The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1719 - BREAKING： Pope Francis Dead at 88

00:00:00.000 I take one morning off work in however many years and the Pope dies. News of which I received as I

00:00:08.260 was walking back from the White House, six o'clock in the morning, I was picking up my tickets to the

00:00:13.040 White House Easter egg roll, which was a lot of fun. We will get into all of it. Pope Francis's

00:00:18.280 legacy, what happens now, and the marvelous return of bunny rabbits instead of shirtless transvestites 1.00

00:00:25.580 to the South Lawn of the White House. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:30.000 Welcome back to the show. Lots of important news in the world. Obviously, everyone is talking about

00:00:55.720 the Pope. There's a little bit going on domestically. There's also a very, very important issue that I

00:01:01.020 want everyone even remotely connected to the Trump campaign or the Trump administration

00:01:05.780 to listen to. I know I'm very happy to say there are a lot of people who listen to this show

00:01:10.820 who are in that world. Very important issue. There's so much more to say. First, though,

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00:01:48.200 slash Knowles, code Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S, at checkout. Six o'clock in the morning, I've got to go pick

00:01:55.380 up my tickets. It was kind of a last-minute thing that I was going to go out with my whole family.

00:01:59.000 I was down visiting my 93-year-young grandmother for Easter. I got the kids with me. I got sweet

00:02:05.920 little Elisa with me. We fly up from Florida, and I say, okay, there's the one time in however long

00:02:13.020 that I actually just can't do the show Monday morning because of the Easter holiday. I said,

00:02:18.120 what could happen? No news ever breaks over Easter. I'm walking back from getting my tickets

00:02:22.420 at the Eisenhower Executive Office building, and I see this news that Pope Francis has died.

00:02:28.260 And so I kind of felt like Trump in that moment when he heard that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died,

00:02:34.680 you remember, and this tiny dancer playing in the background. He goes, this is the first I'm hearing

00:02:38.500 of it. She was a wonderful lady. And he gave that impromptu speech. I said, what do I think? It's not as

00:02:45.180 though this was unexpected. The Pope was on the brink of death a couple months ago. He's an 88-year-old

00:02:50.500 man. We all knew that he was not long for this world. So what does a conservative, much less a

00:02:57.160 conservative Catholic, think about the death of this Pope who was somewhat politically controversial,

00:03:04.480 who was viewed as a liberal, who many people called a leftist on a lot of issues, though really

00:03:09.500 his legacy is much more complicated. First thought is, pray for the Pope. That's the traditional

00:03:17.220 Catholic answer. We pray for people who have died. That's where we get R.I.P. from. Even if you think

00:03:23.020 you don't pray for the dead, you do pray for the dead every time you say R.I.P. Because R.I.P. is

00:03:28.860 Latin. It's, well, we say it in English now, rest in peace. But the Latin maps as well. And it's

00:03:33.400 requiescat in pace. And it's this traditional prayer for the dead. Requiem eternam dona ee domine

00:03:40.620 lux perpetua locet ee requiescat in pace. Eternal light given to him, O Lord. That's the traditional

00:03:46.980 prayer. And it gets down to something a lot of people don't notice in our culture, which is we

00:03:54.520 used to have funeral masses for people. We still do in some quarters. But a funeral mass is not like a

00:04:00.600 modern funeral. Now we don't even call it a funeral. We call it a celebration of life. The

00:04:05.520 traditional mass is not a celebration of life. The traditional mass is not a big celebration of what

00:04:14.060 a guy did where we give eulogies. Eulogies are a pagan tradition where you just sing these songs of

00:04:19.660 praise to the dead. The traditional Catholic view is the opposite. We don't have a celebration where we

00:04:26.700 talk about how good a person is because we know that we're not all that good. And we know that only

00:04:31.280 God is good. So whatever you think about Pope Francis, and we'll get into his legacy. And we'll

00:04:35.420 get into the good, the bad, and the ugly. We'll get into what this means for the church and for all of

00:04:40.800 these conversions that have been happening over the past few days. We'll get into who the next pope

00:04:45.060 might be. But whatever you think about Pope Francis, I would just say maybe in humility, say a prayer for the

00:04:52.380 guy, say RIP. Because my big political takeaway from the death of Pope Francis is that our modern left-right

00:05:01.500 paradigm does not map all that neatly onto ancient institutions, pre-modern institutions. The church, she's

00:05:12.220 very, very old. St. Augustine said the church is ever ancient, ever new, that the faith is ever ancient, ever new.

00:05:18.100 There is one institution in Western civilization that has survived from antiquity, and that is the

00:05:24.380 Catholic church. And what that means is our modern notions of politics, they don't really fit onto

00:05:31.260 the church. Because on the one hand, you could say Francis was a total lib. He was a big leftist. He

00:05:36.940 supported mass migration and effectively supported open borders, or sounded like he supported open

00:05:42.920 borders. Sure. That's true. That's very leftist. He also said gay marriage is a machination of the

00:05:49.360 father of lies that seeks to deceive and confuse the children of God. Yes, it's true. Pope Francis 0.55

00:05:55.540 reportedly said really nice things about Joe Biden. And he said that Joe Biden should continue to receive

00:06:03.740 communion. And he was a little harsher on President Trump and J.D. Vance. Sure. On the other hand, Pope

00:06:08.960 Francis said that an abortionist is like a hitman. And when you procure an abortion, it's like you're calling

00:06:14.840 in an assassination of a baby. Okay? He mocked the notion of transgenderism. And so where do we put him?

00:06:23.260 Is he on the left? Is he on the right? You can't characterize the church, and you can't really characterize

00:06:30.200 a pope that way. So I don't want to paper over it. Pope Francis's pontificate has been very

00:06:37.980 challenging for a lot of people. And there has been a fair bit of confusion, so much so that some

00:06:43.200 more conservative cardinals issued dubia, you know, questions to the pope that were really not

00:06:47.860 sufficiently answered. From my own position, I love the traditional Latin mass. Pope Francis did restrict

00:06:53.180 the traditional Latin mass. And yet, when I consider Pope Francis's legacy, I have to have a great deal of

00:06:58.300 gratitude to Pope Francis. Because my reversion to the faith, I was an atheist for 10 years, my reversion

00:07:05.600 mostly took place during Pope Francis's pontificate. And that's not just me. That's true of a lot of

00:07:14.360 Catholics. You know, on Sunday, we'll hopefully get to it a little later in the show, record number of 1.00

00:07:19.040 baptisms in France. France, you know, the country where the terms left and right in politics actually

00:07:24.800 come from. France, the country that beheaded its monarch, Catholic monarch, beheaded its other 0.84

00:07:32.380 Catholic, you know, the queen, it took over the great cathedrals, turned them into temples to reason, 0.86

00:07:38.720 you know, instituted this secular, atheist, hideous kind of revolutionary government, hotbed of 1.00

00:07:43.780 liberalism. But France was once the first daughter of the church. And now in France, with all the 0.65

00:07:48.780 secularism, you're seeing mass conversions. In the UK, you're seeing a huge resurgence of

00:07:55.320 Catholicism. I think in part, it's because Christianity is the religion of the catacombs. 0.97

00:08:01.260 Christianity is anti-fragile, to use a phrase from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The more you persecute 0.58

00:08:07.200 Christianity, the stronger it becomes. And I think this is true even in its, I'm being persecuted right 1.00

00:08:13.800 now by the trains that are going by my home studio. That's okay, though. We endure just like the faith

00:08:18.400 does. Because when you look at Pope Francis' pontificate, he might have had perfectly good

00:08:26.300 reasons to restrict the Latin mass. I don't know what they are, but he might have. It's above my 1.00

00:08:31.980 pay grade. But all I know is people have become more Christian under his pontificate. There has been

00:08:38.180 a resurgence of tradition. Call that paradoxical. Call that providence. There has been a resurgence

00:08:43.600 of interest in orthodoxy. And so what do we do? We pray for the Pope. What did I do? I went to the

00:08:49.120 Easter egg roll at the White House. And it was really great. I'm a little souvenir wooden Easter

00:08:52.720 egg here. It was wonderful. The kids got to, you know, see the bunny and take pictures with him and

00:08:58.060 go on egg hunts. And it was just, it was beautiful. I was there first thing in the morning. It was going

00:09:02.780 on all day. The president came out and said hello to people. Members of the cabinet were there.

00:09:08.140 And it was just so normal. This was, this was the most delightful part of the Easter egg roll this

00:09:14.960 year. You remember Joe Biden decided that he was celebrating Easter, going to also celebrate the

00:09:22.060 Trans Day of Visibility. Because apparently that, that ancient festival coincided with Easter one year.

00:09:30.120 So he celebrated. You remember he, he hung those flags, not just the regular rainbow pride flag,

00:09:35.020 but the terrorist pride flag, the one where it has like the BLM colors and the trans stuff. And it was 0.73

00:09:41.840 all, all, it was just crazy. Culminating in that one transvestite taking his shirt off and showing his 1.00

00:09:47.880 fake breasts on camera on the South Lawn of the White House. It was revolting. It was for anyone, even if 0.99

00:09:53.140 you're okay with the weird rainbow stuff, it's, you just thought this is so below the dignity of the

00:09:58.060 White House. And what, what happened at the Trump Easter egg roll? Nothing in particular. It was just

00:10:04.400 wholesome and nice and families were there, families with lots of kids. It was good. It was a return

00:10:10.660 to normal. And I think that's what a lot of the Trump administration, especially the second Trump

00:10:17.620 administration is represented. That's what people voted for. They wanted a return to normal. And I do

00:10:22.180 see a connection here with the church because a lot of people are going to be asking, well, who is the

00:10:25.740 next Pope going to be? There's so much more to say. First though, go to preborn.com slash

00:10:31.120 Knowles. During this holiday season, I would like us to take a moment to think about something

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00:10:45.900 is made in God's image and that all life is sacred. Maybe not all pregnancies are planned. That's okay.

00:10:50.380 Whether planned or not, all life has value. Today, I invite you to thank God for the gift of life and to

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00:11:22.080 can. I personally support this organization. I really encourage you to give what you can for their

00:11:27.940 life-saving work. That is preborn.com slash K-N-O-W-L-E-S. What happens now? The Cardinal

00:11:38.740 Camerlengo announces the death of Pope Francis. So now the seat of Peter is vacant, sede vacante,

00:11:46.160 and the church enters into a period of mourning that will go on for 15 days to no more than 20 days.

00:11:52.020 At that point, there's going to be a conclave. At the conclave, the College of Cardinals is going to

00:11:56.760 assemble in the Sistine Chapel. And the College of Cardinals is all the cardinals, but only some of

00:12:03.280 the cardinals are electors, only the cardinals who are under 80 years old. And, you know, I told you

00:12:07.500 the Catholic Church is old. A lot of them skew a little bit on the long and the tooth side, but

00:12:11.220 nevertheless, there are a lot of cardinal electors and they're going to vote. And certain cardinals

00:12:17.300 are more popabile than others. You know, they're more popable. So the names that have been floated,

00:12:22.100 you have some people who are considered liberals. Cardinal Matteo Zupi, the Vatican Secretary of

00:12:27.480 State, Cardinal Parolin. But there are others who are considered centrist, center-right. I have a long

00:12:33.040 video on this on YouTube that you can go check out too. What happens next? How do you become the Pope?

00:12:38.220 And so there's Peter Erdo, cardinal in Hungary. He is considered center-right. Not a rad trad,

00:12:46.780 not totally extreme, but he's definitely considered a more conservative figure. He has spoken out about

00:12:54.220 the need and the traditional Catholic understanding of borders and the notion that nations have certain

00:12:59.760 political rights to determine who gets to come in and out, who gets to stay there. You've got

00:13:04.000 Cardinal Pizzaballa. He is the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. That would be a really interesting choice.

00:13:08.880 He seems favorable to more traditional kinds of liturgy. Also, he's right there in Jerusalem. So you've got

00:13:14.480 this flashpoint geopolitical conflict, which has really dominated the discourse because of the

00:13:20.040 Israel-Gaza war. I notice even, you know, I still do my campus speaking tours. I keep my finger on the 0.78

00:13:25.700 pulse, see what the youths are talking about. And for the past, I don't know, five, six years, it's been

00:13:30.860 all gender, all the crazy rainbow stuff, which is tedious. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. 1.00

00:13:35.040 I noticed this past year, the big flashpoint on campus, Israel-Palestine. How interesting,

00:13:41.460 how timely would it be to have the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem to be the next pope? Others who have

00:13:47.020 been floated, Basungu, Cardinal Basungu out of Africa, a much more conservative figure. An irony, too,

00:13:53.500 because some people say, well, Pope Francis consecrated all of these cardinals, so, you know,

00:13:57.640 they're all going to follow in his footsteps exactly, and you're going to get Francis 2.0.

00:14:01.940 There's really no evidence of that because a lot of the new cardinals are in Africa.

00:14:05.820 They're in Latin America. These are people who are socially quite conservative.

00:14:09.580 Some names that I think a lot of conservatives are hoping for, people like Cardinal Seurat in

00:14:15.820 Africa. It would be kind of funny for the libs who don't know anything about Christianity and the

00:14:20.420 church to celebrate that we've elected the first ever black pope, and then he's more right-wing

00:14:26.580 than any pope we've had since, like, Pius IX or something. That would be really funny. Another one

00:14:30.720 would be the American Cardinal Raymond Burke. That would be wonderful. You know, both Cardinal Burke and

00:14:35.240 Cardinal Seurat are a little bit, a little more aged. I think the odds of them becoming pope are

00:14:40.900 a little low. But in any case, people have known that this is coming for a long time. I suspect

00:14:46.100 we will have a new pope within probably three weeks. So we just have to wait and see.

00:14:55.320 Pope Francis' legacy will be clearer in the long run. But don't forget, when everyone is agonizing

00:15:00.180 over every stupid news headline that comes out, the church measures time, not in days or weeks or even 0.99

00:15:07.700 years, but in centuries and millennia. And we trust providence. Our Lord has not abandoned the church yet. 1.00

00:15:18.380 It's okay. St. Padre Pio said, pray, hope, and don't worry. That's what we do. Even in politics,

00:15:26.060 things, you know, tend to shake out in the long run. And the church, you know, has a special

00:15:31.580 protection. So before we get to all of the other Easter news, beyond the White House over in France,

00:15:39.240 over in England, or what it means for the faith, what we're looking at now, I also have to,

00:15:44.780 I can't, you know, it was amazing. The one morning I take off, I have to point out, you remember

00:15:50.240 Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen? I was talking about him last week. Democrat Senator Chris Van

00:15:54.780 Hollen, he's this lunatic from Maryland who thought it would be a good idea to fly down 0.97

00:16:00.560 to El Salvador and have a sweet little meeting with, with this criminal, this MS-13 guy, 0.96

00:16:09.840 alleged MS-13 guy, who was brought into court for a protective order, allegedly for beating his wife,

00:16:17.600 you know, doesn't seem like the very best. Senator Van Hollen, instead of being with his constituents,

00:16:23.900 giving care to his constituents who have been the victims of illegal aliens. No, 0.69

00:16:29.060 he takes the side of the illegal aliens. So anyway, I joked last week. So I made this AI generated image

00:16:34.440 of Senator Van Hollen and a face tattooed Mexican gangster staring lovingly in each other's eyes

00:16:41.180 over a picnic with glasses of red wine, you know, kind of just, just melting in, in the vision of,

00:16:47.960 of the other one. And no sooner do I do it than one day later, Chris Van Hollen brings my meme to

00:16:58.840 life. He does my meme. Do we, we have it. There it is. And I, some people are saying, well, Michael,

00:17:05.580 this prediction wasn't perfect because you see in yours that the two were staring lovingly in each

00:17:11.520 other's eyes, uh, drinking red wine. And in the real photograph, uh, they're staring lovingly at

00:17:16.980 each other's eyes, leaned over, you know, almost touching hands, but they have glasses of clear

00:17:21.060 liquid. So, okay. The one part I got wrong was maybe it's tequila instead of red wine. I don't

00:17:27.320 know what it is, but this shook even me. This is the most on the nose Nolstradamus prediction I have

00:17:35.300 ever made in my entire career. I, I, I don't know what to do with this power that I apparently have,

00:17:42.340 but what I do know is this is the dumbest political stunt, the single dumbest political stunt I have 0.99

00:17:55.100 ever seen in my life. And in some ways I'm half joking that my meme came to life. In some ways, 0.99

00:18:02.920 maybe my meme did spur this. This is something Trump does. Trump makes his enemies destroy

00:18:08.720 themselves. And I think this would be another example of that. This guy, Trump deports a criminal

00:18:16.240 and then because Trump did it, the libs have to take the other side. So they have to take the side

00:18:22.760 of the criminal. Trump says enough of the paper straws in an executive order. You get to have plastic

00:18:27.420 straws again. What do the Dems do? The Dems defend paper straws, which nobody likes. Trump says,

00:18:32.140 hey, no Husky fellas going into the girl's locker room. What do Dems have to do? They have to defend 1.00

00:18:37.140 the Husky fellas in the girl's locker room, even though no one likes that. And so here we say,

00:18:41.860 hey man, it's kind of weird that a Democrat Senator would go down to, to defend this illegal alien over 0.98

00:18:49.260 his own constituents. Wow. It's got, was he got a thing for the guy or something? And sure enough,

00:18:54.400 he doesn't. He even, this guy, when all is said and done, this guy is not going to be able to get

00:19:00.680 elected dog catcher, but the left has to do it. Now we will get back to why the left has to do it

00:19:10.120 in a second. First though, I want to turn back to the White House, back to the Easter message

00:19:14.460 that Trump put out, because this too was so refreshing.

00:19:19.460 So Sunday, we celebrate his glorious resurrection and proclaim as Christians have done for nearly 0.97

00:19:26.040 2000 years. He is risen through the pain and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. We saw God's

00:19:34.020 boundless love and devotion to all humanity. And in that moment of his resurrection, history was

00:19:40.480 forever changed with the promise of everlasting life. As we approach this joyous Easter Sunday,

00:19:46.760 I want to wish Christians everywhere a happy and beautiful and blessed holiday. America is a nation

00:19:53.640 of believers. We need God. We want God. And with his help, we will make our nation stronger, safer,

00:20:00.440 greater, and more prosperous and much more united than ever before. Thank you to everyone and have a

00:20:07.060 really happy Easter. Beautiful. So, so beautiful. I want you to compare President Trump's Easter

00:20:15.180 message about the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hope that that means for

00:20:21.540 the world with the statement put out by King Charles over in the UK. King Charles writes,

00:20:27.340 the love he showed, this is Christ, the love he showed when he walked the earth reflected the Jewish

00:20:34.200 ethic of caring for the stranger and those in need, a deep human instinct echoed in Islam and other

00:20:41.540 religious traditions and in the hearts of all who seek the good of others.

00:20:48.600 This is an Easter message or this is a Ramadan message? This is an Easter message or this is a Yom 0.97

00:20:53.160 Kippur message? Why do I need to hear about Judaism and Islam in the Easter message?

00:20:57.020 No knock on our Jewish friends. No knock even on our Muslim friends. But what?

00:21:06.740 The Jewish ethic of caring for the stranger. Well, what's funny here is one of the clearest stories

00:21:12.400 in the New Testament is the story of the good Samaritan. A Jewish man is totally neglected by his 0.91

00:21:19.960 neighbors and actually a Samaritan who's supposed to be the bad guy. He comes up and helps the man.

00:21:24.580 I'm not saying it's reflective of all the Jews. I'm just saying, where is this in the Easter message?

00:21:30.060 Islam? Where do you find Islam in the Easter message? Islam wasn't invented for over six

00:21:37.060 centuries after the crucifixion and the resurrection. Why do we, why, I really, I'm not, I don't even mean

00:21:42.420 to knock Judaism and Islam in particular here. I'm just saying, why, why are we talking about that?

00:21:48.920 You wouldn't talk about Christmas in your Ramadan proclamation. You wouldn't talk about Easter in

00:21:58.920 your Rosh Hashanah proclamation, would you? So why do we have to talk about other religions in the

00:22:05.300 Easter proclamation? Easter, the most important holiday in the Christian year. In a statement put

00:22:12.280 out by the King of England who views himself as the head of the Church of England, the defender of the

00:22:17.540 faith. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Trump understands. We're a Christian nation. And the message of

00:22:28.020 Easter is not some nebulous, wishy-washy, generic message about God and spirituality, man. Easter is

00:22:37.260 about an historical event, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And America cares a lot about Easter

00:22:43.100 because America's a Christian country. It was founded by Christians, many of whom sailed on the Mayflower,

00:22:51.100 which is a great cigar brand. And it was developed by Christians. And John Adams said that the principles

00:22:58.220 of Christianity are the principles on which independence was won. And it's just, we're just, it's

00:23:03.060 Christian, okay? And until the last 50, 60 years, America was almost entirely Christian. We were nice to

00:23:09.880 Jews. There weren't that many Muslims, but we were, in principle, nice to Muslims. But it's a Christian

00:23:15.500 country. And the particularity is what's key here. And so many in the West want to deny that. They want

00:23:22.700 to deny the particularities of our culture, even down to the particularities of our God. They want to

00:23:27.960 deny the things that make us what we did. They want to deny our whole civilization. England can be for 0.54

00:23:33.300 anyone, say the multiculturalists. America, oh, it's just, America's anything. America's just an idea,

00:23:38.500 but it's not any idea in particular. And it's just anything you want it to be. Except what the

00:23:42.500 conservatives want it to be. It's definitely not that. No. Trump says, no, no, no. We're going to

00:23:47.340 be America. And we're going to celebrate this particular holiday for this particular religion,

00:23:52.920 for this particular historical event that shaped our particular culture. And that's that. And that's

00:23:57.540 very refreshing. You know, the existence of God can be known through reason, from the natural world.

00:24:03.680 You don't need revelation to know that God exists. But God also reveals himself. And we believe as

00:24:09.820 Christians that the only way to the Father is through the Son. And some people don't believe

00:24:15.260 that. I'm not leading any charges to go, you know, throw them into the outer darkness. But that's what

00:24:23.460 we believe. And Trump is saying it's okay to believe what we believe. It's okay. It's all right. It's all

00:24:28.600 right to have our country the way it always was, and the way we flourished, and the way we want it

00:24:33.180 to be. It's all right to have our own country. There's so much more to say. First, though,

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00:25:36.060 with a qualifying plan. Pure Talk Wireless by Americans for Americans. I mentioned earlier in the show

00:25:43.480 record number of baptisms over the weekend in France. 384 adults in France scheduled to be baptized

00:25:51.820 between Saturday evening and Easter Sunday, according to the Conference of Bishops in France.

00:25:56.640 That comes on top of 7,400 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 expected to be baptized that week.

00:26:05.320 Doesn't seem like a huge number until you realize just how secular our culture has become. That's a

00:26:10.680 record. That's moving the trend line in a different direction. Who were the converts? It was driven

00:26:18.020 mostly by young people, people under the age of 25. 45% increase among adults compared to last year.

00:26:24.940 33% rise among adolescents. So you're seeing a big, a big drive here from young people. Now part of this

00:26:32.800 might be because fewer adults were baptized when they were babies by their parents. Two generations ago,

00:26:39.860 everyone would be baptized even if you didn't believe in it. Today, a lot of parents, Gen X parents,

00:26:45.440 millennial parents, even boomer parents, just didn't baptize their kids because they don't believe in it.

00:26:49.260 What's the point? Church is just like every other day of the week. It's all kind of fake. It's all

00:26:53.860 just, it's all happy clappy kind of. It's for me. It's to entertain me, but it's not that entertaining.

00:26:58.200 So whatever. Why would I, why would I give any credence or participation to it? And then those kids

00:27:04.220 grew up and they decided they want to be baptized. They received grace, I think. And in any case,

00:27:10.720 they, they become baptized. In other words, Nietzsche said that God is dead. God said that

00:27:20.160 Nietzsche is dead. One of them was right. It turns out the old eternal questions, they remain. It turns

00:27:29.020 out the old human longings. They remain. We deny them and we ignore them and we indulge our 0.58

00:27:34.300 concupiscence and we, we do everything we can to distract ourselves from them. And we doom scroll

00:27:39.440 and we have flashy lights and we're busy all the time. We're always doing business and we're just

00:27:43.540 always distracted. And yet those nagging questions remain. There was this thought from the radicals and

00:27:50.620 the liberals that, hey, if we just, if we stop baptizing people, if we change the liturgy,

00:27:55.540 if we, if we tell everyone that all the smart people are atheists, if we mock the religion,

00:28:02.040 if we do all these things, then human nature is so malleable, we can just, we can just morph people

00:28:06.540 into these new kind of atheistic rationalist creatures. We can, we can change human nature.

00:28:12.820 This is what Mark says in, in the sixth thesis on Feuerbach, where he says that, you know,

00:28:17.600 heretofore philosophy is sought to understand the world. I want to change the world. I want to change

00:28:21.260 human nature. Okay. How'd that work out? Didn't work out pretty well. And in fact, after those

00:28:28.200 decades of true oppression, spiritual oppression, God wins, God wins and the libs lose. I love it.

00:28:36.200 Absolutely love it. Now, unfortunately, some libs are winning a little bit right now, at least at the 0.94

00:28:41.100 courts. The Supreme court has ruled that president Trump cannot deport illegal aliens under the alien

00:28:48.900 enemies act. And the court did this in a, in a truly bizarre decision.

00:28:56.260 The fifth circuit court of appeals had not had a chance to act on this matter. So, you know,

00:29:03.840 you got lower courts, you got the district court, then you got the appellate court, then it goes to

00:29:06.340 the Supreme court. Here's what the fifth circuit court of appeals said about Trump deporting people

00:29:11.180 under the alien enemies act. The court said, the court of appeals sits as a court of review,

00:29:16.940 not of first view. That principle dictates our ruling today. Just yesterday, the district court

00:29:22.900 entered an order indicating that the government states that authorities will not remove the

00:29:27.460 petitioners during this litigation, and it will alert the court if that changes. If petitioners are

00:29:31.940 concerned that respondents' position has changed, they should have litigated these concerns before

00:29:35.580 the district court in the first instance. It goes on, the district court's order today indicates the

00:29:41.840 petitioners gave the court only 42 minutes to act, did not give the respondents an opportunity to

00:29:46.360 respond. The appeal is dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Okay, so the appeals

00:29:52.300 court says, well, this hasn't risen to our level yet, so we're not going to act on it. Trump can

00:29:57.100 still, well, Trump has said they're not going to do this anymore, and it's got to be litigated at the

00:30:01.340 district level anyway. The Supreme court then comes in anyway, 7-2 decision. You got Alito and Thomas,

00:30:07.540 the good justices, dissenting. But the other seven coming out, they say, there is before the court

00:30:14.260 and application on behalf of a putative class of detainees seeking an injunction against their

00:30:19.300 removal under the Alien Enemies Act. A putative class of detainees. The matter is currently pending

00:30:25.400 before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the Fifth Circuit, the solicitor general is invited to file a

00:30:29.600 response, blah, blah, blah. The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative

00:30:33.300 class of detainees until further order of this court. Thomas and Alito dissent. Okay, so what does all that

00:30:38.820 mean? Well, first of all, when Thomas and Alito dissent, you know you got a bad ruling. It's just

00:30:45.600 a general rule. Those are the two solid judges. Then you got a few squishy supposed conservatives.

00:30:50.840 Then you got the libs. Really, really bizarre. You got the court coming in. This is legally really

00:30:58.020 dubious. This is certainly out of precedent and tradition and all the sorts of guardrails that we're

00:31:03.500 told the court has to defend to stop Trump from acting lawlessly, to stop this huge accumulation

00:31:09.320 of power in the executive branch. But hey, if you care about separation of powers and checks and

00:31:14.360 balances and all the rest of it, then why are you cheering on the domination of the government by the

00:31:20.880 judiciary in an unprecedented, downright lawless way? It's not just the executive that can take a lot

00:31:27.420 of power. In this case, Trump is not acting with any particularly aggressive move to consolidate

00:31:35.640 power. He's acting, he's invoking a law from 1798. It's been on the books for a pretty long time.

00:31:41.140 And what is he actually doing? Beyond all the legal jargon, what is he actually doing? He's removing

00:31:45.500 illegal aliens who have no right to be here. And he's not even removing abuela, you know, making a nice 1.00

00:31:50.860 paella, minding your own business. He's removing face tattooed, raping, murdering gangsters who are 0.99

00:31:57.840 part of a foreign terrorist organization. And that's too much for the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court 0.99

00:32:03.360 is going to upend legal precedent, is going to jump the gun on the lower courts to stop Trump.

00:32:10.880 This is especially true when you look at who President Trump is deporting. Here we are. It's

00:32:15.600 kind of a grainy picture because my printer's almost out of ink, but you can see it. Sure, it's up on the

00:32:19.820 screen. Trump is holding up this picture of the knuckles of this guy, Kilmar Abrego Garcia,

00:32:27.380 the boyfriend of Senator Van Hollen. And in the picture, you see on the knuckles,

00:32:33.880 there are these little symbols, and then above it, MS-13. And the libs are trying to argue,

00:32:40.460 this is astounding, they're trying to argue that the picture is photoshopped. But it's not really

00:32:46.240 photoshopped. They're arguing that it's photoshopped because the symbols have been labeled MS-13.

00:32:58.240 The symbols are marijuana, a smiley face, a cross, and a skull. And what the government is arguing is

00:33:06.900 that these symbols stand for marijuana, M, smiley, S. The cross looks like a one. It's got a little cross

00:33:16.060 on it, though. And the skull looks kind of like a three. And what the government is arguing is these

00:33:23.480 symbols on these finger tattoos stand for MS-13. Now, you might say, well, I don't think they stand

00:33:29.640 for MS-13. First of all, neither you nor I are experts in MS-13 symbology, okay? This satanic gang,

00:33:38.880 Mara Salvatrucha, neither of us is an expert in it. However, the government's case seems plausible to

00:33:45.620 me. And even if the government's case, even if the government was just making it up, a guy who has

00:33:53.200 these kinds of weird, obviously symbolic, pretty dubious knuckle tattoos, even if all it is is just

00:34:02.040 a marijuana leaf. Drugs, some weird smiley face, a bizarre looking cross, and a skull.

00:34:08.360 I don't know. This doesn't seem like the kind of guy who's going to, you know, perfect

00:34:13.660 AI or something. You know, I don't think he's going to take us to Mars.

00:34:18.600 Pardon me for being prejudicial. It doesn't seem like a Rhodes Scholar exactly. What benefit does

00:34:24.700 he add to the country? A guy who just have almost certainly gang signs tattooed on his fingers,

00:34:30.760 but even if it's just drugs and skulls and stuff, I don't know. Why do we want him here?

00:34:35.440 I think generally, if you got face tattoos or even these kind of weird, simple tattoos,

00:34:40.780 that's a mark against you. If you have court orders for protection because you beat your wife

00:34:46.380 allegedly, that's a mark against you. If you've got confidential informants saying that you're an

00:34:50.960 MS-13, that's a mark against you. If you got multiple judges agreeing that it's likely or at

00:34:56.600 least trustworthy that the guy's in a satanic gang, that's a mark against you. How many strikes until

00:35:02.700 you're out? To me, it's three strikes and you're out. In this case, maybe just one of them.

00:35:08.760 But I don't know. We got four, five. Every time Trump throws something out there and then the

00:35:17.480 libs argue against it and the argument that the libs make seems to fortify the argument that Trump

00:35:22.680 himself is making. I think he's MS-13, but even if he's not, get him out of the country. So now the

00:35:29.240 libs have to move the goalposts. Now the libs have to say, no, no, no, it doesn't even matter if 1.00

00:35:33.820 he's an MS-13. We'll get to that in one moment. First though, the Daily Wire does not just bring you

00:35:38.220 the stories you need to know. We bring you to the center of the story. While legacy media filters

00:35:42.860 the truth through bias and spin, we deliver it unfiltered, ad-free, with our own correct

00:35:49.680 interpretation. Politics, culture, entertainment, we don't just cover the fight, we're in it.

00:35:54.240 Join us right now at dailywire.com slash subscribe. My favorite comment, all the way back from what,

00:36:00.440 Good Friday? From our episode on the Shroud of Turin? It's from Eric Hug, who says,

00:36:05.200 I was baptized last night, praise the Lord. Many such cases. Wonderful news. Welcome. Welcome home.

00:36:13.620 So the liberal media are moving the goalposts. I think because they suspect that Kilmar Obrego

00:36:17.540 Garcia is in MS-13 and they realize just how terrible the Van Hollen thing looks. So CNN moves

00:36:25.300 the goalposts. CNN's Caitlin Collins interviewing Garcia's attorney. They then argue that the case

00:36:34.380 is not about whether or not he's in this gang. I want to show you something that the president

00:36:40.600 posted tonight. It's a photo of what he says is your client's left hand. You can see his knuckles

00:36:46.840 there and the president is showing these tattoos that the White House alleges reveals that he's a

00:36:52.360 member of MS-13. I should note, the photo has been doctored because the actual MS-13 that you see

00:36:58.720 at the top, that's not actually a tattoo. That's what they're saying the tattoos portray. What is

00:37:03.820 your reaction to this photo? Yeah. My reaction is this is just a continuation of the distraction.

00:37:12.060 This case is not about whether Mr. Obrego Garcia is good or bad, whether he is or isn't in MS-13,

00:37:19.540 whether he should be able to remain for the rest of his life in the U.S. or not. This case is about

00:37:25.060 the simple fact that he was removed without due process. And if it can happen to him and the

00:37:30.780 government pushes back at every turn, despite three different courts ordering them to return him,

00:37:37.480 then who's next? Actually, I think it is about whether or not he's MS-13.

00:37:45.360 I, that, that's what it's about for me, at least, in the first place. That's a bit, no, it's, listen,

00:37:52.480 guys, it's not about, like, come on, we're getting distracted by his, you know, allegations of beating

00:37:58.380 his wife and the multiple judges who think he's in this vicious terrorist organization. It's not really

00:38:04.580 about that, you see. No, it is about that. And I guess at a deep level, you could say it's not about

00:38:12.180 that. But at the really deep level, what it's about is this guy has no right to be in the country.

00:38:18.300 So what Trump is saying is, I'm just trying to deport hundreds of thousands, maybe a million or 0.83

00:38:24.360 two really violent, vile, dangerous terrorist people here who, who are foreigners. But if it's not about 1.00

00:38:34.180 that, if it's, if it's then just about illegal aliens having no right to be here, then we should

00:38:40.820 be deporting 11 to 16 million now. That, I get why Garcia's attorney and the libs who have put a lot

00:38:48.520 of chips on this case are trying to, to distract and say, it's not about whether or not he's an MS-13,

00:38:53.800 because he obviously is, allegedly. But okay, fine, maybe you'll win that little battle,

00:39:00.420 you're going to lose the war. Because if this just becomes about whether or not you have a right to

00:39:03.300 be in America, then we need to deport them all. Van Hollen himself is backtracking. After he brought 0.98

00:39:09.980 my meme to life, after he, he really made me into the greatest Nolstradamus I've ever felt like,

00:39:16.220 he, he decided to backtrack. Are you concerned about standing so forcefully with somebody that has,

00:39:22.520 you know, at least a questionable record? I am not defending the man. I'm defending the rights

00:39:30.780 of this man to due process. And the Trump administration has admitted in court that he

00:39:39.100 was wrongfully detained and wrongfully deported. My mission and my purpose is to make sure that we

00:39:46.980 uphold the rule of law. Because if we take it away from him, we do jeopardize it for everybody else.

00:39:52.220 If we want to defend the rule of law, then we need to make sure that illegal aliens don't enter our 1.00

00:39:59.620 country. But Van Hollen and all the Democrats up to and including Joe Biden and Kamala and many

00:40:05.120 Democrats over the decades have welcomed them in. But Joe Biden in particular welcomed them in.

00:40:10.080 Kamala was the boarders are welcomed them in. The Democrat senators welcomed them in.

00:40:14.680 Now you're talking to me about the rule of law? No, no, no. I don't stand with this guy.

00:40:18.520 You went on a lunch date with him. Also, wasn't this guy supposed to be being tortured in some

00:40:23.080 horrible prison in El Salvador where basically a concentration camp? Van Hollen doesn't even know

00:40:28.300 where he is. Naib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, pointed out, obviously the senator knows

00:40:32.640 where he is. He took him out on a lunch date. Yeah, no, it is about, you are defending this guy and

00:40:37.540 you realize it's a horrible look and you realize your constituents hate you for it and you're trying

00:40:41.440 to salvage what remains of your political career. Good luck. Good luck, buddy. And good luck to any of

00:40:46.020 the Democrats who want to defend this stuff too. Please run on this in 26, run on this in 28.

00:40:51.060 That would be wonderful. Here's what Tom Homan, the border or the deportations are rather,

00:40:55.960 had to say. Not even a US senator could get any information about his whereabouts or the condition

00:41:02.940 of his incarceration without actually going down and making the trip to El Salvador himself.

00:41:07.720 We obviously knew his whereabouts because he went there to see him. But what bothers me more than that

00:41:13.180 is a US senator travel out of Salvador on a taxpayer dime to meet with an MS-13 gang member,

00:41:20.120 public safety threat, terrorist. Terrorist. That sums it up. Well said by Tom Homan. Keep it up,

00:41:26.420 Democrats. Scott Jennings on CNN, who does a great job. He's the conservative on CNN. He said that he

00:41:34.600 cannot understand why Democrats in this case, and more broadly, always fall in love with the worst

00:41:43.160 people. I see these pictures tonight and I think, boy, the party of women is really covering itself 0.99

00:41:48.680 in glory tonight. I mean, I don't understand why the American left falls in love with the worst people.

00:41:53.820 You've got a gang banging, human trafficking, wife beating, illegal alien, and a United States senator 0.57

00:41:59.480 and a ludicrous display of energy is in El Salvador having Mai Tais and Yahtzee. I do not get it. I do 0.65

00:42:06.280 not understand why the left takes on the heroes. I don't get it. I do get it. I actually get why the

00:42:14.140 American love falls in love almost uniformly with the worst people. The reason is that their loves 0.97

00:42:20.880 are disordered. All of their loves. They have a root problem. Fundamentally, not only what they

00:42:27.460 believe, but what they desire is wrong. And when your loves are disordered and misplaced,

00:42:34.820 you're not just going to fall in love with one bad guy. You're going to fall in love only with bad

00:42:40.180 guys. This is the same reason that your rebellious sister always dates punks and losers and criminals. 1.00

00:42:48.500 It's the same thing. All of liberalism comes down to screw you, dad. And so it's the same reason. 1.00

00:42:55.040 Your sister has, I don't know, maybe your sister's perfectly nice. I hate to slander her. But your

00:43:00.940 sister, the archetypal rebellious sister, she always brings home the bad boy and she's always in these 0.94

00:43:08.320 bad relationships. Yeah, of course she is. You rarely find someone who has just one bad relationship.

00:43:14.840 It's usually kind of all or nothing. And that's the American left.

00:43:18.500 Whether they're simping for terrorists in the Middle East or at home, Antifa or Hamas or whatever.

00:43:26.020 They're defending career criminals. They're always attacking cops. They're always attacking good

00:43:30.720 guys who are protecting people like Daniel Penny on the subway. It's always the same thing. Now they're

00:43:35.020 defending this kid who stabbed Austin Metcalf in the heart. It's always the same because their loves

00:43:41.700 are off. You got to fix that. And that requires not merely a political fix and not merely a cultural

00:43:47.700 fix. It requires a religious reorientation. There's no way around it. As Cardinal Manning tells us and I

00:43:53.880 tell you frequently from him, all politics ultimately is theological. And so that's what it's got to come

00:44:00.220 down to. Now there is so much more I have to get to. So much more. But I'm running out of time because

00:44:06.580 I decided to take one morning off and the world changed. What are the things that have happened?

00:44:12.440 Kanye West has just declared on social media that he had an incestuous gay relationship with his cousin

00:44:20.300 when he was a child until he was 14. And it all centered around pornography that he found in his house.

00:44:25.840 I don't even have time to get to that today. There's a major issue that I have to tell you about

00:44:32.980 and I specifically need to tell you about if you are anywhere around the Trump organization or

00:44:38.240 the White House. I guess they're the same thing now because it's a really easy political win for the

00:44:44.760 conservatives and I feel that we're kind of blowing it right now. I don't have time to get to that.

00:44:49.820 Has anything else happened in the last few days? There's been a lot. I can't

00:44:55.840 and I can't even get to member block today because I have to fly out to Los Angeles

00:44:59.840 to film a bunch of episodes of the book club. But I will be back tomorrow and we will be talking

00:45:05.760 about all of these things. Probably even the Kanye thing. I'll try to do it in a respectful way

00:45:12.320 because this is a wholesome show and I know kids watch so we'll try to be. But there are political

00:45:17.200 implications to this. We just need more time. We will have that time tomorrow. In the meantime,

00:45:23.000 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you then.

00:45:25.840 Bye.

The Michael Knowles Show - April 22, 2025

Ep. 1719 - BREAKING： Pope Francis Dead at 88

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