The Michael Knowles Show - July 24, 2026


Ep. 2023 - Did America Just Merge Militaries With Israel？


Episode Stats


Length

52 minutes

Words per minute

184.98

Word count

9,678

Sentence count

738

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

19

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:01:38.580 up to $500,000 at cardiff.co slash Knowles. Did the House of Representatives just vote
00:01:45.740 to merge America's military with Israel? That is the viral claim about the National
00:01:51.900 Defense Authorization Act. We will get into what the bill does say and what it does not say. Then,
00:01:57.340 Andrew and Tristan Tate's attorney blames the brothers' recent arrest
00:02:00.200 for rape and trafficking on an international conspiracy.
00:02:05.220 And he kind of has a point.
00:02:07.580 He's got a little bit of a point.
00:02:08.880 Also, Secretary of State Marco Rubio weighs in on the campaign
00:02:12.400 to make Vice President J.D. Vance the face of Iran diplomacy
00:02:15.460 as President Trump considers vastly expanding this war five months in.
00:02:21.300 I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:02:26.840 Welcome back to the show. Big headline. Half of Gen Z says that the support that churches give to
00:02:50.780 the Trump administration is keeping them from going to church. We're hearing all this news
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00:03:01.600 is keeping them from church. The headline is actually totally backwards. We'll get to that.
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00:04:23.360 Is America merging its military with the state of Israel? That is the viral claim on social media.
00:04:31.600 It's a claim going around the mainstream press. There was a big vote yesterday for the National
00:04:37.980 Defense Authorization Act in the House of Representatives. The NDAA passed. The vote was
00:04:45.440 what? 216 to 212. Now, it still hasn't passed the Senate yet, so the Senate's going to have to do
00:04:50.680 its own version of the bill. But what do we make of this claim? I just need to wait for my $7,000
00:04:57.520 to clear from BB Netanyahu. Do we have, producers, do we have confirmation that my $7,000 is cleared
00:05:03.260 before I give my commentary? No, we don't? Okay, all right. Well, then I'm going to have to give
00:05:07.800 different commentary. There are a lot of conspiracy claims. There are a lot of conspiracy claims
00:05:12.600 generally, in part because our government has lied to us, especially during COVID. So there's
00:05:17.140 some reason for the conspiracy claims, but this is especially true when it comes to the state of
00:05:20.300 Israel. So you have to parse it. You need to make sure that you're actually getting your facts
00:05:24.000 right. What is this over? This is over specifically section 219. There are actually a few other
00:05:30.020 sections of the NDAA that relate to this question, but specifically section 219, which would direct
00:05:36.620 the Secretary of War to create an apparatchik at the Pentagon, an executive agent, to oversee
00:05:45.340 the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative. So that apparatchik
00:05:53.640 would then coordinate aspects of defense research, development, testing, supply chain,
00:06:00.560 industrial cooperation. Okay. Top line takeaway, no, it does not merge the American military
00:06:09.180 with Israel. You're not going to see Marines taking orders from Itamar Ben-Gavir or something
00:06:15.380 like that. However, this is a notable provision of the NDAA, and it actually does merit some
00:06:21.560 pretty serious debate because what it says at the top level is that the US and Israel will
00:06:28.440 cooperate more on military research and tech development, supply chain, and all the rest of
00:06:34.080 it. However, in this case, it would actually give the state of Israel greater military integration
00:06:41.880 priority than some NATO allies, okay? And Israel's obviously not party to NATO, so that is a little
00:06:48.180 strange. It would create this special office that would oversee that cooperation, so it creates
00:06:56.540 effectively a new kind of deep state position that would be specifically tasked with further
00:07:03.900 cooperation with Israel, which again, we've cooperated with on TAC, on the military,
00:07:08.900 on development for many, many years, many decades. One part, I was talking to a friend of mine in
00:07:14.100 politics last night. One part that hasn't played a huge role in this debate, but it is kind of
00:07:20.420 related, comes from a different bill, not the National Defense Authorization Act, but the
00:07:24.120 Intelligence Authorization Act for 2027. That would be section 622, which mandates that we give
00:07:32.900 Israel more intelligence. And in fact, it prohibits suspending or limiting that intelligence,
00:07:41.400 absent some direct involvement from the president. Now, this also all relates to the big debate that
00:07:47.900 has emerged. Well, it's been on the left for a long time, but it's emerged a little bit on the
00:07:51.440 right as well, which is a pull to stop giving military aid to the state of Israel. We give
00:07:56.960 them $3 billion or so a year. And there's been this big debate that's gone on over whether or
00:08:01.960 not we should pull that military aid from Israel. You see people who are a little more focused on
00:08:07.840 domestic policies or a little more isolationist in their views. They'll say, why are we funding
00:08:12.260 this foreign nation's military? What's that about? We had enough problems at home. Keep our money
00:08:16.660 here at home. And then you have other people who are looking from a more geopolitical and grand
00:08:21.860 strategic standpoint who are saying, no, it's actually good that we're involved with the state
00:08:27.600 of Israel. And actually, a lot of the defund Israel rhetoric has come from our geopolitical
00:08:32.160 adversaries like Russia or Iran, of course, or China that want to limit America's involvement
00:08:37.740 around the world for their own benefit so that China can then come in and supplant the United
00:08:42.740 States as the global hegemon. This also relates to Israeli policy, because back in June,
00:08:51.040 the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked about this claim that the United States
00:08:57.460 wants to defund military funding for Israel. And Netanyahu said something that a lot of people
00:09:03.120 didn't expect. He said, that's fine. I don't want the military aid from the United States.
00:09:07.840 I don't want them to just give us all this money, because then we're kind of on the hook.
00:09:11.460 what I want is greater cooperation. In other words, I want a deeper partnership,
00:09:17.960 but I don't want them to just give me a handout. So what's the positive argument for these kinds
00:09:25.100 of provisions? The positive argument for this kind of a provision is that it would prevent
00:09:30.920 a future president AOC from announcing, I don't know, the U.S.-Hamas partnership or something.
00:09:37.820 It would prevent a lot of the opposition to this provision is coming from the left.
00:09:43.180 It's coming from Democrats.
00:09:44.360 And so the argument for it is, look, the left is radically not just anti-Israel, but anti-American.
00:09:50.780 And so they want to weaken the US-Israel alliance, but they also kind of just want to weaken the United States.
00:09:57.600 And so that would be really, really bad if some president AOC came in and totally messed up our global alliances. 0.94
00:10:04.200 Because we know she doesn't really have America's best interests at heart. 1.00
00:10:07.180 So it's a protective measure to stop against a bad future administration.
00:10:13.060 It would make it harder to disentangle the United States and Israel.
00:10:16.520 It would make it harder to disentangle the current state of U.S. alliances.
00:10:22.040 However, the negative part of this provision, of these multiple provisions,
00:10:27.100 is that it would limit the American options regarding the Israel alliance.
00:10:33.840 So it's great as a way to stop the downsides
00:10:37.800 of a really bad future Democrat administration,
00:10:40.060 but it's not great in that it would limit our abilities.
00:10:44.240 It would limit our optionality
00:10:46.100 when it comes to the Israel alliance.
00:10:48.040 And we don't want to do that
00:10:48.900 with our alliances with anybody.
00:10:50.880 We don't want to limit
00:10:52.100 what the United States military can do.
00:10:54.220 We don't want to limit what appointed officials can do.
00:10:59.120 Ultimately, what these provisions are about
00:11:01.180 is a deeper integration of the United States and Israel on tech, on research, on supply chain,
00:11:06.840 on the military, that would be harder to disentangle. And so this presents
00:11:11.960 maybe a little potential upside from the actual strategic viewpoint, but some downsides too,
00:11:19.180 because it would limit us. And so ultimately, I think the juice is not worth the squeeze.
00:11:28.040 Ultimately, I think this is probably a bad idea, even just from a strategic standpoint, though there's a case to be made that it's not.
00:11:35.300 Then you have to look at the political, the optical standpoint of this.
00:11:40.620 At a moment when Israel is losing popularity, not just on the left, the state of Israel lost the left a long time ago, but even on the right, and especially on the young right, is this really a good look?
00:11:54.420 is this the sort of thing that Republican congressmen and Republican senators want to
00:11:59.880 vote for? Does it look good that we are further entrenching in a way that would be difficult to
00:12:05.920 untangle our integration with the state of Israel? Does it present national security challenges?
00:12:12.000 Well, according to the letter of the provisions, not exactly, but according to how they would
00:12:17.240 actually be implemented, yeah, it kind of does. And so, I don't know. If I were a senator,
00:12:21.900 I would try to strip these provisions out of the bills. Not because I hate Israel. I actually
00:12:28.040 broadly support the state of Israel. But I don't think ultimately the positives outweigh the
00:12:34.900 negatives. And I think optically it's really, really bad for Republican politicians. And so
00:12:40.420 the kind of funny thing is, if you're looking at three buckets of our options with the state of
00:12:46.860 Israel. You either have the real, Israel's an apartheid state, defund Israel, and they're an 0.69
00:12:53.760 adversary or whatever. There's that bucket. I don't think that's where it's at. Then there is 0.70
00:12:59.280 just giving the military aid, which comes with a lot of strings, or there's this deeper integration
00:13:06.860 that's harder to untangle. Here, I think what the NDAA and what the Intelligence Act are presenting
00:13:13.680 is this pretty strong argument for just keeping the funding. You don't want to lose the Israel
00:13:18.820 I don't think you want to lose the Israel alliance. I think ultimately, if it's well
00:13:23.080 structured, that is in America's interest. And I think to lose that alliance would give a benefit
00:13:30.300 to our adversaries. But I don't think you want to entangle us in such a way that would be harder
00:13:38.480 for future administrations to untangle. So ironically, after this many months long debate
00:13:43.640 over Israel aid, you know, $3 billion a year, ultimately that actually is probably the best
00:13:49.880 version of America's alliance with the state of Israel, which is why Republicans traditionally
00:13:55.360 have supported it. And it's why actually the Israeli government, I think, would like a kind
00:14:02.500 of a deeper integration where the $3 billion a year, given the budget of the United States,
00:14:06.500 is really kind of immaterial
00:14:08.420 when you're dealing in trillions and trillions of dollars.
00:14:12.440 If I were a Republican senator right now,
00:14:14.860 I would be very cautious about this provision.
00:14:18.100 I don't think it plays optically, strategically.
00:14:22.000 And you might end up in a situation
00:14:23.400 where the strongest position for the United States,
00:14:27.240 and then in the long run, probably for the state of Israel,
00:14:29.300 is to maintain the current status quo,
00:14:32.920 which has more benefits to the United States
00:14:34.780 than I think a lot of the critics have admitted.
00:14:36.820 Okay, now speaking of joint war efforts
00:14:39.300 involving the state of Israel,
00:14:40.900 but in the broader Middle East,
00:14:43.380 President Trump is now threatening to expand,
00:14:47.960 perhaps greatly expand the war in Iran.
00:14:50.620 This, as we conclude the fifth month of the war in Iran,
00:14:53.280 looking ahead to the sixth month,
00:14:54.240 we will get to that momentarily.
00:14:55.280 Then we will get to the Secretary of State
00:14:58.580 weighing in, not just on these international questions,
00:15:00.880 not just on Iran,
00:15:01.820 but about the supposed shadow war
00:15:05.740 between the pro-Rubio elements of the GOP
00:15:08.600 and the pro-J.D. Vance elements of the GOP,
00:15:11.660 how it all relates to the Trump administration.
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00:17:40.500 President Trump weighing, expanding the Iran war.
00:17:43.780 Speaking to Axios, President Trump said, quote,
00:17:46.220 I am considering a massive attack, bigger than ever before.
00:17:49.560 I am close to making a decision.
00:17:51.420 We are all set for it.
00:17:53.340 the context of Trump's comments, he's threatened these kind of things before. Sometimes he's
00:17:58.020 followed through on them. But the context is that oil has jumped up. After, we covered this on the
00:18:03.700 show yesterday, after the MOU broke down because Iran violated the ceasefire, you had the United
00:18:10.820 States just guaranteeing the shipment of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, but we remain in
00:18:14.740 the stalemate in the war. There have been alternative routes to get the oil. Don't forget,
00:18:18.480 The Strait of Ormuz has 20% of the world's oil and natural gas, fertilizer, petrochemicals.
00:18:23.940 It's a major, major through way.
00:18:25.740 There have been alternative routes that have been proposed.
00:18:27.380 Well, the Iran-backed militia, the Houthis, were striking ships just off of the Red Sea
00:18:35.200 in a different strait that was one of the alternative routes for the oil.
00:18:38.540 So oil starts to jump up a little bit again.
00:18:40.400 Yesterday when I did the show, oil was at about 91.
00:18:42.920 Brent crude has just jumped up north of $100 a barrel.
00:18:45.800 That is the context of Trump making these remarks.
00:18:49.320 So Wall Street Journal reporting,
00:18:51.240 the U.S. is now surging forces and medics and weaponry
00:18:54.760 to the Middle East.
00:18:56.000 This is going to give Trump that word
00:18:57.980 that we were talking about at the top of the show,
00:19:00.120 optionality.
00:19:00.880 He's keeping all of his options on the table here.
00:19:03.740 He also said, he goes, look, if we want to go in here,
00:19:05.780 Israel's going to be with us.
00:19:07.240 Israel wants to blow Iran back to the Stone Age. 0.64
00:19:09.740 So we not only have the full might of the U.S. military,
00:19:12.920 which is now hurtling toward the Middle East,
00:19:16.000 the ones that aren't there already, 0.86
00:19:17.240 But we know that Israel is going to jump in on it. So, Iran, you better come back to the table 0.99
00:19:20.840 and negotiate. What makes this threat, I think, a little stronger, and if I were in the Iranian 0.98
00:19:26.620 system, I would probably be paying close attention, is, yeah, sometimes Trump bluffs.
00:19:31.080 Sometimes he talks past the sale. He's unpredictable. That is his strength in
00:19:34.500 foreign policy. That's been true since 2017. But one thing that we know, Trump will tolerate a lot.
00:19:41.200 He will tolerate a lot on the global stage. He doesn't actually hold personal grudges,
00:19:45.180 despite what people have said about him. Some of his worst enemies have become his closest allies
00:19:50.500 domestically and internationally. He can do that. He moves around. He's all about business.
00:19:56.560 The one thing he will not tolerate is oil prices going up. This was the observation about Trump
00:20:04.460 when it came to the tariffs. This is the observation when it comes to war. Trump will
00:20:08.760 tolerate a lot, but he does not like it when the stock market goes down. He does not like it when
00:20:13.800 the bond market hits crises. That's what first led President Trump to reconsider the tariffs.
00:20:18.920 And he really, really doesn't like it when oil goes up, especially around a midterm election.
00:20:25.120 If I were a gambling man, and if I were in the Iranian system, I would have to be a gambling man. 0.97
00:20:31.400 I would take this threat very, very seriously. One thing, we've known Trump for 10 years now
00:20:35.760 as president or at the height of national politics. This is a red line for him.
00:20:41.580 Brent crude oil futures. That is a red line for Trump. And I think you're seeing a very
00:20:49.620 sincere threat, a very credible threat that this could increase. Now, the House of Representatives
00:20:55.200 just voted. They actually broke with Trump. The House, which is controlled by the GOP
00:20:58.880 narrowly, just broke with Trump. They voted to pass a resolution telling Trump to end the war.
00:21:04.800 Now, this resolution is not binding. Trump has the War Powers Act, which empowers him
00:21:10.080 to fight wars essentially on his own for up to 60 days.
00:21:14.360 Don't forget, because the Iran war ended with that ceasefire technically weeks ago,
00:21:18.720 months ago now, it kind of resets the War Powers Resolution.
00:21:22.440 And the War Powers Resolution doesn't even really matter
00:21:24.160 because when you look at Barack Obama and Joe Biden,
00:21:26.360 they exercised their War Powers Authority for months and months and months,
00:21:31.020 way past anything the War Powers Act would actually give them.
00:21:34.860 So the House Resolution doesn't really mean much
00:21:37.620 other than potentially a turning of public opinion.
00:21:40.400 And you look, there were four Republicans
00:21:41.940 who broke with the GOP on the resolution.
00:21:45.380 You look, the first one is Thomas Massey.
00:21:47.100 Well, okay, Thomas Massey is a libertarian
00:21:49.160 who is now an enemy of the administration.
00:21:51.620 He's not just a libertarian in the vein of Ron Paul
00:21:53.960 or Rand Paul, the kind of loyal opposition within the GOP.
00:21:58.380 He's gonna oppose the GOP on a lot of stuff
00:22:01.220 when it comes to the military,
00:22:02.300 but he's not gonna sidle up to Democrats.
00:22:04.580 Thomas Massey's going further.
00:22:05.820 Thomas Massey's a guy with nothing to lose.
00:22:07.620 Uh, so Thomas Massey is palling up with Ro Khanna. Thomas Massey is palling around with,
00:22:12.900 with Democrats. Uh, so I don't really take that defection too seriously. Brian Fitzpatrick is
00:22:18.500 kind of a squishy Republican. I don't take that defection too seriously. Republican from
00:22:22.260 Pennsylvania, but then you got other guys here, Tom Barrett, Warren Davidson. These are not
00:22:26.340 hardcore, never Trumpers. These are not guys who pal around with Democrats. Uh, it's a,
00:22:31.120 it's just an indication. It's a leading indicator that the appetite for this war
00:22:36.720 is waning, not just with the broader public, but even among the legislators.
00:22:42.760 So I agree in principle, it would be good to wrap up the war. But this is the problem with war is, 0.53
00:22:49.260 as we now repeat almost every day on the show from Machiavelli, a war begins at any man's will.
00:22:53.580 It does not end at any man's will. And so these situations can really spiral out of control.
00:22:59.500 They can spiral out from this tactical hit on Iran all the way to the Strait of Hormuz when
00:23:04.920 they played that card, then it can spill out beyond the Strait of Hormuz into that point
00:23:08.220 right by the Red Sea and even more broadly. It should be wrapped up, but there's no end in sight
00:23:14.760 because in war, your opponent gets a say. So once again, the administration has to take this very,
00:23:20.480 very seriously. There's no way to wrap this up quickly, I don't think. But the best way to deal
00:23:25.800 with this through the midterms is to just lower the importance, decrease the priority in voters' 0.98
00:23:33.580 minds of the war in Iran because it's not wrapping up anytime soon, and the Iranians as of now are
00:23:39.040 not interested in diplomacy. Now, speaking of diplomacy on Iran, this has become a real flash
00:23:43.400 point in the shadow war for 2028. There are a lot of people who are calling for Marco Rubio.
00:23:48.060 I shouldn't say a lot of people. The polls don't really reflect a lot of people, but a lot of
00:23:51.720 people within the GOP pundit class, the political class, they're calling for Rubio to be the heir
00:23:56.740 apparent, to get the Trump blessing for the 2028 presidential nomination, not J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance,
00:24:02.960 who you would expect to be the heir apparent
00:24:04.940 because Trump picked him as his vice president
00:24:06.900 in a non-consecutive second term.
00:24:08.640 J.D. Vance, who is still far and away leading the polls
00:24:10.920 for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination.
00:24:13.780 There are people calling for Rubio,
00:24:15.360 and one way they're doing this
00:24:16.520 is they're trying to pin the breakdown of Iran diplomacy
00:24:19.680 not on the chief diplomat of the United States, Rubio,
00:24:23.140 not on the guy who's actually making the decisions,
00:24:25.260 Donald Trump, but on J.D. Vance.
00:24:28.700 So it's a little bit of a political operation.
00:24:31.280 I mean, that's how politics works.
00:24:32.360 you can't blame guys for trying. But what does the chief diplomat, Marco Rubio, have to say
00:24:37.920 about this operation? We'll get to that in a second. First, I want to tell you about Balance
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00:25:54.420 Mr. Rubio, Secretary Rubio, is the Iran war all J.D. Vance's fault? Here's his answer.
00:26:03.440 Prominent Republicans have said they want you to take over the Iran negotiations. They trust you.
00:26:08.780 They think that you will prioritize Israel's interests, and they're attacking Vice President
00:26:13.200 Vance. Who are these prominent Republicans? Senator Sheehy, the Wall Street Journal opinion
00:26:17.360 page. Well, that's not a Republican. That's a newspaper. You're a troublemaker of these
00:26:22.640 No, no, look, guys, listen.
00:26:25.260 Here's the bottom line.
00:26:26.440 You know who the lead negotiator is?
00:26:28.760 His name is Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States.
00:26:30.960 That's who dictates our policy.
00:26:32.280 He has a team of people that work together on this.
00:26:34.700 We all have a role to play, depending on what the topic is.
00:26:37.100 We have very good negotiators in Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
00:26:40.360 We have the Vice President of the United States, which is the second highest ranking official,
00:26:43.480 which tells you how important to be given this file.
00:26:46.100 Obviously, I have a role to play.
00:26:48.220 The Department of War has had a role to play.
00:26:50.340 That's how we approach it.
00:26:51.320 This doesn't, I mean, it's a combined effort, and it always should be.
00:26:54.860 Do you wish people didn't endorse you to take over the talks yourself?
00:26:58.200 I mean, you're telling me about that.
00:26:59.540 But that's not how our system works.
00:27:00.840 That's not how this administration works.
00:27:02.340 It starts at the top.
00:27:03.180 The president is in charge, and he has a team of people that provide counsel and provide advice,
00:27:08.540 but ultimately whose job it is to execute on the president's directive.
00:27:11.640 We have a great team that works very well together on that topic.
00:27:14.560 We've worked well together on a number of targets.
00:27:16.720 We've worked together as a team on Lebanon.
00:27:18.660 We've worked together as a team on Venezuela.
00:27:20.600 We've worked together as a team on the Thailand-Cambodia peace agreement that was put together.
00:27:25.700 We've worked together as a team.
00:27:27.240 We have a really good core team that works on foreign policy and national security.
00:27:30.880 And oftentimes it's a multi-agency effort because there's a role for Treasury to play.
00:27:35.780 Sometimes there's a role for energy to play.
00:27:37.840 That's how these things work.
00:27:38.940 It's not one person.
00:27:39.940 It's all these different elements of our government that have to work in conjunction and in concert
00:27:43.760 to execute on the president's directive and on the direction that he's giving us.
00:27:47.960 Rubio is such a pro, man.
00:27:49.500 This is a great, great answer.
00:27:52.700 And it's a great answer that not only deflects the heat,
00:27:57.020 but it actually tells us something about the way that Rubio is thinking about this.
00:28:02.660 Because Rubio's a pro, so he can give a good answer.
00:28:06.240 Rubio, at least at some point in his life, has wanted to be president.
00:28:09.760 I think most people in the government probably would like to be president.
00:28:12.600 Rubio has run for president before.
00:28:14.420 So, given that he's such a sharp politician, think about what he could have said.
00:28:18.140 But if right now there's this movement from within the GOP political class, if not among
00:28:24.260 GOP voters, to really try to axe Vance and to boost Rubio to be the presumptive nominee
00:28:29.760 in 2028, the answer that he could have given without looking disloyal is, what are you
00:28:35.000 talking about?
00:28:35.420 No, come on. 1.00
00:28:36.120 You're a troublemaker.
00:28:37.420 You're trying to make division. 0.99
00:28:38.660 Look, this is crazy.
00:28:40.320 Look, when we're working on things here in the administration, whether we're talking
00:28:44.780 about Iran, whether we're talking about immigration. Look, it's a multi-agency effort.
00:28:49.240 And I think on Iran, I think the vice president has done his level best.
00:28:54.640 I think, in other words, if Rubio were trying to knife Vance here, if Rubio were really vying for
00:28:59.980 that presumptive heir position, what he would have said is, no, no, no, we're all working
00:29:04.820 together. Stop going after J.D. Vance. I think he's doing his best as the lead negotiator on
00:29:09.620 Iran. The president trusts the vice president on Iran. In other words, he would have tried to set
00:29:15.340 him up as the fall guy, just like a lot of people in the GOP political class. They're too afraid to
00:29:21.440 attack Trump directly. They're too afraid to say the buck stops with the president. This is the
00:29:25.220 president's policy. So they're trying to attack the administration by going after Vance to maybe
00:29:29.480 score a political win down the road. Rubio would have jumped on with that, and he could have done
00:29:32.960 it in a very subtle way. He's a total pro. That's not what he's doing. He's saying this is totally
00:29:38.720 bogus. This is all on Trump. And not only is Trump not the chief negotiator, but the immediate
00:29:48.760 negotiators that he has, it's not the vice president. It's Jared Kushner. It's Steve
00:29:53.340 Witkoff. But I'm involved. Vance is involved. This guy, this guy, this guy. His answer is
00:29:59.280 actually in keeping with his other public statements, which is there's no division here.
00:30:03.320 He endorses Vance to be the heir apparent. Again, there will be some kind of GOP primary.
00:30:06.920 If the Trump administration collapses, let's say Iran really goes south, let's say the economy really goes south, then probably the guy who's going to be strongest in the race is going to be someone from outside the Trump administration.
00:30:17.520 It's not going to be Vance.
00:30:18.340 It's not going to be Rubio.
00:30:19.420 It's going to be a Ron DeSantis or a Rand Paul or a Ted Cruz or Nikki Haley or I don't know.
00:30:25.300 Whoever, I don't know who's going to run, but whoever, whoever's going to run.
00:30:27.360 It'll be someone from outside the administration.
00:30:28.820 but if trump continues his hold on the gop then it's going to be whoever trump picks
00:30:34.320 who will get the nomination we'll see what happens in the general election really sophisticated
00:30:39.640 answer from from rubio and a further expression of his opinion that that division is being stoked
00:30:46.700 by ideologues but it's not being it's not being stoked by gop leaders that's the first part of
00:30:52.060 the premise that he knocks down. And I think this is sincere coming from Rubio, but it's also
00:30:59.320 recognizing that he sees what the polls say, and he's not going to play that game.
00:31:04.380 Okay. Speaking of international politics, I wanted to get to this yesterday. We have to get to it
00:31:09.020 today. Andrew and Tristan Tate. Andrew Tate and Tristan, his brother too, is very popular,
00:31:14.200 but the big social media influencers, kind of red pill, manosphere content, kind of right wing,
00:31:20.320 But also, Andrew Tate had this school that offered the PhD, the pimp and hose degree, and they're now being brought up on all these charges related to pornography and grooming and rape in this case.
00:31:33.460 So they were arrested in Miami.
00:31:35.320 They're now set to be extradited to the UK for a bunch of additional charges there.
00:31:38.860 There are also charges against them in Romania.
00:31:41.740 The Tate's lawyer has just come out and said this is all an international conspiracy.
00:31:46.060 the process becomes the punishment until you can clear your name they've been clearing their names
00:31:51.980 domestically and abroad for years this is just the next logical conclusion in that in in that
00:31:57.700 situation kirstein just retired or is retiring uh i'm sure he's mad that andrew and tristan tate
00:32:03.740 had a lot to do uh with with his fall in great britain and there's a new guy in there right now
00:32:09.320 but this is the last vestige of attack of a of a prime minister who didn't do a good job
00:32:14.800 and he continues to do bad work and I'll just leave it there. Innocent to proven guilty.
00:32:19.440 We're going to let the court process play out here the way that it should. We're happy to be here.
00:32:24.100 Okay. So press conference goes on a little bit longer, but he says, no, this is
00:32:27.840 the reason they're being indicted is because the ousted labor prime minister Keir Starmer
00:32:33.880 had an ax to grind with them. And that's part of the Tates are the reason that Keir Starmer
00:32:39.100 went down in the United Kingdom. I don't, I don't really buy that. I don't. And so it's all
00:32:44.640 a big political conspiracy. And the thing is, he's basically wrong about this, but there is a
00:32:53.100 kernel of truth to it. There is a kernel of truth, which is that a lot of people are looking at it.
00:33:01.820 A lot of the pro-Tate people are looking at this and saying, it's all made up. They didn't commit
00:33:06.520 rape. They didn't do sex crimes. They didn't do this. They didn't do that. I don't know. These
00:33:10.540 guys on camera, especially Andrew Tate, on camera have bragged about doing all sorts of terrible
00:33:15.680 things to women. They've bragged about pimping out women. They've bragged about running pornography
00:33:19.300 businesses. So it seems to me, I don't know, I find the charges kind of credible, okay?
00:33:27.800 Maybe in one or two of the cases, maybe they're not. In one case, a woman alleges that Andrew
00:33:33.100 Tate abused her, but they had a relationship for like two years. So he abused her. He allegedly
00:33:40.140 raped her and assaulted her, but then they dated. Apparently, this happened over the course of two 0.98
00:33:44.640 years. That does raise an eyebrow. You say, okay, well, if he committed this awful crime against
00:33:47.860 you, why would you continue to date for two years? It's not that it's impossible, but all that's a
00:33:51.520 little weird. Nevertheless, the conspiracy here, the part that really makes the establishment look
00:33:56.720 crooked is if the issue is rape in the UK, then okay, go after Andrew Tate. Fine. But as I said
00:34:07.700 when the charges came down. This would be a stunning reversal of the UK's longstanding
00:34:11.880 policy never to prosecute Muslims for rape. We have just had the revelation of this decades-long
00:34:20.060 rape scandal in the UK where untold numbers of Pakistani Muslim rapists groomed and raped 0.99
00:34:28.180 little English girls for decades to the tunes of thousands. Some of the claims are hundreds of 0.99
00:34:33.140 thousands. So it's not that you shouldn't prosecute Andrew Tate or whatever, but Andrew
00:34:39.860 Tate is small potatoes. What about all the other guys? What about all of the Muslim rapists who
00:34:44.360 have been grooming and trafficking and raping in the UK for decades where the police not only 0.99
00:34:50.080 didn't pursue it, but intentionally turned a blind eye? That is corruption. That is a kind
00:34:55.600 of hypocrisy. The Tates were pornographers. That's really bad. I hate pornography. I think 0.97
00:35:02.660 it should basically be illegal. There are some prudential questions about exactly how you make
00:35:07.540 it illegal, but yeah, it should be illegal for sure. Well, Andrew Tate is small potatoes when
00:35:13.480 it comes to pornography. Why aren't you going after the big guys? Why aren't you going after
00:35:16.380 the big porn corporations that are actually poisoning the minds of whole nations? Go after
00:35:21.620 those guys. In addition, go after the Tates too, but why don't you also go after those guys? You
00:35:26.440 want to talk about human trafficking. Maybe the Tates did traffic girls. I don't know. I guess 1.00
00:35:31.520 we'll find out in court. But if you care about human trafficking, why aren't you closing your
00:35:37.160 borders? Why aren't you going after the criminal cartels in the UK, in Europe, in the United
00:35:42.140 States? The criminal cartels that are trafficking human beings by the millions. Trafficking that
00:35:49.020 entails rape and sexual assault. There was a study from Amnesty International and Fusion years ago
00:35:54.800 now. It's probably the numbers are way outdated. That 60 to 80 percent of women and girls who cross
00:35:58.860 the American border illegally are sexually assaulted along the way. How about you go after
00:36:02.540 them too? When you conclude that there is a kind of conspiracy or at least corruption,
00:36:09.840 the answer is not that we should then go lighter on other people who have committed the same
00:36:13.300 crimes. It's that you need to go much harder on the big players who are doing all of that.
00:36:17.980 And you don't really see that happening. Certainly not in the UK. You see it since
00:36:20.840 Trump's election a little bit in the United States, but you don't see that in the UK or
00:36:25.040 in Europe. That's the kernel of truth that really resonates for people, I think, in the
00:36:29.760 take case. Okay, before we get to my favorite time of the week in the mailbag, I do want to get to
00:36:35.180 this story that hasn't gotten enough play. The story is about Trump support, about the kind of
00:36:43.100 conservative resurgence in the United States, and the religious revival. Because it does seem like
00:36:49.720 there's a religious revival going on in the United States and in Europe. Baptisms increasing 38%
00:36:54.960 year over year, multiple years in a row. A lot of people going back to church. I remember a lot of
00:36:59.480 us saw this the Sunday after Charlie Kirk was murdered. You saw a lot of new people showing up
00:37:04.320 to church. That's one of the silver linings in that awful storm cloud. And frankly, the religious
00:37:08.860 revival was even preceding that horrible event. So now we're getting this headline, half of Gen Z 1.00
00:37:14.120 says that Trump support keeps them out. Half of Gen Z says Trump support. They would go to church,
00:37:22.000 but the churches are too Trumpy.
00:37:24.200 So what is the message?
00:37:25.320 The message from these kind of headlines is
00:37:27.280 the churches just need to be less conservative.
00:37:29.740 They need to be more liberal.
00:37:31.240 They definitely can't support Trump.
00:37:32.620 And I said, well, hold on.
00:37:33.340 Let me look at the numbers here.
00:37:35.140 I guess if the headline is half of Gen Z,
00:37:38.860 it's actually a little under half of Gen Z,
00:37:41.680 says that Trump's support at church
00:37:43.120 turns them off from going to church.
00:37:45.120 Then the actual headline is
00:37:47.060 most of Gen Z is not turned off.
00:37:52.000 by Trump alignment in church, which is actually pretty stunning because young people are
00:37:56.180 disproportionately left wing. Only 42 to 46% of Gen Z voted for Trump. So that means that there
00:38:04.640 are many Zoomers who voted against Trump, who are now going to church, who are not turned off 0.51
00:38:12.100 at church by the fact that the church is kind of aligned with Trump. And what does it even mean to
00:38:16.760 be aligned with Trump? What does it mean for a church to be aligned with Trump? Does it mean
00:38:21.500 that churches oppose abortion? Yeah, that doesn't have anything to do with Trump. That has to do
00:38:27.720 with morality. That has to do with Christianity. Does it mean that churches support prosecuting 0.80
00:38:35.440 criminals and protecting the innocent like Trump does? Yeah, I guess so. That doesn't have to do
00:38:39.360 with Trump. Trump didn't start that. Trump isn't a doctor of the church. He's not the theologian
00:38:43.180 here. That has to do with Christianity. That's what the church is. Is it that the churches have 0.66
00:38:48.160 made a right-wing turn. No. Oh my goodness gracious. The very terms left and right originate
00:38:54.740 in the French Revolution when the left, the left side of the National Assembly signified all the
00:39:00.080 people who hate church. They also hated the king, but the people who sat on the left were the
00:39:04.880 secularists and the atheists and the people who wanted to weaken the church. So the left just
00:39:09.620 intrinsically is opposed to the church. It's not that you can therefore map the church directly
00:39:16.180 onto American right-wing politics or British right-wing politics or whatever. That doesn't
00:39:20.240 exactly work. But the left is intrinsically opposed to the church. And the Trump era
00:39:28.740 has coincided, well, you can say correlation is not causation, but the Trump era has coincided
00:39:37.180 with a massive increase in church attendance and religiosity, given where the trend lines were
00:39:42.080 before, which were plummeting. And as a consequence, we're seeing these from these
00:39:48.420 very numbers, the people who are attending church are warming up to Trump, and not just Trump,
00:39:54.220 it's conservative politics and a more traditional understanding of the moral order. And so this
00:39:59.160 becomes a positive feedback loop. And some of my more libertarian friends, some of my more
00:40:04.480 neo-conny friends, they have this natural aversion to the government getting involved in domestic
00:40:11.000 affairs. The libertarians have an aversion to government just generally. The neocons have an
00:40:16.240 aversion to government in domestic affairs, but not so much in foreign affairs. They really want
00:40:20.820 a muscular government in foreign affairs, but less so, at least when it comes to social policy.
00:40:25.940 They say, well, the government can't promote virtue. The government can't do anything right. 0.50
00:40:30.200 You just got to get the government out of everything. But that isn't true. That's not
00:40:33.780 how politics works. That is not the understanding of any classical political philosopher at all,
00:40:38.020 be they Christian or otherwise. Obviously, the purpose of the government is that good is to be
00:40:47.940 done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. The government institutes laws and enforces laws,
00:40:54.400 laws which St. Paul tells us, and pagan philosophers tell us, the law which is a teacher.
00:41:00.500 So when you incentivize some kind of behavior and you punish some other kind of behavior,
00:41:06.560 You have the magical thinking of the libertarians and maybe some of the neocons.
00:41:10.220 The magical thinking says that the behavior that you promote, you're not going to get,
00:41:15.620 and the behavior that you ban, you are going to get.
00:41:18.860 This is how the libertarians talk about drugs.
00:41:20.540 They say, you know, if you want drug use to go down, you need to legalize all the drugs,
00:41:24.100 and then people will somehow do fewer drugs.
00:41:25.780 That's not true.
00:41:26.240 It's never been proven in any case, and it flies against common sense.
00:41:31.900 But no, the government has to have some kind of role
00:41:36.180 in shaping the character of the people
00:41:38.580 because the government, especially in our system,
00:41:41.000 is a reflection of the people
00:41:42.580 because we have self-government.
00:41:44.300 It's true of any government,
00:41:45.400 but especially of our government.
00:41:47.360 So you can't neatly separate politics and culture
00:41:49.920 like a lot of the libertarian types wanted to do
00:41:52.440 when they would say politics is downstream of culture.
00:41:54.400 It has nothing to do with the government or politics.
00:41:55.700 You can't neatly separate those two things.
00:41:58.400 And so you're getting this positive feedback loop
00:42:00.960 where people are, during the Trump era,
00:42:02.520 people have started going back to church.
00:42:03.860 And even the people who kind of hate Trump
00:42:05.280 don't mind that the church seems to be aligned with Trump.
00:42:08.980 And so you get a more of a positive feedback loop.
00:42:10.860 That is one of the purposes of government.
00:42:12.580 One of the purposes of government.
00:42:14.520 Going back to Thomas Aquinas, 0.87
00:42:16.480 going back to the ancient Romans
00:42:18.420 and ancient pagan political philosophers,
00:42:20.640 even going back to our founding fathers
00:42:22.160 who have been retconned as some kind of 2016 Reddit liberals,
00:42:25.680 but they weren't.
00:42:26.360 They were very serious people.
00:42:27.920 They recognize that one of the purposes of government is to encourage virtue and discourage
00:42:33.140 vice. We totally wrote that out, even on the right in the later part of the 20th century.
00:42:37.720 And you've seen the results of that. They haven't been very good. Okay.
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00:43:13.580 Summer heats up in FX's The Shards.
00:43:16.500 set in 80s los angeles the shards follows a group of beautiful privileged prep school students who
00:43:23.860 are preyed on by the trawler a serial killer targeting teenagers across the city this fever
00:43:29.820 dream of youth beauty sex and mystery is a must see fx is the shards streaming august 5th on hulu
00:43:37.600 on disney plus sign up now at disneyplus.com the producer's favorite comment yesterday i didn't
00:43:44.740 pick it this is from the producer i was running a little late today this is from over toast who
00:43:48.680 says everyone should go on instagram and like michael's comment on olive gardens account so
00:43:53.700 he can get the infinite pasta pass okay this is very important producers mr davies professor
00:43:59.100 jacob you just picked the perfect comment i don't know what the other this is perfect i'm i'm deeply
00:44:04.060 envious of jacob jacob got the pasta pass he got the endless pasta pass for a hundred bucks at
00:44:10.420 olive garden i'm not saying olive garden is my favorite restaurant i'm just saying i'll eat the
00:44:13.740 pasta. I'll go. I'll have the pasta pass. I'm a real cheapskate and Olive Gordon's food. I'll
00:44:17.400 take it. I enjoy it. It's fine. And I tried to buy one and it was sold out. And then they were
00:44:22.660 giving one away. And then they said, you got to click this and like the thing and do the beep
00:44:26.140 boop on the Instagram. And I really want my pasta pass. I want to spaghetti mug, Jacob, please. You
00:44:31.540 have to. I'm begging. I'm begging. You have to support me in this endeavor. Okay. Our mailbag
00:44:38.040 is sponsored by pure talk at pure talk.com slash Knowles Canada, WLS to start saving today. Take it
00:44:42.480 way. Hi Michael, Kylie here. I went to see the Odyssey movie this past weekend and I loved it,
00:44:47.620 but it did get me thinking. I went with a couple of friends and in my mind I figured everyone had
00:44:51.420 at least a very basic understanding of the original epic, but they didn't even know who
00:44:54.780 Achilles was or where the phrase Achilles heel came from, let alone Odysseus or his story. It
00:44:59.760 made me wonder if I was missing any staple literary works myself. I took a college literature
00:45:03.300 class this last semester where we read The Odyssey, Agamemnon, Oedipus Rex, Medea, The Aeneid, Dante's
00:45:10.080 Inferno, Parzival, Thomas More's Utopia, and a couple others. But I was wondering if you had
00:45:15.100 any more to recommend beyond these. I'm always looking for good classical book recommendations.
00:45:18.900 Thanks so much for your help. Oh, really, really good question. Because you named a lot of great
00:45:23.760 works there. Obviously, The Aeneid by Virgil, Medea by Tyler Perry. There are a lot of great
00:45:29.100 works that you can go back and revisit. You're right. There is a kind of illiteracy when it
00:45:33.420 comes to classic and ancient literature. We see this with the Bible. It's unbelievable how
00:45:38.440 biblical literacy has collapsed. I include myself in this. We just weren't taught the Bible in 0.97
00:45:43.140 schools. Look what happens. As a result, people aren't really catechized. 10, 20 years ago,
00:45:48.300 we were not catechized all that well. And so I heard from a very, very prominent professor at
00:45:53.300 the University of Chicago. Many kids in his class, this was 10 or 15 years ago, had never heard of
00:45:57.980 Noah. They didn't know who Noah was. So biblical literacy has collapsed, as has literacy in
00:46:04.980 classical works. I noticed this when I gave my review of the Christopher Nolan movie. And I
00:46:11.480 said, you know, one of the weird things about this is, you know, okay, they make Helen of Troy, 0.64
00:46:16.400 who is white, obviously. They make her black. That's kind of weird. And they make this character
00:46:21.960 who would have been Achilles, but Achilles was recast as this other warrior. Achilles was supposed
00:46:26.760 to be the greatest warrior ever. They recast him as this other warrior, Sinon, and they have him
00:46:30.980 played by a lady. And a ton of people responded to me and said, Michael, you clearly didn't even
00:46:35.400 see the movie. Achilles isn't even in the movie. You dummy. You're not even, and I thought, oh my
00:46:39.720 goodness. It's not, I'm not saying, I'm not a genius when it comes to literature. I'm not
00:46:44.840 Spencer Clavin. Okay. But the role was recast. That's why the Sinon character plays the Achilles
00:46:52.860 role in the Hades scene. And it's just like, but they're not even aware of that because they're
00:46:57.320 not familiar with the poem or the Aeneid, where Sinon comes from, or the Divine Comedy, where
00:47:03.760 some of Christopher Nolan's take on Ulysses comes from. So anyway, rant done, all of that to say,
00:47:11.000 I recommend you read The Song of Roland. Go read The Song of Roland. That's not ancient,
00:47:16.980 that's medieval. It's from the 11th century, 11th through 12th century. It's one of the great works
00:47:23.520 of the Middle Ages,
00:47:24.440 Knights in Shining Armor,
00:47:25.780 Charlemagne.
00:47:26.880 It's about this Count Roland.
00:47:28.800 So read that.
00:47:29.760 There's an Italian version
00:47:30.580 that comes later,
00:47:31.700 Orlando Furioso,
00:47:32.880 also a great work of literature.
00:47:34.060 But Song of Roland,
00:47:35.160 that's a good one.
00:47:35.920 That's a good one to start reading.
00:47:37.060 I think I'm going to go back
00:47:37.720 to that myself.
00:47:38.760 Next question.
00:47:40.440 Hey, Michael.
00:47:41.180 It's Sarah from Wisconsin.
00:47:42.720 This is a very Michael Knowles question.
00:47:45.140 I've never read Dante's Divine Comedy.
00:47:48.620 Seeing a theme here.
00:47:49.400 If you're going through
00:47:50.500 all the layers of hell,
00:47:52.000 how is it a comedy?
00:47:53.360 Can you just like give me the cliff notes version of what, how, why is that funny?
00:47:59.360 Yeah, well, it is fun.
00:48:00.840 Actually, Dante's Inferno is very funny.
00:48:04.460 There are a ton of funny moments in it where he's like kicking the dead people.
00:48:07.740 And, you know, he's like, it's funny.
00:48:09.600 I mean, it's kind of heartbreaking too.
00:48:11.680 And you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll love Dante's Inferno.
00:48:14.900 But the Divine Comedy is not just the Inferno.
00:48:17.120 You got to keep reading.
00:48:18.480 The key is you got to keep reading.
00:48:19.660 Because comedy in the sense doesn't mean like, ha ha.
00:48:21.500 it's not like um you know big bang theory it's uh though it does have a cosmic vision so in that way
00:48:27.140 it is a sort of a big bang theory but i'm getting distracted uh the comedy just means it has a happy
00:48:32.640 ending and you got to keep reading because after the inferno you will get to purgatory and then
00:48:37.600 you will get to paradise and then it's got a real spoiler alert it's got a real happy ending next
00:48:42.720 question hey michael professor jacob here since our members didn't really want to send a lot of
00:48:49.020 mailbags this week, I decided that I need to ask you a really important question.
00:48:53.640 Gun to your head, would you rather go to a Diddy party or Epstein's Island? Thank you.
00:49:02.240 A Diddy party or Epstein's Island. That's one of those dichotomies
00:49:06.160 where you can't have a good answer. You say, would you prefer arsenic or cyanide? I remember once,
00:49:12.760 I was in a debating club once, and we were doing all these kind of impossible
00:49:16.160 dichotomies. And they started out kind of easy, and then they got really dark. There's this very
00:49:20.900 dark sort of comedy about it. And so they'd say like Athens or Jerusalem, you know, or Chaucer
00:49:28.160 or Dante to play on a theme or, you know, Coke or Pepsi. And then eventually it got down to like
00:49:33.440 Auschwitz or Dachau. You're like, ah, no, I don't want to know. Nothing, neither. I don't want.
00:49:36.740 So anyway, Diddy or Epstein party, I guess, or sorry, Diddy party or Epstein Island.
00:49:41.340 i i guess oh this is going to come back to haunt me but i guess if you had to choose between one
00:49:47.560 of those two you'd have to choose epstein island actually the reason why you'd have to choose
00:49:51.940 epstein island one it's probably probably a little sunnier you get a suntan have a pina colada that
00:49:56.160 seems nicer than the diddy party but the weird thing with epstein island because he was involved
00:50:01.420 in so many things and he obviously was involved in all sorts of horrific crimes but because he
00:50:06.380 was involved in kind of normal stuff too. You could envision a world in which someone who went
00:50:12.200 to Epstein's Island or one of his properties wasn't committing crimes. Whereas with the Diddy
00:50:17.460 Party, there's no even plausibly innocent version of going to the Diddy Party. It's just all
00:50:24.760 heinous degeneracy. So I guess I would pick that. But I do want to critique Professor Jacob again
00:50:30.620 because, one, he said, there weren't many mail bags this week. It's a mail bag. The bag is
00:50:37.500 singular, and it is filled with the mail. Different letters, letters or emails or notes,
00:50:43.980 which would be plural, but the mail bag is singular. Second point I want to make,
00:50:48.660 this happened some months ago, you'll recall, or maybe this didn't even make it into the public
00:50:52.860 show. I said to Professor Jagu, I said, where are the mail bag questions? Where are the voicemails
00:50:57.560 and all that. And he said, oh, we didn't get any this week. I said, you didn't get any? What do
00:51:02.680 you mean? You didn't get any? No, we didn't get any. It's really weird. I don't know. We got to
00:51:05.780 remind people to send them. I said, that doesn't seem possible to me. I said, maybe can you look
00:51:10.240 into that? He said, oh, oops. It looks like our inbox was full. So anyway, I would tell you at
00:51:17.600 Professor Jacob's encouragement to send in more voicemail back questions and written, but I am
00:51:21.900 mostly confident it's all Professor Jacob's fault. So I'll tell him to like click the delete button
00:51:26.700 and we'll get to more of your questions next week.
00:51:28.760 Right now, it's Fake Headline Friday.
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