great because in recent years, you've had the State Department flying pride flags,

00:03:00.520 the pride progress flag. That's the pride flag, but with trans stuff and I think black stuff, 1.00

00:03:06.420 and I don't know why how race got involved in it, but I consider it the, it's like the BLM pride flag.

00:03:12.240 It's like the terrorist pride flag, and they fly it at the Vatican. You know, they fly it all over in

00:03:17.420 totally inappropriate places. Anywhere they fly it would be an inappropriate place. That flag is gone.

00:03:23.120 And lest you miss the target of this policy, the State Department clarifies. The U.S. flag is a

00:03:32.160 powerful symbol of pride, and it is fitting and respectful that only the U.S. flag be flown or

00:03:38.940 displayed at U.S. facilities, both domestically and abroad. Whichever communications staffer wrote

00:03:44.440 that line for the State Department statement, give that person a raise. Give that person a promotion.

00:03:51.760 I don't know how much further they could be promoted. That's a great use of the English

00:03:55.620 language. Just in case, it was pretty clear that this policy is targeting the ridiculous use of

00:04:01.180 the pride flag, but lest anyone have missed it. The U.S. flag is a powerful symbol of pride. You're

00:04:07.280 right. That's the only pride flag I want flying is the U.S. flag. The star-spangled banner, the grand

00:04:12.720 old flag, red, white, and blue. Now, I did have a little trepidation about this policy. I sincerely

00:04:20.360 did. I'm not being facetious. I said, well, what about the POW-MIA flag? In the last 50 years or so,

00:04:27.120 we've had the POW-MIA flag that will also fly next to the U.S. flag sometimes. In fact, I was just

00:04:32.760 speaking with one of our wardrobe artists about her grandfather who went missing in action in

00:04:38.580 Vietnam. I said, oh, I hope this policy doesn't paint with such a broad brush that, yeah, we get

00:04:44.080 rid of the crazy gay terror flag. But, you know, what about the POWs? Well, the State Department 0.98

00:04:48.660 clarifies. There are two exceptions to the rule. That is the POW-MIA flag, prisoner of war, missing

00:04:54.920 in action, and the wrongful detainees flag. So the whole policy is to say day three, day three or four

00:05:02.340 of the Trump administration. No, I guess it would have been day three. Yet, no more LGBT activism

00:05:09.680 from the State Department or really just from the federal government generally, not abroad,

00:05:14.460 not at home. That's going to end. This was really the first priority of the admin. No more DEI.

00:05:22.100 No more woke. No more weird sex stuff in the government. We're done with that. That's over. 0.86

00:05:27.940 Turning the page. The reason this really matters, people are going to say, who cares about a flag?

00:05:31.660 The flag symbolizes the country. So if you want to transform the country, you have to have control

00:05:41.180 of the symbols. This is why the left spends so much time trying to manipulate and control language.

00:05:47.720 Because language is symbols. It's signs and symbols. So if you control the signs and symbols,

00:05:52.680 you are exerting control over the things that the signs and the symbols signify and symbolize.

00:05:58.200 It's why the flags are so important. That's why the Libs hoisted that rainbow flag. And that's why

00:06:02.480 we are taking it down. This is a simple win. Now let's turn from the State Department to the EPA.

00:06:07.960 There is a magnificent letter. It just went out. This is going around social media yesterday.

00:06:14.220 Beautiful letter to be sent out to EPA employees.

00:06:19.900 Dear agency employees, we are taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA

00:06:27.900 related contracts in accordance with President Trump's executive orders. These programs divided

00:06:32.500 Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination. All true. 1.00

00:06:38.260 We are aware of efforts. This is where the rubber meets the road.

00:06:42.420 We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs

00:06:45.920 by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or

00:06:51.960 personnel position description since November 5th, 2024, since the election,

00:06:56.500 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies,

00:07:01.460 please report all facts and circumstances to DEIATruth at opm.gov within 10 days.

00:07:07.240 That alone, very good. It's not just, hey, we're going to end this office. That's plan A. Plan B is

00:07:16.540 we know some of you are going to try to hide these offices and hide these staffers, so

00:07:21.640 please report that. But then there's a plan C in here too. There will be no adverse consequences

00:07:27.580 for timely reporting this information. However, failure to report this information within 10 days

00:07:34.780 may result in adverse consequences. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

00:07:41.480 It's the plan C that I really love. This is something that just shows you that President

00:07:47.860 Trump and the admin, they've learned a lot of lessons since the first term. Those four years

00:07:53.560 in the wilderness were very helpful because they're saying, look, we know what policies we're

00:07:59.100 going to implement and what policies we're going to change. That's the first step.

00:08:02.480 We are now anticipating how the swamp is going to try to undermine our policy initiatives.

00:08:10.340 Okay, that's the second step. We are going to ruin your careers if you even consider trying to

00:08:19.820 undermine our policy initiatives. We're going to be nice to you if you play ball with us. Maybe you

00:08:25.100 don't like us. Maybe you didn't vote for us. It's okay. If you play ball, we're going to be nice.

00:08:28.700 If you don't play ball, you're done. We're coming for you. And we're going to let you know that within

00:08:34.780 the first three days of taking power. This is what we need. We need teeth. This is what we need. We

00:08:40.720 need plan A, plan B, plan C for every initiative in the Trump administration. Now, turning from the

00:08:48.760 executive branch over to the legislative branch, the Republican members of Congress are doing a great

00:08:54.100 job, wasting no time, moving forward on President Trump's agenda. They have a simple bill, the Lake

00:09:00.660 and Riley Act. Very simple bill. What would this bill do? It would arrest and enforce immigration law 0.72

00:09:08.280 for illegal aliens who are arrested for theft-related crimes. So not even just regular old illegal aliens 0.59

00:09:16.400 who break some of our country's basic laws, but then live in the shadows. We're talking about illegal

00:09:21.120 aliens come in and commit robberies, commit theft, like Lake and Riley's killer. Because had that guy,

00:09:29.960 when he was arrested, just been deported, he should have never made it into the country in the first 0.97

00:09:35.760 place. Certainly the moment he was arrested and the police realized that he was an illegal alien,

00:09:41.560 they should have deported him. If they had just done their job, the second goal, when they had a

00:09:46.580 second chance to do their job, Lake and Riley would be alive today, period, full stop. That university

00:09:51.940 student who was brutally murdered by this illegal alien would be alive. So seems like a really simple 0.99

00:09:57.640 bill, right? Even the Democrats, they don't want to, what? They're going to defend thief, criminal illegal

00:10:06.040 aliens, the sort who went on to murder. There's no way they're going to defend that, right? 0.99

00:10:11.140 Cue Rashida Tlaib.

00:10:13.160 Enough is enough. It will separate families. It would lead again to continued discrimination.

00:10:19.340 It's shameful that my colleagues are giving into racist fear-mongering at the first opportunity to

00:10:24.360 pass legislation to scapegoat our immigrant neighbors and fuel hate in our communities.

00:10:29.500 I know what's going to happen. It won't just be undocumented. It'll be people like my mother

00:10:33.640 who will get stopped and profiled. She has to carry her US passport around. 0.99

00:10:38.360 Are we asking people loud to have documentation? That's what you want to turn our neighborhoods into

00:10:45.560 is militarization? I yield the general lady an additional 30 seconds. General ladies recognize. 1.00

00:10:50.240 I just ask all of you to truly understand what this will do to our communities. I urge our colleagues

00:10:56.120 to please vote no on this divisive bill. And it's so important to understand what you're going to turn

00:11:01.760 our communities and our neighborhoods into. Ma'am, ma'am, Mrs. Tlaib, you're aware you have a

00:11:06.620 microphone, right? You don't need to scream in the house chamber to no one. No one's even here to

00:11:11.780 listen to her, which is reflective of the broader American people. No one's here for this.

00:11:15.840 This is a simple bill. Hey, let's deport the illegal aliens who also commit crimes like theft. 1.00

00:11:21.760 And she says, you'll deport my mother. Oh, your mother's an illegal alien thief? Yeah, 0.99

00:11:29.380 I guess we probably should deport her. That's a good idea. You're going to deport my mother. Oh,

00:11:34.260 your mother's a criminal? A criminal who's not a citizen? Okay. All right. What's her address? 0.96

00:11:40.040 Let me write that down. Okay. That's a good idea. Not a great argument.

00:11:43.740 And the way she delivered her bad argument, I think, it just perfectly encapsulates where the

00:11:53.320 American people are on this issue. She sounds like a crazy person. She sounds like a person who has 0.99

00:11:58.840 lost control of her reason. She sounds like a person who has lost the common sense. The vast

00:12:05.060 majority of Americans agree with deporting illegal aliens who commit further crimes in America.

00:12:12.260 America, even the ones who want to go soft on some of the illegal aliens, even the ones who are 0.99

00:12:17.180 generally for more migration, they, they wanted to deport the ones who keep committing crimes in

00:12:22.580 America, especially crimes that in one particularly awful case preceded the crime of murder of an

00:12:29.400 American citizen. And if you're on the other side and you're shrieking and ranting and screaming about

00:12:34.740 that, you're not going to persuade anyone. So the Democrats want to keep that up. Be my guest.

00:12:40.080 Fine with me. There's so much more to say. First though, go to preborn.com slash Knowles,

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00:13:46.900 we can help give children their chance at life back. It's an organization I personally support.

00:13:51.480 I strongly recommend you give what you can, preborn.com slash Knowles.

00:13:54.740 Speaking of protecting babies in the womb, there's a reason to go by the New York Times today.

00:14:02.200 I'm not saying subscribe, but maybe you buy the physical paper because the New York Times

00:14:05.780 just accidentally stepped on a rake. The New York Times has one of the greatest self-owns I have seen

00:14:11.700 from the liberal media in a long time. Headline, undocumented women ask, will my unborn child be a 0.76

00:14:21.280 citizen? It's an unborn child now? Shouldn't the headline read, undocumented women ask,

00:14:29.840 will my clump of cells be a citizen? No, clumps of cells are not citizens. People are citizens.

00:14:35.700 Will my zygote be a citizen? No, I don't know a zygote. What's a zygote? It sounds like a Pokemon.

00:14:41.260 Come on. Will my fetus embryo non-human product of pregnancy would be a citizen? No, none of those

00:14:51.920 things. Oh, but you unborn child. Oh, the baby in your womb. Will that person be a citizen? 0.89

00:14:59.160 Well, I don't know. That's an open question right now. We have had a tradition of birthright

00:15:04.020 citizenship in the United States for a long time, but this has been abused and has led,

00:15:08.880 has actually created an incentive for a unforeseen problem in America, unforeseen by our founders and

00:15:15.420 framers, and that is anchor babies. That foreign nationals will pour into our country, the liberal 0.99

00:15:21.960 elites in charge of our government won't enforce immigration law, and so this will create an incentive

00:15:26.000 for millions and millions of people to come here and radically change the citizenry against the will

00:15:31.740 of the people who are actually citizens already. And the allure of flooding the country with 0.57

00:15:39.620 foreigners who are statistically much more likely to vote for Democrats or for their children and

00:15:43.960 grandchildren to vote for Democrats has so enticed Democrats and liberals. It's so excited,

00:15:52.220 the New York Times, that they're willing to accidentally admit that their whole argument 0.99

00:15:56.220 on abortion is ridiculous. Will my unborn child be a citizen? So you're saying that the entity inside

00:16:04.880 the mother's womb is not a person for the purposes of being able to murder the entity, but it is a

00:16:13.900 person for the purposes of being able to milk the American system and exploit a loophole in the 14th

00:16:19.440 Amendment. Okay, got it. I got it in New York Times. Now you guys are being real, real honest. I can't

00:16:25.700 say quite consistent, but you're being honest. Sub-headline, President Trump's executive order

00:16:31.260 seeking to end birthright citizenship is already facing lawsuits, but that has been little comfort

00:16:35.260 to women who expect to give birth after the order goes into effect. That is a little comfort to those

00:16:40.620 women. So, okay, so the women, that's assuming the women don't make the choice though. You saying it's 1.00

00:16:46.840 little comfort to the women who do not exercise their totally legitimate right to murder their 1.00

00:16:52.800 babies in their womb. But when they make the, it's like Schrodinger's fetus. That's what it is.

00:16:59.280 It's Schrodinger's fetus. The baby exists in this state of mere potentiality. 0.85

00:17:07.640 And when, when the mother wishes to murder the baby, it's not a baby. It ceases to be a baby.

00:17:15.480 The potentiality collapses into the actuality of nothing but an undifferentiated mass of cells.

00:17:21.040 But when the mother chooses to use the baby as an anchor baby to subvert U.S. immigration law, 0.99

00:17:28.000 then the potentiality of the clump of cells collapses into a sweet little human being.

00:17:32.260 That's how it works, huh? Wow, man. This raises all sorts of questions to me

00:17:36.380 about, about philosophy, about legality, and I guess about physics too. I, but that doesn't make

00:17:45.440 a lot of sense. I think the baby's either a baby or the baby's not a baby. New York Times,

00:17:48.880 you got to make up your mind. I'm getting so confused reading your newspaper.

00:17:53.560 All the news that's fit to print. I don't know. Is that what's new? That's news to me that the

00:17:57.540 Democrats now consider babies in the womb to be babies. Now, speaking of abortion and the

00:18:02.400 Democrats, turning back to the U.S. Congress, the honeymoon is over. Our little reprieve,

00:18:09.420 our little vacation with John Fetterman, the senator from Pennsylvania, is over.

00:18:14.100 We've been hearing in recent weeks, this John Fetterman, I know he seems like a radical leftist.

00:18:20.740 I know he seems like one of the most progressive members of the Senate. He's called himself a

00:18:25.760 progressive for most of his career, pretty radical progressive, but I don't know. He sort of likes

00:18:30.540 Israel. So I guess now he's a conservative. That was, that was basically the argument. He doesn't

00:18:35.620 totally side with Hamas. So I guess he's basically a conservative now. And I thought, I actually talked

00:18:40.800 about this on the show, I think last week. I said, you know, I don't know. This guy's got a pretty long

00:18:44.740 history of being a leftist. I get now he sees which way the wind is blowing politically. So he's

00:18:51.220 trying, he goes to Mar-a-Lago. He tries to make friends with Trump. He doesn't, he doesn't side with

00:18:56.540 the most radical elements of his party, but he still seems like a big label. Well, you know, I hate to

00:19:00.820 say, I told you so. Senator Fetterman has proven me right. This is what he tweets out yesterday.

00:19:06.140 I've always stood on the side of Roe and a woman's right to make her own healthcare choices. 0.95

00:19:11.680 It's absurd to mandate criminalization because of those choices. To mandate criminalization because I

00:19:18.380 get, I don't, that's a very gobbledygook. That's very poor prose. That's unclear exactly. It's

00:19:23.800 absurd to mandate criminalization because of those choices. So such euphemism, such clunky language.

00:19:28.280 What's he really getting at? He tells us in the next sentence, any bill that does so,

00:19:33.660 including, wait for it, the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act is a no from me. All caps, no.

00:19:42.960 The Born Alive Survivors Protection Act would do something very simple. And it's something that

00:19:52.400 would have been commonplace even after America gave license to this hideous crime of the mass 0.97

00:19:59.860 slaughter of infants. Even after that, if a baby survived an abortion, the baby would have the right

00:20:08.340 to emergency medical treatment, obviously. You have a little baby, survives the assassination attempt

00:20:14.260 on him. He's there, he's on an operating table. The baby is crying, screaming, crying probably for

00:20:22.460 his mother, doesn't realize that his mother just tried to murder him, ordered a hit on him, to use

00:20:26.860 the words of the Pope Francis. Lying there crying, screaming for a little bit of help, you'd offer this to

00:20:33.460 anyone. If an illegal alien showed up to your hospital crying for help, you'd give the illegal 1.00

00:20:38.380 alien help. For goodness sakes, if a dog showed up to a hospital, if a dog showed up to your door crying

00:20:42.960 for help, you'd give the dog help. You'd give the dog medical attention. But a little human baby crying 0.98

00:20:49.080 on an operating table, please, I survived your attempt to murder me, please give me some medical

00:20:53.280 attention. And you ignore the baby and you just wait for it to die or worse. And what does John 0.61

00:20:59.980 Fetterman say? He says he'd let the baby die. He would not give the baby any help. This is so

00:21:07.020 monstrous. This is so palpably evil. This is one of the worst things I've ever heard a politician say.

00:21:16.340 So revolting. I am nauseated reading this from John Fetterman. John Fetterman,

00:21:23.460 you're supposedly centrist, reasonable Democrat senator. This is how the conservatives lose the

00:21:31.060 culture. This is how they lost the culture. We're starting to win the culture back.

00:21:35.940 Is the culture moves left, left, left, left, left. But then whenever any Democrat having taken

00:21:41.860 500 steps forward, 500 steps to the left, I should say, takes one half step to the right. We give them

00:21:48.020 big applause. Oh, wonderful. Oh, great. Look, see, we're starting to win. What are you talking about?

00:21:52.120 You just lost everything. Now the guy leans a little bit in your direction. He's already 10

00:21:56.460 miles down the road and you're giving him applause. This is hideous. Any, even Democrat would have

00:22:02.440 condemned this five, 10 years ago. This is it. This is your centrist, reasonable Democrats, ladies

00:22:09.300 and gents. I want this tweet on billboards. This is it. This is your most moderate Democrat in the

00:22:15.480 Senate. And he openly opposes the born alive survivors protection act. He openly with, with

00:22:23.660 great consideration in great detail supports letting a little screaming baby die on an operating table

00:22:31.560 rather than give the baby any help. Who has the common sense right now? Where are the American people

00:22:37.520 going to give their support? The Republicans or the Democrats? That's not complicated to me.

00:22:44.400 You know, a year ago, I sat down with Nala Ray, who was a former OnlyFans porn performer. And she 0.95

00:22:53.720 walked away from the pornography industry after she described a life-changing journey of faith.

00:23:00.180 We sat down. This generated a lot of controversy because I guess some people didn't believe her.

00:23:04.780 Some people, I think, don't want to believe her. Some people are just really angry at her. I don't

00:23:09.840 know. We dive into her powerful story of transformation, the challenges she faced,

00:23:14.900 and how she found redemption and purpose as a Christian. Here's a teaser.

00:23:18.660 I was a pastor's kid. It started slow. I started OnlyFans. I made like $85,000 the first month.

00:23:25.920 What was it about you that was able to make a million dollars a year?

00:23:30.760 My biggest thing that I sold was that I'm multiple girls. I put all of that energy into

00:23:37.120 creating Nala. How much money do you have at this point?

00:23:40.860 $9 million. My parents kind of disowned me. That sounds catastrophic.

00:23:48.160 Sorry. I've never really dove into that feeling. Never talked about this. What's the point of all

00:23:55.900 this money when I don't have feelings? Is that the moment where you say, all right,

00:24:00.100 I got to start getting out of this thing? I was sobbing. I was looking at my fireplace. I grabbed

00:24:04.620 the Bible. I was like, God, I need an answer now. I truly need an answer now. And he gave me an answer.

00:24:11.780 What did he say?

00:24:12.480 Watch a full episode now on the Michael Knowles YouTube channel. Do not forget to subscribe for

00:24:22.480 the ad-free version on Daily Wire Plus. Speaking of social issues, I recently irritated libertarians,

00:24:32.200 which happens sometimes. Look, I love libertarians. Some of my best friends are libertarians, but

00:24:37.040 I'm not a libertarian, so sometimes I irritate them. And the way I irritated them

00:24:41.680 was because I questioned the pardoning of Ross Ulbricht. I didn't even really question the

00:24:48.700 pardoning of Ross Ulbricht. I questioned the philosophical arguments in defense of the

00:24:56.420 pardoning of Ross Ulbricht. The pardoning of Ulbricht as a political matter, I get.

00:25:01.500 But as a philosophical matter, I didn't quite get. For those of you who don't even know who Ross Ulbricht

00:25:05.540 is, Ross Ulbricht is this guy. He's in his 30s. He founded a website called the Silk Road.

00:25:12.920 And the Silk Road was a website, not on the regular internet, but on the dark internet,

00:25:17.240 the hidden internet, the internet where you need to download a bunch of tools to even log into the

00:25:21.580 thing. And the whole purpose of it is to evade detection, to be anonymous, to do things that maybe

00:25:29.860 you don't want people seeing. And I'm not just talking about, you know, reading a right-wing

00:25:35.320 political site or something like that. I'm talking about really illegal stuff. So he had this website,

00:25:41.380 the Silk Road. And I've got a screenshot of it here. The screenshots have been going around the

00:25:46.020 last few days. The Silk Road was an anonymous marketplace, as they say. And you could shop by

00:25:52.280 category in the marketplace. And so what's the category? Categories, top one up there, drugs, 687.

00:25:59.740 687 drug products on there. It was all sold in Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is anonymous.

00:26:06.180 Or Bitcoin can be anonymous. Drugs, top one, cannabis. Okay, most people are pretty loose on pot.

00:26:13.220 Ecstasy, it's a little more serious. Disassociatives, dissociatives, I don't know,

00:26:16.580 actually, you don't even really know what that is. It's like pain medication. Psychedelics,

00:26:20.920 okay, that's a little more serious. Opioids, whoa, okay, hold on. Sound like opium, Oxycontin,

00:26:29.360 heroin maybe on there, yikes. Stimulants, what's that? Cocaine, other benzos. Benzos,

00:26:35.720 pretty serious. So that's a lot of drugs. It's the top category on this marketplace,

00:26:40.440 right there on the website. And there's more, by the way. There's lab supplies, digital goods,

00:26:46.000 money. How do you buy money? Like foreign currency, I guess. Weaponry, okay. Home and garden,

00:26:52.860 that's kind of wholesome. Drug paraphernalia, XXX. Now that really raises an eyebrow, because you say,

00:27:00.340 oh, XXX, so it's pornography. But it's pornography specifically on this really hidden internet that's

00:27:07.100 anonymous. So you're not just talking about, you know, the whole regular internet is full of porn now,

00:27:11.040 basically. So if you're talking about stuff you got to go on a secret hidden internet for,

00:27:15.120 perhaps illegal pornography. Yikes. Okay, hold on. Wait, what are we? That could be really bad.

00:27:22.120 That could be really, really bad. Computer equipment, art, musical, tickets. Okay,

00:27:26.900 then you got some, those things seem basically fine. Forgeries. Okay, forgeries. Even the stuff that

00:27:34.120 seems fine though. I don't know. You wonder if it's anonymous. It's totally anonymous. The whole point

00:27:37.620 is to evade any detection. Are these stolen goods maybe? Why would you put it here rather than on a

00:27:43.660 much more traceable marketplace on the regular internet? Like, I don't know, Facebook marketplace

00:27:47.620 or Craigslist or something like that. All these drugs. So anyway, Ulbricht gets sentenced to life in

00:27:55.580 prison. I think it was actually like two life sentences plus 40 years. Now, during his various

00:28:02.420 trials, it was suggested that Ulbricht not only engaged in running this enterprise where all

00:28:09.220 illegal goods were sold, but he also might have ordered multiple hits, murder for hire on people.

00:28:16.820 Now, this was never proven. It was never proven beyond a reasonable doubt. There did appear to,

00:28:20.840 it was, it was found by the court that there was a preponderance of evidence for it. You can see the

00:28:24.500 chat logs, the supposed chat logs as published in various media outlets. It doesn't look great,

00:28:30.040 you know, but they never, that's not why he was sentenced. That has nothing to do with his

00:28:32.820 sentencing. Sentencing was for distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of

00:28:38.660 the internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise,

00:28:42.980 conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic and false identity documents, and

00:28:47.240 conspiring to commit money laundering. Okay. And, and the DOJ argued that the narcotics distributed on

00:28:53.160 Silk Road have been linked to at least six overdose deaths around the world. Now,

00:28:58.880 I get why libertarians support this guy. He is a pioneer of using Bitcoin to actually buy stuff,

00:29:06.320 and people really like Bitcoin. He doesn't have any respect for laws and regulations from the

00:29:13.060 government. I get that. Libertarians don't really have much respect for laws and regulations by the

00:29:17.120 government. He clearly supports buying and selling drugs. Libertarians usually support buying and selling 0.98

00:29:23.380 drugs on the free marketplace, you know, even if they don't do it themselves, they support the

00:29:26.780 supposed right to do that. Okay. Whatever. I get it. This guy apparently made a lot of money

00:29:31.180 profiting off of the sale of drugs and this other stuff. What XXX, pornography, weaponry. Okay.

00:29:40.220 That's, I get it. I understand why libertarians like him. What I'm wondering is, is there a non-libertarian

00:29:48.920 reason to support this pardon? I even politically get it. President Trump, I was at the Bitcoin

00:29:54.600 conference. President Trump came out and he promised if libertarians voted for him, he would free this

00:29:59.480 guy. Okay. I get it. He made a deal with libertarians who are an important part of the

00:30:03.540 political coalition. Whatever. That's cool. I totally get it. That's something in political

00:30:07.660 campaigns, you got to make deals. I support the pardon power for the president. Fine. But

00:30:12.260 should we really celebrate it? Even if it's politically prudent, even if a lot of people support

00:30:19.260 it, is this the sort of thing that conservatives should be celebrating? Because at the end of the

00:30:25.460 day, it seems to me that this guy, once you get past all the ideological ornamentation and all of

00:30:32.020 the manifestos and declarations about the free market and the supposed rights that the government

00:30:39.400 is trampling on, you know, the right to do heroin or whatever. It seems to me that this guy's just a

00:30:45.780 profiteer from the drug trade that he just dealt. And he, some people say, well, what's the difference

00:30:51.600 between this guy and the guy who owns the phone company or this guy and Mark Zuckerberg who owns

00:30:55.940 Facebook? Well, I guess the difference would be, yes, illegal transactions happen across all of those

00:31:03.440 various means of communication. But this one was set up for the very purpose of people committing

00:31:12.660 these crimes. Yes, people sell drugs and things on Facebook or over the phone, perhaps.

00:31:19.540 But that's an accident. That is a byproduct of the means of communication. The phone company or

00:31:28.480 Facebook are not intentionally impeding the enforcement of laws. Whereas with this one,

00:31:35.820 the whole point of it is to be undetectable, no trace whatsoever. So of course, and by the way,

00:31:42.860 this guy set up, some people are arguing, well, he had rules on the website, so you couldn't sell

00:31:46.040 really hideous things like child pornography. Okay. Well then if you're acknowledging that he had

00:31:50.820 rules and he set certain limits, then the very fact that he's selling or he's listing all of these

00:31:55.380 drugs right here at the top of it shows you that he was intentionally facilitating the sale of drugs,

00:32:02.700 drugs, which would be a criminal enterprise. So you might say, well, I don't like those laws

00:32:06.980 against drugs. Okay. Well, maybe you do, maybe you don't. But there's no question to me that the guy

00:32:11.460 broke the law in a pretty serious way. Even if you take the allegations about murder for hire and

00:32:16.500 really crazy stuff, just the most basic thing that he was convicted for that no one really disputes.

00:32:22.520 That is bad, right? Like we don't, I don't know. Look, maybe it's, maybe I'm just conservative.

00:32:28.440 Maybe it's just because I'm not a libertarian. I'm not an anarchist. I support just and prudent

00:32:33.400 regulation within limits. The only argument I can really see for the pardon philosophically is

00:32:38.800 that the sentence was perhaps excessive. Or, you know, this guy gets two life sentences, but

00:32:44.520 other drug dealers are getting off the hook. Or this guy gets two life sentences and other

00:32:49.400 pornographers or people who distribute pornography are off the hook. That it's, the punishment doesn't

00:32:54.640 totally fit the crime. Or that the DOJ is corrupt and they really railroaded this guy. The DOJ

00:33:00.220 has been corrupt and has gone after a lot of people. But let's not throw the baby out with

00:33:04.400 the bathwater here, folks. Okay. It's fine. I'm not going to lose sleep over the guy getting the

00:33:07.420 pardon. Politically, it was probably prudent, but drugs are bad. Drugs are bad. Okay. It is good

00:33:17.600 for the government to be able to enforce some laws. Just laws and unjust laws are not the same.

00:33:26.600 Because, well, while people are prattling on about rights here, you know, the supposed individual

00:33:31.560 right to sell black tar heroin on the internet without being detected or whatever. Don't forget

00:33:37.460 that every time we assert such a supposed individual right, we are denying a political right

00:33:45.760 that we have long cherished in America, namely the right to self-government. America is founded on

00:33:52.160 the premise not of radical maximal individualism. It's founded on the premise of self-government,

00:33:56.820 that we the people can elect representatives to pass and enforce laws.

00:34:05.560 We the people can elect people who can pass laws against black tar heroin or against opioids when

00:34:11.360 opioids are poisoning hundreds of thousands of Americans in our communities, can pass laws against

00:34:15.220 pornography, can pass certain regulations over weapons that we have a second amendment, which

00:34:19.780 provides a robust protection for the right to keep and bear arms. But we have political rights too.

00:34:26.020 So we want not merely a licentiousness masquerading as individual liberty, but really what our founders

00:34:32.300 at Framers gave us was a more exalted kind of freedom, an ordered liberty, the only true liberty,

00:34:39.280 the only liberty that will really set you free. You know, the Daily Wire gave you front row seats to

00:34:46.620 history during the inauguration weekend, covering everything from the pageantry to the political

00:34:50.640 highlights. We were there to bring you the dawn of America's golden age. The Daily Wire is where

00:34:54.680 politics and culture collide. With live uncensored ad-free daily shows from the most trusted voices in

00:35:00.140 America to our growing catalog of premium entertainment that's reshaping culture, we are leading the

00:35:04.920 charge. What we do matters, darn it, but we can't do it without you. Join Daily Wire Plus today. Save

00:35:11.120 47% with code 47. Celebrating America's 47th president, Donald John Trump. There's never been a

00:35:16.600 better time to join. Go to dailywire.com slash subscribe. Save 47% today with code 47. My favorite

00:35:24.620 comment yesterday is from Abaz Lazem 801, who says, I'm a Muslim and completely agree that the Islamic

00:35:34.100 call to prayer has no place in a cathedral or church. Many Muslims I know wouldn't want to be 1.00

00:35:39.720 seen dead in a cathedral. It's amazing how tolerant other religions are compared to Islam. 1.00

00:35:45.120 Anything like this would be absolutely prohibited in a mosque. Right, because the Muslims at least have 1.00

00:35:50.820 a reasonable sense of what a religion is. Exactly. This is my point yesterday. I said, please don't

00:35:57.260 misinterpret me to think that I'm just beating up on the Muslims here. I said, you know, in many ways,

00:36:01.660 I can have a much more reasonable conversation about religion with a Muslim than I can with some 1.00

00:36:05.780 decadent secular Western leftist. But why do we have the Islamic call to prayer in the national

00:36:13.000 cathedral? Why do we have a reading from the Quran in the cathedral? The Quran denies the crucifixion.

00:36:20.820 St. Paul writes in inerrant scripture that there are many, and I tell you now,

00:36:27.660 even weeping, who deny the cross of Christ. These things don't go together, okay? And when you get

00:36:35.320 even deeper into the theology, you see major, major differences. For starters, that Christianity

00:36:40.980 identifies God with the logos, with the divine logic of the universe, that faith and reason go

00:36:46.000 together. Islam, certainly since, what, the 9th or 10th century, rejects that view. For Islam,

00:36:54.200 as Pope Benedict quotes Ibn Hazm, the Islamic writer, the medieval Islamic writer, Islam adopts 0.95

00:37:00.500 a voluntarist view of God that says that Allah is totally transcendent. He's pure will, not

00:37:07.820 necessarily tied to reason. So whatever, your mileage may vary. You might come to different

00:37:11.620 conclusions, but those are just different views of God. Those are different religions.

00:37:15.960 And a national cathedral only makes sense if the nation agrees on at least some religious principles.

00:37:26.700 But a cathedral that worships every kind of God, that brings in every kind of person with every

00:37:34.500 kind of religion, that's no cathedral at all. That's just a big incoherent building. And that was

00:37:40.220 essentially where we were all sitting on Tuesday morning, a big incoherent building. And because

00:37:46.940 culture and cult come from the same root word, as we deny even the basic limits of our national

00:37:54.940 belief, we have an incoherent country. That's at the root of a lot of our political problems.

00:38:02.060 So, so far, look, it's all been hits from the Trump administration. Even the Ross Ulbrich

00:38:05.540 pardon, as I've said, as a practical, political, prudential matter, I totally get it. I think it was

00:38:09.520 probably smart for Trump to win over the Bitcoiners and the libertarians. And so, right, I'm cool. I

00:38:14.280 get it. There's only one thing that the Trump admin has done so far that I think is maybe not

00:38:20.740 the best idea. And that it just came out yesterday. They pulled John Bolton's security detail. John

00:38:26.560 Bolton was President Trump's national security advisor in the first term. He became a major Trump

00:38:31.460 critic after he left the White House. Trump is, you know, punches back a little bit. And so they've

00:38:36.480 bickered a lot in public. However, Iran has been trying to murder John Bolton ever since he was in 0.87

00:38:43.100 the White House. And that's because the Trump White House took out the top Iranian general,

00:38:47.960 Qasem Soleimani. So since then, Iran has been trying to murder President Trump, and they've been trying 0.96

00:38:53.700 to murder John Bolton. And 2022, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian forces,

00:39:01.500 was charged, was actually arrested and charged with a plot to murder John Bolton. Bolton said he was

00:39:08.720 told by security officials as recently as a few days ago that the threat against his life remained

00:39:13.340 high. And so I get the impulse of the administration to say, look, this guy's a huge critic. We're not

00:39:20.180 giving him protection forever. We're going to pull his security from him. However, even though I know John

00:39:25.300 Bolton is not all that popular anymore, he used to be very popular on the right. He's not that popular

00:39:29.560 anymore. There is no question Iran is trying to kill him. I think everyone would agree with that. 1.00

00:39:36.000 So Iran definitely wants to kill him. That is why the White House offered him security in the first 0.99

00:39:41.300 place. If you pull the security just because of a political dispute or something, one is a matter of

00:39:47.400 making policy that could discourage other national security officials from taking decisive action,

00:39:53.300 action that was really popular even for the president. You know, taking out Soleimani was a popular

00:39:58.540 action, and I think it also really helped Trump's foreign policy and his foreign policy chops in that

00:40:04.100 it played into his great foreign policy strength, which is that he's totally unpredictable.

00:40:08.720 He's talking like a dove one day. He drops the Moab another day. He's palling around with Kim Jong-un 0.80

00:40:13.360 one day. He's blowing up the Iranian general the next day. You don't really know, and that gives you

00:40:17.300 a lot of strength, a lot of power. So you don't want to do things that will discourage your national

00:40:22.100 security officials from taking bold and ambitious and decisive action. But then the third

00:40:26.100 political reason here for the White House to consider giving Bolton a security detail back

00:40:32.120 is, God forbid, something happens. God forbid some Iranians actually do succeed at killing John 1.00

00:40:38.840 Bolton. That would look terrible politically. That would cost the White House a lot of support. 0.98

00:40:46.160 It would be an unforced error. It would be bad. It would be very bad in itself. But politically,

00:40:51.280 it would really be really bad for the White House, too, for the relatively low cost of just

00:40:56.560 giving Bolton some Secret Service protection. I don't know. It seems to me if I were advising

00:41:01.420 the president, if I were in the White House, I'd say you are absolutely crushing it on everything.

00:41:06.340 Your agenda is being implemented so quickly. Don't let this personal grudge potentially derail what

00:41:15.600 your administration is doing because it's now, without question, an historic administration,

00:41:20.820 non-consecutive second term, unbelievable, wins the popular vote as a Republican for the first time

00:41:25.600 in 20 years. It's just, you're in the history books and you're already day three, day four,

00:41:30.660 changing so much, restoring so much common sense to America. I would just protect against things that

00:41:35.880 could needlessly derail that. Now, speaking of firing staff, CNN is going to lay off hundreds more

00:41:45.020 employees. And I actually don't celebrate this stuff. You know, these are people, they have

00:41:50.280 families, even if they're libs. Not all of them are libs, but some of them are libs and they have

00:41:54.080 families. And I don't celebrate when people lose their jobs. However, I do celebrate the political

00:42:00.900 conditions that would cause them to lose their jobs. It's not my fault that the CNN employees are

00:42:06.640 losing their jobs. It's not even Trump's fault that the CNN employees are losing their jobs.

00:42:11.340 It is the fault of CNN leadership, which decided to run so much fake news, which decided to lose

00:42:19.220 so much credibility, which decided to be so deceitful for so many years that people tuned

00:42:25.160 them out. They just got too much wrong. And when they were proven to have gotten too much wrong,

00:42:29.760 people tuned out. People were already tuning out of TV, but they've been tuning out of all those CNN

00:42:36.980 properties. That's why the company is in bad shape. That's why they're laying off people.

00:42:41.260 In addition to the hundred people they fired over the summer. And it's not just NBC or it's not just

00:42:45.680 CNN rather. It's also NBC. NBC News is reportedly planning cuts for later this week, though it won't

00:42:51.520 be a hundred. It'll be, it'll be well under 50. And this is according to reporting from CNBC. So it's

00:42:57.400 not even just rumor mongering. And NBC property is already reporting this. The bleeding continues.

00:43:03.980 The corporate bleeding will continue until morale improves. Okay. Or until honesty improves.

00:43:10.920 Until ethics in the newsroom improves. This is, this is the conservative consolation that reality

00:43:17.580 reasserts itself in the end. You can only lie to the people for so long before there's some

00:43:23.360 consequence to this. Daily Wire looking pretty strong. Daily Wire, our business, pretty robust.

00:43:31.360 Fox News, their business, pretty strong, pretty robust. You look over on the right, the blaze,

00:43:37.040 you look over at these media companies on the right. We're looking good, man. This is not just

00:43:42.420 a general shift in the media. This is specifically something that's going on in the liberal media.

00:43:48.720 Because the liberal media have offended their viewers with their dishonesty, with, with their

00:43:57.900 misinformation, you name it. And the viewers are tuning out. Now, speaking of TV, the media,

00:44:03.900 actually, they never give up. They're trying however they can to attack Trump. And he's been

00:44:09.080 so successful in his first week in office. He was so successful during the election. The transition was

00:44:14.020 great. And that the best they can do is this. This is from a local Fox affiliate in Oregon. Don't

00:44:19.100 forget, Fox News and the Fox affiliates are different entities. Fox affiliates tend to be a

00:44:23.840 little bit more liberal, more in line with the rest of the establishment media. This local Fox

00:44:29.180 affiliate in liberal Oregon says, estimated 24.6 million TV viewers watched Trump inauguration

00:44:35.800 coverage. Smallest audience since 2013. But you notice two really important letters here. TV viewers.

00:44:47.020 TV viewers. First of all, the fact that it's not the smallest ever is impressive. Why? Because no one

00:44:52.660 really watches TV anymore. I basically never watch TV. I'm on screens a lot, but I'm scrolling. I'm

00:45:00.020 listening to podcasts. I'm watching YouTube. Maybe I'm streaming something on some device, but watching

00:45:04.620 TV, like network TV, you'd expect it to be the smallest ever. But it's not. Smallest in a dozen

00:45:13.580 years. Okay. But are you going to tell us how many people listened on the gramophone? Are you going to

00:45:20.860 tell us how many people were feeling the vibrations from their telegraph to? No, that's just not how people

00:45:26.940 consume media anymore. What's the number on total viewers? That's what I want to know.

00:45:32.500 I was on air during the inauguration. We weren't watching like TV. Like, you know, you get your

00:45:41.120 rabbit ears out and that's just not how it works anymore. People stream. People were streaming our

00:45:45.200 show. This seems really, really silly. It's like they're grasping for straws, but they have to grasp 0.78

00:45:52.720 for straws because on every other front, Trump has been so successful. Now speaking of popular media,

00:45:58.140 really great story out of sports. I had to consult my sports experts, the official Michael Knowles

00:46:04.680 show, senior sports analyst, Ben Davies. I said, Mr. Davies, what's this story about Jaden Daniels?

00:46:12.040 Jaden Daniels is the Redskins quarterback. We can't call them the Redskins anymore though. Now they're

00:46:16.280 the commanders, but no one really says that. They also just say the Redskins still. This is one of the

00:46:21.400 most liberal teams in professional sports. This is a team that was absolutely terrible. Mr. Davies,

00:46:27.020 you told me they were what? The worst team last year? They were the second worst team at the second

00:46:30.840 overall pick in the draft. Okay. Second worst team, second overall pick in the draft. And now

00:46:36.280 they're one game away from the Superbowl. This guy, Jaden Daniels has the best rookie season of any

00:46:42.280 quarterback maybe ever. Potentially he could be the first rookie quarterback to go to the Superbowl.

00:46:48.580 And what is, what is this man? What is the sort of thing that he says? And he does,

00:46:54.500 well, the Washington Redskins are taking the knee for George Floyd. Well, the whole NFL got so far

00:47:00.420 left. Colin Kaepernick, all this nonsense. You remember the whole league had gone so far to the

00:47:05.860 left. Here is this rookie football player. What did you in this group know that seemingly no one

00:47:13.020 else did? Man, it just starts with our faith, our faith in God. As a team, man, we believe,

00:47:17.780 we believe in one each other. We believe in the man upstairs, you know, that we're going to go out

00:47:21.900 there. We're going to fight. He prepared us the right way. We prepared the right way. We put in

00:47:25.420 the work to get to this point now. You know, we got a couple more games left. We got one game left.

00:47:29.620 See what we're playing tomorrow. But, you know, I just love this team.

00:47:33.480 I love it. And you know what I love about this? That is not in any way radical. That statement from

00:47:40.480 a football player should not be in any way considered unusual, at least five, 10 years ago.

00:47:45.940 This was always the football players. Hey, what'd you think of the game right there? Oh man,

00:47:49.780 I just want to give thanks to God. You know, I'm loving my God up there. Thank you. We're praying.

00:47:53.260 We're doing all that. You know, that's just how, that's how athletes talk. That's how they used to

00:47:56.900 talk. But then for a little while, they stopped worshiping God and they started worshiping St.

00:48:03.260 George Floyd. And then St. St. George Floyd of the blessed counterfeit currency was, was the new

00:48:10.100 idol. They started turning from Christianity toward, I don't know, critical race theory, toward

00:48:15.700 radical leftism, start taking the knee, opposing their country. And now what do we have?

00:48:21.540 We have a shift back. This is just normal. I'm not, look, I'm not drawing any conclusions about

00:48:26.880 this guy's historic rookie season or about the change in the fortunes of the Washington Redskins.

00:48:33.740 A priest friend of mine, Father Ruttler, I've said it before, he observes that it's a wicked 1.00

00:48:37.660 generation that seeks a sign and wonder, but it's a stupid generation that ignores signs and wonders. 0.99

00:48:41.600 But I don't know. I don't know anything about football. What I really love about this is just 1.00

00:48:47.240 how normal this was for so long and how it's coming back. This is the return of, it's normal.

00:48:55.580 Even though in the last five years, it'd be, it's weird to go to church, right? It's weird to love

00:49:00.100 your country. It's weird to recognize that there are only two sexes. It's weird to get married and 0.98

00:49:06.540 have kids and go to work. And it's, that was all so radical and crazy, even though that was normal for

00:49:10.460 all of history. And now it's normal again. And Trump is just bringing you that return to normal.

00:49:17.640 He's taken the radical, crazy sex flags down from the embassies. He's pulling all the radical, 0.65

00:49:25.260 unjust, woke policies out of the agencies. He's, we're, we're enforcing the law again on basic stuff.

00:49:34.400 We're even, we're, we're not going to tolerate some fake priestess lady giving some ridiculous 1.00

00:49:42.680 sermon at the Washington cathedral. I use that word loosely because it just, that, that seemed like 0.88

00:49:50.500 the last gasp of leftism. Trump says, yeah, we're not doing that. Nah, the American people didn't like

00:49:56.000 that. I think that's just, now we're back. Okay. We're back folks. That's how I feel. I feel we're

00:50:01.960 back. And we thank God for that as, as much and actually more than that Washington Redskins

00:50:07.400 quarterback was thanking God. We should all thank God. Now, speaking of thanking God, we have a priest

00:50:12.180 coming on the show and a very popular priest. Speaking of the return of the popularity of norms

00:50:17.920 and religion. We have Father Mark Mary Ames, a top podcaster, reached number one actually for his

00:50:26.180 show. It's not the, the Father Mark Mary show. It's Rosary in a Year. The rest of the show continues

00:50:30.640 now. You don't want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles at checkout for two months free on

00:50:34.260 all annual plans.

The Michael Knowles Show - January 23, 2025

Ep. 1658 - Trump Bans Gay Pride

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