The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 2020 - AOC Is Either Lying Or Crazy

00:00:00.000 This episode is brought to you by Cardiff, America's favorite small business lender

00:00:03.740 with over $12 billion funded since 2004. Apply in under three minutes for same-day funding,

00:00:10.700 up to $500,000 at cardiff.co slash Knowles. While the Democrats attempt a major working

00:00:19.400 class rebrand led by AOC and Zoran Mamdani, streamer Hassan Piker reveals what they're

00:00:24.640 really thinking with a pre-midterms endorsement of communist dictator Mao Zedong. We will get into

00:00:30.960 the fake populism push and the polling, shocking polling, really, that explains why the Democrats

00:00:36.960 are so desperate to make it happen. Then Olive Garden institutes better security measures than

00:00:42.360 American elections, and scientists unfairly blame Taco Bell for the recent explosive outbreak of

00:00:48.880 the old Aztec two-step. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:54.640 Welcome back to the show.

00:01:12.360 Democrat Senate candidate in Maine, Ashley Webb, has just revealed that he secretes mucus during his transmenstrual cycle.

00:01:20.860 So we will analyze the top Democrat candidates around the country, the priorities that are top of mind for all of them, I'm sure.

00:01:31.380 That one, just right above the economy, immigration, and foreign policy, I'm sure transmenstrual mucus is right there on your priority list.

00:01:44.040 Before we get to any of that, though, Hassan Piker, left-wing streamer, who is one of the

00:01:49.680 leaders, really, of the American left and the Democrat Party. Don't have to take my word for

00:01:54.420 it. The New York Times, after any major national event, they're looking to Hassan Piker for thought

00:02:01.280 leadership. Democrat candidates who are running for office, really top Democrat candidates,

00:02:05.460 Mamdani, AOC, they're looking to Hassan Piker for thought leadership. Here is Hassan Piker,

00:02:11.500 thought leader of the left,

00:02:13.260 endorsing Mao Zedong ahead of the midterms.

00:02:16.900 I got stopped by a cop who thought I was making fun of Mao Zedong,

00:02:20.860 which I never would and never will.

00:02:24.380 Mao Zedong is one of the great leaders of this world,

00:02:29.760 a man who changed the entire universe, the entire planet.

00:02:37.300 For real, for real, yes.

00:02:39.540 I mean, there was a lot of excesses, let's be real, but the People's Republic of China would not exist without Mao Zedong.

00:02:48.280 Okay, so Mao Zedong, one of the great leaders of our world, he's been dead for a little while.

00:02:53.940 I don't know if Mr. Piker's aware of that, but he says he changed the universe.

00:02:58.480 He didn't, not just the country, not just the world, he changed the whole universe.

00:03:02.960 He was one of the great leaders, and so Hassan Piker will never make fun of him.

00:03:08.060 Mao Zedong, of course, for those who missed history class in school, or probably for those

00:03:14.160 who attended history class in school, Mao Zedong killed an estimated, I'm being somewhat conservative

00:03:19.060 in my estimates, 30 to 45 million people during the Great Leap Forward alone. He killed an

00:03:24.960 additional two to eight million people through political persecution. The number could actually

00:03:30.100 be much higher than that. I'm being relatively restrained here in my estimates. However,

00:03:34.620 before we clutch our pearls, before we feign shock and outrage that one of the real thought

00:03:42.340 leaders of the American left is openly endorsing Mao Zedong, we should remember he's already told

00:03:48.920 us this. This is the guy who said that the streets should run red in capitalist blood,

00:03:54.140 who's called for the murder of Senator Rick Scott in Florida, who's called for the murder

00:03:58.500 of Senator Tom Cotton. This is the guy who said that America deserved 9-11. And this is the guy

00:04:04.340 that Democrats to this day choose to be associated with. Momdani giving him fist bumps and high fives,

00:04:10.380 AOC. Big Democrat leaders. He's going out there. He's campaigning for people.

00:04:16.040 The New York Times is platforming him time and time again. So that's who they are. That's what

00:04:21.640 they believe. And the only difference, the only shocking thing about Hassan Piker's statement

00:04:26.440 is that he will state it explicitly, whereas the rest of the left, including the mainstream left,

00:04:32.900 just kind of wink at it. They wink at it. They imply it. But Hassan Piker will just state it

00:04:38.140 openly. But they all believe it. All of the other evils of Mao aside, he killed a lot of people.

00:04:46.980 He killed a lot of his political opponents. But then again, a lot of the mainstream left supports

00:04:51.460 political violence against his political opponents. Hassan Piker is just more open about it.

00:04:55.420 And so in some ways, you got to kind of give Piker some credit. He's just saying the quiet

00:04:59.460 part out loud. He's being more consistent and honest about what a lot of the left believes in.

00:05:06.140 That's why they keep embracing him. You know, it's not even like we're trying. I remember there

00:05:11.460 was this op in, when was it, 2010 or something, where the Democrat strategists tried to say that

00:05:16.880 Rush Limbaugh was the de facto head of the Republican Party. He wasn't really the head

00:05:20.460 of the Republican Party. He was an important broadcaster, an important voice on the right,

00:05:24.440 without question, very, you know, he's the guy who was the king of talk radio,

00:05:28.920 but he wasn't the de facto head of the Republican Party. When it comes to a guy like Hassan Piker,

00:05:34.780 I'm not saying he's the head of the Democrat Party. I'm just saying he's without question

00:05:38.780 one of the most important thought leaders on the left. And he supports murdering

00:05:44.700 moderate Republicans in the Senate, and he supports Mao Zedong. So it's an important

00:05:49.840 thing to keep in mind for the midterms. And I think voters know that, and I think it's showing

00:05:53.600 up in the polls. So this is why, speaking of Mumdani, the Democrats are trying to make a hard

00:05:58.980 pivot right now. The Democrats, which in recent years have been defined by woke, by trans rights

00:06:07.160 for kids or whatever, boys and girls' bathrooms, by abortion on demand without apology, by slut

00:06:14.140 walks, by totally open borders, by the George Floyd riots. The left, which has been defined

00:06:22.700 by woke is trying to shift away from this cultural radicalism toward economic populism you're seeing

00:06:30.680 a coordinated effort between mom donnie aoc and others they're screwing it up though and here's

00:06:36.980 here's mom donnie screwing it up with the new york times just yesterday uh when he was asked

00:06:42.420 hey you say you're a working class hero what is the working class and according to mom donnie the

00:06:47.280 working class is people who make less than a million dollars a year i've drawn it at about

00:06:54.320 a million dollars a year okay so anyone under a million dollars a year in income is working class

00:06:59.560 that's not what i'm saying i'm just saying in terms of the practicality when it comes to fiscal

00:07:03.380 policy right i think a lot of our politics has been a debate over who you leave out and i'm

00:07:09.240 more interested in debates how you bring more in and i think that that is it's it's part of what

00:07:16.920 I'm looking to be a part of is a vision where people understand, no matter what you call it,

00:07:22.340 that there's room for them too. But yes, I do want to raise taxes on people who make more than

00:07:26.480 a million a year. It just feels like someone who is a janitor is going to feel some kind of way

00:07:35.980 about that description if you're lumping them in with someone who is a lawyer. That feels like

00:07:44.000 a distinction that might

00:07:46.140 matter. Do you think everyone's in the

00:07:48.160 same club? You know,

00:07:49.820 when I was running, a lot of the

00:07:52.040 questions I would face is, what does it mean to be

00:07:54.220 a democratic socialist?

00:07:56.100 And I only bring that up

00:07:58.000 because I think sometimes there's a fixation

00:08:00.100 on a definition of something.

00:08:02.240 And what I found is

00:08:03.800 when I would knock on New Yorkers' doors,

00:08:05.920 they would just ask,

00:08:07.260 am I part of your vision?

00:08:09.800 Okay, so you've got to give credit to the

00:08:12.080 New York Times here. They're doing it in the New York Timesiest way. You know, I just feel like

00:08:16.520 people are going to feel like kind of some kind of way, you know, like with the big liberal glasses

00:08:21.300 and the kind of crazy clothes. But they ask the question. They say, okay, so you're a working

00:08:25.280 class hero. So what's the working class? And he says, well, you know, I'm going to raise taxes

00:08:29.080 on people who make more than a million bucks a year. And so the woman goes, hold on, you're

00:08:33.420 making $999,000, 99 cents per year, you're working class? And he says, no, no, no, that's not what

00:08:43.360 I'm saying. But yes, that is what I'm saying. And I just want to bring people in and I just want,

00:08:47.860 and why do we even, it's like, what do words even mean, man? It's like, hold on one second,

00:08:55.160 New York Times. Let me just pull up this bong here. It's like, man, what are words?

00:09:01.700 Why do we care about definitions, man?

00:09:04.280 Oh, well, we care about definitions because the way we communicate is through words, which are signs.

00:09:09.920 And in order for the communication to work, you need to have a common understanding of the meaning of the words, which is why you have definitions.

00:09:16.480 That's why.

00:09:18.340 But politicians like you, who are cheats and crooks, you try to obscure the definitions of words so that you can try to get one over on us.

00:09:26.520 But he can't even get one over on the New York Times.

00:09:29.020 It's a very good follow-up from the New York Times, which is, hold on.

00:09:33.620 You want to say you're a working class hero.

00:09:35.680 So you run on a campaign platform of eat the rich.

00:09:37.980 But then you get into office and you realize you need the support of some rich people.

00:09:42.220 So you decide that you're just going to redefine working class to include people who make a million bucks a year.

00:09:48.980 Don't you think a janitor working two jobs for very low pay in unpleasant conditions

00:09:55.840 and some hotshot lawyer at Cravath, Swain, and Moore who makes a million dollars a year,

00:10:00.340 don't you think that the janitor might object to your lumping him in with that person?

00:10:04.920 Wouldn't anybody object?

00:10:06.160 It's just absurd to suggest that those people are in the same socioeconomic class.

00:10:11.760 Momdani says, enough with definitions, man.

00:10:14.880 You know, come on.

00:10:15.760 What is the working class?

00:10:17.800 The median household income in the United States is actually higher than I thought it was.

00:10:22.380 The median household income in the U.S. right now is $84,000.

00:10:25.380 Now, that's not owing to real wages rising mostly.

00:10:28.280 It's mostly due to inflation, but nevertheless, median household income is $84,000.

00:10:32.840 The working class income is somewhere in the range of $30,000 to $60,000.

00:10:37.920 Now, income doesn't tell the whole story.

00:10:39.580 You could have a super rich guy who sold his company for $20 million, and he has not a lot of income.

00:10:43.860 so you also have to include net worth working class net worth is estimated between twenty

00:10:49.620 thousand and a hundred thousand dollars all of those numbers are going to be higher in new york

00:10:53.260 and california because there's higher cost of living because there's bad liberal economic

00:10:56.820 policies uh nevertheless the point that the the new york times lady is making is that there's an

00:11:02.900 economic component to the working class which mom donnie gets wrong it by basically no definition

00:11:09.680 of the working class, can someone who makes a million dollars a year be considered working

00:11:13.880 class? But there's also a quantitative element. There's also a qualitative element, which is that

00:11:19.500 working class usually implies a physical job, a tradesman, say, a manual laborer.

00:11:29.640 The term working class usually implies something about education. It usually implies no college

00:11:34.040 education. The reason this is really important is because there are lots of tradesmen who didn't go

00:11:39.280 to college who make more money than PhDs in gender studies who are associate or adjunct

00:11:46.100 professors at some kooky liberal school. In other words, there are people who qualitatively

00:11:51.400 seem like they're in a higher, more prestigious class who actually make less money than the people

00:11:56.540 who qualitatively are categorized in a lower class. And this is brutal for the Democrats'

00:12:03.380 That's class politics, because when it comes to the actual working class, people who are

00:12:11.960 tradesmen, who have an actual physical skill, who regardless of their income, they're not

00:12:19.480 making $2 million a year at Gravath, Swain, and more, but the people who fit into that

00:12:25.240 category don't support Mamdani.

00:12:28.280 That's the real key.

00:12:29.440 Mamdani's strongest support in the election came from the middle and upper middle income voters.

00:12:36.040 And so Mamdani's class warrior appeal does not appeal to the working class by any definition.

00:12:45.240 Whether you're talking about money, whether you're talking about skill set, whether you're talking

00:12:49.520 about education, Mamdani does not appeal to the working class, to tradesmen, to truck drivers,

00:12:57.220 to manual laborers, that's not who he's appealing to. He's appealing to a trust fund kid, even if

00:13:03.300 the kid doesn't make a lot of money, the trust fund kid who's a Columbia graduate student who's

00:13:07.300 getting a degree in social work or in sociology or something like that. In other words, Momdani's

00:13:14.360 appeal, he appeals to immigrants and some of that's one area where in some cases you're getting a

00:13:18.960 lower income, but it's not like what you'd call the working class. In other words, Momdani's

00:13:24.600 appeal is cultural. It's not primarily economic, which is why the Democrats attempting this

00:13:30.080 rebrand away from woke, which is a cultural movement into economic populism is not going

00:13:35.560 to work. The right right now, I'm sure they're going to figure out a way to screw it up. But

00:13:39.600 the right Republicans right now do a much better job on economic populism running against mass

00:13:46.120 migration. It's basically just the Republicans and Bernie Sanders who understand how to run

00:13:49.860 against that. That's economic populism running on tariffs. That's economic populism running

00:13:54.580 against NAFTA and globalization and unfettered free trade. That's economic populism. The Dems

00:14:01.260 can't do that. The Dems are running on chopping off your kids' genitals. They're running on

00:14:07.660 Mao Zedong, even that. That is actually cultural radicalism. That appeals to the

00:14:17.460 Columbia graduate student. It does not appeal to the carpenter. Now, AOC, who is smarter at this

00:14:23.060 than mom donnie she's attempting her own version of it that's also going to flop but she might run

00:14:29.020 for president we'll get to that in a moment first though i want to tell you about hallow download

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00:15:42.340 for three months free. Keep your spiritual life in order. AOC and Politico, a story that really

00:15:51.560 kind of began on this show, actually, not to take too much credit, but it kind of began on this show

00:15:56.020 because I interviewed the vice president two or three weeks ago. And then I asked him,

00:16:01.160 who's the Democrat nominee in 2028? And he said, oh, there's no question, Michael. And before he

00:16:07.180 said Gavin Newsom, which is what I was expecting, he said, there's no question, it's AOC. I said,

00:16:12.140 what? No, you mean that? He goes, oh, yeah, there's no question. She's the front runner right

00:16:16.620 now. And she's been getting a lot of presidential buzz. And she's not exactly pooh-poohing it.

00:16:23.860 The latest headline after a conversation with Politico, she says she has not ruled out a 2028

00:16:29.500 run, which to translate that from politician speak means she desperately wants to run for

00:16:35.100 president in 2028. She's doing everything she can to line up donors and some popular support.

00:16:41.680 Oh, I haven't ruled it out.

00:16:42.800 That means I am running like my life depends on it.

00:16:46.600 Though, she adds this.

00:16:48.140 She goes, I am working class, not a militant leftist.

00:16:54.780 This is her new line.

00:16:57.320 She says, hold on, where is the exact wording?

00:17:01.520 That's the headline wording.

00:17:02.700 Yes, here it is.

00:17:03.320 I come from a working class family.

00:17:05.220 I didn't come from a militant leftist family.

00:17:07.960 I believe that these are prescriptions that are going to help us

00:17:10.560 as a country. Look, guys, my opponents have been portraying me as some crazy, kooky leftist,

00:17:18.940 some culture warrior. That's not me. I'm just working class. This is the rebrand. There was

00:17:25.200 a memo that went out. I guarantee it. There was a memo that went out from the Democrat campaign

00:17:30.640 operations that say, hey, stop painting yourselves as woke, definitely. Stop painting yourselves as

00:17:36.700 leftists, paint yourselves as working class that is identifiable with a lot of voters.

00:17:44.880 And it's 35% of Americans identify themselves as working class, even if their income and their

00:17:49.640 wealth don't necessarily fit that definition. They identify that way. So identify yourself

00:17:53.720 as working class. This is grumpy in politics 101. This is when the left is really cooking,

00:17:59.540 this is what they do. We're common sense. We're working class. We want economic populism.

00:18:03.640 doesn't work for AOC, though, because I recall on, let's see, when was this? October 7th, 2019.

00:18:12.100 AOC tweets out, I know the term prison abolition is breaking some people's brains. The right is

00:18:16.700 already freaking out. Yes, the US incarcerates more than anywhere in the world. We have more

00:18:21.340 than enough room to close many of our prisons and explore just alternatives to incarceration.

00:18:27.240 I'm not a radical leftist. I'm just working class. Now, let's empty all the prisons and

00:18:31.020 let all the criminals out on the street. Let's storm the Bastille. I'm just working class.

00:18:36.040 November 17th, 2025, AOC writes, this Transgender Awareness Week, we celebrate the resilience,

00:18:42.880 courage, and beauty of the trans community. Your lives matter, your stories matter,

00:18:47.220 and your right to thrive and exist authentically is non-negotiable. We stand with you today and

00:18:52.440 every day, trans flag. I'm not a militant leftist. I'm just an economic working class

00:18:57.780 class warrior. Are you? AOC, October 14th, 2025. This is just eight months ago,

00:19:03.980 nine months ago. Congresswoman AOC shares powerful message of support for trans kids.

00:19:09.640 I'm not a militant leftist. I'm just working class. Now, hold on. I got these hedge clippers

00:19:14.920 over here. Give me your kid. Give me your little boy. I'm not. No, don't worry. I'm not a radical

00:19:19.320 leftist. I just want to castrate your child. But I'm working class. Don't worry. I've got

00:19:24.920 common sense. I'm a normal person. It's not going to work. Not going to work at all.

00:19:30.160 The left made its bed with wokeness, and we need to rhetorically wrap that one around their necks.

00:19:37.780 I mean, this one really is inescapable for the left. It's inescapable because there are just

00:19:42.880 so many tweets. There are just so many clips. This is why James Tallarico is having a big

00:19:46.260 problem in Texas right now, is every time he tries to position himself as a moderate.

00:19:50.920 You know, I'm just a straight, white, male Christian.

00:19:54.760 But every time he does that, there's some clip of him saying that God is non-binary or that using the Blessed Virgin Mary to justify abortion, to say that women are our neighbors with uteruses.

00:20:05.780 It's just there's too much evidence from too recently that these guys are super woke.

00:20:10.980 But the other problem for them is they can't be economic populists because their base of support is not the working class.

00:20:18.720 Their base of support really is wealthier people.

00:20:23.140 And so even if they were able to pivot and make a real economic populist message, it wouldn't work for them.

00:20:31.980 What their base wants is not true economic populism.

00:20:37.120 Their base hates the tariffs.

00:20:39.400 Their base loves free trade.

00:20:42.000 Their base does not want to reshore manufacturing.

00:20:44.540 Their base thinks manufacturers are icky and yucky.

00:20:46.700 They think they're gross hoi polloi.

00:20:48.720 The left-wing base thinks it is much better than the manufacturers and the tradesmen and the

00:20:54.260 carpenters and the laborers and the truck drivers. It just doesn't work. There's no overlap.

00:21:00.660 So really, all the left can muster if it wants to get some attention, if it wants to seem avant-garde

00:21:06.500 or new or different, is the cultural radicalism. So they're really boxed in, and I can't wait to

00:21:15.460 watch them squirm. Okay. All of this is showing up in the polls. How long has it been? It's been

00:21:23.600 30 years since I've been a political nerd, arguably more than that. I first got interested

00:21:27.920 in politics when my grandfather taught me it's a grand old flag in his kitchen when I was about

00:21:34.900 two years old. I got interested in politics when I was two, three years old. I have distinct

00:21:39.440 memories of this, by the way, when Bill Clinton was running for president and George H.W. Bush

00:21:47.620 said, read my lips, no new taxes. That was one of the first phrases I recall. I know I'm like a

00:21:53.340 young Republican built in a laboratory, but that was one of the first phrases I ever learned.

00:21:57.160 I campaigned around my first grade classroom for Bob Dole, 1996. That's where I really trace the

00:22:02.120 beginning of my political life. And in all of those years, I have just seen the craziest poll

00:22:08.640 I've ever seen in politics, and it's about these midterm elections. We'll get to that momentarily.

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00:23:56.980 connectsontario.ca, TNC Supply. The GOP is supposed to get blown out in the midterms,

00:24:02.100 supposed to get completely destroyed. It's supposed to get completely destroyed even if

00:24:06.180 things are going really well, because that's what happens in the first midterm election after a party

00:24:10.980 wins the presidency. That is especially what happens in the first midterm election after a

00:24:15.280 party wins the presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and holds the

00:24:19.760 Supreme Court. When one party is a unified government, you are supposed to get destroyed

00:24:23.660 in the midterm elections.

00:24:24.560 That's assuming everything's going really well.

00:24:26.280 But things aren't totally going well

00:24:28.420 in the sense that we are currently

00:24:29.840 in this war with Iran

00:24:30.980 that most people don't want to get into.

00:24:35.120 Most people do trust Trump.

00:24:36.980 Most people on the right,

00:24:37.960 I should say, trust Trump.

00:24:38.780 But the war itself is deeply unpopular.

00:24:42.700 It's causing economic disruptions,

00:24:44.640 mostly because of the oil markets.

00:24:47.240 You're at a time where President Trump

00:24:49.480 won on mass deportations,

00:24:50.860 but there have been a lot of hurdles

00:24:51.940 to mass deportations,

00:24:53.060 such that thus far, we've had fewer than a million formal deportations.

00:24:58.240 We've had more self-deportations, but fewer than a million formal deportations.

00:25:00.980 So there's discontent that was already baked in and that's come about.

00:25:06.320 You would expect the Republicans to be in the negative numbers.

00:25:12.760 You would expect the Republicans not only to lose seats in the midterm elections,

00:25:19.460 you would expect them to be like exiled to Saturn.

00:25:22.840 Okay, and yet, here's the poll.

00:25:25.620 Washington Post Ipsos poll, July 9th through the 13th.

00:25:29.620 Generic congressional ballot, 2026.

00:25:32.920 Democrats, 48.

00:25:34.540 Republicans, 45.

00:25:37.600 Democrats are leading by three points.

00:25:40.280 That might, I don't see the margin of error on this poll.

00:25:42.240 That could be within the margin of error.

00:25:44.000 What?

00:25:46.140 What?

00:25:47.420 Which political party do you agree with more on important issues?

00:25:51.200 Democrats, 40.

00:25:52.480 Republicans, 41.

00:25:57.140 In a midterm election that by historical and even current calculations should see the Republicans getting completely destroyed, they're actually more popular than the Democrats?

00:26:09.880 Which political party do you trust to do a better job handling the economy?

00:26:14.140 Democrats, 35.

00:26:15.260 Republicans, 39.

00:26:16.940 it's it actually boggles the mind it's not like this is you know some super right-wing poll

00:26:25.340 usually rasmussen trends a little more more right-wing they also tend to get things correct

00:26:29.460 but nevertheless we're looking at wapo and ipsos and republicans are dominating and even on the

00:26:37.020 generic congressional ballot it's basically a tie if this is true that means that everyone's

00:26:46.140 The big debate right now is, are the Republicans going to lose the House or are they also going to lose the Senate?

00:26:52.080 That's the debate.

00:26:53.420 However, if these poll numbers are correct, the Republicans might hold the House.

00:27:01.660 If these poll numbers are correct, along with redistricting, because the Democrats tried to racially gerrymander and the U.S. Supreme Court and the Virginia Supreme Court both struck that down.

00:27:11.940 So the Republicans got a net gain of a handful of seats, not as many as they could have, but a handful.

00:27:16.720 If all of that is true, you could see the Republicans, I don't think this is going to happen.

00:27:24.040 You could see the Republicans picking up seats in the midterms.

00:27:26.300 And if that is the case, if the GOP survives or even kind of thrives in the midterms, we need to repeal the 22nd Amendment and we need Trump to be Caesar.

00:27:40.360 We need Caesar Trump to rename his son Baron Octavian, later to be Augustus.

00:27:48.880 It would signal such an upending of historic trends in American politics.

00:27:56.220 It would signal that Trump just is the GOP and is the strongest weapon we've had in the GOP, certainly since Ronald Reagan.

00:28:06.500 And it's not just, I've heard people saying, I actually think we're going to do really well.

00:28:09.740 I think we're going to grow the majority in the midterms. For goodness sakes, I spoke with the

00:28:12.620 Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a man I greatly admire. And we spoke months ago and I said,

00:28:18.680 how are you feeling about the midterms? He said, I think we're going to grow the majority. And I

00:28:21.260 thought, can I have whatever drug that guy's on? Can I please have, sir, what is in your coffee?

00:28:27.360 And then I kind of wrote it off and I said, look, it's his job to be optimistic. It's his job to be

00:28:31.560 hopeful. Now it's showing up in the polling. That would be pretty crazy. Now, speaking of

00:28:38.380 election security. Right now, one fear for the Republicans is the Democrats are very good at

00:28:44.300 rigging the elections. That was part of the president's national address the other night

00:28:48.980 on all the ways that our election systems are very vulnerable to foreign hacking,

00:28:52.940 how this has been demonstrated, how there are many foreign nationals on the federal rolls of

00:28:56.700 a quarter million foreign nationals on the federal voter rolls. We have now discovered

00:29:01.720 that Olive Garden has tougher security measures than our elections because Olive Garden has just

00:29:10.260 come out with the latest version of their never-ending pasta pass. The never-ending pasta

00:29:17.500 pass, I'm not totally familiar with this. The never-ending pasta pass means you pay $100

00:29:22.100 and then for 13 weeks, you get unlimited pasta at Olive Garden. You get unlimited pasta along with,

00:29:30.360 This is amazing. Super salad and breadsticks. You just get as much as you want. You pay $100

00:29:37.180 once, you get 13 weeks of that. This is the greatest investment in America. But look,

00:29:43.080 it's Olive Garden. It's not like that expensive from the broader standpoint of dining. And

00:29:50.160 that has tougher security measures than American elections. I'm being informed by the producers,

00:29:58.120 uh professor jacob and his girlfriend destiny they got they got a never-ending pasta pass i

00:30:03.840 was my i guess my look good on them and unfortunately it's not transferable or i would

00:30:08.620 i would rob jacob after this show because my two takeaways from this are first takeaway i want that

00:30:14.820 that sounds delicious i want the pasta pass i you no one can even i can't even offer to buy it from

00:30:19.100 someone because you can't it's not transferable but i want the pasta pass what a great deal what

00:30:22.860 a great country we live in. What a great contribution of the Italian Americans to give

00:30:27.960 us a place like Olive Garden that has a never-ending pasta pass. That's beautiful.

00:30:32.340 That's my main thought. My second thought, though, is the pasta pass is the perfect

00:30:38.720 indictment of Democrat election rigging. We talk about this. We say, hold on, you got to show an

00:30:44.620 ID to get a pack of cigarettes. You got to show an ID to buy a beer. But you don't think that we

00:30:48.940 should have a higher threshold or at least the same threshold of security for our elections,

00:30:52.920 that's a lot more important than buying a pack of cigarettes. But when it comes to Olive Garden,

00:30:59.540 it's even better. Because what the Democrats say, the Democrats' main pitch against the

00:31:03.320 Save America Act, the Democrats' pitch against voter ID, which is an 85-15 issue in America.

00:31:09.040 Everybody supports voter ID except for Democrat politicians. Their argument against it is that

00:31:13.580 black people and women are too stupid to get IDs. That's actually their argument. And maybe

00:31:18.580 Hispanics too. Their argument is that blacks and Hispanics and women are really, really stupid,

00:31:27.440 completely incompetent, barely human, only arguably sentient, and they can't go get an ID.

00:31:37.260 What's so funny about the Olive Garden comparison is that Olive Garden is not,

00:31:41.880 it's not considered Michelin rated dining, right? It's not, Olive Garden is not the most

00:31:46.340 exclusive restaurant in the world. Olive Garden is a very accessible restaurant.

00:31:52.440 Olive Garden's patrons are not the upper crust of the upper crust of the socioeconomic ladder.

00:31:57.760 It's kind of a middle-class restaurant. It's accessible to working class.

00:32:00.980 And the Democrats, who are supposed to be the working-class heroes, the party that's really

00:32:05.760 in touch with the common man, they're saying, well, we can't have voter ID because what?

00:32:11.420 The average voter isn't as smart as the average Olive Garden customer.

00:32:16.340 Is that it? Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. What are we doing here, folks?

00:32:23.840 Love it. I love, keep promoting the pasta pass. Also, I want a pasta pass. Speaking of popular

00:32:28.720 dining options, Taco Bell is under fire because they have been blamed by scientists for a recent,

00:32:38.580 brutal, much reported on outbreak of Montezuma's revenge. There is, if you read the news,

00:32:47.100 if you watch the news on TV or on podcasts, apparently there is an historic explosive

00:32:53.320 spate of the Aztec two-step. And scientists have been blaming Taco Bell, and I am coming

00:33:00.420 to Taco Bell's defense. First of all, I want to tell you about Brickhouse Nutrition. Check out

00:33:05.100 Brickhouse Nutrition. Go to takelean.com, enter code Knowles. This episode is sponsored by

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00:33:23.560 regulate blood sugar and curb your appetite. They're not for everyone. Some people simply

00:33:27.720 don't want to give themselves a shot every week. Others are not thrilled about the potential side

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00:34:13.140 are really, really impressed with the results here over at The Daily Wire. This summer, look your

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00:34:24.980 k-n-w-l-e-s at take lean l-e-a-n dot com i did not pick the comment yesterday this is from the

00:34:32.880 producers it says at benjamin not netanyahu davies why do you never pick a comment also

00:34:37.820 go follow the new behind the wire instagram behind the wire oh my goodness that's what i get

00:34:43.620 that's what i get for not it's behind the wire underscore by the way that's what you got to go

00:34:47.260 look up that's i that's what i get because i didn't pick the comment because i was busy you

00:34:51.660 doing all the other work for the show, basically doing every single other part of the show and

00:34:56.020 carrying this entire Daily Wire corporation on my shoulders. Like Atlas, we've been talking

00:35:02.360 about Odysseus. I am the Atlas of the Daily Wire holding this all up. And I ask for one thing from

00:35:08.180 the producers to pick the comment. What do they do? They turn it into a commercial for their podcast

00:35:12.460 Behind the Wire available on Daily Wire Plus and now on Instagram. Okay. Taco Bell has been

00:35:21.360 blamed for this outbreak. It's called a cyclospora, but the way it's being reported in the press is

00:35:27.420 just as explosive. I don't like to go blue on this show, but deli belly. You know what I'm

00:35:35.500 talking about? Deli belly, you know what I'm saying? The old Montezumas. Okay, the FDA now,

00:35:42.480 which blamed Taco Bell, is now walking back its claim. Taco Bell was falsely accused.

00:35:49.860 According to the New York Post, the FDA is walking back its initial claims that a Taco Bell lettuce supplier is responsible for sickening hundreds of Americans with explosive excretions, saying that the original test results were a false positive.

00:36:04.980 The stunning reversal comes after the agency double-checked a lettuce sample, which found that the leafy green supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico did not have traces of cyclospora, the parasite that causes, in the New York Post's words, the crappy condition.

00:36:19.860 So there's a false positive. They say, basically, you have this huge group of people in America

00:36:27.900 who are running to the bathroom. There's this outbreak of some kind of parasite. They're all

00:36:33.520 running for the water closet. And I'm using as many euphemisms as I can. And so we're going to

00:36:40.300 test and see if this came from Taco Bell. And they said it did. It definitely came from Taco

00:36:45.340 Bell. But then they reverse it. They say, no, that was a false positive. And I guess just as

00:36:48.980 I've been a Taco Bell customer for roughly 36 years of my life, and I would just say,

00:36:56.020 probably in retrospect, the scientists should have expected a false positive there.

00:37:01.120 If they were merely looking for the outcome as proof of the parasite, they were always

00:37:07.180 going to get a false positive. It's like they didn't know what Taco Bell is, but we know,

00:37:13.480 and so you can't. I guess what I'm saying is you need a control. In science, you need a

00:37:18.760 control to test whatever you're trying to test, and you're not going to get that control at Taco

00:37:24.900 Bell. Okay, it's enough of that, right? This is a high-class show. The reason I mention this as

00:37:30.500 a political matter, though, is it's wall-to-wall coverage of this disgusting story because

00:37:36.680 apparently some people are having the need to run over to the bathroom. Okay, why is this

00:37:44.440 major news. Do we really need a national campaign about this? That if people eat a bad taco,

00:37:52.100 they might need to clear their afternoon. It's not that big a deal. Do I really need to read

00:37:58.960 about this every day? There are real problems in the world. Look, maybe this is why Trump is doing

00:38:03.920 so well. Maybe this is why Republicans are doing so well in the polls. I thought we had bigger

00:38:08.480 problems in this, but if our bigger problem is people are running to the loo after Taco Bell,

00:38:14.440 I don't know. That's not a man bites dog story. Now, speaking of excretions, I promise the show

00:38:21.220 is going to take a turn after this story, but I do have to get to this one because we're talking

00:38:25.260 about the Democrats' failure to pivot from woke to economic populism. We're talking about the

00:38:30.320 Democrats' apparent failure in the midterm elections thus far on the polls. Ashley Webb.

00:38:36.700 I don't know Ashley's real name, but he goes by Ashley Webb. He is one of the main Senate

00:38:43.140 Democrat candidates. He is a trans activist. He says that he's a woman. He's now going viral

00:38:51.760 not for his tax policy or his immigration policy or even his view of foreign policy,

00:38:59.400 but for his claim that even though he has an X and a Y chromosome, even though he does not have

00:39:06.740 ovaries or a uterus or anything like that, he claims to have a menstrual cycle, which is

00:39:12.700 evident from his derriere because when he imagines himself to be ovulating, he excretes

00:39:22.120 mucus. Future Senator Webb, take it away. I would feel really good on the 15th day of every cycle,

00:39:34.200 And it was a 39, 29 day cycle that I was experiencing.

00:39:38.920 I mean, this sounds pretty, sounds pretty, uh, cycle-y there.

00:39:45.240 So let me reach you.

00:39:47.340 Oh, I was going to.

00:39:48.980 Go ahead.

00:39:49.560 During that time, like I also leak like a mucus, which they can't really explain.

00:39:54.700 Oh, interesting.

00:39:56.880 Interesting.

00:39:57.480 You want to call yourself transgender, despite not necessarily knowing what all parts.

00:40:04.200 or uh inside well i mean the doctors gave me the label and i want to keep it because i see

00:40:12.040 even if i'm intersex like the intersex community pretty much tossed me out and didn't want to talk

00:40:16.100 to me oh any story there you want to you want to finish my head ovaries and possibly uterus and i

00:40:25.480 was asking him like i have these cat scans can you take a look or and you know tell me what you

00:40:29.600 think and i guess it annoyed them so they kicked me out oh okay so just to translate that for um

00:40:38.300 saner people he he says that he has a menstrual cycle but it's the the exact quote this is a

00:40:48.540 direct quote from him in another interview when you don't have the proper hole it finds one of

00:40:53.040 two exits my exit connection was made with my colon because when i get this monthly pain that

00:40:58.080 is where the blood comes out of so he claimed that there was some biological aspect to his

00:41:04.280 gender identity and he had medical scans and he no that isn't real that even even if even if

00:41:13.540 what he was imagining was real the blood in his colon would have that's just complete delusion

00:41:20.220 and so then he goes to hermaphrodites and people who are intersex who have gender ambiguity and

00:41:26.740 they kicked him out they said no you're you're just a crazy guy who thinks he's a woman and so

00:41:32.000 he identifies as trans and anyway i mention all of it to say that i want to reiterate my full and

00:41:39.100 complete endorsement of ashley webb for senate uh ashley sorry for a democrat nominee for senate

00:41:44.740 ashley webb needs to be the democrat nominee for senate in maine when aoc pull up the aoc tweet

00:41:52.420 about trans solidarity. Where's my AOC tweet? Do you remember? Yeah. AOC just last year said

00:41:58.900 that she had a powerful message of support for trans kids. What about the other one?

00:42:03.260 Trans pride. This transgender awareness week, we celebrate the resilience, courage,

00:42:07.640 and beauty of the trans community. Your lives matter. Your stories matter. Your right to thrive

00:42:11.500 and exist authentically is non-negotiable. We stand with you. Prove it, AOC. Prove it. Put your

00:42:16.460 money where your mouth is. She wrote that in November of last year. Do you really believe

00:42:20.620 that, then I am calling on AOC to endorse Ashley Webb for Senate in Maine. If you're not just a

00:42:27.860 liar who is abusing the LGBT community, cynically exploiting them to try to get some votes,

00:42:34.740 if you really stand with the trans community every day, then stand with Ashley Webb, AOC,

00:42:41.540 and endorse Ashley Webb for Senate in Maine. That person needs to be the Democrat nominee

00:42:50.060 for Senate in Maine. Because you know what? That actually would authentically reflect the

00:42:57.260 Democrat Party's priorities. That would authentically reflect where the left stands

00:43:01.320 a hell of a lot more than economic populism would. Okay. Speaking of, well, turning to,

00:43:09.740 I suppose, more serious matters. I do want to get to some more frivolous stuff before we go,

00:43:13.680 but turning to actually more serious matters. The Iran war is still going on. The Iran war has been,

00:43:19.100 it was on. Then there was a ceasefire. Then there was an MOU. Now hostilities are back up.

00:43:24.260 Iran violated the memorandum of understanding, violated the ceasefire, fired missiles at

00:43:28.680 U.S. assets in Jordan, and recently killed. As of last night, it was two were identified. Now,

00:43:35.300 it's three U.S. soldiers. So the first one that the Department of War has identified is Private

00:43:41.840 Isabella Gonzalez, 19 years old, of Carrollton, Texas. Second one is First Lieutenant Tyler James

00:43:49.700 Feehan, 25 years old, of Iwa Beach, Hawaii. The third, this one just came in this morning. I don't

00:43:56.040 have his rank. It's Michael Emanuel Swinton, 30 years old. Very, very sad. We should pray for

00:44:02.940 them. We should pray for their families as we are grateful for their service to the country,

00:44:07.140 service and a sacrifice that the vast majority of Americans don't make anymore.

00:44:11.840 We should do all of that. Then we should ask ourselves, when you hear all of this very sad

00:44:19.380 news, does any of it strike you as particularly sad or particularly wrong? Put aside whatever you

00:44:27.080 think of the Iran war, the particularities of the Iran war. Just America has engaged in lots

00:44:33.380 of wars over the years, some of which people thought were just, some of which people thought

00:44:37.500 were not just. Really, for every war, there's mixed opinion. But put aside your particular

00:44:43.240 views of the Iran war. Just recognize that the United States is in some kind of war right now,

00:44:48.900 and these three soldiers have been confirmed killed. Does one of them bother you more than

00:44:55.700 the others? And the answer is obviously yes. The sacrifice of the two young men is heartbreaking.

00:45:03.380 But it's the 19-year-old girl that just feels different to us, doesn't it?

00:45:08.980 Yes, because she's young, because she's younger, and also especially because she was a woman.

00:45:17.240 The young woman's death hits people harder because it is an indictment of our national policy.

00:45:25.820 People know at a deep level that nations should not send their women off to die in war.

00:45:32.100 We hope that we don't have to send anyone off to die in war.

00:45:35.620 But we recognize that war exists.

00:45:38.240 War will always exist, this side of the eschaton.

00:45:41.120 And we're going to send our men off to war.

00:45:43.440 It's going to be the young men, by the way.

00:45:44.400 It's not going to be the old men we send off to war.

00:45:45.600 It's going to be the young men we send off to war.

00:45:46.960 And that's going to make us think about the reasons that we go to war

00:45:49.720 and the justifications for war and the frequency of war.

00:45:51.740 But nevertheless, that's part of politics.

00:45:55.020 That's part of statecraft.

00:45:56.020 That's part of human life in this world,

00:45:58.820 is recognizing that there's going to be war

00:46:00.140 and we have to send people off to it.

00:46:01.480 But I think most of us know at a deep level, it is really wrong. It is just an absolute

00:46:07.380 wicked national policy that we would send our women off to be killed in war.

00:46:14.360 We didn't have women in combat until very recently. We didn't have women in the military

00:46:20.640 for most of history. It is because of the introduction of liberal politics, lowercase

00:46:28.200 sell liberal politics and egalitarian politics and especially feminist politics that we do that.

00:46:35.260 And it just strikes us as wrong. It's not that women can't be brave. There are a lot of brave

00:46:42.200 women. It's not that women might not want to sign up and fight in combat. Plenty of young women

00:46:47.480 perhaps do. It's not even that men and women are physically different from one another and that men

00:46:53.640 are physically stronger than women. That's all true. But that's actually beside the point here.

00:46:57.080 it has nothing to do with the women or their courage or their sacrifice it has everything

00:47:04.780 to do with what kind of country we want to be do we want to be the kind of country

00:47:09.780 that sends our young women off to be blown up by jihadis i don't think so and if you're a

00:47:20.040 conservative if you're just a normal person and you think that men and women really are different

00:47:24.500 and they're complementary rather than indiscernible and identical and they really do have different

00:47:28.420 roles then i think one of the clearest places that would be expressed is military combat right

00:47:35.820 it's not the reason not to not to put women in combat is not because the women don't want to or

00:47:42.620 not even that they can't do it it's because we don't want to be the kind of country that does

00:47:47.720 that uh very sad pray pray for all of these people obviously uh and then we need to reflect

00:47:53.860 on this. And we need to be very honest about it. As we're going through the great unwokening,

00:47:59.400 as we're going through a kind of cultural return from the brink of, especially the gender insanity

00:48:04.320 of 2022, 2023, this is something we need to seriously consider. For the vast majority of

00:48:10.500 American history, we did not have women in combat. And I don't want to be the kind of country that

00:48:14.160 sends women off to die in wars. Okay. Today's Tee Hee Hee Tuesday. The rest of the show continues

00:48:18.760 now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code NOLSKIN or WLES at checkout for two

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The Michael Knowles Show - July 21, 2026

Ep. 2020 - AOC Is Either Lying Or Crazy

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