The Michael Knowles Show - April 07, 2026


Ep. 1947 - BREAKING: Artemis II Just Made History


Episode Stats

Length

47 minutes

Words per Minute

179.5046

Word Count

8,544

Sentence Count

682

Misogynist Sentences

10

Hate Speech Sentences

26


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 When you let arrow truffle bubbles melt, everything takes on a creamy, delicious, chocolatey glow.
00:00:06.320 Like that pile of laundry. You didn't forget to fold it.
00:00:09.220 Nah, it's a new trend. Wrinkled chic.
00:00:12.080 Feel the arrow bubbles melt. It's mind-bubbling.
00:00:15.160 This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers.
00:00:17.380 Support the American farmers and ranchers this grilling season by subscribing at GoodRanchers.com.
00:00:22.720 Promo code Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S.
00:00:24.740 Get free meat for life and $25 off your first order.
00:00:29.520 The Artemis II astronauts have officially flown by the moon.
00:00:33.940 It is amazing for a lot of reasons.
00:00:36.540 One, it is the farthest that human beings have ever been from planet Earth.
00:00:41.260 The photos are absolutely stunning.
00:00:44.800 That's one in two.
00:00:45.720 Number three, most important of all, it has convinced at least some people
00:00:50.200 that we did actually land on the moon over 50 years ago.
00:00:54.380 One little trip around a natural satellite has become a superluminous, supernova explosion of conspiracy theories.
00:01:03.580 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:01:04.940 Welcome back to the show.
00:01:25.420 Eric Swalwell, the former paramour of Fang Fang, the current congressman, the man who wants to be
00:01:33.600 the future governor of California, is in a big scandal. He's actually in a triple scandal. We
00:01:40.280 know that he's got the sex problem. We know that he might not even be eligible to run because he's
00:01:46.780 not actually a California resident. But now he's got a third scandal. He appears to be paying his
00:01:52.620 wife out of campaign funds to watch their kids. We will get to the end of Eric Swalwell. First,
00:02:01.000 though, I want to tell you about Balance of Nature. Go to balanceofnature.com. This episode
00:02:06.000 is sponsored by Balance of Nature. Does anyone else feel like nutrition is getting way too
00:02:09.720 complicated? We used to just eat food. Now you need a PhD to read a box of cereal. Here's the
00:02:15.560 reality. We've all been told since we were kids to eat our fruits and veggies. I tell my own kids
00:02:19.520 that but has anyone explained to you why you need to eat fruits and veggies quick here's a pop quiz
00:02:24.740 close your eyes why do you need to eat your fruits and veggies phytonutrients that's why
00:02:31.820 those natural compounds your body uses to adjust repair and respond every single day the more we
00:02:36.520 try to improve food in factories the further we've gotten from what your body actually recognizes as
00:02:41.260 food that is one of the many reasons i love balance of nature they take real produce they
00:02:45.420 run it through a tailored vacuum cold process that stabilizes its phytonutrition instead of
00:02:49.560 nuking it with heat and chemicals. Their whole health system bundle includes their fruits and
00:02:53.180 veggies and fiber and spice supplements, giving you 47 ingredients of whole food and their
00:02:58.700 phytonutrients in a simple, consistent routine. It's terrific. Check out their new freeze-dried
00:03:02.920 snacks. They're great. I love them. Very popular at the Daily Wire office. I've had them at home
00:03:07.080 at the office. Those jackals steal them there. Save over 30% when you subscribe at balanceofnature.com.
00:03:11.680 join hundreds of thousands of customers in one simple routine that is changing the world.
00:03:17.840 The lunar flyby is very, very cool. We've been getting all sorts of photos from Artemis. And
00:03:25.080 of course, some people want to say it's AI. I actually posted some photos of it,
00:03:29.380 one of which includes Alice Cramden from the Honeymooners. Because finally, you know,
00:03:34.520 Jackie Gleason just powed her right and she flew all the way to the moon. But so some people are
00:03:38.300 saying, because of that, they're saying the photos are AI. However, the photos are really,
00:03:43.460 really beautiful. And I think we've reached peak, we never landed on the moon conspiracy.
00:03:51.440 I'll be honest. I'll be real. I'm always honest and real with you.
00:03:54.920 I went through a period where I wasn't sure if we landed on the moon. I watched this long
00:04:00.860 documentary that you can find on some weird, you know, subreddit of a forum board of some
00:04:07.580 dark recess of the internet. I watched it. It was like two hours long. And I got almost to the end
00:04:12.580 of it. And I said, wow, we didn't land on the moon. I texted sweet little Lisa. I said, we didn't land
00:04:15.860 on the moon. We didn't go to the moon. So what? And then I get home that night. I said, you got
00:04:20.480 to watch this. We watched the end of the movie. And I said, no, that's not enough. You got to,
00:04:23.220 let's watch the whole thing. And I watched it again. And the second time I watched it, I said,
00:04:28.820 oh no, we actually probably did go to the moon. Because I found holes in the conspiracy theories.
00:04:33.360 and I think that is what the Artemis 2 mission is doing. I saw it take off. I was there. I know
00:04:39.840 some people didn't believe me. I had to go pull the grass up behind me, stand in the sun, do
00:04:43.820 jumping jacks. I said, I definitely saw this thing take off and we're getting communications from
00:04:48.600 space and now they've flown around the moon and they're coming back. And I think that when we
00:04:57.080 landed in Apollo 8, the vast majority of people, like everybody, believed we landed on the moon.
00:05:04.500 Then over the years, you had more and more people, 10%, even more than 10%, start to say,
00:05:09.040 we didn't land on the moon. Then when you looked at younger generations, especially the generations
00:05:12.600 that had no living memory whatsoever of landing on the moon, then you started to see those numbers
00:05:19.020 go up. What was it? One in four millennials didn't think we ever landed on the moon. Gen Z
00:05:24.720 creeping even more in that direction. Now, I think the contrarian position is, yeah,
00:05:32.020 we definitely did land on the moon. And this is what interests me the most about this.
00:05:36.760 I mean, it's cool. It's cool. It's very cool that there are human beings flying around the
00:05:39.740 moon right now, especially that they're Americans. I love that. But what really interests me is what
00:05:44.640 it means for political philosophy. Because being contrarian and being cynical is a very
00:05:53.500 unstable position. There are so many contrarians. I'm a little contrarian myself. There are so many
00:05:58.680 cynics now when it comes to politics. And they have good cause in a way because our government
00:06:03.540 has become very self-interested. The politicians have turned away from the common good. It's a
00:06:09.000 fallen world. There are always people looking out for themselves. But if you compare this era with,
00:06:12.860 say, the founding era or the 19th century, politicians really do just seem to be on the
00:06:16.580 make for themselves. We'll get to Eric Swalwell momentarily. But the reason that always being
00:06:24.240 contrarian, always being cynical is unstable is because your positions constantly have to change
00:06:30.520 to be contrary to whatever the mainstream position is. So if that was the cool contrarian thing for
00:06:37.660 the last 10 years, 15 years, now I think maybe it's not. Now it's reached critical mass. It's
00:06:42.980 kind of like listening to punk music, you know? It's kind of like just being a hipster, which is
00:06:46.860 you really like the band until the band is mainstream, and now you have to hate the band
00:06:50.860 because you liked the band before the band was cool. And when you look at the moon, I never
00:06:55.820 thought very deeply about the space program, but the conspiracy theories don't make a lot of sense.
00:07:01.060 They would make sense if all we ever claimed to have done was land on the moon one time
00:07:05.360 and take a picture with the flag and then go home, and that was all. But we landed six times.
00:07:12.000 Now you say, well, yeah, we lied six times.
00:07:15.180 There were a dozen astronauts who walked on the moon.
00:07:18.220 You say, yeah, a dozen astronauts lied.
00:07:20.460 Okay, how does that explain Apollo 1?
00:07:25.120 You know, Apollo 1, where you had these astronauts who just blew up.
00:07:29.380 What happened to the astronauts?
00:07:30.940 If this was all a big ruse to make America look good, why did we look bad?
00:07:36.860 One of the other problems with the moon conspiracies is Apollo 13.
00:07:40.020 because Apollo 13 failed and the astronauts made it home, but it failed. How do you explain that?
00:07:50.960 How do you explain the Indian lunar orbiter that just within the last few years got photos of the
00:07:58.500 landing sites of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12? The Indians are just trying to make us look good.
00:08:04.820 I mean, I like the Indians and we have a decent relationship, but why would, and then the biggest
00:08:09.700 problem for the theory that we didn't land on the moon, of course, is that the Soviet Union said we
00:08:15.440 landed on the moon. The whole reason we went to the moon is because we were in a war with the
00:08:20.180 Soviet Union. We were in a Cold War and part of the Cold War was the space race and we beat them
00:08:24.880 to the moon. They beat us to space and we beat them to the moon. If we faked it, wouldn't they
00:08:31.480 have said so? That's the problem for me. And so now it just seems to me, putting all that evidence
00:08:37.860 aside, it seems to me that the contrarian view now is that we did land on the moon.
00:08:45.140 Like, oh, you still think we didn't land on the moon? You know, just take a drag of your cigarette,
00:08:49.120 be a real cool guy. You think we didn't land on the moon? Let me tell you, man,
00:08:52.100 I got the real, you think you have the secret knowledge that we didn't land on the moon? I
00:08:54.720 have the double secret knowledge that we did land on the moon. So the contrarian view is always
00:09:01.080 going to be unstable. This is another reason why it's good to have actual principles.
00:09:05.440 This is another reason why it's good to be okay being not cool.
00:09:11.260 This is something my fellow conservatives, they drive me a little crazy with this.
00:09:14.760 Because the left is very ideologically stable.
00:09:17.800 Their ideology is not stable.
00:09:19.240 Their ideology goes from Clinton Democrats to trans the kids and let the illegal Guatemalan criminals in in about 20 years.
00:09:29.820 But the ideology itself is just progressivism and they're all progressive.
00:09:33.060 Whereas on the right, we all have to be really special guys.
00:09:36.420 You know, we all have to be paleo, neo, post-liberal, pre-liberal, libertarian, this, that.
00:09:44.980 We all have to, we basically all have to find a way to say I'm a conservative, but not that kind of conservative.
00:09:51.260 Because being conservative isn't cool.
00:09:53.540 Being conservative, I'm wearing a bow tie, okay?
00:09:56.620 I'm doing it on purpose because I was in D.C. for the White House Easter egg roll.
00:09:59.720 I get to wear my Easter egg bow tie at most once a year.
00:10:03.500 Being conservative is just wearing Brooks Brothers, you know?
00:10:06.760 Being conservative is just holding common sense views that aren't sexy.
00:10:11.060 They're just normal. They're just right.
00:10:12.760 Being conservative is recognizing that the best we can hope for in politics is the second best.
00:10:18.920 It's never the ideal. It's never utopia.
00:10:22.900 It's always just kind of, there it is.
00:10:26.820 It's always kind of shoulder shrug, isn't it?
00:10:28.840 this is why for a long time we were told that vaccines are uniformly good there's no threat
00:10:37.160 from vaccines at all and only a few quacks opposed vaccines then especially after covid where we
00:10:42.620 relied to specifically about the covid vaccine then the the fashionable position now very
00:10:49.560 mainstream is that all vaccines are terrible i think the contrarian view again is that vaccines
00:10:55.300 are good. There are so many people now who say vaccines are bad, and I'm kind of skeptical of
00:10:59.700 vaccines, but there are so many people who say vaccines are bad that I now think they're probably
00:11:03.660 good. And you know what the reality is? The reality is some vaccines are good sometimes,
00:11:10.980 probably. That's the most accurate view of that issue. Did we ever go to the moon? Did we not go
00:11:18.840 to the moon? Do you know the reality? We sometimes went to the moon and sometimes we blew up and
00:11:24.460 sometimes we failed, but we sometimes did. That's the reality. And this time we did go around the
00:11:30.440 moon and we want to build a moon base. It's very, very cool. Now, speaking of things back at home
00:11:34.940 and speaking of blowing stuff up, President Trump was at the White House Easter egg roll yesterday
00:11:39.440 and he sat down with some kids, cracked some jokes with some five-year-olds about Joe Biden,
00:11:44.320 Sleepy Joe and the auto pen. And he gave an impassioned address on the present war with Iran
00:11:51.940 from the White House portico while standing next to the Easter bunny, a man in a bunny costume.
00:11:58.680 We'll get to that momentarily. First, though, I want to tell you about Good Ranchers.
00:12:03.520 Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use promo code Knolls. The weather is warming up, which means grilling
00:12:08.320 season is here. If you're anything like me, you're already plotting that first glorious
00:12:11.460 backyard barbecue of the year. I know what's going on the grill. Good Ranchers. I love Good
00:12:17.440 ranchers. Good ranchers, partners with local American farmers and ranchers, delivers 100%
00:12:22.220 American meat straight to your door, pasture raised, no antibiotics, no added hormones, you know what
00:12:26.060 you're getting. It's the taste, man. I love that these guys are aligned on values. I love that the
00:12:31.560 price cannot be beaten. I love that it supports Americans, but really, top thing, it's the taste.
00:12:37.020 It's the best meat you're going to get, especially the new filet mignon, the wagyu burgers, and the
00:12:41.420 bone-in ribeyes are out of this world. And the bone-in ribeye, I'm not even a huge ribeye guy,
00:12:45.200 I'm more of a New York strip guy.
00:12:47.100 Sweet little Elisa says it is some of the best steaks she's ever had in her entire life.
00:12:51.120 And that woman has very high standards, as you can see.
00:12:54.380 Go check it out right now.
00:12:55.400 The big news right now is they have custom boxes.
00:12:58.020 So you don't need a pre-selected assortment.
00:12:59.780 You make one for you.
00:13:00.620 It's great.
00:13:01.100 When you subscribe, choose the free meat that will be included in every single box for the life of your subscription.
00:13:07.260 With code Knowles, you'll get $25 off your first order as well.
00:13:10.400 Free meat for life and $20 off your first order when you use code Knowles at GoodRanchers.com.
00:13:13.940 Younggoodranchers.com, American meat delivered. President Trump, he, you know, I don't like that
00:13:21.120 phrase, breaks the internet. Because if you break the internet every day, then the thing's broken,
00:13:25.700 but it's still functioning. So it's not, he always breaks the internet in a way. The last time he
00:13:29.260 broke the internet was with that tweet, the Truth Social Post, where he said, as his Easter
00:13:34.180 proclamation, open the effing straight, you crazy bastard Iranians, or you will all be living in
00:13:40.440 hell, peace be to Allah. Yours, President Donald J. Trump. Well, he doubled down on this from the
00:13:46.360 White House yesterday. The war is about one thing. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Had we not
00:13:53.400 broken the Barack Hussein Obama agreement, you know what I'm talking about, the Iran nuclear
00:14:00.300 deal. This is years ago, my first term. You would have had a total, Israel would have been gone,
00:14:07.620 Extinguished Israel would be it would have been wiped off the face of the earth and the entire Middle East would have been
00:14:12.580 At a minimum in big trouble, but I did it that was phase one we killed Soleimani without Soleimani
00:14:19.100 If they had Soleimani would be a whole different thing. Maybe would still be winning, but it would have been harder
00:14:24.460 Because we are obliterating that country and I hate to do it
00:14:28.760 But we're obliterating and they just don't want to say uncle
00:14:31.600 They don't want to cry as the expression goes uncle, but they will and if they don't
00:14:36.780 And they'll have no bridges. They'll have no power plants. They'll have no anything. I won't go further because there are other things that are worse than those two. And we might have, well, the thing, if I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil. Because it's there for the taking. There's not a thing they can do about it.
00:14:57.620 cinema cinema this is so american people were very upset you had people on the left upset that
00:15:08.580 president trump would talk about something so serious in front of all the kids i mean there
00:15:11.420 are thousands and thousands of people thousands and thousands of kids who show up to the easter
00:15:15.300 egg roll this is so inappropriate to talk about a war with iran well you know he is the president
00:15:18.960 of the united states we're in a war with iran he gave it a five-week timeline we're now into the
00:15:23.160 sixth week, everybody, certainly including the president, is feeling the desire to wrap this
00:15:28.060 thing up quickly because people are starting to get concerned. So what's he going to do? Of course
00:15:32.160 he's going to talk about it. But then you had people from the right attacking saying, this is
00:15:37.600 undignified to be giving this kind of address next to the Easter bunny. I have a totally different
00:15:41.580 take. I think this is so profoundly American. This is, to me, the American character. A lot of the
00:15:52.080 conversations during the 250th anniversary of the country surround what it is to be an American.
00:15:57.880 Is America just an idea, like some liberals say? No, but there are ideas. Is America a race? Well,
00:16:04.760 we have a founding stock, certainly. Came over on the Mayflower, came to Jamestown, the Wasps.
00:16:11.380 Mayflower is a great cigar brand, by the way, but yeah, there's a founding stock and then a lot of
00:16:14.340 immigrants added to it, but there's still like a people to the whole thing. Is America a contribution,
00:16:18.340 and ethic of service is yes, it's all that. But, you know, the American character is this. It's
00:16:23.180 this paradox. It's this paradoxical combination of high and low. It's the president giving an
00:16:29.800 address on our very militarily successful strikes on Iran from the White House next to the Easter
00:16:36.820 Bunny. That's what it is. What is the American? The American is the least sophisticated man in
00:16:43.020 the world on the one hand, and he's the most civilized man in the world on the other.
00:16:48.340 America is a very civilized country. We have families more than other countries in the West.
00:16:55.660 We mind our morals more than other countries in the West. We're a little bit more prudish
00:16:59.580 than other countries in the West. We say, yes, sir, no, sir. Yes, ma'am. We're very polite,
00:17:04.580 more polite than a lot of other countries. The French, please. We're the elite. We're
00:17:09.120 kind of bumbling yokels, Yankee doodle dandy, but we're also paradoxically very civilized.
00:17:16.280 We're the most religious country in the whole West. By far, it's not even close. We take religion
00:17:22.020 seriously. We're also the most commercial country in the West. We're like the last country in the
00:17:27.160 West that still makes stuff, that still is entrepreneurial, that still wants to grow,
00:17:31.680 that still wants to make money. We've always been that way, going back to Alexei de Tocqueville
00:17:35.880 and prior to that. That's weird. On the one hand, we take spiritual matters more seriously
00:17:41.280 than other countries. And we also take terrestrial, economic, pecuniary. How many more adjectives
00:17:49.640 can I throw in matters more seriously than the others? America is paradoxically the most
00:17:56.260 self-interested country in the world. Individualist, rugged, out for number one, looking out for me,
00:18:03.340 pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of country. We're also paradoxically the most
00:18:07.060 charitable, by far, not even close. We are the charitable country in the world. Africa exists
00:18:13.520 because of us. Africa exists in its present form with peace such as it is, with health such as it
00:18:22.500 is, with population growth such as it is, because of us. The most self-interested and the most
00:18:28.120 charitable. That's the paradox. It's so profoundly American. So you can say, well, I don't like that.
00:18:33.120 I wish our president were different and didn't speak about war next to the Easter bunny.
00:18:38.900 Yeah, I know. It's funny, isn't it? It's kind of wacky. We're a funny, wacky country.
00:18:43.200 The other thing President Trump did, I would be remiss if I didn't mention,
00:18:46.320 he sat down with the kids at one of the tables at the Easter egg roll and just started talking to
00:18:53.720 him. And he talks to kids in a slightly more jovial version of the way he talks to adults.
00:19:03.120 I really like that because I do that too. I don't do goo-goo-ga-ga. I don't generally roll around on
00:19:09.060 the floor. I try to get on the level, hey, what's up, pal? How you doing, buddy? You have a good
00:19:14.100 time? That kind of thing. I don't know. And he does that. He's sitting there and a kid asks for
00:19:17.620 an autograph. Well, anyway, here's the clip.
00:19:33.120 pen. And he'd have the auto pen signed for it. He'd take the paper, hand it to his guys,
00:19:39.260 sign it with an auto pen pen. Not too good, right? He's making the same jokes about his political
00:19:47.860 rival that he would make to an adult, to the kids. And it's so charming. It's like that time
00:19:52.700 that he was doing the phone calls at Christmas to the little kids. He said, how old are you?
00:19:57.900 You're seven. You still believe in Santa? Because at seven, it's marginal, right? It's marginal,
00:20:02.560 He says to a kid. It's beautiful. It's so forthright. It's so blunt. It's so innocent
00:20:12.700 in a way. It's so American. I love it. Sorry. I know. Look, it's weird. I get it. If you want to
00:20:19.580 go move to France, move to France. But being very American, I love it. Now, speaking of the
00:20:24.820 government in Easter, Congressman Riley Moore and Senator Eric Schmidt, two of my absolute
00:20:30.400 favorite legislators in the country, have an excellent proposal to make Easter a federal
00:20:35.300 holiday. We'll see what that means. And then we'll get to Congressman Swalwell being a dirty,
00:20:39.660 rotten crook. First, though, I want to tell you about Brickhouse Nutrition. Go to takelean.com,
00:20:45.080 enter code Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S. This episode is sponsored by Brickhouse Nutrition. You've
00:20:49.300 probably heard about those weight loss injections everyone's been talking about. And for good
00:20:52.720 reason. The results can be pretty incredible. They work by helping regulate your blood sugar
00:20:56.560 and keeping your appetite in check. Here's the thing, though. Not everyone wants to deal with
00:21:00.120 weekly injections, especially when you start hearing about some of the side effects that come
00:21:04.020 with them. We're actually, we're talking about some side effects, some social side effects if
00:21:07.640 you don't do them for the right reasons. So this is a weight loss supplement developed by doctors.
00:21:12.200 People are seeing some really impressive results. The ingredients in lean are backed by research
00:21:15.560 showing they can help lower blood sugar, turn stored fat into energy, and reduce those constant
00:21:19.440 cravings and hunger pangs that make dieting so hard. So if you want to lose some weight for the
00:21:24.360 right reasons. Now, for the wrong reasons. For the right reasons in a healthy, sane, balanced way,
00:21:31.100 and you don't want to inject yourself with a bunch of stuff, this is one way to do it. Multiple
00:21:34.980 producers and employees at The Daily Wire have tried lean, and they've never looked sexier.
00:21:39.120 That's a fact. Take that to the bank. Let's get you started right now with 20% off and free rush
00:21:43.340 shipping so that you can add lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Takelean.com. Enter code
00:21:47.160 Knowles for your discount. That is promo code Knowles, Canada, W-L-E-S at takelean.com.
00:21:52.000 Riley Moore and Eric Schmidt want to make Easter a federal holiday.
00:21:56.120 So Riley Moore writes,
00:21:58.520 There is no federal holiday for Easter, the most important day in the Christian faith.
00:22:01.340 Senator Schmidt and I think that should change.
00:22:02.940 We've introduced a bill to make Easter Monday a federal holiday.
00:22:06.580 And then he posts a headline for the op-ed in which he pitched this,
00:22:09.800 which coincidentally was in the Daily Wire.
00:22:11.780 And if you want to get this news first, you've got to subscribe and become a Daily Wire member
00:22:14.640 because we've got the goods, baby.
00:22:15.960 So Congressman Moore goes on, beautiful thread,
00:22:19.540 including an image of the PietĆ  by Michelangelo and all sorts of beautiful art and reasoning as
00:22:25.240 to why this should be a holiday. But really this is intuitive to a lot of people. One reason why
00:22:32.060 Easter is not yet a federal holiday is Easter falls on a Sunday. But other federal holidays
00:22:37.840 at least sometimes fall on Sundays or Saturdays. And what do we do? We celebrate the holiday
00:22:44.880 the following Monday. That's what we do, any sort of day. And we do that because we want to
00:22:54.660 distinguish what our society considers holy. That's why we have them. You'd think if a federal
00:23:00.700 holiday fell on a weekend, you'd say, okay, well, all right, you're not getting a day off.
00:23:04.360 You had time to spend with your family, you had time to celebrate now. But no,
00:23:07.000 we make a point. Federal holiday, you get a day off. And we don't do that for Easter.
00:23:11.600 holidays don't only reflect what a society considers holy holidays in many ways establish
00:23:21.580 what a society considers holy just like the law is a teacher the libertarians have this view that
00:23:30.240 politics is entirely downstream of culture so the law is merely reflective of what we've already
00:23:34.740 decided ourselves in the popular culture the liberals that the true left-wing liberals they
00:23:41.120 know that that's not really true. They might muse about that in their philosophical bull sessions,
00:23:47.120 but they know that's not really true. The real left-wing liberals understand that the law is a
00:23:51.180 teacher. That's why they change society. They social engineer through the law. And conservatives
00:23:56.440 need to get onto this too. No one cares about Juneteenth, right? When did Juneteenth become a
00:24:03.820 federal holiday six, seven years ago? When Juneteenth became a federal holiday, statistically,
00:24:11.380 no one cared about or had even heard of Juneteenth. Most people, hey, quick question. What's
00:24:17.920 Juneteenth? What does it celebrate? What event does Juneteenth commemorate? Can you tell, don't
00:24:22.640 Google it. Don't grok it right now. Can you close your eyes? Can you tell me what Juneteenth
00:24:26.680 commemorates? No. You say, well, the emancipation of the slaves. No, it doesn't. The slaves were
00:24:33.560 emancipated in two ways, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. The
00:24:39.080 Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the rebelling states, and then the 13th Amendment
00:24:44.580 abolished as a matter of the Constitution. Juneteenth celebrates neither of those things.
00:24:48.240 Juneteenth celebrates the day that the mailman finally got to Texas to bring word to a town
00:24:54.640 that slavery had been abolished. Most people today don't know that, but we do know that we
00:25:01.280 have to consider Juneteenth holy. If Juneteenth is a holiday, then Easter certainly should be a
00:25:09.040 holiday. Easter is the most important day in the Christian liturgical year. It's more important
00:25:15.060 than Christmas. Christmas is a federal holiday. Easter should be too. On Easter, we commemorate
00:25:23.180 the conquest of death on the cross from Good Friday. Good Friday probably should be a holiday
00:25:27.700 too. Just doling out free pay, free days, but we should. It's a good investment because it
00:25:35.000 establishes what we consider holy. Are we a Christian nation? I know there's no official
00:25:42.240 religion. I know we have no established church at the federal level, though we did have established
00:25:45.960 churches at the state level for decades after the constitution was ratified. I know. I'm not
00:25:50.040 talking about anything official when it comes to the official state religion, but are we a Christian
00:25:55.160 country? The guys on the Mayflower, were they Christian? Even the founding fathers, did they
00:26:01.960 speak in a Christian way, speaking of providence? Did John Jay write in Federalist number two
00:26:06.940 that he thanks God, that providence has given this people a common religion? He wasn't talking
00:26:12.620 about Islam. He wasn't talking about Shintoism. He was talking about Christianity. Does our
00:26:17.620 national anthem say, conquer we must when our cause it is just and this be our motto and God
00:26:21.100 does our trust? Is one nation under God in our national, sorry, in our Pledge of Allegiance?
00:26:26.400 Is in God we trust in our money? Yeah. Are we a Christian country? Yeah. Even today,
00:26:31.640 even today we're still a Christian country. How is Easter not a federal holiday? Because the Libs
00:26:37.460 don't want us to be a Christian country. That's why they want to get rid of Columbus Day in large
00:26:43.020 part because Columbus was a devout Catholic. That's why they want to add all these other
00:26:47.460 holidays. You want to have Martin Luther King Day? Fine. I think there were better talent that
00:26:55.480 could have filled that role if you want to have a holiday of that sort. But fine. Okay, we can have
00:27:01.000 MLK Day. We have all sorts of days. We should have Easter. Is Christianity at least as important
00:27:12.200 to America as the day the mailman finally got to Texas to tell them that slavery had already been
00:27:17.280 abolished? I think so. I think the resurrection is at least as important to Americans. This is a
00:27:22.100 no-brainer. Any members of Congress, any senators who vote against that, they're not going to make
00:27:27.900 it. And they shouldn't make it in their primaries. Speaking of Congress, another scandal for Eric
00:27:34.800 Swalwell. This guy can't win for losing. Swalwell already had the sex scandal. He shacked up,
00:27:41.760 allegedly, with a Chinese spy named Fang Fang. This was some years ago. Compromised, looks goofy.
00:27:48.300 Okay. He has another scandal as he's running for California governor. And this is being pushed
00:27:53.940 even by Democrats, Tom Steyer in particular. Swalwell is not a resident of California.
00:28:00.060 The state constitution of California says you have to be a resident to run for governor.
00:28:04.360 He's not a resident. His residency is a kind of a cheat where he's renting a room in a friend's
00:28:10.820 house or something, but he really lives and his family lives in Washington, D.C., which is fine.
00:28:15.120 I actually think legislators, federal legislators should move their families to D.C.
00:28:18.460 It's a fact of our modern election system with airplanes that what legislators have to do is
00:28:24.520 abandon their families, leave their families at home in the district to be a prop for their
00:28:27.960 political careers. And then if they do want to see their families, they have to fly back and
00:28:31.020 forth all the time. And it's disastrous. It's bad for getting things done in Washington, D.C.
00:28:36.140 it's bad for the family, it's bad for everybody. So I actually commend Swalwell for moving his
00:28:40.860 family to D.C., but he's not eligible to run for governor. Well, now he's got another one.
00:28:45.460 And it comes from the same reason that he can't establish residency in California.
00:28:51.480 Similar reason, at least. Swalwell, according to, got to give a hat tip here to Apple Lamps on X,
00:28:58.580 Swalwell is paying his wife many, many thousands of, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
00:29:05.520 out of his campaign account. I don't have the total number. It's a little unclear how much
00:29:09.640 money's come out. He's paying his wife out of the campaign account to watch their kids.
00:29:16.660 Does that seem like a legitimate campaign expense to you? Can I do that? Can I bill
00:29:21.940 Daily Wire? Can I send invoices into Daily Wire because sweet little Alisa watches the kids
00:29:26.840 while I do my podcast? Do you do that? Can you do that at work? You can send in an invoice to
00:29:33.540 your boss and say, hey, my wife, she cooked dinner tonight for a couple hours. She took
00:29:37.600 the kids to the zoo. That'll be $10,000, please. No, that's ridiculous. I don't know if this is
00:29:44.980 illegal. It might be legal. Even if it's legal, it is most definitely corrupt. Now, I view this
00:29:53.400 for Swalwell as three strikes you're out. I view this as the Democrats cutting bait on this guy.
00:29:59.960 He's a doofus.
00:30:00.980 He would be a terrible governor.
00:30:02.180 He's not a good candidate for governor.
00:30:03.500 It's California, which is left of Lenin, but even still, this guy's pretty weak.
00:30:07.460 I think this is three strikes and you're out.
00:30:11.040 Why is he doing all of this?
00:30:12.980 Well, this gets, as always, these stories interest me mostly because of what they tell
00:30:17.640 us more deeply about political philosophy and how to engage in politics.
00:30:21.840 The reason he's doing this, the reason he has at least two of these scandals, I don't
00:30:26.100 know about Fang Fang, but at least the two ladder scandals. The reason he's doing this
00:30:30.620 is because he's broke. His net worth is basically zero. I think he reported, it's hard to track
00:30:39.620 down the precise net worth of these guys. I think his purported net worth is over $400,000,
00:30:45.540 which is a good amount of money. But I don't think that's really liquid. I don't think it's
00:30:50.260 based on some investment or something. I don't think he has access to that cash. And when you
00:30:53.760 add on liabilities that he already reports, like student loans, like his mortgage, other things,
00:30:59.660 I think he has zero money. I think he has zero dollars or negative money. He might have more
00:31:05.780 debts than he has assets, which means he can't buy the second house. It's expensive being a
00:31:12.420 politician. Sometimes people say, these congressmen, they're making too much money.
00:31:16.180 They're making, what is it, $174,000, $175,000 a year. That's a lot of money.
00:31:19.320 it's really not for that job because that job if you want to do it well requires you to have two
00:31:25.480 houses in at least one very expensive area washington dc but maybe also in an expensive
00:31:34.020 area if you're a congressman from california or new york or wherever but it's expensive you got
00:31:39.420 to fly all over the place and it's it's tough they don't make a lot of money given their job
00:31:44.040 requirements. You got to buy people stuff. They don't make a lot of money. They are open to a lot
00:31:52.540 of bribery and corruption and they give into it. These are the risks of being a poor politician.
00:31:58.740 I remember for years, the populist base of which I am a member, despite my bow ties. I am a member.
00:32:05.320 I like, two cheers for populism, I say. But they would say, we need to get these billionaires
00:32:12.260 out of politics. Uh-uh. Totally disagree. Hard disagree. Give me more millionaires and 100
00:32:18.760 millionaires. Give me billionaires in politics. Give me Trump, actually. You know why? There are
00:32:26.000 some risks of having rich guys in office. Sure, there's risks to anything in politics.
00:32:31.940 The risks of political corruption are much, much less. It's very hard to buy those people off.
00:32:36.940 It's very easy to buy off Swalwell.
00:32:39.260 It's very easy to compromise Swalwell.
00:32:41.600 It's very easy to open Swalwell up to blackmail.
00:32:44.820 Very hard to do it to someone like a Trump or a Mitt Romney for that matter or a Mike Bloomberg for that matter.
00:32:51.760 I'm for it.
00:32:54.200 Who's our richest president we've ever had?
00:32:56.140 Trump.
00:32:56.600 Who's our second richest?
00:32:57.880 George Washington.
00:32:59.700 That's who.
00:33:00.760 Pretty good.
00:33:01.300 Pretty good example.
00:33:02.880 Tough for Swalwell because, really, these attacks are not coming from the right.
00:33:06.200 These attacks are coming from the left.
00:33:07.920 I think they've had enough of him.
00:33:10.060 And had he run his career a little bit differently, he wouldn't be dialing for dollars and getting caught with Fang Fang.
00:33:15.320 And he's, I think he's out.
00:33:17.400 Speaking of marriage, speaking of fat cats, the fat jabs, the shots, the Olympic shots,
00:33:25.980 they're also having a negative effect.
00:33:29.900 everyone's only seeing the upside. There's some real negative effects. Namely, it's causing
00:33:34.920 everybody to get divorced. The fat jabs are reportedly doubling the divorce rate.
00:33:40.620 Daily Wire Plus members can now chat live with the show. No longer are you just here to watch
00:33:44.160 the conversation. You can now be part of it. Ask your questions right now. Get answers here as we
00:33:47.940 go. Dailywire.com slash subscribe. My favorite comment yesterday is from Bob Gunner 3086 says,
00:33:53.700 I thought I was an SHIT talker, but Mr. President, chef's kiss. Yeah. Yeah, I made this point on
00:34:01.480 Twitter yesterday and some people were very upset with me. I said that tweet about we're going to
00:34:08.100 turn your country into hell, open the effing straits, praise be to Allah, Trump. I said,
00:34:14.400 that's a really masterfully written tweet. I said, it's actually rhetorically sophisticated.
00:34:19.520 The reason it's rhetorically sophisticated is because it's this crazy shock to the system.
00:34:24.120 Trump, for all his trash talking, he doesn't usually go blue.
00:34:27.500 Well, sometimes he does.
00:34:28.560 He doesn't usually go blue in tweets and written language.
00:34:31.240 And he only rarely does it when he's speaking.
00:34:33.500 But this was so blue, so in your face.
00:34:36.220 And then he had that praise be to Allah thing.
00:34:39.520 And you realize, okay, this is actually a disciplined tweet.
00:34:41.440 He actually thought about this.
00:34:42.620 Because that was dry humor that he inserted there at the end.
00:34:45.300 And what it also showed us was that that whole tweet was itself mocking the way that the Iranians speak.
00:34:53.500 The Iranians are the ones who say,
00:34:55.400 The great Satan, America will go down in a ball of fury, fire from heavens raining down.
00:35:01.980 They're the ones who talk trash like this.
00:35:04.740 And so what does Trump do?
00:35:05.540 He does the American version of that.
00:35:07.500 He says, open the effing straits or you're going to be living in hell.
00:35:11.480 You're going to be, I'm going to blow up all your bridges.
00:35:13.560 I'm going to blow up all your power plants.
00:35:15.300 Praise be to Allah. The praise be to Allah is a revelation that he is mocking the way that they
00:35:20.960 talk. He says, maybe you don't get me, so let me speak your language. You can say, I don't like
00:35:26.380 that, or I do like that, or I think it's funny. But regardless, that is rhetorically very
00:35:30.080 sophisticated. It is. It is. Okay. Everyone's hot on the fat shots. Everyone's hot on it, right?
00:35:39.680 Everyone's taking it. They say it's for health reasons. Maybe in some cases it is.
00:35:42.320 but for a lot of people, they just want to look better. Well, a real downside here,
00:35:47.240 namely, people are getting divorced because of them. Here's from The Telegraph.
00:35:52.260 Fat jabs to unleash divorce boom. Couples undergoing rapid weight loss twice as likely
00:35:57.940 to end unhealthy relationships, study finds. Now, what's an unhealthy relationship? An unhealthy
00:36:04.200 relationship is generally defined as a relationship that I no longer enjoy. You know, what is that?
00:36:10.580 Does that mean, you know, that one of the spouses is, like, beating you?
00:36:13.380 Or does it just mean you're sick of your husband or wife?
00:36:17.320 It can mean any of those things.
00:36:19.120 The growing popularity of fat jabs is expected to increase Britain's divorce rates
00:36:22.500 as slimmed-down partners look for new love, health experts have said.
00:36:26.180 According to research from academics in Sweden,
00:36:28.480 people who undergo rapid weight loss are twice as likely to divorce.
00:36:32.200 The study focused on people who had been fitted with gastric bands,
00:36:34.980 known as bariatric surgery.
00:36:36.620 The risk of weight loss drugs will trigger an even larger divorce trend in the future,
00:36:40.100 researchers said. This brings me back to a conversation that I had with Clavicular.
00:36:47.560 I interviewed Mr. Ickler before he ran the guy over, allegedly, before he was arrested,
00:36:53.480 before he shot the crocodiles with the, or the alligators with the guns. And I said to him,
00:36:59.060 what are you after? You know, what do you want? And he said, I just want to look as good as I
00:37:05.120 can possibly look. I want to look, Max. I said, okay, that's very interesting. I found Clavicular
00:37:09.740 very, very interesting to speak to. I thought he was quite thoughtful, especially for his age. The
00:37:14.980 guy's 19 or 20 years old. I thought he was quite thoughtful. He was going down a very bad path,
00:37:19.600 but he was pretty thoughtful about it at least. So I really enjoyed speaking to him.
00:37:23.060 And I asked him a question that he both couldn't answer, but answered delightfully, which is, I
00:37:29.760 said, what is looking good for? Why do you want to do it? What is the goal? What's looking good
00:37:39.960 for? And he didn't have an answer. So the answer he ended up giving was, he said, look, I just want
00:37:45.460 to mog. I just want to mog. And what is to mog? I mean, dictionaries could be filled, encyclopedia
00:37:54.220 could be filled. The etymology of Mog would go back many millennia probably. What is to Mog is
00:38:02.460 to just be great, to be better than another. Not only to be great, but to be greater than someone
00:38:09.680 else. To Mog. And so that's it? Because I thought looking good, if you're a guy, the reason to look
00:38:19.920 good is to get a girl or maybe if you want to be a movie star so that you get the part
00:38:26.040 or maybe if you want if you want to be a politician so that you can win over votes or maybe
00:38:30.480 you get i don't know but mostly it's to get a girl that's why women want to look hot is to get a guy
00:38:36.480 and men want to looks max to get a girl that's what i thought he said no it is looks it is looks
00:38:42.220 maxing for its own sake even if it has all these other negative effects on you one example he gave
00:38:49.580 was because he was shooting himself up with so many hormones, he was impotent. He couldn't conceive
00:38:54.980 a child if he wanted to. I said, well, that's not good. Because if the point is to look good,
00:39:00.040 to get a girl, to get married, to have a kid, you just totally undermined your ostensible purpose.
00:39:04.980 So he said, well, that's not even my purpose. It's just to look good in a sterile way. Well,
00:39:11.000 that's how I feel about the fat jabs. Why are these people getting them? What they're all
00:39:16.520 going to tell themselves this. It's for health, but there are some negative health effects to
00:39:19.940 these drugs. So I don't know. I mean, talk to your doctor, right? I don't know that it is.
00:39:24.940 Maybe if you're single, I kind of get it. So you can get a spouse. It's hard out there. If you're
00:39:29.080 a little hefty, it's hard to get a spouse. But if you're already married, isn't there something
00:39:33.520 rather fitting about getting a little bit plump once you get married? Isn't there something kind
00:39:40.460 of, because you're not, who are you trying to, you want to look good for your spouse,
00:39:43.320 but you're not hitting declurb every night and indeed if you start to make an idol out of your
00:39:49.760 own looks that might undermine your marriage you know our lord tells us it's we're an easter week
00:39:55.840 our lord tells us what what good is it what what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but
00:40:02.140 to lose his soul what does it profit a tubby to lose all that fat but to lose his marriage
00:40:08.680 what does it profit a man to looks max but lose his family his progeny his legacy what's it for
00:40:16.320 I would be very skeptical I don't know I would be very I don't know but you got it with anything in
00:40:24.200 life you do have to ask yourself what it's for back in the old days before we got destroyed
00:40:31.980 before we got one-shotted by modern philosophy before Descartes just scrambled up all our brains
00:40:37.380 in early modernity, back in the old days of Aristotle, we knew that the way you understood
00:40:43.300 what a thing is, is largely by what the thing is for. What's the fat jab for, guys? Put down the fat
00:40:52.940 jab. What profited if a man to mog the whole world, but to lose his perhaps slightly chubby
00:41:02.780 wife. It's not a good idea. Okay. Speaking of purpose, President Trump has once again
00:41:08.480 upended standards and norms because as he prepares to build his hotel, sorry, I gave
00:41:15.900 away the game. As he prepares to build his presidential library, he just came out and
00:41:20.080 said, the one thing about it is it's not going to be a library.
00:41:23.540 I got one. Your son, Eric, posted a photo of what will be the Trump presidential library.
00:41:29.120 It's a huge skyscraper.
00:41:31.240 Is that all a library?
00:41:33.480 What else is going in there?
00:41:34.400 Well, it's a library.
00:41:35.300 It's a museum, a library.
00:41:36.600 It's a presidential.
00:41:37.500 But I wouldn't start it until I'm out of office.
00:41:40.860 I don't believe in building libraries or museums.
00:41:43.140 It's really like the Barack Hussein Obama one in Chicago.
00:41:47.640 It's not a good location, and it's a very unattractive building that's seriously late and seriously over budget.
00:41:55.800 I think you're going to see a great one here.
00:41:57.700 and it'll go up on time, on budget, best location in Miami, best, they say it's the best block in
00:42:04.460 Miami and the state work. Will people live there? Will people live in the floors? No, it's going to
00:42:08.220 be most likely a hotel, you know, this concept could be office, but it's most likely going to
00:42:12.500 be a hotel with a beautiful building underneath and a 747 Air Force One in the lobby, which is
00:42:20.240 going to be a trick. You know how much I hate to say I told you so. I might be
00:42:27.260 I might be the most vindicated man on the face of the earth. I said, I've said since the first
00:42:34.040 Trump administration, maybe since year one, I said, I want Trump's presidential library to
00:42:38.520 actually be in Atlantic City and called the Donald John Trump presidential library and casino.
00:42:45.680 That's what I wanted. And we didn't get the casino yet, but he said it's going to be a hotel. I don't
00:42:50.720 really like libraries, he says. Look, I like libraries. I love libraries, actually. I'm kind
00:42:58.120 of a bookish guy. I have a bow tie on right now. I have my yearly bow tie on. Trump doesn't love
00:43:05.080 libraries. So it would be ill-fitting for Trump to make his presidential library primarily a library.
00:43:13.600 Trump's a businessman. Trump is a hotel magnate. Trump is a big real estate developer.
00:43:20.720 it's, it's very fitting for his building to be office space. The, the mock-ups of it are like a,
00:43:30.080 it kind of looks like Freedom Tower in New York, the New World Trade Center. I don't really like
00:43:33.220 the New World Trade Center. I didn't really like the old World Trade Center and you're not really
00:43:36.080 allowed to say it anymore. I thought they're kind of ugly. Now you miss it nostalgically, but
00:43:40.400 they're kind of ugly, but it's very fitting for Trump. He's a businessman. He's an 80s, 90s,
00:43:46.060 2000s New York businessman. It's very fitting. I love it. And frankly, Barack Obama's library
00:43:52.040 is fitting. It's a big, ugly, gray hunk of garbage, as is his legacy. So it makes sense.
00:43:57.800 Okay, before we go, there is one last Trump building thing that we need to touch on.
00:44:01.460 Trump was on Air Force One. He was asked about building that ballroom. So he's building this
00:44:06.940 ballroom. I saw it. I saw the cranes at the White House yesterday. And now a federal judge has
00:44:12.220 stepped in, of course, and said Trump can't build the ballroom at the White House. He says he can't
00:44:17.020 build the ballroom unless he gets approval from Congress. Mind you, the ballroom is being built
00:44:21.860 with private funds. Not one taxpayer sent is going toward building the ballroom. But the federal
00:44:28.120 judge, I mean, a federal judge would probably try to stop the Artemis launch, probably try to make
00:44:34.080 Artemis turn around from right behind the moon, say, sorry, this might help Trump. Sorry, rocket
00:44:39.100 you have to turn around, you have to come home because federal judge Sally Fernandez in the
00:44:45.560 district court of whatever says that Trump can't do it. But now they're saying he can't build a
00:44:50.540 ballroom. And this is really silly. One, because many presidents before him have built things on
00:44:58.700 the White House grounds, many. But two, the reason this is really silly is, and I haven't heard
00:45:04.420 anyone really talking about this. The ballroom isn't just a ballroom. Here he is on Air Force
00:45:10.880 One. Considered the best, most beautiful by far. What's your timeline? So we're ahead of schedule
00:45:20.100 and under budget. And all of this money, all of the money paid is, are paid by myself and donors.
00:45:27.860 It's all donors. There's not one dime of government money going into the ballroom.
00:45:34.420 Now, the military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed.
00:45:44.420 But the military is building a massive complex under the ballroom, and that's under construction, and we're doing very well.
00:45:51.780 So we're ahead of schedule.
00:45:52.980 That's part of it.
00:45:54.220 The ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what's being built under the military, including from drones and including from any other thing.
00:46:04.420 The ballroom will be over the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.
00:46:10.600 Going back to the initial construction of the East Wing of the White House, of all the things that have ever been in that area of the White House grounds,
00:46:17.780 it started under Teddy Roosevelt and then was expanded under Franklin Roosevelt.
00:46:23.440 Why?
00:46:24.660 Why did Franklin Roosevelt build there?
00:46:27.220 He built there, he built the East Wing as cover for a wartime bomb shelter.
00:46:34.080 It was a cover.
00:46:36.120 Truman vastly expanded it.
00:46:37.580 Neither of those guys got congressional authorization for it.
00:46:40.600 And this too.
00:46:42.000 The White House does need a bigger event space.
00:46:43.580 The White House is weirdly kind of small.
00:46:45.460 So they do need an event space.
00:46:48.520 But he's updating the emergency command center, which is directly underneath this.
00:46:55.440 We shouldn't even really know.
00:46:57.160 It shouldn't be that popular that that's what's underneath this.
00:46:59.240 But it's so, so stupid.
00:47:01.520 a judge says that Congress needs to give approval for the president to renovate his residence
00:47:09.200 with private money when no other president has ever had to deal with that? Totally crazy.
00:47:14.840 Totally crazy what they hold this guy to. Okay. I have much more to say. I have much more to say,
00:47:21.120 but there's no time. No member block today. I got to catch a flight back to Nashville.
00:47:24.920 I will see you all tomorrow. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. See you then.
00:47:31.520 o o o