The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 2048 - Trump Ranks the Best American Presidents

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00:00:55.520 slash Knowles. President Trump releases his list of the greatest to the worst presidents

00:01:02.420 with FDR and Woodrow Wilson at the top, and people like Republican hero Calvin Coolidge

00:01:09.720 way down there by the bottom. Conservatives are furious. What was Trump thinking?

00:01:16.940 I think I know the answer. Then, speaking of wild Trump stunts,

00:01:21.280 The president has officially renamed Lake Ontario.

00:01:25.000 And speaking of geography, archaeologists have reportedly uncovered the true site of

00:01:29.860 Jesus's tomb, and you will never guess where it is.

00:01:33.280 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:01:34.000 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:51.280 Wall Street Journal has a big op-ed out that J.D. Vance is the GOP's Obama.

00:02:00.200 This is the new line of attack. Now, you've got to remember, J.D. Vance started this fight. He

00:02:04.080 went after the Wall Street Journal just the other day in a speech in Ohio. Wall Street Journal

00:02:09.880 smacking him back, says J.D. Vance is the GOP's Obama. And yet I can't help but think that this

00:02:15.820 is not the smartest line of attack if you want to take down J.D. Vance. You know, Obama did win

00:02:20.900 two terms, right? I don't know. It was like a pretty popular president, got a lot of stuff

00:02:23.820 done. So anyway, we'll get to what that means. First, I want to tell you about Cardiff. Go to

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00:03:37.580 Let's start with Lake Ontario. President Trump comes out yesterday and he likes renaming things.

00:03:43.020 he likes putting his name on a lot of big buildings. He renamed the body of water that

00:03:47.280 was once called the Gulf of Mexico. That's now the Gulf of America. And in keeping with that

00:03:52.680 very simple renaming technique, Lake Ontario, according to President Trump, is now Lake America.

00:04:00.660 We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately to Lake America.

00:04:08.460 Yeah, that's going to take place right now as I sign the order.

00:04:13.220 Do you have anything to say about it, Ben?

00:04:15.060 Yes, sir.

00:04:15.900 So this is a straightforward but important executive order.

00:04:19.180 It directs Secretary Burgum and the Department of the Interior to update the Geographic Names Information Service to reflect that the lake once known as Lake Ontario will, from this day forward, be known as Lake America.

00:04:32.520 Lake America.

00:04:33.640 I love the total straight face.

00:04:35.660 Yes, sir, this is a very important executive order.

00:04:37.280 It's very good. Very simple, though. We're just going to rename the lake.

00:04:41.060 OK, so what's the context here? The context is that Trump is in this trade dispute with Canada,

00:04:46.040 and he has long been in this trade dispute with Canada, and Canada is not really playing ball

00:04:50.960 with him. So what does he do? He's threatening tariffs. He's threatening all sorts of

00:04:55.840 punitive measures and cherry on top of the sundae. He's going to rename Lake Ontario

00:05:01.400 to Lake America. And it's especially funny because Lake Ontario has been Lake Ontario

00:05:07.040 since before Canada existed. Ontario, a name associated with New York, just as it is with

00:05:14.180 Canada. People are going nuts over this thing. People are going nuts. The left especially is

00:05:21.380 going nuts. Hillary Clinton just posts on Twitter, just so angry, passive aggressive.

00:05:25.820 It's like Ontario. Who's the other one? Kathy Hochul, governor of New York, Democrat.

00:05:31.420 She goes, New York won't be calling it that. It's like Ontario.

00:05:37.040 What is he doing? What is Trump doing? Because it's not just the left that is upset about this.

00:05:41.300 There are a number of right wingers who are upset about this, and we'll get into their

00:05:45.960 motivations in a second. First, though, to help us understand it, we have someone who worked for

00:05:52.400 Trump, worked at a very high level directly under Trump, who hates Trump, who comes from a different

00:05:58.720 faction of the GOP than Trump does, who has been prosecuted under Trump's administration.

00:06:06.260 So this guy, no love lost with the president, really, really clearly doesn't like the guy,

00:06:12.280 might face jail time because of Donald Trump or because of his time working for Donald Trump.

00:06:17.120 Nevertheless, here is former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton's take on what

00:06:21.680 Trump is doing with Lake Ontario. In the first term, I was in the Oval Office one day and I

00:06:27.360 I walked in to tell him something, and Trump was in the middle of dictating a tweet to Dan Scavino, who was his tweeter-in-chief.

00:06:34.560 Now he's Deputy White House Chief of Staff.

00:06:37.100 That's how you rise in the Trump administration.

00:06:39.380 But anyway, Trump's dictating, and he turns to Scavino at one point and says, capitalize every word in that last sentence.

00:06:46.120 And then he turns to me, and he said, you know why I do that?

00:06:48.600 I said, no, why?

00:06:50.180 And he said, because it drives them crazy.

00:06:53.300 And that's what Trump is doing to Canada.

00:06:55.620 Lake America, forget Lake Ontario.

00:06:58.400 He's just, he's trolling them.

00:07:00.260 And you can't, you can't, you can't let that get to you.

00:07:03.960 Hundred percent.

00:07:05.260 You know, I love John Bolton.

00:07:06.380 I know it's unpopular in certain quarters today to love John.

00:07:09.220 But I always had a great deal of respect for John Bolton.

00:07:11.220 And he's totally right in his, in his take here.

00:07:14.120 He's just trolling.

00:07:15.060 You can see this with the capitalization.

00:07:16.500 You get all these people saying, he's not even using grammar and language correctly.

00:07:19.480 And you say, no, he's not doing the random capitalization.

00:07:25.620 because he doesn't know how to capitalize words. New Yorkers, I will say, do randomly

00:07:30.500 capitalize words. But nevertheless, as you can hear from one of Trump's enemies who worked very

00:07:35.980 closely with him, he's not doing it because he doesn't know the rules. He's doing it because

00:07:40.940 he does know the rules, and he knows that it irritates people when he breaks the rules.

00:07:44.720 That's what it's about. That's what the Lake Ontario thing is about. And so I understand

00:07:51.060 the Republicans who say this is silly to rename Lake Ontario. This is silly.

00:07:56.680 They don't think that this will be effective in the trade dispute.

00:07:59.460 They don't think it's good to antagonize Canada. I understand that point of view.

00:08:04.620 I understand the people who say, we've got a difficult economy and we're at war and we need

00:08:10.720 to deport more people. And there are more important priorities to focus on than renaming a lake. I get

00:08:15.320 that. I think it misunderstands a little bit how the White House works because you can do a lot

00:08:19.260 of things at once. Whether or not we rename Lake Ontario has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on

00:08:25.500 how the Iran war is going to turn out. But nevertheless, I totally get that objection.

00:08:29.580 What I don't understand is the Republicans who are upset about this.

00:08:37.780 Who cares? Who cares? Why? Well, because it's just, it's so, it's silly and it's undignified

00:08:43.340 and it's not, it's embarrassing and it's not. To whom? We're worried about being embarrassed

00:08:50.400 in front of Hillary Clinton or Kathy Hochul. We care what they think of us. Those people are

00:08:56.280 terrible. They're wrong about absolutely everything. And I will point out, if there is

00:09:01.040 any political advantage to renaming the lake at all, the one political advantage I can see is

00:09:06.360 that in a midterm election year, which is very difficult, horrible historical wins for the

00:09:11.360 Republicans. In that election year, you are now getting the Democrat Party uniformly to campaign

00:09:17.060 against America. They're all coming out and saying, we prefer the Canadian name. We hate the

00:09:24.120 name Lake America. They're literally campaigning against America. So again, I don't think this is

00:09:28.720 going to be all that significant in the race, but it is a win of some kind to have all of the

00:09:33.960 Democrats saying, we don't like America. We object to America. So I just think, I don't know,

00:09:38.620 you don't need to celebrate it. You don't need to think it's some huge win or it's really

00:09:41.860 important to rename Lake Ontario. But why would you be upset about it? I'm with John Bolton on

00:09:46.580 this. You just can't, he's just trolling Canada. It doesn't really matter all that much. And as

00:09:52.580 much as it matters, it's not bad for Republicans. It's not bad for America. Who cares? Why would

00:09:58.940 you get right? You can't get upset about that. I don't know, man, if you're getting upset about

00:10:02.560 that, you must have been in a coma the last dozen years. I don't know. It doesn't, I don't see it.

00:10:07.400 Now, something that conservatives are really upset about that Trump did is he posted this

00:10:13.160 meme, essentially, on Truth Social. But it's his list of the greatest presidents. And this

00:10:19.480 is causing Republicans and conservatives' eyes to pop out of their heads. It's a chart. I won't

00:10:25.440 go through the whole thing, but it's got the greatest, great, near great, average, below

00:10:30.240 average failures. Who do you think Trump put as the greatest president? One guess. You got one

00:10:36.320 guess. Yes, you're right. He put Trump as the greatest. Then in the next year, great presidents

00:10:41.800 is Lincoln. Okay, I know some people don't like Lincoln, but most Americans, I think,

00:10:46.200 think he's a pretty great president. Washington, everybody agrees he's a great president,

00:10:49.640 if not the greatest president. FDR. Whoa, hold the fort. FDR, the Democrat monarch,

00:10:59.360 the man who blew past George Washington's standard of two terms. They had to pass a

00:11:06.080 22nd Amendment after he died in office because they didn't want another FDR. FDR, who completely

00:11:11.000 upended our system of government, created the deep state, blew through, almost destroyed the

00:11:17.360 Supreme Court. And the only reason he didn't destroy the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court

00:11:20.520 finally gave in and let him completely change the government in ways that most people thought

00:11:24.280 were unconstitutional. Franklin Roosevelt, no one could be worse than him except the next guy,

00:11:28.960 Woodrow Wilson. Trump puts in the great list of presidents, Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson is

00:11:34.700 probably the single worst president we've ever had. He created the blueprint for that deep state,

00:11:41.780 for upending our whole system of government. The guy was just awful in every way.

00:11:46.500 Followed by Jefferson. Okay, Jefferson's not my absolute favorite president, but yeah,

00:11:50.180 he's a good president. Jackson, founder of the Democrat Party, but still a very powerful

00:11:56.300 president, very Trumpian figure. I kind of get that. Teddy Roosevelt then comes in at near great.

00:12:00.640 We like Teddy. He was kind of progressive, but we like him. Cleveland, interesting.

00:12:06.100 John Adams. Oh, yeah, John Adams is one of my favorites. Polk. Polk, that's interesting.

00:12:10.960 Then average, we have Bill Clinton, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Hayes, Madison, Van Buren,

00:12:19.320 Taft, Chester Arthur, one of my faves, McKinley, Johnson, Hoover, Harrison. Then below average,

00:12:24.560 you get to guys like Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Calvin Coolidge. Wait a second. Calvin Coolidge

00:12:29.620 is every conservative movement guy's favorite president, just about. Silent Cal, the business

00:12:34.760 of America's business, and the businessman knows his business best. Silent Cal, very quiet guy,

00:12:41.380 refused to run again because he didn't want to have more years in office than George Washington.

00:12:46.580 He was a guy who shrunk the government. What, him? And then failures. He puts Biden, Obama,

00:12:52.660 U.S. Grant. U.S. Grant, I don't think it was a failure. Harding, Carter. Okay.

00:12:56.320 how to interpret this. We don't need to spend too much time on this list, but people are kind of

00:13:00.820 misinterpreting it. The simplest way to understand it is the John Bolton point on Lake Ontario.

00:13:05.520 He's just trolling. But the only point that really matters to Trump, I think, on this list

00:13:09.440 is that he's the greatest. But people are scratching their heads. Why did he put these

00:13:13.340 people in these tiers? What a little bit of context you need to have is he didn't make the list.

00:13:18.920 This list is almost entirely copied from a list published in the 1940s by historians from Harvard.

00:13:28.100 So people are wondering, why isn't Reagan on this list?

00:13:32.000 Why are, hold on, wait a second, where's Reagan?

00:13:33.800 Where are these, where are the Bushes?

00:13:35.440 Where's Kennedy?

00:13:37.280 The list was made before those guys were president.

00:13:39.860 So that's why they're not on the list.

00:13:41.240 He took a list made by liberal historians from Harvard in the 1940s.

00:13:44.700 He then added all the people he hates and put them at the bottom, Biden, Obama, Carter.

00:13:49.880 He put Clinton in the average area because he kind of likes, he's personal friends with Clinton.

00:13:54.820 And then he puts himself at the top.

00:13:55.940 And that's basically what he did.

00:13:56.960 So that's the slightly deeper way to understand this.

00:13:59.340 But let's just approach this chart for a second.

00:14:03.140 Not trying to impose our own views on the chart.

00:14:06.960 Not trying to argue with Trump posting the meme.

00:14:09.860 But let's just see, let's approach this as we should approach any text

00:14:13.500 to see if there is something that we can learn from this. If there is some wisdom that we can

00:14:18.000 pull out of this, maybe there's not, maybe there is, but let's, let's approach this text, not in

00:14:22.220 a spirit of activism and anger, but in a spirit of interpretation, which is the smartest way to

00:14:26.860 approach all texts. Is there anything we can learn here? Yes. I think this actually does tell us

00:14:32.020 something about Donald Trump. The greatest, great, near great, average, whatever, the tiers are

00:14:40.100 clearly not being compiled according to partisanship. It's not that the Republicans go to the top and

00:14:45.340 the Democrats go to the bottom. Obviously not. It's not that you see this by ideology. The

00:14:52.600 conservatives go to the top and the leftists go to the bottom. The way that this chart is actually

00:14:58.360 structured, first by the Harvard historians in the 40s and then affirmed by Trump, is according to

00:15:04.880 power, how the presidents wielded the presidency. That's what actually unites the various tiers.

00:15:13.940 Take the Trump outlier aside for a second, though perhaps not.

00:15:17.680 Lincoln. Lincoln refounded the country. He saved the union by waging a civil war. George Washington

00:15:24.400 actually founded the country. FDR was the American monarch who got us through World War II and

00:15:29.720 totally restructured the country in many terrible ways, but nevertheless, he did it.

00:15:33.780 He beat the Supreme Court. Woodrow Wilson, he was the architect of that. Thomas Jefferson doubled

00:15:38.820 the size of the United States. Andrew Jackson founded the oldest extant political party in

00:15:45.280 the world. He was the hero of New Orleans. He transformed the country. It's all about

00:15:50.560 how they wielded the office of the presidency, followed by guys like Teddy Roosevelt,

00:15:56.300 John Adams. John Adams is not quite there. He didn't get his extra term in 1800.

00:16:00.880 then you get guys like why would clinton be average but biden obama and carter be

00:16:07.300 failures well clinton got two terms he was good on the economy in part just because it was the

00:16:14.260 90s and was the post civil cold war dividend but also because trump is like personal friends with

00:16:18.320 him the rest of them though it all follows by the ways in which they wielded power and so you might

00:16:25.040 say well that's not conservative he never said this was a conservative movement take on the

00:16:29.860 presidency. Again, I don't think it's all that deep. I don't think Trump was thinking all that

00:16:34.540 consciously about this. But the reason that this kind of a list could get past his radar or might

00:16:41.440 even appeal to him is because it is a list of people who wielded power. In other words,

00:16:47.220 it is a commentary not on ideology or partisanship, but on the nature of the presidency.

00:16:52.300 The presidency, which is not supposed to be nothing. A lot of libertarians think that today,

00:16:57.280 But the presidency, as envisioned by the framers, was supposed to be the spirited part of the

00:17:01.260 government, the thematic part of the government. It is supposed to be a little bit muscular.

00:17:07.400 That's the point of it. When the presidency was created by the Constitutional Convention,

00:17:11.300 it was because of the failure of the Articles of Confederation, which did not have a strong

00:17:15.020 executive. So I think that's what we can learn. Again, I don't want to read too deeply into it

00:17:20.840 or anything, but it is simply a fact that this list from the Harvard historians made it to

00:17:24.360 Trump's desk. He affirmed it. He added some different people in different places. He puts

00:17:28.660 it out there. Again, the people on the right are going to complain about this. One, because they're

00:17:33.060 viewing it through a lens of ideology rather than a commentary on the nature of the presidency itself.

00:17:37.460 But two, because they're going to say, oh, this is a waste of time. Why is he making memes? I don't

00:17:40.200 know. The White House has a lot of social media guys. You can do a lot of things at once. To me,

00:17:45.420 this is very interesting because, yes, it offends from the level of ideology and partisanship,

00:17:51.480 I guess. But in as much as it is a commentary on what the presidency is, there's actually a lot of

00:17:58.600 insight there that we should understand. No, we don't want to have a Republican FDR who does all

00:18:05.620 the terrible things FDR did or Woodrow Wilson, heaven forfend. But we do want a Republican

00:18:12.680 president. I do. I'll speak for myself. I want a conservative president who wields the presidency

00:18:18.360 in just ways, in constitutional ways, but in ways that recognize that he is the executive power in

00:18:27.000 the United States. And the threat of tyranny, as far as I'm concerned, does not really come

00:18:31.880 from a conservative executive who's too strong. It comes from a conservative executive who's too

00:18:35.880 weak. The very fact that this so offends the sensibilities of many conservatives

00:18:42.440 is illustrative. That actually tells us something. It's kind of insightful.

00:18:46.760 No, don't, do not misunderstand me.

00:18:48.860 FDR, no, it did a lot of terrible things.

00:18:51.680 Woodrow Wilson, probably the worst president we've ever had.

00:18:54.520 Thomas Jefferson, I have some problems with Thomas Jefferson, but he was a great president.

00:18:57.560 Jackson is an underrated president, my humble opinion.

00:19:01.980 Lincoln and Washington, they understood the presidency.

00:19:06.240 And conservatives should get with the program.

00:19:08.320 Because for the last 20, 30 years, we've had these people running for president who say,

00:19:12.260 well, I don't want to wield any power.

00:19:13.720 I just want to do nothing, and I just want to give away all the power and elect me so that I can leave you alone.

00:19:20.580 And that doesn't, that's just contrary to the nature of the office.

00:19:24.400 Also, Trump is just trolling, and he wants to make himself the best.

00:19:26.620 Okay, we will get to a really shocking historical claim.

00:19:31.380 Not political, not pertaining to the Trump administration.

00:19:35.240 Archaeologists have reportedly just uncovered the true site of Jesus' tomb.

00:19:40.420 You'll never guess where it is.

00:19:41.900 First, though, I want to tell you about Pure Talk.

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00:20:53.620 months. Now is a great time to choose Pure Talk. puretalk.com slash Knowles. New York Post is

00:20:58.840 reporting this. True tomb of Jesus Christ found after 2,000 years, and it matches the biblical

00:21:07.900 telling. Okay, so you can read the article. It's based on some excavations and some archaeological

00:21:15.080 evidence. According to the leader archaeologist Francesco Romana Stasola from La Sapienza

00:21:21.240 University of Rome, we have found evidence of a funerary landscape underneath the ground

00:21:28.440 And where is it? It's beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the place that

00:21:37.720 Christians have considered to be Jesus' tomb, the site of Jesus' tomb, for 2,000 years.

00:21:45.700 It's exactly where we've always said it is. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built

00:21:52.420 in the fourth century by Emperor Constantine. Emperor Constantine's mother, Helena, went over

00:21:58.060 to the Holy Land. He obviously converted to Christianity at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge

00:22:04.100 when he received a sign from the heavens, a cross in the sky. And it said, the historical accounts,

00:22:09.660 there are two main historical accounts of this. They disagree a little bit over the details,

00:22:12.900 whether it was a vision, whether it was a cross, whether it was a dream. But nevertheless,

00:22:16.780 he received this vision. He had the Romans put on their shields a Christian symbol, probably a Cairo,

00:22:22.640 and then they win the battle. And so Constantine converts to Christianity,

00:22:26.020 legalizes Christianity throughout the empire. His mother goes to the Holy Land, discovers the true

00:22:32.120 cross. Anyway, he builds this church, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which the Muslims have

00:22:36.740 destroyed multiple times over the years. But nevertheless, there remains Church of the Holy

00:22:40.460 Sepulchre today in the Holy Land in Jerusalem. And that is where the archaeologists believe

00:22:46.220 shocking discovery, Christ was entombed. He's not entombed anymore, as you well know, but

00:22:53.000 that's where they say it was. What's so delightful about this story is one, it's a little more

00:22:58.860 historical evidence for the faith, for the historicity of the faith, because Christianity

00:23:03.460 is an historical faith. It's not merely an idea. It's not, you know, that we're just going to sit

00:23:09.240 like babas on the Ganges and try to destroy ourselves and thought and lose our egos or

00:23:15.160 anything like that. It's like God enters into history in a real place, in a real time, does

00:23:19.160 real things is actually killed by the state and rises from the dead on the third day and

00:23:24.220 founds a church. So that's all great. The other really delightful part of the story for me, at

00:23:30.360 least, is even if you're not Christian, even if you're not religious, it's a reminder that

00:23:38.800 tradition is usually right. This is an important reminder for conservatives of all religious stripes,

00:23:45.100 even those who are irreligious. Tradition is pretty right. We have this prejudice in modernity.

00:23:52.160 We have this bias against tradition. We think that the things that came before us are bad.

00:23:56.160 I think of Descartes, who was writing in that age of enlightenment and this period in modernity,

00:24:02.760 when we're going to get rid of the scholastics and the medievals in the past. And he says,

00:24:06.540 don't even read old books in Latin. Don't even read the old philosophers because you might

00:24:11.380 repeat their errors. No, no, we have to begin the world anew. Descartes, who famously tries to

00:24:17.200 reduce all knowledge down to the most empirical aspect, which is I think therefore I am. And then

00:24:22.400 he tries to rebuild the world based on that premise. And yet what we discover time and time

00:24:27.340 again is tradition is usually right. Even legends, you know, legends about saints like slaying

00:24:32.540 dragons and things like that. Even that, some of it is embellished. Some of it develops into

00:24:36.840 legends over time. Nevertheless, there's usually quite a lot of truth to those as well.

00:24:43.260 Where did Constantine and Constantine's mother, where did they come up with the idea for the

00:24:46.040 Church of the Holy Sepulchre? It was Christians in Jerusalem told them, yeah, this is where we've

00:24:49.820 just known for two to 300 years. This is where our grandpas told us Christ was entombed. So

00:24:55.720 that's where it is. And it turns out they're probably right. Very important. I was saying

00:25:01.500 the other day to sweet little Lisa. I said, you know, the older I get, the more I realize

00:25:05.980 growing up is just realizing your grandma was right about everything.

00:25:10.300 Growing up is realizing your grandma was right about everything. And

00:25:13.620 having a mature civilization is realizing that our ancestors were, they were, in the aggregate,

00:25:23.080 they were smarter than we are. And they actually knew things. And we didn't, they don't just all

00:25:26.900 start making up random stuff, usually. Yes, the things that we have always believed are usually

00:25:34.260 true. That's true. Okay. Speaking of accuracy in reporting, an amazing, amazing report from NBC

00:25:40.160 News. This is going after Secretary of Health Bobby Kennedy. You know, Bobby Kennedy has been

00:25:45.340 pretty anti-vaccine for decades now. Now that he's the Secretary of Health and Human Services,

00:25:51.140 he's changed the vaccine schedule, and the left fears that he is causing vaccine hesitancy,

00:25:56.840 And so you're seeing all this reporting about measles cases.

00:25:59.180 Measles, which used to be not that big a deal.

00:26:01.040 The Brady Bunch had a whole funny story, you know, about getting the measles.

00:26:04.260 It was nothing.

00:26:04.700 It was like the chickenpox.

00:26:05.600 There was no, who cared?

00:26:06.760 But there's a lot of fear-mongering in the reporting, including this new report from NBC News.

00:26:12.780 Two people have died recently of measles.

00:26:14.240 And they say one of the two people who recently died of measles in Pennsylvania

00:26:17.120 was an infant citing the health department.

00:26:20.720 So we will get to that report because there's just one problem with their reporting.

00:26:24.940 First, though, apropos of this story, I want to tell you about pre-born.

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00:26:41.840 That is why you are needed right now.

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00:26:44.800 At Preborn Network Clinics, mothers are welcomed with compassion, practical support, and a free ultrasound.

00:26:49.460 When she sees her baby and hears that tiny heartbeat for the very first time, fear gives way to hope.

00:26:54.620 More than 80% of abortion-vulnerable women choose life after seeing their baby on an ultrasound at

00:26:58.920 a pre-born network clinic. That one moment can save a baby's life and open a mother's heart to

00:27:03.220 the hope of Jesus Christ. This is our moment to stand for those who cannot speak for themselves.

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00:27:14.200 Dial pound 250, say keyword baby. That is pound 250, keyword baby, or you can give securely at

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00:27:28.140 lives one heartbeat at a time. If you're a business owner, would you consider a larger donation to

00:27:32.280 claim a write-off? Donation of $1,000, $2,000, $10,000, $15,000. We'll sponsor an ultrasound

00:27:36.780 machine for a needy clinic helping to save countless babies' lives for years to come.

00:27:40.560 All gifts are tax-deductible, and we'll reach eternity. Get involved today.

00:27:44.740 Also, folks, we just had a great panel. I welcomed on a new guest, a new left-wing guest

00:27:49.060 who I thought was very good, Colton. This also included Doug Wilson, Father Gerald Murray,

00:27:55.100 our returning bar fight contestant. We had a lot of great people here to debate,

00:28:01.080 is Jesus a socialist? When we want to talk as Christians, we have to learn to stop talking

00:28:07.800 in secular categories and definitions of words and understand things like freedom and property

00:28:13.520 and rights christianly we know definitively that the lord jesus was not a socialist because he was

00:28:21.440 successful at feeding people i don't know a single socialist that thinks that people can't

00:28:26.240 own things there's a big difference between owning a toothbrush and owning the factory that

00:28:30.560 makes the toothbrushes it's not a guy who needs to brush his teeth it's a guy who wants to swipe

00:28:35.280 a whole handful so he can go resell it at a bodega or a flea market there it is you guys always hate

00:28:41.280 hate on poor people, man. Okay. Is that, is our Lord of Socialists? Go check it out on the

00:28:47.600 Michael Knowles YouTube channel and on Daily Wire. NBC News reporting one of the two people

00:28:52.140 who recently died of measles in Pennsylvania was an infant. Now that was the post. They then replied

00:28:59.000 to their own post. And here's just a little follow-up, a little additional detail for the

00:29:03.080 story. After the Pennsylvania Health Department announced Wednesday that one of the two people

00:29:08.020 whose deaths in the state were associated with measles was an infant.

00:29:12.020 The coroner involved in the case has said he does not consider measles to be the cause of death.

00:29:18.700 Can you go back to the first one?

00:29:20.900 Can we take a look?

00:29:22.000 What was the first?

00:29:22.580 So NBC reporting, one of two people who recently died of measles was an infant.

00:29:27.880 Can we go to the actual reply hours later to that tweet?

00:29:34.160 Actually, the coroner says that wasn't true.

00:29:38.020 But other than that, good reporting, guys.

00:29:42.760 Now, what they're doing here, it's the same thing that the papers have always been doing

00:29:46.340 since they were physical newspapers, which is they run the fake news on the front page.

00:29:51.500 And then three weeks later, on page 372, they issue a tiny correction in 0.8 font.

00:29:58.280 And they're just hoping, because people don't really read the replies as much.

00:30:01.340 They read the main tweet, but they don't read the replies.

00:30:03.380 But it actually says, here's the big story, baby dies of measles.

00:30:06.260 actually, nope. How about you delete the tweet? How about you delete the whole story? How about

00:30:11.680 you issue big correction in the headline of the story? We got this story entirely wrong.

00:30:17.300 I don't think they're going to do that. Just pure, you know, Trump is a little loose with

00:30:22.340 the term fake news. This is as pure as it gets. The just, the center, it's like the New York

00:30:29.080 Times 1619 project. The thesis of the 1619 project was the American Revolution was fought

00:30:34.060 to preserve slavery. And then months later, after left-wing academic historians wrote into them and

00:30:39.080 said, this isn't true, months and months later, they said, okay, well, actually, that might not

00:30:42.340 have been true. The 1619 Project was not fully retracted. It was already in curricula around

00:30:47.100 the country. They already spent millions and millions of dollars on it. They say, oh, oops,

00:30:51.400 our thesis was wrong. It's a similar dynamic at play. Actually, thanks to Daily Wire's very own

00:30:57.060 Christina Lewis made this point. She was focusing in on the Washington State Democrats.

00:31:02.680 So she saw these numbers come out from the Washington State Democrats.

00:31:06.040 And they said that the state economy had lost 16,000 jobs since Trump took office.

00:31:14.940 They said, look, this is proof that Trump is terrible for the economy.

00:31:18.280 Washington State has lost 16,000 jobs since he took office.

00:31:21.480 So intrepid Christina Lewis goes in to look at the actual numbers, the labor numbers.

00:31:26.940 And she writes a question to the Washington Democrats.

00:31:30.260 says, hey, saw this reporting, but I don't think the numbers show that.

00:31:37.540 Actually, it looks like the state has gained 16,000 jobs since Trump took office.

00:31:42.660 And to their credit, the Washington State Democrats write back.

00:31:46.880 And what they say is, oh, yeah, sorry, I guess we misread the data.

00:31:52.280 And then they update the article. And do you know how they updated the article?

00:31:55.980 They didn't say, hey, we got this totally wrong.

00:31:57.840 hey, we actually, what we reported was exactly the opposite. Hey, yeah, those news networks

00:32:03.280 that carried our report. Yeah, no, they got it exactly wrong. Therefore, good job, Donald Trump.

00:32:07.460 You know what they said? They said, hey, they rewrote it. They didn't acknowledge your mistake.

00:32:10.720 They said, hey, great news. Washington state has gained 16,000 jobs recently, all thanks to

00:32:16.680 Democrats. So when they wrongly thought that the state had lost 16,000 jobs, that was Trump's fault.

00:32:25.660 But when they discovered that the state had gained 16,000 jobs, that was only because of

00:32:29.160 Democrats. Do you see? I mean, look, it's a party apparatus. I guess it's their job to spin.

00:32:35.160 But that is shameless. That is shameless hackery and partisanship.

00:32:40.860 And do you see any proper correction in any of the news outlets? No. The only place you're going

00:32:45.620 to hear about this story is on this show, thanks to the reporting of Christina Lewis at the Daily

00:32:49.400 Wire. That's what it is, though. And you see, you have to be able to read it that way.

00:32:54.580 This is also why in the face of that kind of perfidy, in the face of that kind of relentless

00:32:59.560 propaganda, I'm sorry that I can't get upset about Lake America. I'm sorry. I know people

00:33:04.360 want me to be upset that Trump renamed the lake. I can't get it. I don't care. Who cares? I don't

00:33:11.380 really, does it, is it bad? Really? Oh no, Trump posted a meme where he said he's the greatest

00:33:17.220 president. And he even made a kind of, inadvertently or advertently made an

00:33:21.980 interesting commentary on the role of the presidency in the government. Okay. Yeah.

00:33:27.480 Woodrow Wilson sucks. Yeah. We all agree. Okay. Am I supposed to be, I'm supposed to be upset

00:33:32.160 about that. I don't, I can't, sorry, I can't be. I got it. We got to focus on real things.

00:33:36.440 There are real concerns, obviously Republicans inherited this very bad situation. So inflation

00:33:41.840 was really bad under Joe Biden. They brought the rate of inflation way, way, way down,

00:33:45.260 but the price of goods hasn't gone down. That's not how inflation works.

00:33:49.440 So that's an issue.

00:33:50.320 That's a problem they're going to have to deal with with voters.

00:33:53.240 The war in Iran.

00:33:54.200 Yes, most Americans don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon.

00:33:57.560 But most Americans also didn't want the war in Iran.

00:33:59.580 And the war in Iran is very popular.

00:34:01.260 Unpopular, sorry.

00:34:02.220 So yeah, that's a problem for the White House.

00:34:04.320 I don't envy them.

00:34:05.480 It's a very, it's a brutal problem.

00:34:06.940 And it seems somewhat intractable.

00:34:08.480 Yeah, okay, that's a real issue.

00:34:09.840 You got to deal with that.

00:34:10.760 I ain't getting upset over the late guys.

00:34:12.240 Sorry.

00:34:12.940 Sorry, can't do it.

00:34:14.040 Okay, before we get into the mailbag, my favorite time of the week.

00:34:17.540 There's a Wall Street Journal op-ed that pertains to the Trump administration that's worth pointing to.

00:34:21.860 So J.D. Vance is fighting with the Wall Street Journal, and he kind of started it, in fairness.

00:34:28.080 He was given this speech at his grandpa's old plant in Ohio, and he said,

00:34:32.000 look, I think the Republicans need to recognize that a lot of the economic policies since the 1990s

00:34:37.780 have damaged the American working class, lower middle class.

00:34:40.640 They've outsourced manufacturing jobs.

00:34:43.000 They've imported a lot of foreign workers to undercut Americans' wages.

00:34:46.320 Obviously, there was this uniparty move for mass migration pushed by the Democrats who

00:34:51.200 wanted endless votes and pushed by the Chamber of Commerce Republicans who wanted cheap wages.

00:34:55.960 And anyway, it's really hurt the American working class.

00:34:57.720 So we need to rethink that policy.

00:35:00.560 And he went after the Journal because the Wall Street Journal had run an editorial

00:35:03.060 40 years ago that proposed a constitutional amendment saying there shall be open borders.

00:35:10.020 And he goes after them for it.

00:35:11.720 So they're going after him.

00:35:13.140 There's an op-ed by Barton Swain in the Wall Street Journal.

00:35:15.780 J.D. Vance is the GOP's Obama. He and the former president have much in common and both disdain

00:35:20.600 Republicans. So we'll scroll down a little bit. He says, Mr. Vance's propensity to caricature

00:35:24.460 arguments with which he disagrees puts me in the mind of Barack Obama. In his first address to

00:35:28.260 Congress in 2009, the 44th president said, I reject the view that says our problems will

00:35:32.440 simply take care of themselves. That says government has no role in laying the foundation

00:35:35.680 for common prosperity. Over the next eight years, Obama constantly rejected beliefs nobody held.

00:35:41.040 You know, he's strawmanning his opponents.

00:35:44.100 The journal goes on, ideological differences aside,

00:35:46.660 the personas and careers of Messrs. Vance and Obama bear weird similarities.

00:35:51.300 And they point out, you know, they kind of came from obscurity,

00:35:54.460 had these Ivy League degrees, were in the Senate for a short period of time,

00:35:57.380 were elevated to higher levels of government.

00:35:58.720 Okay, all very interesting.

00:36:01.620 I think that this is probably a bad line of attack against J.D. Vance.

00:36:07.240 And it's a bad line of attack against J.D. Vance in the same kind of way that relates to Trump's meme about the greatest presidents.

00:36:18.520 If it is the case that J.D. Vance is the Republican Obama, that is great news for J.D. Vance and the Republicans.

00:36:29.680 Because Barack Obama got elected twice.

00:36:33.340 barack obama was a very successful president he was terrible because he was the democrats

00:36:39.820 obama's the democrats obama jd vance would be the republicans obama according to the wall street

00:36:43.720 journal it obama was awful for the country but he was very very successful for goodness sakes

00:36:50.600 we're fighting the global war on terror the guy's middle name is hussein and he somehow still gets

00:36:54.080 to get elected president he beats a war hero named john mccain he gets elected president he

00:36:58.980 gives the Democrats the biggest win on healthcare that they've had probably since FDR. Major

00:37:04.680 transformative legislation, probably unconstitutional, but he bullies the Supreme

00:37:08.900 Court enough that they let it go through by pretending that the Obamacare payment, the

00:37:13.860 penalty was a penalty for one purpose of the law, but a tax for another purpose of the

00:37:18.480 law. So it allowed the Supreme Court to hear the case, but didn't force the Supreme Court

00:37:22.360 to strike down the law. I mean, he was hugely successful, hugely transformative. He's the

00:37:27.640 president on whose watch the White House shifted its view of so-called gay marriage.

00:37:33.200 He ended up, and that came to flourishing in 2015, also during his presidency, during the

00:37:38.040 Obergefell decision, redefined the fundamental political institution. That guy was super

00:37:41.660 important and successful. So I don't know if J.D. Vance is the Republican's Barack Obama,

00:37:47.000 but I tell you what, if I were the Vance campaign, I'd be running on that.

00:37:51.260 you're accusing vance of being popular and effective i don't know that's not that's not

00:37:58.740 a good line of attack i see why the wall street journal is upset at vance you know i probably

00:38:02.840 would be too if i were the wall street journal but not not smart and if it's if it's vance i'm

00:38:09.660 running on that one if they said he was a leftist or if they said he was you know evil or something

00:38:17.320 Yeah, that's one, but it's a bad idea to attack presidents for being effective.

00:38:26.000 Whether we're speaking historically or looking ahead to the future.

00:38:29.640 I want an effective president.

00:38:31.580 Whoever our next president is, who are the candidates right now?

00:38:35.740 The people who are floating around on the Kalshi markets are J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis.

00:38:43.780 Everyone else is pretty far behind that, but Rand Paul might run.

00:38:48.160 I don't know.

00:38:48.740 Thomas Massey thinks he's going to run.

00:38:49.860 Whoever it is.

00:38:52.080 Whoever it is, whoever becomes the GOP nominee, I hope he's effective.

00:38:57.500 I hope he's got a little bit of that Obama to him.

00:38:59.880 I hope he wins, and I hope he can finally ram some legislation through the stalemate of Congress.

00:39:04.800 Okay.

00:39:05.860 Recently, our company's softball team lost the big game by one run.

00:39:09.780 Then Dale tried to console us with the quote, winning isn't everything.

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00:39:20.020 If my team goes up big, I get paid out instantly, even if they blow the lead later.

00:39:24.820 Sound familiar, Dale?

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00:39:46.600 Open your PC Optimum app to get your coupon.

00:39:52.580 So much more, so much more I want to get to, but I don't have time.

00:39:56.660 My favorite comment yesterday is from Toby Breedlove, who says,

00:40:00.840 Darlene, Darlene, Darlene, Darlene.

00:40:05.140 I'm begging of you

00:40:07.740 don't take my senate seat

00:40:09.940 well she's gonna

00:40:10.600 it worked out for Dolly

00:40:12.380 did not

00:40:13.080 probably did not work out

00:40:14.220 for the conservatives

00:40:15.720 who don't like Darlene Graham

00:40:16.840 because she's probably

00:40:17.520 gonna get that senate seat

00:40:18.200 okay

00:40:18.460 finally finally

00:40:19.740 we arrive at my favorite

00:40:20.900 time of the week

00:40:21.580 when I get to hear from you

00:40:22.480 in the mailbag

00:40:22.940 the mailbag is sponsored

00:40:23.540 by Pure Talk

00:40:24.100 go to puretalk.com

00:40:25.380 slash Knowles

00:40:25.920 K-N-A-W-L-E-S

00:40:26.680 make the switch to my favorite

00:40:28.200 wireless company today

00:40:29.500 take it away

00:40:30.060 hi Michael Knowles

00:40:32.060 it's Lisa again

00:40:33.100 from Rosie Red, Missouri

00:40:34.420 I sent in a question a few weeks ago about blanket legal immunity for mamas who abort

00:40:39.780 their babies.

00:40:40.640 In your answer, you say that it's not necessarily just, but that it is merciful and prudent

00:40:46.260 to not pass laws to try mamas who will abort their babies with murder, even though, as

00:40:52.420 you said, abortion is murder.

00:40:55.080 And a reason that you gave was because they've been propagandized for so long.

00:40:59.620 I think that same logic could apply for much of the violence from the left because they have also been propagandized for years into liberal ideology, as you point out.

00:41:13.720 But I'm sure that we agree that that's no reason that we would advocate immunity for those individuals.

00:41:20.120 in fact you point out often that soft on crime never mitigates crime but it actually perpetuates

00:41:27.700 it because the law is a teacher and my question is shouldn't our laws teach that abortion is

00:41:36.300 murder and how how do we do that if we don't apply laws that say murdering a pre-born person

00:41:46.900 is the same as murdering a born person. Yeah, very good question. But I think you're conflating

00:41:53.840 a couple of things, at least a couple of things, which is you say, well, the reason not to

00:41:57.840 imprison or execute women for having abortions is because of mercy and prudence. Yeah, let's focus

00:42:04.860 on the prudence part, though. The prudence part, I think, is key here. Because you're very right,

00:42:08.620 the law is a teacher. And my argument for not insisting that all abortion legislation involves

00:42:16.040 like imprisoning or executing women is because you'll never get any anti-abortion legislation

00:42:21.160 as a result of that. The reason being that America's split 50-50 on abortion. Women are

00:42:27.620 split about 50-50 on abortion. And there are many, many pro-life women who are repelled by the idea

00:42:35.660 of imprisoning women for abortions. Also, on top of that, because women, when they do have abortions,

00:42:44.020 sometimes they go full Lindsay Clancy and they're just killing their kids in cold blood

00:42:46.960 and they shout their abortions and they're really happy about it. But a lot of the time they feel

00:42:50.420 pressured or they don't, they convince themselves that they're not really killing their child or

00:42:54.760 they, you know, as, as you mentioned, they've been propagandized for their whole lives.

00:42:58.380 When it comes to left-wing violence, the overwhelming majority of Americans,

00:43:04.280 even when you include the left, which is more violent than the conservatives,

00:43:07.160 but the vast majority of Americans oppose political violence. So that's an easy win.

00:43:12.380 When you say we need to deport Hassan Piker or execute Tyler Robinson or whatever, when you go

00:43:18.220 out, when you say those things, that is a 60-40, 80-20 kind of issue. You can win over those

00:43:24.060 Americans. So you have a great chance of success. And the more you punish, to your point of the law

00:43:30.880 as a teacher, the more you punish the violent leftists, the less violent leftism you will get.

00:43:36.480 When it comes to the abortion issue, though, I just don't see that. I am making a pure prudential

00:43:41.860 calculation here. I'm not making an argument from justice. Yeah, if you commit murder,

00:43:45.920 then you should be punished for that. But I'm making a purely prudential argument,

00:43:50.720 and I don't see any evidence that I'm wrong about it. If you come out there and say,

00:43:54.900 we are going to run on a pro-life platform where we are going to execute women who kill their kids

00:44:00.040 through abortion, you would get, gosh, could you, I don't know, 20% of the vote, 10% of the vote,

00:44:07.260 it just wouldn't happen. And so we don't want to lie. We don't want to grant an unjust premise.

00:44:13.800 We don't want to say that women who have abortions are not doing anything wrong or culpable in any

00:44:18.420 way. But politics is the art of the possible. And so if you can show me a world in which

00:44:23.740 80% of women say, absolutely, we should imprison women who have abortions. Okay,

00:44:28.600 I guess maybe I would change my calculation, but that's not the world that we live in.

00:44:32.380 And so I'm more interested in the practical effect of saving babies and advancing the pro-life cause than I am in the ideological purity.

00:44:42.500 I mean, this goes back to Thomas Aquinas.

00:44:43.860 Thomas Aquinas, who argues that the law is a teacher.

00:44:47.120 Of course, he makes that point.

00:44:48.760 But when you're passing laws, you can't have the standard be an ideal of perfection.

00:44:55.520 Because people in a society are at different degrees of vice and virtue.

00:45:00.020 And at different times, the people on the aggregate are at different degrees of vice and virtue.

00:45:04.540 And so if you create a standard that is too high, you are not going to raise up the virtue of the people.

00:45:10.820 You're going to crack them.

00:45:12.140 They're just going to snap like dry spaghetti.

00:45:14.740 And you would be in a worse position than you were before.

00:45:16.820 This is his argument in favor of not outlawing all forms of prostitution.

00:45:22.440 So that's prudence, which is the paramount political virtue.

00:45:25.140 Okay, next question.

00:45:26.780 Hey, Michael.

00:45:27.360 long time listener first time sending in a mailbag question here first of all gotta say

00:45:33.820 absolutely love your show watch it every day without fail i like to watch matt and ben too

00:45:40.240 but i think you're my favorite out of all of them but my question for you is i am considering

00:45:47.140 pursuing a career in politics i am a young guy i just turned 21 not too long ago newly married

00:45:54.800 and my grandfather actually and my wife and a few close friends of mine

00:46:01.660 have all encouraged me and brought it up to me

00:46:04.720 that they think that I would do well in a career in politics

00:46:09.820 and my question really is

00:46:13.240 if you would know or have any advice in where to start in that

00:46:18.860 it doesn't really matter like I'm not saying running for office specifically or anything

00:46:22.700 But where would you advise starting if I'm considering pursuing a career in politics?

00:46:28.480 Or even what would be some things to consider if I want to pursue a career in politics?

00:46:35.400 Thank you very much.

00:46:36.820 Work on a congressional campaign.

00:46:38.600 That's my advice.

00:46:39.540 That is the best, most efficient political education you can get.

00:46:46.100 Now, it's a little unclear from what you say.

00:46:48.020 do you want to work in politics like run for office, take an appointed position, work as a

00:46:52.720 Hill staffer, or do you want to be in political media where you're giving your opinion and writing

00:46:57.940 columns and doing that sort of thing? I am of a dying breed that believes that the people in

00:47:04.580 political media should have experience in practical politics. I am of a dying breed who thinks that

00:47:09.280 those two should actually be together. But many people in political media don't talk about anything

00:47:14.940 pertaining to real politics.

00:47:16.080 They talk about aliens and whatever,

00:47:17.920 crazy conspiracies and they don't,

00:47:20.140 and sensationalism and gossip and nonsense.

00:47:22.620 But whatever, it gets more clicks.

00:47:24.200 They probably have better ratings than I do.

00:47:25.440 But I remain of the opinion

00:47:27.000 that political commentary and political media

00:47:29.200 should actually pertain to real politics

00:47:31.540 and should try to advance the political cause.

00:47:34.120 So if you're of my opinion,

00:47:36.020 then either way, it doesn't really matter.

00:47:37.440 If you want to just do political media,

00:47:39.100 then I don't know, go study aliens

00:47:40.680 and listen to AM radio at three o'clock in the morning.

00:47:43.480 But if you want the real thing,

00:47:44.940 Work on a congressional because it gives you a lot of access.

00:47:49.180 You can rise very quickly in a congressional campaign

00:47:51.060 because it's difficult to attract talent to those campaigns.

00:47:55.300 You won't make a lot of money.

00:47:56.840 You will have access to national issues

00:48:00.620 because congressional campaigns are run on national issues mostly,

00:48:03.940 but you will see politics at a very close local level.

00:48:08.300 Tip O'Neill, the old Speaker of the House,

00:48:09.660 used to say that all politics is local.

00:48:11.120 I'm not sure that's true anymore, but it is substantially local.

00:48:14.520 And so you get all of that, you get the whole perspective, and you get to see the distinction between what the chattering class is talking about.

00:48:21.860 You know, you log on to Twitter, and it's people blabbing about, you know, well, the post-liberal integralist neo-paleocons are actually reading Joseph Demestra instead of David Hume.

00:48:36.100 And it's just not, it has like nothing to do with what actual voters are thinking about or care about.

00:48:41.380 The actual voters care much more about Lake Ontario

00:48:43.720 than they do about David Hume.

00:48:46.620 So being on the ground

00:48:50.640 will give you a sense of what's actually going on

00:48:52.700 in real politics.

00:48:53.700 And it'll teach you how to work with people.

00:48:55.220 And it will force you not only to speak to people

00:48:57.300 across the conservative coalition,

00:48:58.680 but also in the middle,

00:49:00.960 people who are low information even,

00:49:02.580 and on the left.

00:49:03.380 So very, very good education.

00:49:05.500 Just don't expect to make any money doing it.

00:49:07.220 Okay.

00:49:08.620 I have so much more to get to.

00:49:10.760 But I don't have any time!

00:49:12.920 Because it's Fake Headline Friday.

00:49:14.060 The rest of the show continues now.

00:49:15.120 You do not want to miss it.

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00:49:35.940 Recently, our company's softball team

00:49:37.980 lost the big game by one run.

00:49:40.020 Then Dale tried to console us with the quote, winning isn't everything.

00:49:44.660 Well, Dale and I are very different.

00:49:48.320 I get early payout from Bet365.

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00:49:56.860 Thanks, Bet365.

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The Michael Knowles Show - August 28, 2026

Ep. 2048 - Trump Ranks the Best American Presidents

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