The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1709 - The Stock Market Is Crashing — and Americans Love It

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00:00:27.260 The stock market is tanking globally.

00:00:29.700 Democrats are taking to the streets.

00:00:31.980 Even some of President Trump's staunchest defenders are turning on his massive tariff policy.

00:00:37.960 Every genius pundit, all the economists and the political analysts, they all agree,

00:00:42.720 the walls are closing in on Trump.

00:00:45.000 He's toast.

00:00:46.060 He blew it.

00:00:46.980 Just look at the economic numbers.

00:00:49.120 Except they're all ignoring one really important number for Trump's and MAGA's political future.

00:00:56.040 When Trump implemented the tariffs that tanked the market,

00:00:59.700 his public approval rating went up.

00:01:03.440 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:01:04.160 This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:05.020 Welcome back to the show.

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00:02:11.060 The market is getting absolutely pummeled, okay?

00:02:14.380 Right off the top, some of you are a little more wild with your investments than others.

00:02:19.980 Me, I'm extremely conservative, which means I miss out on all these great runs of the market.

00:02:23.780 But it also means I'm not sweating bullets when things like this happen.

00:02:27.640 But there is a major, major market correction that has happened.

00:02:31.120 Dow Futures has posted back-to-back losses of more than 1,500 points.

00:02:36.060 The S&P 500 was down 6% on Friday.

00:02:39.320 NASDAQ has entered a bear market.

00:02:41.380 It is rough out there, man.

00:02:43.700 Rough out there in the markets.

00:02:45.500 And yet, Daily Mail, JL Partners just posted a poll.

00:02:50.880 This is a poll of Trump's approval during the tariff week.

00:02:56.620 So Trump announces the tariffs.

00:02:58.520 The market immediately reacts.

00:03:00.100 Everyone on paper is losing a ton of money.

00:03:02.940 Well, not everyone, but a lot of people are losing a ton of money.

00:03:05.220 And yet, during that period, President Trump's job approval rating rose four points.

00:03:13.860 It went from 49% to 53%.

00:03:17.320 So actually, tariff week, the worst week in recent history for financial markets,

00:03:22.560 that actually was the breaking point for Trump to get over 50%.

00:03:28.000 Now he's at 53.

00:03:29.580 Since March 7th, Trump's approval among young voters, we're talking about voters 18 to 29,

00:03:36.400 that jumped up 13 points.

00:03:39.560 Well, surely his approval among Democrats or independents, that must have gone down, right?

00:03:44.740 Nope, that actually went up six points.

00:03:46.320 Well, what about some of the most solidly Democrat voters?

00:03:50.160 Like, what about black voters?

00:03:51.400 Sure, I know Trump did fairly well with black male voters, but there's no way. 1.00

00:03:55.720 He must be getting pummeled with black voters, right? 1.00

00:03:57.780 No, it's actually up 17 points in a single week.

00:04:03.480 What about the tariffs?

00:04:04.560 What if you ask people about the tariffs themselves?

00:04:07.520 More people support the tariffs than oppose the tariffs.

00:04:12.260 39% support, 37% oppose.

00:04:15.700 Something like 25%, 24%.

00:04:17.440 Don't have any idea.

00:04:19.100 In reality, 100% of people have no idea what the tariffs really mean

00:04:23.120 and what all the long-term consequences are going to be.

00:04:25.640 But everyone's pretending like they know what the tariffs are.

00:04:28.340 So anyway, 24% of people are honest.

00:04:30.880 But among the people who have an opinion about the tariffs,

00:04:33.360 more people support the tariffs than oppose the tariffs.

00:04:36.000 The tariffs and the market tanking are political winners for Trump.

00:04:43.140 How do we make sense of this?

00:04:45.000 There is a difference between the chattering class and public perception.

00:04:51.740 There is a difference, in other words,

00:04:53.880 between the media presenting to you what's going on in the world

00:04:57.880 and what's actually going on in the world.

00:05:00.160 And we've known this for a long time. 1.00

00:05:01.680 We always talk about the lame stream, left wing, drive-by, stupid, 1.00

00:05:05.060 legacy, establishment media. 1.00

00:05:07.540 But even with new media, even with the rise of podcasting and streaming,

00:05:11.320 still there is a chasm because virtually everyone I've been listening to

00:05:15.320 has said that the sky is falling in.

00:05:17.920 And I don't mean to downplay it, by the way.

00:05:19.520 There are serious, serious risks to this tariff regime,

00:05:22.520 which we'll get to in one moment.

00:05:23.400 And I'm just pointing out, the chattering class does not at all reflect actual public perception.

00:05:33.020 More people like these tariffs than do not like these tariffs.

00:05:37.140 Most people approve of what Trump is doing right now.

00:05:41.220 Most people don't care at all that this market is way down.

00:05:43.880 Because for most people, this doesn't really mean anything.

00:05:50.260 If they have their money invested in the market at all, even through 401k or something,

00:05:54.660 they're not going to touch it for a while.

00:05:56.600 It's not just numbers on a screen.

00:05:57.920 It'll bounce back.

00:05:58.680 This always happens in the markets.

00:06:00.940 The 50 wealthiest people in the country are getting absolutely destroyed right now.

00:06:05.960 Other than Warren Buffett.

00:06:07.060 I think he's the only one that hasn't posted major losses.

00:06:09.580 Oracle from Omaha, really doing an amazing job.

00:06:11.460 But the rest are just getting absolutely pummeled.

00:06:14.060 But guess what?

00:06:14.880 The vast majority of Americans don't care.

00:06:16.660 They don't care if Zuckerberg loses some money.

00:06:18.800 They don't even really care if Elon loses some money.

00:06:20.480 And Elon is a big voice in this administration,

00:06:22.800 though possibly opposed to the tariffs, according to some reports.

00:06:26.660 In fact, even more than some reports, Elon's taking to Twitter

00:06:29.260 to go after some of the pro-tariff voices in the Trump administration.

00:06:34.080 Trump, for his point of view, is coming at me saying the tariffs are like medicine.

00:06:41.460 Is there a pain in the market at some point?

00:06:43.840 You're unwilling to tolerate this idea of a Trump hood?

00:06:46.420 Is there a threshold? 1.00

00:06:47.960 I think your question is so stupid. 1.00

00:06:50.000 I mean, I think it's a, I don't want anything to go down. 1.00

00:06:53.580 But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.

00:06:56.220 And we have such a horrible, we have been treated so badly by other countries 1.00

00:07:04.380 because we had stupid leadership that allowed this to happen. 1.00

00:07:08.340 They took our businesses. 1.00

00:07:09.780 They took our money.

00:07:10.780 They took our jobs.

00:07:12.300 They moved it to Mexico.

00:07:13.640 They moved it to Canada.

00:07:14.920 They moved a lot of it to China.

00:07:17.260 And it's not sustainable.

00:07:18.500 We're not going to do it.

00:07:19.200 Now we have hundreds of billions of dollars is pouring into our country on a monthly basis.

00:07:25.780 It's pouring.

00:07:26.280 It's already started because they put tariffs on.

00:07:29.420 And eventually it's going to straighten out and our country will be solid and strong again.

00:07:33.780 The tariffs are like medicine.

00:07:36.580 And so for some people, that medicine is going to be like taking a little Advil

00:07:40.340 and putting a Band-Aid on the boo-boo.

00:07:42.360 And for some people, the medicine is going to feel like a combination of amputating multiple limbs

00:07:50.440 and maybe having your brain scrambled up too.

00:07:53.580 What was that process called?

00:07:55.100 What was that in the middle of the 20th century?

00:07:57.680 I can't believe the name escapes.

00:07:59.040 They did it to the poor Kennedy girl. 1.00

00:08:00.440 Anyway, it's going to feel a little tougher for some people than others, won't it?

00:08:05.640 I think that message resonates with people.

00:08:07.680 And it's going to resonate with the people politically that Trump has to speak to.

00:08:13.520 And that's not necessarily going to be multimillionaires who are going to be pulling their hair out.

00:08:17.540 But the base, the people that are actually the ones that go to the polls and drive the elections,

00:08:24.520 I think they're probably on Trump's side.

00:08:27.440 Because whatever pain people are feeling with the market downturn now

00:08:31.640 is the kind of pain that a lot of America has been feeling for 30 years.

00:08:37.680 And for those 30 years when the jobs were being outsourced,

00:08:40.980 when the people in the middle of the country who were in the lower middle class to the working class

00:08:47.920 were losing their economic and social position,

00:08:51.140 while this was leading to the dissolution of families and deaths of despair and all the rest of it,

00:08:56.760 and while the wealthier classes were cheering this on

00:09:01.080 because it meant that they could get cheaper knickknacks from China,

00:09:04.200 while the lower classes were complaining about this,

00:09:07.680 the upper classes said, oh, well, learn to code, catch up, innovate.

00:09:12.140 What's wrong with you?

00:09:12.940 This is creative destruction.

00:09:14.120 This is great.

00:09:14.760 This is just naturally how the economy develops.

00:09:18.320 Now, of course, it wasn't natural.

00:09:19.720 It wasn't natural for Bill Clinton to welcome China into the World Trade Organization.

00:09:23.440 The policies of free trade, especially in the 1990s, that came about that did, in fact, gut a lot of America,

00:09:33.880 they didn't just fall out of the sky, okay?

00:09:35.900 They were intentional choices by political leaders who weighed the costs and the benefits and decided to move forward.

00:09:44.720 And a lot of the benefits accrued to the upper classes and a lot of the costs were borne by people in the middle of the country,

00:09:51.080 people in the Rust Belt, people who worked in manufacturing, and that's just a fact, okay?

00:09:55.840 So I don't think you're going to get a lot of sympathy out of that middle America working class base

00:10:04.560 because now wealthy people are feeling some market pain.

00:10:08.600 They're going to say, hey, where were you when I was feeling pain for 30 years?

00:10:11.600 Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, explained this very, very well.

00:10:16.560 There's so much more to say.

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00:11:36.780 That is policygenius.com slash Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S.

00:11:41.480 Also, speaking of life insurance and the possibility of death, I'm going to be speaking at the University

00:11:47.380 of Pittsburgh tonight.

00:11:48.880 So that'll be with YAF.

00:11:49.980 You can live stream it on the YAF YouTube channel.

00:11:52.340 You might recall two years ago when I went to Pitt, they set the street on fire, burned me

00:11:57.660 in effigy, and then anarchists threw an explosive at the building when I was supposed to walk

00:12:02.320 on stage.

00:12:03.360 And I was fine, happily.

00:12:05.420 A police officer, a female police officer, was very seriously injured there.

00:12:09.320 One of those anarchists is in a federal prison right now.

00:12:11.740 So anyway, I'm coming back tonight.

00:12:14.060 Should be a lot of fun.

00:12:14.780 If you're in Pittsburgh, go check it out.

00:12:17.060 Stay safe, but check it out.

00:12:18.180 Hopefully, I'll see you in the venue.

00:12:19.600 And if you're not, if you're just online, go check it out on the YAF YouTube channel.

00:12:23.500 And I think we're going to try to stream it to my YouTube channel as well.

00:12:27.480 Subscribe to the Michael Knowles YouTube channel.

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00:12:30.460 Ring the bell.

00:12:31.820 Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, please explain how Trump implementing these massive tariffs,

00:12:39.700 completely tanking global markets, might not be a terrible thing.

00:12:43.540 I'm not happy with what's going on in the market today, but the distribution of equities across

00:12:52.380 households, the top 10% of Americans own 88% of equities, 88% of the stock market.

00:12:59.940 The next 40% owns 12% of the stock market.

00:13:04.740 The bottom 50 has debt.

00:13:07.800 They have credit card bills.

00:13:09.880 They rent their homes.

00:13:10.900 They have auto loans, and we've got to give them some relief.

00:13:15.440 And I was really struck by two different statistics last year.

00:13:19.820 Summer of 2024, Americans took more European vacations than they had in history.

00:13:27.120 Summer of 2024, more Americans were using food banks than they ever have in history.

00:13:33.240 I don't think the bottom 50% of Americans are losers.

00:13:36.300 I think the system hasn't worked for them.

00:13:40.900 I think that they are winners.

00:13:43.220 It's just a bad system.

00:13:45.180 So we are going to fix the system.

00:13:48.640 Okay.

00:13:49.280 So much insight in what the Treasury Secretary has said here.

00:13:53.160 Let's just go to the first part, though.

00:13:55.880 He says, this system is broken.

00:14:00.820 Okay.

00:14:01.100 So he uses the great example of the record number of people going on European vacations,

00:14:06.420 the record number of people using food banks.

00:14:07.940 He says, that's a systemic problem here.

00:14:11.060 Okay.

00:14:11.680 And what it speaks to is a more immediate problem, which is the system, even in its particulars,

00:14:18.640 was unstable.

00:14:20.380 Do you really think the stock market gains of the past year have been sustainable?

00:14:25.000 Do you think they've really reflected sturdy underlying economic realities?

00:14:29.120 I certainly don't.

00:14:29.680 And by the way, I'm not just saying this now to cover for the administration or to try to put a

00:14:36.020 good spin on this policy.

00:14:37.680 I have been very bearish in my personal investments.

00:14:41.380 I have not, for what, I don't have Scott Besson money, but for what coins I do have lying about,

00:14:46.860 I have not seriously invested in the stock market over the last year because it just feels like

00:14:52.560 it was all about to collapse.

00:14:53.540 And that's Besson's point.

00:14:55.220 Besson says, we were headed for an economic calamity.

00:14:59.660 Would it have been really fun for me to come in and just keep issuing a lot of debt?

00:15:05.540 And it's almost like a bodybuilder is taking steroids.

00:15:09.300 Outside looks great.

00:15:11.640 You're muscular.

00:15:13.100 Inside, you're killing your vital organs.

00:15:15.400 That's what was going on here.

00:15:16.560 But it would have been easy to keep pumping up the economy, borrowing a lot of money,

00:15:21.300 creating a lot of government jobs.

00:15:25.480 There was no controversy when we're doing all that.

00:15:29.120 But you were going to end up in a calamity.

00:15:32.240 If you go back and look, you look at the financial crisis in 07, 08, economy looked great right up until then.

00:15:43.680 You go back and you look at the end of the dot-com bubble and then the whole credit problem,

00:15:50.600 the fraud at WorldCom, Enron, some other companies.

00:15:54.400 Economy looked great until it didn't.

00:15:57.380 And I think one of the things that we won't get credit for,

00:16:02.020 but that this administration will have done, is avoiding a financial calamity.

00:16:08.800 There it is.

00:16:09.360 And his critics are going to mock him for this, say, oh, yeah, it's an unfalsifiable, hypothetical situation.

00:16:16.640 And you're saying that had we not implemented the tariffs and tanked the markets,

00:16:20.440 there would have then been a financial calamity.

00:16:22.840 Yeah, give me a break.

00:16:24.220 What's your evidence?

00:16:25.000 Well, here's some evidence.

00:16:27.680 Economists had already been predicting a recession, an imminent recession, before Trump got elected.

00:16:35.020 Here's a little bit more evidence.

00:16:36.340 I wasn't heavily investing my money in the stock market.

00:16:40.240 And there are a lot of other people just like me who said, this just feels fake.

00:16:44.500 I don't really believe these market highs.

00:16:47.580 It just doesn't seem serious.

00:16:50.100 Okay.

00:16:50.360 Even with this major correction, as of Friday at least, we'll see what the markets do today.

00:16:56.860 It's not as though the market returned to 1929 levels here, folks.

00:17:00.420 Even with this major market correction, this huge tanking of the global markets,

00:17:07.680 the U.S. markets returned to where they were May 2nd of last year.

00:17:12.840 Okay.

00:17:13.240 So, you know, wipes out a year of gains.

00:17:15.520 Okay, fine.

00:17:16.080 But like, come on, man.

00:17:17.140 It's not, it's actually not the end of the world, even though it might seem like it is in the moment.

00:17:21.660 What is Trump doing here?

00:17:23.300 What is Scott Besson implying that Trump is doing here?

00:17:26.180 Is implying that he's pulling a Reagan.

00:17:28.980 This is what happened to Reagan in 1981.

00:17:32.940 Reagan is inaugurated and the economy goes pretty much immediately into recession.

00:17:39.680 And Reagan, it would seem, wanted to get that recession out of the way early.

00:17:45.280 The idea was go through the financial pain that is going to happen.

00:17:49.180 There is going to be economic pain.

00:17:50.560 So just go through it quickly.

00:17:52.100 You have a recession, 1981 to 1982.

00:17:54.380 And then you can come out the other end of it and be ready for the reelect.

00:17:59.320 And people aren't going to remember.

00:18:00.220 When you're running for president in 1983, 1984, people aren't going to remember all that financial pain.

00:18:05.860 And you're going to have mourning in America again.

00:18:08.000 So I think that is a similar thing to what Trump is doing here.

00:18:12.000 The problem is Trump isn't running for another term unless they amend the 22nd Amendment.

00:18:16.260 And he goes for term three and becomes, you know, Donaldus Magnus, the first emperor, followed by Octavian Baron Augustus Trump.

00:18:25.320 And so we'll see.

00:18:26.220 A boy can dream.

00:18:27.340 But probably that's not going to happen.

00:18:28.980 Which means I've been really rosy and I'm totally, you know, defending the Trump policies in principle.

00:18:34.320 But in practice, we have to have some caution here.

00:18:37.120 We'll see you next time.

00:19:07.100 A very serious recession.

00:19:08.780 Already with the headwind that the party in the White House loses the midterms.

00:19:12.840 That just almost always happens.

00:19:15.040 Then how are you supposed to have an upswing before the midterms?

00:19:19.680 The fear here is that the Trump plan is just too ambitious.

00:19:25.760 Or you might phrase it as the fear here is that the Trump plan just came about too late.

00:19:31.960 We had too many decades of this brittle, fragile financial system, economic system.

00:19:38.420 And that trying to totally overhaul it overnight, it was just the hour was just a little bit too late.

00:19:45.180 Okay.

00:19:45.480 But the problem with Trump's plan is not the plan in principle.

00:19:50.360 Okay.

00:19:50.600 And you don't just have to take my word for it.

00:19:52.500 Even the House Democrats agree with that.

00:19:55.080 The House Democrats released a video with some, I don't know, some two-bit Democrat congressman, Chris Deluzio, who was taking advantage.

00:20:05.280 Here is the Democrats' opportunity to pummel Trump.

00:20:07.480 The markets are tanking.

00:20:08.760 But listen to how he criticizes Trump.

00:20:10.940 Chris Deluzio here from Western Pennsylvania, proud son of the Rust Belt.

00:20:15.500 I think a wrong for decades consensus in Washington on free trade has been a race to the bottom.

00:20:20.520 It's hollowed out.

00:20:21.300 Our industrial power cost us good jobs.

00:20:23.580 The president's tariff announcement, though, and his trade strategy has been chaotic.

00:20:27.640 It's been inconsistent.

00:20:28.820 We should not treat our economic allies, like Canada, the same as trade cheats like communist China. 0.63

00:20:34.120 I do not want to see corporations use the cover of these tariffs to now price gouge families.

00:20:39.440 Tariffs are a powerful tool.

00:20:41.460 They can be used strategically or they can be misused.

00:20:44.140 They've got to be used in sectors that make sense.

00:20:46.520 They've got to be paired with real, meaningful industrial policies, pro-worker policies.

00:20:51.540 I'm talking about tax incentives to juice American manufacturing, get those supply chains back home,

00:20:57.140 to go after corporate price gouging and stock buybacks,

00:21:00.540 and better protections for workers to have the freedom to form and join a union.

00:21:04.800 We've got to get a better trade approach in this country.

00:21:07.260 And we've got to put workers and American families at the heart of it. 0.53

00:21:10.700 Okay, the first craziest thing about that video is the horrible production value.

00:21:18.320 I'm not the one who chopped that video up.

00:21:20.100 That's just the video that the House Democrats posted with all those crazy jump cuts.

00:21:25.640 Aren't these guys supposed to be in bed with Hollywood? 0.98

00:21:27.940 Can't they get a little show business?

00:21:30.280 Apparently not.

00:21:30.860 The second craziest thing about that video is that even while the Democrats are taking advantage to pummel Trump,

00:21:38.240 the weakest he's been in many years, and they're going to slam him over the head,

00:21:41.800 as they do that, they're admitting that Trump is right.

00:21:46.540 The whole thesis of that video is Trump is right in principle.

00:21:50.900 In theory, he's totally right, more right than the establishment Republicans and the establishment Democrats.

00:21:58.320 It's just we disagree on the details.

00:22:02.580 That's it.

00:22:04.520 That's the whole thing.

00:22:05.880 That's a terrible position for the Democrats to be in.

00:22:08.600 And it, I think, helps to explain why Trump's approval ratings went up the week of the tariffs.

00:22:14.160 And smart political observers, I don't care, hopefully the Democrats don't pay attention to this bit of advice

00:22:20.020 because I don't want to doubt them, but the Republicans who are listening right now,

00:22:24.580 pay attention to that number, and pay attention to what the Democrats are doing.

00:22:28.540 The smart Democrats, the clever Democrats, are recognizing,

00:22:32.580 don't go after Trump's policy in principle.

00:22:34.600 Trump's policy in principle is really popular.

00:22:38.340 Maybe don't even really go after it in practice.

00:22:40.640 Because most voters, at least the plurality, but maybe most voters,

00:22:47.000 they don't care when billionaires' portfolios decline.

00:22:51.720 They want, and they are demanding, and they have been demanding for decades,

00:22:57.760 a major reform to the whole economic system.

00:23:01.640 Lost civilizations, Nephilim, ancient megaliths.

00:23:05.040 In this episode of Michael and I, sit down with the rogue archaeologist Tim Alberino

00:23:09.780 to uncover what your history books will not tell you about the ancient past.

00:23:14.780 Check out this teaser.

00:23:16.520 Many of these extraordinary megalithic sites around the world were built in the age before the flood.

00:23:22.260 The ancient Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans and all the rest of them,

00:23:25.400 they believe that the very same thing occurred.

00:23:27.800 I don't even know if people are going to believe me when I say this.

00:23:29.300 When you started talking about the aliens and the antimatter, all the lights went off.

00:23:35.380 They have a $4,000 confidence monitor.

00:23:37.680 It like fizzed, like the picture got all crazy.

00:23:39.920 Maybe somebody's signaling to us to shut up.

00:23:41.820 Watch a full episode right now on the Michael Knowles YouTube channel

00:23:52.240 or catch the uncensored F-free version exclusively at Daily Wire+.

00:23:56.240 Democrats are taking advantage.

00:23:59.400 There were massive protests over the weekend.

00:24:01.980 They really were.

00:24:02.520 I'm not being facetious about that.

00:24:03.600 There were big protests in a whole lot of cities all around America.

00:24:08.340 Thousands of people in Boston.

00:24:09.920 You can see there's a good number of people, a little swarm.

00:24:13.720 It's like Democrat Mecca, you know, almost like they're swarming the Kaaba or something like that. 0.84

00:24:19.260 And it wasn't just Boston.

00:24:20.760 It was all of D.C., all over the country.

00:24:23.520 And okay, you see one frame of a picture.

00:24:25.660 You say, wow, that's a lot of people.

00:24:26.900 However, thousands of people in Boston, one of the most Democrat cities in the country,

00:24:32.600 thousands is the best you can get.

00:24:34.800 Something like 1,500 in D.C.

00:24:37.260 D.C.

00:24:37.820 Those numbers are not that impressive.

00:24:41.100 To put that in perspective, that's a fraction of a fraction of the people who show up to one Trump rally.

00:24:46.820 One Trump rally maybe in the middle of nowhere.

00:24:50.380 I don't think this protest showed what the Democrats wanted it to show.

00:24:58.180 It was highly organized, so you know there was big Democrat campaign money going into this.

00:25:04.680 There were some real people.

00:25:05.940 I don't think it was all paid actors or anything.

00:25:07.340 In fact, I personally know some people who showed up to this protest because, as you know, I'm from a liberal place,

00:25:11.920 and I've lived in other liberal places, and I went to a liberal school.

00:25:14.360 Anyway, I grant that this was a real protest.

00:25:17.900 Numbers don't lie, though.

00:25:22.520 1,500, a few thousand, compared to a Trump rally, which could have 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 people.

00:25:31.400 Just look at the numbers on his approval.

00:25:33.920 The approval rating goes up four points north of 50% now.

00:25:37.680 The week of the tariffs.

00:25:39.420 I don't think so.

00:25:40.100 Democrats are going to need to try something else to really gin up popular resentment against Trump.

00:25:44.740 So what are they trying?

00:25:46.860 Bernie Sanders and AOC are teaming up with, let me check my notes here,

00:25:51.960 Neil Young and Joan Baez for a stop oligarchy rally in Los Angeles.

00:26:01.820 This is like a Mad Lib of Mad Libs, actually. 0.79

00:26:05.400 This is, you just fill in the blank with all the silliest answers you possibly can.

00:26:11.700 AOC.

00:26:12.220 Okay, AOC, I get.

00:26:15.520 She is a leader of the left wing of the Democrat Party.

00:26:19.840 But if you're talking about the future, the avant-garde, how we're really going to create a great new America tomorrow.

00:26:28.580 Do you think of Bernie Sanders?

00:26:30.320 Is Bernie Sanders the future?

00:26:31.580 He's 150 years old.

00:26:32.660 I don't think so.

00:26:33.320 If you really want to excite the youths, you know, young voters swung for Trump in the last election.

00:26:40.540 Well, how are you going to swing them back?

00:26:42.240 I know what we're going to do. 0.98

00:26:43.460 We're going to get a couple of aging rock stars who look like crazy people. 0.97

00:26:48.340 Neil Young. 0.97

00:26:49.540 Neil Young looks like, he always looked like a crazy person.

00:26:52.240 Now that he's old, out of shape, hasn't written a popular song in decades, what is going to happen?

00:27:00.980 He's going to go, keep on rocking in a free world.

00:27:04.620 The young people, there won't be any young people at the rally.

00:27:07.080 But they would be scratching their heads.

00:27:09.920 And where are you going to hold it?

00:27:10.700 You're going to hold it in LA, the city that just burned to the ground because of Democrat mismanagement.

00:27:15.860 Because of politicians blowing it on the basic aspects of government.

00:27:21.180 And we know this for a fact because President Trump warned the Democrat governor of California,

00:27:26.560 who wants to run for president now, in 2018, that this exact thing would happen

00:27:31.320 if the Democrat governor kept up with the Democrat policies.

00:27:34.820 So they're going to go in the charred ruins of LA, burned to the ground because of Democrats.

00:27:39.620 They're going to bring a bunch of people who haven't been hip in 50 years.

00:27:44.800 And the nearest to an attractive, exciting person there is going to be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

00:27:52.840 Who else is going to be there?

00:27:54.940 Neil Young, John Baez.

00:27:56.300 Okay.

00:27:57.440 Maggie Rogers, Indigo D'Souza, Jeff Rosenstock, the Red Pairs,

00:28:04.200 and Ray's Gospel Choir.

00:28:06.520 Again, I ask.

00:28:07.820 I thought the Democrats were in bed with Hollywood.

00:28:10.700 This event is taking place in LA.

00:28:13.700 That's the best lineup they can get?

00:28:16.060 I haven't heard of any of those people.

00:28:20.060 Nothing, nothing, says avant-garde like 150-year-old rockers.

00:28:24.180 The silliest part of all, though, is the title of the rally, Stop Oligarchy, because whatever

00:28:34.500 Trumpism is, it is not oligarchical.

00:28:39.040 It just, that doesn't ring true.

00:28:41.020 That doesn't ring authentic.

00:28:43.000 You cannot simultaneously attack oligarchy and populism.

00:28:48.380 The knock on Trumpism, on MAGA, is that it's populist, and it's unleashing all of the unwashed

00:28:55.780 hordes, you know, the deplorable, irredeemable mob of miscreants to take over our government. 0.65

00:29:01.900 These people who lack expertise, who lack sophistication, who are basically like those 0.98

00:29:07.060 filthy insurrectionists at the Capitol. 0.65

00:29:09.180 That's the argument against Trump.

00:29:11.280 But that's the opposite of an anti-oligarchy argument.

00:29:14.040 In fact, when you make the argument against Trump that the Democrats have been making,

00:29:18.020 the anti-populism argument, you are making an implicit argument for oligarchy, because

00:29:23.760 you're saying, we actually do want the deep state and the financial elites and these moneyed,

00:29:30.100 powerful, entrenched interests to run our government, because the unwashed masses are just unfit to 0.88

00:29:35.400 lead.

00:29:36.200 That's the argument they're making.

00:29:38.600 Does anyone seriously think Trump is an oligarch?

00:29:40.760 All the billionaires just lost like hundreds of billions of dollars this week.

00:29:45.820 And they're furious about it.

00:29:47.360 And the people who don't care or who are happy are the relatively poor people, which is most

00:29:53.520 Americans.

00:29:54.340 You're calling that oligarchy?

00:29:55.960 What on earth are you talking about?

00:29:58.800 It doesn't, that just doesn't, none of this rings true.

00:30:01.940 And so it will be poorly attended, and it won't make a lick of difference.

00:30:06.320 Just like the hands-off protest this weekend won't make a lick of difference.

00:30:10.720 Trump's numbers are going to keep going up.

00:30:12.320 The economy could get to such a horrible point that it finally starts affecting Trump.

00:30:17.200 It will have nothing to do with Democrat tactics against him.

00:30:21.120 If Democrats do end up winning in the midterms or the next presidential election cycle, it will

00:30:25.840 be in spite of themselves, not because of anything they have done.

00:30:29.660 Now, speaking of celebrities, Russell Brand has been charged with multiple counts of rape.

00:30:37.200 This according to Reuters.

00:30:38.940 British police say they charged actor-comedian Russell Brand on Friday with rape and multiple

00:30:43.320 counts of assault in cases relating to four separate women between 1999 and 2005.

00:30:50.740 So the most recent case is from 20 years ago, and that this entire series of charges comprises

00:31:03.820 cases between 20 and 26 years ago.

00:31:08.840 Russell Brand denies the allegations.

00:31:10.620 Hello.

00:31:12.580 Firstly, thank you for these incredible and overwhelming messages of support.

00:31:18.220 We're very fortunate, in a way, to live in a time where there's so little trust in the

00:31:22.260 British government.

00:31:23.140 We're very fortunate, I suppose, that this is happening at a time where we know that the

00:31:27.040 law has become a kind of weapon to be used against people, institutions, and sometimes entire

00:31:33.880 nations that will not accept and tolerate levels of corruption that are unprecedented.

00:31:39.100 I'm speaking particularly to those of you that are watching this in the UK.

00:31:42.440 How do you feel about your legal system right now?

00:31:45.240 How do you feel about some of the high-profile cases that are not being pursued and prosecuted?

00:31:50.480 How do you feel that the Southport murders were handled?

00:31:53.680 How do you feel about the government of Keir Starmer?

00:31:57.120 Now, that's just sort of general context.

00:31:58.740 Me, I've always told you guys that when I was young and single, before I had my wife and 0.98

00:32:03.620 family, we were just out of shot over there, my beautiful children, I was a fool, man. 0.98

00:32:08.280 I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord. 1.00

00:32:12.000 I was a drug addict, a sex addict, and an imbecile. 1.00

00:32:14.920 But what I never was, was a rapist. 1.00

00:32:18.280 Okay, he says he wasn't a rapist.

00:32:21.220 This video does nothing to convince me that he was a rapist or that he wasn't a rapist.

00:32:27.100 I don't know. 0.95

00:32:27.700 He might have been a rapist. 0.99

00:32:29.000 He might have been. 1.00

00:32:29.680 I don't know.

00:32:30.000 I know he says, I've never been that.

00:32:31.320 I was a drug addict. 0.96

00:32:32.140 I was a sex addict. 0.97

00:32:33.100 I was completely out of my mind.

00:32:34.540 Well, if you tell me all those things, then you tell me you might have committed a crime.

00:32:40.060 You might have engaged in a kind of blurry, did they really consent?

00:32:44.980 I don't know.

00:32:45.540 I'm not accusing him of that.

00:32:46.760 I just don't know.

00:32:48.760 What I do know is that these allegations are from 20 to 26 years ago.

00:32:54.840 And I will give you the Knowles rule of forensics.

00:33:01.240 Okay, this is what I apply when I'm trying to ascertain if a charge is legitimate or not,

00:33:06.120 if an allegation is legitimate.

00:33:07.860 For every year that passes between an alleged crime and a formal allegation,

00:33:15.860 skepticism should increase by five percentage points.

00:33:19.700 That's my rule.

00:33:21.760 Okay, so.

00:33:24.840 For every year.

00:33:26.160 So if it's five years, I'm going to be 25% skeptical.

00:33:33.800 You make it, you say, five years ago, so-and-so committed this terrible action.

00:33:38.040 I'm only hearing about this now five years ago.

00:33:41.560 Look, five years isn't a lifetime away, but I'm a little skeptical.

00:33:44.660 If you tell me something happened 10 years ago, but it's really serious and he needs to be prosecuted,

00:33:50.240 especially if he's a public person, especially if he's saying things I don't like.

00:33:52.640 10 years ago, I'm about 50% skeptical that this even happened.

00:33:58.840 20 years ago, I am now fully 100% skeptical.

00:34:03.320 This seems to me like Brett Kavanaugh stuff.

00:34:06.920 This seems to me like Donald Trump stuff, where someone starts saying and doing things that people don't like politically,

00:34:15.560 and all of a sudden someone comes up and says, hey, actually, back during the Coolidge administration,

00:34:22.020 this guy used the salad fork for his entree, and so I think we need to give him the electric chair.

00:34:26.320 I just don't, I don't buy, I don't have any explanation as to why these allegations would not have come out earlier.

00:34:35.380 You might say, well, because 20 or 26 years ago, this society was totally prejudiced against women coming forward.

00:34:43.060 Yeah, maybe.

00:34:43.560 What about the Me Too movement?

00:34:44.860 What about Time's Up?

00:34:45.820 When was Time's Up and Me Too?

00:34:48.140 That was like five years ago now or more.

00:34:51.060 You're telling me, no, during all of that, forget about it.

00:34:53.420 No, we still couldn't come forward.

00:34:55.480 But now that Russell Brand is a prominent political media figure, he's identified weirdly enough on the right.

00:35:04.200 He doesn't really seem like a conservative, but he's on the right, and he's embracing Christianity, at least in some way. 0.99

00:35:10.820 And now, all of a sudden, he's a rapist and needs to rot in prison. 0.99

00:35:16.860 I don't know. 0.99

00:35:18.060 I disagree with Russell Brand that he could not have been such a degenerate that he actually committed that kind of a heinous crime.

00:35:27.080 In theory, I'm sure he could have been.

00:35:30.440 If you delve to the depths of vice and degeneracy, you could commit just about any crime.

00:35:36.240 But did he?

00:35:37.920 Seriously?

00:35:38.320 Honestly, 26 years later, we're making the allegations.

00:35:41.880 The Knowles Rule of Forensics.

00:35:43.900 Five percentage points for every year that goes by without an allegation.

00:35:48.260 20 years, we're at about 100% skepticism.

00:35:51.240 You know, the chat is live right now in the Daily Wire Plus app and at dailywire.com.

00:35:57.020 But if you actually want to join the conversation with my producers and people who still have common sense, you've got to become a Daily Wire Plus member.

00:36:04.480 Daily Wire Plus members get everything, all of our content ad-free, daily shows, hit movies, documentaries, and more.

00:36:11.420 Plus, exclusive investigative journalism.

00:36:13.800 It gives you the whole story, not just the part that fits the narrative.

00:36:16.980 Become a member today at dailywire.com slash subscribe or download the Daily Wire Plus app in the App Store right now.

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00:36:52.640 My favorite comment yesterday is from KellyGirl4996 who says,

00:36:57.220 Christians forgive, he can't let this thug ruin his life too.

00:36:59.760 I think this is in response to Jeff Metcalf.

00:37:02.420 Story we're about to get into right now, actually.

00:37:04.240 But really good comment, really good observation, because forgiveness, we forgive because God tells us to.

00:37:13.280 We also forgive for ourselves.

00:37:16.400 When something terrible happens to you, you know, look, you allow people to, the prosecutions to continue, you trust in God's justice and everything.

00:37:24.860 But you forgive in part because the man who sets out for vengeance should dig two graves.

00:37:29.460 And that's the old proverb, because if you constantly are focusing on avenging old wrongs, it'll ruin your own life.

00:37:40.120 And it's easy to say when, you know, someone stole your cupcake in the third grade or when, you know, someone smacks you across the face.

00:37:47.340 It's harder when someone really commits very, very grievous sins against you.

00:37:51.740 But at least for your own good, it'll serve you better.

00:37:56.060 Sure. So speaking of that crime, there's an ongoing criticism of Jeff Metcalf, the father of Austin Metcalf.

00:38:05.940 Austin Metcalf, the 17-year-old football player with really good grades, who had a bright future ahead of him,

00:38:11.440 who was stabbed in the heart by some complete animal at a track meet or a football meet.

00:38:17.200 It was a football meet, right?

00:38:18.180 It was some kind of sporting event.

00:38:21.340 Oh, it was a track meet.

00:38:22.160 Okay, but he was a football star, the kid.

00:38:24.160 And this absolute animal stabs him in the chest because Austin Metcalf said, get out of my seat.

00:38:32.760 So the murderer, the murder suspect is arrested.

00:38:37.100 And the father, Jeff Metcalf, comes out and he says, I forgive him.

00:38:43.280 God's got me.

00:38:44.280 God will deal with this.

00:38:45.200 I forgive him.

00:38:45.780 There's been all this criticism calling him weak, calling him some insinuating that he's been paid off 0.74

00:38:51.040 because, because the murderer was black, the alleged murderer was black, and the victim was white.

00:38:58.780 So that in order to advance political correctness and wokeness and to quell racial tensions,

00:39:07.200 he was somehow forced to forgive this kid or something.

00:39:12.540 I mean, just crazy stuff.

00:39:14.660 Jason Whitlock, I thought, had a good take on this.

00:39:16.520 He said, if you believe your son is sitting with Jesus and that biblical obedience requires you to deny yourself,

00:39:23.620 then you can understand Jeff Metcalf's effort at grace and mercy.

00:39:28.060 The effort to shame and smear Austin Metcalf's dad is despicable.

00:39:33.040 Totally agree.

00:39:34.040 Whatever one thinks of Jeff Metcalf's reaction, everyone is going to form his own opinion.

00:39:43.260 Some are going to say it was the perfect reaction.

00:39:45.420 Some are going to say it was a terrible reaction and one can make all sorts of arguments.

00:39:50.180 Whatever one thinks of that reaction, one simply does not criticize the grieving father of a murdered son

00:39:58.560 the week the son was murdered.

00:40:00.820 That used to be common sense.

00:40:06.080 There is such a thing as decorum.

00:40:09.040 Decorum is conservative.

00:40:10.880 I'm not saying we need to be all little prissy fancy playing by the Marquess of Queensbury rules and politics.

00:40:15.580 Certainly not.

00:40:16.640 And if anyone thought that before 2016, Trump knocked that idea right off the table.

00:40:21.800 But in our daily comportment, in the regular social relations that constitute most of our lives,

00:40:29.740 we can have a little class, folks.

00:40:32.200 You know, we can have a little decorum.

00:40:33.940 Why is this coming out?

00:40:35.580 What has changed?

00:40:36.560 Obviously, social media.

00:40:38.220 Where everyone thinks not only that he is entitled to his own opinion, but that he is entitled to express it in any venue or any mode that he wishes at any time that he wishes.

00:40:48.160 And that just isn't true.

00:40:49.440 That's not how civilized societies behave anyway.

00:40:53.860 Okay.

00:40:54.260 Yes, does one have a private opinion over how would you react?

00:41:00.160 First of all, you don't know how you would react if this horrible thing happened to you.

00:41:03.340 But everyone has a private opinion.

00:41:04.760 I would do this.

00:41:05.340 I would do this differently.

00:41:06.100 This is what's better.

00:41:06.740 This is the problem with us.

00:41:07.560 This is the guy just lost his son.

00:41:12.940 You don't criticize him.

00:41:15.460 Two days later, you don't.

00:41:16.900 Good grief.

00:41:18.420 Decorum.

00:41:18.940 We've lost a lot of that.

00:41:19.920 And it's really because of social media because everyone's a big tough guy behind a keyboard on Twitter or whatever.

00:41:26.120 But it's not even about toughness or gentility or anything like that.

00:41:31.640 It's just how society is supposed to behave.

00:41:35.260 Were you raised right, people?

00:41:36.600 Were you raised right?

00:41:38.280 Did your parents raise you right?

00:41:40.080 Well, act like it.

00:41:40.940 Good grief.

00:41:41.380 Now, speaking of crimes, an illegal alien has bragged about being an illegal alien on TV at the aforementioned left-wing hands-off protest this weekend.

00:41:53.840 My name is Greisa Martinez-Rosas.

00:41:56.480 I am an immigrant.

00:41:58.140 I am undocumented, unafraid, queer, and unashamed.

00:42:03.100 Thank you.

00:42:33.380 The temerity, the audacity to come into our country, to break our laws, enter into our country, violate some of the most basic laws in the country, and to get up on stage on television, on our publicly funded television channel, and say, yeah, I broke all your laws, and you're not going to do anything about it. 0.98

00:42:52.300 Now I'm making even more demands.

00:42:54.140 Gimme, gimme, gimme.

00:42:54.840 This is why, this is why, this is why, that is why Americans are not upset about the tariffs.

00:43:03.440 That is how Trump's approval rating went up when the tariffs were implemented and the market tanked.

00:43:09.180 Because Americans increasingly understand that elites view this country as an economic zone, as a piggy bank to be just shaken, jumbled the whole thing up.

00:43:20.800 If we can squeeze out another penny, and social order, law, justice, that's all a joke.

00:43:28.440 Who cares?

00:43:28.960 We're just going to ring this thing for every dollar it's worth.

00:43:31.820 And most Americans here are saying, no, you know, we want a country, actually.

00:43:37.400 We want social solidarity.

00:43:39.640 A country is not only GDP.

00:43:43.440 Not that these illegal aliens do all that much for GDP. 1.00

00:43:45.960 They just allow the elites to pay slave wages. 0.98

00:43:50.500 That's really what this comes down to.

00:43:52.980 Trump needs to ramp up the deportations considerably.

00:43:55.800 And I understand it's a difficult thing to do, and they're working on it, you know, they're first going after the face-tattooed gangsters. 0.96

00:44:04.120 But if you have a country where that lady feels empowered to get up there and say, I'm breaking all your laws, you know, hey, come and gimme, you're not going to do it, then we have a ridiculous-looking country. 1.00

00:44:17.460 And what's the argument? 0.90

00:44:19.800 What's the argument to tolerate that?

00:44:21.540 The best argument the Democrats are making right now, the best argument is that these illegal aliens need to be imported into the country so that they can work for very, very low wages that Americans won't work for. 0.99

00:44:36.900 Americans won't do their jobs because Americans won't work for such a low wage. 0.99

00:44:41.340 So hold on, your liberal, bleeding-heart, kumbaya humanitarian argument for mass migration is that we need to oppress the poor?

00:44:54.520 No, Americans, they have too much dignity. 1.00

00:44:56.940 They're accustomed to too good a lifestyle and too many rights, so we can't pay them the slave wages that we can pay the Guatemalan peasants. 1.00

00:45:02.880 That's your argument.

00:45:04.200 Oppression of the poor is one of the four sins that cries out to heaven for vengeance.

00:45:07.380 And the Democrats, who are always prattling on about how much they care about the poor, their explicit argument for mass migration is we need to oppress the poor.

00:45:16.720 And the American poor won't let us do it, so we got to import the Venezuelan poor. 1.00

00:45:21.500 Bad look.

00:45:22.480 Bad look, guys.

00:45:23.420 But it does help you to understand how we can have the worst days of the stock market since 1987, okay?

00:45:33.400 We can have what could be the beginning of a global financial collapse, and people will continue to support Trump, will actually support him all the more so.

00:45:44.160 That is how toxic the liberals in this country and elsewhere have made their brand and their ideology.

00:45:51.500 Today is Music Monday.

00:45:52.500 The rest of the show continues now.

00:45:53.700 You do not want to miss it.

00:45:54.820 Become a member.

00:45:55.440 Use code Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. 1.00

00:45:57.120 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

00:45:59.820 Thank you.

00:46:14.160 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - April 07, 2025

Ep. 1709 - The Stock Market Is Crashing — and Americans Love It

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