The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1968 - World's First Black Quadriplegic Trans Woman Appears At The Met Gala

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00:00:27.080 It took 250 years, but at long last, the first black, quadriplegic, transgender woman with cerebral palsy signed to a major modeling agency has appeared at the Met Gala.

00:00:43.200 They say the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. 0.98

00:00:47.380 Now, putting aside the paralyzed transvestite, the Met Gala has been a freak show for many years, 1.00

00:00:53.100 and wise men dating back to antiquity have warnings for us about what that means for our country. 0.95

00:00:58.640 Then, a federal judge apologizes to President Trump's latest would-be assassin.

00:01:03.700 Bobby Kennedy wants your kids to be less fat.

00:01:06.280 And the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, explains how the Iran ceasefire can survive repeated barrages of missiles from both sides.

00:01:14.900 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:17.380 Welcome back to the show.

00:01:36.800 McDonald's is ditching self-serve soda machines.

00:01:40.060 This is another one. It's kind of like the Met Gala.

00:01:41.600 It seems like it's a minor story,

00:01:43.220 but it's just one of those stories that tells you how our culture is collapsing.

00:01:46.980 We don't have trust anymore. People are stealing soda. People don't even want to interact with other people. We will get to all of it. But the most important story, the one taking over the Internet, is Aaron Rose Phillip, who is a man, a black man, a black crippled man, who thinks that he is a woman, who is signed to a major modeling agency.

00:02:11.180 because that's when you want to sell really nice clothes you want to you want to look for the most

00:02:17.920 physically attractive people you go to this person he appears at the Met Gala a lot of people are

00:02:26.060 making jokes about this on social media a lot of people feel like they can't make jokes about it

00:02:29.540 and you don't want to make jokes about the guy obviously the guy's had a tough life and he's

00:02:33.100 in the thrall of some crazy ideologies and he thinks he's the opposite sex and that's like the

00:02:37.980 least of it, but people are making a big deal. They say, this is crazy. This is the Met Gala.

00:02:43.220 The Met Gala is this big fashion show. And how on earth could this guy be there as a symbol of

00:02:50.100 beauty? He's signed to a major modeling agency. This is crazy. How on earth could that happen?

00:02:55.780 And I'm not surprised by this at all. And you shouldn't be surprised by this at all.

00:03:00.800 And in fact, this has always happened. The reflex for conservatives is whenever something weird

00:03:05.900 pops up in the culture. We say, things are getting crazy now. No, no, no. Things have always been kind

00:03:10.860 of crazy. And then we go through periods where they get less crazy. And then we forget all the

00:03:14.720 important lessons and what made us live in the good periods, like the high middle ages. And then

00:03:18.560 things start to get crazy again. But you had ancient writers talking about this. Actually,

00:03:22.580 you know what? Forget about the paralyzed, transsexual, black cerebral palsy supermodel. 1.00

00:03:28.220 Forget about him for a second. Everyone else there was dressed up like it was a freak show. 1.00

00:03:34.240 The one aside I have to make, this is a little, I know it's a family show, Vera Wang, who is like 1.00

00:03:40.480 75 years old or older, Vera Wang looked uncomfortably hot. I don't know if you saw the 0.99

00:03:47.860 pictures going around. Vera Wang looks like she's 23. I don't know how they do it. It's really

00:03:53.740 weird. But anyway, the dress she was wearing was also pretty out there. And then everybody else

00:03:57.680 was just wearing really crazy freak show stuff. Dollars taped to their noses and all sorts of

00:04:03.020 big, puffy, lunatic stuff because it's a freak show. We had this stuff in the 19th century to

00:04:10.200 some degree. We had freak shows. We had traveling circuses. Now we have to pretend because of body

00:04:15.100 positivity. We'll get to that in a second because Trump wants your kids to be less fat. So does

00:04:18.640 Bobby Kennedy. But we've always had freak shows and circuses and sometimes they're really restrained

00:04:24.020 and sometimes they take over the whole culture. But that's just what happens when societies become

00:04:29.180 decadent. So now we have to pretend that the freak shows are really beautiful and normal and

00:04:33.620 the pinnacles of beauty, I guess. But we always have these things. Go all the way back to our

00:04:41.060 friend Juvenal, AD 55. We're talking about a first century writer who writes in the satires,

00:04:48.720 Syrian Orontes has long since polluted the Tiber, bringing its language and customs, 1.00

00:04:53.640 pipes and harp strings, saying all this weird exotic stuff is infecting our otherwise virtuous 1.00

00:04:58.900 a city. He writes in the satires, your country clown, Quirinus, now trips to dinner in Greek 0.61

00:05:04.760 fangled slippers and wears Nyseterian ornaments upon a Saramatic neck. I love these words. These 0.58

00:05:11.460 are really great words referring to awards that you win in games and oils that you wear for

00:05:17.720 wrestling. But what he's saying is it's all a big freak show. You took our good, normal, virtuous

00:05:23.480 country and it's become a freak show with all sorts of weird exotic stuff. And there's a very

00:05:28.940 famous line from Juvenal, which is everything now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two

00:05:33.180 things, bread and circuses. And that's the stage of culture that we're in. We're in the bread and

00:05:39.360 circuses stage. Our popular entertainment is not really edifying. It's not beautiful. You get that

00:05:46.040 at some points. There are eras when you have very serious novels dominating the culture, when serious

00:05:51.240 poetry is dominating the culture. We had eras in America, especially at the end of the 30s,

00:05:56.160 into the 40s and 50s, really up through the 70s, when very serious movies dominated the culture

00:06:00.960 with complex storylines telling us about the human condition. And now we have largely freak

00:06:05.480 shows or kind of frivolous stuff. You know, the Marvel movies, those are bred in circuses.

00:06:09.840 Even before the Hays Code, before the 1930s, you had freak show movies. There's one actually

00:06:14.740 called Freaks. You might've seen the clip going around, oogalago, oogalago, one of us,

00:06:19.000 and it was dwarves and all this kind of stuff. So cultures go through these periods. That's

00:06:23.180 been true since time immemorial. We're in that stage now. Tacitus, another first century writer,

00:06:29.640 he writes in the Annals in Germania. He contrasts decadent Rome with the barbarian virtues,

00:06:35.440 with the German tribes. He says, no one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it

00:06:39.620 the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted. The way that we in the West could think of this now

00:06:43.720 is that we in the West have embraced trannies and killing our kids and wearing all sorts of 1.00

00:06:48.980 weird fashion and drag shows and whatever. And we look to the peoples that we call primitive, 1.00

00:06:54.240 barbaric, especially in the Middle East and Africa, especially Muslim countries. And we say, 1.00

00:06:59.120 look, they have their problems, but they don't get into this weird stuff, do they?

00:07:03.600 They know what marriage is. They know what law and order is. They know they might not have the

00:07:11.420 most functioning societies. They might not have the strongest economies, but they don't have the

00:07:16.720 kind of decadence that comes in. In many ways, I think, you're seeing creep in on some aspects of

00:07:21.740 the right, a sort of odd Islamophilia. For most of the last 25, 30 years on the right, you had

00:07:29.220 this intense contempt for Islam. And now there's this strange new respect that some on the right

00:07:34.360 are having for Islam. And I think part of that, everyone's saying, oh, it's because they're being

00:07:38.980 paid off or it's this or that. Maybe that's true. I don't know. But the way I can understand it is 1.00

00:07:43.320 the same way that Tacitus looks at the Germanic tribes.

00:07:46.780 And he says, look, these guys, they're real tough,

00:07:49.180 but they have certain virtues,

00:07:52.660 and that's why they're gonna beat us.

00:07:54.380 And that's why we need to get our act together.

00:07:56.200 Suetonius, very famously, in the Lives of the Caesars,

00:07:59.740 he talks about how in the good old days of Augustus,

00:08:03.140 Augustus didn't get into the decadence.

00:08:05.480 He said dwarves, he might've been talking about the Met Gala. 0.98

00:08:07.940 He said dwarves, and such as were in any way deformed,

00:08:11.020 Augustus held an abhorrence as abominations of nature, of evil omen.

00:08:15.860 So decadent societies exalt novelty, exalt eccentricity, exalt deformity.

00:08:22.540 This is where you get the body positivity movement from.

00:08:24.860 This is where you get the notion that we can't have objective standards of beauty.

00:08:31.160 This is why advertisements look really weird now, and it's why everyone's encouraged to act like a freak.

00:08:36.660 It didn't just come from the left or from Karl Marx or something like that.

00:08:40.220 it comes from decadence. And decadence is scary because it kind of feels nice for a moment because

00:08:47.400 you pretend that you don't have any moral obligations and you get to shirk all responsibility,

00:08:52.500 but it weakens your society. And even the primitive barbarian hordes, because they're 0.99

00:08:57.800 stronger, they have a stronger sense of discipline, they will come in and conquer you. 0.87

00:09:02.360 And that's really what much of the migration debate is about. That's really what it comes

00:09:06.260 down to. So we all want to point fingers and blame everyone else. We blame that culture and

00:09:10.620 that foreign people and that and this and that and the other thing. But ultimately, one of the 1.00

00:09:14.060 lessons that you get from reading antiquity or from looking at the pictures from the Met Gala is

00:09:18.760 first and foremost, we have to blame ourselves and we have to try to fix ourselves. Now,

00:09:23.240 one way that we're trying to do that is that President Trump and Bobby Kennedy Jr., the

00:09:29.900 health secretary, are going to restore the presidential fitness test.

00:09:35.280 But it was part of the message that President Kennedy wanted to send the American people

00:09:39.460 that if we were going to maintain our national authority, our national, our international

00:09:45.960 leadership, our moral authority as a nation, that we had to pay attention to our physical

00:09:53.240 condition.

00:09:54.100 And a physical fitness test was a critical part of that.

00:09:57.300 And I think it's very unfortunate that President Obama and President Biden abandoned it.

00:10:02.440 They said competition is not good for kids, which is not true.

00:10:06.720 If we're going to be competitive internationally, we need to be competitive with each other.

00:10:10.760 We need to teach people how to win and how to lose and how to process victory and defeat.

00:10:17.900 I love this.

00:10:19.440 I actually didn't realize that the presidential fitness test had ever gone away.

00:10:23.500 I never did very well in the presidential fitness test.

00:10:25.500 You'll be shocked to hear.

00:10:26.160 was not the most athletic. President Trump was asked in that press conference, they said,

00:10:30.240 Mr. President, do you work out? Some kid asking. He says, oh, I work out all the time,

00:10:34.060 a minute a day at most. And that's like me. I don't really work out. I still try to fit into

00:10:39.080 my suit, but I don't really work out. But it's important that the nation, especially for young

00:10:44.440 people, that they develop these habits of discipline, that they go outside, that they

00:10:48.760 play sports, that they run around. And notice what Bobby Kennedy said here. It's not just that you

00:10:53.280 need to look really good. He said, we need to teach kids how to win. Very important to teach

00:10:57.940 kids how to win. That they actually need to set a goal and try to pursue it and achieve it. You

00:11:03.180 actually can achieve things. But then he says, we also need to teach kids how to lose. And that's

00:11:09.040 just as important. We don't know how to lose anymore. We haven't known how to lose in like

00:11:15.900 35 years. Really in the early nineties that you had the beginning of the participation trophy

00:11:21.660 phenomenon, the idea that everyone's a winner. No one ever loses. I play little games with my kids

00:11:27.180 at night. We're always kind of gambling for, okay, whose bed are we going to read in tonight

00:11:31.160 with my two older boys? Okay, who's going to pick the first book? Okay, who's going to get

00:11:36.360 his pajamas on first? Those kinds of games. And the kids take it very seriously. And sometimes

00:11:42.740 they say, no, I want to win. Why didn't I win? Can I pick a book? Can I do this? And I am brutal

00:11:48.180 about. I'm brutal. I'm a dictator about it. I say, no, sorry, you won last night, but you lost

00:11:54.300 tonight. And you need to be a good sport. And you need to learn how to lose and how to win next time.

00:11:58.780 These are games of chance. You got to teach kids how to win and how to lose. Those are two sides

00:12:04.740 of the same coin. We right now can't do either. Especially young people, when you see this

00:12:09.900 listlessness, when you see this apathy, this alienation from society, dropping out of society,

00:12:17.820 What that represents is, so the reason that they won't try to win is because they can't bear the

00:12:23.540 anxiety of possibly losing. They don't know how to lose either. Think about someone like Trump.

00:12:27.740 Trump's a great figure for this because Trump knows how to win. He knows how to win big.

00:12:31.400 Even if you hate Trump, this guy has reached the absolute pinnacle of multiple of the hardest

00:12:38.780 industries in the world. Real estate in New York. He reached the top of it.

00:12:43.840 network television. Could you imagine just for one person to do one of those things is very,

00:12:50.580 very impressive. Network television, brutal industry. He reached the top of it for a dozen

00:12:55.440 years. Branding, luxury branding, the casino, forget about the casinos. He was a major casino

00:13:02.640 mogul for how many years? And then of course, president, the first time he seriously ran for it,

00:13:07.740 first time he ever seriously ran for political office, he won the most powerful office in the

00:13:12.180 land at least two times. So he has won more than anybody in our lifetimes. And what do his critics

00:13:20.240 always want to point out? Well, whatever happened to Trump vodka? Whatever happened to Trump

00:13:23.900 airlines? Whatever happened to your casinos when they closed? What a loser. Yeah. You know what?

00:13:30.940 He is a loser. He's lost way more than any of you ever have. You're right. He's lost way more than 1.00

00:13:36.540 any of you ever have. He's also won more at a higher level than anyone on earth today.

00:13:44.180 And those two things aren't opposed to each other. Yeah, he's lost really big. He's won really big

00:13:50.400 and you've done nothing because you won't even take the risk. Very, very important.

00:13:55.320 And this is very American. You know, Bobby Kennedy, he phrases his call for the physical

00:14:01.040 fitness test and he's really nice, kind of polite terms. Well, you know, it's really important for

00:14:05.620 us kids learn how to win here is how secretary kennedy's uncle described it some 60 years ago

00:14:15.220 there is nothing i think more unfortunate than to have a soft chubby fat-looking children

00:14:23.540 who go to watch their school play basketball every saturday and regard that as their week's

00:14:29.300 exercise i hope that all of you will join and everybody in the united states to make sure that

00:14:34.900 our children participate fully in a vigorous and adventurous life which is possible for them in

00:14:41.220 this very rich country of ours there is nothing more unfortunate than having soft chubby fat

00:14:48.420 looking children so saith the president of the united states not donald trump actually john f

00:14:55.060 kennedy so true because we have this great country it's a rich country we got a lot of opportunity

00:15:00.980 you got to go out there and you need to teach kids to win. And to teach kids to win, you got

00:15:05.460 to teach them their weaknesses and you got to teach them sometimes they're going to lose.

00:15:07.980 Okay. Speaking of President Trump and longevity, a federal judge has just apologized to President

00:15:12.700 Trump's latest would-be assassin. We'll get to that momentarily first, though. I want to tell

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00:16:34.100 at night. Go to goodranchers.com, American meat delivered. So President Trump's most recent would-be

00:16:40.500 assassin, that would be this wacko at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. He's just gone in 1.00

00:16:47.100 to see the judge. Obviously, he was arrested. And the judge apologized to the assassin.

00:16:56.140 Why? Well, here are the words of the judge. This magistrate judge Zia Faruqi. Zia Faruqi.

00:17:03.300 I don't think those ancestors came on the Mayflower, but that's a topic for another time.

00:17:07.360 Here, Judge Zia Faruqi is really, really sorry for the man who nearly killed the president and

00:17:13.980 the whole top of the government and lots of advisors and members of the press. Zia Faruqi

00:17:19.940 says, I am very troubled by what they indicate, the conditions that you have been subjected to.

00:17:26.580 I'm sorry. It sounds like things have not been the way they're supposed to. So Mr. Faruqi

00:17:34.920 said that he was very concerned that the shooter's treatment behind bars, you know, in jail

00:17:42.400 might convince the defendant that he wasn't getting a fair proceeding. He says, my concern

00:17:46.800 remains. If this is what happens in this case, what's happening in every other case, you know,

00:17:50.680 I'm really, really concerned here. Now, the shooter's own attorneys said that they did not

00:17:58.400 need a hearing on the conditions of the shooter's confinement. Nevertheless, the judge says, I'm

00:18:03.340 really sorry. I'm really troubled by the conditions that you're being subjected to.

00:18:08.340 Now, I personally am really troubled that the shooter's head is still connected to his neck.

00:18:14.640 That concerns me because I would think that if after, especially after multiple assassination of Trump's, one that blew off part of the president's ear,

00:18:22.740 if someone came into a major gathering of the entire United States government, along with many guests,

00:18:28.940 and pulled out a gun and started shooting and actually shot a Secret Service agent,

00:18:33.520 I would expect that that shooter's head would be plastered like a Jackson Pollock painting on every wall of the auditorium.

00:18:41.500 That's what I would expect.

00:18:42.960 And it concerns me that it was not.

00:18:45.740 I get lucky for him, I guess.

00:18:47.580 But I don't have too many concerns about whether or not the shooter has Evian in his jail cell.

00:18:55.820 Are his sheets Egyptian cotton? 0.52

00:18:59.100 I hope it better not be a cotton blend. 1.00

00:19:01.240 You know, that's cruel and unusual punishment. 1.00

00:19:06.100 This is what we're up against.

00:19:07.740 Forget about this judge.

00:19:08.540 I don't know that much about the judge.

00:19:10.260 All I know about the judge is his concern over the shooter.

00:19:15.440 But I do know that this is a pattern.

00:19:17.820 One, I know that these federal judges have appointed themselves presidents of the United States to try to stop every single aspect of Trump's agenda.

00:19:24.000 President Trump, the popularly elected president of the United States.

00:19:27.720 But two, I know that the left broadly has been minimizing, excusing, dismissing,

00:19:35.960 even celebrating left-wing violence against conservatives.

00:19:40.240 And it's bad enough when it's an ordinary conservative citizen.

00:19:44.440 But when you keep trying to shoot the president of the United States,

00:19:49.660 that becomes not just a personal fear, a personal problem, but a major political problem.

00:19:56.680 That is a threat to the entire government, to the entire country.

00:20:02.460 And constantly now, we see deference toward the perpetrators of crime, and we see attacks on the victims of crime, neglect of the victims of crime.

00:20:13.540 This, too, is a sign of a very, very decadent country.

00:20:17.520 this hearing would have been unimaginable to the founding fathers, to the early American

00:20:25.820 colonists, to the framers of the constitution, to everybody, including Democrats until like 2002.

00:20:32.440 Okay. This is a supreme level of decadence and it does not bode well for the future of the country.

00:20:38.960 Now, speaking of the Trump administration and death, the defense secretary, sorry,

00:20:45.480 Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, was just asked whether or not this ceasefire is holding,

00:20:52.840 a reporter has a fair question, which is that when both sides of a conflict are shooting missiles at

00:20:59.700 each other, that would seem to suggest, as I mentioned on the show yesterday, that the fire

00:21:05.880 has not ceased. It would seem to suggest that there is in fact fire. And Secretary Hegseth

00:21:12.440 gives a very good answer. We'll get to that momentarily and what this means on the Iran

00:21:15.440 war because a lot has happened. I said this on the show yesterday. A lot, a lot has happened

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00:22:41.460 Secretary Hegseth asked if all the missiles going back and forth would suggest the ceasefire is over.

00:22:46.380 Here's his answer.

00:22:47.920 Last 24 hours or so, Iran's fired at us. 1.00

00:22:50.900 We fired at Iran. 0.98

00:22:52.060 I'm just going to ask you more directly. 0.99

00:22:53.440 Is the ceasefire over?

00:22:56.120 No, the ceasefire is not over.

00:22:59.160 Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project.

00:23:01.740 and we expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened.

00:23:08.460 And we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have.

00:23:11.620 Iran knows that.

00:23:13.200 And ultimately, the president's going to make a decision

00:23:16.520 whether anything were to escalate into a violation of a ceasefire.

00:23:20.620 Key words here.

00:23:21.760 The Secretary of War is saying that this is a separate and distinct project.

00:23:26.660 The ceasefire is in place.

00:23:28.340 This is a separate and distinct project.

00:23:30.400 What is that?

00:23:30.840 What is this?

00:23:31.340 I think this is referring to the United States escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which he's saying is separate from the U.S. military strikes, U.S. Israeli strikes on Iran, which were intended, it seems, to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

00:23:48.380 But then maybe for a while we thought it was for regime change.

00:23:52.020 Then we thought it was just to take out some top leaders but leave the regime in place but make them more favorable to us.

00:23:56.500 then, you know, it was a little unclear.

00:23:57.820 There's a little bit of a moving target,

00:23:58.760 but we know ultimately the president says, 1.00

00:24:00.260 we're doing this because we can't let Iran

00:24:02.020 get a nuclear weapon.

00:24:03.720 So then what Iran does is they close the Strait of Hormuz.

00:24:06.940 And we have a ceasefire.

00:24:08.320 So Trump can say the war was over within six weeks. 0.76

00:24:11.880 And this is important for his use of the War Powers Act.

00:24:14.820 The War Powers Act, which is kind of a fake thing anyway,

00:24:17.160 and presidents in both parties blow right past it,

00:24:19.080 especially Democrats, Barack Obama and Joe Biden

00:24:21.180 in particular blew right past the War Powers Act

00:24:23.000 limitations on how they could unilaterally conduct war.

00:24:25.820 Nevertheless, Trump here, operating within even the statutory and very strict scope of the law, he's saying, no, no, no. We did the military operation within six weeks. Now we're in a ceasefire. If something starts up again, that would, in principle, restart the clock on the War Powers Act.

00:24:44.020 And it's not just Hegseth.

00:24:45.340 The Libs hate Hegseth.

00:24:46.460 They've been trying to kill his nomination from the beginning.

00:24:48.600 They've been trying to run him out of the administration.

00:24:50.580 To me, I love Pete Hegseth.

00:24:52.640 I've been friends with Pete Hegseth for a number of years.

00:24:54.980 But to me, even if I didn't know Pete, I would say this is a great recommendation of Pete,

00:24:59.540 the fact that the Libs are so eager to get him out.

00:25:01.840 They say he doesn't know anything. 1.00

00:25:03.840 He's ignorant. 1.00

00:25:04.660 He's whatever. 1.00

00:25:05.020 They make all sorts of nonsense about a guy who is extremely well-educated,

00:25:08.760 who has firsthand experience in the military, who's done a very good job.

00:25:12.660 But it's not just Pete Hexeth who's saying this. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

00:25:15.980 General Dan Cain, Raisin Cain, says that the ceasefire, yes, was in effect when Iran has

00:25:22.960 attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times. So does that break the ceasefire? He says no,

00:25:28.160 because they are still below the threshold of restarting major combat operations.

00:25:35.300 So ceasefire here is not just a literal term, but it's a term of art and war.

00:25:40.940 And this has been true in every conflict throughout human history.

00:25:44.480 Just because a war is declared over doesn't mean that there aren't still skirmishes.

00:25:48.100 In fact, there always are some skirmishes.

00:25:50.320 So the question is, when do some skirmishes rise to the level of restarting major combat operations?

00:25:55.920 And for now at least, again, we're shooting this show a little bit early because I'm on the road.

00:25:59.660 So who knows, by the time this is airing, maybe we're going to be fully in war again.

00:26:03.520 But at the moment, as I am sitting here speaking to you, this has not risen to that threshold yet.

00:26:10.260 and Trump doesn't want it to because we just got a ship through. I mean, this is the big

00:26:15.820 development. So Marisk says that a ship has passed through the Strait of Hormuz under U.S. military

00:26:21.500 protection. Initially, U.S. officials said that two ships were escorted through the Strait of

00:26:26.340 Hormuz. We at least have firm confirmation on one of those. Iran is saying no ships passed through

00:26:32.020 the Strait of Hormuz. Who cares? Don't forget, the Strait of Hormuz conducts 20% of the world's

00:26:37.680 oil supply, along with petrochemicals, along with natural gas, along with fertilizer, and a bunch

00:26:42.340 of other stuff. So if only one ship is getting through a day, the global economy is still going

00:26:49.380 to be grinding to a halt. So why does it matter? It matters, and they are fighting over, did a ship

00:26:56.140 get through or did a ship not get through? Because this is absolutely humiliating to the Iranians. 0.97

00:27:01.920 The Iranians played their last card. 1.00

00:27:04.320 The biggest card that the Iranians have 1.00

00:27:06.300 is to close the Strait of Hormuz. 1.00

00:27:08.520 As I've said many times,

00:27:09.640 it's a more powerful weapon than a nuclear weapon

00:27:11.660 because a nuke you can't actually really use,

00:27:13.900 but closing the strait, you can.

00:27:15.380 So they played it.

00:27:16.160 That was it.

00:27:16.680 You're going to take out our top leadership. 1.00

00:27:18.000 You're going to kill the Ayatollah. 1.00

00:27:19.020 You're going to launch all the missiles. 1.00

00:27:20.420 Fine.

00:27:21.800 We're playing the Strait of Hormuz card.

00:27:23.760 And Trump said, okay, we're going to cease fire.

00:27:26.480 I'm breaking your blockade.

00:27:27.700 First, I'm going to double blockade you.

00:27:29.000 Then I'm going to break your blockade.

00:27:31.400 if Trump gets away with that, then he has exposed the Iranians as very, very weak.

00:27:37.880 He's shown that their Trump card is not actually that powerful. Now, it's only symbolic at the 0.98

00:27:44.020 moment. You need a lot of ships to get through the strait. But that is the first big change

00:27:51.620 in the war. And it's one little ship. It is the first big change in the war in three weeks.

00:27:57.840 Really, really important. 0.68

00:27:59.520 You are seeing this, by the way, play out pretty well for Trump, even in the polling.

00:28:03.620 So there was a posted by the rapid response from the White House, a recent poll.

00:28:11.040 In the war with Iran, is Iran or the U.S. winning right now?

00:28:19.300 And back in March, 76% said the U.S. was winning.

00:28:23.560 So now you'd say after this dragged on past the four to six week mark,

00:28:26.560 Surely now it's down to 50% or 20% or who knows. No, it's basically exactly the same. 74%

00:28:33.300 say that the US is winning. Only 26% say that Iran is winning. When you break it down by Dem

00:28:40.380 and GOP, 40% of Dems think that Iran is winning. 60% of Dems say the US is winning. So a clear

00:28:49.440 majority of Democrats even see that the US is winning the war. It's kind of funny because if

00:28:56.380 you only listen to pundits on the left and the right, you'd think the U.S. is being absolutely

00:28:59.700 obliterated. But then you look at ordinary voters, and we'll get to how closely they pay

00:29:05.880 attention to the conflict. You get to ordinary voters, vast majority of Democrats say that the

00:29:10.720 U.S. is winning, and then 91% of Republicans say the U.S. is winning, compared to just 9% who say

00:29:16.040 that Iran is winning. And what about people who are following the conflict closely? Well,

00:29:23.200 you'd say, okay, the people who are following it really closely, they know that Iran is winning 1.00

00:29:26.300 right? No, 72% of people who are following the conflict closely say the U.S. is winning.

00:29:31.860 Only 28% who are following it closely say Iran is winning. So this is pretty impressive. 0.99

00:29:37.680 This comes from a Harvard-Harris poll, very reputable pollster. This means that as of now,

00:29:45.940 and you know I would have argued and did argue against the war in Iran before it happened,

00:29:50.200 as it was starting to happen, and consistently afterward. You know my views on this.

00:29:56.100 I'm skeptical that there's a reasonable probability of the massive success of overturning

00:29:59.920 the regime. Sorry, that there is no reasonable probability of that and that the proportionality,

00:30:05.680 meaning the goods to be achieved versus the losses incurred is not really in whack for it.

00:30:10.020 So I would have argued against it. Nevertheless, you got to say the tide has turned or maybe

00:30:15.200 continues to just move in favor of President Trump. So what do the Iranians do now? If the

00:30:20.880 U.S. can get even one boat through. It's pretty humiliating. So clearly what Iran wants is to

00:30:26.560 restart the hostilities. And the reason Iran wants to restart the hostilities is because 0.83

00:30:31.240 they need public opinion to turn in the United States. They want to restart the hostilities 0.60

00:30:36.760 because as of right now with the double blockade, they're just being choked off. They're being

00:30:41.440 starved. They can't get any money. They can't get any of their product out. They can't get

00:30:45.080 anything in, they're being starved. And so they need something to happen. They're just playing a

00:30:51.360 game of chicken now. Will Iran be able to keep the strait closed long enough for public opinion 0.99

00:30:56.180 to turn in the United States, forcing President Trump's hand, hit the global markets, lead to a 0.88

00:31:01.080 global recession, force Trump's hand, then he just backs down and Iran gets the big victory? Or is

00:31:06.260 Trump going to hold on longer and Iran is going to be crippled and starved and he's going to maintain

00:31:10.800 strong public support. The numbers that are coming out right now are very much in Trump's favor.

00:31:16.800 So this also explains why the Pentagon is coming in and saying, no, we still have a ceasefire.

00:31:21.060 And Iran, they're just like, oh, la, la. They're just shooting missiles as much as they can,

00:31:25.480 doing everything they can to provoke another action from the United States.

00:31:30.720 I think because they realize that's their best way out of it right now.

00:31:34.840 Pretty good stuff. You're getting it from an Iran skeptic. Pretty good stuff here. 0.61

00:31:38.480 Finally, a little more good news coming to the president.

00:31:42.080 Again, this can't go on forever.

00:31:43.140 It's a game of chicken because if it goes on long enough, you're going to get a global recession.

00:31:46.960 Republicans are already probably going to get wiped out in the midterms.

00:31:49.220 It's going to be an absolute tsunami.

00:31:51.900 Then Democrats are going to get into office.

00:31:53.560 They're going to subpoena.

00:31:54.180 They're going to impeach.

00:31:54.700 It's going to be a whole hassle.

00:31:55.740 So the Iranians know there is a real risk.

00:31:58.240 But right now, things are looking good for Trump.

00:32:00.400 Daily Wire has just launched a huge investigation.

00:32:03.340 You've probably seen this.

00:32:04.220 Maybe your congressman, your senator might have been posting about this on social media.

00:32:07.360 the vice president posted about this. Massive, massive expose, thanks to Daily Wire's own Luke

00:32:12.020 Rosiak, on fraud in Ohio. It's not Minnesota or California, not Democrat states. This is a

00:32:18.180 Republican state. And yet still, you have these left-wing politicians who are helping to facilitate

00:32:23.640 this with a lot of foreigners bilking you, the taxpayer, for billions of dollars. Read it all

00:32:28.980 on dailywire.com. We've taken down the paywall for this entirely. It's a five-part report,

00:32:32.700 really, really important. Do not let the media bury this. Do not let the politicians bury this.

00:32:37.140 dailywire.com. Check it out right now.

00:33:07.140 May 10th. Terms apply. Now, back to bad signs for our country. McDonald's is ditching self-serve

00:33:14.080 soda machines, and it's a big freaking deal. This is ordinarily the place where I would read my

00:33:20.560 favorite comment. But I am on the road, man. I'm in Dartmouth. I'm going to Florida. I'm going back

00:33:24.980 to Nashville. I'm going to Florida. I'm going all over the place. And Professor Jacob keeps sending

00:33:31.100 me such bad comments that I didn't even take the time to do it today. So let's get back to the

00:33:36.140 stories before I have to run out the door. McDonald's is ditching self-serve soda machines.

00:33:42.040 Why is this? Here, I'll just read the reporting from the Today Show. McDonald's is quietly

00:33:47.720 ditching its self-serve soda fountains. Why are they doing that? What is happening?

00:33:55.420 McDonald's has confirmed that it's going to phase out self-serve soda beverage stations by the year

00:34:00.220 2032. The reason for this is to create a consistent experience for workers and customers

00:34:06.120 and restaurants at the drive-thru and in the app. It is an evolution toward convenience

00:34:12.080 and the result of the growth of the digital service. And it is because of theft. So that's

00:34:22.000 really what it comes down to. Changing customer behaviors and preferences. Okay. So what that

00:34:26.680 means on the one hand is people are stealing. They're just going up to the machine. And now

00:34:32.160 soda doesn't cost that much. That's probably not that big a deal. But there is a little bit of that.

00:34:36.900 There is theft. We live in a much lower trust society than we used to. A big cause of that

00:34:42.220 is migration. But another big cause of that is just the decadence and the corruption and the

00:34:47.480 self-dealing of our public officials and the leaders of our institutions. So there's that

00:34:51.680 side of it. But then I actually think the biggest driver of it is that McDonald's doesn't want you

00:34:57.380 to eat inside anymore. Do you remember nostalgia's history after a few drinks, but do you remember

00:35:02.500 in those halcyon days of the 1990s when you'd go into McDonald's and it was nice 0.98

00:35:08.280 and it wasn't, it wasn't just homeless people and, you know, illegals, foreigners who don't

00:35:15.420 speak a lick of English who were just kind of hanging around. It was, you remember you'd go

00:35:18.820 kids would be there. There were little play gyms. The architecture was fun and whimsical. It wasn't

00:35:24.960 just millennial prison drab. It was nice and you'd go and you'd sit there and you'd have a meal with

00:35:31.600 your kids. It was just kind of nice and you weren't worried that you were going to get knifed by

00:35:35.340 somebody on your way out. Remember that? And now you don't really do that. Part of the reason you

00:35:38.780 don't do that is because no one's in there. So you don't want to be the only guy in there. It makes

00:35:43.040 it feel sketchier. Even the other day, beyond McDonald's, I'm telling a lot of personal stories

00:35:47.960 today. I was driving. We were coming back from a party or a dinner or something. And sweet little

00:35:52.540 Elisa and I, we wanted to get a little DQ. We wanted to get a little peanut buster parfait.

00:35:56.500 We were driving past the DQ. And Elisa said, Mac, we got to do the drive-thru. I said, I want to do

00:36:01.100 a drive-thru. I want to go into DQ and eat it there like a respectable American. She said, no,

00:36:05.540 you can't. You're going to get like shot. It's not. And we're driving through the drive-thru.

00:36:09.880 And it's true. You look in there. It's like either a ghost town. There's like

00:36:12.360 Dairy Queen tumbleweed going through. And if you see anybody, it's like a homeless guy or a

00:36:16.700 criminal. People don't really eat in these places anymore. It's all Uber Eats. It's all

00:36:22.320 drive-through. It's all delivery. We all eat in our little pods, in our cars, in our apartments

00:36:26.120 alone. We watch something on a screen. And the corporation is acknowledging that.

00:36:34.220 Theft and discouragement of eating in person, two signs of a society that is really in freefall

00:36:41.420 because you don't trust the people around you and you don't even really see the people around you.

00:36:46.340 You don't trust the people around you in part because you don't see the people around you

00:36:48.540 because we don't really have community anymore.

00:36:50.520 What was it, 30 years ago that Putnam wrote Bowling Alone?

00:36:53.780 The decline of civic associations, the decline of bowling leagues and all manner of community

00:36:59.580 activity, that's kind of gone.

00:37:02.180 Is anyone in the Lions Club anymore?

00:37:04.200 Does anyone join the Elks?

00:37:05.260 Not really.

00:37:07.080 Do you do much of anything?

00:37:08.700 For goodness sakes, kids don't even trick or treat anymore.

00:37:10.360 They now do, they park and treat or something.

00:37:13.140 What do they, trunk or treat, that's what they call it.

00:37:15.300 It's so sad.

00:37:17.140 Kids don't even walk around their neighborhoods anymore.

00:37:18.920 A bunch of parents maybe meet up in a parking lot and the kids go around the trunks and get candy. 0.99

00:37:24.700 It's pathetic. 1.00

00:37:26.820 Can't have a society like that. 1.00

00:37:28.940 You can't have a virtual society.

00:37:31.480 But we live in a virtual society.

00:37:33.160 I mean, at the basic level of our political ideology, we don't think that Americans are even a real thing.

00:37:40.920 We think that America is just an idea, right?

00:37:43.660 I mean, we don't really think that anymore, but that's what our politicians tell us.

00:37:46.940 And that's what a lot of people thought for decades.

00:37:49.080 America is just an idea. 0.71

00:37:50.420 A guy living in the middle of India right now is actually more American than the guy 0.90

00:37:53.460 in West Virginia. 0.96

00:37:55.080 It's just an idea.

00:37:56.120 It's just a, no, as anybody can be an American and Americans, maybe you're an un-American

00:38:01.420 or then you don't have a real country, which is where we're at.

00:38:06.020 And so as the result of a low trust society, getting all the way back to political violence, 0.97

00:38:10.580 you no longer can trust that some wacko isn't going to pop you off on the street. 1.00

00:38:17.120 And I remember even just in the last 15 years, I'd go visit the White House, not even as a guest. 1.00

00:38:21.760 I mean, a while ago, but before I was ever invited to go visit the White House,

00:38:24.960 I would go walk around, I would walk by it. And you could walk relatively close.

00:38:29.500 And then they started adding some barricades and then some more barricades and then some more

00:38:32.520 fences. And then you're just further and further and further away because there are real threats,

00:38:37.480 including now from one of the leading Democrat presidential candidates, J.B. Pritzker,

00:38:41.360 who has gone right back to the Democrat playbook and has said that there might be political

00:38:48.160 violence in America, but it's Trump's fault. Because of the political violence, I think that

00:38:54.740 the anti-Semites out there and the people who are racist because they know that I stand up for

00:38:59.640 communities of color have come out of the woodwork and, you know, and I receive threats. I'm sure

00:39:05.680 that politicians across the country are receiving more threats than they have before. But I hear

00:39:11.120 about it, and in particular, sometimes I hear the mention of my Judaism, right, of my religion.

00:39:16.400 That has spiked in the last couple of years.

00:39:17.940 Yeah.

00:39:19.820 Like threats against you and your family.

00:39:22.000 Yeah. I mean, I don't want to overstate it, but it's true. And it's more than it was in years

00:39:28.860 before.

00:39:29.120 What's the driver of that, do you think?

00:39:30.400 I think the environment, look, our leaders set the tone in this country, and I think that the

00:39:37.500 president of the United States has set a tone where political violence is okay. He's advocated

00:39:42.540 it himself before. It's a terrible thing. I mean, he's experienced. That's what I'm saying. He's

00:39:49.200 experienced the other side of that. We got to stand up against this. We need to be speaking

00:39:54.960 out against political violence. I'm a big believer in it's okay to disagree, but not be disagreeable.

00:40:01.940 Oh yeah, I'm a big believer in that. You know, I just, I think it's really important to have

00:40:06.880 civil dialogue. And that's why Trump, who my side has tried to murder at least three times,

00:40:11.360 my side, which also murdered the leading conservative activist in the country

00:40:14.600 and openly celebrates and encourages political violence against all ordinary conservatives.

00:40:21.380 I just think it's really important to tone down the rhetoric, you know? So for starters,

00:40:26.660 the specific example he's using, I guess Pritzker's Jewish. I didn't even know Pritzker was Jewish.

00:40:30.480 He says, you know, it's all this anti-Semitism. He said, there is. There's always anti-Semitism

00:40:34.380 throughout history. Sometimes it's worse. Sometimes it's a little less worse. A little

00:40:38.320 better, I think, is the word for that. But it's always kind of there. It's always bubbled,

00:40:42.440 you know, because of cultural tensions. It exists on the left and the right. There's no doubt.

00:40:47.360 where does most of it come from where does where do most of the keffia protests the kids on college

00:40:55.220 can the adults on college campuses like harassing jewish students where does most of the defund

00:41:02.560 israel where does that stuff come from is it the left or the right it maybe it's a little bit on

00:41:06.700 both it's the left and so that i mean totally crazy to blame that on trump who's got a town

00:41:14.200 in Israel named after him. Give me a break. But then he goes, it was at the broader point.

00:41:19.140 He says, yeah, this political violence, Trump sets the tone. In other words, it's his fault.

00:41:24.640 You have even the Atlantic acknowledging that political violence is a left-wing problem now.

00:41:31.560 You have Charlie Kirk struck down in cold blood. You have Trump has part of his ear blown off.

00:41:38.040 Do the Democrats, do they get introspective at all? No, no, not in the least.

00:41:44.200 They just go right out there and they say it's still Trump's fault, even the political violence.

00:41:48.660 Which, by the way, in the face of all the violence already coming from the left, to go out there and say something like this is to say to one's fellow comrades, keep it up.

00:41:59.820 Keep it up. You're getting closer.

00:42:01.060 Okay.

00:42:01.180 much more that I want to get to, much more on the decadence and decay of society because AI 1.00

00:42:09.800 is about to unleash a level of stupidity that you are totally, totally unprepared for. But we don't 1.00

00:42:17.900 have time to get to it because I got to run. So maybe we'll get to that tomorrow. In the meantime,

00:42:21.880 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you tomorrow.

00:42:31.180 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - May 06, 2026

Ep. 1968 - World's First Black Quadriplegic Trans Woman Appears At The Met Gala

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