The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1690 - Trump Deports Pro-Palestine Columbia Student

00:00:00.000 On Saturday night, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil,

00:00:05.060 a former Columbia graduate student who led pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus last year.

00:00:11.180 Yesterday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting Khalil

00:00:15.240 until a meeting on Wednesday. Leftists are arguing that Mahmoud should stay because they

00:00:22.420 hate Israel and support Palestine. Some on the right are arguing that Mahmoud should stay

00:00:27.840 because they think his protests are protected free speech, regardless of what they think about

00:00:33.900 Israel or Palestine. I, for one, think Mahmoud should be deported, not because I care all that 1.00

00:00:40.300 much about the Israel-Palestine conflict, but because he's a Columbia graduate student and all

00:00:45.540 Columbia graduate students should be deported, even if they're American citizens. At a time of 1.00

00:00:50.540 tectonic political shifts, what is the correct conservative American take?

00:00:57.840 What do we believe? I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:20.540 Welcome back to the show. You want to talk about ideological confusion. There is a funding bill

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00:01:35.660 comparing Massey, who is arguably the most right-wing member of Congress, to Liz Cheney and saying that

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00:03:33.420 Before we move on from this Columbia grad student or former Columbia grad student, I should say,

00:03:38.660 what do you think? I bet there are many of you in the audience who are so certain about your

00:03:44.660 political views. Whenever you see a news story, you say, I immediately know this side is right,

00:03:49.820 this side is wrong. These people are going to be on this side, those people are going to be on that

00:03:53.520 side. But this one is dividing people, even on the right. You have some who are saying, look, this guy,

00:03:59.340 he supports a terrorist group. He is not an American citizen. Get him out of here. Who cares? Even some

00:04:06.580 people say, I really support Israel. Israel is one of my most important issues. And this guy hates

00:04:11.100 Israel, so deport him for that reason. But there are going to be some people who say, look, well,

00:04:15.620 there are going to be some people on the right who say, I don't like Israel. And so I actually like

00:04:18.800 this guy that he's pro-Palestine. He should stay here. There can be some people who say, even though

00:04:21.980 I'm the most ardent pro-Israel supporter in the whole world, I think this man has a right to free speech

00:04:28.540 and he can lead protests, even if they're disruptive, even if they threaten students,

00:04:31.960 even if they cause all sorts of problems. I'm a little bit simpler about it, I guess.

00:04:38.520 I try not to get too lost in the ideology of constantly talking about rights and in the

00:04:45.280 ideology of liberalism and in the ideology of free speech and academic freedom and this-ism and that-ism.

00:04:53.860 I look at it, I say, okay, is this guy, he's a citizen or he's not a citizen?

00:04:56.880 Oh, he's not a citizen. Okay. He's not even a student anymore. He graduated in December. Okay.

00:05:02.420 So he's not a citizen, which means he has no right to be here in the United States. 0.96

00:05:09.060 I look at the protests that he was involved in. I don't know. I mean, the Israel-Palestine conflict,

00:05:14.980 I guess, is complex, but I don't know. You're supporting the side that's run by Hamas. That's 0.89

00:05:20.780 a little sus to me. And those protests were quite nasty to Jewish students, in particular at Columbia.

00:05:26.320 And I don't really care all that much about the Israel-Palestine conflict. And I do wish

00:05:31.820 that we in America were as muscular at tackling anti-Christian discrimination as we are at tackling

00:05:38.200 anti-Jewish discrimination, anti-Muslim discrimination, anti-this-ism, anti-that-ism.

00:05:44.020 But Christianity is the one religion that we are allowed to and actually encouraged to

00:05:49.180 mock in public and denigrate and push to the side. So all of those things considered,

00:05:55.800 yeah, yeah, sure. But my chief question for immigration is,

00:05:59.600 what benefit are these people to America? In some cases, in rare cases, we take in refugees 1.00

00:06:08.220 out of the goodness of our heart because it's gracious and charitable, and we were strangers

00:06:12.420 in the land of Egypt. That's a relatively small aspect of what we're talking about here. When it

00:06:17.200 comes to immigration, the primary question, at least to my mind, is, do these people benefit

00:06:24.420 America? In fact, that's how our immigration laws are written. That's how basically all immigration 0.94

00:06:28.180 laws everywhere in the world are written. Does this person benefit the country? Do they do a job,

00:06:34.200 for instance, that people in the country can't do? Do they offer some special benefit? If they do,

00:06:38.840 let them in, maybe. And if they don't, don't let them in. So I look at this guy, I say, okay,

00:06:43.680 his political ideology is pretty whack, and he doesn't seem to be contributing all that much

00:06:48.640 to the country. And he's a Columbia graduate student, which means his views are almost certainly

00:06:53.640 horrible, and he's very unlikely to support America. So I don't know, to me, it's a little

00:06:59.120 bit more of a practical prudential question. I'm not going to lose sleep over Mahmoud Khalil being

00:07:04.700 deported after leading a bunch of his fellow Columbia grad students, one of the most left

00:07:10.320 wing of the Ivy League schools, which are already left wing. I'm not going to lose sleep over that.

00:07:15.100 Now, speaking of ideological conflict and immigration, for that matter, a clip has gone

00:07:22.000 viral from Jubilee's Surrounded show. This is the show that I was on a month ago. It's the show where

00:07:28.140 one person surrounded by 20 or 25 people who disagree with him, and he's got to just debate

00:07:34.040 them successfully. So it was me versus 20 or 25 LGBT LMNOP activists. That was an hour and 40

00:07:41.920 minutes. You can go watch it over at the Jubilee channel. This week's episode was with a left-wing

00:07:48.220 political commentator named Sam Sater. And Sam Sater showed up, and he was surrounded by, I guess,

00:07:55.980 20 or 25 conservatives. They were debating all sorts of questions, one of which was religious

00:08:02.700 fundamentalism. We'll get to that in a moment. The other of which was immigration. And so he's

00:08:09.300 sitting down next to this right-wing journalist, Sarah Stock, and they're just getting down to brass

00:08:16.520 tacks on immigration. And Sam Sater cannot believe the things that she is saying. Take a listen.

00:08:24.740 What's the problem with xenophobic nationalism? Don't you think that's better for Americans in 1.00

00:08:29.160 general? To be xenophobic, nationalism is better? We should have a coherent culture. Everyone should

00:08:34.800 be a part of the same culture. We should have assimilation. Do you get to choose what the 1.00

00:08:38.940 culture is? We already have a dominant culture based on European and Christian values and identity.

00:08:45.340 That is the dominant culture. It's rooted in European identity.

00:08:49.380 White, so your argument is that... That has been the dominant culture. 0.94

00:08:53.200 Just to be clear. And we're not letting people assimilate to that. We're saying you should keep 1.00

00:08:56.820 your culture, and this is why our culture is so divided. Your argument is that Trump is good for

00:09:01.280 those who want a dominant white European culture. I mean, that is what America is. It's rooted in

00:09:09.520 European identity and Christian values. That's what it has been. Would you really disagree with that?

00:09:16.320 What is it then, if that's not the identity of America?

00:09:19.500 Well, I think the identity of America...

00:09:21.460 For the majority of time, America's been a country. You don't think that's been the identity?

00:09:25.420 Well, actually, no. I think actually the identity of America has been, you know...

00:09:32.060 Okay, let's put a pause right here before he gets into what it means. I love how he's stalling.

00:09:37.020 He doesn't know how to respond to her. Well, no, actually, but actually,

00:09:41.360 actually, what's her argument? She's using a provocative slogan, no doubt. 0.99

00:09:45.880 Xenophobic nationalism. This is a scare phrase used by the left, and so she is

00:09:50.700 provocatively throwing that phrase back at the left. But what's she saying?

00:09:56.020 Xenophobic, meaning preferring one's own countrymen to foreigners, and nationalism,

00:10:02.500 meaning preferring the nation to a kind of borderless liberal globalism.

00:10:07.220 Well, that's what most American voters voted for in November. Not exactly in those terms,

00:10:13.780 not in such sensationalist rhetoric, but that is what people voted for.

00:10:18.920 And then Sam Sater says, well, hold on. You're telling me you think there's a dominant culture

00:10:24.540 in America? She says, of course there's a dominant culture. There's a dominant culture

00:10:27.260 in any polity. Of course there is. Culture is defined by something, and whatever it is defined

00:10:31.480 by is the dominant aspect of the culture. Okay, well, you're telling me that America traditionally

00:10:36.300 has been defined by European culture and Christianity? She says, yes. But could you disagree

00:10:45.180 with that? Would anybody seriously disagree with that? In 1960, she says, it has been, at least until

00:10:52.100 very recently. In 1960, 93% of Americans were Christian. In 1960, just under 90% of Americans

00:11:01.180 were white, so descended from Europeans. America, really, whatever view you take of the Mayflower,

00:11:11.080 great cigar brand, and the American founding, the Revolutionary War, and the 19th century up

00:11:16.520 through the 20th century, can you really argue it didn't come from European values, European institutions?

00:11:25.240 We were a British colony. What is your argument? The American Revolution was influenced by the European

00:11:34.480 Enlightenment, for better and worse. The founding of America at Plymouth Colony was a separatist

00:11:44.500 movement from England. America doesn't just exist in outer space or something like that. It's not

00:11:49.380 just floating through the ether. It comes from historical movements developed by real people

00:11:56.400 from real places. You might say, well, that's terrible. I hate Europe. Or you might say,

00:12:01.860 that's terrible. I hate Christianity. I wish America weren't like that. You can make that argument. 1.00

00:12:05.480 The left makes that argument all day long. But if you're this guy, if you're the liberal guy on this,

00:12:10.000 are you really going to be confused by the idea that America comes from Europe and that the

00:12:16.500 religion that has dominated in America has been Christianity? I mean, John Adams says

00:12:21.800 the principles on which the revolution was won were the principles of Christianity.

00:12:26.880 John Jay goes further. He says, thank God that we all descend from the same stock and that we all have

00:12:32.280 the same religion and we all believe basically the same stuff. And you can find similar writings

00:12:37.320 threat many, many other founding fathers and framers of our constitution. And you can just

00:12:41.780 look at the demographics, religious, ethnic, national, all the rest. We didn't have mass

00:12:48.100 migration of the sort that we're looking at today until the mid-1960s. So things start to change.

00:12:52.480 But even still, most Americans are at least vaguely Christian. And I guess the majority of Americans

00:12:58.960 are still white. That's 60%. So it's obviously much lower than you. So I don't know. Regardless of 0.87

00:13:03.760 whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing, how could this liberal guy be confused by

00:13:09.480 that? He's really that ignorant of not just what his opponents believe, but of American history? 0.87

00:13:16.580 There's so much more to say. First, though, go to puretalk.com slash Knowles. If you're with 0.97

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00:14:22.740 Jubilee podcast surrounded Lib Sam Sater versus conservative Sarah Stock. Keep going.

00:14:29.660 The identity of America has been, for better or for worse, a melting pot in that regard.

00:14:36.100 Yeah, maybe since the 1960s. Even then, even we had this idea of a melting pot literally means

00:14:42.600 assimilation too. It means melting. It means you're assimilating to the dominant culture. Is that not 0.60

00:14:48.020 what melting means? Okay, so he says, no, no, it's a melting pot. And she says, yeah, yeah,

00:14:52.380 that's how we view it since the 1960s. It goes back a little earlier. The term melting pot comes

00:14:56.200 from a play by a playwright named Israel Zangville in 1908. And curiously, Teddy Roosevelt went to see

00:15:04.740 this play and loved it so much. He said, Mr. Zangville, this is a great play. I love this play.

00:15:08.980 And the notion of America being this melting together of different identities goes back

00:15:14.840 earlier than 1908. So it had been building for some time. But then she hits the real point there,

00:15:21.920 which is, well, hold on. A melting pot means assimilation. A melting pot is not a salad bowl,

00:15:28.940 for instance. It's not that you keep your distinct identities. The tomatoes over here and the cucumbers

00:15:32.960 over here and the lettuce is over here. The melting pot means you all melt together.

00:15:36.500 And Zangville, who wrote the play, The Melting Pot, actually explained this five years after it was

00:15:41.140 first produced. He said, the process of American amalgamation is not assimilation or simple surrender

00:15:47.480 to the dominant type, as is popularly supposed, but an all-around give and take by which the final

00:15:52.620 type may be enriched or impoverished. So he's saying, it's not that you totally give up your

00:15:57.000 identity. When the Italians came here, for instance, they didn't totally give up their identity. When

00:16:00.900 the Irish came here, they didn't totally give up their identity, but they largely did. To the point 0.94

00:16:05.560 that, just use the Italians, partially my people as an example, you can no longer predict an Italian

00:16:12.700 American's political views and behaviors based on their ethnicity. You get Nancy Pelosi on the left,

00:16:20.980 you get Antonin Scalia on the right. You get Andrew Cuomo on the left, you get Michael Knowles,

00:16:29.280 who that's the English name from my father's side, but you know, I got a lot of Italians on the other

00:16:35.000 side, on the right. You can't tell, the Italians have assimilated and they've added to American 0.98

00:16:39.480 culture. You know, mob movies are a big part of our popular entertainment. People really love pizza,

00:16:45.740 you know, certain Italian expressions have gained traction, but they've also surrendered a lot of

00:16:51.920 of Italian stuff. So what Sarah Stock is saying here, the point she's making is, is almost entirely

00:16:59.260 correct. She says, yeah, it's a, even look, we're not just a melting pot. Like we come from a real

00:17:04.500 culture, but even if we were a melting pot, that means that you do at least largely give up your

00:17:10.100 identity. You contribute a little bit, you give up your identity to assimilate to this new kind of

00:17:15.100 identity, which is the American identity. And then they conclude on the, on the biggest head

00:17:20.120 scratcher. And now instead we're saying there's something wrong with xenophobia.

00:17:24.860 No, I mean, look, I got to be honest with you. Like I, you and I have a fundamental disagreement.

00:17:31.280 We will never see eye to eye on this. It's a choice. And people, I think what you're expressing

00:17:36.700 though is really what the, the, the Trump, uh, uh, movement at its heart is about. And I think

00:17:43.580 that's problematic. I mean, I disagree. I don't think Trump's like anywhere close to being a

00:17:46.720 Christian nationalist. That's ridiculous. Like Trump's basically a Democrat from like 15 years 0.99

00:17:50.980 ago. I love this point. And I think president Trump would agree with that. I think a lot of

00:17:57.260 Trump voters would agree with that. It's a, yeah, he's like waving the rainbow flag. You know, Trump

00:18:01.300 is, he doesn't care that much about, you know, hard right-wing traditionalist social conservatism.

00:18:07.620 That's, that's how he got people like Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Rogan

00:18:12.900 and most voters to vote with him is he's, he's the center. Trump is the center. Trump

00:18:17.320 is the mainstream. It's the left that is extreme now, but Trump is, you know, he's not Sam

00:18:23.180 Sater saying, well, you know, this kind of extreme right-wing rhetoric, that's why people

00:18:27.420 vote for Trump. She goes, what are you talking about? He says, that's, I just disagree with

00:18:31.480 you. I got to be honest with you. Whenever someone says, I got to be honest with you as

00:18:34.580 a preface to their statement, what they are admitting is that they are regularly not honest

00:18:38.620 with you. They previously have been dishonest with you. So he says that he says, well, I got

00:18:42.920 to be honest with you. I just don't agree that America, what that America has a religion.

00:18:49.020 You don't agree. You don't agree. We have in God, we trust in our national anthem and on our money.

00:18:54.220 We were founded by people who called themselves pilgrims. Okay. We, the founding fathers and the

00:19:00.160 framers wrote extensively about the importance of Christianity to their country. And you're,

00:19:06.120 you're telling me we'd all, we don't have a religion. We don't have a founding stock of

00:19:11.380 people. No, it's not England. It's not the Dutch. It's not, no, no, it's not. It's Martians. I don't 1.00

00:19:18.560 know what it is. It's no, it has not, there's no religion. There's no founding stock. There's no

00:19:23.080 traditions. There are, there's no common morality. There's really no geography. So what is America?

00:19:29.840 Matt Walsh asked this question yesterday. It's probably going to be his next movie. That's going

00:19:32.740 to complete the trilogy. What is America? But the answer from the libs on the left and the right is,

00:19:38.460 well, America's an idea, merely an idea floating in outer space in the ether. Except when they say

00:19:46.780 that, they say America's an idea. You say, okay, what's the idea? At least the people who say that

00:19:52.200 on the right, well, they'll say, well, it's the idea of individual liberty and it's the idea of free

00:19:56.760 association. And they'll give you some answer from late 20th century libertarian readings of the

00:20:01.600 American founding. And it might be right. It might be wrong, but at least they'll give you an answer.

00:20:05.760 You ask the left, what's the idea of America? They won't give you an answer because the left-wing

00:20:12.820 liberal project is about surpassing all limits. It's about maximizing individual autonomy.

00:20:19.720 It's about breaking down anything that might circumscribe choice. So if you say, well, what's

00:20:26.340 the idea? America is just an idea. Okay. What's the idea of America? They can't tell you because to say

00:20:31.280 America is this idea is simultaneously to say that America is not that idea, which contradicts this

00:20:37.600 idea. And they can't do that. It's America's got to be everything to everyone for all times.

00:20:44.640 America, the idea would have to contradict Aristotle's law of non-contradiction because

00:20:49.120 it would have to be, it would have to include every idea. So to the left, America is not even

00:20:55.800 just an idea. America is an idea of an idea. It is so radically abstract that it's nothing. And in

00:21:04.320 practice, when the left governs, America is nothing. It has no border. It has no tradition.

00:21:09.480 It has no common language. It's nothing. It's just, it's a vacuum. Now, you know, nature abhors a

00:21:17.060 vacuum and will fill it up. I suggest you fill up the air in your home with the smells and bells

00:21:22.120 candle from the candle club. Go to the candle club.com slash Michael. Get that beautiful

00:21:28.780 smells and bells candle today. Okay. I will, I will move on from this Jubilee episode, but it was,

00:21:35.100 it was fascinating. And this guy in particular was a really interesting guest on the Jubilee episode

00:21:41.280 because the format it has seemed to be is you get one conservative to debate two dozen libs.

00:21:49.100 The first guest was Charlie Kirk. Ben Shapiro went on there. Lila Rose went on there. I went on there

00:21:55.560 and without, I have no false modesty here. Generally seems to be the rule that the conservative is

00:22:02.660 surrounded by two dozen libs and the conservative beats all the libs. That's, it seems to be the

00:22:06.780 structure of the show. Okay. I'm not, listen, false modesty is a form of pride. And so I will admit,

00:22:12.620 not just for me, but for, for the other three conservatives too, they generally won pretty,

00:22:18.820 pretty decisively. In this case, the lib facing off against the 20 conservatives,

00:22:23.480 he lost. He didn't come, even if you're a big fan of this guy or whatever you fought,

00:22:29.180 I don't follow his stuff at all, but I've heard of him at least. I know he's a liberal commentator

00:22:33.380 and he did not do as well as the conservatives did against the libs. You saw the exchange with

00:22:40.820 Sarah Stock. Here's another exchange. I wish I had this guy's name. I just started following him

00:22:44.580 on X yesterday, but I don't have his name off the top of my head. Another conservative comes up

00:22:48.500 to debate religious fundamentalism. And here, Sam Sater's ideological confusion becomes,

00:22:55.120 or philosophical confusion, becomes even more manifest.

00:22:58.820 Hey. It's nice to meet you. Okay. So I would like to touch on the religious fundamentalist

00:23:06.640 aspect. Are you an atheist? I'm a reformed Jew. I don't, I, my, I don't have a, a, a strong belief

00:23:13.440 in the existence of God, but I don't think that religion in and of itself is bad. Okay. So what's

00:23:18.820 wrong with religious fundamentalists? So like when you said, you said trans rights and women's rights

00:23:22.780 or something like that? Well, I, the problem I have with religious fundamentalists and really more, 1.00

00:23:27.680 I guess it's really, uh, uh, theocrats is that they want to impose their, uh, morality that comes

00:23:35.400 from their religion on the rest of us. And I don't, I don't, but morality from your view is going to be

00:23:40.980 a preference, right? It's not morality. It's a preference. What's the, so morality without a

00:23:46.340 foundation is going to reduce you to a preference. Well, I have a foundation for my morality. Which is

00:23:50.060 what? It's a humanist vision of, of what basically, uh, creates as little suffering as possible for as

00:23:58.460 many people. Okay. So you're like a consequentialist utilitarian. I, uh, I, I don't really, uh, bother

00:24:07.500 myself with, with being a consequentialist or utilitarian. Okay. What, what is remarkable about

00:24:14.660 this exchange is not that Sam Sater is a leftist or that his interlocutor is a conservative. What is

00:24:22.120 remarkable about this exchange is that the leftist taking on the two dozen conservatives

00:24:27.920 doesn't know what he himself believes. What's, what's remarkable about this exchange. It's not

00:24:36.540 that the leftist doesn't understand what the conservatives believe that we expect. The leftist

00:24:41.540 doesn't understand the basic premises of his own arguments. He says, look, I don't, I don't like

00:24:51.220 religious fundamentalism. He never really defines it. He's obviously confused about it. I don't like

00:24:56.140 theocrats. He clearly doesn't know what a theocrat is because a theocracy is government by religious

00:25:00.640 clerics. But here he's using theocracy to mean government by people who have religious views,

00:25:05.980 which is all governments for all time. And certainly our, we have a self-government we,

00:25:09.460 and we're a people that have religious views. So he, he's totally confused about what theocracy

00:25:13.880 means. But, but so the interlocutor says, what, what is the basis of your morality? Is it just

00:25:20.820 preference? Just whatever you feel like, which is sort of what it seems like. And Sater says, no,

00:25:24.720 no, it's not that it's, and he's kind of stumbling around. He says, it's a, I want to reduce

00:25:29.860 suffering for the greatest number of people possible. Okay. Now that is a moral view.

00:25:35.200 That is the view of Peter Singer, for instance, uh, who is a professor at Princeton. And the

00:25:41.600 interlocutor rightly says, he said, okay, so you're a consequentialist in it. Your, your ethics is a

00:25:46.740 consequentialist ethics. And Sater looks really confused. He says, uh, uh, hum and a hum and a

00:25:52.020 says, you know, utilitarian, utilitarianism is a subset of consequentialist ethics. And Sater looks

00:25:58.100 and he says, uh, I'm not, I don't really, I don't, I don't think about, I'm a consequentialist

00:26:03.860 or utilitarian, but he, it wasn't like really a question to him. You, the interlocutor was helping

00:26:10.420 him. He was saying, no, you, the thing you've just described by definition is a form of utilitarian

00:26:16.980 ethics, specifically one advocated, not even just by John Stuart Mill or Jeremy Bentham, but most

00:26:22.020 recently by Peter Singer. That's your view. And so the question then becomes, okay, well, why is that

00:26:26.880 your view? You know, I guess the grounding of my ethics is that good is to be done and evil is to

00:26:32.160 be avoided. That's different than the utility, his utilitarianism, which is, uh, just minimize

00:26:37.820 suffering for the greatest number of people possible. It reveals a great distinction between

00:26:42.580 classical political philosophy and liberal political philosophy, classical political philosophy,

00:26:48.100 pursuing the greatest good, the sumum bonum, the common good, recognizing that there is such a

00:26:52.580 thing as a common good in society, liberal political philosophy, beginning with, with Thomas

00:26:56.760 Hobbes saying that basically there is no common good. We can't really understand, uh, a greatest

00:27:01.980 good. The only thing that we could even define as a common good is peace to save us from the war of

00:27:07.200 all against all in which life is nasty, brutish, and short. And so really what we're after is not

00:27:12.360 pursuing the greatest good, but avoiding the greatest evil, which is, which is death, suffering

00:27:17.980 and death. That's where, that's kind of where that comes from. So it's an interesting political

00:27:20.920 divide. And it could have been an interesting conversation, except the left, this guy showed

00:27:27.260 up. He's, he's supposed to be one of the better people on the left to articulate his views. He

00:27:31.480 doesn't even know what he believes. Also, it's not like this guy's 22 years old. I think this guy's

00:27:36.640 pushing 60. Okay. This guy's had a long time to figure out what he thinks. He doesn't even know

00:27:41.680 what he thinks. I think this is true broadly with the left and it's why our political debates are

00:27:47.780 largely fruitless. And this is backed up by social science, by the way. I think Jonathan

00:27:50.880 Haidt did a paper on this. It's not just that we're speaking past each other. It's not just that,

00:27:55.700 you know, we have an irreconcilable first principles or something like that. It's,

00:28:00.760 it's even more basic than that. The right understands the left and the left doesn't understand the right.

00:28:07.260 And so when the left, the left is simply making arguments from ignorance, the, the bases of which

00:28:14.760 they themselves don't understand. Now, speaking over confusion on what we believe, that's all.

00:28:19.720 It's a great, you got to watch the Jubilee episode. It's, it's fabulous. Speaking of confusion over

00:28:24.460 what we believe, Dylan Mulvaney, he's back. He needs, he needs a little press. He'd been out of

00:28:30.760 the news for a year or so. And so he's got a book. We covered the book on the show a week or two ago,

00:28:35.640 a little bit from the first part of it. Now he's doing the media tour. He goes on The View

00:28:39.400 and forget about Dylan Mulvaney, even forget about the transgenderism issue, which I'm sick 0.96

00:28:44.460 of talking about. Just pay attention to how Whoopi Goldberg, a chief spokesman of the American

00:28:51.700 left in pop culture, because she has the seat on The View for many years. Notice how little she 1.00

00:28:58.420 understands about the view that she is proposing. I'm not sure what's going on or why this is an issue.

00:29:07.100 The same for me as when people say, oh, you know, I don't know how I feel about you.

00:29:14.300 You do. God doesn't make mistakes. And the challenge is not to the trans people, 0.98

00:29:20.320 it's to the people who are not trans. That's what God is looking to see how you treat people. 0.95

00:29:25.700 Yeah. That's what, that's what.

00:29:29.660 The argument is transgenderism is true. Men can be women. 0.98

00:29:37.100 Men should be permitted to behave as women. Men should be permitted to undergo mutilations, 1.00

00:29:42.920 to radically change their bodies, chemical procedures, psychiatric treatment,

00:29:49.600 perhaps all the way down even to little children. They must be permitted to do that

00:29:55.400 because God doesn't make mistakes. You catch the contradiction there? Listen, Johnny, you're a boy,

00:30:08.560 you got all the boy parts and the boy DNA, and you've been Johnny your whole life. But now you say

00:30:13.840 that you're Sally. And you say you were born in the wrong body. And your true identity doesn't match

00:30:21.680 the body in which you, the true you, were born. And so you must undergo very expensive, very painful

00:30:28.580 medical experiments to change your body to better align with your perceived understanding of yourself

00:30:36.220 because God doesn't make mistakes.

00:30:38.660 God doesn't make, if you want to take the God doesn't make mistakes, obviously God in principle

00:30:46.320 doesn't make mistakes, though that doesn't really tell us about the point Whoopi's trying to make

00:30:50.320 here. But if you say God doesn't make mistakes, then you would say, yeah, transgenderism's fake. 1.00

00:30:53.940 God doesn't make mistakes. You're a boy. Now, what is needed here is really is just a more thorough

00:31:01.740 and coherent anthropology. Because God does not make mistakes. God does not do evil. And yet,

00:31:11.200 mistakes are made in the world. And evil exists in the world. So how do we account for that?

00:31:17.660 Whoopi's confusion, a lot of the left's confusion in political philosophy, by the way,

00:31:22.160 comes from their inability to understand original sin. The fact that they took original sin,

00:31:28.200 the Christian concept, Christianity, which built our civilization, and they just throw it out.

00:31:33.740 They don't like the idea of original sin. But original sin is not some prescription about people.

00:31:40.340 It's a description. It's just a fact of the world. It's a fallen world. So how do we make sense of

00:31:44.080 that? Even little babies, they don't commit any personal sin, and yet bad things happen. And they do

00:31:50.400 bad things, even though they're not totally aware of it. How do you make sense of that? Well,

00:31:53.140 there is original sin. Okay? So if you can make sense of original sin, where does original sin come

00:31:59.780 from? It's because human beings have abused their free will. So it's not God doing the evil. It's not

00:32:04.060 God making a mistake. It's man abusing his free will. And in the Christian understanding, then,

00:32:11.120 you would say, well, look, maybe God didn't make a mistake in the evil that pervades the world.

00:32:14.360 But he definitely made a mistake in creating the world, because he created a world in which

00:32:18.240 human beings would abuse their free will. And so that itself was a mistake, right? No.

00:32:23.920 Christianity accounts for this too, in the fact of the incarnation and the atonement.

00:32:29.280 That perhaps this is, in fact, the greatest possible world, because a world in which God

00:32:33.820 himself takes on flesh and dwells among us, in which God sends his only begotten son,

00:32:38.840 to be crucified for our sins and to be resurrected on the third day is an even better world than a

00:32:45.280 world in which man had not abused his free will and fallen. You might say, well, that's all crazy,

00:32:49.460 Michael. I don't believe in any of that. I'm not a Christian. I'm not saying you have to be,

00:32:52.240 though I recommend it. I think you should be. I'm just telling you, Christianity accounts for that. 1.00

00:32:57.560 Our traditional understanding of ourselves and our culture accounts for that. It makes sense of

00:33:02.260 the world. Liberalism does not. Leftism, random humanist utilitarianism, whatever the guy,

00:33:10.560 whatever Sam Sater on the Jubilee show says, it doesn't. Whoopi Goldberg's understanding of

00:33:15.480 transgenderism, it doesn't make sense of the world, even on their own terms. So you can tell me, well, 1.00

00:33:21.600 I find Christianity unsatisfying and insufficient. Okay. What's better? Give me a better alternative. 1.00

00:33:28.560 You can't. You can't. And that's where a lot of our confusion comes from. We threw out the systems

00:33:35.020 that did make sense and that allowed our civilization to flourish. And we said, we know better. We can

00:33:40.240 recreate the world out of our tiny stock of reason. But it turns out we're not that good at it. And

00:33:44.700 things begin to decay as a result of that. Now, at The Daily Wire, we bring you the facts. No filter,

00:33:50.240 no spin, no corporate leads. Join the live chat during our daily shows, 100% uncensored and ad-free

00:33:54.640 and packed with fans who actually think for themselves. Get the news the way it should be, honest,

00:33:59.100 fearless, and without an agenda, other than my own agenda, which I'm open about. Your voice matters.

00:34:04.340 Be part of it. Join now at dailywire.com slash subscribe. My favorite comment yesterday actually didn't

00:34:10.120 come from YouTube. It came in an email from a young man who hosted me one evening after I spoke

00:34:16.700 at a university and had a really enjoyable dinner after this university speech. A number of the

00:34:23.340 students and people. But anyway, he wrote this in. He said, Michael, I briefly wanted to push back on

00:34:28.280 your outlook of boozing and Zoomers. While I do partially share your sentiment, the rebellion against 1.00

00:34:34.140 the system or your parents, which Joe Rogan points to as a reason young men have flocked to

00:34:37.900 conservatism, I fear the problem is far more serious. We live in a recorded, judgmental,

00:34:43.300 digital world where a foolish night out sees young men faced with allegations that strip them

00:34:46.700 of their dignity and where men do not even wish to approach women for fear of being seen as creepy

00:34:51.180 or weird. A shocking 45% of men my age, 18 to 25, have never asked a woman out in person. That's a

00:34:59.780 crazy number. I wasn't aware of that number. Meanwhile, online alternatives mean no more drinking in

00:35:05.620 the parking lot before a movie, after the football game, or at a casual bar. Less hookups, good. Less

00:35:12.300 drinking, neutral. And less eudaimonia, less happiness, less human flourishing, bad. A great point.

00:35:21.200 A great point. Because my view was, it's hip to be square. The Zoomers aren't drinking because, 1.00

00:35:27.420 you know, they're on the straight and narrow or something. But that's a great caveat to it.

00:35:33.120 And it takes a big, handsome, wise, delightful man to admit when he's missed something. And that's

00:35:42.120 a very good addition. Getting back to some practical politics for a second, we got a fight going on,

00:35:49.000 baby. This actually does link in with everything we've been talking about today, because it gets

00:35:54.060 to ideological confusion. This time, not on the left, but on the right. House Republicans have a

00:36:00.740 continuing resolution before them. A bill that would avoid a government shutdown and fund the

00:36:05.680 government through September. President Trump supports this bill. The vast majority of Republicans

00:36:13.100 in Congress support this bill. All the Democrats oppose it. I think every single one. Maybe either

00:36:17.820 one or two straights, but I think every single one opposes it. The Republicans overwhelmingly support it.

00:36:23.840 Three Republicans are either, are no or maybe no on it. And there's, and one of those Republicans is a

00:36:31.740 hard no. Thomas Massey. What's really interesting about this is Thomas Massey is regularly considered

00:36:38.640 one of, if not the most right-wing member of Congress. But he says no. So first, what's in the bill?

00:36:46.340 The continuing resolution increases defense spending by $6 billion. It decreases non-defense

00:36:55.200 discretionary spending by $13 billion. So non-defense discretionary spending excludes things like

00:37:02.720 Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, which the libs have been fear-mongering on for decades at this

00:37:07.940 point, saying Republicans want to throw granny off a cliff and kill your Social Security.

00:37:11.400 Some Republicans have been open to it. Trump, though, consistently for his entire political career,

00:37:15.480 has said we're not going to touch entitlements. We're not touching Social Security. We're not

00:37:19.160 touching Medicare or Medicaid. Now, that's non-discretionary spending. That's money that

00:37:22.300 just has to be spent. So the $13 billion that's being decreased is out of money that is not spent

00:37:29.340 on defense, and it's not mandatory spending. There is not a single earmark in this bill.

00:37:36.600 Pork barrel spending, community projects, which is how members assent to give their vote to a lot of

00:37:43.120 bills is they'll say, well, look, I'll give you my vote, but you got to build a $10 million bridge

00:37:46.620 in my district. It doesn't even need to go anywhere. It could be a bridge to nowhere, but you got to

00:37:49.500 build it. And so there's a lot of federal spending there. As a portion of the federal budget, it's not a

00:37:53.880 huge deal. John McCain made it a big deal during the 2008 presidential campaign because he was a

00:37:59.940 Republican who supported bigger spending projects, not just on defense, but also on

00:38:05.000 entitlements. So the way that he could seem like he was tough on spending was to go after earmarks,

00:38:09.840 which were a relatively small portion of federal spending. But in any case, this bill doesn't have

00:38:13.580 that either. Immigration Customs Enforcement spending is slightly up to $10 million here.

00:38:19.320 So my read on it is, as far as continuing resolutions go, it's pretty good. It freezes

00:38:26.200 spending at 2024 levels, so the spending is at least not going to increase. And it reduces spending in

00:38:32.160 certain areas, which is good. And then Trump and Elon are reducing spending in the executive branch

00:38:36.860 through their own power, not through the legislature. So all in all, it's pretty good.

00:38:40.700 If I were a member of Congress, I would vote for this. However, I understand why some members might

00:38:47.020 say, well, it's still a lot of money. And so you got Tim Burchett and Corey Mills, two Republicans

00:38:51.160 are saying, I don't know, I'm on the fence. But the one who says, no, I'm a no, is Thomas Massey,

00:38:56.180 who is a huge fiscal hawk. He's kind of like Rand Paul in that way. Rand Paul in the Senate votes

00:39:02.600 against a ton of stuff, just kind of reflexively. Both of these guys are from Kentucky,

00:39:06.180 must be something in the water. But in any case, it's a principled stand. I don't know that I agree

00:39:09.680 with it, but it's a principled stand. And Trump is furious. Trump is now threatening to primary

00:39:14.000 Thomas Massey. He says, thank you to the House Freedom Caucus for just delivering a big blow to

00:39:19.900 the radical left Democrats and their desire to raise taxes and shut our country down. Because the

00:39:23.540 House Freedom Caucus, which is usually the impediment, they usually obstruct these kinds of bills.

00:39:27.900 They've agreed, okay, we're going to support it. The Democrats hate America and all it stands for.

00:39:32.980 True. That's why they allowed millions of criminals to invade our nation. Sometimes it

00:39:36.500 takes great courage to do the right thing. Congressman Thomas Massey of beautiful Kentucky

00:39:39.700 is an automatic no vote on just about everything. That's kind of true. Despite the fact that he's

00:39:45.380 always voted for continuing resolutions in the past, he should be primaried, all caps,

00:39:49.560 and I will lead the charge against him. He's just another grandstander who's too much trouble

00:39:53.740 and not worth the fight. He reminds me of Liz Cheney before her historic record-breaking fall,

00:39:58.580 parentheses, loss. I like how he has to give you a synonym. He does to define what her fall was.

00:40:05.340 It's a loss. She lost. The people of Kentucky won't stand for it. Just watch. Do I have any

00:40:09.580 takers? All caps, three question marks. Anyway, thank you again to the House Freedom Caucus for

00:40:14.260 your very important vote. We need to buy some time in order to make America great again,

00:40:18.060 greater than ever before. Unite and win. Okay, this is notable, not because Trump is threatening to

00:40:23.840 primary or Republican. That's happened before. He's threatening to primary one of the most right

00:40:30.880 wing Republicans. How is the Republican base going to take this? Say what you will. Thomas

00:40:37.840 Massey is no Liz Cheney. He's got some real right wing bona fides. Will the GOP base take this? This

00:40:44.820 will be a test of how much Trump dominates the GOP. I suspect in a fight between Trump and Massey,

00:40:55.940 even though Massey's a real tough guy, I think Trump's going to win. I think he just dominates

00:40:59.480 the GOP that much. But there's a real question. What do we believe? What do we want? What are we

00:41:09.300 fighting for? Whose side are we on? What defines conservatism? What defines our politics? The Trump

00:41:16.120 election, certainly the Trump re-election, signals a seismic shift, a tectonic plate shift in our

00:41:24.980 politics. The shift from Reagan to Bush to Clinton to Obama, sorry, to Clinton to Bush to Obama, it

00:41:31.260 wasn't all that big. They all kind of basically agreed the same stuff. The shift to Trump was a big

00:41:38.380 shift. Okay. The shift from Eisenhower and Nixon to JFK and LBJ, and then certainly into the LBJ

00:41:47.040 administration, that was a big shift. The shift into FDR's administration, certainly the shift into

00:41:52.320 Woodrow Wilson's, that was another big shift. It wasn't just moving deck chairs around. That was

00:41:59.120 an actual change. We're seeing a change here. And so the question is, what will define the right at

00:42:05.000 American politics moving forward? This battle between Trump and Massey is a pretty good example

00:42:09.460 of that. Okay. There's a story I really want to get to. I don't know if I have time though.

00:42:15.820 Well, I'll get to it. I'll get to it really quickly. The Financial Times has a woman's guide 1.00

00:42:21.320 to wearing ties. Woman's guide to wearing ties. FT, women should wear ties. The latest female power 1.00

00:42:27.000 dressing flex is women wearing long neckties. I can get to this story very quickly because my advice

00:42:33.760 is very simple. Don't do it. It makes you look like a lesbian. Neckties are good. Men should wear 1.00

00:42:39.140 more neckties than they do. I'm guilty of this. I don't wear a necktie on this show. I probably

00:42:43.100 should. Neckties look good. It completes an outfit for a man, but it's for a man, not for a woman. 0.99

00:42:47.880 The FT is admitting this when they say it's a power dressing flex. And power is traditionally

00:42:53.500 understood as more a male virtue than a female virtue. Women have plenty of power in their own 1.00

00:42:58.380 right, but it's a little bit different. When the women try to be the girl boss in the boardroom, 1.00

00:43:04.120 that is women consciously taking on virtues that are traditionally ascribed to men, not to women.

00:43:11.860 Neckties for women are nothing new. They have popped up for over a hundred years, but it's always 1.00

00:43:17.900 by women who are trying to be more like men and who are probably disproportionately lesbian if we're

00:43:24.340 being totally frank about it. Okay. It's the suffragettes, for instance, wore neckties. Feminists 1.00

00:43:29.180 of 150 years have worn neckties. Ladies, don't do it. You have real power in your own nature. 1.00

00:43:37.120 You don't need to. I'm not saying you can't go work in public. I'm not saying you can't do this.

00:43:41.660 I'm not saying you can't do plenty of things that men do that you want to do. But trying to be a man

00:43:48.020 is not expanding your power. It is limiting your power by saying that the only kinds of virtues

00:43:54.360 that are to be pursued, that have any value, are the virtues that naturally attain to men.

00:44:02.700 Okay. No. You're a woman. I can't be a woman. Men are dressing like women. Women are dressing 1.00

00:44:10.120 like men. It's very confused. Ideologically very confused. Anthropologically very confused.

00:44:14.940 It's Tee Hee Hee Tuesday. The rest of the show continues. Now, you do not want to miss it.

00:44:18.220 Become a member. Use code Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 11, 2025

Ep. 1690 - Trump Deports Pro-Palestine Columbia Student

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