Ep. 1658 - Trump Bans Gay Pride
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
168.70169
Summary
The pride flag is banned at all government buildings, President Trump is sending 1,500 troops to the border, CNN is laying off hundreds of employees, and the New York Times has been triggered into admitting that babies in the womb are babies.
Transcript
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,
00:01:18.960
go to expressvpn.com slash Knowles. Going online without ExpressVPN, it's like leaving your laptop
00:01:24.640
unattended. Sure, most of the time, nothing's going to happen. But what if one day you come back
00:01:30.380
and everything's gone? Here's the scary truth. Every time you connect to public Wi-Fi, hackers can
00:01:35.600
steal your passwords, your bank details, your personal information. It does not take a tech
00:01:40.580
genius. Even a 12-year-old with basic equipment could do it. That is why I don't go online with
00:01:45.540
Ad Express VPN. If a 12-year-old with good equipment could hack into my stuff, that means that Professor
00:01:51.160
Jacob could be opening up my cell phone at any moment. This is the number one rated VPN from CNET,
00:01:57.540
The Verge. Secure your online data today in a way that is so simple even I can do it. You just
00:02:03.760
download it, push one button, you're done. You don't have to think about it again. That's my kind
00:02:08.340
of VPN. Expressvpn.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S. E-X-P-R-E-S-S-Vpn.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S.
00:02:15.600
You can get an extra four months for free. Go to expressvpn.com slash Knowles.
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,
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
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.
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.
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
00:09:08.280
for illegal aliens who are arrested for theft-related crimes. So not even just regular old illegal aliens
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
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
00:11:21.760
And she says, you'll deport my mother. Oh, your mother's an illegal alien thief? Yeah,
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?
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
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
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,
00:12:45.000
K-N-W-L-E-S. We have got some incredible news. Women are getting a second chance through the
00:12:49.700
abortion pill reversal treatment, and it is saving lives. While Roe v. Wade has been overturned and
00:12:55.780
many states have restricted abortions, something you might not know is that abortion pills now account
00:13:00.060
for the clear majority of abortions, over 60%. That is where Preborn Ministries makes a crucial
00:13:06.660
difference. Their network of clinics stands ready to help women in their most challenging
00:13:10.920
moments, offering love, support, and completely free services to support their choice for life.
00:13:15.620
Through ultrasound technology and their abortion pill reversal protocol, they've already helped save
00:13:19.860
over 300,000 precious lives. You can make a real difference today. Just 28 bucks provides one
00:13:25.040
potentially life-saving ultrasound, and 140 bucks can help rescue five babies. If you are ready to help,
00:13:31.820
just dial pound 250, say baby, or make a secure donation at preborn.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S.
00:13:38.360
That is pound 250, keyword baby, or go to preborn.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. Together,
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
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?
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
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
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
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
00:16:46.840
little comfort to the women who do not exercise their totally legitimate right to murder their
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.
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,
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
00:24:12.480
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
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
00:35:39.720
seen dead in a cathedral. It's amazing how tolerant other religions are compared to Islam.
00:35:45.120
Anything like this would be absolutely prohibited in a mosque. Right, because the Muslims at least have
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
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
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
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
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.
00:39:36.000
So Iran definitely wants to kill him. That is why the White House offered him security in the first
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
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
00:40:38.840
Bolton. That would look terrible politically. That would cost the White House a lot of support.
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
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
00:48:37.660
generation that seeks a sign and wonder, but it's a stupid generation that ignores signs and wonders.
00:48:41.600
But I don't know. I don't know anything about football. What I really love about this is just
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
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,
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
00:49:42.680
sermon at the Washington cathedral. I use that word loosely because it just, that, that seemed like
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