The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1712 - Let Him Cook! Stop Pretending You Understand Tariffs

00:00:00.000 Just when the free traders thought that President Trump really was going to hurl us into a global

00:00:05.200 depression, and just when the protectionists were convinced that Trump was going to hold

00:00:10.920 firm on all the tariffs, just when the pundits and prognosticators and all manner of bloviators

00:00:17.160 were dead certain that they knew exactly what Trump was going to do and why he was going to do

00:00:21.320 it, President Trump confounded all of them by pausing his tariff plan for 90 days on every

00:00:27.220 country but China. And of course, as is always the case with pundits and prognosticators, both sides

00:00:34.540 are claiming victory. The free traders, the panic hands, as Trump dubbed them, insist that they

00:00:41.020 prevailed in convincing Trump to abandon the policy. The protectionists, on the other hand, insist that

00:00:46.340 this was really the plan all along, to bluff with all the other countries only to zero in on China,

00:00:52.560 5D chess. And both of those theories have big holes in them, which we'll get to in one second.

00:00:56.620 But amid all those voices of total confidence, among all the people who are frequently wrong but

00:01:03.440 never in doubt, there was one man who offered an alternative view. You know how much it pains me

00:01:10.500 to say I told you so. But there was one man who said that both sides of the debate were talking out

00:01:17.120 of their derrieres. There was one man who admitted the unspeakable obvious, namely, that no one,

00:01:24.440 including senior administration officials, really had any idea what the rationale was behind the

00:01:31.460 tariffs. That Trump's distinct political gift is unpredictability. A man who offered this advice

00:01:38.000 on how to handle the situation. In case you forget, here is a little clip from just a couple of days

00:01:43.840 ago to jog your memory. We'll see how this goes. It is entirely possible that this doesn't work out.

00:01:51.380 It sends us hurtling into a global recession. Republicans get completely destroyed in the

00:01:57.260 midterms. A Republican never wins election again. It's all possible. Okay. But Trump's gut has been

00:02:05.520 pretty good so far. He won re-election with a mandate to do something different, something much like this.

00:02:11.980 I would just say, channeling my inner spiritual Zoomer, let him cook. Okay? Let him cook a little

00:02:18.520 bit. See what he whips up in the kitchen. Trump has a good gut. He's got a good track record.

00:02:24.840 No one knows what he's thinking. But he won a big election, and we should just let him cook for a

00:02:29.740 little bit. Then yesterday, while everyone was trying to explain why his own definitive theory was

00:02:37.140 always correct, the White House published this three-word statement on the matter.

00:02:43.880 Let him cook! Exclamation point. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:02:49.860 Welcome back to the show. Also, just when you think all the silly pronoun nonsense is over after the 0.99

00:03:14.740 2024 election. The Dems make a big point to double down on it during the CNN town hall. And the White

00:03:21.340 House responds with its own policy on they-them pronouns. We will get to all of that in one

00:03:27.380 moment. First, though, go to vandycrisps.com slash Knowles. Get 25% off. Spring is when we throw open

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00:04:41.900 Get these very luxurious, delicious potato chips for 25% off. The one thing that you are not allowed to

00:04:49.560 do in political commentary, in politics generally, is to admit uncertainty in anything. But sometimes,

00:04:58.560 admitting uncertainty is the most precise take. All of these people, they were so smart. They knew

00:05:07.560 exactly what Trump was going to do. They knew exactly why Trump was going to do it. And they

00:05:11.440 all look foolish today. And look, it takes a big man, it takes a very big, handsome man with a great 1.00

00:05:18.540 cigar company to admit when he doesn't know exactly what Trump is doing. But if you admit that fact,

00:05:27.140 then when Trump reverses course and zags when everyone's zigging and confounds everybody else,

00:05:34.540 at least you were honest. You actually give the correct take on things. So what are the alternative

00:05:41.580 views? You're going to have the pundits and prognosticators declaring victory today

00:05:46.260 for their perfect predictions. They're going to say, no, no, this was always the plan.

00:05:52.620 This was always the plan. We just threw global markets into turmoil and obliterated a lot of

00:05:58.500 wealth on paper and irritated all of our allies because we were actually always trying to arrive

00:06:05.480 at this exact position where we take away most of the tariffs on basically everyone except for China.

00:06:11.960 And there is some good evidence for that position. Some good evidence is that the Treasury Secretary,

00:06:17.920 Scott Bessent, a very intelligent, very capable man, obviously senior administration official,

00:06:23.360 has said this was the plan all along.

00:06:26.700 This was driven by the president's strategy. He and I had a long talk on Sunday,

00:06:31.620 and this was his strategy all along. And that, you know, you might even say that he goaded China

00:06:38.760 into a bad position. They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors.

00:06:47.160 And we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.

00:06:55.400 It wasn't a hard message. Don't retaliate. Things will turn out well.

00:06:59.220 So you might say Trump has goaded China into a bad position. And what is the bad position? The bad

00:07:04.340 position is they've revealed themselves to be bad actors. And so anyway, we were just kind of fooling

00:07:10.080 around with our allies. But China looks really bad. Okay. The one side can point to them. The

00:07:16.980 side of the argument that says actually Trump just got spooked and this wasn't the plan all along and he

00:07:22.540 was just reacting to markets can point to this somewhat off the cuff statement that Trump himself

00:07:30.080 made yesterday.

00:07:31.400 Is it the bond markets that persuaded you to reverse course?

00:07:36.440 No, I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if

00:07:40.560 you look at it now, it's beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful.

00:07:46.040 But yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy. I think everything had

00:07:52.320 well, the big move wasn't what I did today. The big move was what I did on Liberation Day. We had

00:07:59.500 Liberation Day in America. We're liberated from all of the horrible deals that were made, all of the

00:08:04.500 horrible trade deals that were made. And I was helped by people just like this, senator, congressman

00:08:11.120 and friends, right? And we had great help in the Senate. Republican senators have been amazing.

00:08:18.780 They stood tall and likewise in the House.

00:08:21.820 Okay. So there you got it. Right from Trump. He says, yeah, I was watching the bond market.

00:08:26.820 People were getting a little bit queasy. So anyway, but that's not the big deal. The big deal is what

00:08:30.320 I did when I implemented the tariffs. So both sides of this are going to declare victory and that they

00:08:35.680 were right all along. And the fact is, even today, we don't really know. We don't really know. To this

00:08:43.260 day, I could not tell you exactly what Trump was after on April 2nd with the tariffs. I can't tell

00:08:49.900 you exactly what he's after right now. And neither can you. And neither can any of these pundits who

00:08:54.500 are pretending like they got a crystal ball. They don't know anything. You think you can predict

00:08:58.860 Trump? Okay, cool, man. Good luck. I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. We still don't know.

00:09:04.120 So there's a 90-day pause on the tariffs. That means that the Dow Jones shot up, what,

00:09:09.560 3,000 points yesterday. Trump here is talking about the bond market. The U.S. bond market

00:09:16.080 cratered yesterday. Some people were wondering, well, hold on. Did the bond market crater because

00:09:21.400 China started dumping U.S. bonds? Don't forget, China owns a lot of U.S. debt. China owns something

00:09:29.540 like, on paper, $800 billion worth of U.S. Treasury securities. And in reality, probably

00:09:36.640 it's closer to a trillion dollars or even more than a trillion dollars. So there was this thought,

00:09:41.440 okay, we're in a trade war with China. China's really playing tough. They're going to stick

00:09:44.260 it out to the end. Maybe they started dumping U.S. bonds to destroy the U.S. bond market,

00:09:49.500 which obviously did spook a lot of people. President Trump is admitting there. He says,

00:09:52.780 yeah, people are getting a little queasy about that. Regardless of what this means for the

00:09:58.700 strategy on the tariffs, which I don't really care about. Trump's got a good gut. He's got a

00:10:02.900 good track record. It's a fool's errand to try to predict what he's going to do. And I think we're 0.97

00:10:06.320 just going to let him cook for a little bit. I'm not saying forever. I'm not saying give him a total

00:10:09.300 blank check to do whatever he wants. But the guy won a big election. He's got a good track record.

00:10:14.080 Just whatever, man. Don't sweat it. Don't be a panicking. I'm all for that.

00:10:17.180 But this does reveal, I think, the vindication of the Trump protection strategy writ large.

00:10:28.580 By which I mean this. I don't think that China was dumping U.S. bonds yesterday. I was talking

00:10:32.720 to an investor friend of mine who said, no, I don't think it was China. I think it was actually

00:10:37.080 some other firm. And it was other market forces beyond the Chinese government trying to really

00:10:42.800 get us. However, what that revealed was a major strategic weakness for the United States.

00:10:50.840 We are really susceptible to fluctuations in the bond market because we're a country that has an

00:10:56.260 insane amount of debt. And a ton of our debt, what, two to three percent of our debt is owned by

00:11:01.120 our biggest geopolitical adversary. And that's a problem. That's not Trump's problem. It's not even,

00:11:07.600 it is Trump's problem, but it's not a problem created by Trump. It's not a problem created by Joe Biden.

00:11:11.900 It's a problem that goes back decades at this point, but it's a major problem. It highlights

00:11:18.520 the absolute urgency of reordering our relationship with China, which went off the rails during the

00:11:26.960 Clinton administration because we stupidly allowed China into the World Trade Organization.

00:11:32.320 And we said that bringing China into global trade in a robust way was going to lead to democracy,

00:11:39.160 and China was going to westernize even more and liberalize, and we were all going to hold hands

00:11:43.660 and sing kumbaya as citizens of the world. And that didn't happen. And now we're extremely vulnerable

00:11:49.140 to China. It's unclear who would win a trade war, US or China. And it's clear that we have a lot of weak

00:11:58.320 points that China in particular can exploit. Now, on top of all of that, the market rallied like

00:12:07.180 crazy yesterday. When Trump said we're going to put a pause on most of the tariffs for 90 days,

00:12:11.080 the market went nuts. 3,000 points up on the Dow. The investors loved it. However, we should not draw

00:12:18.440 the wrong political conclusion from that because while the markets love freer trade and the markets

00:12:23.940 seem to hate protectionism and certainly seem to hate the volatility, public opinion polls are

00:12:29.160 revealing that the American people are on exactly the opposite side of that issue. We'll get to that in

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00:13:49.740 Before the announcement yesterday that Trump was going to pause the tariffs for 90 days,

00:13:58.740 before the big market jump, Trump's approval rating was still up. Not on Wall Street. I don't

00:14:06.140 think his approval rating was up on Wall Street. Not with big investors, but with the American people.

00:14:13.180 45% according to Rasmussen of likely U.S. voters said the government does not do enough to protect

00:14:22.320 U.S. manufacturers and businesses from foreign competition. In other words, 45% saying we love

00:14:28.980 the tariffs. Only 17% said that the government protects American business too much. So when you

00:14:36.800 hear all of the pundits and all of the prognosticators and all of the fancy people at the think tanks and

00:14:41.660 on TV with the bow ties saying, actually, the real problem is that the government is doing too much

00:14:47.280 to intervene in the economy. And actually, they're picking winners and losers. And actually, here's

00:14:51.300 my economic analysis of why that's really bad. Just know that is a view held by 17% of American

00:14:56.200 voters. 45% of voters, almost three times that group of people, say that the government needs to

00:15:04.920 do more to protect U.S. manufacturing. 25% think that the current level of protection against foreign

00:15:11.820 competition is about right. 14% are not sure. 25% saying the current level of protection against

00:15:16.380 foreign competition is right is a little confusing. Because that poll came out after Trump announced

00:15:22.300 his Liberation Day tariffs. Now, it's before the effects of those tariffs were really felt.

00:15:29.060 But that might mean a quarter of people saying, yeah, Liberation Day tariffs, that's good.

00:15:32.420 That's the right amount of protection. On top of that, 45% of voters said the country was on the

00:15:36.900 right track, up from 44% before the Liberation Day tariffs were announced.

00:15:44.620 So you've got this amazing scenario where the market is saying one thing and the American people

00:15:50.800 are saying the polar opposite. The market's saying, we hate these tariffs. This is horrible.

00:15:56.000 We've lost confidence in Trump. Everything's good. The Dow Jones is going to tank, the NASDAQ,

00:16:00.420 the S&P, the bond market. Everything's going to go into the gutter. And yet, after the tariffs,

00:16:05.960 the American people say, oh, we actually approve of Trump even more now. Before the tariffs,

00:16:13.120 before that increase in his approval rating, Trump had a 44% approval. That was 98th percentile over

00:16:19.100 the last 19 years of polling when it comes to presidential approval. That's pretty good.

00:16:23.660 And it went up with the tariffs. Most people are not panic ends, to use that great phrase. And

00:16:31.820 most people, or the plurality of American voters at least, are not ideological free traders.

00:16:42.960 Virtually everyone in the chattering class and the political class and the elite class and the investor

00:16:47.220 class are ideological free traders. The lion's share of Americans are not. So what does this

00:16:54.600 tell you? This tells you that there's a showdown between Wall Street and Main Street, which is

00:16:58.900 exactly what the Treasury Secretary, Mr. Besant, pointed out yesterday when he was speaking to the

00:17:04.480 American Bankers Association. For the last four decades, basically since I began my career in Wall

00:17:10.600 Street, Wall Street has grown wealthier than ever before. And it can continue to grow and do well.

00:17:17.220 But for the next four years, the Trump agenda is focused on Main Street. It's Main Street's turn.

00:17:24.060 It's Main Street's turn to hire workers. It's Main Street's turn to drive investment.

00:17:29.880 And it's Main Street's turn to restore the American dream.

00:17:33.680 The ideological free traders and the libertarians and the ideologues are not going to like that

00:17:41.440 statement. Because they're going to say, actually, a rising tide lifts all ships. And actually,

00:17:45.960 when Wall Street does well, that is good for Main Street. And actually, it doesn't matter if American

00:17:50.340 manufacturing exists at all, because Americans are going to save so much money on cheap Chinese goods

00:17:55.520 that they're going to get an extra five or six thousand dollars a year effectively in their

00:17:58.680 pocket. And so who cares if they have a job? Who cares if they have skills? Who cares if they're

00:18:02.760 rooted in their community? Who cares? They're going to get a bunch of cheap stuff. And in the abstract,

00:18:08.300 that's really, really good. And yeah, they might not have families and they might overdose on

00:18:12.040 fentanyl and they might just kill themselves. But we don't need it. Let middle America die.

00:18:17.900 There were people who wrote and said such things the first time Trump was talking about this in 2016.

00:18:24.520 But Besant and Trump understand a really important political point,

00:18:29.840 which is that politics is not just about some ideology that you can write in a university

00:18:36.400 textbook. And politics is not just about

00:18:40.340 ticking up GDP a little bit because there are going to be downstream effects that are really

00:18:44.740 good. And everyone's a consumer as well as a producer. And if we're saving money on our

00:18:48.460 consumption, that's really actually good when you really think about it.

00:18:51.140 There were decisions that were made at the level of the federal government over the past 30, 40 years

00:19:00.180 that allowed, as Besant points out, Wall Street to flourish a lot of the time and Main Street to

00:19:07.180 suffer. There were trade deals that were signed. There was an intentional move in policy to do this.

00:19:17.380 And it was because the men at that time, going back at least to the Clinton administration,

00:19:22.000 weighed the costs and benefits and said, OK, at this moment, this is what's going to benefit

00:19:25.520 our society. But politics is applying eternal principles to changing circumstances.

00:19:30.060 And when you've got the average American life expectancy declining because of deaths of despair,

00:19:35.300 driven in particular by middle aged white guys, when you've got American towns being hollowed out,

00:19:41.100 when you've got America strategically really, really vulnerable, because if there's an epidemic

00:19:45.880 and the supply chains get messed up, we're not going to get our food or our medicine.

00:19:50.060 Even if there's not an epidemic, if China just decides that it's going to dump American debt, 0.90

00:19:54.220 we're going to be up the creek without a paddle. OK, that means that you need to reorient your policy.

00:20:00.460 It's not when Besant says we're going to privilege Main Street, we're going to stop focusing so much

00:20:04.860 on Wall Street. He's not engaging in leftist class warfare. He's not saying we hate the Wall

00:20:08.920 Streeter. Scott Besant is a very famous and very successful Wall Streeter.

00:20:12.380 What he is saying is, in order to advance the common good and in order to have a functioning

00:20:18.600 polity, we need to refocus a little bit. We need to rebalance. We have neglected one group for too

00:20:28.140 long. And so it's not we're not going to punish the other group. But for the good of everyone,

00:20:32.960 we are going to refocus our priorities. This is good stuff. This is a very serious conversation

00:20:39.240 taking place on the right. Meanwhile, on the left, there were no serious conversations taking

00:20:43.040 place. CNN held a town hall last night for some reason with Bernie Sanders. And as they're attempting

00:20:49.660 to find the Democrat answer to the real debates on the right, to the real policies that are being

00:20:57.120 enacted, Democrats don't seem to know what they believe about anything. While they're trying to

00:21:02.040 work through these issues, some woman asking a question focuses on the real issue and corrects 0.61

00:21:08.940 Anderson Cooper because he referred to her as she. We're back with Senator Bernie Sanders.

00:21:15.180 I want to introduce Grace Thomas. She's a local civil rights attorney. She's a Democrat, Grace. 0.91

00:21:19.580 Say them pronouns, actually. Thank you. Good evening, Senator Sanders. Polling and turnout data

00:21:26.160 indicate that men of all racial demographics are turning away from the Democratic Party.

00:21:29.980 Okay. I want to translate that exchange. Jake Tapper sitting there saying, okay, we're doing

00:21:35.760 this show because we really want Democrats to have a chance at even possibly winning elections.

00:21:39.960 Okay. So we're going to turn to you, lady in the audience. And then the lady takes the mic. She 1.00

00:21:43.880 goes, yeah, I actually don't care. I don't want to win elections. I don't want to. I don't care at

00:21:48.140 all. I want to make myself as repulsive as possible to the American people. I want to identify myself in 0.88

00:21:54.440 this party with an issue that is so deeply unpopular that we're going to get blown out of elections for

00:22:02.180 the next millennium. And you see Tapper, there's, or not Tapper, sorry, Anderson Cooper, tomato,

00:22:07.440 tomato, Anderson Cooper. They're just saying, okay, we're still doing this. We were still doing they,

00:22:16.380 thems. Okay. Hey, you know what? Let's just wrap it up. Good night, everybody. We're going to,

00:22:20.580 we'll try this again in two or four years. And maybe then the Democrats will have any interest

00:22:26.160 in even attempting to win votes from people, but good night to you and they and them and those 0.96

00:22:34.680 maniacs. So Anderson Cooper talking to Bernie Sanders here finally gets Bernie to try to give

00:22:42.740 some sort of vision for America. And Bernie decides he's going to, he's going to articulate the

00:22:50.340 new Democrat vision by trying and failing to quote Ronald Reagan. So the idea that this station,

00:22:59.600 which all of us want to see as a, what did Ronald Reagan call it? The city on the mountain.

00:23:04.840 The Chinese sitting on a hill.

00:23:06.020 Sitting on a hill. Close. Sorry. I don't quote Reagan all that often.

00:23:11.700 But you know, we want to be a model to the world. We want people to look at us and say,

00:23:15.720 we want to be like the United States, not, oh God, United States, what are they doing?

00:23:20.340 A nation with this degree of a biblical illiteracy cannot long endure. That nation is doomed.

00:23:30.860 I don't, what did Ronald Reagan say? America's like a big fat shiny mountain or something like

00:23:35.400 that? I think he called it a shining city on a hill. Yeah, whatever. I don't really,

00:23:41.160 I don't quote Reagan that much. Where'd he put that? Was that in win one for the Gipper?

00:23:44.980 Was that the movie with the monkey? No, actually it was a, Reagan got it from Governor John Winthrop.

00:23:52.900 Model of Christian charity. One of the most important speeches ever given in the United States.

00:23:58.600 Oh yeah. Winthrop. I like him. Yeah. Where's that? Where's he from? He was from somewhere in

00:24:04.260 Massachusetts. It was a Massachusetts Bay colony. Yeah. Anyway, he was a smart guy. Actually,

00:24:08.980 he didn't, he got it from the Bible. He got it from our Lord. You don't know where the phrase

00:24:15.740 is shining city on a hill is from. It's like, it would be like saying, yeah, what's that phrase?

00:24:22.680 A man had seven daughters. No, I'm, you're thinking of a man had two sons. Yeah. Yeah. Man had two sons.

00:24:27.620 I don't quote veggie tales very often. No, it's not. There was a time, there was a time in this

00:24:36.120 country, not so long ago, where if you uttered the phrase, a shining city on a hill, everyone would

00:24:42.960 immediately know not only where that comes from, that that is a statement from the Bible, from our

00:24:50.440 Lord, but also would have known the rhetorical and intellectual history of that phrase in America.

00:24:56.540 They would have known that it comes from Governor Winthrop. They would have known that Ronald Reagan

00:25:00.240 liked to articulate it. There was a time where if you said there was a man who had two sons,

00:25:07.180 people would immediately know, their mind would immediately go to the parable of the prodigal son.

00:25:14.920 There was a time when we had a common cultural language and common cultural idiom and vision

00:25:23.460 that happened also to be Christian, the religion that has animated not only our country going back

00:25:30.260 to the Mayflower, which is a great cigar company, and also goes back to the religious zealots who

00:25:36.580 founded our country, but also that animated our whole civilization. Okay. And we don't have that

00:25:42.860 anymore. A US Senator who is super old. Can't tell you the phrase, a shiny city on a hill. I don't

00:25:52.660 mean to make a mountain out of a molehill as it were, but this is pathetic. We are becoming 0.99

00:26:01.160 just babbling baboons in this country. Okay. And our country is going to get uglier and stupider and 1.00

00:26:08.560 much less coherent and much less powerful as a result of that. We are truly becoming Philistines. 1.00

00:26:14.580 This is completely unacceptable. And I don't mean to just single out Bernie Sanders. I remember,

00:26:20.260 I think it was Leon Kass made this point, the great bioethicist at the University of Chicago

00:26:23.460 made this point years ago, maybe decades ago at this point. He said he was teaching some of the

00:26:29.400 creme de la creme students at the University of Chicago, one of the elite institutions of higher

00:26:34.580 learning in this country. And he said every year, he would just ask out of the blue, he would say,

00:26:40.000 Hey, who's Noah? Who's Noah? One of the most important figures in the Bible. And he said every

00:26:46.240 year, fewer and fewer students knew who Noah is. You can't understand Western art. You can't understand

00:26:56.100 the development of Western thought. You can't understand Western society without knowing who Noah is.

00:27:04.580 Without knowing what the shining city on a hill is. Without knowing the basics. Good grief.

00:27:12.240 Now, speaking of a religious foundation, really, really important piece in the New York Times.

00:27:17.940 And I'm almost willing to say it's a really good piece. It's a pretty good piece.

00:27:23.840 It's called, Are Embryos Property? Human Life? Neither. Here it is. It's an opinion piece.

00:27:34.320 I say it's almost a really good piece because it's taking the issue of IVF and surrogacy and the baby

00:27:45.460 industry. Seriously. So that's why it's quite good. It doesn't go deep enough on an extraordinarily

00:27:55.720 important question, but it's quite good. I don't mean to counter-signal it. I give a lot of credit

00:28:01.700 here to Anna Louise Sussman and the New York Times for even running this. I'm going to read just a

00:28:06.620 little bit from this piece. Are embryos property? Human life? Neither. Before fertility patients,

00:28:14.360 this is right at the top of the piece. Before fertility patients begin the long journey through

00:28:17.320 hormone treatments, egg retrieval, fertilization, hopefully if everything goes well a baby,

00:28:20.980 there's the paperwork. As a first order of business, would-be parents are typically presented

00:28:24.260 with a form that requires them to choose the fate of embryos they do not use in the course of building

00:28:29.300 their families. And it goes on to talk about three couples who filled out such contracts.

00:28:33.700 The clinic later said that one family chose to donate any remaining embryos to scientific research.

00:28:41.220 Another decided to destroy any embryos that were frozen after five years. And a third said any

00:28:47.460 embryos deemed not suitable for reproductive purposes, whatever that means, could be used for

00:28:52.920 research and eventually disposed of. It was not clear, in other words, that these families intended

00:28:58.700 for all of their embryos to be born. So you're saying you create a child. You create multiple

00:29:03.680 children from sperm and egg. These are your little kids. And then you have to fill out a form.

00:29:08.820 You can donate them to unethical scientists who can experiment on your children, eventually kill 1.00

00:29:14.900 them. Or you can just kill them straight away or after a period of five years after you've frozen 1.00

00:29:20.860 them for five years. Or you can take the ones that you don't think are good enough that might, 1.00

00:29:25.240 maybe they have some defect, maybe they're not going to be tall enough. They're not suitable for

00:29:28.820 reproductive purposes. And they can be both experimented on and destroyed. 1.00

00:29:34.420 However, this is where the piece gets really interesting. Ultimately, their preferences were

00:29:39.460 moot. In December 2020, a hospital patient wandered into an unsecured room where the couple's embryos

00:29:44.640 sat in cryogenic storage, picked up the frozen embryos, and stung by the cold, dropped them on the floor.

00:29:50.620 So he just, oopsie-daisy, you know, instead of carrying out your cocktails and dropping them

00:29:55.520 at a restaurant, he's carrying out cryogenically frozen children of yours, drops them on the ground, 0.98

00:30:01.220 and kills all of them. Now, you might think that the parents wouldn't care that much because they've

00:30:06.100 already signed these forms. They say, whatever, we're going to, you can destroy them, you can

00:30:09.400 experiment on them, you can do whatever you want, but we don't really care. However, in February 2024,

00:30:14.420 the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that these lost embryos were extra uterine children, which allowed

00:30:18.840 the three families to proceed with lawsuits against the fertility clinic under the state's 1872 wrongful

00:30:25.640 death of a minor act. So here, don't just try to pin this on those crazy socially conservative

00:30:30.700 Republicans who are ruling that little embryos are actually children, which they obviously are by any

00:30:36.580 serious definition. It's the three families too. The three families who had signed away their kids

00:30:43.240 to be experimented on and destroyed, they now could sue. Between the creation of these embryos

00:30:49.780 and their destruction, and as the cases wound their way through years through Alabama courts,

00:30:54.160 their meaning shifted. No longer potentially destined for research or disposal, each embryo

00:30:58.940 had taken on the status in the court's interpretation of a minor child. Then a friend of mine,

00:31:04.040 Leila Bresco Sargent, wrote, as the New York Times quotes, as the New York Times writes rather,

00:31:11.100 the case turned embryos into, quote, Schrodinger's persons, resulting in one parent bizarrely needing

00:31:18.180 the embryos to be considered persons in order to prevent them from being born, and the other parent

00:31:23.980 needing to argue that the children were property in order to let them be born. Eventually, Judge Richard

00:31:31.060 Gardner reasoned that, quote, as there is no prohibition on the sale of human embryos, they may

00:31:36.800 be valued and sold, and thus may be considered goods or chattels. In other words, the only way to rule

00:31:47.160 on this issue of IVF and surrogacy in the baby market in a way that satisfies the liberal pro-IVF

00:31:55.080 side is to use the language and legal reasoning of chattel slavery, antebellum southern chattel

00:32:06.260 slavery. Then in March, another judge rejected Judge Gardner's rationale, calling his reasoning

00:32:13.080 that human embryos could be valued and sold as enslaved people once were in Virginia, a strained

00:32:17.720 construction. How is this a strained construction? This is the only construction that makes sense if we

00:32:23.820 were to tolerate IVF and surrogacy and the baby industry. How else do you do it? In order to defend

00:32:32.160 IVF and surrogacy, you have to argue both that the babies are babies and people, and property rather.

00:32:41.700 You have to argue both of them at the same time. You have to argue that they're babies in order to

00:32:47.380 protect your babies so that when some clinic worker drops them, you get to sue.

00:32:51.640 You have to argue that they're babies if you're to have any kind of coherent conversation about what

00:33:00.200 you're even doing. Why do you go to the baby store in the first place? It's to get a baby.

00:33:04.320 But you have to argue that their property, in order to buy them, in order to sell them, or to sell

00:33:14.740 your eggs or rent your womb out, you need to argue that their property, in order to order them destroyed, 0.99

00:33:21.780 you have to argue that their property, in order to donate them for scientific experiments.

00:33:26.920 It has to be both. And so, if you support IVF and surrogacy in the baby industry,

00:33:32.560 you must adopt the precise reasoning that was used to defend slavery in the antebellum South.

00:33:42.620 And that is going to make a lot of libs super uncomfortable. And I want to give props to the 1.00

00:33:46.820 New York Times here, because even if they get the issue a little bit wrong, the New York Times

00:33:50.480 is more willing to discuss this issue than even some conservatives, than even some pro-lifers.

00:33:57.360 Because there are some conservatives and pro-lifers, and I understand it, who will say,

00:34:01.780 well, I got my kid through IVF, and I hadn't really thought through the bioethical implications,

00:34:05.540 and I love my kid, and my kid is obviously good in himself, and anything that would prevent me from

00:34:12.000 having my kid, I oppose. And so, I'm just going to turn my reason off for a second, and I'm just

00:34:17.180 going to say I support this thing blindly, without ever dealing with the bioethical implications of it.

00:34:23.880 New York Times is saying, no, we'll deal with it. Good on him.

00:34:26.840 This debate will occur. And one final point on it, I don't want to hear in the debate that,

00:34:33.820 you know, this is really just a scientific question. This is not even a religious question.

00:34:37.000 This is a scientific question. You hear this sometimes from pro-lifers, from social conservatives,

00:34:44.340 who are trying their best to appeal to a liberal, atheistic culture. So, you say, no, no, we're not

00:34:51.280 talking about religion. No religion, no, no, we'll keep religion out of this. We're just going to talk

00:34:54.300 about science. Well, yeah, science is only going to take you so far. If you're having a debate over

00:35:00.180 policy and ethics, you need to have recourse to religion, because you need to come to certain

00:35:07.060 conclusions about morality. You can't talk about ethics without morality. You need to come to certain

00:35:13.860 conclusions about human nature, what a human is. Politics is how human beings live together.

00:35:17.940 So, you got to know what a human being is. You got to define it. And that's going to partake of

00:35:23.660 religious reasoning. Okay? It is a religious question. All politics ultimately comes down

00:35:31.840 to religious questions. The slavery debate in the 19th century came down to religious questions.

00:35:38.760 Can't avoid that. Which side are you on? Which side are you on, son? The stock market is surging.

00:35:46.140 As you know, global tariffs are shifting, major headlines with major consequences. But

00:35:50.140 the establishment media won't tell you what's really happening. That's why we exist. At Daily

00:35:55.240 Wire Plus, we lead with facts. We deliver the truth from the most trusted and handsome voices in

00:35:59.900 conservative media. People who say what you're not supposed to say, who fight where you're not

00:36:05.360 supposed to fight, who never back down. Members get this show ad-free, unfiltered, with live chat

00:36:09.520 investigative journalism that takes you inside the story premium entertainment that actually

00:36:12.940 reflects your values. Now is the time to become a member. Go to dailywire.com slash subscribe.

00:36:19.940 My favorite comment yesterday is from SandyK067, who says, I'd rather admit that I don't understand 0.95

00:36:25.080 how tariffs work than pretend that I do and look foolish. Yeah. Well, that makes you smarter than 0.94

00:36:30.340 99.9% of pundits and economists going on TV right now. No one knows how these tariffs work.

00:36:37.420 Even if you understand in principle how tariffs work, and there are some people who do,

00:36:41.880 recognize we haven't had a tariff regime like this, or like what could have been before the

00:36:46.160 announcement yesterday, the 90-day pause, since like 1930. Okay? It's been about 95 years since

00:36:53.840 we've seen something like this. And actually, the Trump Liberation Day tariffs are more expansive

00:36:59.800 than the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Okay? So that's best case scenario. But then you add on to that

00:37:06.300 Trump's unpredictability. Yeah, no one knows. No one knows. And if you admit you don't know,

00:37:10.860 at least you're being honest. These are the other people. They are not being honest. And their

00:37:14.860 predictions don't come true. Now, speaking of honesty and truth in the media, the White House press

00:37:22.660 secretary has just made a really important policy decision when it comes to how the White House is

00:37:28.820 going to communicate. Caroline Levitt has told the New York Times, quote, as a matter of policy,

00:37:35.460 we do not respond to reporters who have pronouns in bios. There were some reports coming out that

00:37:42.380 journalists were writing to the White House, and they were having their emails ignored. They were

00:37:47.000 told they wouldn't get an answer because the journalists listed pronouns in their bios.

00:37:51.900 Any kind of pronouns. Even if you're a man, it says he, him. Or a woman, she, her. But even the crazy 0.69

00:37:58.600 ones where you're a man, but it says she, her. Or you're an individual person, but your pronouns are

00:38:03.180 they, them, or something. Regardless, Caroline Levitt says, quote, any reporter who chooses to put their

00:38:10.660 preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore

00:38:14.720 cannot be trusted to write an honest story. So true. And this gets back to the point, I think the

00:38:22.100 Trump administration, I think Caroline Levitt, the whole communications team has done such a great

00:38:26.700 job. I said during the transition, I said this is a great opportunity, not only for Trump to reset the

00:38:33.420 relationship between the citizen and the government, but also the relationship between the citizen and

00:38:37.880 the press and the government. And in order to reset that, in order to boot some hack establishment

00:38:46.360 reporters out of the White House briefing room, in order to give new voices a seat at the table,

00:38:50.640 in order to reset all of this, you have to first ask yourself, what is the press briefing room for?

00:38:58.460 What is the White House press pool for? Why does the government talk to reporters in the first place?

00:39:03.100 There's two reasons. One, so that the White House can communicate with the people,

00:39:08.960 typically done through a medium. There was a medium of communication. Media is the plural of medium.

00:39:16.140 And the other reason is to have the people's questions asked of the government. That was also

00:39:22.100 done through this medium or multiple media. Today, in the age of social media, those reporters are much

00:39:30.780 less important, just off the bat. But assuming we're still going to keep some reporters in the room,

00:39:36.640 if the purpose is to truthfully communicate what the government's doing to the people and truthfully

00:39:41.180 communicate what the people want to know to the government, then if you have reporters who are

00:39:45.240 dishonest, whose views and priorities are totally out of sync with those of the American people, 0.61

00:39:51.860 who bear an irrational hatred of the government and will lie about the government to the people,

00:39:57.600 then what's the point of having them there? The first thing you have to look for in a reporter,

00:40:05.260 especially one who is going to be given the privilege of access to the White House, is

00:40:09.860 their trustworthiness. Are they going to tell the truth? Are they capable of telling the truth?

00:40:17.800 Are they willing to tell the truth? Can they be trusted to do their job with integrity? If a reporter

00:40:24.200 feels the need to write his pronouns in his email bio, that tells you right off the bat that person

00:40:33.220 has a tenuous at best relationship with the truth. Even if they're the correct pronouns,

00:40:39.100 the fact that he even thinks it's necessary, if a guy named Johnny feels it's necessary to write his

00:40:43.460 pronouns, or if a big husky dude walks up to someone and says, oh, my pronouns are he, him,

00:40:47.800 or what, even if they're the correct pronouns, you say, oh, you don't have a strong relationship

00:40:53.240 with reality, so we're not going to talk to you. That is a good policy. That is not only a

00:41:01.440 justifiable policy, and it's certainly not punishing the White House's enemies needlessly.

00:41:06.100 That's just doing what the White House communications team was built to do. Excellent

00:41:13.960 stuff from the White House. Now, speaking of the administration, I've been meaning to get to this

00:41:18.540 for a little while now, a couple of days, but the news just keeps coming in so fast.

00:41:26.040 Are we going to World War III? We have just seen, and this is barely being reported,

00:41:29.980 the largest deployment of stealth bombers in U.S. history. Six B-2 aircraft sent to Diego Garcia in

00:41:38.060 the Indian Ocean. B-2 aircraft that are designed to evade Iranian radar and air defenses. Aircraft

00:41:45.180 that are not being held in hangars. They're being put out for all the world to see, all the spies of

00:41:49.220 the world, all the satellites can take pictures of them. Trump, meanwhile, telling Iran that hell will

00:41:54.820 rain down on them, that's a quote, and bombing the likes of which they have not seen could result

00:42:00.500 if Iran proceeds with its nuclear program and doesn't come to the table. Are we headed to World 0.87

00:42:06.280 War III? Are we in World War III? What is this about? Very clear what Trump is doing here.

00:42:12.740 Sometimes it's a little dicier to interpret what Trump is doing, as we've discussed today.

00:42:17.040 This one, to me, seems pretty clear. Trump is speaking in blunt terms to Iran to bully Iran into

00:42:22.980 toning down the nuclear program. Trump is sending a message to Iran by sending the largest deployment

00:42:29.240 of stealth bombers in history out right in the open for all to see. But he's not posting pictures

00:42:37.160 of those bombers on Truth Social or Twitter. Why? Because he needs to convince Iran that he will 0.98

00:42:42.640 strike them. He needs to convince Iran that he will do it, that he will blow up Tehran if they pursue 0.98

00:42:48.680 the nuclear weapon. But simultaneously, he needs to assure Americans that he won't really do it.

00:42:55.900 Because Americans don't want war with Iran. But the United States needs to prevent Iran from getting 1.00

00:43:01.960 a nuclear weapon for our long-term strategy. So Trump has this very difficult balancing act.

00:43:09.940 Are we, and are we in World War III? I heard there are Chinese troops fighting in Ukraine right now

00:43:14.180 with Russia. That's what Zelensky said. We were talking about Schrodinger's baby earlier. This is

00:43:19.000 sort of Schrodinger's war. Got massive tariffs, massive trade hostilities, massive buildup of arms,

00:43:26.780 direct threats of war. Are we? Lots of uncertainty. All right, that's where we've been. Embrace the

00:43:33.620 uncertainty. Don't imunitize the eschaton. Don't imagine that we need to, we don't know. We don't know 1.00

00:43:41.760 what is going to happen even tomorrow. But what I do know that's about to happen right now is that

00:43:47.140 Congressman Mark Harris is going to come on the show to discuss a really, really important

00:43:51.520 legislative priority, which we'll get to in one moment. The rest of the show continues now. You

00:43:56.140 do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S, at checkout for two months free

00:43:59.980 on all annual plans.

The Michael Knowles Show - April 10, 2025

Ep. 1712 - Let Him Cook! Stop Pretending You Understand Tariffs

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