The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1697 - The JFK Files Exposed (For Real This Time!)

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00:00:37.700 Some people were very upset with me yesterday for titling the show Breaking Massive JFK File Drop Explained

00:00:46.440 and then not talking at all about the 63,000 JFK assassination files that the government released.

00:00:53.820 I want to be very clear.

00:00:54.620 I make no apology.

00:00:57.480 There was no false advertising.

00:00:59.900 I made good on my promise because my show yesterday revealed precisely as much new information about the JFK assassination as is contained in those files.

00:01:11.280 I want to see if I have this straight.

00:01:14.000 Maybe I'm a little thick.

00:01:15.520 Maybe I'm missing something.

00:01:16.400 People believe that President Kennedy was murdered by the CIA, the mob, the Soviets, the Israelis, the Cubans, the Fed, the Deep State, LBJ, George Bush, or some combination of those players.

00:01:31.600 They believe that our government is so evil that it covered up the murder of a president for 60 years and then violated a federal law mandating the release specifically of those documents for 33 years.

00:01:45.620 But now they believe the government is just going to tell us.

00:01:51.180 Is that, that's the theory?

00:01:55.320 Okay, cool.

00:01:56.480 Great.

00:01:56.960 Sounds good.

00:01:57.760 Let me know.

00:01:58.820 Just let me know.

00:01:59.560 I haven't read through them all.

00:02:00.700 You tell me what you find in those 60,000 pages.

00:02:05.240 I can't wait to hear about the smoking gun, which I'm sure we're going to hear about any day now, probably right after we learn the real story about Jeffrey Epstein.

00:02:14.340 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:02:15.140 This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:02:16.020 Welcome back to the show.

00:02:37.240 Will the vast majority of Americans have their federal income tax just completely eliminated?

00:02:43.620 That is what the Trump administration is suggesting.

00:02:47.600 That really, that makes me even more patriotic than I already was.

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00:03:18.900 The JFK files thing reveals a degree of political innocence and naivete that I actually find charming.

00:03:29.380 I want to be very clear.

00:03:30.800 The thing that I'm laughing about is not the notion that JFK was not killed by a lone gunman who had no connections to anyone.

00:03:39.500 I'm not laughing at the suggestion that some other groups or individuals were involved in the murder of JFK.

00:03:46.000 It is totally plausible to me that JFK was actually murdered by the Italian-Jewish-Cuban mobsters who worked for George Bush and Lyndon Johnson.

00:04:01.100 I'm not even really joking.

00:04:02.700 I'm joking about 20%.

00:04:03.700 I don't know.

00:04:04.180 There could be some conspiracy.

00:04:05.700 An American president was murdered.

00:04:07.520 The thing that I'm laughing at is that the people who think that believe that the government's just going to tell us.

00:04:17.080 If that happened, if it were some combination or just even the individual conspiracy plot by the CIA or the Soviets or the Israelis or the Cubans or the LBJ or the George Bush or whatever, you will never find out about that.

00:04:39.100 The document would not exist anymore.

00:04:43.100 It's just amazing.

00:04:44.200 On the one hand, it reflects this very jaded view of the government.

00:04:48.900 It's like a guy with a cigarette.

00:04:51.020 You think you know the government.

00:04:52.860 I know the government.

00:04:53.720 I've been looking into these files for years.

00:04:55.700 Oh, the kind of corruption.

00:04:57.500 Yeah.

00:04:58.380 Oh, it's so bad.

00:04:59.980 This government, you can't trust a thing they do.

00:05:03.080 Now I can't wait to read the 80,000 pages they just gave me.

00:05:06.520 That'll probably tell me the truth.

00:05:07.700 That won't just be a huge waste of time.

00:05:10.700 Oh, my goodness gracious.

00:05:12.800 It's like whiplash.

00:05:14.540 So anyway, I'm not going to look at all in the JFK files.

00:05:17.420 Please be my guest.

00:05:18.420 Read through all of them.

00:05:19.920 Let me know if you find anything juicy.

00:05:22.060 I don't think you will.

00:05:24.800 If I were a gambling man.

00:05:27.020 Okay.

00:05:27.400 Now, turning away from Kennedy, but still speaking of Harvard men.

00:05:32.500 This article is like an Onion headline or a Babylon Bee headline.

00:05:38.100 Harvard University is launching a remedial math course because Harvard students, Harvard is supposed to be the best, at least one of the best schools in the country.

00:05:49.900 Harvard students can't do basic math anymore.

00:05:53.100 So, this is from the Harvard Crimson.

00:05:55.680 I'm not even reading it from some outside group.

00:05:57.940 Harvard is essentially putting this press release out themselves.

00:06:01.820 Harvard launches new intro math course to address pandemic learning loss.

00:06:07.940 Hold on.

00:06:09.420 To address pandemic learning loss, the Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among Harvard students, according to Harvard's Director of Introductory Math, Brendan A. Kelly.

00:06:25.620 The course, Math MA 5, will run along other math courses with an expanded five-day schedule.

00:06:33.780 They need five days a week to teach the Harvard students remedial math.

00:06:37.320 But they say it's totally understandable because of pandemic learning loss.

00:06:44.220 Hold on, hold on.

00:06:45.180 I understand the COVID lockdowns did interrupt learning at schools all around the country.

00:06:51.980 That should not have affected Harvard students.

00:06:58.940 To get into Harvard, even today, at least until recently, was still really, really hard.

00:07:06.820 To get into those top schools, I'm not saying to graduate, to graduate Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, all those schools, is actually relatively easy.

00:07:16.840 The great inflation is rampant.

00:07:18.160 But to get in is still very, very hard.

00:07:20.360 Missing a few math courses should not affect your ability to do the work at Harvard.

00:07:29.540 I don't believe that COVID is responsible for the remedial math class at Harvard.

00:07:34.960 These kids should have figured out foundational algebra in sixth, seventh grade.

00:07:42.080 It wouldn't have mattered if they missed a few years in high school.

00:07:45.960 I don't think COVID is responsible.

00:07:47.720 You know what else happened in 2020 at Harvard?

00:07:53.040 It wasn't just that COVID messed up the schedule.

00:07:55.640 You know what else happened in 2020?

00:07:57.600 Harvard removed the requirement that students take the SAT and ACT to get in.

00:08:02.680 Harvard removed standardized testing to let its students in.

00:08:05.860 This is also around the time that Harvard was fighting tooth and nail to keep its affirmative action racial discrimination policies in place.

00:08:11.680 If I were a gambling man, I suspect that has a lot more to do with Harvard students not being able to do basic math than COVID.

00:08:22.180 Now, 2020, Harvard says we're going to get rid of the SAT, the ACT.

00:08:29.460 They've announced last year they're going to bring the SAT and the ACT back.

00:08:33.000 Why?

00:08:33.660 Because the students are not of the same intellectual caliber that they used to be.

00:08:38.440 Because it turns out standardized tests aren't everything, but they do reflect some realities of competence and intelligence.

00:08:47.360 They just do, and Harvard doesn't like that, and Harvard has this vision, this social justice, leftist, DEI vision that it's going to create a class that focuses more on racial identity or sexual identity or blah, blah, blah over raw intelligence, ability to learn, academic skills.

00:09:08.380 And this is the consequence of that.

00:09:12.000 Harvard can do that.

00:09:12.840 Harvard is well within its rights to say, we were once among the preeminent universities in America.

00:09:18.380 We are the oldest university in America.

00:09:20.840 We were the most prestigious.

00:09:22.680 We now, we were that thing because of our extreme academic rigor.

00:09:28.040 We now want to confer that prestige on people based on criteria other than academic rigor.

00:09:33.640 We want to confer it to people based on their race or based on their sexual desires or based on their social justice, leftist activism in their extracurriculars in high school, whatever.

00:09:46.560 They can do that, but they cannot then expect the students to be able to keep up with the old academic standards.

00:09:54.140 The inevitable result of that kind of social engineering is to lower academic standards to the point that you now have remedial math at Harvard.

00:10:06.860 Absolutely hilarious.

00:10:08.960 Speaking of all of those sexual minorities and all of these kind of DEI initiatives, Cynthia Nixon is an actress.

00:10:20.920 I think she ran for governor of New York too.

00:10:22.280 Cynthia Nixon's an actress and she has just come out at some rally and made the claim that not only is her child trans, the child she has with her quote unquote wife, but her nieces or nephews are trans.

00:10:40.800 And actually her children's friends are trans.

00:10:45.520 And well, she can explain the pattern.

00:10:47.380 I am here today as the mother of a proud trans man.

00:10:58.140 I am here today as the aunt of a proud trans man.

00:11:05.120 My best friend's kid is trans.

00:11:08.860 And my kid's best friend is trans.

00:11:12.220 My wife and I, our lives are filled with the most amazing, beautiful, brave trans people, young and old, but especially young.

00:11:26.500 And the idea that this city is filled with young people who thought they had a place to go where they could receive the highest care and that place has now been shut to them sickens me, sickens me to my core.

00:11:44.240 It sickens her that now that the people have elected politicians who don't want to trans the kids because don't you know, every kid she knows is trans.

00:11:58.940 Her kid is trans, her kid is trans, her kid's friends are trans, her family members, her kids are trans, all the kids are trans.

00:12:10.180 What a coincidence, huh?

00:12:12.240 What are the odds?

00:12:13.440 What's in the water at the Nixon household?

00:12:15.200 I did the math and I'm being very conservative with my numbers here because she says, you know, my children or my nieces or my friends or so.

00:12:26.960 I don't, I don't, she could be talking about 10 kids.

00:12:28.760 She could be, but let's just say it's four.

00:12:30.600 Let's just say it's one kid for her, two kids for her sister or her friend or whatever, and one friend of the kids.

00:12:40.120 Let's just, let's just leave it at that.

00:12:43.060 It seems that she's implying it's more kids, but let's be really conservative and let's also be really generous and say 1% of the population is trans or identifies as trans because trans isn't real. 0.60

00:12:55.180 That means that there is a one in 100 million chance of Cynthia Nixon knowing all these so-called trans kids. 1.00

00:13:05.660 The odds are one in 100 million.

00:13:10.120 But actually the odds are a lot better than that.

00:13:12.860 If trans identity is not a real natural thing, but is rather a social contagion and an ideology into which kids have been indoctrinated in recent years by people like Cynthia Nixon.

00:13:26.760 What do you think?

00:13:27.800 What do you think?

00:13:28.220 Is it just the craziest coincidence ever that upends our understanding of human nature?

00:13:33.640 Or is this a social contagion and child abuse?

00:13:37.000 I know what most Americans think because I know what the election results were in November.

00:13:40.900 There's so much more to say.

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00:15:01.340 Yesterday was the Feast of St. Joseph.

00:15:04.800 Today, we're back in our Lenten penances.

00:15:08.240 This is the second full week of Lent.

00:15:11.100 I hope your Lent is going very well.

00:15:13.020 Make sure you get your home to smell like a 12th century monastery.

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00:15:18.800 That's how you do it.

00:15:21.160 Speaking of young people and leftism, the CEO of Ben and Jerry's has been fired.

00:15:26.700 And this is great, great news.

00:15:29.960 Because the CEO of Ben and Jerry's was fired for pushing radical leftist activism.

00:15:36.240 Specifically, I suspect.

00:15:37.580 Because less than two weeks ago, Ben and Jerry's posted to social media about its great love of and defense of and care for abortionists.

00:15:54.140 Today, they wrote, today is National Abortion Provider Appreciation Day.

00:15:58.020 We stand with abortion providers today and every day.

00:16:01.960 Learn more and take action now.

00:16:04.160 And this was extreme even for the left.

00:16:06.380 We know the left loves abortion. 0.69

00:16:07.920 But usually, they use euphemisms.

00:16:09.960 Let's say women's rights or women's health care or whatever. 1.00

00:16:13.320 Privacy.

00:16:15.140 Autonomy.

00:16:15.840 Bodily autonomy.

00:16:16.860 But no.

00:16:17.460 Then sometimes they'll say, we support women and mothers.

00:16:21.420 No.

00:16:22.940 Happy Abortionist Day. 1.00

00:16:24.520 We love abortionists. 0.98

00:16:26.220 Get those forceps out and thank your local mass murderer. 0.99

00:16:31.160 Crazy stuff. 0.99

00:16:32.500 That is psycho stuff.

00:16:33.660 Even for left-wing activists.

00:16:35.620 So, it was too much for the parent company of Ben and Jerry's.

00:16:39.540 Because Ben and Jerry's sold it out years ago to Unilever.

00:16:42.880 Unilever removed the Ben and Jerry's CEO.

00:16:46.860 But Ben and Jerry's is fighting back.

00:16:50.340 Ben and Jerry's is suing the parent company over breach of contract.

00:16:55.000 Because the contract that they signed apparently says that Unilever cannot unilaterally remove the CEO.

00:17:01.700 That's exactly what happened.

00:17:04.880 So, on the one hand, I want to congratulate all of you.

00:17:09.360 I said on the show when that abortion tweet came out, I said, look, I almost never call for a boycott.

00:17:13.880 Because I don't think that boycotts are particularly effective.

00:17:17.800 And you got to make sure that you're focused.

00:17:20.080 You focus your resources on the ones that you can really win.

00:17:22.760 I said, in this case, no person of good conscience can ever eat Ben and Jerry's again.

00:17:28.460 I call for a full boycott on Ben and Jerry's.

00:17:32.480 And other conservatives echoed the call.

00:17:35.500 And it did have a political effect, obviously.

00:17:38.360 Because the parent company said, all right, we don't want to deal with this.

00:17:40.820 This was obviously about the abortionist tweet.

00:17:42.800 We're going to get rid of the CEO.

00:17:44.460 So then you ask yourself, okay, does that mean we can eat Ben and Jerry's again?

00:17:47.940 My answer is no.

00:17:49.080 Because we know that Ben and Jerry's, the company, underneath this major corporate structure, Ben and Jerry's isn't sorry at all.

00:17:59.140 Ben and Jerry's is actually suing the parent company because they want to be able to promote abortionists today and every day.

00:18:05.740 So they haven't learned their lesson at all.

00:18:07.400 I don't see why I would give one red cent to Ben and Jerry's.

00:18:11.560 You might say, well, Ben and Jerry's doesn't own Ben and Jerry's.

00:18:15.040 And if Unilever gets the message, shouldn't we support them?

00:18:17.260 Okay, maybe.

00:18:18.800 Maybe.

00:18:19.160 Here's what I want.

00:18:21.920 I want an explicit apology.

00:18:24.520 Forget about Ben and Jerry's. 1.00

00:18:25.540 Those guys are losers and they're completely useless. 1.00

00:18:27.960 They're not going to give you anything that you want. 0.99

00:18:30.560 But I want a full, explicit apology written down by the parent company, Unilever, right now.

00:18:38.760 If we get a direct, specific apology, we are sorry, we should not have promoted abortionists, then maybe we loosen up and we eat Ben and Jerry's again. 0.57

00:18:53.460 If we don't get that, I see no reason ever to eat their slop garbage again. 0.83

00:18:56.920 Now, speaking of business and commerce, the Commerce Secretary for President Trump, Howard Lutnick, has some very good news for the majority of Americans. 0.71

00:19:10.120 Not for every single American, but for the vast majority of Americans.

00:19:13.560 For all Americans who earn less than $150,000 per year, the Trump administration wants you to know your federal tax rate might go down to zero.

00:19:26.920 So, we are the buyer of everybody's commodities, products, goods and services.

00:19:34.580 Everything comes from us, right?

00:19:37.160 Let them pay a membership fee.

00:19:41.420 We all understand that model.

00:19:43.560 Let them pay.

00:19:44.800 How about we, you and I, and every single person we know pay less?

00:19:49.400 How about no tax on tips?

00:19:50.780 How about no tax on overtime?

00:19:52.220 How about no Social Security?

00:19:53.760 How about all those things?

00:19:55.040 Because these are the kind of thoughts that will change America.

00:19:59.260 I know what his goal is.

00:20:01.000 No tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year.

00:20:05.420 That's his goal.

00:20:06.820 And that's what I'm working for.

00:20:08.960 Huge.

00:20:09.940 Absolutely huge.

00:20:10.960 So, Lutnick here, he's defending the tariffs.

00:20:13.880 And he says, look, we consume everybody's products.

00:20:19.080 Everybody wants to be in the American market.

00:20:20.680 So, let them pay.

00:20:23.460 Because when we want to go into their markets, they make us pay.

00:20:27.840 They slap huge tariffs on our products, on our agriculture, on our automobiles.

00:20:34.640 These are allies of ours.

00:20:36.420 These are our supposed friends.

00:20:37.620 100% tariffs on our automobiles.

00:20:40.120 To protect their own national industry.

00:20:42.300 So, okay, they're going to make us pay?

00:20:43.540 Then we make them pay.

00:20:45.560 That's the art of the deal.

00:20:47.640 Reciprocal tariffs.

00:20:49.180 Let's try it.

00:20:49.700 Maybe we'll just reduce the tariffs for both of us kind of approach.

00:20:53.640 But I think what Lutnick is signaling here is something I've suspected for a long time.

00:20:59.240 Which is that Trump does not merely support the tariffs in order to get better trade deals.

00:21:06.740 I don't think Trump's support of tariffs is merely instrumental or a bluff or a threat.

00:21:12.700 I think Trump believes in tariffs.

00:21:15.520 Because if you are going to eliminate the federal income tax for people who make less than $150,000 a year,

00:21:22.640 that means that you're eliminating the federal income tax for the majority of Americans.

00:21:26.880 But what is the median income in America?

00:21:28.280 $80,000?

00:21:29.240 Something like that?

00:21:31.000 So you're talking about the clear majority of Americans make less than $150,000 per year.

00:21:35.460 How are you going to make up that money?

00:21:36.780 We already run massive budget deficits.

00:21:38.520 We already have a $34 trillion debt.

00:21:39.980 How are you going to make up that money?

00:21:40.960 The only way to make up that money is with tariffs.

00:21:43.940 Which means that Trump is leaning on the tariffs not merely as a negotiating tool, but as a revenue raiser.

00:21:49.940 Which means that when he talks about the McKinley golden age and how he's going to use tariffs,

00:21:54.000 when he invokes presidents like Abraham Lincoln,

00:21:56.780 Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, the man who said, give me a tariff, I'll give you the greatest nation on earth.

00:22:02.080 He means it.

00:22:03.060 It's not just a bluff.

00:22:05.780 It's not just a little showbiz.

00:22:07.940 Razzle dazzle.

00:22:09.340 Trump is shifting the economic conversation.

00:22:13.340 He's returning the economic platform of the GOP to what it traditionally had been before the middle of the 20th century.

00:22:19.780 Trump is leaving a legacy.

00:22:24.080 No federal income tax for people making $150,000 per year.

00:22:30.540 That's quite a legacy.

00:22:31.940 Especially if you live in a good state like mine, Tennessee, which doesn't have a state income tax either.

00:22:36.460 Man, that'd be a lot of extra money.

00:22:38.020 A lot of extra scratch line around.

00:22:39.520 50 grand, 60 grand more.

00:22:40.720 Pretty good.

00:22:41.680 I take it.

00:22:42.680 There's so much more to say.

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00:23:59.900 Now, speaking of taxes, Chuck Schumer does not like the idea of Americans paying less in taxes.

00:24:06.440 Chuck Schumer does not like the idea of Americans even wanting to pay less in taxes.

00:24:12.520 Schumer is invading against the Americans who don't want to pay their fair share to the federal government.

00:24:20.220 You know what their attitude is?

00:24:22.000 I made my money all by myself.

00:24:24.420 How dare your government take my money from me?

00:24:26.880 I don't want to pay taxes.

00:24:28.220 Or I built my company with my bare hands.

00:24:30.800 How dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, the land and water that I own, or my employees?

00:24:39.640 They hate government.

00:24:41.380 Government's a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things.

00:24:45.660 They want to destroy it.

00:24:46.960 We are not letting them do it, and we're united.

00:24:49.520 Okay.

00:24:49.820 Good.

00:24:50.000 Chuck Schumer is showing his age here.

00:24:53.100 This is a totally outdated attack.

00:24:55.660 This is the sort of attack, this is the exact same attack that Schumer would have made during the Tea Party,

00:25:01.660 or during the 2000s, during the Bush era, or during the 90s, or during the 80s.

00:25:05.760 These Republicans, they're just fiscal libertarian zealots who hate the government and want to eliminate it.

00:25:16.480 That was true.

00:25:17.640 That was a good attack from the 1980s up through the Tea Party era.

00:25:22.980 That's not really a precise attack in the Trump era, 2016 onward, in the populist era.

00:25:29.700 Because the Republican Party is no longer, I don't know that it ever really was, it certainly shouldn't have been, the party of small government.

00:25:37.680 There's no such thing as a small government in a country of over 300 million people.

00:25:40.680 There is a party of limited government, and there is a good argument for limitations on the government.

00:25:45.920 But Trump wields the government.

00:25:49.400 He wants a robust government.

00:25:51.540 He wants a government that levies tariffs.

00:25:54.020 He wants a government that is muscular, that deports people, that enforces social policy and norms and standards, that annexes Greenland, that invades Canada, apparently.

00:26:07.260 He, this is not your father's Republican Party.

00:26:11.480 It's your great, it's your great, great grandfather's Republican Party.

00:26:14.660 It's your great grandfather's Republican Party.

00:26:16.180 But it's not your dad's Republican Party.

00:26:17.580 There has been a change, as we've been observing.

00:26:20.100 And Chuck Schumer hasn't kept up.

00:26:22.060 But the problem that the new right-wing coalition has with taxes is not the same problem that maybe our parents had.

00:26:34.280 The previous generation Republican Party didn't like paying taxes, in part for the reasons Chuck Schumer was saying.

00:26:40.920 Because they believed that they had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

00:26:45.480 Because they believed that it was their money and the government didn't have a right to it.

00:26:48.360 Because they believed at the extremes that taxation is theft.

00:26:50.760 Because they were very much taken with this late 20th century libertarian ideology.

00:26:57.480 Not so anymore.

00:26:59.300 We still oppose high taxes.

00:27:01.520 But the reason, I'll always speak for myself.

00:27:03.480 The reason I oppose high taxes is not because I don't think the government has any right to tax.

00:27:10.100 I think the government does have a right to tax.

00:27:11.460 I don't believe that taxation is theft.

00:27:13.320 I do believe the state is important.

00:27:14.980 I don't believe in radical individualism.

00:27:16.720 I think man is a social creature.

00:27:18.240 I actually do like roads and bridges, which was always a Democrat attack against Republicans.

00:27:22.220 That we refuse to acknowledge who built the roads, who built the bridges.

00:27:25.460 I don't think that the government is intrinsically evil.

00:27:27.500 I'm not an anarchist.

00:27:29.200 I'm not any of those things.

00:27:30.600 The reason that I oppose high taxes is not because of the procedure of collecting taxes.

00:27:37.200 It's because of the substance of what the government is spending those taxes on.

00:27:41.120 That's my problem with it.

00:27:43.860 It's just the latest iteration of maybe the defining political shift of the last 10 years.

00:27:52.480 Which is a turn away in focus from procedural norms towards substantive goods.

00:27:59.760 To think about it in the free speech issue.

00:28:02.080 A turn away from just debating speech in the abstract.

00:28:05.400 And a turn toward debating which kind of standards and norms we're going to live by.

00:28:09.540 Because standards are inevitable.

00:28:11.680 A turn away from the government just only doing bad things.

00:28:17.080 A turn toward the kinds of good things the government can do.

00:28:20.500 And the bad things that the government should not do any longer.

00:28:23.540 So when we're talking about taxes.

00:28:24.980 It's not just oh the government has no right to my money.

00:28:27.720 It's no no.

00:28:28.280 The government has no right.

00:28:30.380 Or the government rather is not right. 0.64

00:28:33.200 To spend my money on lesbian ballet performances in Thailand. 0.64

00:28:37.760 The government is not right to spend my money.

00:28:41.660 Prosecuting pro-life fathers for praying outside of abortion clinics.

00:28:44.980 The government is not right to use my money to spy on Catholic churches.

00:28:48.300 Because they call them traditionalist radical extremists.

00:28:50.800 The government is not right to put my money behind lambasting and ostracizing Americans.

00:29:00.820 Ordinary parents who just want a little control over their kids curricula.

00:29:05.020 And comparing them to terrorists.

00:29:06.800 That's the problem.

00:29:08.740 It's not that the government doesn't have the right to be a government.

00:29:11.000 We like governments.

00:29:11.820 You know our founding fathers created a government for us.

00:29:13.820 Because the civil authority is there for our own good.

00:29:17.960 The shift away from fashionable late 20th century libertarian ideology.

00:29:24.820 Toward a more classical and indeed a more Christian conception of government.

00:29:31.300 Means that we recognize that the civil authority is there for our own good.

00:29:35.520 And it does not bear the sword in vain.

00:29:37.360 And there is such a thing as a common good.

00:29:39.240 And the common good is good.

00:29:40.920 And the states need a common good.

00:29:42.580 But it needs to be a common good not a common bad.

00:29:45.280 Okay.

00:29:45.780 That's the deal Schumer.

00:29:47.100 And so I think some of the boomer lib establishment politicians.

00:29:52.940 They just haven't caught up with that.

00:29:54.340 But there has been a tectonic shift.

00:29:56.280 Not even just in electoral coalitions.

00:29:58.380 But in the very way that we think about politics.

00:30:02.680 Now speaking of that tectonic shift.

00:30:05.820 Speaking of people not keeping up with the times.

00:30:07.680 The liberals themselves are recognizing that there is a major problem.

00:30:14.700 With how their party is handling the Trump administration.

00:30:19.460 Charlemagne from the Breakfast Club.

00:30:21.380 This liberal show to a predominantly black audience.

00:30:24.760 Has just bucked his party's leadership.

00:30:27.980 Has just bucked the talking points of the Democrats.

00:30:30.540 By asking.

00:30:31.680 Hold on a second. 0.93

00:30:32.240 Why are Democrats standing up for face tattooed Satan worshipping foreign illegal alien gangsters? 0.67

00:30:42.560 I want to know more when it comes to the deportations.

00:30:46.240 Because deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.

00:30:49.160 I understand that.

00:30:50.000 It shouldn't be a problem.

00:30:50.700 It shouldn't be an issue.

00:30:51.520 So why are folks fighting about gang members being sent away?

00:30:54.320 Like there are some other deportation cases.

00:30:56.140 I'm sure they could be fighting about.

00:30:57.160 Like folks who've been in this country for a long time. 1.00

00:30:59.260 Not committing no crimes.

00:31:00.180 Paying taxes.

00:31:00.940 But have gotten caught up in the process.

00:31:03.580 Those are folks they should be fighting for.

00:31:05.120 Why are they raising hell about a gang being deported?

00:31:07.060 Um so the main thing is proof.

00:31:09.740 And making sure that the U.S. is getting it right.

00:31:11.560 When it comes to deporting criminals.

00:31:13.440 You know and making sure that they get their due process.

00:31:15.580 That you're actually deporting people who are committing crimes.

00:31:17.660 As opposed to just running down on anybody.

00:31:19.920 Just because they might be a migrant.

00:31:22.200 People want them to have due process.

00:31:23.420 But I'm with you.

00:31:23.900 If they're a gang member and they have warrants.

00:31:25.840 And nah just like who are we fighting for?

00:31:28.280 Are we fighting for good people?

00:31:29.380 Are we fighting for people that's been paying their taxes?

00:31:30.980 Are we fighting for people that's been here trying to stay here?

00:31:34.420 He's totally right.

00:31:35.420 Right and even the woman who's responding.

00:31:38.280 She's admitting that he's totally right.

00:31:39.780 Yeah no I mean the best defense she can have is. 1.00

00:31:42.200 Yeah I mean we just got to make sure they're getting it right.

00:31:43.860 Yeah okay but hold on.

00:31:46.860 Are we really confused about.

00:31:50.800 Deporting illegal alien gangsters.

00:31:53.840 Cartel members.

00:31:54.980 Are that.

00:31:55.980 Is that really controversial?

00:31:58.880 And no of course it's not.

00:32:01.860 Most Americans voted in November.

00:32:03.840 For mass deportations.

00:32:06.920 Of.

00:32:08.200 Of like everybody.

00:32:09.600 Not just the face tattooed criminals.

00:32:11.800 So.

00:32:12.400 What Trump has done masterfully is.

00:32:14.920 He's begun the deportations.

00:32:16.780 Only focusing on the very worst.

00:32:19.400 And most obviously. 0.99

00:32:20.940 Wicked criminals. 0.99

00:32:24.260 Hardcore. 1.00

00:32:24.920 Dirty.

00:32:25.560 Rotten. 1.00

00:32:26.040 Down low. 1.00

00:32:26.700 Rapist. 1.00

00:32:27.220 Murderer. 1.00

00:32:27.960 Criminals. 0.99

00:32:28.660 With face tattoos.

00:32:30.020 A visual clue.

00:32:31.240 That this person might have some problems.

00:32:33.780 And.

00:32:34.220 Because the Democrats.

00:32:35.440 Reflexively oppose anything that Trump does.

00:32:37.800 The Democrats have taken.

00:32:39.220 The side.

00:32:39.780 Of the aforementioned. 0.97

00:32:40.820 Satan worshiping face tattooed criminals. 0.93

00:32:43.100 So Trump takes.

00:32:44.200 This is not an 80-20 issue.

00:32:45.920 This is an 80% support.

00:32:47.480 20% oppose.

00:32:48.400 This is a 98-2 issue.

00:32:50.740 This is a 99-1 issue.

00:32:53.280 If that.

00:32:55.120 In fact.

00:32:55.640 Charlemagne.

00:32:56.540 A huge lib.

00:32:57.460 A major voice on the left.

00:32:58.520 Says hold on. 1.00

00:32:58.860 Does anybody disagree with deporting the Satan worshiping criminals?

00:33:05.240 And the answer is yes.

00:33:08.100 The elite tier of the Democrat Party.

00:33:11.440 The people leading that party right now.

00:33:12.980 The people leading that party.

00:33:14.660 Even in the conception of the party base.

00:33:17.340 Straight off a cliff.

00:33:20.420 You know.

00:33:20.680 Right now.

00:33:21.940 Ben Shapiro is breaking down one of the most controversial cases in modern history.

00:33:25.000 The case for Derek Chauvin.

00:33:26.520 An exclusive five-part series on The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:33:28.960 Episode two drops today.

00:33:30.020 You do not want to miss it.

00:33:30.920 In today's episode.

00:33:32.040 Ben walks you step-by-step through what really happened when George Floyd tried to pass counterfeit

00:33:36.820 money in Minneapolis.

00:33:37.940 The struggle.

00:33:38.760 The police encounter.

00:33:39.700 And the events leading to his death.

00:33:41.420 This is not slanted.

00:33:42.520 This is not some woke tale.

00:33:45.660 As we have been told by the media.

00:33:48.580 Ben is giving you the whole story from start to finish.

00:33:50.740 Ben is making the case for why President Trump should pardon Derek Chauvin.

00:33:54.100 And you need to hear it for yourself.

00:33:55.760 Listen now on Daily Wire Plus.

00:33:57.480 My favorite comment yesterday.

00:33:59.560 It's from Joseph Roberts 9786.

00:34:02.180 Who says.

00:34:03.540 Happy Feast of St. Joseph Michael.

00:34:05.380 Have a good day.

00:34:07.020 Was the Feast of St. Joseph yesterday.

00:34:09.500 And so you know we're in Lent right now.

00:34:12.200 And one of the things that I had given up for Lent.

00:34:15.400 I'll tell you.

00:34:16.060 Be open.

00:34:16.460 I'm not addicted to anything.

00:34:17.580 But I gave up.

00:34:18.200 Every so often I like to throw in one of those little zinnies. 1.00

00:34:21.460 You know.

00:34:21.740 A little three or six millilip pilly.

00:34:23.280 As all the right wingers are doing nowadays.

00:34:26.160 And the night before St. Joseph's Day was my birthday.

00:34:31.240 It was Michael's Day.

00:34:32.500 So I went out.

00:34:33.500 Had a couple of Coca-Colas.

00:34:34.760 Had a cigar.

00:34:35.800 You know.

00:34:36.480 And I was a little tired the next day.

00:34:39.400 And I was jonesing.

00:34:40.540 I said if any day.

00:34:42.000 If I were going to have a little.

00:34:43.020 One of those little nicotine.

00:34:43.980 But now would be the day.

00:34:45.040 Okay.

00:34:45.300 And then I realized it was St. Joseph's Day.

00:34:49.740 Which meant it was game on.

00:34:55.120 Game on for your boy.

00:34:56.440 So I was very glad to hear that.

00:34:58.140 It was a particularly wonderful St. Joseph's Day.

00:35:02.820 Now speaking of President Trump's reorganization of the government.

00:35:06.000 And recalibration of the Republican platform and ideology.

00:35:11.160 Vox.com, a left wing outlet, noticed something recently.

00:35:20.080 Noticed that President Trump is attacking his opponents in a rather different way than Republicans traditionally have.

00:35:28.280 Vox.com pointed out, after canceling $400 million in federal grants for Columbia University last week, Trump officials sent a letter demanding the school make sweeping changes to its policies and governance or risk losing the rest of its federal money.

00:35:46.460 And the basis for Trump's threat was civil rights law.

00:35:49.860 Christopher Caldwell has a very good piece in Compact magazine right now on this shift.

00:35:55.740 That Republicans for years have been running against the political machine, the weapon of civil rights law that the Democrats have used to crush their enemies for 60 years now.

00:36:08.120 And the argument that Republicans had been making is that civil rights law creates a kind of parallel constitution, and then it violates the text and tradition of the constitution consistently, and it's only ever used.

00:36:25.080 It's got this nice-sounding sales pitch.

00:36:27.600 You know, we're defending civil rights, but it's only ever used by the left to crush the right.

00:36:32.260 Chris Caldwell wrote an excellent book on that, The Age of Entitlement.

00:36:34.840 But what Vox.com is noticing, what Caldwell's noticing, what a number of people are noticing right now, is that Trump has flipped the script.

00:36:43.300 He's not just running against civil rights law.

00:36:48.000 Civil rights law, which is a misnomer because it actually diminishes or outright denies the legitimate rights of most people.

00:36:57.660 Trump is using it.

00:36:58.900 This regime that the left installed in the 1960s to give itself nearly limitless power, Trump is now using that himself.

00:37:09.820 And it's brilliant.

00:37:11.680 It's brilliant.

00:37:12.240 It's galaxy brain stuff, okay?

00:37:14.640 It's like tired, wired, inspired.

00:37:17.980 You know, tired is wield the civil rights regime for leftism. 0.80

00:37:23.560 That's tired.

00:37:24.520 We all like that.

00:37:25.040 But inspired is dismantle the civil rights regime, which is never going to happen.

00:37:33.480 Inspired is wield the civil rights regime for the right, for the good stuff, for the common good, for the American tradition.

00:37:44.280 That's what Trump does.

00:37:45.140 More evidence of, it's occurring to me, it didn't even occur to me when I was putting the show script together last night.

00:37:52.680 This is even more evidence of the distinguishing feature of the Trump era of the last 10 years, which is the shift away from procedural norms towards substantive goods.

00:38:01.520 Trump is a realistic person.

00:38:04.540 Trump has a good political gut.

00:38:06.100 He is not some ideologue.

00:38:07.520 He's not a utopian.

00:38:08.380 He sees the country as it is, and he's going to make the most of what he can with what he has.

00:38:15.620 Trump is looking, and he says, okay, how does our law really work?

00:38:20.240 If he were an ideologue, he'd say, well, you know, it works like Schoolhouse Rock with a bill up on Capitol Hill, and this is how the government should work.

00:38:27.680 And the way that it actually does work in practice is a perversion of that, of the great vision of our founding fathers, and that's why we need to completely ignore the bureaucracy.

00:38:36.600 No, no, no.

00:38:38.100 Trump looks at it.

00:38:38.940 He says, okay, I don't know about Schoolhouse Rock.

00:38:41.660 I don't remember my civics class.

00:38:43.640 What I do know is how the government actually works because I have been a media mogul businessman for 40 years, 50 years maybe.

00:38:51.400 And I've dealt with these politicians, and I've bought them off, and I've gotten things done, and I've built buildings, and I've testified before Congress, and I know how the government actually works.

00:39:02.040 And the way our government actually works is largely through the civil rights law regime, the parallel constitution.

00:39:10.200 Okay, well, if that's how the government actually works, and I want to do stuff with the government, I just got elected to run the government in a good way, I guess I got to deal with that.

00:39:17.940 Okay, well, I guess that means I'm going to use that regime to stop the nonsense at Columbia.

00:39:26.020 I'm going to use that regime to punish my opponents, the people who are enemies of the common good of America.

00:39:31.660 I guess I'm just going to deal with it in reality.

00:39:35.520 That's the thesis of the Trump administration.

00:39:38.980 Is it any wonder that he has been a much more effective Republican than, I guess, pretty much any in our lifetime?

00:39:46.300 Certainly in my lifetime.

00:39:48.440 Speaking of civil rights, big news story out.

00:39:54.740 The Italian parents of a child recently born in the USA via surrogacy say that they're too afraid to return home because they fear prosecution for procreative tourism.

00:40:08.680 What does that mean?

00:40:10.260 Well, it's confusing because it says the Italian parents of a child.

00:40:12.900 They're not really the parents of a child.

00:40:14.180 It's two homosexual men who flew to America to purchase a woman's eggs. 0.99

00:40:21.120 Then to hire some scientists to create a human being in a laboratory with the express intent of denying that child his natural mother.

00:40:35.720 With the further intent of denying that child his gestational mother, the only human being he's known for nine months.

00:40:42.360 Then to take that child from the country in which he was born, fly the kid back to Italy, and pretend that they're a real family.

00:40:49.300 And that's illegal in Italy.

00:40:52.760 Giorgio Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, has passed a law to defend the rights of the child and said you can't have procreative tourism.

00:41:01.360 We're not going to allow human beings to be sold like commodities.

00:41:04.280 We're not going to allow baby stores to exist.

00:41:07.600 We're not going to allow unethical scientists to perform human experimentation or to treat human beings like accessories to be purchased by decadent single individuals or homosexuals or heterosexual couples for that matter.

00:41:20.640 We're not going to – we haven't gotten quite to the last part in the IVF surrogacy industry discussion yet.

00:41:27.340 But clearly, that's where the momentum of the idea has to be going.

00:41:31.760 At the very least, we're not going to allow people to deny children their natural mother or their natural father.

00:41:37.200 It's against the law.

00:41:39.240 And so these two fellows decided to subvert the law.

00:41:43.000 And now they're pretending they're the victims.

00:41:45.240 The only victim in this case is the child whose legitimate rights have been denied.

00:41:50.080 A child whose most basic human connection that any human being will ever have with his mother has been denied him.

00:41:57.640 Because of the whims and fantasies of selfish men.

00:42:01.420 That is the only victim in this case.

00:42:04.340 And these two men pretend to be the victim.

00:42:07.860 And they recognize that they could be subject to prison terms of up to two years.

00:42:13.140 Fines of between 600,000 euro and a million euro.

00:42:17.240 This law was passed a little while ago.

00:42:20.520 Just went into effect.

00:42:22.600 With the aim, according to reports, of protecting poor women around the world who are exploited for surrogacy.

00:42:29.700 Because women are exploited. 1.00

00:42:31.100 They're treating parts of their body and biological products of their body as commodities. 0.95

00:42:38.740 You know, women who are hard up for cash, they'll just allow some unethical doctor to harvest their eggs and pay them a fee for it. 1.00

00:42:45.220 Or they'll rent out their womb because they need the money. 1.00

00:42:47.300 So, that was the argument for the law.

00:42:51.340 That these women are being exploited.

00:42:54.560 But, Italy cannot argue that the women in California are being exploited. 0.99

00:42:59.440 According to the defenders of this couple.

00:43:03.640 Because, in California, this is all perfectly legal.

00:43:08.100 And America is a first world rich country.

00:43:10.360 And it's all about consenting adults.

00:43:12.300 So, I think you can still make the argument that women are being exploited.

00:43:15.440 But it's much harder to make in America than it is in Eastern Europe.

00:43:18.900 Or, frankly, even in Italy.

00:43:20.280 Or in Asia or something like that.

00:43:23.400 Okay.

00:43:24.080 And that's all true.

00:43:25.900 Which is why we need to be honest about the central concern here.

00:43:30.180 The exploitation of women is a concern. 0.98

00:43:33.420 It's a reason for banning the purchase of babies. 0.99

00:43:37.660 And the hiring of scientists to create custom-made bespoke babies.

00:43:44.480 But the real reason is because the IVF and surrogacy industry denies the legitimate rights of children.

00:43:54.620 Robs them of their legitimate rights. 0.99

00:43:56.340 Of the most basic human connections they deserve.

00:43:59.160 That's the problem.

00:44:00.300 It's kind of like pro-life messaging.

00:44:02.400 You know, pro-life messaging often talks about how women are victims of the abortion industry.

00:44:08.780 Which is partially true.

00:44:10.220 Women can be victims. 1.00

00:44:11.980 You know, some boyfriend impregnates a woman. 1.00

00:44:13.980 And then pressures her to kill her own kid. 1.00

00:44:15.580 And then she lives with the trauma and guilt of that for the rest of her life. 0.97

00:44:17.840 Or the abortionist lies to the woman.

00:44:20.920 And pretends that the woman's baby is not really a baby.

00:44:23.060 And the woman figures out that the baby is a baby. 0.99

00:44:24.720 Lives with the trauma the rest of her life.

00:44:25.940 Women are, in a sense, victims of the abortion industry. 1.00

00:44:29.660 But they're not the primary victim.

00:44:31.320 The chief victim of the abortion industry is the baby who is murdered.

00:44:36.420 Okay.

00:44:36.620 That's, so we need to be honest about that.

00:44:39.860 However we can ban these hideous, evil practices is fine by me.

00:44:45.680 But we need to be focused.

00:44:48.560 Otherwise, we're going to leave ourselves very vulnerable.

00:44:51.180 If this is only about the exploitation of women in Eastern Europe or Asia or something like that.

00:44:56.540 Then there are going to be ways around it.

00:44:58.520 And you're still going to have a very evil industry.

00:45:01.780 That treats human beings as nothing more than commodities.

00:45:04.840 Okay.

00:45:05.400 Speaking of ethics, morality.

00:45:07.040 Today is Theology Thursday.

00:45:08.200 The rest of the show continues now.

00:45:09.780 You do not want to miss it.

00:45:10.640 Become a member.

00:45:11.120 Use code KnowlesKin at W-L-E-S at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:45:21.180 You do not want to miss it.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 20, 2025

Ep. 1697 - The JFK Files Exposed (For Real This Time!)

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