The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1756 - Did Trump Betray MAGA Over Iran？

00:00:00.000 Right wing influencers were up in arms last night over the prospect of President Trump going to war

00:00:05.540 with Iran because of the Iranian nuclear program. Now it's worth mentioning, since this fact seems

00:00:11.540 to be lost on some people, that the United States is not in fact at war with Iran. But these

00:00:17.780 influencers and pundits were furious that Trump might go to war with Iran. This, they said,

00:00:24.700 would constitute a betrayal of the MAGA movement, a betrayal of everything President Trump

00:00:32.000 campaigned on and was elected to do. Trump, they pointed out, was elected on getting us out of

00:00:39.300 wars in the Middle East. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. When did Trump suggest that Iran

00:00:48.160 was even on his mind? Everybody, no nuclear weapons. You can't give nuclear weapons.

00:00:53.760 It'd be one thing if Trump had campaigned on stopping Iran's nuclear program.

00:00:59.160 Don't let Iran have nuclear weapons. That's my only thing I have to tell you today.

00:01:05.620 But for Trump to just voice this policy on us, completely out of the blue.

00:01:11.500 Including Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. That's all. They can't have nuclear weapons. It's

00:01:16.060 too destructive, too powerful. They can't have it. Without any warning.

00:01:21.740 I just don't want him to have a nuclear weapon. Well, it's a betrayal, wouldn't you say? What else

00:01:28.280 do you call it when you say one thing on the campaign trail? They cannot have a nuclear weapon.

00:01:34.620 That was the only thing. The one thing I said you cannot have. And another thing when you get into

00:01:40.180 office. You can't let Iran have nuclear weapons.

00:01:45.840 Now, I don't want the US to get bogged down in another war in the Middle East. I think many of 0.60

00:01:50.580 the arguments regarding Iran are bogus, as I've said repeatedly on the show. But it also seems strange

00:01:56.900 to blame President Trump for betraying promises he never made to keep us out of a war he didn't launch.

00:02:02.900 You would think that after 10 years of fake crises regarding Trump, people would have learned by now

00:02:11.640 to take a few deep breaths when the latest panic drops. But no, panicans abound. I'm Michael Knowles.

00:02:19.060 This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:02:38.840 Welcome back to the show. Justin Bieber might be placed in a conservatorship. This could be

00:02:43.720 Britney Spears all over again. Hold on. I have a lot more pearls of wisdom. First,

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00:03:47.560 Promo code K-N-O-W-L-E-S. The war in Iran is heating up. There was a clip, this was a pretty 0.98

00:03:58.380 wild one, of Iran state television yesterday. So they got the lady in the, not quite a burqa,

00:04:05.880 what is that called? Is that a niqab? Whatever. It's not full burqa, but it's, you know, it's

00:04:09.580 a lot of, it's a lot of cloth. She's on Iran state TV. And as she's broadcasting live,

00:04:15.940 apparently a missile hit the studio.

00:04:28.520 Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

00:04:35.880 It just cuts to commercial. You couldn't have scripted that. I mean, that was straight out of

00:04:41.500 Hollywood. So this war, if you hadn't noticed already, is not, this is not like previous

00:04:50.020 Israeli or American actions against Iran. This is not just taking out a top Iranian general,

00:04:55.880 even like we saw from Trump in the first term. This is not just Israel, you know,

00:04:59.820 blown up some pagers or something. This war is clearly aimed at regime change. This is a full

00:05:07.760 scale war. And so right now I think you've got good cop, bad cop. The good cop is president Trump

00:05:13.800 saying, please mullah, mullahs, please Ayatollah, please make a deal to give up your nuclear program 0.85

00:05:21.120 and we'll let you live. And the Israeli bad cop is saying, nope, we're taking you all out. This is 0.88

00:05:26.680 not, we're going all the way now. You know, you got Trump on the one hand saying, I gave you 60 days

00:05:32.520 to make a deal. Day 61, we're letting the Israelis go in there. Please come. It's not too late. Please 1.00

00:05:38.560 make a deal. And then the bad cop is really saying, yeah, we're going to blow up your TV stations while

00:05:42.940 they're broadcasting. We are not joking. This is not merely saber rattling. And you've got people

00:05:49.640 scratching their heads because Trump having established this amazing coalition of people

00:05:55.000 who have disparate political views. Trump has every side scratching their heads because the hardest

00:06:02.920 war hawks in the country support Trump. Also, the most fervent doves and isolationists also support

00:06:11.540 Trump. It's this weird coalition. He's managed to do it. Just as on other issues, you've got the most

00:06:18.820 pro-tariff people in the country. You've got the biggest free traders, both supporting Trump.

00:06:23.840 You've got Jews supporting Trump. You've got Muslims supporting Trump. You have all sorts of

00:06:29.660 people. He's done a great job assembling a coalition that previous Republicans had not been able to

00:06:33.580 assemble. And now they're scratching their heads. Is Trump a dove? Is Trump a hawk? Is Trump an

00:06:39.000 isolationist? Is Trump a neocon? Is Trump a this? Is Trump? Trump is none of those things. Trump

00:06:44.720 is not particularly ideological, which I think is a good thing. As a conservative,

00:06:50.280 I try to eschew ideology. I think ideology is modern and lib and bad.

00:06:56.620 So when Trump is looking at the Iran issue, I don't think he's considering regime change and the

00:07:01.880 end of history and a community of liberal democracies spanning the entire globe. I don't

00:07:07.040 think he's saying that. I think he's thinking, as he said on the campaign trail forever,

00:07:10.100 we're not going to let Iran get a bomb. That's all he's thinking. He's thinking in a very practical,

00:07:15.660 prudential way. And ideologues who are today conveniently forgetting when Trump said for

00:07:23.180 many, many years, I think all of those clips I just played were only from the most recent

00:07:27.680 presidential campaign, but he's been saying it for a decade. He says, we're not going to let

00:07:30.840 Iran get a bomb. We're not going to let Iran get a bomb. We're not going to let Iran get a bomb. 0.75

00:07:33.760 So is it any surprise that Trump is going in using the military? That said, I don't think he has

00:07:40.760 the ideological vision of the neocons of the Bush II administration to say, we're going to remake

00:07:46.540 the entire Middle East. We're going to establish liberal democracy there. Because the question,

00:07:53.160 just as I've defended Trump on being open to being a little more aggressive in foreign policy,

00:08:00.380 if you want to be able to cut deals and negotiate, you need to have a credible threat of violence

00:08:06.660 there. That's speak softly and carry a big stick from Teddy Roosevelt, one of President Trump's

00:08:11.920 favorite Republicans. While I'm totally defending that as a tactic, we then have to ask for the

00:08:17.680 people who are clamoring for regime change. Well, okay, what comes next? What comes next? If you want

00:08:24.160 to go all the way, you want to throw out the Ayatollah. I don't like the Ayatollah. That guy's crazy.

00:08:27.900 You want to throw out the Mullahs. I don't care for the Mullahs. That's fine. 1.00

00:08:31.760 What comes next? This is always the question in these regime change wars in the Middle East.

00:08:36.100 Do you have a plan for what comes next? Because I don't want the United States occupying Iran for

00:08:40.800 the next 20 years. I certainly don't want that. What's the, is the plan we're going to bring back

00:08:45.720 the crown prince, Riza Pahlavi? Okay. Is that really going to work? Is that, okay, that's fine. We had a

00:08:50.900 good relationship with his dad, with the Shah. So, okay, I guess that's fine. I have no problem with 1.00

00:08:54.400 that. Is that going to work? Is that, is that really going to work? This is what I thought

00:08:58.000 when Bashar Assad was ousted. I said, look, you guys, everyone talks about how terrible Assad was.

00:09:02.860 I don't know that we got this like ISIS lunatic who just came in and took over Syria. Is that better? 1.00

00:09:08.300 What can, I'm open-minded. Just tell me what's the plan. That I think is what's on a lot of

00:09:14.940 Americans' minds. It's not that Americans have some love for, I think most Americans at least don't

00:09:20.020 have some love for the Ayatollah. It's not that most Americans are reflexively anti-Israel. Most

00:09:24.900 Americans are actually, are supportive of the state of Israel. But Americans have a totally

00:09:30.300 legitimate trepidation about interfering in the Middle East because of the experience of being

00:09:36.500 bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan for, for years and decades. So what's the plan? That's the

00:09:41.560 question for the, for the hardcore regime change hawks. What is the plan? Because there's a lot of war

00:09:48.020 propaganda. There's a lot of propaganda coming out of the Iranian side, which is backed up by Russia

00:09:53.420 and China and other people that we don't generally get along with. And there's, there's propaganda

00:09:58.880 coming out of our side and certainly out of the state of Israel. Bibi Netanyahu went on ABC News

00:10:03.300 yesterday and I, I felt overplayed his hand a little bit. It's Tel Aviv tomorrow. It's New York.

00:10:11.120 I look, I understand America first. I don't understand America dead. That's what these people want.

00:10:16.540 They chant death to America. So we're doing something that is in the service of mankind,

00:10:20.880 of humanity, and it's a battle of good against evil. America does, should, and does stand with

00:10:27.840 the good. That's what President Trump, Trump is doing. And I deeply appreciate his support.

00:10:33.120 Okay. All right. Laying it on a little thick, Bibi. Okay. I understand America first. I don't 0.76

00:10:40.740 understand America dead. America dead. America, that's it. If we don't go in now

00:10:46.260 and go all in on your regime change war in Iran, America is going to be dead.

00:10:52.320 What's your evidence for that? Well, Iran doesn't like America and is going to get a nuclear bomb. 0.80

00:10:58.440 First of all, we've been hearing Iran is on the cusp of a nuclear bomb for 45 years now.

00:11:02.440 And second of all, Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb. There's no question about that. But even 0.91

00:11:07.240 Netanyahu himself has said it. Iran is not days or weeks away from a nuclear bomb. Iran is probably 0.94

00:11:11.580 a year away for a nuclear bomb or maybe more. But even beyond that, there are plenty of countries

00:11:17.340 who hate us who have nuclear bombs. Pakistan. Pakistan harbored Osama bin Laden for 10 years.

00:11:22.300 North Korea. Definitely saber rattles with the United States. North Korea is a nuclear bomb.

00:11:27.680 So I don't want a nuclear Iran. I want to take practical, prudent steps to stop Iran from having 1.00

00:11:32.140 a nuclear weapon, basically entirely with Trump on that part of the issue. But don't tell me,

00:11:39.360 come on, don't try to fool me, okay? Don't treat me like I'm a dummy. Iran poses an existential threat 1.00

00:11:47.320 to the state of Israel. I get why the state of Israel is going in. Iran does not pose an immediate

00:11:51.720 existential threat to the United States. It just doesn't. Iran wants regional dominance. 0.93

00:11:56.100 So there are plenty of strategic reasons why the US doesn't want that to happen or why Saudi Arabia

00:12:01.480 doesn't want that to happen or why even Qatar doesn't want that to happen or why Bahrain doesn't

00:12:05.400 want that to happen or why Turkey doesn't want that to happen. I get all that. Certainly why Israel 0.99

00:12:10.000 doesn't want that to happen. But in times of war, the propaganda comes on real, real thick.

00:12:19.640 And you're getting it from both sides in this war. So you're getting it certainly from the regime

00:12:24.620 change side. If we don't go in right now, the whole world is going to end because Iran has a 1.00

00:12:29.600 nuclear weapon. It's going to blow up the whole United States. Not quite. And then on the flip

00:12:35.000 side, if the United States, the global hegemon in any way flexes its muscle or in any way helps to

00:12:41.020 guide the affairs of the Middle East, then we're going to get bogged down in a forever war that goes 0.53

00:12:44.840 on for five centuries. Also not quite there. Also not quite there. And this is why it's not just

00:12:50.760 carrying water for the admin. This is why I have consistently supported President Trump since

00:12:56.120 2016. While many people were Johnny come lately or they supported him, they didn't support him,

00:13:01.700 then they did support him, then they didn't support him. You've seen a lot of that on the

00:13:04.160 American right. But one of my absolute favorite things about Trump as a political figure is that

00:13:10.360 he is not particularly ideological. And I think there's a deep philosophical basis for not being

00:13:15.440 all that ideological. Michael Oakeshaw, one of my favorite, more recent political philosophers,

00:13:19.480 has this line. He says, ideology is the formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational

00:13:25.760 truth contained in the tradition. What a wordy, highfalutin academic definition of ideology,

00:13:31.900 but it's really good. It's the formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational

00:13:38.960 truth contained in the tradition. You can't possibly sum up society in that kind of way. But that's how

00:13:44.300 the modern people all want to do. They want to have five bullet points on the back of a napkin. No.

00:13:47.700 Now, Trump is a little more based on his gut. Trump is a little more based on history than

00:13:52.680 ideology. Trump is very simple. We don't want to go remake the entire world. That way lies madness.

00:14:01.780 But we don't want our enemies to get nuclear weapons. So we're going to have a negotiated

00:14:07.660 approach. And I think that's what it is. There are ideologues who want full-on regime change

00:14:11.380 and want to sprout up Madisonian democracy in Persia. Probably not going to happen.

00:14:16.520 And there are some who want a good deal that protects the interests of the United States and

00:14:22.160 allows for stability in the region. That's different. Some people want revolution there.

00:14:28.120 Some people want stability. America is the global hegemon, the global empire. I think

00:14:31.680 it is in our interest to establish stability. And however we're going to get that done,

00:14:37.540 that I think is what Trump is going to pursue. Hold on. Just one second, please. Hold on.

00:14:43.160 Tex Knolls to 989898. We are days away from what has been dubbed the Rio reset,

00:14:49.700 the greatest threat to the US dollar's dominance in over 80 years. On July 6th, BRICS nations,

00:14:55.200 Russia, China, India, Iran, and many more are expected to announce the launch of a new

00:14:59.320 international super currency fully backed by gold or other commodities. This is part of their

00:15:03.260 long-term plan to supplant the US and the dollar as cornerstones of the global financial system.

00:15:08.380 We'll see how the Iran part of that works out. I'm a little skeptical that they're going to be 1.00

00:15:12.760 taking much part in it. But in any case, it is a serious threat to the US dollar.

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00:15:50.420 Claim your free info kit from Birch Gold. So what kind of negotiation are we going to get?

00:15:58.680 Here's President Trump on the subject.

00:16:00.860 Have you heard any signals or seen any messages from intermediaries that Iran wishes to de-escalate

00:16:08.380 the conflict? Yeah. What have you heard? What have you heard from the Iranians?

00:16:13.180 They'd like to talk, but they should have done that before. I had 60 days and they had 60 days and

00:16:19.860 on the 61st day, I said, we don't have a deal. They have to make a deal. And it's painful for both

00:16:27.040 parties, but I'd say Iran is not winning this war and they should talk and they should talk

00:16:33.300 immediately before it's too late. This, for people who doubt Trump's dexterity when it comes

00:16:41.600 to negotiating, some people say, oh, it's all just a TV show. It was all based on that show,

00:16:44.940 The Apprentice. He's now really a great deal maker. I don't know. I think the past four or five

00:16:48.940 days would suggest otherwise. Trump is willing to carry through on threats to bring people to

00:16:55.760 the negotiating table. For some, for the real hardcore war hawks, the negotiations were always

00:17:04.440 just a pretext for regime change. That was always a facade covering up the true aims, which was

00:17:10.200 regime change. I don't think that's true of Trump. I think Trump really wants a deal.

00:17:14.000 And Trump is willing to kill people who are threatening security and America's interests

00:17:22.180 if they're not going to make a deal. This is what Trump said yesterday or two days ago.

00:17:26.680 He said, I want a deal. Iran couldn't get to a deal. Now all the people I was negotiating with

00:17:32.440 are dead. Is anyone else going to come make a deal with me? Because I'd like to make a deal.

00:17:36.960 I don't want more people to die, but I'm quite serious. As he was so consistent about for 10 years

00:17:43.340 now, I'm not going to let Iran get a bomb. Iran needs to prove to me that they're not going to 0.90

00:17:48.820 develop a bomb. They at least need to agree to it in principle. And if they're not going to,

00:17:52.560 I'm going to kill all of you. Because this is a priority for me, Donald Trump, and I'm the guy 1.00

00:17:57.420 who just got elected with the popular buff. So deal with it. Now, one last point on ideology and the

00:18:02.460 Iran conflict before we move on to the really important issues like Pride Night at Dodger Stadium.

00:18:07.440 I think ideologues on both sides of the Iran conflict are vastly overestimating the effect

00:18:17.060 of America's potential, even minor involvement in the conflict on Trump's approval ratings.

00:18:25.860 I know this is the least popular position among the political nerds and fanatics on Twitter,

00:18:30.220 but I'm right. Which is, there are people saying, if Donald Trump doesn't send in the entire US

00:18:38.560 military right now, this will destroy his legacy because he won't have stopped Iran's weapon and 0.74

00:18:44.040 whatever. He had the chance to overthrow the Mullahs. Yeah, okay, that's one side. 0.81

00:18:47.480 Then the other side says, if Donald Trump in any way is commander in chief, directs the US military

00:18:52.700 against America's enemies in the Middle East, if Donald Trump does that, he'll have destroyed the

00:18:57.900 whole MAGA coalition, he'll have betrayed every promise, every promise he ever made. Give me a

00:19:01.640 break. He can't get us involved in the Middle East. You know, this is the guy who dropped the

00:19:07.260 Moab in his first term, right? You know, this is the guy who took out Iran's top general in his first

00:19:11.760 term, right? You know, this is the guy that destroyed ISIS in his first term. You remember him?

00:19:16.600 This is the guy who campaigned on, I don't want to get us bogged down in the Middle East, but I'm not 1.00

00:19:20.080 going to let Iran have a bomb. And the Mullahs can keep ruling, but they can't cross America's red lines. 0.87

00:19:24.600 It's that guy. These ideologues on both sides continue to misunderstand Trump and MAGA because

00:19:34.400 they think that Trump and his movement, and it's his movement. It's not anyone else's movement.

00:19:39.360 It's not the movement of his strategists. It's not the movement of his staff. It's not the movement

00:19:43.560 of his pundits and activists and supporters. It's his movement. He did it. And everyone wants to claim

00:19:48.940 credit for it, but he did it. No one else. Trump is not some egghead political theorist. He's just

00:19:59.120 not that, which is a good thing. Now you're going to have ideologues on both sides say,

00:20:04.140 well, he needs to be more ideologically pure. No, he doesn't. Nerds, shut up. He doesn't.

00:20:10.740 The brilliance of the coalition, the only way he could assemble that coalition is by not being

00:20:16.580 ideologically pure. By being more practical and prudential, by recognizing that politics is the

00:20:22.140 art of inclusion, the art of the possible, the art of the second best, all the things that we've heard

00:20:26.880 from American politicians in recent years going all the way back to Clausewitz, okay?

00:20:34.940 He's able to assemble this coalition of people who have some practical interests in common through

00:20:40.640 appeals to important issues and through the magnetism of his own charisma.

00:20:47.180 He was able to do that. And that's what he's doing now. If you want to understand Trump's agenda,

00:20:52.580 focus less on nerdy political ideologies and theories and focus more on what he said on the

00:20:58.420 Joe Rogan show, which is that the guy weaves. He just kind of weaves. One day you think he's the

00:21:03.000 biggest hawk in the world. One day you think he's the biggest isolationist in the world. That's how he

00:21:06.700 operates, okay? If that's too much for you, go pick a cookie-cutter ideological candidate and lose

00:21:11.840 elections because that's not what Trump does. I have many more pearls of wisdom to pass along to

00:21:17.800 you that you can string together in a necklace and wear to a black-tie gathering. But first,

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00:22:26.900 K-N-O-W-L-E-S, good ranchers, American meat delivered. Moving on to really, really important

00:22:35.480 issues. L.A. Dodgers just had pride night. Now, I'm not a huge Dodger fan. You know, I'm

00:22:44.080 a Yankee fan. And the Dodgers and the Yankees have had something of a rivalry going back many

00:22:48.620 decades now. In fact, my grandfather was at the World Series game where Don Larson pitched

00:22:52.400 the perfect game against the Dodgers, the only perfect game ever in World Series history.

00:22:55.560 Anyway, I wasn't surprised that the L.A. Dodgers had a pride night and they put the rainbow flag 0.94

00:23:02.140 on their hat. It's the L.A. symbol, but L.A. was in rainbow colors, not just the regular blue

00:23:09.860 and white. So, you know, not surprised. However, got to give credit to a Dodger here, Clayton

00:23:16.640 Kershaw. Kershaw wore the hat. Look, he's a member of the team. He's got to wear the hat.

00:23:24.340 If you're on a team, sometimes you've got to go along with the team and you've got to

00:23:29.280 follow the leader, even if that contradicts your own individual will. I know we're all

00:23:33.860 radical individualists these days and we're fair weather fans and we only go along with

00:23:37.820 the team so long as they agree with us on every single thing. But then the minute that

00:23:41.620 they in any way disagree, we all become radical individuals. Well, Kershaw, look, he's going

00:23:47.460 to go along with his team. But he had a little twist. He put on the gay hat, but then right 1.00

00:23:53.520 next to the rainbow, he wrote Genesis 9, 12 through 16. I love it. I love it so much.

00:24:02.780 That is, he said, I'll wear the rainbow, but I'm going to wear the rainbow to symbolize

00:24:08.020 its original meaning. The meaning that we have understood it to have for our whole civilization,

00:24:13.320 the meaning that it ought to reflect and that at a deep level, it does reflect. Namely,

00:24:19.280 that God will never again destroy the world in a flood. That's what in the book of Genesis,

00:24:23.220 that's what when God shows the rainbow, he said, that's what it's supposed to symbolize.

00:24:27.500 That God will never again destroy the world in a flood because the imagination of man's heart

00:24:30.640 is evil from his youth. Now, in modern days, the rainbow is supposed to symbolize 0.94

00:24:36.260 vice and self-indulgence. But Kershaw says, no, I'll wear the symbol, but I'm going to wear it to

00:24:52.100 mean what it really symbolizes. It's a great way to handle Pride Night. This is a time to really focus

00:24:59.160 in all of our political issues on how to balance competing goods. The goods of security on the one

00:25:09.500 hand, the goods of freedom and independence on the other. That's what we're dealing with in some

00:25:17.020 of these global conflicts, not just Iran, but also Ukraine and elsewhere. With Pride Night,

00:25:23.120 Kershaw has got to deal with the good of being part of the team, the strength of the team,

00:25:27.340 but also the good of the moral order, not violating the moral order, just to go along

00:25:33.800 with the mob, which would be lunacy. How do you do that? He found a way to do it. I love it. That's

00:25:38.220 very practical, very prudential. Probably the Dodgers, the LGBT gay stopo running the LA Dodgers, 1.00

00:25:45.940 they probably wish he hadn't worn the hat at all because it calls more attention to the inanity 0.94

00:25:50.820 and viciousness of the pride symbols. Can you just not? No, sorry. You asked me to wear the rainbow,

00:25:56.060 I'm wearing the rainbow. You know what it means? Goes back to the book of Genesis. Now let me tell

00:26:01.300 you about the book of Leviticus. No, no, don't tell us about the book of Leviticus, please. Oh yeah,

00:26:04.520 it's about chapter 18, you know that one. No, no, no, please. Speaking of June festivals,

00:26:10.440 the New York Times, I meant to get to this yesterday, but I have to get to it before we

00:26:14.660 moved too far past Father's Day. The New York Times celebrated Father's Day in the most

00:26:19.980 typical way, by running a column from some angry liberal woman attacking her father. I'm not going

00:26:28.420 to read you the whole thing, though it's a short little essay and it's worth reading because of

00:26:33.360 how awful it is. Here's just a little bit. This is how it opens. What my dad gave me,

00:26:39.820 my father gave me his freckly skin and I like him. I had melanoma and oh, and like him, not I like him,

00:26:50.280 she doesn't like him, and like him, I had melanoma. He gave me asthma and protruding elbows that are

00:26:54.600 identical to his. He gave me reddish hair that's kindly reluctant to go gray. He gave me an aversion

00:26:59.340 to drinking by not having one himself. I hate you, dad. You're such an alcoholic. I hate you. You're 0.99

00:27:05.400 drunk. He did not give me the seat next to him at the San Diego Chargers game. He had season tickets

00:27:10.500 when I was a kid, but I only found out about it years later. He didn't even take me to that game

00:27:13.300 that I didn't want to go to. He gave me the ability to talk to anyone because I couldn't stand the

00:27:17.280 awkward silences he provided. He gave me really nice houses to grow up in, but we moved a lot for

00:27:23.700 his work and things never seemed to be going well, so he gave me financial anxiety too. Yeah, I mean,

00:27:28.180 he provided me all the material things I needed and he worked really hard, but he's still a loser and he 0.95

00:27:33.680 wasn't that good at his job. Even though, I mean, he did well in his career, but he's a loser. He's 0.99

00:27:38.120 a complete loser. I hate him. And I had financial anxiety because we were rich, but not as rich as I 1.00

00:27:44.180 wanted to be. He gave me tools to withstand a sexist world. He would say, Hillary looks ugly in 1.00

00:27:49.320 her pantsuits and her voice. Women don't belong on the golf course. Just pause here. All true. 1.00

00:27:55.200 All true. Find me the lie in any of those statements. This was my exposure therapy. He gave it generously.

00:27:59.580 He didn't give me a response when I was little and watching a baseball game on TV with him.

00:28:05.340 Couldn't be bothered to explain my petulant, incessant questions.

00:28:09.820 That's what I took. These are the things I took from him. His Fox News when I set up his cable. Yeah,

00:28:14.820 my dad asked me to help him and I took away his favorite TV channel.

00:28:19.120 Goes on and on and on. And then you find out, this is a real killer, but halfway through the column,

00:28:24.940 you find out, her dad is still alive. It's not even like he's dead and she's attacking him. He's

00:28:31.540 still alive. And apparently really likes her and she goes on to it. She stuck him in a nursing home

00:28:37.680 and then she goes to visit him. And she says, she admits, like, he's always so grateful when I visit

00:28:42.020 him and it's so sweet and he really likes me, you know, but I hate him. And you look through

00:28:48.940 everything this guy supposedly did. And his great crime was being a hardworking

00:28:54.860 father who supported his family, but was like kind of conservative. I don't even mean like

00:29:01.020 conservative, conservative. Okay. I'm not, I'm not talking like radical, right? I don't,

00:29:05.220 the guy wasn't reading Giovanni Gentile essays. He watched Fox News and read the Wall Street Journal.

00:29:09.540 That's his great sin. And he didn't take his daughter to sports games that she almost certainly

00:29:16.180 did not want to go to. She admits later, she doesn't even have any love of sports. She was

00:29:20.060 just complaining that he didn't take her to a game she didn't want to go to. And he, what?

00:29:26.300 And he made a lot of money, but not as much as she wanted. And then she stuck him in a home.

00:29:35.320 But, and the whole point is that she's a good daughter for forgiving him for the crimes that

00:29:39.480 he didn't commit against her. All of liberalism, and I say this without exaggeration and probably

00:29:48.360 without exception, all of liberalism comes down to hating your dad. That's really what it's about.

00:29:55.660 It comes down to hating your dad at, at a physical, temporal level, like your literal dad,

00:30:02.760 like your, you know, your immediate biological dad, or at the extreme, but to hating God.

00:30:09.560 Your father. Because liberalism ultimately is a turn away from classical philosophy,

00:30:19.040 which says we're going to understand the world. And modern philosophy, as Marx says in the thesis

00:30:23.380 on Feuerbach, you know, modern philosophy is about changing the world, not about understanding the

00:30:27.760 world. It turns you away from obedience, recognizing hierarchies, and following, you know, being obedient

00:30:35.840 to hierarchy and order toward a radical leveling so that we can all do what we want. Turning away from

00:30:42.500 the family is the basic building block of society toward the individual is the building block of

00:30:46.480 society. And ultimately turning away from worshiping God and trying to serve him in this world and

00:30:52.500 trying to unite your will to the will of God so that there's no difference between what you want for

00:30:58.500 yourself and what God wants for you. Turning away from that, which is the basis of ethics and morality,

00:31:05.660 turning away from that toward a self-deification. It says that you are God. There's no gods,

00:31:11.020 there's no kings, there's no only men, and we can do whatever we want.

00:31:13.720 All of liberalism comes down to hating your dad. And that's true in the loftiest ways, you know,

00:31:19.980 the most abstract philosophical ways. And it's also true that people who write for the New York

00:31:24.260 Times hate their dads. Okay. And that's really sad. You really feel bad for this father who clearly

00:31:30.380 gave a lot to this ungrateful woman, this just witchy little woman. And then she decides to try to 1.00

00:31:37.880 humiliate him in the pages of the New York Times. The only good thing you can say for her father here

00:31:42.820 is at least no one reads the New York Times. At least he doesn't have to suffer that indignity.

00:31:48.920 And another great thing you can say about the father is he ostensibly doesn't read it either,

00:31:53.460 though he might because he clearly loves his daughter, even though she doesn't like him.

00:31:57.360 If you think Daily Wire Plus is just a subscription to watch some shows, think again. Daily Wire is

00:32:02.380 building a home for people who've had enough, enough lies, enough riots, enough cultural collapse

00:32:05.860 disguised as compassion. We are here to fight. We're not just here to comment. We're not just

00:32:10.680 here to criticize. We're here to fight with journalism, exposing the lies with uncensored

00:32:14.060 content that puts truth back in the spotlight. You are not just tuning in. You are linking arms

00:32:18.180 with a community that fights back. And when we fight, we win. Join now at dailywireplus.com.

00:32:23.880 My favorite comment yesterday is from the Drummer's Workshop, Norm's Music. It says,

00:32:27.540 most people don't get it. It's Jimmy Carter's fault. Yes. It's the thing. They think these issues

00:32:32.640 just come out of nowhere, especially these geopolitical issues, Ukraine, Russia war,

00:32:37.680 Taiwan, which they'll see, or the Iran issue. This Iran issue has been festering since 1979

00:32:44.160 when Jimmy Carter stupidly let our ally the Shaw fall. Same with the Panama Canal issue.

00:32:51.020 President Trump wants us to get back to Panama Canal. That was also Jimmy Carter's fault.

00:32:54.160 A lot of these issues, decades in the making because of the fecklessness of mostly liberal

00:32:59.740 politicians. All right. Speaking of paternal care, Justin Bieber might be placed in a conservatorship.

00:33:09.360 So do we have, yeah, here we go. This is according to The Sun, so you know it's true,

00:33:14.440 the entertainment editor there. Justin Bieber could be placed in a conservatorship by Haley

00:33:18.920 if she can prove three points to court amid his bizarre behavior. Okay, so I don't know. I haven't

00:33:27.380 followed this that closely because I don't follow celebrity gossip all that closely, but apparently

00:33:32.020 Justin Bieber has been looking a little rough lately and behaving in erratic ways, and so there's some

00:33:36.660 rumor that he might be placed in a conservatorship, like happened to Britney Spears, like happens to

00:33:41.560 many people who are in pop music and who become super rich and famous and they go off the rails.

00:33:47.760 At the time that Britney's conservatorship was dominating the news, there were people

00:33:52.500 who said, we need to free Britney. She's being controlled by her dad, who's the conservator, 0.91

00:33:58.860 and he's controlling her finances and even her freedom of movement, and we need to free Britney, 0.58

00:34:03.740 and that reflected a misunderstanding of what freedom is. But ultimately, Britney was freed, 0.91

00:34:09.620 and now she seems to be trapped in a prison of her own madness, and she posts videos dancing with

00:34:14.200 knives and behaving in an erratic way. Maybe the same thing will happen to Bieber here. This is totally

00:34:20.180 reflective of our politics right now. When you are sane, when you are sane and disciplined, freedom

00:34:28.960 is in your hands. When you are insane and self-indulgent, freedom needs to be in someone else's hands.

00:34:37.220 That's just how it works. And our founding fathers wrote about this in the framers of our constitution,

00:34:42.480 and they wrote about the nature of freedom, that when you are a disciplined person, when you subject

00:34:47.260 your appetites to your rational will, when you have practiced good habits, when you can be trusted

00:34:54.400 on your own. You know, character is what you do when you think no one's watching. When you are that

00:35:00.860 kind of person, then freedom is really in your hands, and you don't need a heavy government to enforce it,

00:35:08.860 and you don't even need particularly heavy civic institutions. However, when you're undisciplined,

00:35:17.640 when you're ignorant, when you're undisciplined, when you're given to vice, when you're addicted to

00:35:21.620 things, when you're self-indulgent, the way to make you free is actually not to place freedom in 0.96

00:35:29.780 your hands. The way to make you free is to place control of you in someone else's hands,

00:35:35.820 someone else who can encourage you to get your act together, and can teach you things, and can help

00:35:42.760 you to practice the habits of discipline that can perhaps one day allow you to have freedom in your

00:35:47.120 own hands again. But that's it. Because freedom, as we've mentioned on the show a lot before,

00:35:52.820 is not just neutrality and choosing. It is willing. It's how we will, and how we will stuff, you know,

00:36:00.540 I will that I'll drink this leftist-year's tumbler. I will that I'll light this delicious Michael

00:36:05.340 Knowles candle. I don't, you know, the willing is predicated on knowledge. So that's what freedom is.

00:36:12.320 In the pithy phrase of Lord Acton, it's to do what we ought, the right to do what we ought,

00:36:17.080 not the ability to choose, you know, what we wish. So you, Justin Bieber can be free in a sort of way,

00:36:25.680 if he's in a conservatorship, maybe. Britney Spears, when she was in a conservatorship,

00:36:28.820 was more free than she is today when she's out of the conservatorship. Because today she's

00:36:33.920 enslaved by all these vices and madness. That's it. It's not, there's no, there's no shortcut out

00:36:40.400 of that. Liberalism tries to find a shortcut to that. Liberalism tries to have its cake and eat it

00:36:43.860 too. Liberalism says, well, hold on, I don't want any external constraints, and I don't want any

00:36:47.560 internal constraints. And I'm just going to be totally self-indulgent. I'm going to make myself

00:36:51.180 a god, and I'm going to remake the whole world. And I'm going to go insane, ultimately. And I'm not

00:36:57.420 going to be free because I'm going to become a slave to all of these passions and vices that

00:37:00.280 are totally irrational. Sorry, no shortcut, man. Now, speaking of show business, Katy Perry

00:37:06.840 is attacking Trump on another issue that he's catching flag for, the deportations.

00:37:14.880 Because she says that illegal aliens are being hunted like criminals

00:37:18.300 in their ancestral home. Here I have her post.

00:37:25.680 Los Angeles has lived under three flags, Spain, Mexico, and the United States. That land has seen

00:37:31.600 borders shift, power change hands, and yet the people, especially the brown and indigenous people,

00:37:35.520 have always been there. Eh, I don't know about that. You know, we did deport, what, like a million

00:37:41.820 people or something during Operation Wetback in the 1950s. The people have moved around a little bit.

00:37:48.300 And then when the Spanish came and met the indigenous, that created, that actually created 1.00

00:37:52.460 a new kind of race of people, the Hispanics, Latinos. Just not, not fully indigenous, not fully 0.99

00:37:58.680 European, not, you know, you can't, you can't just take the one and not the other. Anyway, she goes on.

00:38:04.540 Indigenous people have always been there, planting roots, building lives, raising families. And now in

00:38:09.180 2025, the descendants of those same communities are being hunted like criminals in their own ancestral

00:38:14.240 home. Wow. Wow, man. This presumes a lot about ancestral homes. First of all, it means that

00:38:22.900 someone who is part indigenous and part white is truly indigenous and not at all white. And the

00:38:28.320 good guys are the indigenous and the bad guys are the white guys from Spain, which doesn't, but you're, 0.85

00:38:32.760 the people are actually both. Second, she acknowledges that borders of sovereignty, territory has changed

00:38:40.320 hands. But then she refuses to accept the political consequences of that. Third, she's playing a little 0.94

00:38:47.520 loose with the phrase ancestral home. You know what my ancestral home is? You might be tempted to say

00:38:53.600 merry old England. You might be tempted to say the Mezzogiorno, Sicily or Calabria. But no,

00:38:59.140 my ancestral home really is probably Iraq. Isn't it? Isn't that true of all of us? All of us

00:39:06.220 white people? Because it doesn't, don't we come from Mesopotamia, from the Levant? So what if I just

00:39:13.900 roll up to Iraq and I start demanding stuff? I say, hey, this is my ancestral home. Hey, get out of the 0.99

00:39:19.840 way, you guys wearing towels and stuff. Get out of here. This is my place. Plant the American flag there, 1.00

00:39:26.020 start lighting a Mayflower cigar. Maybe, maybe pour a nice glass of scotch. Hey, I know you modern

00:39:31.760 inhabitants don't believe in drinking scotch, but listen, this is my ancestral home. How would that

00:39:37.080 go? I don't think that would go very well. None of these arguments really mean much of anything

00:39:43.780 that you're hearing from the left, other than America always has to be bad. At the national level,

00:39:51.900 America always has to be bad. At the racial level, white people always have to be bad. 1.00

00:39:57.360 At the, I don't know, political, philosophical level, the native, truly native populations always 0.98

00:40:04.160 have to be bad. And the migrants and those always have to be good. That's just all it is. So it's, 1.00

00:40:09.640 what the left is advancing here is conclusions in search of arguments. And they'll change the

00:40:15.960 arguments depending on the day. Just like, I mean, you think about LGBT. The conclusion is we need 0.94

00:40:23.200 to upend traditional sexual morality. The argument used to be there are men and there are women and

00:40:28.820 some men like men and some women like women. And it's how you're born. You're born that way. 0.95

00:40:33.980 And that's just how it is. And your sexual orientation is immutable. And that's why we need 0.97

00:40:37.320 to upend traditional sexual morality. And then five seconds later, they said, also sexual orientation

00:40:43.440 is not immutable. Sex is not even immutable. There aren't really men and there aren't really women.

00:40:48.820 And some men might like men, but they also might like women or women might like men or the women 0.82

00:40:54.720 might become men and the men might become women. And anyway, none of the previous principles about

00:40:59.080 sex we told you were true, but the conclusion is we need to upend traditional sexual morality.

00:41:02.620 That's it. That's all the left plays with. Because for the left, politics is not a matter of

00:41:08.660 reasoned debate or progression from first principles in an orderly way. It's just people

00:41:14.560 clubbing each over the head with sticks. And so you're going to, they've come to their conclusion.

00:41:21.620 They made up their mind and they're going to find out any way to try to defend it. Okay.

00:41:27.240 Which brings us back, since we're talking about Iraq and unreasonable politics, this brings us back 1.00

00:41:31.320 to the Middle East. Trump seems quite offended by some of the debate going on on the right.

00:41:39.840 In fact, he's even going after Tucker, who's been a strong Trump defender. Actually,

00:41:46.980 like a lot of people on the right, Tucker has been very pro-Trump and he's spoken at Trump rallies.

00:41:51.820 He's also expressed a lot of skepticism of Trump or hostility, but that's true of a lot of people on

00:41:57.180 the right. That's not just Tucker. But now they seem to be at a tough point in their relationship.

00:42:00.840 Trump tweets out, somebody please explain to Kuki Tucker Carlson that, that Iran cannot have a

00:42:06.040 nuclear weapon. America first means many great things, including the fact that Iran cannot have 0.98

00:42:10.780 a nuclear weapon, make America great again. Trump wants to emphasize this point, which in his defense,

00:42:18.480 he made on the campaign trail all the time. And a lot of people just didn't want to hear it.

00:42:23.260 And I, I, I love Tucker and I like a lot of the figures, many of whom are skeptical of Trump right

00:42:28.900 now. And, uh, you know, I, I even recognize that as we're talking about prudence and practicality

00:42:34.260 in foreign policy, we need to be a little circumspect and we need to temper expectations

00:42:39.200 and we need to make sure that we know exactly what we're doing when we get involved in places

00:42:42.900 around the world. But all of that said, this is Trump's movement. He assembled the coalition.

00:42:50.140 He got elected. He won the popular vote. Doesn't mean we don't ask questions. Doesn't mean we don't

00:42:56.120 advocate certain sides, but I think it does mean that we should not be turning on Trump at the drop

00:43:01.160 of a hat as some people have been inclined to do for 10 years. All the walls are closing in. Now I'm

00:43:07.240 done with Trump. Now I regret all my support now, now, now. And the reason is not that we blindly

00:43:12.080 follow anyone. We don't put our trust in princes. It's just that I think Trump has a lot of credibility,

00:43:17.580 especially on foreign policy. Trump is probably the best foreign policy president of my lifetime.

00:43:23.320 George H.W. Bush, I was very little when George H.W. Bush was president. He was pretty good,

00:43:27.540 but Trump, Trump might be better. He's certainly better than Clinton and Bush too and Obama and

00:43:32.600 Biden. And so he's done very, very well on foreign policy. He's done very well on domestic policy for

00:43:38.480 that matter too. And I just think he's kind of earned the right to have, have his supporters at least

00:43:44.700 take a few breaths for a few days and just like let him cook a little bit and see how things shake

00:43:49.300 out. Because the things they're accusing him of right now have not actually come to pass.

00:43:54.360 So maybe we don't, let's not be like, you know, Wile E. Coyote here with the Roadrunner and constantly

00:43:59.560 falling into all of these traps, which many ideologues around the country are trying to lay

00:44:04.160 for, for him and for us.

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The Michael Knowles Show - June 17, 2025

Ep. 1756 - Did Trump Betray MAGA Over Iran？

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