The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1980 - Spencer Pratt's Path To Become Mayor Of Los Angeles

00:00:00.000 Can Spencer Pratt go the distance in Gomorrah by the sea?

00:00:03.860 Karen Bass's inability to answer one simple question might turn LA over to a Republican.

00:00:10.640 Then, speaking of not being able to answer a simple question,

00:00:13.920 one of the most prominent liberal Catholics in media

00:00:17.060 does not seem to believe in heaven or the resurrection of the dead.

00:00:21.780 We will examine Stephen Colbert's woo-woo wine mom spiritual gobbledygook.

00:00:26.900 And finally, one of the nation's best-known libertarians, Dave Smith, wonders how I would

00:00:32.580 react if my political predictions turned out to be false. And I guess we'll just never know.

00:00:38.700 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:56.900 Welcome back to the show. A clip is going viral from the bicentennial of America,

00:01:05.260 1976, spirit of 76. It's going viral because as we are now in the 250th anniversary of America,

00:01:13.080 people are getting a little bit nostalgic. They recognize that the country has transformed

00:01:17.400 radically over the last 50 years. We'll see how, how to fix it, how to make the most of this 250th

00:01:25.760 anniversary. Speaking of which, I have to say, if I'm looking a little worse for wear today,

00:01:30.340 it's because I just got off a flight. I was in DC last night. I went to DC for a dinner.

00:01:37.060 That's why I was in town. I happened to be in town. And I'm not going to say too much about

00:01:41.700 this now. I'll maybe post about it a little bit later. But I got a tip off from someone involved

00:01:48.560 with a group of statues. There's a lot of stuff going up for the semi-quincentennial for the

00:01:53.780 250th anniversary of America. I got a tip off from someone involved in a group of statues

00:01:58.400 in our nation's capital. And just as a crane was lifting the first statue in,

00:02:04.760 and it is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I'm actually a little choked up even

00:02:10.420 thinking about it. So how's that for vague posting? Maybe I'll post something about it

00:02:14.700 later on today. First though, I want to tell you about something that I did not get very much of

00:02:20.240 last night because I was flying all over the place and had an early flight. But something

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00:02:44.560 You get bags under your eyes, and you look like a zombie.

00:02:49.280 I'm just speaking hypothetically here.

00:02:51.260 I'm just trying to speak in general.

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00:03:24.860 I absolutely love them.

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00:03:49.040 First off, we turn to L.A., my former town.

00:03:54.260 Is Spencer Pratt going to become the mayor of L.A.?

00:03:57.160 Are we going to flip L.A. Republican?

00:04:00.360 By all rights, L.A. is going to remain Democrat.

00:04:05.600 Okay, I want to temper everybody's expectations here.

00:04:08.000 Even though Spencer Pratt is running an incredible, amazing campaign, best Republican campaign I've seen in California ever, I wasn't alive for the Reagan days, so the best one ever.

00:04:19.140 Despite all of that, if you look at the prediction markets right now, Karen Bass, the current Democrat mayor of L.A., a former card-carrying communist, actual communist, is the overwhelming favorite to remain mayor of L.A.

00:04:33.700 According to the Kalshi markets, 68% chance Karen Bass remains mayor, 27% chance Spencer

00:04:40.700 Pratt unseats her. He's going up. Karen Bass, no, she's not even really down a little bit.

00:04:47.480 She's actually kind of up from where she had been. The one who really cratered was this socialist

00:04:51.240 candidate from the city council, Nitya Raman. So look, by all rights, Bass is going to remain

00:04:57.920 mayor and Spencer Pratt's campaign will be valiant but unsuccessful. Now, if you look at the polling,

00:05:02.520 not the prediction markets, but the polling, things look a little bit better.

00:05:06.560 Emerson College polled in May. Bass has a 30% support. Pratt has 22% support.

00:05:13.960 Raman has 19% support. So it's much, much closer in the actual polls than it would be in the

00:05:19.000 prediction markets, which makes sense. The issue here is that undecided voters are dropping sharply.

00:05:25.380 So Pratt is probably not going to pry the purple-haired lunatics. He's not going to pry

00:05:30.920 the illegal aliens and all the people that Karen Bass wants to vote for. So he's really relying on

00:05:36.020 those undecided voters. As the undecided voter number gets smaller, his odds are going to go

00:05:40.640 down. But still, it's an eight-point race in California that's pretty impressive.

00:05:45.440 Rahman is helping him here, or the socialists splitting the left-wing vote is actually helping

00:05:49.400 Spencer Pratt. So you say, all right, look, the odds that this great Republican candidate actually

00:05:54.100 wins pretty, pretty low. However, Karen Bass is doing her level best to get a Republican elected

00:06:00.040 there because she is running a horrible campaign. She knows she's running a horrible campaign.

00:06:04.340 That's why she dropped out of the debate after Spencer Pratt completely dominated at that first

00:06:08.240 debate. Karen Bass said, whatever, I'm not facing this guy on stage. Nitya Raman, same thing.

00:06:13.180 Karen Bass does make the mistake of going on CNN, doing an interview with my old pal,

00:06:18.700 Alex Michelson. Alex, who is a great objective down the middle reporter,

00:06:23.560 probably leans a little bit left. So he's certainly not a Republican,

00:06:27.000 but he's just he tries to ask fair questions he asks a very simple question of karen bass

00:06:33.100 the biggest issue in los angeles is the homeless problem la residents have to worry about getting

00:06:38.980 stabbed by schizophrenic crackheads on the street even in the nice neighborhoods this is a big big

00:06:45.020 problem it's only gotten worse over over the past decades they tried to fix it over the last year or

00:06:51.240 two. Not a lot of advancement here. So simple question. Hey, Mayor Bass, why should voters

00:06:57.660 trust you on the biggest issue when you haven't done anything about it in the last year or two?

00:07:02.740 You said that your goal was to end street homelessness in L.A. by 2026. It's now 2026.

00:07:10.180 And we haven't ended it. We have not ended it and we're not close to ending it.

00:07:13.940 How are you so off? Well, basically, when I said that it was at the beginning of my term,

00:07:20.720 I am very committed to achieving that goal I didn't anticipate some of the

00:07:26.420 bureaucratic barriers that I would experience but I am prepared to take

00:07:31.640 those on now but you promised that it would go away a hundred percent and it's

00:07:37.280 only gone down about 17.6 percent right so why should people trust you that

00:07:42.080 you're gonna be able to get to the hundred because let me just tell you for

00:07:45.020 the first time we've had a decrease at all. You should be thankful. Now, there's a one-sixth

00:07:58.700 reduced chance that you get stabbed by a crackhead on the street. Where are my thank yous?

00:08:05.340 Excuse me. Look, I know I promised that I would solve this problem, and I haven't,

00:08:10.020 and it's only gone down by 17.5%. But come on, that's pretty good. He says, no, but hold on,

00:08:16.680 you promised you'd fix it. This isn't brain surgery. Why? It shouldn't be that hard to get

00:08:20.600 the vagrant, dangerous criminals off the streets. No, but you don't understand. The reason I

00:08:25.280 couldn't do it is because I was not able to overcome bureaucratic red tape. Okay, so why

00:08:31.380 do people, why should people think that you're going to do that now? Because now I'm prepared

00:08:34.720 to do that. Don't worry. Forget about my record. Forget about my complete failure. Forget about

00:08:40.940 my incompetence at best or just ideological affinity for the criminals at worst. Don't

00:08:46.260 worry. Don't look at what I've done. Just listen to my words. I super double doggy promise to do

00:08:53.620 it next time. That was not an interview on the Daily Wire. That was not an interview on the

00:08:59.920 Michael Knowles show. That was not an interview on Fox News. That was CNN. And that's a California

00:09:05.020 reporter who was asking that question. And she's got nothing. And the haughtiness, the pride,

00:09:11.620 the hubris to say, what are you talking about? The number went down very slightly. Come on,

00:09:18.660 let me off the hook. She then, she steps in it again. Karen Bass was asked, also this is by

00:09:25.420 Politico. Politico is a left-wing outlet. Said, hey, Mayor Bass, simple question,

00:09:31.060 should non-citizens vote? Should foreigners decide American elections?

00:09:38.260 Councilmember Hugo Sotomartes, who has endorsed you, he wants to explore ways to let non-citizens

00:09:45.000 vote in city elections. I know that there are some cities that already do this, but

00:09:50.380 you know, politics is all about timing. With Donald Trump in the White House, is this the

00:09:56.640 right time for Los Angeles to go down this path? Well, I think we need to explore it. Now, I've

00:10:01.160 not seen exactly what he's calling for. I have a little familiarity of what happens in other cities,

00:10:07.140 and, for example, some cities will allow people to vote in, like, city council and school board

00:10:13.360 elections because they pay local taxes, but they are not necessarily undocumented. They might be

00:10:19.540 here completely legally, but have not finished the citizenship process. So we'll wait and see.

00:10:25.560 We'll wait and see? What are you talking about? We'll wait and see. You're the mayor.

00:10:29.660 It's a question for you. Do you support foreigners deciding our elections?

00:10:37.280 He goes, well, look, we got to explore that. What is the top issue in people's minds?

00:10:42.640 usually it's the economy the the there's the national economy which is a little bit out of

00:10:49.620 the control of state and local leaders but california has really screwed it up at the

00:10:53.880 state and local level they have screwed up the economy they've screwed up affordability as much

00:10:58.440 as it is possible to screw it up gas in california is what seven bucks a gallon

00:11:03.700 it's because of the taxes because of the terrible regulatory environment you want to talk about the

00:11:10.600 affordability crisis in California, Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom allowed LA to burn to the ground.

00:11:16.900 That made things a little more expensive, didn't it? It's kind of difficult to deal

00:11:22.060 with affordability when you don't have a house. That's why Spencer Pratt has a successful campaign

00:11:25.440 here. So the biggest issue, she totally screws up. The second biggest issue, which sometimes

00:11:32.300 even supplants the economy in voters' minds, is mass migration. This influx of foreigners,

00:11:38.480 especially not just from the perspective of the labor market or of crime, but especially from

00:11:43.320 the perspective of sovereignty, of our identity, of having some control over our political destiny.

00:11:50.740 And she says, yeah, we're going to have to explore letting foreigners decide elections.

00:11:54.500 Why? Because if Americans decided elections, if people with skin in the game financially,

00:12:03.800 as a matter of their family, as a matter of their tradition within their communities.

00:12:08.780 If Americans decided elections, Democrats would not have a chance.

00:12:12.420 The reason that Democrats support mass migration, and they have been explicit about this

00:12:17.120 for decades, the reason they support mass migration is because they want to give themselves

00:12:22.500 an electoral advantage.

00:12:23.820 They know that Americans don't like them that much, and so they need to pad the vote with

00:12:28.620 foreigners.

00:12:29.260 And she's just open about this.

00:12:31.340 I'd almost respect her more if she just blatantly lied.

00:12:34.460 That would be bad.

00:12:35.340 It's wrong to lie, obviously.

00:12:36.960 But hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.

00:12:39.520 If she were talking like a Democrat in the 90s or 2000s,

00:12:42.740 even like Obama was talking about in 2008,

00:12:44.580 said, well, listen, we know we oppose illegal immigration.

00:12:47.880 And we need to make sure that Americans control our borders.

00:12:51.900 And this is a country of, by, and for the people.

00:12:57.120 He was totally lying about that.

00:12:58.900 Obviously, he gave an unconstitutional mass amnesty to over 800,000 illegals, but at least

00:13:03.600 he pretended. Right before he did the unconstitutional mass amnesty, he said it

00:13:08.060 was unconstitutional. At least he acknowledged reality and what voters want. She doesn't even

00:13:13.500 do that. Says, yeah, we're going to have to explore that. We're going to see. I think the

00:13:17.740 implication might be we're going to we're going to see how my reelection odds are going. We're

00:13:21.360 going to see what those prediction markets say. Yeah, we might need to seriously explore letting

00:13:25.540 foreigners decide elections because you Americans, for whatever reason, you don't want to elect me.

00:13:30.380 Okay, so what does this mean for Democrats and Republicans nationally? The fundraising numbers

00:13:35.940 are in, and I know Republicans are big doomers because historically we should get completely

00:13:41.100 creamed in the midterms, and maybe we will, but the fundraising numbers tell a very, very different

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00:15:09.140 Fundraising numbers are in.

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00:15:53.920 because they will not last. Do not make me say I told you so. Fundraising numbers are in

00:16:00.280 the Republican National Committee right now. Just take a guess. How much cash on hand

00:16:05.380 does the Republican National Committee have?

00:16:09.840 You know, we always think the Republicans are screwing everything up.

00:16:12.300 I said at that TPUSA Idaho event that I did with Matt a few weeks ago,

00:16:16.220 I said, look, guys, you might be dissatisfied with the Republicans.

00:16:18.940 I think the Republicans are the worst political party in America

00:16:21.100 other than the Democrats.

00:16:23.520 But elections involve a choice, and you've got to pick one

00:16:27.400 or you've got to pick the other.

00:16:28.160 That's just how elections work.

00:16:29.520 I'll give you a little hint as to how much money they got.

00:16:31.820 The RNC raised $18.6 million in April.

00:16:36.160 $18.6 million.

00:16:37.400 It's a pretty good haul for the National Committee.

00:16:39.480 That means that the total cash on hand, according to the FEC, is $123.8 million for the Republicans.

00:16:47.680 Now, you say, okay, I just, I don't have any context.

00:16:49.800 Is that good?

00:16:50.340 Is that bad?

00:16:51.100 How does that stack up?

00:16:52.200 Well, let's compare it to the Democrats.

00:16:53.540 The DNC has negative $3 million cash on hand.

00:16:57.840 It's a pretty big spread.

00:16:59.080 Now, I don't want to get too excited about it because there's fundraising for the party committees.

00:17:02.940 There's fundraising for super PACs.

00:17:04.520 there's fundraising for specific races. So in the Senate races, the Democrats are really putting up

00:17:09.980 a big fight against the Republicans. You look at Georgia right now, John Ossoff, the Democrat,

00:17:15.080 is $13.8 million fundraising. The Republicans, you got Mike Collins, Derek Dooley, Earl Carter,

00:17:21.920 way, way less. A million dollars at most, half a million, half a million.

00:17:26.300 You look at Texas right now, James Tallarico, $27.1 million raised. Compared to John Cornyn,

00:17:32.660 only $2.7 million. So Tallarico has raised an order of magnitude more than Cornyn, who's the

00:17:37.660 incumbent, but Cornyn doesn't have Trump's endorsement. Trump just days ago endorsed Ken

00:17:41.040 Paxton, who has even less money than Cornyn. Paxton's raised $1.7 million. Now again, on these

00:17:45.920 two races, Texas and Georgia, Democrats are going to post these numbers to make themselves seem

00:17:50.380 really strong. It's worth pointing out, there were multiple Republican candidates in these races.

00:17:53.980 So the floodgates haven't really opened up yet. A lot of donors are going to wait to see how the

00:17:58.160 primary goes, then they're going to dump their money in so they get a better return on their

00:18:01.060 investment for the general. You look at Ohio, Sherrod Brown vastly outraising John Husted,

00:18:08.500 Alaska, North Carolina, vastly outraising the Republicans. Now, Maine, it's a little bit

00:18:14.740 tighter. Graham Plattner, who's this guy, he has a Nazi tattoo on him. He's a complete lunatic.

00:18:20.100 It's kind of funny that the Democrats gave a lot of grief to Pete Hegseth,

00:18:23.020 the Defense Secretary of War, because he has a thousand-year Christian symbol,

00:18:29.420 the Jerusalem cross on his chest,

00:18:30.820 as well as we, the people,

00:18:32.520 written on his arm.

00:18:33.980 They said, these are Nazi symbols.

00:18:35.500 You're quoting the Declaration of Independence

00:18:36.880 and medieval Christianity.

00:18:39.040 Meanwhile, Graham Plattner

00:18:39.880 has an actual Nazi tattoo on.

00:18:41.260 Anyway, he's out raising Susan Collins.

00:18:43.100 Okay, New Hampshire problem,

00:18:44.260 Michigan problem, Iowa,

00:18:46.380 the Republicans out raising

00:18:47.540 the Democrats a little bit.

00:18:48.560 So look, it's going to be tight.

00:18:49.900 I don't want to make everything

00:18:51.340 seem all hunky-dory.

00:18:52.480 Republicans are going to have to fight

00:18:53.460 as hard as they possibly can.

00:18:55.880 But from the perspective

00:18:56.900 of the parties right now,

00:18:58.840 the Republicans are looking better. When you see the approval ratings for Trump or for this policy

00:19:05.040 or that policy or this event or that, I'm not saying it's all sunshine and roses.

00:19:10.240 The Republicans are in a very tough spot. Voters are dissatisfied with Republicans.

00:19:14.220 The silver lining to that is voters are even more dissatisfied with the Democrats.

00:19:19.400 Democrats are at a low ebb. And one way that Republicans can beat them is to keep just

00:19:25.880 cracking them over their rhetorical heads with wokeism. For those of us who are political

00:19:30.960 junkies, who are paying attention day by day, who are very online, especially young voters,

00:19:35.340 you're going to say, look, wokeism's dead. Wokeism died two, three years ago. It's no big deal. It's

00:19:38.860 over. We got to move on. Stop beating a dead horse. But that isn't true. One, that isn't true

00:19:43.440 in the minds of normie voters and older voters. And two, it isn't true in the minds of Democrats.

00:19:49.780 The Democrats have not given up on wokeism. The Democrats have not given up on transing the kids.

00:19:53.880 the Democrats have not given up on open borders. The Democrats have not given up on foreigners

00:19:57.620 deciding our elections. They're still, when you really press them, openly in favor of all of

00:20:02.780 those things. And those are very, very effective issues for the Republicans. So you can't give up

00:20:09.020 on that. Republicans still have some major advantages in this race, and that's even

00:20:14.660 being reflected in the money. Okay. Now, speaking of Dems coming up short, this was a pretty

00:20:18.780 scandalous clip. Stephen Colbert's show is over. He had the late night show. He used to have the

00:20:24.100 show on Comedy Central, which was pretty funny. It was a left-wing show, but it was pretty funny.

00:20:27.460 Then he got David Letterman's old show on CBS, and then his show got canceled. And Colbert whined

00:20:32.800 and cried and blamed Donald Trump, but it wasn't Donald Trump's fault. It was because his show was

00:20:36.160 hemorrhaging money and no one really watches late night anymore. And frankly, that show

00:20:39.660 is David Letterman's show. And it's never been the same since David Letterman left.

00:20:43.780 The late night format is kind of exhausted, but Colbert did not shine in that format. He was good,

00:20:48.780 playing a character on the Comedy Central show. He was good for what it was. He was not all that

00:20:53.140 good in this format. So he's out and everyone's being real sappy and real nice to him. And one

00:20:57.680 of the plaudits that he's gotten over the years is that Stephen Colbert is this model of a left

00:21:04.360 wing Catholic. He says that he takes the Catholic faith seriously. I don't want to judge his

00:21:09.920 sincerity, but he's really been put out there by the left wing elements within the Catholic church.

00:21:16.380 he's been put out there as this exemplar of liberal Catholicism. Okay, well, let's test that.

00:21:21.640 Here is Colbert chatting with Jim Gaffigan, also Catholic, about their view of what happens when

00:21:28.980 you die. Now, this is not a particularly complicated question. If you've graduated

00:21:33.560 from your first year of catechism, if you've been to mass even one time and recited the creed,

00:21:41.660 you should have this answer pretty well. What's Colbert's answer?

00:21:46.380 Here's the question, Steven.

00:21:47.840 What is the question?

00:21:48.840 What do you think happens when we die?

00:21:52.160 Here's what I picture.

00:21:53.820 Some of these questions, if I answer them,

00:21:55.360 I have to think of what do I think

00:21:56.440 as I'm waiting for the person to answer them

00:21:58.160 when I give it to them?

00:21:59.060 What comes to mind?

00:22:00.100 When it comes to mind, when I ask this question,

00:22:01.420 I think of almost like it's more like a feeling.

00:22:05.340 And the feeling is that when we die,

00:22:07.000 I think there is some continuance of some kind,

00:22:09.600 but it's a, like a dispersion of the self

00:22:15.160 into some other greater being.

00:22:22.380 And I don't know, I don't have any of the feelings beyond that.

00:22:25.680 What you're saying is we become Febreze.

00:22:29.700 Yes, right.

00:22:32.380 Okay, great comeback from Gaffigan here.

00:22:34.880 You're saying we become Febreze.

00:22:38.500 What was that answer?

00:22:41.060 I know there are religions that believe something like that.

00:22:44.100 The non-theistic religions, Hinduism or Jainism or Buddhism, believe something like that.

00:22:50.400 That when we die, we continue on in a way, but we cease to really be the self.

00:22:55.540 You know, we just kind of disperse and are absorbed into some greater kind of thing.

00:23:01.160 And we lose our individuality and we achieve nirvana or something like that.

00:23:06.480 Yeah, I've heard that before, but I don't hear that in mass.

00:23:09.640 I don't read that in the catechism.

00:23:11.980 In fact, when you go to mass, you recite the creed and you say, all confessional Christians

00:23:18.940 say this. They say, I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the

00:23:23.720 world to come. This is pretty basic stuff. We believe that when you die, there is a particular

00:23:29.000 judgment. You go to heaven or hell, and we believe in the resurrection of the body,

00:23:35.780 which we see proof of and we see a figure of, but it literally happened in the resurrection of

00:23:40.800 Christ. That's what we believe. That's not nirvana. That's not just dispersing into the

00:23:45.160 greater being. That's not becoming Febreze. And what's so weird about this is Colbert used to

00:23:51.760 know this. I remember, we'll see if the producers were able to do truly MVP, crazy level work here.

00:23:58.680 I remember a clip from 20 years ago when I was watching Colbert's show on Comedy Central

00:24:02.380 in which Colbert recited that creed.

00:24:07.400 There are a few things, I believe.

00:24:10.360 Off the top of my head, I'd say,

00:24:13.120 I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

00:24:14.900 maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen,

00:24:16.980 and Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,

00:24:18.860 God from God, life from life, true God from true God,

00:24:21.100 begotten, not made, one and being with the Father,

00:24:23.260 through whom all things were made for us men and for our salvation.

00:24:25.820 He came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit,

00:24:27.700 was born of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

00:24:30.180 For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,

00:24:31.900 suffered died and was buried and the third day he rose again

00:24:33.940 in fulfillment of the scriptures he ascended into heaven

00:24:35.980 and is seated at the right hand of the father as you're coming in

00:24:37.880 glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end

00:24:39.900 I believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord

00:24:41.980 the giver of life and the season of the Father and the Son

00:24:43.600 but the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified he is spoken to the prophets

00:24:46.020 I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic

00:24:48.080 church I acknowledge one baptism for the

00:24:49.780 forgiveness of sins I look for the resurrection of the dead

00:24:51.980 and the life of the world to come

00:24:53.120 I know wow wow

00:24:55.780 we gotta give editor

00:24:57.620 Olivia huge plot it's that she dug

00:24:59.920 that up. That clip is basically scrubbed from the internet. It's very, very old. Copyrights

00:25:04.040 protecting. I don't know how she got that, but that was great. I remember when Colbert said

00:25:08.340 that 20 years ago, I think it was in 2006. I remember watching it thinking, wow, that was

00:25:12.200 impressive. I was an atheist at the time. And I thought, wow, that was really impressive.

00:25:16.740 And he was clear about what he believed. All the other great things he believes, but on the point

00:25:22.720 here, apropos of our discussion, he said, yeah, I believe in the resurrection of the dead.

00:25:26.680 so what happened what how do you go from that he says he believes that assuming Colbert goes to

00:25:34.620 mass he says he believes that every week maybe he goes more than once a week to this woo-woo

00:25:40.420 wine mom new age gnostic nonsense of we all just kind of disperse and we lose our individuality

00:25:47.660 man and we're all part of the hum you know and we do our yoga and then we hum and we just dissolve

00:25:54.940 into what is that? That's a little weird. It's a little weird. It's making me even more skeptical

00:26:03.420 of liberal Christianity, left-wing Christianity, which strikes me, having read the syllabus of

00:26:10.220 errors and looking at the history of the church and looking at theology, strikes me as a

00:26:13.940 contradiction in terms. Okay. Now, speaking of difficult questions, the libertarian commentator

00:26:20.540 and comedian Dave Smith just wondered on one of his shows, was just wondering aloud what my

00:26:27.020 reaction would be if I were wrong in my political predictions, specifically about what would happen

00:26:33.120 in that congressional race in Kentucky with Thomas Massey. We'll examine that question.

00:26:37.340 First, I want to tell you about pre-born. Go to preborn.com slash Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S.

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00:27:16.960 It increases it by more than double. So pre-born helps provide real practical support for mothers.

00:27:23.100 Maternity resources, counseling, baby supplies, diapers, clothing, and ongoing care to help women

00:27:27.500 feel prepared instead of alone. This is one of those moments where even a relatively small

00:27:33.000 contribution can make a real difference. $28 provides one ultrasound appointment. $140 helps

00:27:39.220 reach five mothers. I personally support this organization. I strongly encourage you to give

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00:27:47.240 whole family. Get involved. I'll pound 250, say keyword baby. That is pound 250, keyword baby,

00:27:52.800 or go to preborn.com slash Knowles, preborn.com slash Knowles. A clip comes across my feed

00:28:00.020 yesterday. People were tagging me in it. This was from before the Thomas Massey primary campaign,

00:28:06.020 before the election on Tuesday, in which Dave Smith was taking some issue with my political

00:28:12.920 analysis and my predictions. He was sitting with the reactionary commentator, Nick Fuentes,

00:28:19.200 and Dave said that he was really eager to see what my reaction would be if my prediction turned out

00:28:27.280 to be incorrect. Then the betting markets start like, clearly people are putting money in and

00:28:33.280 influencing this. So Michael Knowles over at the Daily Wire, who I, you know, I don't dislike

00:28:37.320 Michael Knowles but uh his take on this was he goes man if Thomas Massey loses this just shows

00:28:43.900 the iron grip that Donald Trump has on the Republican party oh brother and you're like dude

00:28:48.780 dude I mean I think it shows the iron grip that the Israel lobby has if there was like that might

00:28:54.820 be a slightly more accurate take but then I also go um and I'll be interested because I think Thomas

00:29:00.080 Massey's gonna win I think it's close but I think he's gonna pull this off um I wonder what Michael

00:29:04.860 knowles reaction to that will be so if it if it proves that trump has an iron grip when massey

00:29:09.480 falls out what about when thomas massey wins and survives 20 million dollars being uh pumped into

00:29:14.680 his district what would what would that uh suggest i wonder what michael knowles what his reaction

00:29:21.580 will be when his prediction proves incorrect you see nick fuentes there he says oh yes yeah

00:29:25.920 yeah that's right i wonder i wonder what my reaction would have been had i been wrong

00:29:33.600 I guess we'll never know because my prediction was totally correct.

00:29:39.760 And here, Dave says, he goes, you know, look, I think it's going to be close.

00:29:42.300 It wasn't even close.

00:29:43.840 It wasn't close.

00:29:44.460 It was a nine-point swing.

00:29:45.980 So that was the first bit.

00:29:47.500 I found that very delightful.

00:29:48.700 And I appreciate that Dave says, he goes, look, I don't dislike Michael Knowles.

00:29:51.800 And I feel exactly the same way.

00:29:53.040 Actually, I want to get Dave on one of the bar fight shows because he'd be a good figure for the show.

00:29:58.740 I would be the conservative.

00:30:00.720 Dave is a libertarian.

00:30:01.860 and then we get some left winger. I think that's a pretty good lineup because everybody could kind

00:30:05.720 of disagree, but sometimes would agree with each other. So anyway, I'm grateful for Dave's statement

00:30:11.120 there. And I look forward to seeing him on a bar fight show or something. But what about the first

00:30:16.160 part where you say, okay, well, maybe Michael was totally right in his prediction. Maybe Dave was

00:30:21.100 wrong in his prediction. But Dave and Nick Fuentes both take issue with my analysis. My analysis was

00:30:27.940 part of my prediction I said was, if Massey goes down, this will be evidence that Trump

00:30:32.800 has an ironclad grip on the Republican Party. And the two of them, they say, oh, brother,

00:30:37.480 here we go. No, it doesn't show. That's not what it will chiefly show. What's going to show

00:30:42.100 is that the pro-Israel lobby has an ironclad grip on the Republican Party. That will be the chief

00:30:47.300 takeaway if Massey goes down. But I don't think Massey's going to go down. Yeah, no, I don't think

00:30:51.960 he's going to go down. No, he'll win. It'll be close, whatever. Okay. So I want to point out,

00:30:56.380 I was also completely correct in my political analysis of the broader context here.

00:31:03.060 And let's be totally clear about it. I am not denying in the least that pro-Israel donors

00:31:08.980 wanted to take Massey out. I'm not denying that at all. It's a little complicated because

00:31:12.660 Massey's biggest individual backer was ardently pro-Israel. That's a slight confounding factor,

00:31:17.860 but it's true. AIPAC wanted to take Massey out. The pro-Israel donors really wanted to take Massey

00:31:22.500 out. But that was not the chief takeaway. And my proof of this is all of the other races,

00:31:29.820 all of the other primaries that Trump intervened in. You can say the Israel issue was a big factor

00:31:35.680 in the Massey race. How do you explain Brad Raffensperger in Georgia? Israel didn't play

00:31:40.980 a single role in that election. That primary race was about Raffensperger's reaction to the 2020

00:31:46.840 presidential election. How do you explain Bill Cassidy's Senate primary? Bill Cassidy's Senate

00:31:52.580 primary had nothing whatsoever to do with Israel. He just irritated Trump by turning against him,

00:31:59.940 turning against him on the issue of impeachment. How do you explain the five Indiana state

00:32:04.440 legislators who went down in their primary campaigns in all the races that Trump intervened

00:32:08.800 in? That issue wasn't about Israel. That was about redistricting because they turned on Trump on

00:32:14.100 redistricting. My point is not that the pro-Israel donors didn't want to take Massey out. My point

00:32:19.880 is that the chief takeaway of Massey going down alongside Raffensperger and Cassidy and the

00:32:24.740 Indiana legislature all at the same time is that the only common thread there wasn't Israel. It

00:32:32.000 wasn't the 2020 election. It wasn't impeachment. It wasn't redistricting. Those were individual

00:32:35.700 issues. The only common thread to them all going down at the same time is that Trump turned on them

00:32:42.840 and told voters not to vote for them. And so if we're trying to find the common thread,

00:32:48.340 the chief cause of their going down, the only conclusion that we can draw is that it was Trump

00:32:54.140 having an ironclad grip on the Republican Party, despite the predictions and prognostications of

00:33:00.800 podcasters who keep being proven wrong. That's my point. I'll go even further in the Massey race.

00:33:07.380 There are a number of Republican congressmen who don't like Israel, who have voted to defund Israel.

00:33:11.940 who are still in their seats. I'm sure AIPAC would love to take them out too.

00:33:17.540 The deciding factor is Trump hadn't turned on them. That's where I get my political observation

00:33:23.820 from. I'd go even further. The last point I'll make on Massey is, had Massey played nicey with

00:33:29.820 Trump, had Massey voted for the big, beautiful bill, had Massey not started palling around with

00:33:34.980 Ro Khanna, an unctuous Democrat, Trump very likely would not have turned on him. And even

00:33:41.580 if you had the pro-Israel donors trying to take him out, my point is that wouldn't have mattered

00:33:45.660 because the decisive factor was Trump. Now, once again, as I pointed this out in the Massey race,

00:33:50.240 you can say it's good that Massey opposed the GOP. You can say it's good that Massey opposed

00:33:53.880 Trump. You can say you like Massey more than Trump or the Republicans. You can say any of

00:33:57.740 those things. You can say you want to be a libertarian instead of a conservative. I'm not

00:34:01.140 making any comment on that. In this context, all I'm saying is if you want to understand what's

00:34:09.560 going on in politics, and if you want to be able to be more likely to make accurate political

00:34:14.080 predictions, you have to understand the underlying structures, how party politics actually works.

00:34:20.960 And the fact that, look, you know how much I hate to say I told you so, but the fact that my

00:34:27.100 observations and predictions have this habit of being proven correct, look, none of us is omniscient,

00:34:35.100 But the fact that there is pattern recognition here and they do keep playing out in reality, that would seem to suggest that that analysis on what's going on in politics is the more accurate one.

00:34:47.200 And, you know, I hate to say I told you so, but who knows?

00:34:50.280 Maybe, David, very nice comments there.

00:34:53.520 Maybe we can hash it out on a bar fight, I hope in the future.

00:34:56.020 Okay.

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00:35:13.420 Now, much, much more to get to.

00:35:16.060 Talk about uncertainty.

00:35:17.920 We might be taking Cuba.

00:35:20.120 First, though, I want to tell you my favorite comment from yesterday.

00:35:22.720 Chuck Hoyle, 1211, who said,

00:35:25.600 now, I didn't pick this.

00:35:26.340 The producers picked this.

00:35:27.220 We'll see if it's good.

00:35:29.580 Chuck Norris once told a woman to calm down, and she did.

00:35:34.400 That's pretty, of all the stupid Chuck Norris jokes, talk about things from 20 years ago,

00:35:37.960 of all the great Chuck Norris jokes, that's a good one. I'd actually never heard that one

00:35:41.840 before. Okay. I want to get to Cuba because we might be taking Cuba, but we don't have time.

00:35:47.440 And I do, I told you at the top, I told you at the very top, we would get to the bicentennial.

00:35:50.980 And especially because I had this experience last night, one of the most moving things,

00:35:57.040 I got a little choked up about it, relating to the semi-quincentennial, the 250th anniversary.

00:36:02.140 I want to get to this clip that's going viral from 1976.

00:36:06.000 Spirit of 76, 200 years of America, making people conclude that the past is a distant and foreign country.

00:36:17.280 This is a Coca-Cola ad from 76.

00:36:21.820 And it's all these people bunting everywhere, wearing Uncle Sam hats, carrying Betsy Ross flags, Spirit of 76 everywhere.

00:36:32.140 You've got the Drummer Boys.

00:36:35.300 Remember, they actually, in 76, they had the Drummer Boy quarters.

00:36:37.900 Those were great.

00:36:39.100 My grandma used to collect those.

00:36:40.580 All sorts of people smiling, parades.

00:36:43.000 Happy birthday, America.

00:36:44.300 Now, of course, look, this is a commercial.

00:36:46.220 It's a commercial for a product.

00:36:48.540 But it reflects, one, consumer tastes,

00:36:52.260 because there was obviously an appetite for this kind of patriotic stuff in 76.

00:36:55.640 And there were a lot of parades, and there were a lot of festivities.

00:36:58.680 and the organizers of the semi-quincentennial are doing a great job. As I mentioned, there's a lot

00:37:06.900 of amazing stuff going up in Washington, D.C., a lot of great events. There's the rededicate event

00:37:11.040 that just occurred, was that last week, rededicating America to God. And there's good

00:37:16.940 stuff going on, but there seems to be much less of an appetite among the people for this kind of

00:37:23.100 patriotism. There's a reason actually why clips from 50 years ago are going viral from the 200th

00:37:32.220 anniversary rather than the 250th anniversary. There's a sense that things have gotten worse

00:37:37.940 over the last 50 years. And I don't think there was really that sense in 1976. There were political

00:37:44.200 problems, but people were still, I don't know, still patriotic, still excited about the founding

00:37:50.240 of America and celebrating that. And the country has changed radically. Look, in part, we have the

00:37:54.740 highest foreign-born percentage of the population that we've ever had. So it's just people who know

00:37:58.880 a lot less about our founding, who have less of a civics education, who have less of a personal

00:38:03.360 connection to the founding. John Jay writes in Federalist 2, he thanks God that we all descend

00:38:09.040 from a common stock with a common religion and a common experience of the war, of the revolution.

00:38:16.780 And that has frayed over time,

00:38:18.520 not just because of the vicissitudes

00:38:20.700 of the passage of time or something like that,

00:38:22.220 but also because of policies

00:38:23.620 that have changed the makeup of the country.

00:38:25.620 Also because Americans don't really have kids anymore,

00:38:28.420 which is one of the arguments for mass migration.

00:38:30.260 Also because of changes in the academy

00:38:33.420 and in pop culture that make us hate our country

00:38:35.540 rather than celebrate our country.

00:38:37.140 It's just, it's not a good sign of national health

00:38:40.340 when on a big anniversary of the founding of your country,

00:38:44.180 you are nostalgic for the last anniversary. That's a sign that things have gotten worse.

00:38:51.180 And so then it makes you think in the grand scope of history, America is still very, very young.

00:38:57.200 We're 250 years old. I was having a cigar with my pal Spencer Clavin the other night,

00:39:00.320 and he pointed out, he said, we are half the age of the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic lasted

00:39:07.140 almost 500 years, but 486 or so years, if memory serves. And then you got the Roman Empire.

00:39:16.560 Maybe in modernity, things go a little bit faster. I don't know. So maybe we're on the cusp of

00:39:20.540 something. Maybe we are transforming from a republic or into an empire. Those kind of things

00:39:26.300 happen gradually. Maybe we're more aware of that now. Maybe we're more willing to transform. I

00:39:30.520 don't know. I'm not saying America's going to disappear. I'm not saying it's going to go

00:39:33.380 anywhere. But we need to come to grips with our national identity, with who we are. And we need

00:39:43.040 to do so in a way that gives us a vision for the future. This is, in fact, at the change from the

00:39:47.500 Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, this is the point of Virgil's Aeneid. Virgil's Aeneid,

00:39:52.900 which is the great patriotic epic poem, which was written for Caesar Augustus, which is to

00:39:58.400 to draw from and indeed to craft the mythology of Rome that would push Rome toward further

00:40:06.560 greatness. We need something like that. Nostalgia is history after a few drinks,

00:40:11.440 but we cannot simply look back and we can't sit in the present and be doomers and despair.

00:40:16.480 We are in desperate national need of a vision of the future that makes us love our country,

00:40:22.000 not hate our country, that makes us hopeful, not despairing. We're at a tipping point. We're at

00:40:30.100 this moment where the old images, the old traditions, they've lost some of their luster.

00:40:38.860 We have to rejuvenate them. Okay. In the time that I have left, because I'm typically running late,

00:40:45.260 we get to my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Our mailbag

00:40:47.580 is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to puretalk.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S, to claim unlimited

00:40:52.520 high-speed data for just $34.99. Take it away. Good morning, Michael. Fellow traditional Catholic

00:40:57.440 here. I just wanted to say congratulations on baby number four. Unfortunately, I do feel the

00:41:01.840 need to reprimand you for something. You talk a lot about how the words we use matter. I agree.

00:41:06.300 So I'm sorry to say that you've fallen into one of my greatest pet peeves. And since Matt didn't

00:41:10.400 call you out on it during your episode of Off the Clock, I guess I have to. You've said multiple

00:41:14.460 times now that you have three and a half children no you don't you have four it's like when i go to

00:41:19.540 baby showers and the decorative banner says mama to be no there would be no baby shower without a

00:41:24.480 baby and if there's a baby the woman is already a mother it's the same thing having only half a

00:41:28.860 baby is impossible if we want to win on the abortion issue why would we use the left's

00:41:32.720 dehumanizing language that seems pretty self-defeating to me your unborn daughter is a

00:41:36.900 baby a perfect beautiful baby designed by god in his own image never speak of her or any potential

00:41:41.960 future children as anything less please and thank you okay end of rant have a nice day okay that's

00:41:47.440 a really really good point and i'm not going to take your advice it's a real i'm not denying

00:41:52.600 the precision of your point but i think your advice slash demand is uh wrong here's why

00:42:01.780 you make a good point you say something that's really annoying is when you go to a baby shower

00:42:05.360 and it says mother to be so you're not a mother to be you're a mother already there's a baby

00:42:10.060 inside you. And obviously, that's a whole baby, so you're already a mother. That's true.

00:42:15.120 It is dehumanizing. It is, I think, rhetorically dangerous to say it's a mother-to-be because

00:42:22.000 you're already a mother. That's true. But when I say that I have three and a half children,

00:42:27.060 three walking around the earth, one still cooking in there, it's just a joke.

00:42:33.000 And it's not as dangerous as saying a mother-to-be or to refer to, I don't know,

00:42:39.300 an embryo, or a fetus, or a zygote, or whatever kind of euphemisms the pro-abortion crowd tries

00:42:45.660 to use. It's a joke. Because, as you point out, you can't really have half a baby.

00:42:51.960 That's not a real thing. So it's a joke. It's a little bit of verbal irony. And we are allowed

00:42:56.360 to joke. It's actually good to joke. The angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.

00:43:00.900 A little bit of levity goes a long way. And so it's good to joke about these things.

00:43:05.220 You don't want people to be confused.

00:43:07.520 You want people to know that babies are babies.

00:43:10.620 But joking about having half a baby,

00:43:13.920 I think actually kind of does that

00:43:15.480 because we all know that would be an absurdity.

00:43:17.700 There's no such thing as half a baby.

00:43:19.660 And the pro-abortion crowd doesn't argue

00:43:21.080 that a baby is half a baby.

00:43:22.360 They argue that a baby is a total meaningless clump of cells

00:43:25.100 or that at some magical moment,

00:43:28.560 the baby fully becomes a baby.

00:43:30.260 So no, jokes are okay.

00:43:31.860 Jokes are okay.

00:43:32.860 that Nihal Obstot jokes are okay.

00:43:35.800 It's okay to have some fun.

00:43:37.840 We don't need to frown all the time.

00:43:40.240 We can make our important moral points

00:43:42.340 while still having a little charm to it.

00:43:45.200 It's all right.

00:43:45.700 But your point is very good,

00:43:48.940 but not your advice.

00:43:51.000 Okay, so much more to get to.

00:43:52.720 So much more to get to.

00:43:54.800 We don't have time right now

00:43:56.420 for the hoi polloi on the major platforms.

00:43:58.220 We've got to go to our own private major platform,

00:44:01.240 the Daily Wire,

00:44:01.760 for all of the creme de la creme.

00:44:03.080 The members, we'll get to a lot more,

00:44:04.580 maybe some more mailbag.

00:44:05.880 It's Fake Headline Friday.

00:44:06.880 The rest of the show continues.

00:44:07.840 Now, you do not want to miss it.

00:44:09.160 Become a member.

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The Michael Knowles Show - May 22, 2026

Ep. 1980 - Spencer Pratt's Path To Become Mayor Of Los Angeles

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