The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1880 - JD Vance And Nicki Minaj COOK At AmFest

00:00:00.000 After two days of podcasters attacking each other from the TPUSA stage,

00:00:04.800 Vice President J.D. Vance emerges at AmericaFest with the best speech of the weekend.

00:00:10.540 Though perhaps not the most surprising stage appearance, as that honor went to Nicki Minaj,

00:00:16.640 who walked out with Erica Kirk and gave the most incisive remarks. Maybe not the most incisive

00:00:23.440 remarks, but certainly more incisive remarks than many of the professional political commentators.

00:00:28.800 And a lot of people were surprised to see Nicki Minaj show up to TPUSA.

00:00:33.720 But if you, like some of us, are longtime barbs, you will know that even going back to 2012,

00:00:40.840 the signs were there.

00:00:58.800 Now the question on everybody's mind. Vance Minaj 28. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:10.940 Welcome back to the show. Disney is black. No, sorry. Santa is black, according to Disney. 0.97

00:01:36.280 Disney has made Santa black. It's the Netflix remake of Santa Claus. It's from Disney, and he's black. 1.00

00:01:44.240 We'll get to that in a moment. First, I want to tell you about Balance of Nature.

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00:03:01.140 offer. Go to balanceofnature.com to claim this offer today. Excellent, excellent speech from the

00:03:08.340 vice president at AmericaFest. This after days of podcasters attacking each other, trying to excise

00:03:17.020 one another from the conservative movement, airing all of their grievances, as many people expected

00:03:22.320 would happen. J.D. comes out and he hits a few major important points. Speaking of racial politics,

00:03:30.920 Santa being black and all that, here is what J.D. had to say about the DEI racial ideologies of the last

00:03:39.680 five to 15 years. In the United States of America, you don't have to apologize for being white anymore. 0.83

00:03:53.140 And if you're an Asian, you don't have to talk around your skin color when you're applying for

00:03:57.600 college because we judge people based on who they are, not on ethnicity and things they can't control.

00:04:04.680 It's it right out of the park. A speech like this would have been, even just a line like that would

00:04:12.660 have been unthinkable 10 years ago, would have been too edgy. Oh, we can't, we can talk, we can

00:04:18.020 talk about black grievance politics. We can talk about Hispanic grievance politics, Arab grievance

00:04:23.760 politics. And you talk about, it's not that you can't talk about racial identity, but the idea that

00:04:27.640 you could possibly mention that you shouldn't be ashamed of yourself for being a white person,

00:04:32.540 that would have been too far for the GOP, for the conservative movement. Now, not only is that not

00:04:38.700 too far, but it's urgent. And the 30,000 people completely sold out crowd at AmericaFest, they

00:04:46.020 appreciated that. They appreciated that because they know that it is unjust. It's finally become clear

00:04:52.860 after really not even just 15 years, after decades of this ideology telling people to feel bad about

00:04:58.200 themselves if they're white. It's become clear, this is totally unacceptable. And it's so, I don't 0.97

00:05:07.280 know, contrary to the supposed ideals of America, we have to get rid of it. Still bold of the vice

00:05:13.880 president to say it. I'm sure a lot of Republicans would have been cowards and wouldn't call out one 0.93

00:05:19.120 of the elephants in the room. But it's important that he does that. He's speaking to the moment. 0.91

00:05:23.780 This is a guy who is not just fighting the last political battle. This is a guy who's not just

00:05:29.740 running on the slogans and bromides of 40 years ago or something. This is a guy who knows what the

00:05:34.920 political moment is. So he speaks to this racial identity issue, which the left has used to so twist

00:05:42.960 the culture. And then he speaks to religion. More than any time I can recount, people are

00:05:49.400 talking about American identity and figuring out what it is that unites us. But I want to say

00:05:55.360 something here. The only thing that is truly served as an anchor of the United States of America

00:06:02.460 America is that we have been. And by the grace of God, we always will be a Christian nation.

00:06:15.780 Now, I want to be explicit because, of course, the fake news media will twist everything that I say.

00:06:22.000 I'm not saying...

00:06:23.460 Do you feel about them the same way I do?

00:06:28.640 I'm not saying you have to be a Christian to be an American. I'm saying something simpler and truer. 0.99

00:06:35.860 Christianity is America's creed. The shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and

00:06:42.540 beyond. Across that history, our country's major debates have always centered on how we could best as

00:06:50.420 a people please God. Beautifully, beautifully stated. As we all debate American identity,

00:06:57.400 this is going to be the big question next year. America 250, we're celebrating a quarter millennium

00:07:03.480 since the American Revolution. And we're in this period of massive flux. The largest demographic

00:07:07.820 change ever in recorded history has happened in the United States in the last 60 years.

00:07:13.520 We're aging just naturally as a country, as an empire. And so this raises all sorts of questions

00:07:18.500 about identity. This happened in ancient Rome. That's why Virgil writes the Aeneid, to give

00:07:22.540 a new and present sense of the Roman identity. So this question is really present. And some people

00:07:27.980 want to say it's all about stock. It's all about race. Some people want to say it's all about creed.

00:07:32.740 It's all about ideas. Really, neither of those answers is sufficient. It obviously has to be some

00:07:37.660 combination of the two. So J.D. touches on the racial issues that the left has been pushing so much

00:07:44.100 for decades. And then he hits the creedal issue. He says, look, guys, some of you want to say

00:07:48.840 America is a liberal. I'm reading into this. He doesn't explicitly say this. But some of you want

00:07:53.580 to say America is just a liberal democracy. And it's all just about liberalism, liberalism,

00:07:57.260 liberalism, as the left wants to say. And some of the squishes on the right want to say.

00:08:01.520 But that isn't true. That is an innovation of the middle to back half of the 20th century.

00:08:08.380 That isn't what motivated George Washington. That isn't what motivated Governor Winthrop.

00:08:12.480 That isn't what motivated Abraham Lincoln exactly. So what is it? What is the creed of America?

00:08:18.900 He says, it's obvious. The founding fathers told us. Actually, even the early settlers before the

00:08:23.940 founding fathers told us. And Lincoln told us. And Eisenhower told us. And they all told us.

00:08:28.920 It's Christianity. That's the creed. But it's not just Episcopalianism or Methodism or Baptist

00:08:38.840 Protestantism or Catholicism. It's something a little bit different. It's Christianity 0.99

00:08:46.640 read through the American experience. What John Adams says back in 1813, he says that the general

00:08:54.260 principles of Christianity are the principles on which independence was won. Abraham Lincoln,

00:08:59.260 fast forward to 1860, Abraham Lincoln is essentially writing all of his speeches through the language of

00:09:05.300 the King James Bible, the abolitionists writing in this kind of language, even all the way up to the

00:09:11.640 civil rights activists of the 1960s. This through line from the Mayflower through a model of Christian 0.97

00:09:17.680 charities, shiny city on a hill, through the revolution, through the civil war, through the late 19th, 20th

00:09:24.700 centuries, all the way up to the present day, all the way up to Ronald Reagan saying we're a shiny city on a hill,

00:09:29.480 echoing Winthrop, all the way up to the present day. We're a Christian country. And our political

00:09:35.820 creed reads Christianity through the American experience. So we tolerate other people. We're 0.88

00:09:41.120 quite open. However, that's the creed. That's the foundation of the creed. Beautifully stated.

00:09:49.620 Complex idea, nuanced idea that's articulated very clearly by the vice president. And then he hits this

00:09:55.840 third point, which I think allowed his speech to stand in stark contrast to many of the other speeches

00:10:03.240 over the weekend. He talked about the political coalition. President Trump did not build the

00:10:09.220 greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless self-defeating purity

00:10:15.720 tests. He says, make America great again because every American is invited.

00:10:23.220 So if you love America, if you want all of us to be richer, stronger, safer and prouder, you have a home

00:10:34.620 on this team. I didn't bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform. And I don't really care

00:10:49.480 if some people out there, I'm sure we'll have the fake news media denounce me after this speech.

00:10:55.120 But let me just say, the best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something

00:11:02.720 after Charlie's death that he himself refused to do in life. Bingo. He invited all of us here.

00:11:09.440 Bingo. It goes on. Watch the whole speech. It's really, really good. This is the key to me. This

00:11:19.580 is the key to the first stages of the coalition. Obviously, the coalition already exists, but the

00:11:27.480 first stages of this new episode. The big debate is who's in and who's out? Who gets to be in

00:11:37.180 the conservative movement and who gets to be out? That was with so much of, not my speech,

00:11:42.420 not the vice president's speech, but that's with so much of what TPUSA was about this year.

00:11:47.940 This person should be out. That person should be out. This person should have been invited in.

00:11:51.640 This person, that, the other thing. And I don't mean to suggest that setting boundaries isn't

00:11:58.740 important. You know I love boundaries. You know when the entire conservative movement was talking

00:12:03.120 about how we all love free speech absolutism, and you should say whatever you want. I said,

00:12:07.000 no, we need boundaries. We need standards. That's ridiculous. Censorship is good.

00:12:10.620 Okay, I think I've got pretty solid bona fides when it comes to circumscribing political movements.

00:12:17.580 The question is, how do we do it?

00:12:21.960 And the approach by many people at TPUSA was to say, yeah, this person and that person and this person

00:12:29.000 who are going to speak over the next few days, I don't like them. And they're weak and they're bad 0.53

00:12:33.380 and they're all these things and they should be out. That was probably the dominant approach by the

00:12:38.220 speakers. That's not my approach. Because we will, when we look at the left, the left looks at every

00:12:46.060 single person who was on that TPUSA stage as exactly the same. And politics is not just debate club.

00:12:52.040 And it's not just about feeling really nice and exalting one's moral principles, be they legitimate

00:13:00.260 or faulty, as the end goal of politics itself. It's about putting those eternal principles into

00:13:07.280 action so that they have political effect. It's about winning. You have to win. You don't want to

00:13:13.140 commit injustice. You don't want to do things that are intrinsically bad, but you have to win in

00:13:18.080 politics. Debate club, you don't really have to win because you go home and you eat your little

00:13:21.920 snack and you go back to school the next day and it doesn't matter whether you win or lose.

00:13:25.540 Politics, you have to win. There are real consequences to it.

00:13:28.920 I should hope that the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a leftist political activist would tell

00:13:34.220 you that. So how do we figure out? That's really the question. It's not, should there be people in

00:13:40.520 and out? How do we figure it out? And it seems to me, the vice president has exactly the right

00:13:45.820 approach here, which is Charlie gave us a roadmap. Charlie excluded some people from that conference.

00:13:55.920 The last text that I didn't return to Charlie was about some extra stuff he wanted me to do at

00:14:01.540 AmericaFest. And I'm terrible at responding to anybody's texts and I didn't text him back.

00:14:06.840 I think I thought about it the morning he died, actually. I thought, oh, I owe Charlie a text.

00:14:10.940 But that's what he was talking to me about. He was planning this thing out for a very,

00:14:13.920 very long time. And he knew who was speaking. And he had a vague idea of what all the events

00:14:19.640 were going to be. And we were talking about some extra events to do. He invited those people.

00:14:25.180 Okay. And JD's point that we should not do something after Charlie's death at what is

00:14:31.600 essentially a tribute to Charlie that he himself would not have done, I think is an apt traditionalist

00:14:37.420 observation, a good path forward. Charlie invited a bunch of people to AmericaFest.

00:14:43.580 Some of those people hate each other. Okay, that's too bad. In Charlie's estimation,

00:14:48.520 that was the team. And that was a good team. And maybe that was a necessary team.

00:14:54.320 Charlie also excluded people from AmericaFest. There were plenty of big names who were not invited,

00:14:59.100 who were very intentionally not invited. That was part of his strategy too.

00:15:03.340 And I'm not saying that Charlie has to dictate the Republican coalition ad infinitum,

00:15:09.520 you know, 50 years into the future. But I think we all have to acknowledge he did a very good job

00:15:14.320 at it, Charlie. He made, in the words of Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff,

00:15:18.820 the winning difference in 2024. He was as good a coalition builder and maintainer as anybody in

00:15:25.320 American politics. Probably better. Probably better. And so perhaps we ought to glean a little

00:15:33.280 wisdom from that. Perhaps we ought to play the hand that we've been dealt, which when it comes

00:15:38.920 to the coalition that we have, is actually a good hand. When it comes to the coalition that's been

00:15:43.620 built, it's the hand that won the popular vote for the Republican Party for the first time in 20 years.

00:15:48.100 Maybe we should work from that rather than litigate and relitigate political fights that long predate

00:15:56.640 any present issues that have been going on for years and years and years. You get 100 conservatives

00:16:00.160 in a room, they're all going to want to slap each other and smack each other and pick all sorts of

00:16:05.700 fights. And that's part of who we are. We're independent thinkers. I get it. I get it. But

00:16:10.580 we have to keep our eyes on the prize. This is not just about gaining market share within a podcast

00:16:18.180 space. This is not just about giving the most exciting speech. This is not just about winning

00:16:24.060 some abstract debate. This is politics. This is about winning. It's about maintaining a moral core.

00:16:32.540 It's about exacting justice. It's about having the right people on the team that are electorally

00:16:36.820 viable. And it's about winning. Okay. Brilliant, brilliant speech from J.D. Vance. And then comes

00:16:43.860 Nicki Minaj and takes away all the headlines. We'll get to Nicki Minaj in one second. First,

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00:17:18.660 Folks, America Fest was explosive. Conservative pundits get smacking each other all over the place.

00:17:24.080 But only on my new episode of Bar Fight did two of them fight face to face. In this episode,

00:17:29.080 I sit down with Gen Z, Kai Schwemmer and Gen X, old guard Steve Dace to duke it out over the issues

00:17:38.200 of boiling up right now from Israel to the economy. Check out this quick teaser.

00:17:45.920 You think Trump is a schmuck. He was born in Texas. Why was it that he flew over to Israel and 1.00

00:17:51.040 was told that he was at home? Can the United States act morally and justly in the world while

00:17:56.600 defending Israel? If your tactics were to be blunt, a little less douchey at times.

00:18:05.520 I mean, I completely disagree. No, no, no, no, no. Do not pence me, bro. We have the host of the

00:18:10.700 Steve Dace show. And that would be my friend, Steve Dace. When you look at the facts on the ground

00:18:15.380 and they don't support the narrative. When we are literally giving the, we're literally

00:18:19.380 citing the greatest. Also to my left, you know him from Jubilee. And that would be Kai Schwemmer.

00:18:26.300 An existing law, which had banned premarital sex.

00:18:28.720 Watch full episode right now on the Michael Knowles YouTube channel for the uncensored ad-free

00:18:36.400 version. Subscribe to Daily Wire Plus. Nicki Minaj comes out on stage, brings the crowd down.

00:18:42.800 She walked out with Erica Kirk, Charlie's widow. It was absolutely phenomenal. She then sits down.

00:18:49.960 And what I haven't seen anyone notice right now is that the points that Nicki Minaj hit

00:18:55.000 were the same points from the vice president's speech.

00:18:59.680 We were not being represented and not being admired for our beauty. If we felt like that

00:19:10.180 as black women, why would we want to do that to other women? Why would we now need to make 1.00

00:19:16.700 other people downplay their beauty so that we can feel, no, that's not how it works. I don't need

00:19:24.300 someone with blonde hair and blue eyes to downplay their beauty because I know my beauty. Do you 0.96

00:19:31.760 understand? It doesn't bother me that a woman feels and says that she's beautiful. Why shouldn't

00:19:40.160 she feel that? Why have we gotten to a point where certain colors or certain kinds of people have to

00:19:47.080 be afraid of loving themselves and loving the way they look? Isn't that wild?

00:19:54.540 I love this. She opens up what she says. She says the same thing JD said. She said,

00:19:58.740 you don't have to apologize for being white. You don't have to apologize for being black. You 0.97

00:20:02.660 don't have to apologize for being Hispanic. And you don't have to apologize for being white. 0.74

00:20:07.880 Amazing. No one quite noticed this, it seems.

00:20:10.620 This parallel, it wasn't just the parallel on race. Listen to her next point on religion.

00:20:15.700 Truly feel that there are people out there who felt good about

00:20:24.220 chastising Christians right here in our country. 1.00

00:20:30.620 And it's kind of really, really sick. We can't let people like that be in power, you guys. 0.98

00:20:45.260 That's the truth. I can sugarcoat it and laugh and kiki, but the truth is I am here today

00:20:53.820 to tell you guys that. We absolutely cannot let people who have a problem with us worshipping God,

00:21:07.340 we cannot have them in power. We cannot have them in power.

00:21:13.340 We cannot survive as a country if our political leaders are hostile to Christianity,

00:21:21.080 are hostile to the foundation of our creed. It's the same thing JD said almost.

00:21:28.300 And this is very hopeful. A lot of people are upset about the infighting among the media people.

00:21:34.060 However, this I think is really hopeful. Because on the one hand, you got JD Vance,

00:21:38.260 vice president of the United States, graduate of Yale Law School, alum of Silicon Valley and private

00:21:43.200 equity, came from a hard scrabble, rough bringing among the white working class of Ohio and Appalachia. 0.89

00:21:49.300 You got him on one poll. You got Nicki Minaj, who comes from maybe the opposite cultural background,

00:21:56.200 as polar opposite a cultural background as there can be in the United States.

00:22:00.900 And yet, not only do they agree broadly, they are agreeing point by bold point.

00:22:09.520 That seems to me a winning coalition.

00:22:12.540 There were signs with Nicki Minaj, as I mentioned at the top. She had that line about,

00:22:17.340 I'm voting for Mitt Romney because all you lazy B-I-T-C-Hs are messing up the economy or whatever. 1.00

00:22:22.420 There were some signs a while ago. But Barb's totally vindicated again. Really beautiful

00:22:27.020 remarks. Nicki Minaj has been outspoken about persecuted Christians around the world,

00:22:30.400 especially in Nigeria. Now, apparently in the United States too. Really, really good stuff.

00:22:34.580 All in all, very hopeful. Seems to me there's a pretty clear path forward, despite all of the

00:22:42.100 infighting. Convenient or whether you view the infighting as convenient, cynical, or absolutely

00:22:49.420 necessary. Whatever you think. I think we should all agree, you got to win. You got to do stuff in

00:22:54.740 politics. And I think there's a lot of hope coming out of TPUSA because it was already clear before,

00:23:00.720 given the historical circumstance of Trump winning a non-consecutive second term.

00:23:04.600 But the vice president is the heir apparent. President Trump has suggested as much.

00:23:09.960 The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has endorsed J.D. Vance for president.

00:23:14.940 And Rubio would probably be the second most likely person to get it. This is just how it goes. It's

00:23:20.020 not that the vice president is necessarily the heir apparent in any administration. But when you've got

00:23:25.880 a president running for a non-consecutive second term, this is only the second time that's happened in

00:23:30.100 history. Part of the deal when he's picking a running mate is assuming that that guy will be

00:23:35.180 the next one. He's in some ways got the advantages of an incumbent. And then you got Nicki Minaj all

00:23:42.280 but endorsing him from the stage. They're pretty good stuff. Okay. Now, there was some disagreement

00:23:47.920 on this nature of American identity. Not just who should be in the conservative movement,

00:23:53.900 who should be out, who do I like, who do I not like. But the nature of American identity

00:23:59.040 that came from Vivek Ramaswamy. We'll get to that momentarily first. I want to tell you

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00:25:20.960 you can say? Policygenius.com slash Knowles. Okay, so I mentioned that our pal Vivek had a New

00:25:26.740 York Times column sometime last week where he talked about this idea of American identity

00:25:31.460 as being a question of either blood and soil or entirely creedal, which I think is a false

00:25:39.760 dichotomy, but it does clarify some of the stakes here. And Vivek says it's all creedal. It has nothing

00:25:45.140 to do with blood and soil, has nothing to do with ancestry. Well, Vivek expounded upon that point on the

00:25:49.640 TPSA stage where he assailed the idea of heritage Americans.

00:25:55.780 There's a different vision of American identity that's emergent in certain corridors of the online

00:26:00.940 right. And it says that your identity as an American is based on your lineage. That how long

00:26:09.620 you have been in the country, your lineage and your genetics tied to the blood and soil of the country

00:26:14.320 determines how American you are. It is the idea of a heritage American that says the truest form

00:26:19.880 of an American is somebody who is a descendant of the American Revolution period or before.

00:26:26.340 And I will tell you this idea of the heritage American, we ought to have this discussion. It's

00:26:31.660 becoming more popular. I think the idea of a heritage American is about as loony as anything the woke 0.99

00:26:38.800 left has actually put up. There is no American who is more American than somebody else. The American

00:26:46.020 quality, it's not like the left, they believe in this non-binary stuff. There's no non-binary American.

00:26:50.040 It is binary. Either you're an American or you're not. And you think about it, I could prove this to 0.98

00:26:55.140 you. Thank you. I'll take some applause on that. Okay. So he gets some applause on this idea and he

00:27:00.700 says, look, there's this idea of the heritage American that if you've been here for a long time,

00:27:05.320 you're more American than people who just got here. And he refers to the revolutionary period

00:27:11.600 or earlier. What's interesting is there are these heritage groups. They've been around

00:27:15.040 forever in American history. And coincidentally, I'm actually a member of some of these groups,

00:27:20.180 like the Mayflower Society or groups like the Sons of the American Revolution.

00:27:24.880 There are a number of others, the Daughters of the American Revolution, which I'm not a member of,

00:27:29.140 but they now allow in transvestites. So I suppose I could be a member of them if I wanted to.

00:27:32.980 In any case, what's interesting is a lot of the talk about those heritage groups

00:27:37.960 suggests that they're all just about flaunting privilege, being some old elite blue bloods 1.00

00:27:43.040 or something. When in fact, the opposite is true. First of all, the members of these groups

00:27:47.240 generally are not these fancy sorts of elites. They're people who care a lot about their country

00:27:53.340 and who are focused on service. So it's salt of the earth people, just like the people who founded

00:27:58.360 this country, who came over on the Mayflower, who fought at age 15 and 16 in the American

00:28:02.180 Revolution. These tend to be salt of the earth people who want to give back to their country.

00:28:07.740 They love their country so much, they want to give their time and their money and their efforts

00:28:11.500 to preserving the country. So a lot of what they do is community service, scholarships,

00:28:16.640 maintaining museums and things like that. Totally misunderstands what these groups are for.

00:28:23.760 But Vivek makes a very good point, which is he goes on, we clipped it, there was not quite

00:28:29.460 enough time. But he goes on, he says, look, if America is chiefly about how long you've been here,

00:28:34.980 that means that Liz Warren is more American than Marco Rubio, not just because she's white, 0.99

00:28:39.720 because she's a Native American. And he says, if how long your family's been here dictates how

00:28:45.580 American you are, Joe Biden would be more American than Donald Trump. And it's a good rejoinder.

00:28:51.980 It maybe makes us think, okay, maybe there are diminishing marginal returns because the real old 0.92

00:28:57.680 stock, blue blood, New England types do tend to be pretty lib. There's no, Vivek has a very good

00:29:04.420 point there. But on the flip side, do you really believe that you are not more American than the guy

00:29:15.480 who was naturalized yesterday? The guy who flew here from some country in the middle of Africa.

00:29:23.100 And he loves him. He's excited about America. He wants the opportunity. He passed the naturalization

00:29:28.220 test. And he comes there, he says, I read all these truths to be self-evident that all men are 0.91

00:29:32.900 created equal. And I love that. I read the declaration. I read the constitution. I passed the test.

00:29:39.520 You're telling me that that guy whose habits, possibly whose religion, whose traditions and

00:29:46.100 institutions are totally foreign to the United States, that guy is exactly as American as all of

00:29:54.360 you listening right now, as someone whose family's been here since the Civil War or the American

00:29:58.900 Revolution or the Mayflower. Give me a break. Nobody really believes that. So can those two things be

00:30:04.380 true at once? Can there be diminishing returns? Is there a basis of American identity that is not

00:30:09.200 purely based on how long your blood's been in the soil? And if so, what is that? And I think a good

00:30:16.840 guide to this would be Thomas Aquinas reading the ancient Israelites. I think I mentioned this a few

00:30:20.800 weeks ago on the show. Thomas Aquinas, who has to come up on the show at least once a day,

00:30:25.860 reading the ancient Israelites, observes that the ancient Israelites would not allow new peoples who 0.69

00:30:31.060 entered to become citizens until after three generations. And in this, he was following Aristotle,

00:30:38.520 who also has to come up on the show every day, that it takes a little bit of time, actually even more

00:30:44.000 than one lifetime. Doesn't necessarily take 30 generations, but it might take a few generations

00:30:48.720 to become acculturated to a new people. And Aquinas goes further, reading the ancient Israelites.

00:30:56.160 He points out that some peoples, they viewed as being able to assimilate. Others, like the Amalekites, 1.00

00:31:01.880 say they just couldn't. They just could not assimilate. And so you actually have to distinguish

00:31:06.300 between the peoples who are more likely to assimilate the ones who are not.

00:31:10.980 German Christians are probably more likely to assimilate than Sudanese Muslims. It's just a fact. 0.99

00:31:17.800 It's just a fact. And maybe we need to make some of those distinctions in America.

00:31:24.080 All, it's not saying that Vivek doesn't have a point. Vivek does have a point.

00:31:27.220 But it seems there's much more to it. It's a truth, but it's a partial view of the truth.

00:31:32.820 And we're going to have to grapple with that because the old Reagan lines, you know, well,

00:31:37.500 these illegal aliens are, they're the conservative Republican Americans. They just don't know it yet. 1.00

00:31:43.660 Well, they haven't become conservative Republican Americans. That hasn't happened.

00:31:47.480 And so maybe that was wrong. Anybody can be an American. Well, like maybe, sort of,

00:31:51.540 I don't know, maybe not quite. We have to rethink these things. The old slogans don't necessarily

00:31:59.080 work anymore. Part of the reason the GOP kept losing is because all we ever tried to do with

00:32:05.620 our candidates was just revivify the corpse of Ronald Reagan. Reagan did a great, great job in

00:32:12.120 his time. But please let the man rest. We have to address the concerns of our time. Ronald Reagan

00:32:18.500 didn't just get up there when he was running for office and say like, well, as Taft said,

00:32:22.940 and I, I want, I'm, I'm a Taft Republican and I am channeling the spirit of William Howard Taft.

00:32:30.960 He didn't do that. He's, I'm, I'm my own man. I'm, I'm, in fact, in many ways, he said, look,

00:32:35.200 I'm a Democrat, but the Democrat party left me and I need to form a new political coalition to

00:32:40.300 address our changing circumstances. So the people who really even want to follow in the footsteps of

00:32:44.460 Ronald Reagan, they have to do that. They don't, they can't just plug electrodes into him.

00:32:48.160 Like he's Frankenstein's monster and try to get the guy to jump out of the grave. It's not going to

00:32:51.800 work. Now, speaking of heritage, Santa Claus is black. According to Disney, we'll get to that 0.97

00:32:57.600 momentarily. First though, Christmas is three days away. If you still need a gift, here's one that

00:33:02.040 lasts all year. Right now, Daily Wire Plus annual gift memberships are 50% off. No shipping, no crowds,

00:33:07.940 no last minute scrambling. You send a full year of ad-free uncensored daily shows from the most trusted,

00:33:12.440 handsome, sexy voices in conservative news, investigative reporting, and premium entertainment.

00:33:16.620 And you choose exactly when they receive it. This Christmas day is also the premiere of the

00:33:20.920 Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, with episode one available in early access for Daily Wire Plus

00:33:25.620 all access members. Again, new annual Daily Wire Plus gift memberships are 50% off right now. Go to

00:33:30.700 dailywire.com slash gift today. My favorite comment yesterday, I didn't pick the comment. The producers

00:33:37.160 picked the comment. So I want to see, I don't know if I agree with this. We'll see. It's from the

00:33:42.400 Drummer's Workshop Norm's Music. It's probably going to be a good one. It says, it's not a Civil War

00:33:46.300 party without Barbara Rose Johns. Barbara, you know, can you even, can one even begin to tell the 0.76

00:33:54.240 story of America? Can one even begin to touch on the story of Western civilization going back to the

00:34:02.440 ancient Greeks without talking about Barbara Rose Johns? Do you remember who that is? You probably

00:34:09.960 don't. She's that lady who they knocked down General Lee statues for and put her up in the 1.00

00:34:14.820 Capitol. And most people, even though I've said her name two or three times now in this episode,

00:34:19.100 most people won't even remember her name. What's her name? Hey, pop quiz. What is the name of civil

00:34:25.800 rights icon and glorious American hero? Can you name her name? You might not be able to.

00:34:33.040 How dare you? You can't even talk about American history then. Santa Claus is black, 1.00

00:34:38.080 according to Disney. They have replaced the white Santa Claus with a black Santa Claus at Epcot. 0.94

00:34:45.880 Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

00:34:50.080 Bye, Santa.

00:34:52.840 According to Wall Street Apes, which is one of the funny Twitter accounts, not only was Mrs. Claus replaced 0.68

00:35:00.920 by a black Mrs. Claus on the Disney cruise ships, and not only was Mrs. Claus replaced by a black woman

00:35:08.040 at the Disneyland Christmas Parade, but Disney has now replaced Santa himself with a black Santa at Epcot.

00:35:17.000 Santa Claus is not black. Santa Claus, I don't, listen, open your ears, pull over your car, sit down.

00:35:24.740 I want you to hear this loud and clear. Santa Claus is not black. Do you know why? Because Santa Claus 0.84

00:35:31.740 lives at the North Pole, and there aren't black people at the North Pole. If Santa Claus were black, 0.99

00:35:38.800 that would mean that Santa Claus is a recent immigrant to the North Pole, but he's not a recent

00:35:44.040 immigrant. He's been at the North Pole for a very long time because he's a jolly old elf with a bowl full 1.00

00:35:49.580 of jelly who's been giving Christmas presents to children in his magical sleigh with his eight

00:35:54.760 tiny reindeer since time immemorial. So he's not black. If Santa Claus's ancestor had been black, 0.96

00:36:05.280 Santa Claus would cease to have been black by now because of the many millennia of acculturation

00:36:13.640 and development at the North Pole. He is white and an elf, and he's a jolly, and he has a bowl full

00:36:21.800 of jelly. Stop trying to erase Santa Claus. Now, some will say Santa Claus isn't real. First of all,

00:36:30.060 I don't accept that. But second of all, even if you wanted to get really into the nitty-gritty on the

00:36:34.820 historical personae on whom Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, is based, we would be talking about Saint Nicholas,

00:36:41.920 Saint Nicholas, who was Greek. And even though the Greeks might be kind of black compared to the 0.87

00:36:49.080 English, say, they're not black, they're Greek. He is from Turkey. Now, Turkey has been overrun by 0.99

00:36:57.660 the Turks. Used to be Constantinople, used to be Greece, but now it's Turkey. But even the Turks are 1.00

00:37:03.320 not black. One could sort of argue that they're Asian. Saint Nicholas is from the Asian province of

00:37:09.400 the Roman Empire. One could argue, given the fact that Santa Claus lives in the North Pole,

00:37:16.180 that he looks like an Eskimo or an Inuit. But what's so amazing is that while one could make an 0.86

00:37:22.380 argument that Santa Claus is virtually any race, however labored that argument is, Disney has picked

00:37:30.260 the only race that Santa Claus cannot be, which is a South Saharan, Sub-Saharan African. 0.80

00:37:37.440 It's very frustrating. Why have they done this? They have done this because they want to be inclusive

00:37:44.860 for something. But incoherence is not inclusive. There are many great figures in the history of

00:37:54.040 Christmas and certainly in the history of Christianity that are black. 0.93

00:38:01.220 Saint Moses the Black, for one. Do you ever hear of Saint Moses the Black?

00:38:06.520 He's a saint. He's a very great ancient saint. And he was so black that his name is the black.

00:38:13.480 And there is this kind of funny quirk of history, which is apparently he used to be a thief 0.97

00:38:17.420 before he converted. And he's like a great saint. He's a fabulous saint.

00:38:20.660 That would be one. And many, many others, many of the great bishops and cardinals who are alive

00:38:26.380 today, the great heroic giant figures of the church are not in Europe or America. Many of them,

00:38:33.240 some of the most notable are in Africa and are very, very black. But Santa Claus is not black. 0.98

00:38:40.420 And the idea that making Santa Claus black will somehow be inclusive is silly in itself because 0.97

00:38:46.940 incoherence is not inclusive. This is a key point. Incoherence is not inclusive.

00:38:55.780 Because what allows us to be inclusive at all, what allows us to exist in community at all,

00:39:01.480 to communicate with one another, is the fact that there is an objective reality that corresponds with

00:39:08.340 our reason, that allows us to use logic to come to certain conclusions that are objective and

00:39:14.000 therefore communicable to other people through signs and symbols that we all agree upon.

00:39:18.100 I hate to be so, I actually love to be so pedantic. This is a very important point.

00:39:22.680 There has to be an objective reality. What is inclusive is truth. What is inclusive is logic.

00:39:30.980 What is inclusive is objective reality. Because all of us, in as much as we are rational creatures,

00:39:36.280 all of us can participate in that.

00:39:37.800 When, however, we deny reality, be it through the transgender ideology, be it through some radical 1.00

00:39:44.120 racial ideologies, what have you, on the left or on the right, when we engage in the incoherent,

00:39:50.260 we cease to be inclusive. We fall into the realms of subjective fantasy that are not communicable to

00:39:58.100 other people and that have us all grunting like baboons. Santa Claus is white. Have I said that, 0.94

00:40:04.800 have I made that clear enough? Okay. Speaking of the North Pole, speaking of, I should say,

00:40:10.700 materially abundant resorts in the middle of nowhere, we turn from the North Pole to Little

00:40:16.880 St. James Island. There's been a release of the Epstein files. The Epstein, you know, what are the

00:40:23.240 Epstein, what are the Epstein files even? All the files that come from the grand juries,

00:40:28.660 that come from investigations, that have remained heretofore locked up by the government.

00:40:34.800 These are files that go back to 2007, when Epstein was arrested for weird sex stuff the first time.

00:40:43.140 The Epstein scandal didn't become a major national issue until about 2014 or so,

00:40:48.100 more on that in a moment. Then it started to hit in 2016, then it went away for a little bit,

00:40:53.300 then Epstein supposedly killed himself or didn't kill himself, and then now it's sort of an issue again.

00:40:58.400 When we talk about the Epstein files, the idea that there are smoking gun documents that say,

00:41:07.860 you know, so-and-so did this or that, so-and-so was working for this zillionaire or this government

00:41:13.320 or this whatever, something that's really, really explicit. The idea that such a document would survive

00:41:19.220 for, what are we at now, 18 years of scrutiny and shenanigans and chicanery is absurd. 0.88

00:41:27.860 I've said this from the beginning. Either Epstein is who he says he is, just a rich guy with a lot

00:41:33.300 of powerful friends who's a sex freak, and that's it. Or we will never know the full story about Epstein.

00:41:38.280 And anyone who's telling you otherwise is lying to you to get clicks because that's the cold hard

00:41:44.540 political fact of it. But there are a lot of pictures. And the government has now released

00:41:49.880 some of these pictures. And there's a lot of pictures of Bill Clinton, a lot of pictures of

00:41:56.420 Bubba out there. One in particular where it's Bubba next to some chicky, hands behind his head, 1.00

00:42:02.980 chest bear lying in a hot tub. Hey there, honey. Wow. I'm glad I'm not president anymore.

00:42:08.280 Uh, uh, uh, uh. Do we have the picture of Noam Chomsky by any chance? This one's amazing. Noam

00:42:14.600 Chomsky, one of the most preening leftists. I think he's still alive. I actually didn't realize

00:42:18.720 he was still alive, but I Googled it. He's still alive. He's 100 years old almost. And Noam Chomsky,

00:42:24.800 he was actually quite a good linguist, but he's just an awful preening leftist politically.

00:42:29.100 Holier than thou, more moral than everybody. This is a picture of him on Epstein's jet. He spends his

00:42:34.480 whole career talking about how we need to tear down the privileged and the elite and these dodgy

00:42:40.340 people who work with all the politicians to control the world. And then there he is on the Epstein sex

00:42:44.580 plane, just like, Hey Jeff, pass another glass of Dom Perignon, please. But, but most of the pictures

00:42:50.200 that we're seeing are of Bill Clinton. And it's not, it's not Bill Clinton standing next to Epstein at a

00:42:56.800 party. That's the famous picture of Donald Trump that the left is trying to use to say Trump is

00:43:00.500 seriously implicated in Epstein. It's Bill Clinton with women scantily clad swimming next to him in

00:43:06.840 a hot tub. It's Clinton with young looking ladies sitting on the armrest of his chair on his lap on

00:43:12.580 an airplane. It's Clinton looking compromised. Okay. Brilliant politics in this release. Why?

00:43:22.020 I'll tell you why. Clinton standing next to Kevin Spacey. That one's a little weird. I'll tell you why.

00:43:25.940 It's a brilliant, a brilliant little scandal. Where is it? Where is it? Here we go. FT Financial

00:43:30.300 Times. How Bill Clinton became the focus of the Epstein files. How Bill Clinton's subheader,

00:43:38.680 tranche of documents released by DOJ shifted the spotlight onto the former president.

00:43:43.540 Shifted the spotlight. How Bill Clinton became the focus of the Epstein files.

00:43:49.760 How short people's memories are. When the Epstein scandal first came to public attention around 2014,

00:43:55.940 it was a Clinton scandal. It was a Democrat scandal. It's not that there weren't Republicans

00:44:03.200 around Epstein sometimes, but the vast majority were very prominent Democrats. And the most

00:44:08.820 prominent was Bill Clinton, who's in zillions of these photos. Bill Clinton, who is a well-known sex

00:44:16.640 freak. How Bill Clinton became the focus. It's not that he became the focus. 0.99

00:44:21.940 He was the focus. And then Democrats, weakly, I believe, tried to make Trump the focus of the

00:44:30.080 Epstein files. And then Trump wisely just released the documents. And those facts made Bill Clinton

00:44:37.460 the focus again. It refocused Epstein onto what it was always about, which was chiefly,

00:44:45.100 though not exclusively, a Democrat scandal. What the release does is it gives the people what

00:44:52.320 they're demanding. Release the files. Okay. But I've got pretty decent sources, including liberals,

00:44:58.160 who say that Trump, though he's mentioned, he was friends with Epstein for a while,

00:45:03.480 though he's mentioned in the files, he's not seriously implicated anywhere.

00:45:06.700 And yet, I'm not sure the same can be said of the prominent Democrats. So then Trump comes out,

00:45:12.160 he says, all right, you want me to release the files? I'll release the files.

00:45:15.220 Hey, wait a second, you're shifting the focus onto Bill Clinton.

00:45:18.860 Yeah, that's where it was before you guys tried to shift it. Okay. Speaking of weird sex stuff,

00:45:23.040 there's a story I want to get to, but I'm running late. This is in the Wall Street Journal

00:45:26.660 about how a throuple had to redecorate a house. And the throuple, this is three men who are in some

00:45:32.780 kind of bizarre, deviant relationship together. How they wanted to decorate a house, but what do

00:45:37.860 you know, they all had different tastes in home decor. And it's really just a horrifying, horrifying,

00:45:45.740 horrifying story that we'll have to get to tomorrow. Also, Fulton County just admitted that 315,000 votes

00:45:52.980 in 2020 lacked poll workers' signatures. Some of us raised questions about the integrity of that

00:46:00.640 election in 2020, and other people on the left and on the right. Even the people preening on the

00:46:07.080 principled, supposed people on the right said, no, the election was totally fair. And yet,

00:46:12.860 looks like we were right again. Okay, we'll get to all of that, I guess, tomorrow. The rest of the

00:46:16.960 show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code NOLS, Canada,

00:46:19.800 B-L-E-S, check out for two months free on all annual plans.

00:46:30.640 What was it like, Merlin, to be alone with God?

00:46:43.380 Is that who you think I was alone with?

00:46:49.500 Meriton, I knew your father. I am yet convinced that he was not of this world.

00:46:54.340 All men know of the great Taliesin. You are my father, that the gods should war for my soul.

00:47:04.800 Princess Garrus, savior of our people.

00:47:10.360 I know what the bull god offered you. I was offered the same.

00:47:14.860 And?

00:47:16.380 There is a new power at work in the world. I've seen it.

00:47:20.520 A god who sacrifices what he loves for us.

00:47:22.680 We are each given only one life, singer.

00:47:26.000 No.

00:47:27.100 And we're given another.

00:47:30.920 I learnt of Yazoo the Christ. 1.00

00:47:33.240 And I have become his follower.

00:47:35.120 He's waiting on Merlin.

00:47:36.600 And I think you can give him one.

00:47:38.660 Trust in Yazoo. He is the only hope for men like us. 1.00

00:47:42.960 Vader Britain never rests in the hands of the great light.

00:47:45.960 Great light, great darkness.

00:47:48.560 Such things mattered to me then.

00:47:50.920 What matters to you now, mistress?

00:47:52.680 Of lies.

00:47:53.080 You, nephew.

00:47:59.220 The sword of a high king.

00:48:03.540 How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born to wield?

00:48:11.320 Circling to the promises of a god who has abandoned you.

00:48:14.520 I cannot take up that sword again.

00:48:16.300 You know what you must do.

00:48:20.920 Great light, forgive me.

00:48:28.100 The time has come.

00:48:31.480 To be reborn.

00:48:32.760 The time has come.

The Michael Knowles Show - December 22, 2025

Ep. 1880 - JD Vance And Nicki Minaj COOK At AmFest

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