The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1975 - BREAKING： Supreme Court Betrays Pro-Lifers？

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00:00:44.920 The Supreme Court hands the infanticidal left a major abortion win. 0.61

00:00:49.800 President Trump declares from Beijing that we need more Chinese students in American universities.

00:00:55.760 shock, horror, betrayal, or did he actually do that? Did he actually do that at all? And

00:01:02.540 a CIA whistleblower reveals even more deception and even crime from our old pal,

00:01:09.220 Dr. Fauci, on the origin of COVID, while Hantavirus displaces Wu flu

00:01:15.360 as the pathogen du jour. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:25.760 kitchen knives now have firmware software your knife is a computer and if you don't pay the

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00:02:55.660 System supplement subscription when you use code Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. Let's start out with the

00:03:01.120 bad news. Let's just get it out of the way because this is the biggest story of the day and the libs

00:03:04.820 are going to downplay it a little bit. It's pretty bad. The Supreme Court has just ruled that women

00:03:11.200 can continue receiving the abortion drug in the mail. And this is a really big problem because

00:03:15.920 most abortions now are done through the abortion pill. They're chemical abortions. So right on the

00:03:21.900 heels, just a few years after the Supreme Court, after almost 50 years, overturns Roe v. Wade,

00:03:27.520 biggest win that the pro-life movement has been fighting for for half a century.

00:03:31.940 Just a few years after that, you have the majority of abortions being conducted through a pill,

00:03:37.340 a pill that is now being used to subvert the state bans on abortion, the state bans which

00:03:44.780 were allowed to come into effect precisely because Roe v. Wade was overruled.

00:03:48.380 This great victory for the pro-life movement completely nullified,

00:03:53.980 not only by activists in various states, but by the Supreme Court. So what did they say?

00:04:00.900 Here's a CNN reporting.

00:04:02.700 The court is allowing women to continue to receive by mail the abortion pill,

00:04:09.040 not after going to see a doctor, but through telehealth visits.

00:04:12.960 So this maintains the status quo.

00:04:15.440 Specifically, this is in Louisiana. 0.82

00:04:17.280 Louisiana has a statewide abortion ban.

00:04:20.300 So you have activists here suing, saying that they want to be able to get the pill through the mail.

00:04:27.280 The Supreme Court, which is 6-3 conservative, last I checked, at least it's supposed to be,

00:04:32.580 decided that there would be a pause on the decision from earlier this month from the 1.00

00:04:38.340 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which required women

00:04:43.420 to obtain the abortion pill through in-person visits. So it's a little bit complicated,

00:04:49.680 but the the court of appeals gives the right decision here which is no no this telehealth

00:04:57.320 stuff to try to subvert the state ban on abortion we're not going to have that the people have a

00:05:03.020 right in their states through their representatives to pass the laws they want about abortion that was

00:05:07.940 the whole point of the dobbs decision overruling roe v wade roe v wade which pretended that there

00:05:12.240 was some constitutional right to kill your baby the supreme court in dobbs came out and did not

00:05:16.940 say that abortion is illegal or unconstitutional. That would have been nice. But the Supreme Court

00:05:21.540 had this very moderate, modest procedural decision, which said, hey, the U.S. Constitution

00:05:27.400 doesn't address abortion. So the states can pass whatever laws they want. Already, the infanticidal

00:05:33.660 left has undermined that. The Court of Appeals comes in and says, no, no, no, you can't get

00:05:37.700 around the Dobbs decision. You can't get around the state ban. And the U.S. Supreme Court just

00:05:44.060 says, well, no, hold on. Actually, we're going to lift the Court of Appeals pause and we're going

00:05:49.480 to send the case back to the Court of Appeals to decide it on the merits. So the court did not

00:05:53.240 explain its reasoning here. It didn't disclose the vote count, but we know that enough of the

00:05:59.160 conservatives went over to the liberal side to undermine their own decision in Dobbs.

00:06:04.640 We also know that Alito and Thomas, the two hardcore, reliable, great jurists, dissented.

00:06:11.860 Alito says, the court's unreasoned order granting stays in this case is remarkable.

00:06:18.180 And then he gets to the real heart of the matter.

00:06:19.460 What is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

00:06:27.540 That is what's at stake.

00:06:28.600 That's what this case is really about.

00:06:30.760 The Supreme Court says Roe v. Wade is overruled.

00:06:34.280 And then the Supreme Court comes out and says, actually, we'll never really mind.

00:06:39.760 So that was Alito's point, and he gets right to the heart of the matter.

00:06:43.080 Thomas goes further, though, as he often does.

00:06:45.700 And Thomas said, wait a second, the abortion drug through the mail is already illegal.

00:06:51.040 And it is already illegal from the perspective of federal law.

00:06:54.460 If you just go to the 1873 Comstock Act, the Comstock Act outlaws the mailing of abortion drugs all the way back in the 19th century.

00:07:07.040 So obviously, this is a direct challenge to Dobbs, a direct challenge to the biggest

00:07:11.460 success that the pro-life movement's ever had. It's a direct challenge to states' rights,

00:07:16.960 to the right of Louisiana to ban abortion. It's obviously a direct challenge to the rights of

00:07:22.300 babies who have a right to life. But it gets to the heart of the way our political order has

00:07:27.100 shifted and the way the conservative movement has shifted. We're in a time of great flux.

00:07:31.220 We love to discuss in the conservative movement, different factions vying for power,

00:07:36.440 And some people say some of the changes in the conservative movement are bad.

00:07:39.100 Some say they're good.

00:07:39.820 One way, though, in which the conservative movement writ large has improved over the last 10 years,

00:07:46.880 one clear way that it's improved, is that previously, the conservative movement,

00:07:52.340 under the sway of libertarian ideology, focused overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, on procedural questions.

00:08:01.340 Think about the way the conservative movement used to talk about immigration.

00:08:04.300 The conservative movement used to say that the problem with immigration as we currently have it is that it's being done illegally. 0.84

00:08:13.840 So we don't want this illegal immigration. 0.97

00:08:17.160 You need to get to the back of the line and come into our country legally. 1.00

00:08:21.220 The real problem with mass migration is that you're not filling out the right form. 0.93

00:08:27.080 We all want more migration, but you've got to do it legally.

00:08:29.880 The conservative movement used to say, my view on immigration is simple.

00:08:33.860 Legal good, illegal bad.

00:08:35.900 That was the view.

00:08:36.680 It was a very procedural view.

00:08:38.260 The new conservative view, the ascendant view in the conservative movement is, no, it's

00:08:44.280 actually all kind of bad, and it doesn't matter really how, look, it's worse if you don't 1.00

00:08:48.280 fill out the right paperwork, but the problem is that we're flooding our country with foreign 0.73

00:08:52.260 nationals, and we have the highest foreign-born percentage of the population that we've ever 0.99

00:08:55.280 had, and we don't have assimilation, and we have a collapse of social accord, of social harmony, 1.00

00:09:04.080 and a lot of these foreigners are abusing our welfare system. The problem is not the procedure, 1.00

00:09:09.700 it's the substance. Same thing here on abortion. The conservative movement used to argue,

00:09:15.920 and look, to great effect in as much as it led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They said,

00:09:19.440 look, look, look, the problem with the Roe v. Wade decision is not that it led to 70 million

00:09:23.720 babies being slaughtered and sacrificed to Moloch. The real problem with Roe v. Wade is that they 0.95

00:09:29.480 didn't follow the right procedures of the Constitution. The real problem with slaughtering 0.95

00:09:34.420 70 million babies is that really that right belongs to the states. And you say, well, I don't

00:09:40.840 know. I mean, okay, yeah, you're right. There's no right to an abortion, obviously, in the U.S.

00:09:46.960 Constitution. I don't think James Madison wrote that one in there with Invisible Inc.

00:09:50.120 but that's not the real problem. It's like the Norm MacDonald bit on Bill Cosby raping people.

00:09:56.520 He's saying, well, you know, the people all say the worst part of it's the hypocrisy. I don't 0.97

00:10:00.320 think it's the hypocrisy. I think the worst part is the raping, but that's the same thing with 0.82

00:10:04.600 abortion. Same thing with the mass migration. I think, you know, some people say the worst 0.98

00:10:11.020 part about the mass migration is not filling out the right paperwork. I think it's the flooding

00:10:16.940 our country with foreign nationals. You know, some people say the worst part of Roe v. Wade 1.00

00:10:21.800 is that subverts states' rights. I think it's all the murdering babies. That's the real issue.

00:10:26.500 And so there's been a real shift here from procedural questions to the real substance

00:10:30.960 of the matter. And obviously the problem with abortion is that you're killing babies. Your 0.93

00:10:34.360 mother is killing her own child. And doctors are totally undermining medical ethics, 1.00

00:10:39.920 undermining their Hippocratic oath to do no harm, and they're killing babies. That's the problem. 1.00

00:10:45.660 So Alito is totally right here in that this decision by the court is going to undermine

00:10:52.920 the court's decision in Dobbs to overrule Roe v. Wade. But then the deeper problem here is

00:10:58.880 abortion is not primarily a procedural question. Are we going to kill babies or are we not going 0.91

00:11:06.900 to kill babies? And what the left is proving in there, and even what the supposedly conservative 1.00

00:11:11.580 Supreme Court is proving in this stupid order about Louisiana is fighting on the procedure is 0.95

00:11:17.420 not enough. The conservative movement previously fighting all these procedural issues, they thought 0.97

00:11:23.560 they were being really clever. They said, look, we don't want to wade into the divisive substantive

00:11:26.980 questions because that might lose us some voters, that might lose us some support. We don't want to

00:11:30.440 make those arguments, which are going to be controversial. What we're going to do is fight

00:11:36.340 on this low but solid ground of procedure where we can all agree, whether you want more migration

00:11:42.100 or less, we can all agree that certain procedures need to be upheld. We can all agree to uphold the

00:11:50.240 basic, plain, original public meaning of the Constitution. And the problem is we can't agree

00:11:54.580 on that. The left hates the Constitution. The left has absolutely no respect whatsoever for

00:12:00.040 basic procedures of our country. They clearly have no respect for law and order. They don't

00:12:03.500 of respect for the physical borders of our country. It's why these two issues are pretty

00:12:06.960 analogous in the way that we've fought them and the way that our victories are being subverted.

00:12:12.040 So it seems to me the conclusion from all of this is we got to get to the substance, guys.

00:12:17.760 We can't keep hiding the ball. We have to get to the heart of the matter.

00:12:21.160 If you don't want to flood the country with foreign nationals and to quote the US State

00:12:25.600 Department and the White House, if you don't want replacement migration, if you don't want to 0.79

00:12:30.200 replace the American people with foreign people, then you have to make that argument. You have to 0.89

00:12:34.720 make the substantive argument, and you have to wield power in accord with those premises. 0.62

00:12:39.560 Same thing with abortion. We're not going to trick the left into giving up infanticide

00:12:46.480 by pretending that it's about procedural matters, by pretending it's about the letter of the

00:12:51.600 Constitution or something. They hate the Constitution. They don't care, and they'll

00:12:54.080 continue to undermine it. They'll undermine their own court decisions. So if you're going to win on

00:12:59.080 that issue. You have to make clear what it's really about. It's really about babies and not

00:13:02.900 killing babies. And you need to wield power in accordance with those premises. Okay. Now,

00:13:07.780 speaking of migration, President Trump, huge controversy here. His critics,

00:13:13.320 especially on the right, are saying this is yet another betrayal of MAGA and America First,

00:13:18.460 because President Trump in Beijing is saying that we need more, not just more foreign students at

00:13:24.940 American universities. We need specifically more Chinese students at American universities.

00:13:29.940 Maybe half a million Chinese students at American universities is fine. 0.65

00:13:33.360 So is this a betrayal of America first? Did Trump even really say that?

00:13:41.360 We'll get to his comments precisely. And then the facts. Also, the CIA director is in Cuba right now.

00:13:46.820 The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We're going back to Cuba, 0.95

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00:15:21.220 Has President Trump betrayed America first?

00:15:23.940 Has President Trump said that we need more Chinese students in American universities?

00:15:28.420 As far as the students, it's 500,000 students that come, good students.

00:15:35.760 I could tell them I don't want any students is a very insulting thing to say to a country.

00:15:44.640 They would then immediately go out and start building universities all over China.

00:15:48.720 But if you don't have those students, good students, by the way, if you don't and we do another thing, you know, if they're good and they want to stay in America, we won't give them a green card and things like that.

00:15:59.560 You know, and that's not only them, but other other countries.

00:16:03.660 But if you want to see a university system die, take a half a million people out of it.

00:16:10.020 And, you know, the ones that won't be hurt are the top schools.

00:16:12.920 The top schools will do fine. But your lower schools, your lower, the ones that don't do quite as well, those two, they'll be dying all over the place.

00:16:23.300 I frankly think that it's good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture and many of them want to stay here. 0.99

00:16:30.600 I think it's good. Not everybody agrees with me and it doesn't sound like a very conservative position.

00:16:37.080 and i'm as conservative i'm a conservative guy i'm really a common sense guy i think more than

00:16:43.100 a conservative guy i think maga is common sense you know people understand we want strong borders

00:16:49.300 we want strong military we want good education we want low interest rates we you know we want

00:16:53.820 but i think people would argue they worry about do they have nefarious intentions i know and we

00:16:58.540 worry about that and honestly you know they do things to us and we do things to them it's it's

00:17:05.080 it's a very very fine line the whole thing with students so they have 500,000 students

00:17:12.860 and our university system does great you know it does great you want to screw it up take a half a

00:17:23.640 million students huh and you're gonna you're gonna see bankruptcies at the lower end of good

00:17:29.240 colleges but they're not known or whatever uh you're gonna have a lot of problems so it's

00:17:34.120 something i'm always looking at but it's a very insulting thing to tell a country we don't want

00:17:41.060 your people in our schools i mean it really is now i'll have people say oh that's a terrible thing

00:17:46.440 you know it is a very insulting thing um and it's very interesting it's something didn't come up

00:17:55.480 today came up last time came up last time but i will tell you that school systems don't want that

00:18:01.340 to happen because you won't have much of a school system so what is trump really saying here look

00:18:09.180 some people i think that when i read not just with trump but with any political figure or any

00:18:14.920 religious figure when they say something and then it makes all sorts of headlines and everyone starts

00:18:19.840 freaking out and then i come in and i say well hold on let's see what he's really saying here

00:18:23.540 i think some people think that i'm i'm trying to read something into what that person is saying

00:18:29.980 that I'm trying to spin it, or I'm trying, I don't know. But that's really not what's going

00:18:36.840 on here. A really basic fact of language is that language has to be interpreted.

00:18:42.960 That sometimes the exoteric meaning of what someone says or of a text doesn't tell you

00:18:50.660 the whole story. That's not controversial. That's not political spin. That's just reading. That's

00:18:56.120 just interpretation. Obviously, words have to be interpreted. So the question is,

00:19:01.520 what is this person really getting at here is the most basic question you have to ask when you

00:19:08.180 encounter any text or any speech, especially a speech from a politician. Politicians who are

00:19:16.300 always kind of explicitly trying to accomplish multiple things with their words. None of that

00:19:21.300 is controversial. None of that is spin. And that's just politics 101. That's not even politics.

00:19:26.740 That's reading 101. So what is Trump saying here? Is Trump saying he wants way more

00:19:33.000 Chinese students in our schools? I don't know. Is Trump saying the university system is perfect?

00:19:38.460 I don't know about that. When Trump says, hey, you know, if you took these Chinese students

00:19:42.160 out of the schools, it would bankrupt the universities. I say, don't threaten me with

00:19:44.680 a good time. Hey, hold on. Wow. Well, hold on. What's the catch? But I think the key

00:19:50.560 to getting at what Trump is really saying here. One is recognizing where he is. He is making

00:19:55.700 these comments from Beijing at his first state visit to China of this term. He's negotiating

00:20:03.940 with Xi Jinping, the two biggest powers in the world, the US, the biggest power in China,

00:20:09.660 a rising power. And I think the key to interpreting what he's really getting at here is

00:20:14.640 the word that he uses most frequently. How does he open his comment? How does he close his comment?

00:20:21.100 He says, look, to tell the Chinese we don't want him here is a very insulting thing to say.

00:20:26.740 And if he just said it once, maybe you just write it off. But he opens up, he says, look,

00:20:31.060 that would be a very insulting thing to say. And then at the end there, he goes, it's very

00:20:34.820 insulting. I don't want to insult these people. That would be very insulting. He keeps going back

00:20:38.660 to insulting multiple times. He is on a diplomatic trip here. He's trying to accomplish goals on

00:20:46.040 trade, on war and peace, on preserving America's standing in the world. So he says, I'm not going

00:20:52.560 to insult the Chinese by saying, I don't want any of them in our country. First of all, he says, 1.00

00:20:58.100 there are 500,000 Chinese students in the country. That isn't true. Chinese enrollment in American

00:21:04.980 universities. Last I checked, someone can fact check me on this, but last I checked, it was

00:21:09.260 around half of that. It's about a quarter million Chinese students in the universities.

00:21:14.260 Now, maybe Trump just got the number wrong. He's got a lot of things going on in his head,

00:21:17.520 or maybe even that exaggeration of how many Chinese students are, maybe that's part of

00:21:22.420 the negotiation. Because Trump is saying that he likes having all these Chinese students here.

00:21:28.180 And yet, I can't help but notice during the first year of Trump's second term,

00:21:31.460 Chinese enrollment in American universities did not grow. It did not even stay the same.

00:21:37.620 It declined, and it declined pretty noticeably. It declined by 4% in Trump's first year.

00:21:43.360 And don't forget, if it declines by 4% in Trump's first year, the Chinese students,

00:21:49.300 all of the foreign students who are in American universities, are there spread out over four

00:21:52.820 years. So a 4% decline is going to be much more pronounced if you're looking at new students

00:21:57.660 entering into the universities. Just looking at the undergraduate level, you would say, well,

00:22:02.000 that could be a 16% decline of new students entering. And actually, I think the number,

00:22:06.980 when you look at total foreign students who are entering American universities, it's a 20% decline.

00:22:11.320 Now, on the substantive points, I don't think Trump is lying here exactly, or I don't think

00:22:15.080 he's totally lying. When he says it's important to have leaders, to have some students from other

00:22:20.020 countries come to our universities, that is true. In the ideal Michael Knowles regime of how many

00:22:27.440 students we take in from foreign countries, the answer would not be zero and the answer would not

00:22:32.220 be all of them or half a million or whatever. The answer would be some, a small number and

00:22:39.040 particular students. What we really want from the perspective of American interest abroad

00:22:43.220 is to bring the elite students from the other universities, the ones who come from political

00:22:49.780 families, the ones who come from wealthy families and influential families, the ones in other words

00:22:55.800 who we can bring to the American universities and then send them back out into the world

00:23:00.600 to influence those other countries in America's interests. Now, the problem with the American

00:23:03.960 university system is the university system is often explicitly anti-American. So that's a

00:23:09.800 problem for reforming the American university system. But that's actually distinct from how

00:23:13.340 many people we're going to bring from abroad to be indoctrinated into the American way of thinking.

00:23:19.180 So the way I interpret this statement, first, basic rule of politics, look at what the politician

00:23:25.860 does more than what the politician says. Politicians speak very loosely. It's not just

00:23:31.800 Trump. It's all politicians. So you can't just take at face value what a politician says. You

00:23:36.120 have to look at what he does. What Trump has done is shrink the number of Chinese students

00:23:40.320 who come to American schools. And he's done that recently, and he's doing that consistently.

00:23:43.520 and trump is trying to negotiate and to avoid what we were discussing yesterday

00:23:51.020 china is proposing which is a war trump lands in china and trump focuses on the personal

00:23:58.540 friendship between trump and xi jinping china when xi jinping gives his speech right after trump

00:24:04.620 he doesn't focus on the personal he doesn't focus on the individual he doesn't focus on

00:24:09.080 the great men of history. He focuses on the structural science of history that is impersonal,

00:24:15.480 that is collectivist, that is apparently inevitable. The way that liberals and leftists

00:24:21.060 often pass the buck on their moral decision-making, on their agency, onto the supposed science of

00:24:27.560 history, which we get from Marx. China's obviously a communist state. And Xi Jinping threatens war

00:24:34.680 when Trump gets there. He says, we're in the grips potentially of the Thucydides trap,

00:24:40.360 the Thucydides trap, which is this modern liberal interpretation of the Peloponnesian

00:24:45.300 war by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, which holds that a rising power, when a rising

00:24:53.500 power is threatening to displace an established power, war is inevitable, or at the very least,

00:24:59.700 very likely. And Trump is saying that's not true. War is not inevitable. Great men of history have

00:25:05.520 the opportunity to change things. We have freedom. We can make choices. We don't. War is not

00:25:12.500 inevitable. China comes to the table, says war is probably inevitable. And so in the context of

00:25:18.500 that, while Trump is sitting in Beijing, for him to say, look, we don't want to insult China.

00:25:22.720 And we like some Chinese and we want some of them to come in, even though, by the way, we are

00:25:26.880 are reducing pretty significantly the number of Chinese students who are coming.

00:25:30.740 That's all very important context to interpret what Trump is saying.

00:25:34.580 And this is why the thing that I love most about what Trump says here is,

00:25:37.460 he says, look, I'm a conservative guy.

00:25:39.060 And then he caveats that a little bit.

00:25:41.180 He says, well, I'm, you know, hold on.

00:25:42.660 He modifies that.

00:25:44.200 He says, I'm a common sense guy.

00:25:45.360 I think we're real common sense.

00:25:47.680 So he says, look, I am conservative, but I'm not an ideologue.

00:25:51.020 And by the way, conservatism itself is not really ideological.

00:25:53.780 We're common sense and we can work things out.

00:25:56.880 And we're going to work things out here. By and large, if Trump were saying all this and

00:26:02.420 massively increasing the number of students from China who are coming to our schools,

00:26:05.360 I'd say this is bad stuff. Bad stuff, wrong turn, don't do that. I just think there's so much 1.00

00:26:10.100 evidence in Trump's words and more importantly in his actions that that is not what he is doing.

00:26:14.700 He is trying to convince China to behave in a way that is commonsensical, not ideological,

00:26:20.620 that is individual, that is persuadable at the individual level rather than structural and

00:26:25.740 ideological and inevitable. I think this is all pretty good stuff, folks, and we need to focus on

00:26:31.420 what the politicians, especially what our president is doing, much more than the worst

00:26:36.800 interpretation possible of what he's saying. There's no spin in recognizing that words must

00:26:43.200 be interpreted. Okay, speaking of foreign intervention, the CIA director's in Cuba right

00:26:46.860 now. Sounds like we're about to get some new blends for Mayflower. We'll get to that momentarily.

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00:28:20.880 CIA.

00:28:21.880 So the CIA itself posts to X last night.

00:28:26.000 No commentary other than Havana, Cuba.

00:28:29.020 Just the location, Havana, Cuba.

00:28:31.380 And there's a picture of John Ratcliffe, central casting CIA director,

00:28:36.740 flanked by other CIA and US officials whose faces are blurred out

00:28:40.040 across the table from all of these Cuban officials in a hotel room.

00:28:45.360 that looks like it's from Miami in the 1980s, which is actually large. I've been to Havana,

00:28:50.880 and that is kind of what Havana looks like, because nothing's been renovated since the 1980s.

00:28:56.160 You see John Ratcliffe sitting there. You see him standing up. Good, nice American posture,

00:29:03.420 looking valiant, looking forward-thinking, looking like he's poised to get a big win here.

00:29:10.480 The Cuban officials, what an image can tell you, speak of interpretation, all the Cuban officials looking to the side, looking downcast, looking defeated, looking upset, looking under pressure.

00:29:25.780 You know, this is true in media, but it's also true in government.

00:29:29.040 The pictures that the editors select are designed to tell you a story that can, you know, a picture's worth a thousand words.

00:29:35.380 and what these images are conveying is, hey, we're coming back to Cuba. We are exerting

00:29:42.140 control over Cuba. And some people, you see Radcliffe here looking happy on the streets of

00:29:48.020 Havana. Here we go. This is good stuff. Some people are going to say, this is a bad idea.

00:29:54.100 America only needs to focus in on at home. What happened to traditional American first policy?

00:29:58.820 Why is it that we're involved in all these countries around the world? I would remind you,

00:30:02.740 America has been involved in Cuba for a very, very long time. America has exerted direct

00:30:09.100 control over Cuba, the biggest Florida key as far as I'm concerned. On at least three occasions,

00:30:16.380 there was the occasion right after the Spanish-American War, 1898 to 1902, we had direct

00:30:21.740 control over Cuba. Then again, from 1906 to 1909, I think it was, we had direct control over Cuba.

00:30:28.640 and then again for another five-year period, 1917 to 1922. But then we had soft control over Cuba

00:30:34.000 all the way up until the Cuban Revolution, until Fidel Castro really ensconces himself in power

00:30:39.080 at the end of the 1950s. So why do we do that? Well, because it's 90 miles off the coast of

00:30:45.840 Florida. Two, because American soft control, at least, over the Western Hemisphere has been a

00:30:52.440 cornerstone of American foreign policy since the early 19th century, since the Monroe Doctrine.

00:30:56.880 And in this case, why do it now?

00:30:58.640 One, because Cuba is particularly weak.

00:31:01.440 And two, because our rivals are intervening in Cuba.

00:31:06.780 China is Cuba's largest trading partner, and we cannot tolerate that.

00:31:10.480 We cannot tolerate our greatest geopolitical rival,

00:31:13.480 which is threatening us with war, the second Trump lands in Beijing.

00:31:16.880 We cannot tolerate them having a massive stronghold 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

00:31:21.160 That is completely unacceptable.

00:31:23.440 That isn't neoconservatism.

00:31:26.040 That isn't some abandonment of the traditional American foreign policy.

00:31:30.040 That is American foreign policy since the very beginning of our country,

00:31:33.700 or almost the very beginning of our country, since James Monroe, pretty good, pretty early.

00:31:39.960 So this is very likely going to happen.

00:31:42.800 It should happen.

00:31:43.680 It's a good thing to happen. 1.00

00:31:44.420 My fear, speaking of American intervention, is that we'll be too distracted with the war in Iran, 0.97

00:31:49.380 which is less likely to be successful.

00:31:51.900 so we won't be able to focus all of our resources in Cuba.

00:31:55.880 But nevertheless, what the White House is signaling here,

00:31:58.240 what the CIA is signaling here is,

00:31:59.660 no, no, no, we're doing it.

00:32:00.460 We're going in.

00:32:01.420 And the timing of this is not coincidental either, by the way.

00:32:03.940 Because while Trump is playing the good cop

00:32:05.560 and while Trump is being very conciliatory

00:32:08.140 and charming to Xi Jinping,

00:32:10.640 the fact that the US is making moves on Cuba

00:32:13.560 while Trump is negotiating with Beijing

00:32:16.600 is clearly intended to send a message.

00:32:18.780 That's clearly intended to send a message to China,

00:32:20.940 just as Trump's intervention in Venezuela when we arrested Maduro occurred while Chinese diplomats

00:32:27.480 were waiting to meet with Maduro. That was a message to China as well. So you got the nice

00:32:33.060 guy, Trump. Oh, we don't want to insult you. We want to be nice. You and I, we can work it out.

00:32:37.060 We've been buddies, Xi. We've been buddies for a long time, haven't we? We've been buddies longer

00:32:41.900 than any American president because I have a non-consecutive second term. Yeah, we're good,

00:32:45.780 right, bro? Meanwhile, the American government is going in and saying, hey, we're taking your

00:32:51.460 stronghold out in Venezuela. We're taking your stronghold out in Cuba. And this is very much

00:32:56.120 a part of American foreign policy. Nothing, nothing surprising about that. And on top of it,

00:33:03.340 well, actually, the other thing we're doing is we're threatening to arrest Raul Castro,

00:33:06.440 brother of Fidel Castro, who was the leader of Cuba for a while. He's since retired.

00:33:10.720 But we're just making clear, hey, guys, we're taking Cuba.

00:33:15.400 This is especially crucial as Xi Jinping in China is saying, hey, we need to resolve the Taiwan question.

00:33:21.980 Taiwan, which was the last redoubt of the Chinese nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek,

00:33:26.540 when the United States was backing the Chinese nationalists over the Chinese communists 80 years ago,

00:33:31.760 and the nationalists went to Taiwan.

00:33:34.440 Then we didn't even recognize the communist government of China for many decades.

00:33:38.940 We then softened our approach there.

00:33:40.880 But then at this moment, Xi Jinping is coming in saying,

00:33:44.440 we're going to take Taiwan and you better not stop us.

00:33:48.080 And the counter move by the United States there is to say,

00:33:51.920 oh yeah, you think we're talking about Taiwan?

00:33:53.580 Okay, well, hey, look, Cuba's our Taiwan. 0.75

00:33:55.900 And we're taking Cuba from you. 0.75

00:33:58.180 Before we even talk about Taiwan, we're taking Cuba from you.

00:34:01.580 A lot of choreography going here, a lot of dancing going around here.

00:34:04.940 And there are going to be people, the critics on the left, of course,

00:34:07.340 but even the critics especially the critics maybe on the right who are who are saying that trump is

00:34:12.300 just being scattershot he's being emotional he's being impetuous give me a break this has been u.s

00:34:16.100 policy for 60 years bro i mean we're we're maybe going to arrest the 95 or 96 how old is he he's

00:34:25.160 super old raul castro we're maybe going to arrest him based on a crime that he committed 30 years

00:34:31.240 ago in 1996 the cuban government raul castro was the head of the military they shot down an american

00:34:36.440 plane, Brothers to the Rescue, which was anti-Cuban. It was anti-regime, but they shot down

00:34:42.740 that plane in 1996. That'll be the predicate for which we arrest Raul Castro if we do.

00:34:46.640 A lot of choreography going on here, and it does make a lot of sense. It actually does.

00:34:52.140 You have to interpret these things with historical context, looking at the whole picture, but it

00:34:56.020 makes a lot of sense. Okay. Speaking of the CIA, a CIA whistleblower is now going after our old

00:35:03.420 pal, Dr. Fauci. But unfortunately, people are misinterpreting what he means. So we'll get to

00:35:07.060 that in a second. First, though, my favorite comment is, I didn't even look at the name,

00:35:11.120 but I'm just going to assume. The Drummer's Workshop Norm's Music who says,

00:35:15.520 Thucydides was black. AOC. Thucydides, but it's got like a bunch of apostrophes or something. 0.80

00:35:22.300 It's kind of spelled weird. Yeah, I'm sure. Of course. We all know that. He was black. I mean,

00:35:27.100 the Greeks are a little dusky, mostly because of the Turks. But before we get, I know, look, 1.00

00:35:30.760 I want to get to the mailbag before we get to that. CIA whistleblower claiming in testimony

00:35:36.320 on Capitol Hill that the Fauci cover-up of COVID's origins was intentional.

00:35:41.980 Public health policy would have been very different had the American public been made

00:35:48.940 aware that a virus from a lab in China was going to serve as the foundation for an emergency use

00:35:56.200 authorization mRNA products, being mandated by the former administration.

00:36:07.000 Dr. Fauci's role in the cover-up was intentional. Dr. Fauci influenced the

00:36:12.520 analytical process and findings by leveraging his position to ensure the IC

00:36:18.360 consulted with a conflicted list of curated subject matter experts, public

00:36:24.560 health officials and scientists. This included some of the authors of the paper, The Proximal

00:36:31.040 Origin of SARS-CoV-2, and other public health experts who have been in his orbit for the last

00:36:37.080 20 plus years. Okay, so he's saying Fauci committed crimes. Fauci, he lied, he deceived,

00:36:43.640 he's a fraudster. Fauci knew that the virus came from the Wuhan lab. He knew it didn't come from 0.60

00:36:50.340 a bad batch of pangolin soup, and he lied. So his cover-up was intentional. It wasn't just that he

00:36:55.240 got the facts wrong, it's that he did it intentionally. Yes, we knew that. I'm glad,

00:37:00.000 look, I'm glad the CIA whistleblowers come forward to give us even more evidence of that,

00:37:02.800 but we knew that. I knew that. Didn't you know that? Some people are misinterpreting this and

00:37:06.560 saying that the CIA whistleblower is saying that the COVID lab leak itself was intentional,

00:37:12.520 which I've wondered. I don't know. Maybe I'm not convinced that it was intentional,

00:37:16.680 but I certainly don't write that off. China was getting destroyed in a trade war with the United

00:37:21.520 States and Trump was on the brink of winning reelection. And then COVID happened and all of

00:37:25.080 that flipped. And it happened in China. I would not put it past the Chinese communists to do that

00:37:31.040 intentionally. To me, that's the big question. Was the lab leak intentional? Yes. Fauci's a liar. 0.91

00:37:36.220 Fauci's perfidious. Fauci's the worst. He committed crimes. Fauci's awful. Yes. 1.00

00:37:42.180 but i want to know especially listen to this this testimony going viral while trump is in china

00:37:48.200 i want to know what not just what did fauci know and when did he know what did the chinese know

00:37:52.720 when did they know what did they do uh also before we go one last bit one last bit from china

00:37:56.920 it seems trivial but i think it actually is an important political lesson uh trump has a new

00:38:02.160 name for democrats trump has a new name for democrats he floated this a couple days ago

00:38:06.640 in the Oval Office. Here's the name. I was hunted by some very bad people. Now I'm the hunter.

00:38:12.760 It's much better when you're the hunter, but these are bad people and they'll give you no support at

00:38:19.100 all, no matter how good it is. I mean, as an example, I don't know what the numbers are, but

00:38:23.500 if we go to Congress to get something approved, which we get, but you can say that we're going

00:38:30.720 reduce drug prices by 80 percent and we won't get one democrat drug i don't know how they get away

00:38:37.400 with it that's why we call them the democrats we have a new name they're democrats because they're 1.00

00:38:42.440 dumb they're dumb people okay so do you get it he's calling them dumb do you get it so so you 1.00

00:38:49.720 might say okay maybe that's just a one-off from trump in the oval office but trump's sitting down 1.00

00:38:53.220 with hannity in beijing and he he says no maybe you guys didn't hear my joke did you i don't know

00:38:58.420 if you guys got did you guys get do you get it the democrats are against farmers can you believe

00:39:04.920 it so anyway they're defective i came up with a new name i don't know if i should 1.00

00:39:11.180 i know which one it is democrats because they're dumb they're dumb it's d-u-m i got rid of the b 1.00

00:39:19.000 so you're only changing one letter right e goes and the u comes it's a dumb you know you take up 1.00

00:39:25.220 more space in people's heads than any one 0.95

00:39:27.340 person on the face of this earth, right?

00:39:29.080 You live rent-free.

00:39:30.100 Hold on, wait until you hear this one.

00:39:33.320 Hold on, you're not going to believe it. 1.00

00:39:34.820 I call him dumb. 1.00

00:39:38.360 There are people who are 1.00

00:39:40.720 rolling their eyes and they say,

00:39:42.560 no, you don't understand. I took the

00:39:45.160 B out. I call him dumb. 1.00

00:39:48.100 Like, not smart. 1.00

00:39:50.040 It's like Fredo in The Godfather. 1.00

00:39:51.700 Michael, they call me dumb. I'm not 0.86

00:39:53.260 dumb like people say i'm smart and so look i know the reason i i want to focus on this

00:39:59.780 is one it's very funny trump plays it so well totally straight-faced with like the with the 0.99

00:40:06.560 clunkiest joke pun you could possibly imagine and he plays it totally straight because you're not 0.99

00:40:12.240 gonna believe this sean do you know what i call the democrats i call them dumb and he totally 0.99

00:40:19.660 he doesn't, he doesn't give it up at all. And so people are going to roll their eyes and they're 0.98

00:40:23.240 going to say, this is so stupid. This is such a lame, clunky pun. Come on. Are you kidding me? 1.00

00:40:29.740 This is, yeah, you didn't come up with that. What are you talking about? People have done that for,

00:40:34.000 and I love it. And I love it. And you know why I love it? I love it because it irritates the

00:40:40.020 sophisticates. I love it because it irritates the people who say, that's not even a clever pun.

00:40:45.900 Why, it's so clunky.

00:40:47.340 There are so many literary references that you could make.

00:40:50.480 And this is what Trump did with Elizabeth Warren.

00:40:53.540 You remember Elizabeth Warren, who pretended to be Indian,

00:40:55.640 even though she's more lily white than the freshly driven snow.

00:40:59.100 And for a long time, people had been referring to Elizabeth Warren as faux Cojantus,

00:41:04.040 F-A-U-X Cojantus, like fake Pocahantus.

00:41:08.340 And then Trump comes into the scene and he says, I call her Pocahantus.

00:41:12.020 And all the sophisticates said, no, you're not even getting the pun.

00:41:14.800 The pun, it's really, we're not calling her Pocahontas, we're calling her Focahontas

00:41:18.040 because she's the fake Pocahontas, and you don't even understand the pun.

00:41:20.560 And Trump doesn't care.

00:41:21.280 He goes, I call her Pocahontas. 0.65

00:41:22.300 And that was actually the right rhetorical decision because Focahontas doesn't, it's

00:41:27.800 too complicated.

00:41:28.800 It's too, you have to make too many connections.

00:41:31.260 You have to know the word foe, which is a foreign word.

00:41:33.660 And so it's not going to, it's just not going to land politically.

00:41:35.920 Even if it's funnier and more clever, it's not going to land politically.

00:41:39.360 And Trump knows what lands politically.

00:41:41.840 So he says, no, I call her Pocahontas. 0.99

00:41:43.320 That actually works. 0.92

00:41:44.940 The same thing here with Democrats.

00:41:47.000 You might say, that's not clever.

00:41:48.180 That's not sophisticated.

00:41:49.200 That's not so clunky.

00:41:50.080 It's so, yeah, but it just kind of works.

00:41:52.680 And when you explain the joke, it actually gets funnier because it's such a plain kind of lame joke.

00:41:58.680 It's funny because, no, but you don't understand.

00:42:00.560 I took out the B.

00:42:01.320 I call them Democrats.

00:42:02.160 And it sticks.

00:42:03.620 That actually does stick.

00:42:06.080 It's funny.

00:42:06.880 If it were more complicated, it wouldn't stick as well.

00:42:09.920 Which is, look, this is Trump's bread and butter.

00:42:11.400 And he's been doing this since Little Marco and Lion Ted and Low Energy Jeb and all these

00:42:15.220 really evocative visual images.

00:42:17.240 I love it.

00:42:17.820 I just get such a kick out of it.

00:42:19.200 No, you don't.

00:42:19.760 Hold on.

00:42:20.080 Maybe you didn't get it.

00:42:20.860 Hold on.

00:42:21.180 Stop.

00:42:21.780 Hold on.

00:42:22.100 Pull up your pencil.

00:42:22.880 Write it down.

00:42:23.400 Figure it out. 1.00

00:42:23.860 I'm calling them dumb. 1.00

00:42:26.060 Oh, wow. 1.00

00:42:27.660 You're right.

00:42:28.180 Wow.

00:42:28.440 I hadn't thought about that. 1.00

00:42:29.260 Are they dumb? 1.00

00:42:29.960 Okay. 1.00

00:42:30.680 We have a little bit of time for the mailbag.

00:42:31.860 Our mailbag is sponsored by PureTalk at puretalk.com slash Knowles Canada WLES to claim unlimited

00:42:35.680 high-speed data for just $39.99.

00:42:37.920 Take it away.

00:42:39.380 Hello, Michael.

00:42:40.000 my name is amanda i'm a regular listener of your show i just have a question regarding

00:42:45.700 segment on monday about the trump statue personally i didn't feel that it was completely

00:42:53.440 correct what happened not that it's wrong but something just doesn't seem to fit right about

00:42:59.260 it and also i noticed that you mentioned probably about three times that there were no catholics

00:43:04.460 at the event. You seem relieved about it. Do you also think that there was something 1.00

00:43:11.360 not completely correct about it? Just wanted to know your views. Thank you for all you do.

00:43:19.360 Wonderfully astute observation and question. You say, look, there's nothing wrong with this.

00:43:25.260 This is the statue. There's this gold statue of Trump at the Trump club in Doral. And

00:43:29.120 you say, okay, well, whatever. There's a statue of the founder at the Trump club. Okay. It's not,

00:43:33.400 there's a statue of Barry Weiss at the University of Austin. People have statues of founders at

00:43:36.840 places and busts and things. It's no big deal. I think it's a bust of Barry Weiss. Once she

00:43:41.680 becomes president, then she can get a statue. But there's nothing shocking about that. There's

00:43:45.720 nothing particularly wrong about having a gold statue rather than a marble statue or a silver

00:43:49.280 statue. So what's weird about it? Well, yes, there were these religious leaders blessing the statue.

00:43:55.140 Once again, there's nothing wrong in principle with that. I bless my food before a meal.

00:43:59.040 but but i think you're right to say there's something that felt just not perfectly correct

00:44:05.520 about it there's nothing wrong with it point by point by point you look through it you say

00:44:10.880 yeah okay it's all fine it all checks out but why is it why does it seem like it's not totally

00:44:16.100 correct and and you're right to observe i don't think there were any catholic catholics at the

00:44:19.960 blessing certainly no clerics that i saw why well it's because the reason that the statue is okay

00:44:27.460 is because, to quote the evangelical pastor who was there, because honor is not worship

00:44:33.720 and respect is not idolatry. That's all true. So yeah, we venerate people. We hold our leaders

00:44:41.400 with proper respect and honor. Yeah, that's all fine. We create images in this world because

00:44:47.660 getting back to our earlier point about interpretation, we're fleshy creatures.

00:44:52.120 And the only way that we can understand things is through images and through symbols.

00:44:56.760 The angels, you know, are directly infused with knowledge, but we're not because we're

00:45:01.720 body as well as soul.

00:45:03.240 So why does it seem not totally correct?

00:45:05.920 Well, the point, the whole reason I loved that statue story is I said, if it's good,

00:45:12.100 if honor is not worship and respect is not idolatry, good, then we recognize that there's

00:45:16.260 nothing wrong with venerating the saints.

00:45:18.820 There's nothing wrong with respecting people who have lived lives of particular sanctity

00:45:23.500 to God.

00:45:24.600 If we are to give respect to courageous political leaders, all the more so should we give respect

00:45:30.420 to those who have lived lives of particular virtue and sanctity. That's the point.

00:45:36.600 The Catholics are accused of idolatry for all these reasons. And so I found it delightful 1.00

00:45:41.600 that an evangelical leader would knock down that iconoclastic argument. But so why is it not

00:45:47.140 totally correct? Well, because man is a liturgical creature. We're social creatures. We're creatures

00:45:53.160 who naturally are inclined to give honor and respect.

00:45:56.160 And so, you know, you look at the early Americans,

00:45:58.820 the pilgrims who came on the Mayflower,

00:46:00.000 which is a great cigar company.

00:46:01.280 And you say, look, they hated holidays.

00:46:03.640 They got rid of Christmas.

00:46:04.720 They didn't celebrate Easter.

00:46:05.740 They didn't like holidays.

00:46:07.440 And yet, what are the pilgrims most famous for?

00:46:10.460 Creating a holiday.

00:46:11.560 They're most famous for creating Thanksgiving. 0.79

00:46:13.420 Because you can try to get rid of the liturgical calendar.

00:46:15.720 You can try to get rid of feast days, 0.77

00:46:17.360 but men are made for feast days.

00:46:20.180 We are inclined to have feast days. 1.00

00:46:21.900 And so you can get rid of all the Christian feast days. We're just going to make up our own new one 1.00

00:46:25.120 called Thanksgiving, which is now maybe the central liturgical feast in the American civil

00:46:30.240 liturgical calendar. And you can try to get us to not honor people and to not venerate,

00:46:34.760 but that's just not what we're made. We are made to do those things. And so if some Americans

00:46:42.480 might say, oh, we don't need a Pope. We don't need cardinals. We don't need to have any respect

00:46:47.220 for that. But in the nationalistic view of things that replaced the old scheme in Western

00:46:54.760 civilization, which held that there was at least a relationship between the church and the state,

00:47:00.080 in the nationalistic view, which took over beginning in the 17th century and really

00:47:04.480 culminating in the 19th century, which says that whose reign his religion, that really imbues the

00:47:10.920 the state with a kind of religious power that you didn't really see even in the middle ages.

00:47:16.820 In that kind of country, we kind of treat the president like the Pope.

00:47:22.720 We think that he should have all the moral power. Get that Pope out of politics. We need the

00:47:27.440 president to have that moral power. We kind of treat the Supreme Court like cardinals. I don't

00:47:33.480 know. We treat the founding fathers like we would treat the church fathers. We treat certain men in

00:47:38.320 American history, Abraham Lincoln, or I don't know, Frederick Douglass, as doctors of the church.

00:47:45.140 It's not that we get rid of the veneration and the respect. We just transfer it to other objects.

00:47:50.180 And so I'd say, yeah, it's good to honor our leaders, and it's good for Trump to have a

00:47:52.740 statue of himself at his club. That's totally fine. But the reason that you might sense that

00:47:58.140 it's not totally correct is that we have ceased to give honor and respect where they are especially

00:48:04.940 do. That's, I think, why you're

00:48:06.900 sensing that. It's not that what we're doing

00:48:08.980 right now is wrong, really.

00:48:11.280 It's that we

00:48:12.960 should also be giving honor and respect

00:48:15.060 to places that are perhaps even

00:48:16.940 more deserving. That's the point. Okay.

00:48:19.780 Much more to get to.

00:48:20.920 I know I'm running late. Maybe we'll try to get to some more mailbag

00:48:22.880 before Fake Headline Friday, but that will be in the Membrum

00:48:24.780 Segmentum. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to

00:48:26.820 miss it. Become a member. Use code NOLSK-N-W-L-E-S

00:48:28.660 at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:48:34.940 Martin Luther King Jr. is an American icon,

00:48:44.360 widely considered one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.

00:48:47.780 A man who had a vision for a colorblind society, 0.63

00:48:51.100 a post-racial America. 0.76

00:48:53.280 He had a dream. 0.76

00:48:54.760 It's just not the dream you thought it was.

00:48:56.520 Were his true aims a colorblind society

00:48:59.440 or something far more radical?

00:49:01.700 Who bankrolled him?

00:49:02.720 What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963?

00:49:07.720 Was civil disobedience actually peaceful?

00:49:11.720 We wanted to show you a clip of the I Have a Dream speech,

00:49:14.720 but according to our lawyers, we can't.

00:49:16.720 In fact, King's family has made a lot of money suing media outlets.

00:49:19.720 They want to silence critics like us.

00:49:22.720 What they're doing makes it very difficult to judge Martin Luther King Jr.

00:49:25.720 not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.

00:49:29.720 Is America today stronger, more unified, and racially equal than before King's rise?

00:49:36.260 These questions demand answers, and as Americans, we are entitled to a full accounting of the

00:49:40.740 Civil Rights Movement and its consequences.

00:49:42.780 King's Movement fundamentally transformed our country and our system of government.

00:49:47.000 I speak as a citizen of the world.

00:49:49.900 Each day the war goes on, the hatred increases, though the cause of evil prosper.

00:49:55.920 The first part of our two-part special on the Civil Rights Movement,

00:49:59.480 A New Constitution, available now on Daily Wire Plus.

The Michael Knowles Show - May 15, 2026

Ep. 1975 - BREAKING： Supreme Court Betrays Pro-Lifers？

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