The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1977 - MAGA vs. Massie Election Fight Ends Tonight

00:00:00.000 A man repeatedly rated the most conservative member of Congress is set to lose his primary

00:00:05.340 tonight after President Trump singled him out for removal. We will examine the totally

00:00:11.160 misunderstood political odyssey of Thomas Massey. Then an MSNBC anchor nearly combusts on air

00:00:17.680 after Mike Johnson paraphrases the Declaration of Independence.

00:00:21.480 I guess that should be expected. And an American mayor turns out to be a Chinese spy. 0.65

00:00:26.080 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:30.000 welcome back to the show panda express has just asked customers in maga hats to leave and even

00:00:52.660 called the police you know there's an ancient chinese idiom no tiki no washi that refers to

00:00:59.240 dry cleaners. Well, I think there's a new one that we have to add, which is where Hattie,

00:01:04.860 no crab rangoonie. I still have to workshop it a little bit. But anyway, we'll get to

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00:02:21.520 All eyes are on Kentucky, just north of my state of Tennessee, because Thomas Massey,

00:02:30.980 who has been repeatedly, over the years at least, rated the most conservative member of Congress,

00:02:37.460 Thomas Massey might very well go down tonight in his primary challenge because President Trump

00:02:43.020 has singled him out for removal. So one, is that likely to happen? It's looking pretty good.

00:02:49.180 The prediction markets, which are not 100% reliable, but they have Massey going down.

00:02:53.400 The polls are looking very rough for Massey right now.

00:02:55.700 And over the weekend, President Trump scored another one of these primary wins.

00:03:00.800 Trump pointed to Bill Cassidy, Republican senator, and he took him out in his primary.

00:03:07.760 Bill Cassidy had voted against Trump.

00:03:09.280 He's a Republican, but he voted against Trump, and Trump beat him.

00:03:13.520 He opposed Cassidy.

00:03:14.540 Cassidy finished third in the Louisiana Senate race.

00:03:16.560 So that means he won't be in the GOP runoff. Now we turn to the lower house and see if Trump can

00:03:21.720 take out Thomas Massey. What is the issue with Massey? Massey is a little bit of a different

00:03:25.480 character because if you look at all the various scorecards, the conservative review and the

00:03:30.860 Liberty score and all these organizations that rank members of Congress, over the last 10 years

00:03:37.620 or so, Thomas Massey has ranked as one of, if not the most conservative congressman.

00:03:44.220 So why would Trump single him out for removal? J.D. Vance was asked this question at a TPUSA event. Here's his answer.

00:03:53.340 I think the problem with Thomas, and I've told him this in private and now I guess I'll say it in public, is it's one thing to disagree with the party on a particular issue.

00:04:03.380 It's one thing to take, you know, to have your independent stand on a number of questions.

00:04:07.840 And by the way, some of the stuff where Thomas Massey has been independent against the Republican Party, I've agreed with him with.

00:04:13.880 Thomas and I worked together during 2023, where I was trying to stop the limitless flow of American

00:04:20.700 money to Ukraine. And Thomas was one of the people I was working closest with it. But that's

00:04:26.340 one thing. Being independent, having your own opinions is one thing. Voting against the party

00:04:32.220 on every single issue, you're eventually going to make too many enemies. And that is the problem

00:04:37.880 that Thomas has had. It's not one issue. It's not three or four issues. It's that every time that

00:04:43.080 we've needed thomas for a vote he has been completely unwilling to provide it that is why

00:04:47.960 the president united states has trained his ire on thomas massey it's because we can never count on

00:04:53.780 him for some of the most difficult votes i wish that that weren't the case i say that as somebody

00:04:58.620 who's known thomas well before i got into politics but politics is politics and when you always vote

00:05:04.100 against the party you can't expect the party to actually back you okay before everyone bites my

00:05:09.940 head off or bites the vice president's head off here. Notice what J.D. Vance is saying.

00:05:15.360 J.D. Vance is not saying that Thomas Massey votes against the Republicans 100% of the time.

00:05:20.420 He says that Thomas Massey has voted against the Republicans recently on all of the crucial votes,

00:05:27.920 not on the easy votes, but on the crucial votes, the votes when the party needs him,

00:05:32.740 when they lean on him, they say it's going to be a tough vote, but we need your support.

00:05:36.140 J.D. Vance is saying on those votes, that is when Massey has voted against the GOP.

00:05:41.040 And so a lot of people love Massey.

00:05:44.440 Massey is super libertarian, so especially the libertarian wing of the GOP loves Massey.

00:05:50.260 I'm not a libertarian.

00:05:51.200 I think the libertarians are wrong on first principles.

00:05:53.300 I think they misunderstand human nature.

00:05:55.840 Libertarianism is an offshoot of liberalism.

00:05:58.340 I'm not a liberal.

00:05:58.960 There are plenty of liberals and classical liberals and libertarians in the conservative coalition.

00:06:02.900 I'm not part of that wing of the conservative coalition.

00:06:04.940 I'm part of the conservative wing of the conservative coalition, the traditionalist

00:06:08.680 wing, the old school conservative. Nevertheless, I like Thomas Massey well enough. I have nothing

00:06:14.320 in particular against Thomas Massey. So the big Massey supporters are going to blame two or three

00:06:22.440 big forces if he does go down tonight. One, they're going to blame Trump because Trump singled

00:06:28.680 him out for removal. Two, they're going to blame the pro-Israel donors because Thomas Massey has

00:06:34.620 supposed aid to Israel in certain cases. And a lot of pro-Israel donors are pouring money to

00:06:39.380 remove him from office. But I don't think that totally explains it. There have been other

00:06:45.000 members of Congress who have opposed Trump at different points over the years in a modest or

00:06:49.960 moderate way. There have been plenty of GOP congressmen who have opposed Israel, who have

00:06:53.780 voted against funding for the state of Israel or extra military aid or whatever. Trump didn't

00:06:57.640 single them out for removal. Even the super pro-Israel donors didn't dump all the money in

00:07:02.360 remove them. Obviously, those two factors are at play, but I think what J.D. Vance is saying

00:07:08.680 is the more perceptive observation. In this most recent term, Thomas Massey has voted with the GOP

00:07:16.120 77.7% of the time. The median GOP congressman, don't forget, Republicans on Capitol Hill,

00:07:23.820 it's like herding cats. They're very independent. That's generally a strength of the GOP because the

00:07:30.000 Dems are always in lockstep. So when things are working for them, it works really well.

00:07:33.440 And when things aren't working, like in the case of peak wokeness, then it works really,

00:07:36.680 really badly and they get blown out in all the elections. But it is undeniable that Thomas

00:07:42.120 Massey has voted with the GOP much less this recent term than the median GOP congressman.

00:07:49.420 And this is crucial. Thomas Massey has voted with the GOP much less in this term than he has

00:07:56.080 in previous terms. In the previous congressional term, Massey voted with the GOP 91% of the time.

00:08:03.640 That's a lot more than 77.7. And in the term before that, Massey voted with the GOP 95% of

00:08:10.700 the time. So you can like Thomas Massey. I'm not saying you can't like Thomas Massey, especially

00:08:16.260 if you're a libertarian, you probably love Thomas Massey. And you can think that Massey is right

00:08:21.340 to buck the GOP. You can say, I hate the GOP, and I'm glad that Massey's bucking the GOP.

00:08:26.080 It's entirely your right to think that. But there is no denying that Massey is voting against the

00:08:33.280 party more frequently these days, and that there is a trend that as the years go by in the last

00:08:39.320 two or three terms, he is voting with the GOP less and less. And he has become unreliable on

00:08:46.000 the crucial votes. And so the point that JD is making is not that Thomas Massey is the worst

00:08:50.820 person in the world and he's absolutely terrible and he's worse than a leftist. The point that

00:08:55.660 JD is making is that if you buck the party, especially on the crucial votes, you cannot

00:09:03.220 expect the party to support you. And you should not be terribly surprised when the party garners

00:09:09.780 all of its resources, the donors and the media and the elected politicians to try to take you

00:09:16.100 out and replace you with someone who is going to be more supportive of the party.

00:09:20.060 You can say, to hell with the party. 0.98

00:09:21.760 I don't like the party.

00:09:22.400 That's not the point I'm making.

00:09:23.560 That's not the point that the vice president's making.

00:09:25.000 The point is just, this is how electoral politics work in a system when you have two political parties.

00:09:31.840 And so Massey should not be surprised by this.

00:09:34.920 You even see this, Laura Loomer, an eccentric character.

00:09:38.980 Laura Loomer just posted this video of Thomas Massey expressing his feelings for the Republican Party.

00:09:44.460 so congressman in the last two weeks you repeated aoc's talking points in venezuela

00:09:51.200 and jasmine crockett has retweeted you when will you change your party affiliation to democrat

00:09:56.640 i thought you did i vote with republicans 91 percent of the time it's and the nine percent

00:10:03.740 i don't they're taking up for pedophiles starting another war or bankrupting our country okay so

00:10:09.460 hold on hold on you see obviously massey's had enough of this hostile line of questioning but

00:10:13.880 notice what he says. First of all, he says, I vote with the GOP 91% of the time. That was true

00:10:17.880 last term. That's not true this term. But then he says, no, look, I vote with the GOP. I'm part

00:10:22.860 of the GOP. I vote with the GOP, except they're a bunch of pedophiles. That's what he's saying. 1.00

00:10:27.240 That's the first charge he makes. He says, no, I vote with the GOP, except when they're dirty,

00:10:30.520 rotten pedophiles, which they're not. They're not pedophiles, right? That's not even political 0.99

00:10:35.720 hyperbole. It's just a lie. But what that expresses is a contempt for the party,

00:10:43.540 a special kind of contempt that you don't really see with other GOP congressmen who have voted

00:10:49.000 against any of these issues that Massey's talking about, who voted against spending bills,

00:10:53.740 who voted against funding of Israel, who voted against Trump sometimes.

00:10:58.820 It represents a special kind of contempt. And so it should not be surprising that the party

00:11:04.420 has turned on him. Some people are asking, what on the substantive questions? When Massey votes

00:11:08.660 against the GOP, what do you think of that? Well, you go through the list of where he's voted

00:11:12.240 against the GOP on. He voted against the GOP on House leadership. He voted against Mike Johnson.

00:11:17.460 I think Mike Johnson's great. I think he's actually a very good House speaker, especially

00:11:20.740 because that's the worst job in Washington. He voted against the Big Beautiful Bill. I support

00:11:24.300 the Big Beautiful Bill. I think it was given the practical constraints of politics in the year of

00:11:28.800 our Lord, 2026, not in some ideal world where the government operates totally differently than it

00:11:34.220 does, but in practical reality, which I hate to say it, the libertarians have difficulty with.

00:11:40.240 So they take their supposedly principled votes that don't actually accomplish anything politically.

00:11:44.240 But on those votes, I actually don't think Massey was totally right. He might be principled in his

00:11:49.740 votes, but I don't think he was totally right. Regardless, this dynamic should not be surprising.

00:11:56.040 And the stakes are very high here. If Trump is able to remove Thomas Massey, what that means is

00:12:02.420 Trump still has an ironclad grip on the GOP. If Massey wins his primary, what that represents

00:12:11.300 is that actually maybe local politics matters a little bit more than we all thought it did.

00:12:16.400 We all thought our politics were just totally national now. Maybe local politics really does

00:12:20.120 matter. And two, maybe there are real fractures and fissures within the conservative coalition.

00:12:25.680 Those are the stakes tonight. And for the people who are viewing this

00:12:30.240 in this hyper-ideological way, I would say that is not the best way to view politics.

00:12:36.720 Because politics is not abstraction. Politics is not a pure philosophy.

00:12:41.740 Conservative politics should not be ideology. Conservatism, in my view, as I've said many

00:12:47.580 times over the years, is more an inclination. There are certain fundamental objective truths,

00:12:53.180 a transcendent moral order, the recognition that God created the world, the recognition that there

00:12:57.500 is such a thing as providence, all the things that our founding fathers and framers wrote about.

00:13:02.280 But there is not a five-point list of policies on the back of a napkin that defines conservatism.

00:13:08.620 Conservatives have held different views on all manners of policies, free trade versus tariffs,

00:13:13.200 more migration versus restricting migration, foreign intervention versus foreign restraint.

00:13:18.920 Conservatives have held both sides of those issues. For the people who want to say that

00:13:21.780 Massey is the truest conservative because he's libertarian, I'll point out that the conservative

00:13:26.220 movement became synonymous with libertarianism only about 50 years ago. It really wasn't for

00:13:31.260 most of the history of conservatism, and I don't think true conservatism really is libertarian.

00:13:36.360 So those are the stakes tonight. Will the party reassert control over its members,

00:13:42.600 kick out people who are hostile to the party? Does Trump still have control of that party,

00:13:46.940 which he took over in a hostile way 10 years ago? And are the fissures over issues like foreign

00:13:53.380 funding or Israel funding, issues like spending, which the GOP always talks a good game on but

00:13:58.680 never actually shows up on, probably because of the practical constraints of lowercase d

00:14:02.820 democratic politics. For all of these issues and more, is there a real crack in the conservative

00:14:08.720 movement? That's what's on display tonight. But people who are trying to make this a pure game

00:14:14.020 of ideology, I think they're missing the point. Politics is not chiefly about ideology, and

00:14:18.700 conservative politics is actually averse to ideology in its very foundation. Okay. Speaking

00:14:24.160 of congressmen, speaking of Mike Johnson, MSNBC's anchor Katie Tor nearly combusted on air when she

00:14:32.680 heard Mike Johnson describe God and the Declaration of Independence. Before we get to that, speaking

00:14:36.840 of God, I want to tell you about Hallow. Go to hallow.com slash Knowles. May is Mental Health

00:14:40.560 Awareness Month, and it is probably arriving at just the right time for a lot of people. Maybe 1.00

00:14:45.380 Maybe a little too late, actually, because even when life is objectively good, modern life can feel exhausting.

00:14:51.320 Constant notifications, constant pressure, constant responsibility, work, family schedules, finances, headlines, obligations.

00:14:57.240 It can feel like your attention is being pulled in 10 different directions all the time.

00:15:00.800 This time of year often makes it even more intense.

00:15:02.840 School years ending, summer schedules starting, vacations to plan, events to attend, even more commitments stacked onto an already busy life.

00:15:09.600 A lot of people are carrying stress they barely even notice anymore because they've gotten so used to operating at that level constantly.

00:15:15.380 That is one reason prayer really matters. Studies have shown that prayer can help reduce stress,

00:15:20.520 improve mental health, and lower cortisol levels. Clavicular would be very happy.

00:15:24.180 Beyond the science of it, prayer creates space to step outside the noise for a moment

00:15:27.560 and remember that not everything depends entirely on you. That is the idea behind

00:15:31.780 Hallow's new detachment challenge. Detachment doesn't mean indifference or withdrawing from

00:15:36.820 your responsibilities. It means loosening your grip on things that ultimately you cannot control

00:15:40.540 placing them in God's hands instead. Right now, go to hallow.com slash Knowles. Download the

00:15:45.620 Hallow app, get three months for free. Hallow.com, H-A-L-L-O-W.com slash Knowles,

00:15:51.160 Canada W-L-E-S, for three months free. Folks, very exciting. As America turns 250,

00:15:57.600 we celebrate a quarter millennium of the greatest country that we all love. I am thrilled to announce

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00:16:22.540 we need to know what your mother-in-law thinks. Pre-order right now at dailywire.com slash shop. 0.99

00:16:26.140 Limited release. These will only be available this year. America's 250th. You have to secure

00:16:30.360 yours now. They will not last. And it's just a beautiful pack. The yes or no America 250 expansion

00:16:35.200 pack available exclusively at dailywire.com slash shop. Pre-order now. There was an event over the

00:16:40.240 weekend. I didn't make it out to it. A lot of my friends were there. I did not make it out to it.

00:16:45.020 I will be doing another America 250th religious event actually coming up in Wisconsin. But I

00:16:50.300 didn't make it out to this one. So Mike Johnson showed up, gave an excellent speech about the

00:16:55.200 role of God and providence in the founding of America. And now as we approach the 250th

00:17:01.740 anniversary of American independence. We face a new set of challenges in a new era. In recent years,

00:17:09.740 we've seen sinister ideologies, so confusion and discord among our people. We've witnessed

00:17:16.740 attacks on our history, on our heroes, and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this

00:17:22.660 great nation. These voices insist to the young and impressionable that our story, the American

00:17:28.900 story is one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure, and that this story can only be understood

00:17:36.040 through the lens of our sins. But Father, we reject that. We rebuke it in your name.

00:17:48.280 Those voices have seeked to distort the self-evident truth that we know so well that

00:17:53.280 our founders boldly proclaim in the Declaration that our rights do not derive from the

00:17:58.700 government. They come from you, our creator and heavenly father. Okay, this is basic stuff. This

00:18:06.680 is American Civics 101, which of course was too much for Katie Tur on MSNBC, MS Now it's called,

00:18:13.780 who nearly combusted on air by this shocking suggestion of Mike Johnson that our rights come

00:18:21.200 from God. What about this passage from Mike Johnson declaring that our rights do not derive

00:18:29.480 from government. They come from you, our creator and heavenly father. Is this him putting God over

00:18:36.380 the declaration of independence? McKay? Well, you know, I actually think that that idea is not

00:18:44.020 wholly uncommon. I mean, the idea that we have certain inalienable rights that come from God

00:18:49.220 can be read in a fairly benign way, which is basically that we have innate human rights

00:18:56.440 that our Constitution and our government, our democratic government, are meant to codify, right?

00:19:03.080 That idea is not totally abnormal.

00:19:05.720 I think that the thing that, you know, might alarm some people

00:19:09.680 is some of the rhetoric that we heard at this rally that we are in a spiritual battle, right?

00:19:15.220 that the forces of good and evil are at work here, and that partisan politics is injected

00:19:23.440 directly into the spiritual, biblical rhetoric. I love this poor guy, this poor guy who's trying

00:19:30.260 not to embarrass the MSNBC anchor, but who realizes that what she's saying is completely

00:19:35.600 crazy. She says, this idea that Mike Johnson just brought up, that our rights come from God,

00:19:40.480 I mean, isn't that contradictory when you read the Declaration of Independence?

00:19:44.720 Isn't that totally opposed to the Declaration of Independence?

00:19:47.860 And you say, well, hold on.

00:19:49.520 It's been a minute since I read the Declaration, but I seem to recall that the Declaration says in its most famous passage,

00:19:57.240 we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,

00:20:04.980 that among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

00:20:08.060 us. Not only is the notion that our rights come from God not contrary to the Declaration,

00:20:15.840 that is the thesis of the Declaration of Independence. That is the central claim of

00:20:21.080 the Declaration of Independence, is that our rights come from God. And therefore,

00:20:26.020 the founding fathers had a right to overthrow their government. That's the whole foundational

00:20:32.200 premise of the American Revolution. And so Katie Tour apparently was not aware of this,

00:20:39.860 had not read the Declaration, just thought that it sounded like the sort of thing that would be

00:20:44.120 contrary to the Declaration. And then this guy who realizes that she's wrong, he says, well,

00:20:49.360 no, I mean, it's not like the craziest thing because it's exactly what the Declaration says.

00:20:53.640 But you know, and it might be kind of benign, but, and you say, but what? He says, but what's

00:21:00.200 really freaking people out is the notion that there is spiritual battle. The left is now denying

00:21:07.460 spiritual battle. Hold on. The nation is predicated on the belief that God exists,

00:21:12.660 God, spirit, that God exists and that he endows us with certain rights, which are not physical,

00:21:20.180 they're not material. They are an immaterial substance, like a spirit, and that there are

00:21:27.060 some good things and some bad things. Some things are better than other things.

00:21:31.840 Like, for instance, overthrowing a tyrannical government would be a good thing,

00:21:35.640 better than suffering under oppression. Again, part of the central claim of the Declaration

00:21:41.000 of Independence. So his answer is totally incoherent. But at the very least, he recognizes

00:21:47.020 that the left is in a big conundrum here because they have inadvertently placed themselves in

00:21:54.420 direct opposition to the Declaration of Independence, and then they project that onto

00:21:57.960 the right. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, who is basically just quoting the Declaration

00:22:03.260 of Independence, and they, in their ignorance or maybe their willful ignorance, they accidentally

00:22:09.900 admit to the thing that they are projecting onto their political opponents.

00:22:15.860 Bad news for the Democrats because politics 101, whenever it's election time, we have to get back

00:22:22.120 to Politics 101, here's a really basic piece of political advice. If you want to succeed in

00:22:27.760 politics, usually, 999 out of a thousand times, you need to wrap yourself in the flag. You need

00:22:35.880 to express your views as if they are part of the tradition of your country, as if they come from

00:22:42.280 the deep wellsprings of your country. Now, ideally, that would be true. But cynical revolutionaries,

00:22:48.680 at the very least, the good cynical revolutionaries, recognize that at the very

00:22:51.880 least you need to pretend that your ideas come from the wellsprings of the country,

00:22:56.060 the traditions of the country. The left can't really do that right now. They're out here

00:22:59.500 mocking the Declaration of Independence. In an election year where all the historical forces

00:23:05.060 say they should win in a landslide, and they're totally squandering it, which is fine by me.

00:23:09.360 Now, speaking of great powers, President Trump has just posted a picture that has raised eyebrows.

00:23:13.460 It is him walking around a military base next to a gigantic bald gray alien.

00:23:18.020 And this has raised eyebrows. I love this post. I love it because it tells me everything I need

00:23:21.860 to know about supposed ufo uap extraterrestrial disclosure we'll get to that momentarily first

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00:24:40.740 Michael. That's M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com, promo code Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L. Trump posted a picture

00:24:49.340 on Truth Social. It's obviously an AI-generated image of him walking next to an alien in handcuffs.

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00:25:03.720 His right-hand handcuff, is it not connected to the chain that is connected to the left-hand

00:25:08.400 handcuffed. But anyway, it's fine. He's walking around with some military personnel, Secret

00:25:11.200 Service agents. And there's an added joke in the picture, which is that you see some guy's fingers

00:25:15.740 somewhat covering the lens. It's charming. Assuming that this is not a real photograph,

00:25:21.640 that Trump is not walking around with a seven-foot-tall gray bald alien with gigantic

00:25:25.320 black eyes, what this tells us about the UFO disclosure, I've gone deep on this position.

00:25:32.560 I put all of my chips on Red 23 on this position, is that the UFO disclosure is a bunch of nothing.

00:25:39.840 It is a nonsense.

00:25:40.840 It's not that there aren't objects flying around our airspace, objects that we may not know the origin of, potentially.

00:25:47.720 But there are no aliens.

00:25:51.100 Aliens aren't real.

00:25:52.520 Even if there were aliens, we don't have their bodies.

00:25:55.660 We don't work with them.

00:25:58.140 They don't control our governments.

00:26:00.880 They don't rise up from out of the ocean.

00:26:02.720 They don't appear in grainy images.

00:26:04.460 This is kind of even a joke about the grainy images of the aliens,

00:26:07.320 because this is a really clear image of an alien.

00:26:09.400 If the Trump administration were on the brink of massive UFO disclosure,

00:26:14.860 where we talk about how the aliens secretly run the world,

00:26:17.460 if that were real, as many people on the internet say that it is real,

00:26:21.960 Trump would not be posting this picture.

00:26:24.060 If the UFO disclosure were a real super serious thing,

00:26:27.540 Trump would not be making jokes about it.

00:26:29.260 it's a big joke. It's kind of fun. It's weird. It's eccentric. It's the sort of thing that gets

00:26:34.800 people really animated. It's tabloid. It's all the stuff Trump likes. But I'm willing to double

00:26:41.200 my bet now. I already went all in, but I'm willing to double my all in bet. The aliens are not real.

00:26:46.500 Your move, Matt Walsh. Your move, buddy. What are you going to say now? Now, speaking of aliens,

00:26:51.600 we turn to aliens closer to home, the kind that come from foreign countries, not foreign planets.

00:26:56.500 And we find out that there is a mayor, a Southern California mayor, who is a Chinese spy.

00:27:03.040 And she's pled guilty to being a Chinese spy. 0.63

00:27:05.800 She's a foreign agent for America's chief adversary around the world, communist China. 0.63

00:27:11.080 And what's so delightful about the story is that NBC News and reporting on this, NBC having a rough day, NBC did the earnest version of a Norm Macdonald joke. 0.85

00:27:22.320 This is how NBC News reported on it.

00:27:24.260 Oh, I go back to my NBC post. The resignation of a Southern California mayor who pled guilty

00:27:30.840 to acting as a foreign agent for China has sparked backlash and reignited fears of anti-Asian

00:27:38.340 discrimination. Hold on. Wait, hold on. Discovering that America's chief adversary around the world

00:27:46.080 has installed a mayor in a Southern California town, like one of our elected officials is actually

00:27:51.020 secretly a spy for China. The first emotion that that evokes in me is not fear of a potential

00:27:59.300 anti-Asian backlash. That's not my chief concern. My chief concern is that China is installing spies

00:28:06.640 throughout our government. The Norm joke, I've played it before. I'll play it again. You can 0.91

00:28:10.400 never watch too much Norm. Norm made the same joke five, 10 years ago about ISIS.

00:28:16.740 Well, I can't say my friend's name, but he said his biggest fear is that ISIS or some terrorist group like that would get a hold of a dirty bomb and explode it over a major city within the United States.

00:28:39.960 and kill tens of millions of people

00:28:45.080 because then the blowback 1.00

00:28:49.660 against innocent Muslims

00:28:52.800 would be absolutely terrible. 1.00

00:28:56.380 Yes, that's true.

00:28:57.260 That's true.

00:28:58.480 All right, let's do some jokes.

00:29:01.600 Yeah, of course.

00:29:02.660 No, I mean, that's the fear.

00:29:03.640 Could you imagine the backlash?

00:29:05.700 Could you imagine 10 million dead Americans?

00:29:08.380 The backlash would just be terrible.

00:29:09.960 NBC straight-faced that joke, just like Norm's guest couldn't actually laugh at the joke.

00:29:15.540 So this woman, it's Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang, who confessed. She admitted to federal law

00:29:20.820 enforcement. She, quote, secretly served the interests of the Chinese government. 0.80

00:29:26.040 And this is always how the libs react to this. Do you remember a story we covered on the show

00:29:29.140 last week? There was this guy, this black, mentally ill criminal, who had a rap sheet 0.99

00:29:34.140 a mile long. And he was most recently arrested because he pushed an old man, a 78-year-old 0.99

00:29:40.040 white guy down the stairs of a subway, killed the guy almost instantly. And he was finally

00:29:44.700 taken in. And then it turned out, this guy had been brought in for questioning multiple times,

00:29:48.240 including from incidents on the subway. He goes up to these two young women on the subway,

00:29:53.200 starts grabbing at them, kicking at them, chasing them through the subway.

00:29:56.300 They finally run out of the subway station. Luckily, he's still following them. They run

00:30:01.240 into some cops and the cops stopped the guy and they say, hey, ladies, is everything okay?

00:30:06.820 And the young women, these 23-year-old white women say, huh? Oh yeah, it's fine. I'm not

00:30:10.860 cooperating with you cops. They refused to describe what the criminal had done to them

00:30:16.560 on the subway. And so the cops had to let the guy go. And when the woman was asked about this,

00:30:21.180 one of the 23-year-olds, she told the New York Post, yeah, well, I didn't want to cooperate

00:30:25.000 with the cops because, you know, I don't know. I mean, I guess I just didn't want another black 1.00

00:30:28.720 man to go to jail. So I was just so feared of the backlash. I didn't want a black criminal to go to 0.83

00:30:36.840 jail. So now an innocent elderly white man is dead. I would rather have an innocent elderly 0.99

00:30:41.140 white man dead than a black mentally ill criminal go to jail. I just, you know, the backlash would 1.00

00:30:47.440 be so terrible. That's exactly what they do. The libs are always prioritizing the perpetrators of

00:30:53.820 crime over the victims of crime, and they're always prioritizing foreigners over our own

00:30:59.020 citizens. You saw this even, there was a now famous heat map that was going viral about a year, 0.93

00:31:06.540 year and a half ago, where it showed that conservatives care most about the people

00:31:11.620 closest to them, our kids, our wives, our families, and then people in our town, and then people in

00:31:16.340 our state, and people in our country. And so what the vice president described as the Ordo Amore

00:31:21.780 strong on St. Augustine or the Ordo Caritate strong on St. Thomas Aquinas, the order of charity,

00:31:26.600 the notion which comes from the Bible, it comes from 1 Timothy, I think, 1 or 2 Timothy, which

00:31:30.780 says that we have a special obligation to care for those closest to us. If we care for those

00:31:35.220 who are furthest away from us more than we care for those who are closest to us,

00:31:39.380 we've actually done something wrong. That's actually disordered and unnatural.

00:31:43.500 For the libs, that just is their disposition. The libs always care about humanity in the

00:31:47.880 abstract. They just don't like humans here at home. The lib will, well, they actually don't

00:31:52.940 give that much to charity, but they'll give taxpayer money to fund some poor person that

00:31:57.720 they've never met on the other side of the world. But then they'll murder their own babies in the 0.98

00:32:00.980 womb, or they'll disown their own families here at home. They're always doing this. 1.00

00:32:07.440 And so here, the fear is not that a hostile foreign government is taking over political

00:32:12.100 offices in our country. No, no, no. The fear is, can you imagine the backlash against other

00:32:16.660 agents of the communist Chinese party. Okay. Speaking of the Chinese, Panda Express,

00:32:21.840 a Panda Express location has just asked customers wearing MAGA hats to leave and then went further,

00:32:28.020 called the police on them. We'll get to this report. Very few people are talking about it.

00:32:31.680 Rob Finnerty at Newsmax says, very few other people are. We'll get to that momentarily. First

00:32:34.680 though, my favorite comment yesterday from James Langford, 981. I hear Chud the Builder was born

00:32:39.960 at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yeah. I mean, I hope the SPLC at least sends Chud some cigarettes

00:32:45.140 in jail because they're prison because that's not

00:32:47.100 he really he really got hung out

00:32:49.200 to dry didn't he okay

00:32:50.140 if you wear a MAGA hat

00:32:53.300 I guess we'll find

00:32:55.320 out if there are true fissures in MAGA tonight in that

00:32:57.200 primary in Kentucky but if you still wear the

00:32:59.180 MAGA hat you better not walk

00:33:01.180 into a Panda Express

00:33:02.120 I don't seem to like my hat guys

00:33:04.900 I'm very angry about it so I was

00:33:07.060 wondering what the deal was did I do something

00:33:09.220 thank you

00:33:11.180 seem like it no you're just staying at me i gave you a thumbs up you

00:33:17.200 you appreciate it no you like it oh no i was on my way out i was just giving him a thumbs up

00:33:26.140 we can leave i'll leave we will we will thanks i appreciate you guys you guys are very sweet

00:33:32.580 nice you're very nice thank you i appreciate you it's it's the chefs that seem very angry

00:33:36.840 okay so he's in there and these these workers at panda express are saying i leave get out of here

00:33:42.740 now you say well why is this guy filming so i don't know yeah i'm always a little skeptical

00:33:48.360 of these videos if there may be gotcha videos where the guy's filming but here by all accounts

00:33:52.480 they go in guys on his phone and they order their panda express they're wearing trump hats

00:33:56.640 they're eating and these workers are making faces at them and you see some of the workers

00:34:02.440 saying, get out, you know, pushing, moving their thumbs and get out of the store.

00:34:06.260 And then the way that I really end up siding with the guys filming is one of the workers

00:34:11.600 follows these guys out of the store.

00:34:13.560 They even call the cops.

00:34:16.380 I just gave you a thumbs up and you guys seemed angry and then they told me to leave.

00:34:19.920 So I'm on a live just look at you.

00:34:22.060 You're good.

00:34:22.540 Yeah, you're good.

00:34:23.980 We're good.

00:34:24.620 Okay.

00:34:26.060 It's not that serious.

00:34:27.080 It's a public side.

00:34:27.960 We don't actually edit it.

00:34:29.600 Just call it a name.

00:34:30.800 You can go.

00:34:31.140 I just sleep.

00:34:31.660 we can stay here. We left. Yeah, no, I was in there and they were like staring at me and he

00:34:36.300 wouldn't say anything. I just gave him a thumbs up and then he said, you guys need to leave. I was

00:34:39.880 like, all right, I'll leave. So I walk outside. I'm still recording. And then she starts calling

00:34:43.620 the police on me. Yeah. Danny, what, uh, what the cops do and did they ever tell you like why

00:34:49.400 they were so offended by a make America great again hat, which had been around now for more

00:34:52.900 than 10 years, man, the cops showed up. They were great, you know, but, um, they didn't tell us why

00:34:59.580 the hat offended him, no. You going to go back to that Panda Express? We might. Let me know if

00:35:06.180 you do. I don't plan on it. We might do a flag wave there. I hope they do go back to the Panda

00:35:10.440 Express. The thing Rob says here I think is crucial. It's not just that these guys walked

00:35:15.020 in wearing a political hat, especially the disfavored political hat of our politically

00:35:20.320 correct regime. Not the disfavored hat of the people, because don't forget Trump won the popular

00:35:25.260 vote. So most people support Trump or at least supported Trump in 2024. But what's so crazy is

00:35:32.320 the hat's been around for 10 years. This is not new. This is not shocking. It's the most

00:35:39.540 recognizable symbol of modern American politics for the last decade. And even that was enough

00:35:45.240 to get these guys kicked out of a restaurant, which is illegal. That's illegal. That's a

00:35:50.060 violation of their civil rights and gets the workers to call the cops on them, to call the 0.75

00:35:55.480 cops for wearing the hat of the president who just won his second term with the popular vote.

00:36:02.840 So these guys are totally in the right. Even if I'm skeptical of guys filming in a restaurant or

00:36:07.640 you're trying to get content or whatever, these guys are totally in the right. And it's a reminder

00:36:12.640 of what's going to happen if we lose. If we lose solidarity in our political party so we fray,

00:36:19.040 so that we give our opponents who are totally unified the ability to take political power

00:36:23.320 again if we let the perfect get in the way of the good. What's going to happen? They're going to

00:36:27.720 kick us out of restaurants for being ordinary conservatives, center-right. They're going to

00:36:35.180 threaten us with violence. They're going to celebrate if violence is committed against us.

00:36:40.180 They've shown this repeatedly time and time again. And so we really do have to stand our ground and

00:36:46.280 we have to wield political power. And I think this might also play into a little bit why some people

00:36:51.860 react negatively against politicians who are more interested in taking individual stands,

00:36:59.280 who are more interested maybe in going on television, who are more interested in

00:37:02.840 sole votes where they're not really working to accomplish all that much, but they're just kind

00:37:08.120 of making a stand to, I don't know, whether for moral reasons or just to puff themselves up.

00:37:14.300 that totally misses the moment. It misses the stakes of the politics we actually live in.

00:37:20.040 Now, speaking of real hardcore nuts and bolts politics and injustice,

00:37:25.360 a beloved liberal relative of mine texted me an article just yesterday and said,

00:37:33.100 and it was an article about Trump's apparent corruption, terrible, awful corruption,

00:37:38.180 always trying to get me to be a liberal Democrat or something. So this is the terrible corruption.

00:37:42.480 What is the corruption? Well, apparently this refers to the recent creation of a $1.8 billion

00:37:49.860 fund. It's actually a $1.776 billion fund, 1776, to compensate people who were targeted by the

00:37:58.960 Biden Justice Department and by Democrats. So it is a taxpayer fund that will go to compensate people

00:38:07.280 who were the victims of political persecution under Biden. And this goes back even further

00:38:12.340 Yes, Biden was spying on Catholics. 0.97

00:38:15.340 Yes, Biden was imprisoning pro-life grannies. 0.91

00:38:17.340 Yeah, Biden was really wielding the government in an unjust way. 0.96

00:38:19.660 But this goes back much earlier.

00:38:21.520 Barack Obama turned his IRS into an attack dog to try to suppress conservative groups.

00:38:26.520 Lois Lerner, the IRS deputy who was in charge of this, admitted to it, came out and actually apologized after the IRS inspector general found out that Obama was wielding the power of the state to suppress conservative groups, to subvert our democracy.

00:38:39.960 And so Trump just unveiled this.

00:38:41.500 Why?

00:38:42.340 because Trump was suing the government for $10 billion. He was suing the IRS, the aforementioned

00:38:47.760 IRS that had been suppressing conservatives. And so as the settlement for this lawsuit that Trump

00:38:53.560 had brought as a private citizen, not as the president, there's this new fund that was set

00:38:57.880 up, $1.776 billion, because the IRS was going after its political enemies, which included

00:39:04.860 Trump and his family, but included many, many other conservatives. So before you start to claim

00:39:09.640 that this is a corrupt fund, it's worth pointing out that Trump will not be paid out of the fund.

00:39:15.400 The Democrats are trying to pretend that Trump is creating the slush fund to enrich himself and

00:39:18.640 his family. He will not be paid out of this. Part of the settlement is the IRS will apologize to

00:39:25.160 Trump and to his family, but Trump and his family will not be paid out of the new fund.

00:39:30.160 Who will be paid out of the new fund? People who were targeted. Who are some prime suspects? We

00:39:35.180 don't know exactly who's going to be paid out of it. Do you remember the McCloskeys in St. Louis? 0.90

00:39:39.640 The McCloskeys, iconic photo.

00:39:41.540 It should have been the cover of Brooks Brothers magazine. 0.87

00:39:43.540 The BLM rioters show up to their home to threaten them as they're murdering dozens of people, 0.96

00:39:48.760 as they're burning down houses and buildings across the country. 0.94

00:39:51.600 They show up to their home, and the McCloskeys showed up outside their own door with weapons, 0.72

00:39:57.020 saying, hey, don't try to burn down my home. 0.56

00:39:59.140 It's not going to turn out well for you.

00:40:00.460 Wearing a great pink Brooks Brothers polo shirt, nice chinos, just the emblem of conservative Republicans.

00:40:06.900 And the government went after the McCloskeys for this. 0.94

00:40:11.540 For exercising their basic constitutional rights and their really basic rights to defend themselves. 0.96

00:40:18.500 You know, getting back to what we were talking about at the top of the show when MSNBC was shocked and appalled that we believe that our rights come from God and not the government.

00:40:26.780 The civil law is an ordinance of reason for the common good by him who is care of the community and promulgated.

00:40:31.220 The civil law in America derives from our conception of natural rights.

00:40:35.580 natural rights, which are themselves a derivation of natural law, natural law, which is man's

00:40:40.640 participation in the eternal law. So you have this line from basic civil laws, even laws against

00:40:45.880 jaywalking, all the way up to God and morality. And the rights of Americans have been violated

00:40:52.000 by the government. Todd Blanche, the attorney general, says, the machinery of government

00:40:57.380 should never be weaponized against any American. And it is this department's intention to make

00:41:02.080 right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again.

00:41:04.940 This is so crucial because here's what happens.

00:41:07.280 The Democrats wield the government against us.

00:41:09.160 And then there are all these horrible wrongs. 0.81

00:41:11.900 You know, the McCloskeys or pro-lifers have jackbooted thugs show up to their homes in front of their seven kids, arrest them for praying and demonstrating at abortion clinics, arresting pro-life grannies, spying on churches, on and on and on. 0.84

00:41:25.040 The Democrats do all that. 0.88

00:41:26.480 Then the Republicans get into power and they say, we're going to expose this.

00:41:30.360 See, we've got the proof that you were persecuting us for years.

00:41:34.940 And then nothing happens. And it's not like we shame the Democrats. They don't have any shame

00:41:40.760 for that. All that happens is when we lose power eventually, the Democrats just do it again.

00:41:47.380 In other words, there's no justice. There's no compensation. There's no teeth to the exposure.

00:41:53.780 So what Trump and the attorney general are doing here and what the IRS has done in its settlement

00:41:57.260 is say, no, there's going to be a consequence. We are going to compensate the conservatives

00:42:03.240 who we, the government, under Democrat leadership, abused. It's going to hurt us,

00:42:08.620 the government, and the liberal establishment. We're going to have to pay you guys back.

00:42:13.380 For the people who say this is a slush fund for the enrichment of Trump, one, that's just

00:42:17.680 literally not true because Trump isn't getting paid out of it. But two, for those who say this

00:42:22.180 is evidence of, I don't know, political favoritism, paying off our political allies,

00:42:26.060 I say, hold on, that isn't what this is, but what do you think USAID was? Remember Elon came in

00:42:34.220 in the early days of this Trump administration with Doge and started tearing up USAID? USAID,

00:42:40.180 which was paying for a bunch of stupid stuff overseas, like transgender ballets in the 1.00

00:42:44.500 Philippines, but also which was funneling taxpayer money, laundering it through left-wing NGOs like 0.99

00:42:50.320 the Tides Center, the Tides Foundation, and then Tides taking that money, not sending it overseas,

00:42:55.740 as USAID money is supposed to do, but sending it right back into America to fund the BLM riots.

00:43:01.160 The BLM riots, which were murdering dozens of people, which were burning down buildings, 0.93

00:43:04.940 which were threatening people like the McCloskeys. That's your taxpayer money that's doing that. 0.99

00:43:10.080 What do you think this stuff is? What about all those Medicaid programs that were supposed to

00:43:13.980 help poor people in Minnesota and California and Ohio? What do you think that is? That's not going

00:43:19.600 to help poor people by and large. What that's doing is going to fund foreign criminals. In some 0.98

00:43:24.400 cases going to fund foreign criminals who are in America who are sending that money to foreign

00:43:29.000 terrorist groups overseas. What do you think that is? That's a slush fund. That's corruption.

00:43:34.640 That's paying off your political allies. What Trump is doing here is a beautiful corrective

00:43:39.920 to this. Because one, practically speaking, it's true, money will go toward conservatives.

00:43:44.980 But money will go toward conservatives who have been abused by the liberal government.

00:43:48.740 I love this. My only complaint about this fund, this $1776 $1.8 billion fund, I wish it were

00:43:56.040 bigger. I wish it were bigger, and I wish it would go to many more conservatives who have

00:44:00.300 been abused by the system. Okay, so much more to get to. A lot of people trying to draw a wedge

00:44:06.220 between Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, trying to create division

00:44:10.820 within the GOP. I guess that's the whole theme of the show today, creating division within the GOP,

00:44:14.820 EGOP trying to establish unity? Well, Rubio's not taking the bait. We'll have to get to that

00:44:20.040 tomorrow because it's TEE Tuesday. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss

00:44:23.240 it. Become a member. Use code KnowlesCanadaWLES at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Michael Knowles Show - May 19, 2026

Ep. 1977 - MAGA vs. Massie Election Fight Ends Tonight

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