The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1699 - RFK Jr. Goes After Big Soda

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00:00:30.000 As President Trump makes good on his campaign promise to abolish the Department of Education,

00:00:35.420 benighted Congressman Eric Swalwell is raising the alarm.

00:00:39.060 The literal and figurative airbag Democrat warned on Friday, quote,

00:00:43.120 Education Secretary McMahon just delivered a WWE-style smackdown

00:00:49.700 to you and your kids' dreams of affordable college.

00:00:53.780 Now, Swalwell is right about something that the Democrats don't usually admit.

00:00:57.920 The vast majority of Education Department spending, 71%, according to PolitiFact,

00:01:05.000 goes toward college grants and loans.

00:01:07.980 It's about paying for college.

00:01:11.040 The Department of Education spends very little time and money on things like school lunches

00:01:16.080 and special ed and all the other things that Democrats are fear-mongering about losing.

00:01:20.780 The chief activity of the Department of Education is, as Swalwell suggests, making college more affordable.

00:01:27.780 So, let's see how the Department has done on that front.

00:01:31.660 I have a little chart here.

00:01:33.360 It's very simple.

00:01:34.480 I just took a chart from the National Center for Education Statistics,

00:01:37.500 and then I added my own little marker on here.

00:01:40.900 You see, here is the cost of college education from 1960 or so.

00:01:46.580 It was a bit flat, ticks up a little bit.

00:01:48.420 It kind of goes down, actually, until 1979, when the Education Department is founded.

00:01:56.020 And then, starting exactly when the Education Department is founded,

00:02:01.260 costs of college skyrocket with no end in sight.

00:02:07.240 And you know what the Democrats are going to say.

00:02:08.880 Well, they're going to say, well, the other thing that happened just after 1979 is Reagan got elected.

00:02:12.760 Let's blame Reagan. 0.98

00:02:13.620 But you can't just blame Reagan.

00:02:14.640 You look at the chart.

00:02:16.500 Okay, here we go.

00:02:17.760 Here's the absolute low point for the cost of college.

00:02:20.160 Then it starts to go up under Reagan.

00:02:22.120 Okay, then it kind of plateaus a little bit at the end of Reagan into Bush.

00:02:27.800 It's still going up, though.

00:02:29.080 And then Clinton gets elected.

00:02:30.800 There's a Democrat.

00:02:31.540 It goes up again by a lot.

00:02:33.320 Then Bush gets elected.

00:02:34.340 It keeps going up.

00:02:35.340 Then Obama gets elected.

00:02:36.340 It keeps going up.

00:02:37.180 So, it just keeps going up.

00:02:39.740 Now, I'm no education policy one.

00:02:44.280 But it seems to me that if we want to make college affordable again, the very first thing that we should do is abolish the Department of Education.

00:02:54.360 It's pretty simple.

00:02:54.920 Why has college cost increased so much since the Department of Ed was founded?

00:02:59.700 Might it be because the Department of Ed just gave a blank check to colleges, said we'll pay for basically anything, or at least we'll entrap students in cycles of endless debt so that they can pay for anything?

00:03:10.780 And then, obviously, the costs rise with that.

00:03:13.640 So, I'm very grateful to President Trump for following through on his promise.

00:03:18.820 I'm also especially grateful to Congressman Swalwell for accidentally undermining the entire Democrat argument against it.

00:03:26.660 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:03:27.340 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:03:40.780 Welcome back to the show.

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00:03:58.820 There's so much more to say.

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00:05:13.200 So much nonsense about the Department of Ed. 0.82

00:05:16.320 The really clever Democrats are able to make their silly arguments for the Department of 0.87

00:05:22.840 Ed seem somewhat plausible.

00:05:24.440 But Swalwell just completely guts it.

00:05:26.580 He says, the point of this is to fund college education and make it more affordable.

00:05:30.580 They say, okay, we're supposed to make it more affordable.

00:05:32.040 How come the costs have skyrocketed exactly since the Department of Ed was founded?

00:05:36.360 It doesn't matter who's in office.

00:05:38.560 It doesn't matter which party controls the government.

00:05:40.560 It's the Department of Ed.

00:05:41.840 Okay.

00:05:42.480 There's more nonsense, though.

00:05:43.500 They're saying Trump wants to cut special needs education programs.

00:05:47.560 That Trump wants to cut food programs for poor kids in school.

00:05:52.220 Is that true?

00:05:53.560 Can we get a fact check on that?

00:05:55.000 Can we get a fact check from President Trump in the Oval Office?

00:05:57.400 And also, Bobby Kennedy, the Health and Human Services, will be handling special needs and

00:06:05.140 all of the nutrition programs and everything else.

00:06:08.140 Rather complex, but that's going to be headed by and handled by Health and Human Services.

00:06:14.680 So I think that'll work out very well.

00:06:16.540 Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education.

00:06:21.120 And then all we have to do is get the students to get guidance from the people that love them

00:06:26.880 and cherish them, including their parents, by the way, who will be totally involved in their education

00:06:32.380 along with the boards.

00:06:33.980 There you go.

00:06:34.840 There you got it.

00:06:36.500 The libs, their latest talking point, because they have so few arguments for the Department of Education.

00:06:42.120 We need the Department of Education so that test scores improve.

00:06:45.280 Oh, right.

00:06:46.500 Oh, they've declined since the Department was founded.

00:06:48.260 We need the Department of Education to reduce college costs.

00:06:51.980 Oh, yikes.

00:06:52.880 College costs have skyrocketed.

00:06:54.200 Okay, well, we need the Department of Education so that poor kids can get cheap lunches and so

00:06:58.440 that special needs kids can get the attention they deserve.

00:07:00.960 Wait a second.

00:07:03.020 Trump's just going to put that into other departments because that constitutes nutrition in schools and

00:07:09.160 special needs students constitute so little of what the Department of Education does.

00:07:12.680 Let's put it under HHS.

00:07:13.880 Some other department doesn't matter.

00:07:15.780 They'll take care of it.

00:07:17.100 There won't be any interruption to service, and the rest of the Department of Ed can go away.

00:07:22.540 The problem for the liberals with the Trump administration compared to other Republican

00:07:27.480 administrations is that there are Republican ideologues, usually of a more libertarian bent,

00:07:36.160 who actually do want to end subsidies for poor kids to get lunches in schools, who actually do want

00:07:43.520 to cut funding for special needs education in schools, who actually do want to cut various

00:07:48.600 government services.

00:07:50.780 Trump is not one of those Republicans.

00:07:53.680 Never has been.

00:07:55.220 Never will be.

00:07:56.060 Trump has been running consistently, not just since 2016, but since he flirted with the presidential

00:08:02.440 run for the Reform Party in 2000, really since he was flirting with the presidential run back

00:08:06.480 in the 1980s.

00:08:07.720 Trump has been vocally in favor of maintaining certain entitlement programs.

00:08:14.000 He's not some libertarian ideologue.

00:08:15.940 So when the libs say, well, if you cut that department, it's going to cut, you know, the cheap lunches

00:08:21.740 for kids in the inner city, Trump will say, what?

00:08:24.180 Oh, I don't want to do that.

00:08:25.100 Yeah.

00:08:25.320 OK, Kennedy will handle that now or someone else will handle that.

00:08:27.700 But yeah, we'll keep that.

00:08:28.420 Of course, we'll keep that.

00:08:29.420 It's the same argument.

00:08:30.700 It's just a particular instance of the same argument that the Democrats make with Trump

00:08:34.300 when they say, if you elect Trump, he's going to cut Social Security.

00:08:37.220 One thing I can promise you, I can guarantee you about a Trump administration.

00:08:40.580 He'll never cut Social Security.

00:08:43.540 He's made that a key pillar of his platform.

00:08:46.580 He has irritated Republicans, libertarian ideologues, because he will not cut entitlements.

00:08:54.860 So this is why when Chuck Schumer is trying to make arguments, when Biden and Kamala were

00:08:59.100 previously making arguments during the campaign, they have this basic problem of they don't even

00:09:04.060 know how to argue against Trump's kind of conservatism.

00:09:07.420 Because Trump's kind of conservatism is new by our standards, it's actually, I think,

00:09:13.600 a more traditional kind of conservatism.

00:09:15.500 But it's not the kind of conservatism that we've seen for the last 40, 50 years.

00:09:19.460 They got nothing.

00:09:22.220 They're burning down fields of straw men. 1.00

00:09:25.100 OK, fine.

00:09:25.720 That's not going to persuade voters.

00:09:27.060 Now, speaking of Bobby Kennedy, Kennedy is taking on one of the most nefarious lobbies

00:09:33.780 in Washington, you know, the kind we're not allowed to talk about.

00:09:37.540 The kind that secretly controls our politics, apparently.

00:09:40.540 I'm talking about big soda.

00:09:42.980 Oh, yeah, baby.

00:09:43.900 Big, sugary, soft drink.

00:09:46.340 Kennedy is proposing cutting welfare subsidies for soda.

00:09:51.000 Not cutting welfare subsidies overall, but a huge amount of money from SNAP programs,

00:09:56.680 food stamps, goes toward high fructose corn syrup soft drinks that are bad for everyone's

00:10:04.260 health.

00:10:04.460 So if the idea is that we are going to subsidize people's food because they don't have enough

00:10:10.560 money and we want to make sure that they're healthy and they can continue to eat, why would

00:10:14.120 we subsidize food that is contrary to their health?

00:10:17.220 That's actually going to undermine their health.

00:10:18.940 Apparently, the $113 billion program that serves 42 million Americans pays for soda and other

00:10:31.520 processed foods, and Kennedy wants to end that.

00:10:33.180 So apparently, it's hard to get hard numbers on this, but soda companies make $2 to $5 billion

00:10:41.200 per year from food stamps.

00:10:43.480 Your taxpayer dollars are subsidizing soda companies because the SNAP welfare program spends a huge

00:10:52.180 amount of money on soft drinks.

00:10:53.280 So Kennedy says, this is bad.

00:10:56.220 It's bad for the people who are drinking the sodas.

00:10:58.300 It's bad for the taxpayer that we have to subsidize these soda companies, and we're not going to do it.

00:11:02.900 But immediately after Kennedy proposes this, there's a massive campaign from influencers online to say, oh, this is government overreach.

00:11:13.320 This is, no, we don't, we conservatives, we don't support this.

00:11:16.000 No, no, no.

00:11:16.240 You need to keep giving our tax dollars to welfare programs to pay for soda for poor people whose health it's going to harm.

00:11:22.900 No, no, no.

00:11:23.340 This is really, keep the soda.

00:11:25.720 Keep the soda subsidies going.

00:11:26.960 And it was really curious.

00:11:29.560 I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but all these little influencers, many if not most of whom make money by taking association and endorsement deals from various entities,

00:11:43.860 all of a sudden started promoting big soda, right when it's a crucial moment in policy decisions.

00:11:50.980 Maybe there was a little lobbying going on.

00:11:53.560 I don't know.

00:11:53.920 It was curious to me.

00:11:55.520 I understand the arguments for and against.

00:11:58.820 The best argument for keeping the welfare subsidy for soda is that, you know, it's a little stingy.

00:12:07.640 It's a little cruel to begrudge poor people this one simple luxury.

00:12:14.840 You know, look, we're a society.

00:12:17.560 Some people are not as well off as other people.

00:12:19.640 We actually do have a great wealth disparity in America.

00:12:22.560 And so if people who really don't make money, who are really kind of down and out financially, if they want to have a Coca-Cola, like an actual Coca-Cola, I'm not even using that as a euphemism for booze.

00:12:33.600 If they want to have a soda, you know, who begrudges them that, right?

00:12:39.120 Who begrudges them that luxury?

00:12:40.780 However, the best argument against that argument, and it's the side that I come down on, is it's not really a luxury soda.

00:12:50.560 You know, it'd be one thing if all the rich Uncle Pennybags of the world were just guzzling two-liter bottles of Pepsi. 0.99

00:12:57.840 But that's not what happens.

00:13:00.900 In fact, most of like the rich, fancy people that I know never drink soda.

00:13:05.500 They drink fruity little seltzers, and they drink, I don't know, they drink kombucha or something, whatever, I don't know, whatever like rich people.

00:13:10.960 They drink boba tea, I don't know.

00:13:12.000 Whatever fancy, rich, elite people drink, that's what they drink.

00:13:16.020 They do not drink soda.

00:13:17.680 And so, and I kind of come down on this side.

00:13:20.100 I am totally sympathetic to the argument that if we're going to have any kinds of welfare programs, we should allow people certain luxuries.

00:13:28.120 It's okay.

00:13:28.600 Life isn't just about, you know, getting the basic amount of sustenance into your body and just going to toil for the rest of the day.

00:13:35.040 It's nice to afford people certain luxuries.

00:13:38.200 Soda's really not a luxury anymore.

00:13:39.640 We've moved past that.

00:13:41.280 People don't, they don't, when I was a kid, my blood type was like Dr. Pepper and Diet Snapple, okay?

00:13:46.420 Like, I drank a lot of soda.

00:13:47.900 It's not good for you.

00:13:49.000 We're realizing it's not good for you.

00:13:50.440 It doesn't seem like a luxury anymore.

00:13:52.180 We've moved on.

00:13:53.360 Sorry.

00:13:53.860 I know, even if the soda companies are spending zillions of dollars to lobby the online influencers, I'm with Kennedy on this.

00:14:00.660 I'm with the Trump administration on this.

00:14:03.000 I don't want, I don't want my tax dollars funding soda that I don't even consider a luxury.

00:14:07.540 If we're going to, if we're going to have our taxpayer dollars funding luxuries for people who are a little bit financially down and out, have it fund Mayflower Cigars.

00:14:16.460 At least that's a real luxury.

00:14:17.400 There's so much more to say first, though.

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00:15:41.680 We're in the throes of Lent.

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00:16:26.300 Speaking of elites, Democrat Senator John Ossoff.

00:16:31.140 Trump has just made a big claim.

00:16:34.460 He's made a serious accusation against Trump and the Republicans.

00:16:38.460 He's said that Trump and the Republicans were elected on a populist tide of changing the government,

00:16:44.280 changing the direction of the country.

00:16:45.720 But Trump and his friends are actually the very elites that they all claim to hate.

00:16:52.800 Trump's cabinet is worth like $60 billion.

00:16:57.280 That's not even including Elon.

00:17:00.860 They are literally the elites they pretend to hate.

00:17:04.420 The president is not at his palace in Florida thinking about whether you can afford daycare for your daughter

00:17:14.220 or how to stop insurance companies from denying your claim or anything that matters to our daily lives.

00:17:19.740 When is the last time you even heard Donald Trump talk about health care or child care?

00:17:27.720 He's talking about invading Greenland.

00:17:30.980 They are the elites.

00:17:32.960 They are literally the elites that they claim to hate.

00:17:36.980 No, they're not.

00:17:38.720 They're different elites.

00:17:40.440 And that's what Ossoff is trying to make this about is some kind of class war.

00:17:46.440 But it's not really a class war.

00:17:49.420 The lower classes, the middle classes, and the upper classes are not monolithic.

00:17:56.660 That's what this election showed us.

00:18:01.040 Most of the billionaire class are libs and Democrats.

00:18:04.780 People like Zuckerberg.

00:18:06.320 People like Jack Dorsey.

00:18:08.260 People like Sundar Pichai, the Google execs.

00:18:11.920 Those guys are, to say nothing of the just regular Fortune 500 company owners and CEOs.

00:18:17.700 But some billionaires are on our side now.

00:18:22.440 A handful, a small number.

00:18:24.360 Really, it's just Elon and Trump, actually, I think.

00:18:26.240 And then some of the other corporate billionaires are trying to suck up to Trump now that Trump won and won the popular vote.

00:18:31.100 But that means that some billionaires are for the libs.

00:18:33.360 Some billionaires are for the conservatives.

00:18:35.060 In the middle class, where most of us are, we certainly know that many in the middle class are for the libs, especially the upper middle class.

00:18:44.580 Many in the middle class, especially the lower middle class, are for the conservatives.

00:18:48.220 And then among the lower economic classes, we know a ton of them are for the libs.

00:18:54.520 All those blue cities in the inner urban areas.

00:19:00.680 But many of the lower economic classes are for the conservatives, the deplorables, the irredeemables, all the people that Hillary Clinton invades against. 0.93

00:19:10.260 In other words, it's not merely an economic issue.

00:19:12.900 Furthermore, every political movement has elites, must have elites.

00:19:20.280 This is obviously a very conservative insight.

00:19:24.000 There's always hierarchy.

00:19:25.120 There's always order.

00:19:26.720 Not everyone is totally leveled out, egalitarian, Harrison Bergeron, lowest common denominator stuff.

00:19:32.440 People are different.

00:19:34.120 People have different skills.

00:19:35.100 Some people make more money.

00:19:36.020 Some people have more status.

00:19:37.020 Some people come from more privilege.

00:19:38.360 Some people build bigger companies.

00:19:39.680 Of course, people are differentiated.

00:19:41.800 I'm not anti-elite.

00:19:44.100 I'm anti the elites that have governed us for a quarter century at least.

00:19:49.040 I'm not opposed to university education, to give a pressing example when we talk about the Department of Education.

00:19:57.520 I'm not against university education in particular, or in principle.

00:20:01.400 I'm against it in particular.

00:20:02.820 I'm against the elite schools that we have today that aren't giving people a proper liberal education, that aren't teaching them anything of value at all, that are actually just screwing up their heads and arousing their base passions and leaving them more ignorant that they came in.

00:20:16.380 Ossoff is trying to blur all of these distinctions.

00:20:19.500 He says they're literally the elites that they claim to hate.

00:20:21.540 No, no, no.

00:20:22.060 They're different elites.

00:20:24.140 And we know that.

00:20:25.740 We know that there is a big difference between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

00:20:32.760 On the surface, they seem to be the same kind of person.

00:20:34.980 They're both super rich.

00:20:36.380 They both made their money in Silicon Valley or made a lot of their money in Silicon Valley.

00:20:39.920 They both run social media platforms.

00:20:42.520 But while Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook were suppressing conservative speech and trying to destroy conservative media businesses, including ours, Elon Musk bought Twitter for the express purpose of increasing conservative speech, allowing conservative media companies to flourish.

00:20:59.480 Those are not the same thing.

00:21:00.920 Furthermore, last point on this, this is a yet another example of what I've pointed out is the theme of the Trump administration.

00:21:12.360 Going back to 2016, I was talking about this at the National Review Ideas Summit over the weekend.

00:21:17.180 I've been hammering this on the show for years now.

00:21:19.960 There is a shift away from a focus merely on procedural norms toward substantive goods.

00:21:25.360 Yes, there are elites, there are foot soldiers, there are people in the middle on both sides.

00:21:33.620 The question is, they are, what exactly are the elites elite in service of?

00:21:40.080 What are we doing?

00:21:43.060 Obama and Trump were both presidents of the United States.

00:21:46.420 That doesn't make them the same.

00:21:47.880 What are they doing?

00:21:49.000 What are they working toward?

00:21:50.360 Why were they elected in the first place?

00:21:52.540 That's the question.

00:21:53.560 And our elites are better than their elites.

00:21:57.520 And our political movement is better than their political movement.

00:22:00.800 And more people want our political movement because they know that our political movement is better for the country.

00:22:04.700 There's so much more to say first, though.

00:22:06.660 Go to preborn.com slash Knowles.

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00:22:13.080 Many initially consider abortion as their only option.

00:22:16.080 Thanks to donors like you, these women may find a way to a preborn network clinic where they receive the support they need 0.74

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00:22:29.180 This combination of support and information helps many women choose to continue their pregnancies.

00:22:33.660 There are many women out there who are unaware of their options. 1.00

00:22:36.180 Take Akaisha, for example.

00:22:37.820 Akaisha discovered she was pregnant, felt completely overwhelmed, and unsure which way to turn.

00:22:41.740 She found her way to a preborn network clinic where the staff provided her with supportive care and a free ultrasound.

00:22:47.420 Seeing her developing baby on the screen helped Akaisha make the decision to continue with her pregnancy.

00:22:52.620 With your tax-deductible donation of $28, you can help provide one ultrasound for someone facing a difficult decision.

00:22:58.220 Your contribution of any amount can make a real difference.

00:23:00.340 Preborn saw 67,000 babies saved from abortion.

00:23:04.640 If you would like to support this work, I support this work.

00:23:07.240 I personally support it.

00:23:08.140 I encourage you to give whatever you can.

00:23:09.500 Just dial pound 250, say keyword baby.

00:23:11.980 Pound 250, keyword baby, or go to preborn.com slash Knowles.

00:23:14.620 Can it be really S?

00:23:15.680 Preborn.com slash Knowles.

00:23:18.480 Speaking of elites, big win out of one of the most elite institutions in the entire world.

00:23:24.080 JPMorgan Chase.

00:23:25.060 JPMorgan Chase has just, well, it depends on how you read the headlines.

00:23:30.160 Some of the headlines will say that JPMorgan has eliminated its DEI department.

00:23:35.560 It's not exactly true.

00:23:36.860 JPMorgan has changed its DEI department.

00:23:40.820 It's changed it from DEI to DOI.

00:23:45.660 DOI, what's that?

00:23:47.320 They've changed, not diversity and not inclusion.

00:23:50.400 Those remain the same.

00:23:51.780 They've changed the call for equity to a call for opportunity.

00:23:57.560 Okay, you're a little bit skeptical, right?

00:23:59.140 I'm a little bit skeptical too.

00:24:00.260 What does JPMorgan say?

00:24:01.340 Here's Jen Piepsak. 1.00

00:24:03.440 Am I mispronouncing that?

00:24:04.660 Probably.

00:24:04.940 We are changing equity to opportunity and renaming our organization to diversity, opportunity,

00:24:10.280 and inclusion because the E always meant equal opportunity to us, not equal outcomes.

00:24:16.800 And Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan, has been pretty emphatic about this in his investor

00:24:21.540 letter earlier this year.

00:24:22.700 Even though JPMorgan is usually associated with the Democrats, and I think has been a lifelong

00:24:27.820 Democrat, he's pushed back against the excesses of the left.

00:24:31.880 And he said, for me, equity always means equal opportunity.

00:24:35.380 It doesn't mean whatever these communists think, which is equality of outcome.

00:24:38.900 So the JPMorgan COO goes on.

00:24:42.380 This means some activities councils are chaptered, may be consolidated to streamline our process

00:24:46.740 and engagement strategy.

00:24:48.460 Rubber meets the road.

00:24:49.480 What does this mean for JPMorgan?

00:24:51.020 We've always been committed to hiring, compensation, and promotion that are merit-based.

00:24:56.820 We do not have illegal quotas or pay incentives, and we would never turn someone away because

00:25:01.920 of their political or religious beliefs or because of who they are.

00:25:04.760 We're not perfect, but we take pride in constantly challenging ourselves and raising the bar.

00:25:09.080 Okay, so if you took the initialism out of it, D-E-I-D-O-I, whatever, and you just read

00:25:15.680 that statement, if you're a conservative, you'd probably say, oh, this is good stuff.

00:25:20.880 Great.

00:25:21.420 Okay, we're not going to have this insane hyper-focus on a new racial caste system from

00:25:28.060 the left that is going to disadvantage men in favor of women, it's going to disadvantage 1.00

00:25:32.460 white people in favor of other groups, strictly on the basis of their sex or their race.

00:25:38.120 Good stuff.

00:25:39.620 But then, what about the diversity and the inclusion?

00:25:44.700 I get the opportunity part, but what about the diversity and the inclusion?

00:25:49.280 I think JPMorgan's trying to split the baby here, and I get it.

00:25:52.380 JPMorgan is the fifth largest bank in the world.

00:25:55.040 If you take out the Chinese banks, it's the largest bank in the world.

00:25:58.580 It's the biggest bank.

00:25:59.320 Okay, so they don't want to alienate the libs, who we know are very vindictive.

00:26:03.600 And if I were the head of JPMorgan, I'd probably do exactly the same thing.

00:26:07.380 If the Democrats come back into power, you don't want to have to face down Elizabeth Warren

00:26:10.520 and all these vindictive libs who are going to harangue you and try to diminish your status

00:26:16.200 as the biggest non-Chinese bank in the world because you contradicted the sacred faith of 1.00

00:26:21.340 DEI.

00:26:22.220 So you want to try to keep, no, we got the D and the I.

00:26:24.820 It's just, we don't want all this kind of commie gobbledygook.

00:26:29.360 You know, we don't want all of this illegal, racially discriminatory, sexually discriminatory

00:26:35.060 stuff that the left is pushing.

00:26:36.320 So we're going to do DOI.

00:26:38.420 But if JPMorgan is doing what it says it's doing, if JPMorgan is only considering performance-based

00:26:47.240 merit, how good you are at spreadsheets, you know, how good you are.

00:26:51.620 I don't really know what bankers do, how good you are at moving the money around from one

00:26:55.280 screen to the next screen.

00:26:56.560 Is that what bankers do?

00:26:57.560 I guess so.

00:26:58.440 If that's all JPMorgan is considering, then JPMorgan cannot consider the D or the I.

00:27:06.780 DEI all go together.

00:27:08.700 Diversity means create a grouping by race according to the caprices of the DEI master.

00:27:18.420 Equity means exactly the same thing, means that certain races and sexes and people with

00:27:28.780 sexual desires and so on have been unjustly discriminated against and kept down.

00:27:34.240 How?

00:27:34.740 We don't even have to explain.

00:27:35.720 They just have.

00:27:36.840 So we are going to create an assemblage of people according to the caprices of the DEI

00:27:42.180 master.

00:27:42.640 Inclusion.

00:27:43.180 What does inclusion mean?

00:27:43.960 It means exactly the same thing as the D and the E.

00:27:45.760 Inclusion means we're going to include people that we want according to our caprices, and

00:27:50.600 we're going to exclude people, which we have.

00:27:52.960 If you're going to determine who you include, then you're also determining who you exclude.

00:27:56.160 We're going to exclude certain people also according to our caprices.

00:27:58.620 So D, E, I all mean exactly the same thing.

00:28:03.120 There is no difference.

00:28:05.660 They don't need three letters.

00:28:07.080 They only need one letter.

00:28:07.860 What JP Morgan is doing here is we're saying we reject DEI ideology, but we're going to

00:28:13.900 keep two-thirds of the initialism so that because we have to protect our bank from the

00:28:18.780 vindictive libs.

00:28:19.500 But now DOI is incoherent.

00:28:22.000 If you're going to only focus on performance-based merit, then you can't take into consideration

00:28:27.340 racial diversity or sexual diversity.

00:28:29.540 You're only considering performance-based merit.

00:28:31.500 If every single person in your organization ends up a white man, but they all just happen 0.99

00:28:37.760 to be better at spreadsheets than the women and the black people and the Hispanic people, 0.99

00:28:41.520 and you're really only promoting based on performance-based merit, then you're going to 0.88

00:28:45.320 have an organization only made up of white men, and you're going to have zero diversity 0.51

00:28:48.560 by the left standards.

00:28:50.320 You're going to have zero inclusion by the left standards.

00:28:53.920 So it's a totally incoherent initialism, but it's a good move by JP Morgan.

00:28:59.820 JP Morgan should be applauded for this move.

00:29:02.580 They're just, they're hedging their bets, as I guess people in finance do.

00:29:05.840 They're hedging their bets on the initialism, as is true in practical politics, because politics

00:29:10.300 is a practical science.

00:29:11.400 It's not a theoretical science.

00:29:12.660 It's not an abstract science.

00:29:14.120 They are giving a solution to a political problem that, in principle, isn't really totally

00:29:20.680 coherent, totally logical, but that's how politics works.

00:29:25.520 I've been using this quote from the political philosopher John Gray recently.

00:29:28.640 Politics is much more a conversation than an argument, okay?

00:29:32.160 And the logic of a conversation isn't always as strong as the logic of a syllogism or a lengthy

00:29:36.980 argument.

00:29:38.000 Good move from JP Morgan Chase and a good sign of the political times, but ideas have consequences.

00:29:44.780 We got to go even further.

00:29:46.740 If you really don't believe in the E, then you don't believe in the D or the I either.

00:29:50.920 Speaking of opportunities, Gavin Newsom, governor of California, sees his opportunity, his opportunity

00:29:59.680 to become the presidential nominee for the Democrats in 2028.

00:30:03.380 This is it.

00:30:03.780 The field is totally creamed.

00:30:05.400 Unless Joe Biden's going to run again at age 150, unless Joe Biden's going to run again

00:30:09.620 from the crypt, then Kamala ain't going to get it. 0.97

00:30:13.620 Who's going to get it?

00:30:14.380 Buttigieg? 0.60

00:30:15.200 Liz Warren?

00:30:17.160 None of these people are going to get it.

00:30:18.280 So Gavin Newsom sees his opportunity.

00:30:21.220 He launched a podcast to appeal more to the center.

00:30:23.800 His first guest was Charlie Kirk.

00:30:25.420 His second or third guest was Steve Bannon.

00:30:27.800 He's trying to appeal specifically to MAGA Republicans, you know, people who are personally

00:30:32.180 close to President Trump.

00:30:34.320 And he's also making claims about his governorship that are a little dubious.

00:30:39.500 Like, he made the claim to Charlie Kirk that the word Latinx, Latinx, is this silly, overreach,

00:30:49.380 this preposterous kind of politically correct, woke neologism that he would always reject,

00:30:56.580 okay?

00:30:56.820 He opposes such excesses of the extreme left.

00:31:01.800 And yet, well, let's just go to the tape.

00:31:04.720 By the way, not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx.

00:31:09.360 So can we finally put that to bed?

00:31:10.860 Yeah, what the, but where did that even go?

00:31:11.880 No more Latinx, everybody. 1.00

00:31:13.180 Well, I just didn't even know where it came from.

00:31:14.560 I'm like, what are people talking about?

00:31:16.040 I hope we can really paint a picture in terms of our consciousness of how impactful this has

00:31:22.040 been on the Latinx community.

00:31:23.760 Latinx community, the Latinx and Black communities.

00:31:26.680 You've got politicians that are banning, not assault rifles, but the word Latinx.

00:31:31.600 They're not even serious.

00:31:32.500 Oh, yeah, oh, me.

00:31:34.220 Hey, listen, fellow, fellow centrists.

00:31:37.020 Listen here, normal people.

00:31:39.100 I would, this is the left with this crazy term Latinx.

00:31:41.380 Who would ever say that?

00:31:43.440 Oh, I did many, many times.

00:31:45.220 And I actually, not only did he use the phrase Latinx, he specifically defended the phrase Latinx. 0.99

00:31:51.400 So this guy is a stone cold liar. 0.97

00:31:53.920 I've called him Governor Bateman. 1.00

00:31:54.960 You know, he is, he is American psycho.

00:31:57.940 His, his campaign opening in 2028 is going to be, hey, do you like Huey Lewis in the news? 0.76

00:32:03.300 Try getting a reservation to Dorcia now.

00:32:05.080 Try getting a reservation with the French Laundry now.

00:32:07.040 He, he is a stone cold political animal.

00:32:10.520 He lies effortlessly.

00:32:12.940 And he's extremely left wing. 1.00

00:32:14.900 It's not, it's not just that he's slick willy and he's a liar. 0.96

00:32:18.260 He does remind me a lot of Bill Clinton. 0.97

00:32:20.800 But it's not just that.

00:32:22.060 Also, ideologically, he is very left wing.

00:32:25.760 Remember, Gavin Newsom was permitting so-called same-sex marriage in San Francisco when he was mayor there in 2004, 11 years before Obergefell.

00:32:36.420 When same-sex marriage, which just doesn't exist because it's, it's an incoherent concept.

00:32:40.800 When it was explicitly illegal, he was permitting such weddings.

00:32:46.780 Furthermore, though, here's one a lot of people don't know about.

00:32:48.940 This is from a New Yorker profile in 2018.

00:32:52.160 Gavin Newsom helped his mother kill herself.

00:32:56.300 Gavin Newsom helped his mother commit suicide.

00:32:57.920 I'm just reading from the New Yorker profile.

00:32:59.960 Not exactly a right wing profile, right?

00:33:01.740 This is a left wing sympathetic profile.

00:33:03.600 In May 2002, his mother decided to end her life through assisted suicide.

00:33:07.320 Newsom recalled, she left me a message because I was too busy.

00:33:09.580 Hope you're well.

00:33:10.120 Next Wednesday will be the last day for me.

00:33:11.640 Hope you can make it.

00:33:13.480 I saved the cassette with the message on it.

00:33:15.320 This is Newsom talking.

00:33:16.140 I saved the cassette with the message on it.

00:33:17.560 That's how sick I am.

00:33:18.740 He crossed his arms and jammed his hands into his armpits.

00:33:21.380 I have PTSD and this is bringing it all back.

00:33:23.340 The night before we gave her the drugs, the night before we gave her the drugs,

00:33:28.380 I cooked her dinner, hard-boiled eggs, and she told me, get out of politics. 1.00

00:33:31.740 She was worried about the stress on me.

00:33:34.440 Oh, man.

00:33:35.160 It, I, I actually feel bad for Gavin Newsom.

00:33:39.960 I don't, I'm not, I don't like Gavin Newsom.

00:33:42.880 I hope he never gets near power.

00:33:43.980 He's the worst governor ever. 0.99

00:33:45.000 He's, he's terrible. 0.95

00:33:46.120 But I really, could you imagine this?

00:33:47.880 I think he's, I do think he's being totally sincere here when he says,

00:33:50.940 I have PTSD from helping my mom kill herself and this is bringing it back.

00:33:55.940 And I saved the cassette tape where she left this message telling me she was going to kill herself

00:34:00.100 and she wanted me to be there.

00:34:01.320 And I, I totally believe that.

00:34:02.500 Of course, how could you not?

00:34:03.300 That is a horrible thing for a mother to do to a son. 0.93

00:34:07.220 That's a horrible position to put the son in. 0.59

00:34:09.040 And it's a horrible thing Gavin Newsom did to help his mother to kill herself.

00:34:13.900 And, and why did they do it?

00:34:16.240 This isn't just some weird quirk of the Newsom family.

00:34:19.060 This is a political movement on the very, very far left to normalize and encourage suicide based on a deeper leftist philosophical premise.

00:34:29.760 Really kind of a utilitarian premise that the greatest evil to be avoided is suffering.

00:34:38.200 And, and that contrary to the classical and Christian conception of life, which is that we are endeavoring for happiness,

00:34:48.660 eudaimonia in Aristotle's term, to engage in rational activity in an excellent way in accordance with virtue.

00:34:55.900 And contrary to the Christian notion that our life is from God, we didn't create our lives.

00:35:00.380 We don't own our lives.

00:35:02.040 We do not have total, the total freedom to do whatever we want with our lives.

00:35:06.840 You know, the Christian and just even classical pagan idea that there is a moral order that we are accountable to.

00:35:13.720 And one of the basic aspects of the moral order and the natural law is self-preservation.

00:35:19.700 That it is wrong to commit murder and it's wrong to murder yourself.

00:35:23.100 And it's wrong for many reasons that we don't really have time to get into now.

00:35:25.660 But we've, we've understood this for thousands of years.

00:35:29.080 There's the liberal idea that there is no moral order.

00:35:31.920 There is no God.

00:35:32.660 We're going to become our own gods.

00:35:33.860 The greatest good is individual autonomy. 0.70

00:35:35.760 And that is expressed most completely by killing ourselves, which is ironic.

00:35:41.200 The greatest expression, but it's, it's ironic, but it should be expected because liberalism is wrong about human nature. 0.91

00:35:48.020 That the greatest expression of our freedom is to destroy ourselves.

00:35:51.980 Shows you the suicidality of liberalism.

00:35:54.100 In any case, that is an extreme, extreme form of liberalism.

00:35:59.800 Newsom not only believes it, he participated in it.

00:36:02.680 And you can tell he's torn up about it and I feel for him.

00:36:04.680 And I, I, I'll probably pray for Gavin Newsom because of how terrible this is.

00:36:08.980 This guy cannot be anywhere near power.

00:36:11.960 This guy, and he's really politically adept and he's a smooth operator and all those things.

00:36:15.900 And he, he could get the Democrat nomination and he could be the president of the United States.

00:36:19.120 He should not be.

00:36:20.920 He is enthralled to an extremely dangerous ideology. 0.98

00:36:23.800 He's not only totally incompetent.

00:36:25.700 He not only allowed one of his greatest cities to burn to the ground because of his incompetence.

00:36:29.500 He's also just ideologically so extreme that the things he believes are deeply, deeply evil and would greatly accelerate the destruction of our country.

00:36:39.700 Now, on that chipper little note, do you want more of the Michael Knowles show on The Daily Wire?

00:36:44.900 Well, become a Daily Wire Plus member and get exclusive access to my show, ad-free streaming, and early access to our biggest releases.

00:36:51.640 Watch high-quality films and documentaries made by filmmakers who actually care about truth and storytelling.

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00:36:59.540 Watch anywhere, anytime, on desktop and the Daily Wire Plus app for mobile and TV with new content added every week.

00:37:06.440 There is always something worth watching.

00:37:08.300 Join today at dailywire.com slash subscribe.

00:37:10.980 My favorite comment on Friday is from Aaron Guzman, 7940.

00:37:17.620 We were talking about hobbies at the end of the show.

00:37:20.420 Aaron Guzman says, my favorite hobby is listening to The Michael Knowles Show.

00:37:23.820 Well, thank you.

00:37:24.380 You are a gentleman and a scholar.

00:37:25.880 You are a man of great interest.

00:37:31.220 Now, some people's favorite hobby is smoking dope.

00:37:34.960 Did you know that?

00:37:35.800 Having the old Haitian oregano, a little bit of the ganj, you know?

00:37:38.720 Mary Jane, the old Peruvian parsley.

00:37:41.120 You catching what I'm putting out there, baby?

00:37:42.820 I'm talking about marijuana.

00:37:45.980 And, you know, I'm not the biggest fan.

00:37:47.760 I'm not saying it's the greatest evil in the world.

00:37:49.220 But I'm totally unsympathetic to arguments in favor of liberalizing marijuana.

00:37:57.380 Tobacco, I like.

00:37:58.480 Tobacco is the crop that built our country.

00:38:00.100 Tobacco, if it does anything.

00:38:01.320 You know, I smoke cigars, so it doesn't get in your lungs.

00:38:03.480 It doesn't really give you a lot of nicotine.

00:38:04.900 But in as much as it gives you any nicotine, it kind of sharpens your mind, makes you a little quicker.

00:38:08.960 It's a nice way to relax.

00:38:09.940 Good way to have a conversation with friends.

00:38:11.180 Doesn't really alter your state of mind other than in the way a cup of coffee does.

00:38:16.380 Well, pot does alter your state of mind.

00:38:18.340 Now, unlike alcohol, which has been with us for the entire history of our civilization,

00:38:23.200 our Lord's first public miracle is turning water into wine for people who have been drinking for a very long time.

00:38:28.340 Marijuana is a foreign kind of thing, novel to our culture.

00:38:32.760 Whereas alcohol is a social lubricant, in moderation, it can help ease and facilitate socializing, which is good and part of our human nature.

00:38:43.460 Pot generally doesn't do that. 1.00

00:38:44.660 It draws you further into yourself, and it makes you kind of dumber and hungrier and makes you less funny, even though it makes other things seem funnier to you.

00:38:51.820 Anyway, I'll end my diatribe about why I'm not encouraging of the old sin spinach here. 0.55

00:38:58.300 There's a study out published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

00:39:03.200 Young potheads are six times more likely to have a heart attack than non-marijuana enthusiasts.

00:39:10.860 Six times more likely to have a heart attack.

00:39:14.480 Potheads under 50, I'll try to use nicer language. 1.00

00:39:18.140 People who use marijuana under the age of 50 are 6.2 times more likely to experience a heart attack.

00:39:27.900 They are 4.3 times more likely to experience an ischemic stroke.

00:39:31.800 And they are twice as likely to experience heart failure, according to this study.

00:39:36.240 Now, you might say, well, this might be a small sample size.

00:39:38.960 How could you find all those pot smokers? 1.00

00:39:41.180 Well, a lot of people use marijuana.

00:39:42.900 So, this actually had a huge sample size.

00:39:45.660 Researchers surveyed over 4.6 million people under the age of 50.

00:39:50.060 Now, 4.5 million of them did not use marijuana, but 93,000 did.

00:39:55.620 And all participants were free of health conditions that are associated with heart troubles.

00:40:00.820 And the study also excluded people who used tobacco.

00:40:04.240 So, they wanted it to be a pure, what is the effect of marijuana on your heart study?

00:40:08.420 And it looks like marijuana is very, very bad for your heart.

00:40:12.900 So, where does that leave us?

00:40:16.140 People will say, well, tobacco might not be good for your heart.

00:40:18.280 Maybe, you know, alcohol is not good for your heart.

00:40:20.460 Okay, sure.

00:40:21.560 Where does that leave us?

00:40:23.340 I'm not even just inveighing against marijuana.

00:40:25.860 I know the comments are going to be full of people who tell me they love marijuana.

00:40:28.580 Okay, I'm not even really arguing with you.

00:40:29.960 I guess what irritates me most about the pro-marijuana political campaigning is the claim that I've heard from many, many pro-pot people that marijuana has no downsides.

00:40:45.920 This is what bothers me, more than the drug itself, more than even the conversation about legalizing drugs.

00:40:52.380 It's this preposterous claim that there can be a substance that you light on fire and inhale into your lungs or else cook in a brownie and eat.

00:41:03.220 Or else, I don't know.

00:41:04.160 I don't know the other ways people smoke pot or indulge in marijuana.

00:41:08.400 But however you do it, you're telling me that this has no risks to you, it has no downsides, I don't believe that.

00:41:16.580 Everything has a risk.

00:41:17.700 Everything has downsides.

00:41:18.860 Some significantly more than others.

00:41:20.240 I am skeptical of anything that is said not to have downsides.

00:41:27.320 And this political point is something that a lot more people are waking up to than were in the truly utopian, starry-eyed 1990s and early 2000s,

00:41:38.940 where we thought that there were no limitations to our politics.

00:41:41.460 There's no limitation to our economy.

00:41:43.080 There's no limitation to global trade.

00:41:44.860 There's no limitation, moving into the Bush era, to American imperialism.

00:41:48.260 There's no limitation to Madisonian democracy all over the world.

00:41:51.200 It was the era of no limits in politics.

00:41:55.580 And we're waking up and realizing, no, no, everything has limits.

00:41:57.640 Everything has downsides.

00:41:59.680 This is, I think, a big motivating factor behind the populist or Trump or MAGA movement of the last 10 years.

00:42:07.060 It's people recognizing, oh, there are limits to everything.

00:42:09.280 There are downsides.

00:42:10.200 There are cons to everything.

00:42:12.460 Including what we have been told are unfettered political goods like free trade.

00:42:18.260 Like the open society, open borders, mass migration, the movement of peoples.

00:42:24.360 No, there are downsides to that.

00:42:25.740 There are downsides to everything in this fallen and finite world.

00:42:29.640 All the way from pot to migration and trade.

00:42:32.860 Okay?

00:42:33.300 So, recognize that.

00:42:34.440 And if you're making some no-limits utopian argument to me, just know I'm immediately going to reject your argument.

00:42:40.000 Now, speaking of disordered behavior, there's a Wall Street Journal report out, quite troubling, that American women are giving up on marriage.

00:42:52.220 Just read a little bit from the report.

00:42:54.520 Women are doing comparatively well when it comes to education and their early years in the labor force.

00:42:59.700 And men are doing comparatively badly, says Brad Wilcox, a fellow at Family Studies and a sociology professor at UVA.

00:43:06.560 This creates a mismatch because people prefer to date in terms of comparable education or outcome.

00:43:14.120 But, I mean, I even saw this.

00:43:17.180 I remember right after college.

00:43:18.520 In college, everyone's kind of equal.

00:43:20.080 In high school, everyone's kind of equal.

00:43:21.440 And you're all in, if you're not in the same math class, it's your, you know, someone's in the honors math class, someone's in the regular math class.

00:43:28.500 But you're all basically equal.

00:43:30.860 And some kids are on the football team, and some kids do the plays, and some kids do student government, some kids are in the marching band.

00:43:35.660 But you're all, you're within three or four years of each other, you're all kind of the same.

00:43:40.760 When you get out into the real world, you know, the working world, all of a sudden, when the blonde girl that was attracted to the, you know, football player at senior year of college, all of a sudden, now she might be attracted to the guy who's five, ten years older, who's way advanced in his career, who's rich, who's got a nice car, who's, she might start dating that guy.

00:44:05.600 And the guy that, the guy who was like the cool giga-chad football player just the year prior, now he's at the bottom of the totem pole in the working world, and he's not making as much money, and he's not, and so, and just, you just don't see as many people in your age cohort.

00:44:19.120 You go from being on a campus that has hundreds or thousands of people around your age, now you're working in an office, maybe you're around five or ten people who are around your age.

00:44:27.580 I don't know, you're working at some job, you're working in a store, maybe there are two or three people who are around your age.

00:44:31.840 It just really shrinks your possibilities, your opportunities, rather.

00:44:35.600 So, Brad Wilcox further pointed out on Twitter that as people have been delaying marriage, as some women are giving up on marriage altogether, when you look at happiness here, the Institute for Family Studies has this chart out, it remains the case that the happiest group of women is married moms with children.

00:44:59.860 The least happy group, the least happy group, single women without children. 1.00

00:45:04.920 Even in our modern age, with all these changes, all of the consequences of feminism, you see the breakdown, it's quite clear.

00:45:16.240 The natural law is undefeated.

00:45:20.140 It's undefeated.

00:45:21.360 What does the natural law tell us?

00:45:22.440 It's inscribed in every human heart, it's true throughout every culture that's ever existed.

00:45:27.140 It's just like the first principles of practical reason, the stuff that we just kind of know intuitively, we don't really have to reason about, the things that we have to know actually in order to reason.

00:45:35.180 We know that man is a social creature.

00:45:39.040 We don't fall off a coconut tree like Kamala Harris tells us.

00:45:42.080 That was the one smart thing Kamala's ever said.

00:45:44.760 We're a social creature, we're a coupling creature.

00:45:47.840 Marriage is normal for human beings.

00:45:50.420 It's the kind of thing we just do.

00:45:53.220 And people sometimes divorce, but that's contrary to reason.

00:45:56.680 We can subject our instincts to reason.

00:45:58.600 And in this case, the fundamental things apply as time goes by.

00:46:02.780 Just remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is still a sigh.

00:46:06.500 So that remains true.

00:46:08.920 Even with liberalism, even with modernism, even with feminism, married moms with kids are going to be happier than single moms, single women without children. 0.76

00:46:17.040 Which means, as a general rule, marry your high school sweetheart.

00:46:22.680 However, when you take all the consequences of this study into consideration, the lack of dating opportunity when you get out into the professional world and the kind of stratification and the specialization and the blah, blah, blah, and you take into account the happiness surveys of all the women, the inescapable conclusion is that shared experience, growing together, becoming one flesh, are important in marriage.

00:46:49.120 That the inescapable conclusion is that the inescapable conclusion is you should marry someone kind of basically sort of like your high school sweetheart.

00:46:56.680 In other words, the conclusion of all of our learning and all of our science and all of our investigations is that the things that we've pretty much always known are true, are true.

00:47:05.280 Today is Music Monday.

00:47:06.340 The rest of the show continues now.

00:47:07.560 You do not want to miss it.

00:47:08.440 Become a member and use code Knowles Canada.

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00:47:12.680 To be continued...

00:47:41.340 To be continued...

The Michael Knowles Show - March 24, 2025

Ep. 1699 - RFK Jr. Goes After Big Soda

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