The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1931 - Virginia Students Beat Muslim Terrorist To Death

00:00:00.000 Two Islamic terror attacks took place yesterday, one at a Virginia university,

00:00:05.340 another at a Michigan synagogue, as the Iran war entered its 13th day.

00:00:11.340 We'll get into all the details, some amazing details came out about this,

00:00:14.520 especially at the university. But it all raises a major question in the minds of Americans.

00:00:20.700 If one of the justifications for war in the Middle East, one that we have heard for decades,

00:00:25.860 is that we fight them there so we don't have to fight them here.

00:00:32.160 Why do we keep having to fight them here? I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:36.560 Welcome back to the show. The United Kingdom is removing Winston Churchill from its money.

00:01:01.320 They're removing Churchill, who is too controversial. Apparently, the removal they consider to be long overdue.

00:01:06.960 They are replacing him with a hedgehog.

00:01:10.680 I assume they not only have to run the new characters for the banknotes by the PC police,

00:01:18.920 they also obviously have to run them by whatever bureau determines whether or not the images are halal or haram.

00:01:25.280 We'll get to the new UK money. We'll get to the culture we used to call British. 0.89

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00:02:51.580 Distributors, LLC. Two terror attacks, really, really awful stuff. It's always the ones you most

00:02:59.780 expect, of course. So it was two Islamic terror attacks, one in Virginia, one in Michigan, same 0.82

00:03:04.520 day, one against a school, one against a synagogue. We'll start with the school in Virginia. This is

00:03:09.980 Old Dominion University. The guy who committed the attack is a former member of our military.

00:03:17.840 So this guy was a Virginia National Guard member, and he's also an ISIS supporter.

00:03:26.840 Now, that alone is pretty crazy. We have guys in the military who could go on to support ISIS.

00:03:31.860 No, it gets crazier, actually, because this guy has not just now been identified as an ISIS supporter.

00:03:38.180 This guy was already convicted of trying to aid ISIS. So this guy with a foreign-sounding name, let's just say,

00:03:50.260 we try not to name people who commit these kinds of attacks. It ain't John Smith, okay?

00:03:55.020 This guy was convicted 10 years ago of attempting to aid ISIS, and he somehow remained in our country.

00:04:03.860 For 10 years, somehow, we did not throw this guy out of the country, run him out of our country with 0.95

00:04:10.560 tar and feathers. So he was here, and then he did the thing that you would expect the guy who was

00:04:16.340 convicted of trying to aid ISIS to do. He shot up a school. So he killed one person. He injured two

00:04:23.880 others. The guy he killed was the ROTC instructor, ROTC instructor. However, the silver lining in the storm cloud of

00:04:34.400 this attack is that the ROTC students, these civic-minded, future members of our military, neutralized the

00:04:44.420 threat. That's the euphemism that people are using. What they actually did, these kids were unarmed.

00:04:49.520 The guy comes in there armed to the teeth, but it didn't matter because even though he had an arms

00:04:57.580 advantage, they beat him to death. How was he diseased?

00:05:05.080 There were students who were in that room that subdued him and rendered him no longer alive. I don't

00:05:15.160 know what else to say it, but they basically were able to terminate the threat. So he was not shot?

00:05:21.200 He was not shot. He shot three people? Correct. We have information that he shot three people.

00:05:28.540 The one that went to Virginia.

00:05:30.800 I love that this woman, you can tell she actually takes some pride in what those students were able

00:05:36.440 to do, their heroic actions. You can tell you see a little smirk there, but she's trying to use the

00:05:41.680 neutral clinical language that we all use as euphemisms to cover up harsh realities. But there's

00:05:47.200 no way really to hide the reality of beating someone to death. So she says, the students rendered him

00:05:55.620 unalive. Rendered him unalive. That's a new one. That's a new one. You're going to say someday,

00:06:03.160 you know, Johnny, I've got really bad news. Your grandfather was rendered unalive today.

00:06:06.840 What? What does that mean? Rendered unalive. They neutralized the threat

00:06:12.180 and they didn't have guns and he did. They beat him to death. So unfortunately, they were only able

00:06:20.160 to do that after he killed their ROTC instructor. But our conclusion from this remains a consistent

00:06:26.520 one. Our military, past, present, and future, look at these students, is very strong. We can have a lot

00:06:35.580 of hope for our military. They are tough as nails, tough as ever. Our political order is not. Our

00:06:44.880 political order, the one that in 2016, Barack Obama's president, liberal immigration enforcement,

00:06:55.140 liberal prosecutors, all galore, this guy pleads guilty to attempting to aid ISIS. And they say,

00:07:03.160 okay, well, don't do it again, Mohammed, Mohammed, Abdul, Abdul, Abdul, Mohammed, Mohammed. Don't you do

00:07:09.340 it again. Okay, we're going to let you stay in this country, but that's very naughty of you to try

00:07:15.400 to aid the terrorist organization that we're at war with. Very, very naughty. We're very disappointed

00:07:21.240 in you. You better not do it again. And then he does it again. The second terror attack yesterday

00:07:27.300 took place in Michigan. It was against a synagogue. This is another guy who I guess was American.

00:07:32.100 He's an American citizen, but he was born in Lebanon. And he's not what, I really like the

00:07:36.460 Lebanese people. I like some of them. I spent a little time. I traveled to Beirut once. The people

00:07:41.560 were lovely. The Christians are great, and the more moderate Muslim types are great. But there are 0.99

00:07:46.760 also some not so moderate Muslim types in Lebanon. I guess this is one of them. He rammed this synagogue 1.00

00:07:52.580 in his car with explosives. The authorities are already saying that this is related to the Iran war.

00:08:00.080 Authorities are investigating those reports that he apparently told multiple family members that

00:08:06.200 this was because of the Israeli strike on Lebanon, which killed his family reportedly. That's according

00:08:14.220 to law enforcement officials talking to CNN. Those two terror attacks, one just from a guy who's been

00:08:22.020 talking about how much he loves ISIS for 10 years. Another, a Lebanese guy who's apparently upset

00:08:26.900 about the Israeli strike on Lebanon, which comes in the context of the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran

00:08:33.700 attacking the synagogue in Michigan. This after the Austin shooter, don't forget, right after the

00:08:41.320 American strikes on Iran, you have this Muslim guy in Austin shoot up a bar wearing an Iran 1.00

00:08:47.680 t-shirt pledging allegiance to ISIS. This after the Muslims go from Pennsylvania to New York to throw IEDs 1.00

00:08:57.140 over the heads of a liberal counter protest at the conservative protesters in New York City,

00:09:02.480 the year that's the 25th anniversary of 9-11. And I have a big question.

00:09:08.180 If we fight the wars in the Middle East in no small part so that we fight them there and therefore we 1.00

00:09:15.820 won't have to fight them here, why do we keep having to fight them here? Clearly fighting them

00:09:22.100 there is not preventing us from fighting them here. There is a simple answer as to why we have to fight

00:09:30.420 them here. It's because of our immigration policies. The only way you can make the argument, 0.50

00:09:34.940 we got to go fight them there so we don't have to fight them here. The only way you can make that

00:09:38.140 argument is if we actually limit immigration and enforce our border. So Trump closed the border.

00:09:44.660 Biden threw the border wide open. Trump has closed the border. The border is effectively

00:09:48.920 shut down. You really can't get in. But we still have a million people a year come in through legal

00:09:53.440 immigration. We still have tens of millions of people here. We don't even know who they are.

00:09:57.020 What we do know about them is that at least some of them are quite hostile and support Islamic 1.00

00:10:03.940 fundamentalism and jihad. So you can't, in that world where you've got a bunch of people here

00:10:10.560 and you have a porous border, at least when the Democrats are in charge,

00:10:15.100 then fighting them there actually makes it more likely that we're going to fight them here.

00:10:20.020 That's the flaw in that argument. This is why, by the way, this is one of the reasons why it seems to me

00:10:26.720 that reasonable minds can disagree on the Iran war. There are two views. There are two views that

00:10:33.480 are out there in public right now. One is this pacifist view that says that we should never go

00:10:38.460 to war and war is always terrible and it's never justified and that America should never do anything

00:10:43.400 abroad and we should only focus at home. And none of that is a serious view. None of that has

00:10:47.740 described U.S. policy going all the way back to, I don't know, the Louisiana Purchase in the first

00:10:52.500 Barbary War. Not serious. Pacifism is not a serious moral position. It's not a serious political

00:10:57.400 position. So forget that, okay? Then there are the war hawks who make these sweeping, grandiose,

00:11:04.280 ideological, and moral arguments that we must intervene everywhere from Iran to Iraq to Timbuktu.

00:11:11.080 We must, on the abstract grounds of democracy or freedom, even on certain security grounds,

00:11:17.660 we must do it. It's our obligation. I don't really take that all that seriously either.

00:11:22.500 My view, and I might be the only one saying this, which is, you know, it's very unpopular and

00:11:29.280 therefore may be true, is I think reasonable minds can disagree over the wisdom of going to war in

00:11:37.140 Iran. There are strong arguments for doing it. It had been a part of U.S. grand strategy since 1979,

00:11:45.440 at least really since 1953, to maintain or to install a friendly regime in Iran.

00:11:52.500 We had wanted to do that for something like 80 years now.

00:11:58.140 And Iran does pose a threat to us. And Iran is buddies with our geopolitical adversaries like 0.99

00:12:04.340 Russia and China. And Iran does destabilize the Middle East. And our allies in the Middle East, 0.76

00:12:10.360 not just Israel, but the Gulf states, want us to neutralize Iran. And, and, and, and there are all 0.89

00:12:15.720 sorts of good arguments for it. And Iran would have hit us after the Israeli strike. And maybe 0.97

00:12:21.420 we could have stopped the Israeli strike. Maybe we can't stop the Israeli strike and, and, and, and. 0.81

00:12:25.640 However, I've said, if I had been on the NSC, I would have made the arguments against the strike

00:12:31.940 just based on the information that is available publicly. Maybe there's classified information

00:12:36.700 that would have changed my mind. But just going on, all I can go on is what I know.

00:12:39.920 I would have made the argument against hitting Iran, not because war is always bad, not because

00:12:47.740 we should never be involved overseas, but because practically this is very hard to pull off.

00:12:55.480 If anyone can do it, Trump can do it. He's got the best record on foreign policy of anyone in my

00:12:59.580 lifetime, probably better than George H.W. Bush. Yes. If anyone can do it, he can do it. And if he does

00:13:07.900 it well, it will be the greatest foreign policy achievement since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

00:13:12.220 However, my view would have been Iran is not Venezuela. The regime is not very likely to fall.

00:13:20.080 The mullahs have reigned in Iran twice as long as the CIA backed regime after 1953.

00:13:28.740 Despite all of the propaganda that we in part put out, Iran is not just this bubbling cauldron of 0.98

00:13:35.980 liberalism and secularism. You know, the oppressed people of Iran want to rise up and overthrow their 0.99

00:13:40.600 government. Some of them do, but probably 30 to 40 percent of the population likes their Islamic

00:13:46.660 government. And because of our stupid immigration policies, it's going to create problems at home 1.00

00:13:52.120 for us. So those would have been my arguments against the war in Iran. Now, again, there are very 1.00

00:13:56.940 strong arguments for the war in Iran. And as President Trump has such a good record on foreign policy,

00:14:02.480 I'm willing to give this guy some grace on it. And I think he has a lot of credibility on foreign

00:14:07.920 policy. Trump said this strike, this military operation is going to take five weeks. We're only

00:14:13.820 in day 13, but we're beginning to see these complications. Iran threatening the Strait of

00:14:19.740 Hormuz. An American plane just went down over Iraq. Doesn't seem like it was shot down. It seems like

00:14:25.860 there was some other issue. There's an investigation pending. You're getting the bad optics out of the

00:14:30.540 mistaken strike, which appears to be from the US, but it's still a little bit unclear on that school

00:14:35.060 in Iran. You're seeing, and now you're seeing increased terror attacks at home, which all could

00:14:40.800 lead this war to spiral. If anyone's not going to let the war spiral, it's going to be Trump.

00:14:44.400 But nevertheless, nevertheless, this shows you the complexity of war. It shows you that anyone on

00:14:53.560 either side who tells you there can't be any upsides to this war or, oh, it's going to be easy.

00:14:59.260 It'll be over in 15 minutes. No one can really say that because no one really can predict the

00:15:03.320 future. You just have to make risk assessments here. I would have come down a little bit on

00:15:08.460 the side of risk aversion. The admin obviously came down a little bit on the side of willing

00:15:12.600 to take the risk. We'll get to some updates on what's going on in Iran for a second.

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00:16:37.400 Knolls household, balanceofnature.com. According to the Daily Mail, there's a leak to U.S. intel,

00:16:46.260 which suggests that the Iranian government is not at risk of collapse, that its leadership remains

00:16:53.620 broadly intact after almost two weeks of U.S. and Israeli bombing. Now, you could read this as a

00:17:02.160 good thing. I know a lot of people, especially the hardcore war hawks and the liberals and the

00:17:07.260 interventionists, they want a total revolution in Iran. They want to completely decimate the Iranian 0.97

00:17:13.120 regime. Curiously, that is not exactly what Trump signaled that he wanted. On the one hand, he did.

00:17:20.160 On the one hand, he said, hey, Iranians, rise up, take control of your country. But then on the other

00:17:24.200 hand, he keeps making comparisons to Venezuela. Don't forget, in Venezuela, they did not replace 0.58

00:17:29.660 the regime. They did something a little more conservative. They took out the top of the regime,

00:17:34.500 then they put a gun to the head of number two and said, hey, you're going to cooperate with us, 0.59

00:17:38.240 or we're going to blow your head off, which is not the prettiest kind of foreign policy. It's not 0.97

00:17:43.540 the most idealistic foreign policy, but it's worked out very well in Venezuela. And so there is a world

00:17:48.900 in which you say, look, you don't want the whole Iranian Islamic regime to crumble. You just want it 0.95

00:17:53.020 to cooperate more with us. But then here again, the theory collapses into the political reality.

00:17:58.720 There is a world in which the end of this war leaves us with another Ayatollah Khamenei, 0.95

00:18:05.460 because the guy that the Iranians just picked to be their next leader is the son of the guy we just

00:18:10.980 took out. Now, it's a little unclear how injured that guy is, whether or not he's even still talking

00:18:17.240 or walking or anything like that. However, he is currently the Ayatollah, the supreme leader of Iran.

00:18:22.200 And so if at the end of this military campaign, you get another Ayatollah Khamenei, who's even

00:18:29.400 angrier than the first guy, because we just killed his dad and most of his family, that might not be

00:18:34.760 great for the US. According to the new Ayatollah, he says, Iran will not refrain from avenging the 0.98

00:18:43.080 blood of its martyrs. He's apparently in intensive care at Sina University Hospital in Tehran's historic

00:18:50.140 quarter, surrounded by security officials. Makes sense. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe that's the next

00:18:57.000 target. We still have a few weeks of this thing left, probably. So the question then is, what does

00:19:01.240 victory look like? And there are a few ways to declare victory. One would be the total removal

00:19:08.260 of the regime. And you put in someone like Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince of Iran, son of the Shah,

00:19:13.260 pro-Western. Great. Okay, that would be great. That would be a massive triumph.

00:19:16.200 A thousand ifs and ands and buts as to whether or not that could actually happen and whether

00:19:22.760 he could hold the country together. But that would be great. If it worked out, that'd be great.

00:19:27.760 Or you have Iran basically keep the regime in place, but they're neutralized because we sink 0.89

00:19:36.700 their navy and we get rid of all of their missiles and we bomb some of their oil and I don't know, 0.93

00:19:42.500 we just really mess up their country. That's second best case scenario. 0.99

00:19:49.460 Worst case scenario is we just irritate them, but we don't seriously cripple the regime. We don't

00:19:56.920 seriously cripple their capabilities. This seems very unlikely. But in that case, certainly it was

00:20:01.660 worse to go in than it would have been to refrain. So if the most likely scenario is number two right

00:20:08.760 now, then the question is, how hard are we going to cripple them? Even this is not totally clear.

00:20:13.860 Because some people would say, go in there and just glass the place. Just really, just mess them

00:20:17.600 up so it's very hard for them to recover. There, however, you could risk Iran, the people of Iran 1.00

00:20:24.580 actually becoming further entrenched with the regime. If you take away their electricity, if you

00:20:30.940 take away their ability to eat and feed themselves and heat their homes, you could be in a really,

00:20:37.180 really bad position here. But if you don't weaken them enough, now you've just irritated a guy and

00:20:43.960 killed his dad and you're going to have to face more problems. So here is President Trump weighing

00:20:47.740 those different possibilities.

00:20:51.220 Very good shape. The main thing is we have to win this. They win it quickly, but win it.

00:20:56.800 And there are many people, I'm just watching some of the news. Most people say it's already been won.

00:21:02.660 It's just a question of when. When do we stop? We don't want to let it regrow. And ideally,

00:21:09.040 we'd like to see somebody in there that knows what they're doing. In other words, they can build a

00:21:12.880 country. Now, one other thing. We can hit sections of Tehran and other places that, if you do it,

00:21:22.060 it'll be almost impossible for them to rebuild their country. And we don't want that. But we can hit

00:21:28.500 electric, we could take apart their electric capacity within one hour. And it would take

00:21:35.220 them 25 years to rebuild it. So ideally, we're not going to be doing that. Thank you very much.

00:21:40.500 I love the way he talks. I love, you know, talk about cool, calm, and collected. As we said at the

00:21:45.100 very outset of the Iran war, this is the highest stakes thing that this man has done in 10 years.

00:21:51.020 This is not just Venezuela. This is not just dropping the Moab. This is a major assault on a 0.99

00:21:57.420 real country that is the most destabilizing force in the Middle East that's been a thorn in our side 1.00

00:22:02.660 for many decades now. And this guy goes in there for real, says this isn't going to be a five-hour

00:22:11.480 or a five-day campaign. This could be a five-week campaign. He goes in, and things are starting to

00:22:15.500 get shaky, and they're planting mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and the price of oil is going through the

00:22:20.680 roof, and it goes up to 115, and it goes down to 76, and it goes up to 90, and it's all over the

00:22:25.380 place. Serious risk of a global recession because of this at military action. Small, but nonetheless,

00:22:32.900 real terror attacks popping off at home because of this. And this guy remains cool as a cucumber.

00:22:37.540 And he reminds us, and this is, I have to remind people too. I'm quite skeptical of the intervention

00:22:43.280 in Iran. He said it was going to take five weeks. I don't start freaking out until week six.

00:22:50.680 He said it was going to take five weeks. We're under two weeks right now.

00:22:55.740 And the way he says, look, this is how you reconcile the two comments coming out of the

00:23:01.540 White House. One, the war is basically over. Two, we've just begun to fight, which is what

00:23:05.880 the Department of War put out. Those are not contradictory statements. They're the same

00:23:09.660 statement. Trump's just said them both right there. He said, look, some say the war's already won.

00:23:13.820 We've already achieved our objective. What exactly is the objective? What exactly does victory look like?

00:23:19.520 It's a little bit of a moving target. There are a few options for that. But yes, it could almost be

00:23:26.460 over. And also, we haven't really begun to fight. You know, look, Iran, we could obliterate your 1.00

00:23:35.480 country. And I'm not talking about dropping nuclear weapons, saying we could hit your electricity grid.

00:23:40.720 You would be in trouble for years. You would not seriously be able to build back for years.

00:23:47.660 We don't want to do it. We could do it. We don't want to do it. We're very restrained right now.

00:23:55.080 Maybe we won't be so restrained. It's up to you. That is the way that you would speak.

00:24:01.280 Some people are reading this as vacillating or desperate or whatever. Trump set out the gate.

00:24:07.840 This is going to take a little over a month.

00:24:12.420 Do you really think, if you open with that claim, that there are not contingency plans,

00:24:18.640 that this is not part of an operation? We're in, you know, what is it, day 13?

00:24:21.800 So it's a very, very bumpy ride. No one said otherwise. But at this point,

00:24:29.720 the arguments to say, well, we just really shouldn't have gone to war. It was just a

00:24:33.320 really bad idea. That's totally useless. Totally useless. We're in it now. How does it work out?

00:24:40.640 What is the best move? What does victory look like? What do we want the next year, five years,

00:24:47.940 10 years in the Middle East to look like? Those are the pertinent questions right now.

00:24:52.280 But that's it. I really hate the abstractions and the hypotheticals and the ideology that comes

00:25:00.760 into politics. And unfortunately, I've been a little tough on my fellow podcasters recently.

00:25:06.220 With right-wing podcasters like we have, who needs the left? They're just very unhelpful in many ways

00:25:12.520 when it comes to trying to win the midterms, trying to achieve political results. They go on all sorts

00:25:19.560 of digressions and abstractions and weird rabbit holes, and it doesn't really serve any political

00:25:24.540 purpose. It gets a lot of views. It's titillating. It's scintillating. It's trash TV, but it doesn't

00:25:29.920 serve real political goals. The question that I have is, get rid of the stupid ideology nonsense. 1.00

00:25:36.120 Here's the real politics here. What happens next? What do we do now? How do we achieve real political 1.00

00:25:42.900 results? This is, obviously, a lot of people, we're all still reeling from the death of Charlie.

00:25:49.440 The American right is seriously reeling from the death of Charlie. Assassinations work. That's why

00:25:53.700 people keep doing them. And it had a very deleterious effect, not just on Charlie and his

00:25:58.560 friends and his family, but on the American right. But one of the many things I always loved and admired

00:26:04.480 about Charlie, that guy cared about real politics. He didn't care about debate club. He conducted

00:26:09.960 political debates for a purpose. He didn't care about stupid, abstract, hypothetical, what if, 1.00

00:26:16.000 what if that, what if this. He cared about real politics. What do we do now? This is a guy, 1.00

00:26:20.960 he would make strong arguments against some policy to the president. But then whatever the president

00:26:29.420 decided, then he goes in and he tries to work it. He defends it. He tries to keep the coalition

00:26:34.520 together. He just really got real politics. And unfortunately, a lot of the influencer,

00:26:44.040 podcaster, live streamer, and even activist class just either doesn't get it or doesn't care.

00:26:49.360 Very, very frustrating if you want to see real political results. Okay. Speaking of debates and

00:26:56.180 religion, there's a lot of big religious component to the Iran war. Great new survey out of Pew,

00:27:02.600 Pew, really vindicates being a conservative and a Christian. Not that it needs to be vindicated, 0.99

00:27:09.020 but it really vindicates that over being a secular lib. We'll get to that survey. But first,

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00:28:24.080 coverage. Go to policygenius.com slash Knowles. Compare life insurance quotes from top companies,

00:28:28.780 see how much you could save. Policygenius.com slash Knowles. Pew survey going around Twitter right now.

00:28:39.200 And I think these are relatively older data, but it's making the rounds yet again,

00:28:44.860 maybe because religion is in the news. This is according to the Pew American Trends Panel.

00:28:49.840 And it shows that conservative Christians who go to church, go to religious services weekly,

00:28:59.900 but in America, generally that means going to church, are the least crazy people in the country. 0.99

00:29:07.240 And liberals who don't go to church are the craziest people in the country. 0.63

00:29:12.480 This is, the question is, has a doctor or other healthcare provider ever told you that you have 0.99

00:29:19.080 a mental health condition? They ever told you. And when you look, it divides it between liberal,

00:29:29.540 moderate, and conservative, and also by religious service attendance. Never go to church, seldom,

00:29:34.440 yearly, yearly, monthly, weekly. The craziest people in the country, 28% have had a doctor

00:29:44.520 diagnose them with a medical condition, a mental medical condition. 28% are libs who never go to 0.93

00:29:51.000 church. The next craziest people in the country, libs who sometimes go to church. The next craziest 1.00

00:30:01.160 people in the country, libs who go to church monthly. Now, it's a religious service, so it could 0.95

00:30:06.200 be some woo-woo kind of lib thing. Keep that in mind, because liberal churches are not real.

00:30:11.760 They're not real churches. They're these heretical, schismatic sects that promote infanticide and 0.98

00:30:17.180 creepy sex stuff. So even to call that a church is kind of silly. The next craziest people in the 0.99

00:30:22.260 country, libs who go to church once a year. Only at this point do you start to get, okay, the next 0.59

00:30:29.200 craziest group. Sorry, no, no, no. The next craziest group are moderates who never go to church.

00:30:33.380 Then the libs who go to church once a year. Then it, but it breaks down. You all the way get down

00:30:37.620 to the conservatives who go to church weekly. 8% have had a healthcare provider say they have a

00:30:43.880 mental condition. So what does this mean? Do we just use this to dunk on the libs and the atheists?

00:30:49.540 We can do that a little bit. Not like we dunk out of love. It's a loving dunk. It's not a,

00:30:55.420 it's a dunk intended to, you know, bring them over to our side. This is also just a vindication of,

00:31:02.260 of John, the gospel according to St. John chapter one, the very first verses. In the beginning was

00:31:09.560 the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And the word here being the logos,

00:31:16.160 the divine logic of the universe. So the gospel of St. John begins, unlike the synoptic gospels,

00:31:22.100 the gospel of St. John begins with this grand theological statement that God himself,

00:31:29.100 that Christ is the word, is the logos, is the divine logic of the universe. And God,

00:31:33.480 and he is God. God is the divine logic of the universe. So faith and reason go together.

00:31:40.400 That would seem to be backed up by this survey.

00:31:47.760 What we were told during new atheism and really for the last hundred years or so, 0.99

00:31:53.080 more than hundred years, is that religious people are crazy. They're illogical. They're irrational. 1.00

00:31:58.200 They believe in their sky daddy. All these straw men, nonsense descriptions of religion 0.99

00:32:05.560 to, because the secularists and the atheists don't want to deal with the, with what we actually

00:32:09.800 believe. But that's what we were told. These religious people, they're crazy. They're, 1.00

00:32:13.760 I don't want to vote for some religious person. He's probably crazy. Actually, the data say the 1.00

00:32:18.520 opposite. The religious people are the sanest people. The irreligious people are the craziest people. 1.00

00:32:27.860 Among the religious people, the conservatives, you can't really break it down as conservative or 0.97

00:32:32.300 liberal, but let's just recognize that really maps onto the most orthodox versus the most heterodox.

00:32:40.140 The most orthodox religious people, the ones who believe the religion most accurately, most fully,

00:32:47.860 those people are the least crazy people in the country. So when we're talking about this country,

00:32:52.800 we're not talking about Islam. We're talking a little, little bit about Judaism, but Judaism is a

00:32:57.280 real minority religion. We're talking about Christianity. The conservative Christians are the 0.87

00:33:02.600 least crazy people in the country, clinically speaking. And the atheist libs are the craziest 1.00

00:33:09.940 people in the country, which is a vindication of the claims of orthodox religion. 0.95

00:33:17.980 The, the, one of the chief claims being that God is the divine logic of the universe.

00:33:26.440 I know that these are, it seems like I'm preaching to the choir and you know what? The choir needs

00:33:29.780 preaching sometimes, but this is, this could be a, an evangelical kind of argument because I think a

00:33:37.840 lot of people like me, when I fell away from religion for 10 years, fell away because I thought 1.00

00:33:41.660 religion was for stupid people. Only stupid people believed in God and the smart people knew that 1.00

00:33:45.620 God didn't exist. And that just isn't true. The sane people, they didn't believe in God, 1.00

00:33:51.340 but the crazy people, they believe in, that isn't true. Actually, the opposite is true.

00:33:55.680 It's a good, it's a good argument. I love that. I love that poll. Okay. Before we get to

00:33:59.600 the mailbag, I must, I must get to, uh, the UK removing Winston Churchill from the bank notes.

00:34:09.740 Really, really frustrating. They're removing a bunch of figures from the bank notes. Uh, that includes,

00:34:15.240 uh, Jane Austen. I guess she was on there. That includes, anyway, some other, some other big

00:34:20.100 figures, but notably, uh, Winston Churchill. This is based on a public consultation held in 2025,

00:34:29.560 revealing that the people thought nature would be the most popular, uh, theme for money. So you're

00:34:37.740 going to replace Winston Churchill, one of the great figures in your thousand year national history

00:34:43.040 with a hedgehog. And doesn't that seem nice? 60% of respondents chose nature, animals ahead of

00:34:52.380 architecture and landmarks, you know, the parliament building or on a Westminster Canterbury Cathedral,

00:34:59.080 notable historical figures, arts, culture, and sport, innovation, or noteworthy milestones.

00:35:04.480 So they're removing Churchill in part because he's controversial because Churchill defended the

00:35:09.200 British empire because Churchill, uh, believed in the superiority of British people over other

00:35:15.140 people's, maybe not the moral superiority, the ultimate superiority, but the cultural superiority.

00:35:19.620 He said, he said things that were a little, you know, a little edgy. According to Harold

00:35:24.020 McMillan's diaries, he apparently endorsed a slogan for, uh, running for office, which is keep Britain

00:35:28.880 white. And you weren't, you weren't allowed to say that now, certainly maybe then you were 0.62

00:35:33.640 allowed to, you know, the Brits are white people, you know, so I don't know why, I mean, it is like 0.71

00:35:37.660 England is, is the country of the Angles, Angles and the Saxons and the Normans come in. But anyway, 0.82

00:35:43.720 we're going to, you're not allowed to say that he has to be canceled because he's controversial.

00:35:49.860 Uh, cause he, they don't like his policies in India or whatever. This man, one of the saviors of

00:35:54.780 the United Kingdom going to be taken off the money and he's going to be replaced by not some left-wing

00:36:01.300 political figure, but by an, a hedgehog, by an animal. And so what's really, what's really worse

00:36:07.720 than this, but what's really worse than this being the replacement of the right with the left

00:36:13.480 is it's just the infantilization of the whole society. This is worse than evil or immoral or worse

00:36:23.520 than, you know, ideologically backwards. It's worse than all that because it's insipid. This is what

00:36:30.120 you do to children. A serious civilization puts its leaders on money, puts its achievements on money,

00:36:37.760 has this, not just money, on any monument, recognizes what it has done, understands not

00:36:45.080 only its history, but the meaning of its history, has a, has a point of view about its history

00:36:51.280 and only in so doing has a vision for its future. Children want to play with the hedgehogs.

00:37:00.280 You know, an adult society puts Winston Churchill on its money, a, a, a toy game, you know,

00:37:06.460 children's monopoly puts Mickey Mouse on the money. And the UK is saying, we want Mickey Mouse,

00:37:11.800 give us Mickey Mouse. That's really, that's the deeper problem here. At least when you have these

00:37:18.260 stupid debates in America, should we replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill? 0.99

00:37:23.020 First of all, no, we shouldn't. But second of all, at least that's a debate. At least Harriet 1.00

00:37:27.900 Tubman is a political figure, really more mythical than historical, but whatever. She's a political 0.99

00:37:34.760 figure nonetheless. At least there you're having a debate about ideas and the meaning of American

00:37:38.300 history and what we're going to be moving forward. And with this, it's just a, you know,

00:37:43.440 you're going to, you're going to put a mongoose on the dollar or something on the pound.

00:37:48.400 And I know, I know some would say, well, look, you know, uh, in British heraldry, there's

00:37:53.040 animals play a role or family crests and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. But that's not what they're

00:37:57.540 doing here. They're not going to be putting family crests on the money. They just kicked all

00:38:01.960 of the hereditary aristocrats out of the house of Lords. Like yesterday, this is the infantilization

00:38:08.220 of the country, a country that doesn't believe in the meaning of its history, doesn't believe in

00:38:13.180 its future. Pretty soon, what you're going to get on the banknotes is going to be a little bit

00:38:18.340 different. It won't be Mohammed because you're not allowed to have pictures of Mohammed, but it will,

00:38:23.020 I don't know. Maybe they'll put the Ayatollah. Maybe the new Ayatollah is going to be on the banknotes 0.77

00:38:26.920 in the UK. Okay. Hey, do you want to hear what Ben Shapiro and Andrew Klavan and my pals here at Daily

00:38:33.600 Wire? Think about the Iran war and the stupid podcaster wars, which I hate so much, and the 0.99

00:38:40.140 Oscars. And do you want to hear what they think? Maybe not, but do you want to hear what I think 1.00

00:38:43.640 and then me tell them why they're wrong about what they think? Well, the only way to do it is to watch

00:38:47.320 Friendly Fire live today, 2 p.m. Eastern, only on dailywire.com and the Daily Wire Plus app.

00:38:53.740 You understand? You have to get the Daily Wire Plus app. I am, I'm not begging you. I'm not going to

00:38:58.180 lower myself to that. I'm inviting you to get the Daily Wire Plus app. It's an amazing experience

00:39:04.060 and you can follow me on there and you get the notifications and whenever we got cool stuff coming

00:39:08.140 out, you can go get it. Daily Wire Plus app right now. My favorite comment yesterday is from

00:39:12.700 ChristianGamerGuys6447 who says, I really need to see a conglomeration of clips of Michael being 0.50

00:39:19.600 silly while mocking someone. It would be awesome out of context. I didn't pick this. The producers

00:39:24.080 picked this comment. I didn't, I didn't pick the comments. I don't know. Do I really, what? Go

00:39:28.760 back to that. Let me see if I actually agree with that comment. A conglomeration of being silly

00:39:32.960 while mocking someone. I wouldn't, what do you mean I would mock someone? No, I might have, 0.96

00:39:39.400 I might have a little fun. Do you mean someone like Professor Jacob or do you mean someone like,

00:39:43.300 you know, James Tallarico? I don't know. Sometimes I do that occasionally. During the, during the Fauci

00:39:49.260 years, I got really into it. Finally, finally, we arrive at my favorite time of the week when

00:39:54.000 I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Our mailbag is sponsored by pure talk at a pure talk.com

00:39:57.040 session. You will save 50% off your first month. Take it away. Hey, Michael, it's Isaac. I had a

00:40:03.480 question about the war with Iran. Um, I can see why people, including yourself, felt like it wasn't a

00:40:13.040 wise move to go in. Um, yet we, we went ahead and did so. But, um, what do you think about the folks

00:40:21.340 who I would consider are on the alt-right or maybe what some refer to the new right, um, calling the

00:40:30.620 United States a terrorist nation for going into Iran or bombing parts of Iran? And what are your

00:40:38.720 thoughts about that? All right. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, that's not a serious position because what it

00:40:44.560 means is not only do whoever is making that claim and not only do they not understand what, uh, we are

00:40:51.940 doing in Iran, but they don't even understand the meaning of terrorism. Terrorism targets civilians

00:40:58.620 to achieve a political end. That's what terrorism is. Terrorism is not accidentally hitting civilians

00:41:06.400 while conducting war. Every belligerent who has ever engaged in war more or less does that. It's a sad

00:41:13.720 fact of war. Uh, terrorism is when you target civilians to achieve a political purpose. Ironically,

00:41:19.960 that is what Iran has done and has brazenly done, openly done. There's no secret. There's no debate 1.00

00:41:26.160 over that. That's what Iran has done since 1979, which is why Iran has always had one foot in the 1.00

00:41:31.760 global order and one foot outside of it. In some ways, it resembles a legitimate nation state. In some

00:41:38.140 ways, it, uh, appears to be an illegitimate terror organization. Whereas the United States

00:41:44.300 has uniformed soldiers. We target military targets, not civilians. We, uh, we abide by the rules of war.

00:41:52.840 We, it's just, there's no way to make that argument. So it's just, it's just not a serious

00:41:56.580 argument. Sometimes people will say, you know, why don't you debate so-and-so? And it's some mouthy

00:42:01.300 lunatic on Twitter or YouTube or something. And occasionally, look, occasionally I do it because 0.90

00:42:05.480 it can be fun clips, but, but often I will say, well, why would I do that? You, I'm, I'm not a

00:42:11.400 free speech absolutist. I'm not one of these people who thinks we just constantly need to grow the

00:42:15.560 public marketplace of ideas. I don't think that's true. I think marketplaces need limits. And I think

00:42:21.860 that, uh, one does not want, one wants a healthy debate and dialogue. One doesn't want cacophony,

00:42:27.920 like in a, uh, sandbox at a playground. You know, there's no point in debating a toddler over

00:42:33.500 it. And so to, to have a debate with someone who doesn't even have the capacity to understand what

00:42:39.400 is happening or the willingness to understand what is happening, that's not, that's not serious.

00:42:44.120 There are lots of good arguments against going to war in Iran, but to say, oh, we're, the U S is a

00:42:49.700 terrorist nation and war is always evil. And you know, it's just very silly. That's not even worth 0.98

00:42:55.680 engaging. Okay. Next question. Hello, Michael. This is Landon Corr, your resident member of

00:43:00.500 the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the church prefers to refrain from overtly

00:43:05.280 supporting political parties or candidates, the values it promotes causes most of my religious

00:43:10.560 brothers and sisters to be some flavor of right wing, at the very least, the majority of the

00:43:15.660 politically active ones. However, in the past few years, during the same time period, the right has

00:43:21.420 gained ground against the godless left, my contemporaries have noticed an increase in

00:43:26.220 religious hatred from the right. The worst of which appears in events like last September,

00:43:31.760 where a Michigan man burned down one of our churches, slaughtered our people, even though

00:43:36.220 he likely submitted a very similar ballot to his victims. This leads many of my brethren to prefer

00:43:42.260 candidates who appear moderate and end up being more squishy or to throw their votes away on third

00:43:48.540 party long shots. My question for you, Michael, is twofold. Can you make the case for why we

00:43:53.900 Latter-day Saints should continue to support the right? And what can the right do to promote

00:43:58.400 interfaith cooperation when the need for religion has never been higher in this nation?

00:44:03.220 Good, good question. Yeah, I've seen that a little bit too. I mean, you know, the Mormon jokes have been 0.55

00:44:08.300 around basically as long as that religion has been around. So I'm sure it's deeply unpleasant if you're 0.98

00:44:14.340 LDS. But, you know, that's not new. Sometimes it gets a little hotter. Sometimes it's less hot.

00:44:19.480 And there's this paradox, which is that when people don't take religion seriously, you're going to be

00:44:28.340 pilloried and mocked and derided. But when people do take religion seriously, your religion is going

00:44:35.980 to be examined. And so religious differences are going to become more pronounced and hotter. So,

00:44:39.920 you know, you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Politically speaking, 0.93

00:44:46.000 not eternally. However, what do we do about this? Why should Mormons keep voting for the right? 0.99

00:44:52.780 I don't know. I would say to, well, as I have said to my LDS friends, you're not going to vote for

00:44:57.520 the left. You're not going to vote for the left. They want to put all of us in the gulags. They want

00:45:02.220 to put us all on boxcars. So you're obviously not voting for the left. You're not voting for infanticide

00:45:06.120 and weird sex stuff and open borders. And you're not voting for any of that.

00:45:10.260 So then what do you do when some people on the right are prejudiced or, you know, opposed to your

00:45:16.100 religion? Well, I would say one thing the right could do is just emphasize its longstanding 0.89

00:45:22.220 commitment to subsidiarity. So, you know, a Protestant Midwest or South or Catholic Northeast

00:45:30.940 might not agree with, or Jewish New York, I don't know, might not agree with the LDS religion,

00:45:38.880 but I don't think they're going to go invade Utah, are they? So recognition that, you know,

00:45:44.840 different localities are going to look a little bit different. That's one way that I think the

00:45:50.500 right could, without betraying her principles, actually digging even deeper into her own principles,

00:45:55.040 could ease some of those fears. But, you know, that's always going to be a tension.

00:45:58.960 You don't want to live in the secular liberal society. You guys are done for in the secular

00:46:04.600 liberal society. But you are going to have challenges in a society that takes religion 0.99

00:46:09.840 more seriously because they're going to examine the claims of the various religions. Okay,

00:46:13.040 next question. Hi, Michael. My name is Jessica. I come from a small town down in South Texas,

00:46:19.240 and I was raised heavily in the church, mainly non-denominational and Methodist. My mother

00:46:24.940 is currently working on a doctorate from a Methodist university in theology, so safe to say

00:46:29.840 I was heavily ingrained in biblical teaching. I have been attending a Catholic church for the past

00:46:35.700 year, and I am now considering beginning my catechism. Of course, my Methodist family is pretty

00:46:41.100 against this. So what would your advice be to someone who is battling in the face of opposition

00:46:45.820 from those that she holds most dear? And how do I show respect and devotion to my mother and father

00:46:52.020 while still pursuing my love for God? Any advice would be helpful. Thank you so much.

00:46:57.980 Great question. Wonderful to hear it. I'm so glad you're going to begin catechism.

00:47:03.300 I've had plenty of friends who have dealt with this in my own life, actually. I was a cradle Catholic,

00:47:10.380 kind of cafeteria a little bit growing up, and then cafeteria Catholic meaning, you know,

00:47:14.180 you take this, you do that. Sometimes you go to church, sometimes you don't. But then I was an

00:47:17.860 atheist practically for about 10 years. And when I came back, even some of my own ostensibly Catholic

00:47:24.660 family thought I was crazy. So it's not even just going from the Methodist, Methodism or

00:47:31.280 non-denominational evangelical Protestantism or whatever. It really, even within Catholicism,

00:47:37.260 you might get some strange looks and raised eyebrows. So what do you do? Well, this is where

00:47:42.940 catechism is really great. You keep going to mass, you keep praying. When you have a question,

00:47:47.280 look, your relatives might raise really good questions. Why do Catholics pray to Mary or

00:47:52.880 venerate saints? Or why do they have liturgical feast days? Or why do they take the sacraments

00:47:57.580 so seriously? Or what is transubstantiation or whatever? You know, they might raise good objections.

00:48:01.880 What's great about the Catholic church is there are answers. You know, you're not just on your own.

00:48:07.520 A lot of modern religion is hyper-individualist and relies ultimately on private judgment. And so

00:48:13.720 you have to just kind of come up with your own answers. But with the Catholic church,

00:48:17.780 it balances private judgment with magisterial teaching. So you can say, look, I have my own

00:48:23.560 ideas, but I'm going to go see what St. Jerome and St. Thomas Aquinas and Tertullian and maybe Origen

00:48:29.200 and Hippolytus and all these, Justin Martyr. I'm going to see what all these people said and the

00:48:33.920 popes and these guys and what's endured and what, how has this idea been honed in and St. John Henry

00:48:38.760 Newman and I don't know, development of doctrine. Let's see what they say. And you can actually get

00:48:43.580 an answer and that will help you grow in your faith. That's great. I mean, I think, look, I think

00:48:48.640 you're on the right path, obviously. I'm quite convinced of that. But you could use it as an

00:48:53.240 opportunity to more seriously understand what you believe, what the church believes, and who knows,

00:48:59.280 maybe persuade your family. Next question. Smooth Mickey. Hey, I just want to ask you a question

00:49:07.340 about cloning. Now, obviously there's geneticists thinking about cloning humans, which I totally

00:49:14.840 disagree with. I think it's playing God and it's very messed up. I would love to get your thoughts

00:49:21.040 on that. But on a separate note, what about cloning animals? Animals aren't humans. They don't have

00:49:28.060 rational wills. So is it okay to clone your dog when they pass away and, you know, clone them into

00:49:35.180 a new puppy? Just curious about your thoughts. All right. Thanks, man. Great questions. Okay. So for

00:49:40.840 the first one, why is it wrong to clone humans? Why is that wrong necessarily? Say, well, because we're

00:49:47.380 playing God. But, you know, that argument's a little tricky because we have reason and we do have

00:49:52.400 substantial agency within nature to do things and to make things. So why is it wrong to clone?

00:49:59.560 We make babies the old-fashioned way. Why is it wrong to clone human beings? I think what you have

00:50:04.720 to start to examine is all the things, all the wrong things you have to do before you get to the point

00:50:10.740 of cloning. So for one, you have to divorce the conjugal from the reproductive act. If you're a more 1.00

00:50:18.000 traditionally minded Christian, right there, you're committing a mortal sin. Because the only person 0.98

00:50:24.240 said to have a right in procreation is the baby to have the right to be the product of the specific 0.91

00:50:28.840 conjugal act of his mother and father who are joined together in holy matrimony. So right there,

00:50:33.540 you've got a problem. In order to obtain, I guess it depends on how you do it, but in order to obtain

00:50:38.480 the sperm and the egg, certainly the sperm, you would have to commit a gravely immoral and intrinsically

00:50:45.080 disordered action. That right there is a sin. You would have to then commoditize human life.

00:50:52.720 That would be a sin. You would, and ultimately the reason is you would be empowering scientists and

00:51:01.120 entrepreneurs. You would be giving them the domination through technology and science and

00:51:10.220 commerce over the origin and destiny of human life, which is not their right to do. But usually

00:51:16.440 when things get really wacky, like we're talking about cloning, it's not just that you go from

00:51:21.040 normal, ordinary moral society to this tricky moral question, and then it all goes wrong.

00:51:27.620 There is a path. And the path, this is the, like the phrase, the road to hell is paved with good

00:51:34.280 intentions. The path involves all these little moral compromises. Well, you know, look, it's just,

00:51:42.640 maybe it's a little easier these days not to constantly have kids, breed like rabbits.

00:51:46.980 So maybe we'll, we'll accept some contraception in some cases for married couples. That's what the

00:51:52.460 mainline Protestants did about a hundred years ago. That's what the Supreme Court then permitted

00:51:56.140 more recently, actually in the late sixties, early seventies. And okay, maybe we're going to look,

00:52:02.400 some couples suffer from infertility in part because they've been using contraception too long.

00:52:06.200 But in some cases it's just natural, just happens, fallen world. And so, you know, just to help ease

00:52:10.560 their pain, which is real pain, maybe we're going to allow people to use IVF and surrogates. We're

00:52:15.460 going to need surrogates. We're going to have to, you know, we're going to have to buy eggs and rent 1.00

00:52:19.600 the wombs of women. And it's not, it's not, but we're doing so much good, aren't we? You know,

00:52:23.620 the ends justify the means. And eventually you get to human cloning. So how'd we get here? How'd we get

00:52:28.780 here? Because you made a lot of bad decisions along the way that were very tempting. Sin is

00:52:33.660 very tempting. That's how it works. If sin were not tempting, you wouldn't do it. Okay. So then

00:52:39.600 to cloning the animals, is there anything intrinsically wrong with cloning the animals?

00:52:43.500 I'm not a serious, you know, bioethicist or anything like that, but I don't see anything

00:52:49.580 intrinsically wrong with cloning animals. As you point out, they don't have rational souls.

00:52:54.480 They're not, like, I guess you could do it. But I do think there's something wrong with it at a

00:53:01.400 deeper level. The question is, why are you doing it? When you can make animals the old-fashioned way,

00:53:07.640 why would you clone them? And the answer is because you really love your dog and you wish your dog

00:53:12.800 didn't die. So you want to clone your dog to pretend that your dog didn't die. That's really why people

00:53:17.260 want to do it. In the 90s, they were cloning sheep to see if they could, but really what they want to do

00:53:22.320 now is they want to clone their pets because they don't want their pets to die. That seems wrong.

00:53:25.860 And I think it's wrong because it is a way to delude yourself into denying the reality of death

00:53:33.520 and our role as creatures living in time and space where things in this world pass away.

00:53:42.320 That's what's wrong about it. It's really even the reason that animal cruelty is wrong.

00:53:47.700 It's not wrong exactly because animals have rights, you know, akin to natural rights or human rights.

00:53:55.900 It's wrong because it deadens your own humanity. It has a deleterious effect on you who isn't a rational soul.

00:54:03.220 Okay. Today, that's a very good question. Today is Fake Headline Friday. The rest of the show continues now.

00:54:08.480 You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code NOLSK at WLAS at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:54:17.700 There are plenty of snacks for a shake at once.

00:54:19.480 Go to school and create a wheelhouse.

00:54:24.200 ¡Aha! 1.00

00:54:24.400 Bob!

00:54:26.440 ****

00:54:28.380 Fine for you.

00:54:30.140 が

The Michael Knowles Show - March 13, 2026

Ep. 1931 - Virginia Students Beat Muslim Terrorist To Death

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