The Michael Knowles Show - Ep 213 - Sweeps Week

00:00:00.260 Traitors, tall tales, trolls, or spies, there is a concerted effort afoot to take down this presidency.

00:00:06.760 We will analyze who really is the enemy of the people.

00:00:10.000 In other news, Cory Booker is behaving like an infant again, which means it must be a day that ends in Y.

00:00:15.680 Then, an abortionist and consulting medical director of Physicians for Reproductive Health,

00:00:21.160 Dr. Ann Davis stops by to discuss abortion and the Kavanaugh hearings.

00:00:25.780 Finally, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:30.000 Oh, do we have a lot to get to today.

00:00:38.200 We've got to start with this anonymous story, but then we're going to get into more substantial things.

00:00:42.040 The anonymous source that the New York Times published that says,

00:00:46.140 I'm in the Trump administration, I'm a Trumper, but I'm secretly sabotaging him.

00:00:50.460 What if you found out it was me?

00:00:51.860 What if it were like one day on MSNBC, it was like, I'm the anonymous source.

00:00:56.680 Hmm? Look at me. I'm like, what's Superman's real name?

00:01:00.660 Clark Kent.

00:01:02.160 But I only remember me and Maddow.

00:01:03.860 Before we get to any of that, I have got to thank a wonderful advertiser that we have, which is Blue Apron.

00:01:08.740 Oh, do I love Blue Apron.

00:01:10.480 Blue Apron, you know this. I've told you about Blue Apron before.

00:01:12.900 It delivers farm-fresh ingredients and step-by-step recipes to your door.

00:01:16.660 The mission is to make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone.

00:01:20.300 So the way it works is you choose these chef-designed recipes.

00:01:24.440 You know, don't expect it to be like plain hamburgers and nothing.

00:01:28.120 I mean, these are wonderful recipes, really good.

00:01:30.460 They're changing all the time, so you're not going to get sick of anything.

00:01:33.220 They're going to be changing these constantly.

00:01:35.380 They deliver fresh, seasonally-inspired ingredients, which are as good as they come.

00:01:39.600 The quality of all of these ingredients is top-notch.

00:01:42.660 And as anybody who cooks ever knows, or as anybody who eats Sweet Little Elisa's cooking,

00:01:47.660 it's all about the ingredients.

00:01:48.820 So the ingredients are really good.

00:01:49.820 The recipes are great.

00:01:50.480 You can make dinner in as little as 20 minutes.

00:01:52.540 Quick and easy recipe options.

00:01:54.240 Insanely good flavors.

00:01:56.120 Perfectly portioned ingredients delivered right to your door.

00:01:59.540 So skip all the meal planning.

00:02:00.880 You know, you're sitting there with your wife and, like, the argument you have for half an hour.

00:02:04.640 Two hours is what you're going to have for dinner.

00:02:06.460 Skip all of that.

00:02:07.060 Have it delivered to your door.

00:02:07.780 It's really good.

00:02:08.660 Check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free.

00:02:11.740 Get free food from me.

00:02:13.060 Don't say I never did nothing for you.

00:02:14.580 Blueapron.com slash Covfefe.

00:02:16.580 C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 1.00

00:02:18.100 If there were ever any week to gobble up the Covfefe, it would be this week.

00:02:22.020 Blueapron.com slash Covfefe.

00:02:24.020 C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 1.00

00:02:25.220 Get your first three meals free.

00:02:26.720 Blue Apron.

00:02:27.600 A better way to cook.

00:02:30.760 Who is the anonymous source?

00:02:33.380 The anonymous source in the New York Times?

00:02:35.600 I'm sure everybody has seen the story from yesterday.

00:02:38.740 The New York Times runs this piece, and they say,

00:02:41.180 We have taken the rare step, the unconventional step, of publishing a long essay on the op-ed pages

00:02:47.860 anonymously.

00:02:49.720 But trust us, it's a senior official in the Trump administration.

00:02:54.100 So you read the article, and I'm sure you've heard it, or you've seen it floating around the internet,

00:02:59.320 so I'll just get to the heart of it.

00:03:01.060 You read it, and they say,

00:03:02.320 There are people in the high levels of the Trump administration who are actively sabotaging the president's agenda,

00:03:07.600 resisting parts of the president's agenda, trying to push him in directions that he's not trying to go in.

00:03:14.720 And I know because I'm one of them.

00:03:17.140 That's the big reveal in the essay.

00:03:18.800 And it talks about how, you know, he's a conservative guy, and it's not like he's in the resistance on the left,

00:03:24.060 but there is a pact, a cabal in the Trump administration that are actively undermining President Trump's agenda.

00:03:31.220 And a couple interesting things here.

00:03:34.460 The piece is really poorly written, so the piece is very clumsily put together.

00:03:39.040 It begins in this big reveal on the resistance and da-da-da.

00:03:42.400 And by the end, it just ends up extolling the virtues of John McCain for a disproportionate period of time

00:03:47.800 and goes on and on about McCain and uses all of these tired cliches and false dichotomies.

00:03:55.020 They say, you know, country first.

00:03:58.180 Country first is only used by people who have run out of their own ideological argument or their own philosophical argument.

00:04:04.560 They say country first.

00:04:05.600 What does country first mean?

00:04:07.380 What they really mean when they say that is country over party.

00:04:10.520 But what does that mean?

00:04:11.980 You join a party because you think the party is putting forth an agenda to help the country.

00:04:17.240 If it's not going to put forward the best agenda to help the country, you join a different party.

00:04:21.560 Winston Churchill hot parties back and forth all the time.

00:04:23.980 So these two things, they seem like they're in contradiction.

00:04:26.180 They're not really in contradiction.

00:04:27.480 The country and the party are supposed to go together all the time.

00:04:30.220 You know, other phrases like that.

00:04:32.200 We've got to put the country first.

00:04:34.600 And all of the John McCain stuff.

00:04:36.560 There's one interesting word here, which is load star.

00:04:39.740 And this has everyone saying that it was Mike Pence who wrote this, which is absurd.

00:04:44.240 Nobody seriously believes that the sitting vice president wrote this poorly written piece for the New York Times.

00:04:49.900 The main reason I don't think it was him is because it's not well written.

00:04:52.100 And it says, you know, the load star, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:04:57.020 People notice that Mike Pence has used the word load star in a number of speeches over the years.

00:05:02.660 Okay, but also the way that these things work, it could easily be somebody using this keyword that is associated with Pence to kind of frame him and get the pressure off of themselves.

00:05:11.060 There are three options here.

00:05:12.960 There are three cases for who it is.

00:05:14.760 That's the background.

00:05:15.820 Who could it be? 0.92

00:05:16.540 It's a traitor, it's a troll, or it's a tall tale.

00:05:20.720 Those are the three T's of this anonymous essay in the New York Times.

00:05:25.160 Either this person does exist, and he is actually a senior official, and he is actually sabotaging the Trump administration, or it's someone who is, this is coming out of the Trump administration, and they're trying to troll the New York Times into destroying their journalistic credibility by running this outrageous anonymous essay in the op-ed pages, or the New York Times completely made it up.

00:05:51.120 What's the evidence show?

00:05:52.160 Are there people who do this, who would actually betray their employer and betray the Trump agenda?

00:05:58.400 Yeah, of course.

00:05:59.400 President Trump has been talking about this the whole time.

00:06:01.760 President Trump has been saying there is a deep state.

00:06:03.840 There are embedded interests in Washington, in the administration, working for the administration, who oppose the agenda that was elected by the American people in 2016.

00:06:13.240 So we know that that's true, both because this essay was published and because we've heard about it for so long, and we've seen the evidence of that.

00:06:21.260 It certainly could be the case that this is all legit, and this person really is at the high level, and he's trying to undermine the Trump agenda.

00:06:29.940 If that is the case, he's a real traitor to his country.

00:06:32.300 President Trump tweeted out, treason, all question marks, all capital letters, and that isn't overstating the case.

00:06:39.080 The American people did not elect this random staffer who published in the New York Times.

00:06:44.880 They didn't elect him.

00:06:46.040 They didn't elect his agenda.

00:06:48.060 The definition of tyranny in America would be overturning the results of a 2016 election, would be undermining the duly elected president.

00:06:56.900 Now, in all administrations and in all workplaces, you always have the underlings say, you know, well, I could do it better than him. 1.00

00:07:03.040 I've got to stop my boss from being so stupid. 1.00

00:07:05.440 So that happens, too. 1.00

00:07:06.820 But if it is really the case that President Trump is not able to push his agenda through, that is betraying your country.

00:07:13.640 Because they say it all the time.

00:07:15.020 They always say we have the best of intentions.

00:07:16.340 We're really saving the country.

00:07:18.200 No, you're undermining the constitutional order.

00:07:20.440 They're complaining about the Russians interfering in the election.

00:07:23.180 What is greater election interference than trying to overturn the results of a presidential election, than trying to sabotage the will of the American people and the constitutional order as expressed in 2016?

00:07:35.960 So that is really, really bad.

00:07:37.420 And there's nothing noble about it.

00:07:38.940 There's nothing high-minded about it.

00:07:40.700 If, at the worst scenario, if this is really the case, this person should be very ashamed and they should be ferreted out of the government.

00:07:49.040 This is a huge offense to the American people and a huge threat to liberty.

00:07:52.240 If it's the worst example.

00:07:54.620 Now, is it a troll?

00:07:55.940 Is this a setup for the New York Times?

00:07:58.780 If any president were going to do it, it would be Donald Trump, wouldn't he?

00:08:01.720 Donald Trump has regularly referred to the press, the fake news media, as the enemy of the American people.

00:08:08.600 I always thought this was very, a little far.

00:08:13.140 It was obviously outrageous, very outrageous.

00:08:15.560 And just even a little far for this administration, which thrives on spectacle and thrives on outrageous statements.

00:08:22.240 But if the New York Times is willing to do this, to basically obliterate any journalistic ethics and run this essay anonymously,

00:08:32.080 it actually gives credence to the call, the enemy of the American people.

00:08:36.500 The person writing the essay is bragging about being an enemy of the American people.

00:08:40.020 It's saying, the American people elected this and we're going to undermine that constitutional order and do something different. 0.97

00:08:44.460 So, I've got to say, the reason that the troll thing kind of hits me is, first of all, the president is the greatest troll in America. 0.95

00:08:51.920 He's the master of this. 0.92

00:08:53.460 I did the blank book. 0.78

00:08:54.560 I'm happy to be a prince of trolls. 0.97

00:08:56.180 He is the king of trolls. 0.57

00:08:57.860 So, he certainly could do this.

00:08:59.860 And Donald Trump always makes, he always makes his opponents live up to the criticisms that he lobbies at them.

00:09:06.740 So, in this case, if anyone could make the New York Times live up to the charge of being the enemy of the people, it's Trump.

00:09:12.380 And then the third option is that it's just fake news.

00:09:14.940 Now, did the New York Times make this up from scratch?

00:09:17.040 I don't think so.

00:09:18.140 I don't think that the op-ed editor would really risk his reputation to do something so outrageous.

00:09:24.000 And ultimately, something that likely will come out.

00:09:26.900 But what it could be is that the New York Times is exaggerating the position of this person.

00:09:32.160 So, they've done this before.

00:09:34.640 I think it was, yes, there were these emails from a fracking story that the New York Times was running.

00:09:42.180 It was a big article on, an anti-fracking article.

00:09:45.360 And the New York Times said, we've talked to senior officials, federal officials, senior analysts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:09:52.340 It later came out that their source was an intern.

00:09:55.700 Their source was like the lowest level staffer you could have.

00:09:58.180 Even the New York Times public editor, Arthur Brisbane, said, can an intern be an official?

00:10:01.740 Doesn't sound right.

00:10:02.580 They've exaggerated this before.

00:10:03.920 Certainly possible.

00:10:04.600 I'll give you my thought on this in one second.

00:10:06.400 But before, let me make you a little money, honey. 0.93

00:10:08.300 Because we're in a capitalist era.

00:10:09.460 We've got to make some money.

00:10:10.700 You know about Honey.

00:10:11.600 I've told you about this.

00:10:12.220 It's the free shopping tool that finds the best promo codes whenever you shop online.

00:10:16.700 It might sound too good to be true.

00:10:18.340 So, let's go over the facts.

00:10:20.940 I used Honey two days ago.

00:10:23.360 I was ordering pictures on the internet and I ordered it.

00:10:25.980 But I couldn't even tell you.

00:10:27.560 It just so happens I was online shopping a couple days ago.

00:10:30.100 I use it every time.

00:10:31.120 I've used it for years, long before this show existed.

00:10:33.420 If you're not using it, you're just missing out on free money.

00:10:36.440 Honey has already saved people over $800 million.

00:10:38.980 You might be thinking, oh, you know, Honey doesn't work on the sites that I shop at.

00:10:42.900 It works on 30,000 sites.

00:10:45.080 It works on eBay, Amazon, Walmart, Newegg, J.Crew, a lot more.

00:10:49.560 So, how is it free?

00:10:50.440 How is Honey free?

00:10:51.380 It's because Honey gets a small commission from sites when they save you money.

00:10:55.940 So, it just is always free.

00:10:59.220 It's just a tremendous product.

00:11:00.580 I use it all the time.

00:11:01.520 Go to get it right now at joinhoney.com slash covfefe.

00:11:05.340 C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 1.00

00:11:06.580 It's free to use.

00:11:07.500 Installs in just two clicks.

00:11:08.520 Go get free money. 0.98

00:11:10.360 Don't be insane. 0.86

00:11:12.200 Get free money right now. 0.85

00:11:13.260 Joinhoney.com slash covfefe.

00:11:14.880 C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 1.00

00:11:16.520 So, that, I think, is the story.

00:11:18.380 It's probably much ado about nothing.

00:11:20.820 It underscores the claims that Trump has been making the whole time.

00:11:25.760 And that's why I think any three of these are plausible.

00:11:29.260 That this person really exists.

00:11:31.500 That there actually is someone trying to sabotage Trump from within the government.

00:11:35.000 We've been saying that for months and months and months. 0.84

00:11:37.060 One is that it's a troll.

00:11:39.340 That, you know, Donald Trump is getting the New York Times to live up to their terrible reputation.

00:11:45.020 And three, that the New York Times is just exaggerating this.

00:11:48.520 And they're running at least partially fake news.

00:11:50.700 It could be any of those.

00:11:52.240 But what is the takeaway?

00:11:53.540 What changes with this? 1.00

00:11:54.920 The guy says Trump is crazy and stupid and we don't like him. 1.00

00:11:59.420 Okay. 1.00

00:12:00.680 Is that even news that people around the president don't like him and underestimate him?

00:12:08.040 Is that news now?

00:12:08.960 The New York Times has been saying this for three years now.

00:12:11.260 Two or three years.

00:12:12.720 How is that news?

00:12:14.080 I don't see how this moves the needle one bit.

00:12:15.880 I don't see how this helps Democrats either.

00:12:17.460 Because it puts Donald Trump in the position of underdog.

00:12:20.340 And it validates all of the claims he's been making about the government and about the press.

00:12:24.220 I don't see how this hurts him.

00:12:26.440 Perhaps that was the point.

00:12:27.860 Perhaps it's either what we call the 3D chess, you know, that Donald Trump saw this coming.

00:12:33.680 And by 3D chess we just mean that Donald Trump is good at manipulating the media, which is obviously true.

00:12:38.520 Either it is that or it is just that Trump has this gut instinct about reality and reality is proving him right.

00:12:44.760 I really want to get to our guest.

00:12:46.420 But before we do that, I do have to make fun of Cory Booker a little bit.

00:12:49.040 Cory.

00:12:49.360 Cory, let's just, I'll give you the recap.

00:12:51.960 If you didn't watch all of the hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, it was the same Cory that we've been seeing for months and months and months.

00:13:00.780 Cory, just give us the summary.

00:13:02.920 I hurt when Dick Durbin called me.

00:13:05.820 I had tears of rage when I heard about his experience in that meeting.

00:13:08.720 And for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss some of the questions of my colleagues,

00:13:15.900 saying I've already answered that line of questions when tens of millions of Americans are hurting right now because of what they're worried about what happened in the White House.

00:13:25.800 That's unacceptable to me.

00:13:27.320 So that was from months, months and months ago, you know, but he did basically the same show here.

00:13:33.700 I also love if you notice from that clip, he says, for you not to feel that hurt, hurt.

00:13:38.660 Yeah, hurt, hurts the line.

00:13:39.580 For you not to feel that line, line.

00:13:41.880 What was my line again?

00:13:42.860 I'm sorry.

00:13:43.360 I was, I lost it.

00:13:44.340 Can we take it from the top?

00:13:45.240 Can we, can we do this schtick again?

00:13:47.420 Because he's running for president and he thinks that whining and screaming like a child is going to make him more popular to voters.

00:13:53.320 It'll certainly work with his base.

00:13:54.640 So here is Cory actually at this hearing today.

00:13:57.580 Senator Corden actually made a very good point.

00:14:00.060 I knowingly violated the rules that were put forth.

00:14:04.380 And I'm told that the committee confidential rules have knowing consequences.

00:14:09.700 I'm going to release the email about racial profiling.

00:14:12.040 And I understand that that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.

00:14:16.980 And if Senator Cornyn believes that I violated Senate rules, I openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that email right now.

00:14:27.180 What I'm releasing this document right now to show, sir, is that we have a process here for a person, the highest office in the land for a lifetime appointment.

00:14:43.000 We're rushing through this before me and my colleagues can even read and digest the information.

00:14:48.600 Running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate.

00:14:53.100 No senator deserves to sit on this committee or serve in the Senate, in my view, if they decide to be a law unto themselves and willingly flout the rules of the Senate and the determination of confidentiality and classification.

00:15:07.300 That is irresponsible in conduct unbecoming a senator. 0.92

00:15:10.680 So it's a ridiculous show. 0.95

00:15:13.400 Corey is running for president, as Mr. Cornyn said right there. 0.82

00:15:18.260 He's obviously trying to create a spectacle and he's begging people to kick him out of the Senate because that's his only shot.

00:15:23.640 Right.

00:15:23.760 If there's a big fight about kicking Cory Booker out of the Senate, then he sort of has a chance to rise up to a tier one candidate in 2020.

00:15:30.700 But they're not going to do it.

00:15:31.920 He said he released these emails.

00:15:33.940 These were confidential emails.

00:15:35.300 He wasn't supposed to release them.

00:15:36.400 It really violates the Senate, the rules, the sense of collegiality.

00:15:40.380 But what's funny is the Republicans beat them to it last night and cleared the emails for release.

00:15:46.700 So Cory didn't even get to release them and break the rules and have his big moment.

00:15:50.020 He actually said in the hearing that this was his Spartacus moment.

00:15:53.160 Like, Cory, man, if you have to say it, it's not true.

00:15:56.720 You know, like, this is not a sorry buddy.

00:15:59.280 So just more ridiculous theater from the party that is telling us that they're the mature ones and they're going to take the reins. 0.94

00:16:05.300 Just whining and crying and showboating. 1.00

00:16:07.660 It's really pathetic. 1.00

00:16:08.620 And unfortunately for Cory, not going to help him. 0.99

00:16:10.820 You're not getting kicked out of the Senate, Cory.

00:16:12.720 I'm sorry to tell you that.

00:16:14.500 Okay.

00:16:15.260 We're very lucky to have a guest here today.

00:16:18.000 You know, it's very hard to get guests from the left and guests who disagree with our point of view on.

00:16:22.380 And Dr. Ann Davis has agreed to join the program to discuss these Kavanaugh hearings and the role that abortion and Roe v. Wade is going to be playing in this.

00:16:31.300 And Dr. Ann Davis is the consulting medical director of Physicians for Reproductive Health and an abortion provider herself.

00:16:39.120 Dr. Davis, thank you for being here.

00:16:41.140 Thank you for the invitation.

00:16:42.740 So, Dr. Davis, before we begin, I want your thoughts on this Kavanaugh hearing and on the future of abortion politics in the country.

00:16:49.760 I have to begin with the name of your organization, the Physicians for Reproductive Health.

00:16:56.080 Because it has always seemed to me that of all of the euphemisms that we have in the abortion debate, reproductive health is the most outrageous one, as reproduction and abortion are diametrically opposed.

00:17:09.060 Why is it the case that the abortion movement, the pro-abortion movement, relies on euphemistic and dishonest language in so much of their political activity?

00:17:17.980 So, our name, Physicians for Reproductive Health, really refers to our mission, which is that we support comprehensive reproductive health for everyone.

00:17:30.580 So, that would include all the things I do as an OB-GYN, contraception, of course, and abortion pertinent to this show.

00:17:39.180 But it's really a health, reproductive health concerns all reproductive health. 1.00

00:17:43.960 So, that's the explanation for our name.

00:17:45.880 But this is the question I always ask, because I'm not suggesting that being an obstetrician gynecologist or delivering babies or any other of the medical aspects of that position don't concern reproductive health.

00:17:58.840 What I'm saying is that it seems bizarre to include abortion so essentially in this.

00:18:04.880 And I'm not just picking on your organization or your work, but so much in the political debates.

00:18:09.660 We never hear abortion called by its own name.

00:18:12.460 Very rarely do we.

00:18:13.500 So often we hear the war on women's health, the war on reproductive health.

00:18:18.920 Ironically, because it's about the opposite of reproduction, but even on women's health broadly.

00:18:23.660 When I call up my grandmother, I say, how you doing, grandmother?

00:18:26.500 She doesn't say, well, you know, at least I've got my right to an abortion.

00:18:29.500 She says, at least I have my health.

00:18:31.760 Why is it about abortion politics that it has to be lumped within all of these apparently unrelated medical activities?

00:18:41.700 I think that what is happening there, what you've noticed, is that there's a lot of stigma around abortion, as we all know, so that people aren't necessarily comfortable saying the word abortion or talking about it.

00:18:56.760 Patients absorb that stigma.

00:18:58.540 Certainly there's a lot of that in the national discourse.

00:19:02.200 But remember that abortion is very, very common medical care.

00:19:05.700 So if you look at the best numbers, we have about one in four women in the United States will have an abortion before she's in menopause.

00:19:13.860 So it's a very, very common procedure.

00:19:16.120 It's something that is sort of a core component of the care that we provide as OBGYN.

00:19:23.580 So I think, you know, there is a little bit of a disconnect there with how common it is and how often the word is spoken.

00:19:29.500 I agree with you.

00:19:30.140 And I think that's really because of the stigma and misunderstanding around abortion.

00:19:34.500 Of course.

00:19:35.120 It's very common in the years after Roe v. Wade was decided, the abortion rate nearly doubled, I think.

00:19:42.700 Since then, it's dropped dramatically, but there was certainly an explosion in the 1970s and early 80s.

00:19:50.100 And yet, when we look at the polling, and not just from right-wing firms, not just from religious firms, but even left-wing polling firms like Gallup,

00:19:57.040 we find that the majority of Americans, and the majority of American women in particular, oppose abortion in the second and certainly in the third terms.

00:20:07.260 What does this mean for the future of abortion politics?

00:20:09.780 So much of the Kavanaugh hearing has come down to whether or not he would overturn Roe v. Wade.

00:20:16.340 And so much of the abortion debate happens on, you know, is abortion morally permissible in the first three hours of pregnancy or something.

00:20:23.880 But what about those numbers?

00:20:25.420 Abortion is certainly a common medical procedure, and yet the majority of Americans oppose it in the second and third term.

00:20:33.320 Is there a point at which the abortion movement will have to say, abortion should not be licit in the second and the third term?

00:20:41.720 Is there a point at which we can say, this is no longer merely a medical procedure that doesn't involve human beings and is infanticide?

00:20:51.000 I'd like to backtrack a bit into your point, which is to say, remember that, you know, we have very, very clear numbers about when abortions are performed in the United States.

00:21:04.940 The huge majority of abortions are performed early in pregnancy.

00:21:09.060 So we know that about 85 percent of abortions are performed very, very early.

00:21:14.620 And that is a good thing.

00:21:16.280 We also know that abortion is much, much safer the earlier that a woman can have one. 0.99

00:21:22.280 So it's a simple, safe surgical procedure or medication that you can take early on in pregnancy and very, very safe and simple and suitable to just taking that in an office, a doctor's office and being able to do that.

00:21:35.220 Also, it's very important to understand that the nomination of Kavanaugh really threatens the safety of abortion in our country, because as abortion gets harder to access and there are places in our country right now where it's very, very difficult for women to access abortion, the harder it is to access, the later it goes into pregnancy.

00:21:56.880 So when it's difficult to find an abortion because your insurance won't cover it, because you have to drive a really long way to get to a place to have one, when you have a waiting period, there are numerous restrictions.

00:22:08.860 They've been just piling up over the last five to 10 years, hundreds, literally hundreds of restrictions in the states.

00:22:16.840 And so what that does is it moves the abortion later into the process and that makes it less safe.

00:22:22.260 So it's in our interest to make sure that there's access to abortion in order to help women have access early so that abortion really remains safe.

00:22:30.720 And that's something I hear from my patients in my practice.

00:22:34.300 You know, they're very, very grateful to be able to get in early and take care of themselves in a way that's going to be safe for them.

00:22:39.860 That's primary on their mind.

00:22:41.580 But, Dr. Davis, this does seem to evade the question, which we're talking about the safety of abortion.

00:22:46.560 The point for people who oppose abortion is that abortion is never safe for the baby who is being killed.

00:22:51.540 And so my question is, is there a point, not just at which it's less safe for the woman to have an abortion, say, in the third trimester or I don't know,

00:23:01.560 but is there a point at which the pro-abortion movement, the people who are advocates of abortion, will say, after this date, this is infanticide.

00:23:10.420 Surely we would all say killing a baby who's one day old and has been born for a day, that that is not morally licit, that that is a sin and that's a crime.

00:23:18.400 Is there a point before then, especially looking now and even looking at poll numbers of public opinion on abortions and late-term abortions,

00:23:26.220 where the pro-abortion movement and abortion providers will say, this is not morally licit, this is killing a baby in either the second trimester or the third trimester?

00:23:36.960 I'd really like to focus more on the reality of the medical care that we're actually providing.

00:23:42.180 But this is the reality. The babies are living in reality.

00:23:47.040 I'm not quite sure where your question is going.

00:23:52.400 You know, to my mind and our practice, the things that we're concerned about,

00:23:55.940 we're concerned about making sure people get their care early, that the care is safe.

00:24:00.340 Those are the things that are important to my patients and that I'm dealing with every day.

00:24:04.680 The patients that I took care of this morning, we really, what they're concerned about is their safety,

00:24:11.500 their reproductive health, their fertility, their future, and that's what we're really focused on.

00:24:16.540 The average patient isn't saying, you know, this particular number of days in my pregnancy.

00:24:26.740 That's really not how we look at it.

00:24:28.640 Every situation with a pregnancy is going to be different in terms of the gestational age.

00:24:32.480 And again, having abortions later in pregnancy is really the minority.

00:24:36.000 The majority of people really are facing a situation where they're early in pregnancy and they need to get the care at that time.

00:24:43.820 Abortion is extremely safe if you compare the risk, for instance, of something extreme like a woman's death, a woman dying during an abortion. 0.53

00:24:52.820 That is eight times, six to eight more times likely to happen giving birth.

00:24:57.460 So abortion is a very safe procedure. 0.73

00:24:59.420 We know that.

00:25:00.060 We're always working to make it safer.

00:25:01.520 I'm all about doing research and practice and changing practice to even make it safer.

00:25:06.260 But we know that abortion is safe, common care.

00:25:09.160 We want to make sure we can keep it that way.

00:25:11.580 And the nomination of Kavanaugh is really alarming.

00:25:16.080 But Dr. Davis, respectfully, it seems that you're evading my question because I am asking a specific question.

00:25:22.320 I understand you say people don't care that much about figuring out at what gestational age killing a baby in the womb is morally licent.

00:25:33.400 But I am asking about that question, about at what point we could kill that baby because we say it's a safe procedure.

00:25:40.480 It isn't safe for those babies.

00:25:42.620 And I just want to know you're you're perfectly able to answer and say the abortion movement does not care about that.

00:25:51.100 We do not care about public opinion, which opposes late term abortions and second trimester abortions.

00:25:55.780 That's not what we're concerned with.

00:25:56.900 You're you're perfectly able to say that.

00:26:00.060 I just want to know if there will be a moment when the pro abortion movement acknowledges that there is a living human being inside of that woman 0.90

00:26:08.640 that is being snuffed out and killed in the process of providing a safe abortion to the woman. 0.99

00:26:15.940 Well, in the conversation, I can tell you what happens in the reality of medical practice, which is in my office.

00:26:21.720 I think that's really where the most important part of the practice happens.

00:26:25.640 That's where it happens.

00:26:26.980 And not in not between people in theoretical, but really those conversations that happen between a woman and a doctor or another provider in her health for her life.

00:26:35.940 Yes, the baby is not theoretically killed.

00:26:38.220 The baby is killed, really.

00:26:40.260 Yeah, right.

00:26:42.460 So when a woman has an abortion, the pregnancy ends. 0.84

00:26:45.680 I think we can all understand that.

00:26:47.780 That is exactly what happens when someone has an abortion. 1.00

00:26:51.660 So really what we're focused on is making sure she gets the right care at the right time and making sure that she has access to that care.

00:26:58.840 And I suppose then, so my follow-up question, if we're talking about care, if we're talking about the medical realities of these things,

00:27:08.020 we must take into consideration the Hippocratic Oath not to hurt a patient, not to cause harm, at first do no harm.

00:27:14.380 Is there any point in the gestational age of the unborn baby at which you would treat that unborn baby as a human patient that you have to care for medically and physically?

00:27:27.520 Well, I think, you know, when you talk about the meaning of things, it really depends on the person, her beliefs, the beliefs of her family.

00:27:40.180 What are your beliefs?

00:27:41.060 I'm asking your beliefs as a leader in this field.

00:27:42.940 I am very clear about my beliefs, which is that I'm in full support of a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, as well as all the other forms.

00:27:51.340 All the way up until the day of birth?

00:27:52.720 All the way that she needs. 0.92

00:27:53.440 Are you saying that you support the woman's right to an abortion all the way up through the entire gestational period?

00:28:00.080 That's not what I said.

00:28:01.920 That's what you said.

00:28:02.280 That's what I'm asking you to clarify.

00:28:04.600 Well, we're not talking about gestational limits.

00:28:07.140 I think that...

00:28:07.960 I am talking about that.

00:28:08.940 That is what I am talking about and asking specifically.

00:28:11.340 Do you support the right to an abortion up until the day of giving birth?

00:28:15.700 My personal practice is that I provide care within the full scope of the law and in compliance with all the rules and the laws of my state and my hospital.

00:28:28.760 And that's what concerns me.

00:28:30.540 And the care that I give to my patients is really primary.

00:28:33.480 Just like if you were having surgery, really, you'd be thinking about you and what you need for your surgery and your health.

00:28:39.100 That's really what's on my mind.

00:28:41.340 I don't want to belabor the point or beat a dead horse.

00:28:44.300 I just want to be crystal clear because I don't want you taken out of context.

00:28:47.920 You've said that you will provide an abortion up to the legal limit in your state, which could be well past the age of viability.

00:28:54.760 We have children that have survived and been viable and gone on to live who were born at just 21 weeks or 22 weeks.

00:29:01.580 In many states, that limit is 26 weeks.

00:29:03.820 In some cases, it can be even later.

00:29:05.380 But I am asking you as a matter of not just of state law.

00:29:09.020 I know the state laws, not just a federal law.

00:29:11.300 I'm asking you as a question of the practice of abortion itself and with your expertise in the medical field.

00:29:16.740 Do you support medically, not legally, not politically, medically, do you support the woman's right to an abortion up until the day of birth?

00:29:28.320 Is there any limit on gestational age at which point you yourself, regardless of the law, would say, I will not perform this abortion?

00:29:35.620 That's not a scenario that occurs in my practice.

00:29:41.380 It's not something that I have to make decisions about because it isn't a real scenario.

00:29:46.800 It is a real scenario.

00:29:48.260 Women are pregnant up until the day they give birth. 0.96

00:29:50.680 That is a real scenario.

00:29:51.560 It might not be a practical one that you experience.

00:29:54.100 I understand, but I think you're focusing on something that is so outlandish and bizarre to imply that people are having abortions the day before a baby is born.

00:30:03.080 Dr. Davis, I'm using this as an example to take the logical.

00:30:07.040 I'm not really sure where you're going with it.

00:30:08.140 Well, I'll explain it to you.

00:30:09.100 It's kind of frustrating for you right now.

00:30:10.660 Well, I'll explain it to you.

00:30:11.980 I am following the logic of abortion to its logical conclusions.

00:30:16.660 You're saying that we are disregarding the individual human life that is being killed in the process of abortion.

00:30:23.100 You're saying that you are disregarding that as a patient and as a human being up to a certain point.

00:30:28.640 And I'm just asking you to tell me what that point is and why.

00:30:31.780 And you can't provide an answer to that.

00:30:34.200 No, I gave you a clear answer, which is that I provide abortion up to the limit in my state based on laws and in my practice.

00:30:42.740 That's what I do.

00:30:43.880 That's what I believe and what I do.

00:30:45.420 Yes, but that is a slightly different question.

00:30:48.080 So are you then saying that let's say the limit is, I don't know where your practice is, but let's say the limit is 26 weeks.

00:30:53.860 Are you then saying that at 26 weeks in gestation, that baby is a baby and it would be immoral and wrong to snuff out its life?

00:31:02.220 That is not a conversation that I have with my patients.

00:31:06.660 You know, just...

00:31:07.120 What would you have it with me?

00:31:07.840 Just even in the last few days, I've had circumstances where we've been looking at pregnancies that have gotten very medically complicated.

00:31:20.600 And, you know, imagine that something like this happens to you where you're at a certain gestational age.

00:31:24.800 I don't think it's going to happen to me, pardon my flippancy.

00:31:27.460 Okay, well, imagine it happens to someone in your family or a friend of yours.

00:31:30.920 And these things do happen all the time.

00:31:33.100 You know, human reproduction is not perfect.

00:31:35.580 So things happen where conditions develop either with health.

00:31:39.740 Women can get very, very critically ill when they're pregnant. 0.93

00:31:43.280 But, Dr. Davis, we would agree the vast, vast majority of abortions occur.

00:31:48.680 Things can happen with fetal development.

00:31:51.100 So we're in a situation where we have to make sure we're following the law.

00:31:54.800 We're following best practices, and we're doing the right thing for that woman.

00:31:58.880 It isn't necessarily about whether it's this many days or that many days.

00:32:03.280 Of course, that's important.

00:32:04.940 It's important to her.

00:32:05.980 It's important to me.

00:32:06.860 But really, my main concern is to give the good medical care that people need.

00:32:10.420 And I don't want to get into the details of any one scenario because that's privacy.

00:32:15.280 You don't want to talk about that.

00:32:16.780 But those are things that happen here every day of the week.

00:32:20.160 We have patients in scenarios where they have complicated care.

00:32:24.100 We're providing very advanced care to them really to save their lives.

00:32:28.060 And we need to have the flexibility to give the right care at the right time at whatever stage we can in the full practice of being in compliance with our local laws.

00:32:38.640 That's really what my job's about.

00:32:40.060 I understand.

00:32:40.700 And I'll let you go.

00:32:41.420 I've taken up a lot of your time.

00:32:42.400 But I do want to bring up one point, which is you mentioned the threats to the life of the woman.

00:32:46.680 And surely we can agree, the numbers are in, that the vast, vast, vast majority of abortions that take place, over 99% of abortions, do not concern cases of rape or incest or threat to the life of the mother.

00:32:57.900 Which brings me to my last question, again, in your work, not so much as a doctor, but as a consultant to the physicians for reproductive health, which is that we know from Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the guy who founded NARAL, the biggest pro-abortion organization in the country.

00:33:18.220 And who ran the largest abortion clinic in the country for two years.

00:33:22.060 We know that the number that we're constantly told, women will die, thousands of women died per year from illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade.

00:33:32.220 This has come up in judicial hearings from Bork all the way up to the present.

00:33:36.300 We hear it every single time a Republican nominates a judge.

00:33:39.500 We know from him, the man who invented that statistic, that it was plucked out of thin air.

00:33:44.420 He admitted it.

00:33:44.900 He said, quote, in NARAL, we generally emphasize the frame of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter, it was always 5,000 or 10,000 deaths a year.

00:33:52.980 I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose that others did too if they stopped to think of it.

00:33:57.980 But in the morality of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?

00:34:04.960 The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated.

00:34:07.880 Anything within reason that had to be done was permissible.

00:34:10.640 We know from the Centers for Disease Control that the year before Roe v. Wade was decided, the actual number of women who died from illegal abortions was 39.

00:34:18.800 The number of women who died from legal abortions was 24. 0.96

00:34:21.820 Abortion was only legal in 20 states, which means statistically both legal and illegal abortions were about as risky as one another.

00:34:29.080 Moving forward in this debate, and in these judicial hearings, will the abortion movement stop the demonstrable lie that thousands of women will die per year if Roe v. Wade is overturned?

00:34:46.040 Will they stop that, or will they continue to harp on that?

00:34:48.840 And I ask you personally if you've ever had any of the thoughts or skepticism or pauses that Bernard Nathanson has had with regard to the moral quality of the activity that you're doing.

00:35:01.900 I don't mean this to demagogue.

00:35:03.480 I don't mean this to be rude in any way.

00:35:05.860 But if we're talking about what we're talking about, which is, is this baby a moral being?

00:35:11.440 Does it have moral significance, human dignity?

00:35:14.300 Does it have moral weight?

00:35:15.100 Is it okay to snuff it out?

00:35:16.180 If there's a 5% chance that that is true, if there's a 10% chance, if there's a 95% chance, how sure are you and does the activity of abortion give you pause?

00:35:28.240 There were a lot of questions in there.

00:35:30.060 A lot of questions in there.

00:35:31.540 You know, I love numbers.

00:35:33.520 I have a master's degree in public health, and I'm a researcher, so I'm very happy to look at numbers and think about numbers.

00:35:40.760 And I'm not in charge of messaging for a movement.

00:35:43.400 I'm a doctor, and I am also a patient advocate.

00:35:47.900 You're a patient advocate, which is why I like your public opinion on this.

00:35:51.340 But what I want to say, that when we look at numbers like how many people died before abortion was legal and how many people died after abortion was legal,

00:36:00.060 I think it's very easy to understand the difference between illegal abortion and legal abortion back in, you know, decades ago, that there really were not methods available to people that were safe.

00:36:14.300 They were equally risky.

00:36:15.980 And statistically speaking, just as many women died from legal as illegal abortions.

00:36:19.780 Explain that. I'm happy to explain that.

00:36:21.420 So when we talked to doctors who were practicing before abortion was legal, it was very common for women to come into the emergency room critically ill, wind up with a hysterectomy.

00:36:33.780 They may not have died, but there was a lot of serious morbidity, losing their fertility, nearly losing their life, having emergency operations.

00:36:41.120 And those were routine things. There were whole wards and hospitals dedicated to trying to save women's lives after attempts at illegal abortion.

00:36:48.700 Those things don't exist anymore, and they didn't exist after abortion became legal.

00:36:53.940 So you don't need a whole lot of very particular numbers to understand that things got a lot, a lot safer.

00:37:00.120 It seems to me the numbers clarify things better than the anecdotes do.

00:37:02.960 I agree. But when you take, when you try to count something that's illegal, right, it's super hard to do that.

00:37:09.320 And how do you count somebody dying? You write something on a death certificate.

00:37:13.440 If it's a circumstance where something is highly stigmatized, it's pretty hard to count.

00:37:17.640 And what you see on a death certificate may have nothing to do with what actually happened.

00:37:21.520 Maybe it says the patient died of septic shock, but it was as a result of an illegal abortion.

00:37:25.780 Certainly. But, doctor, we do have statistics on crime. We collect statistics on crime very well.

00:37:30.660 Right. So I think we know, you know, I think we know from common sense in terms of the practice and observing the practice what happened.

00:37:39.060 That's not something that was that was something that was very, very well documented.

00:37:44.020 And even colleagues, you know, 10 years ago, some of those doctors are older now, but they told us what it was like.

00:37:49.000 And these were people working in major medical centers in the United States.

00:37:52.060 So there were people that faced this.

00:37:54.020 And that really was the backbone of trying to make sure that abortion became safe because so many women were injured and even lost their lives.

00:38:00.660 So that's not something we want to see come back again.

00:38:03.140 You can argue about whether or not things would be different now that we have different abortion methods.

00:38:09.200 It may be that illegal abortion may not be as physically unsafe for a woman.

00:38:14.280 But keep in mind that if abortion becomes illegal, there are new risks, right?

00:38:18.380 There are risks for people like me who provide it.

00:38:20.540 There are risks for patients in terms of taking medication.

00:38:24.080 Well, I'm sorry. What do you mean there are risks for people like you?

00:38:26.080 And they're incarcerated for ending a pregnancy if Roe is overturned.

00:38:30.320 So those things are real concerns for us.

00:38:32.000 We're very concerned about that.

00:38:34.260 As to my last question, doctor, you don't have to answer it.

00:38:37.920 You're under no obligation to.

00:38:39.540 But considering the example of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, among others, major not only abortionists, abortion providers, heads of abortion clinics and abortion advocates who have totally changed their position.

00:38:52.700 We regularly see this, people who supported abortion rights, who then became pro-life.

00:38:57.460 This happened to me myself, and I was convinced by a bioethicist to change my opinion.

00:39:01.860 I previously thought abortion was perfectly permissible. 0.82

00:39:05.300 Has the subject ever given you pause?

00:39:08.200 Even if you are not going to conclude that a baby in the womb is with 100% certainty a moral being worthy of dignity and respect and the protection of life,

00:39:18.480 would you be willing to grant that there's perhaps an 80% chance or a 20% chance or even a 2% chance that that baby in the womb has moral value?

00:39:29.640 I don't put percents on my morality.

00:39:33.380 I'm very clear about what I'm doing, and I'm very clear about the care that I give.

00:39:37.920 And that's what's important to me is my patients and that they get the right medical care from me.

00:39:42.080 And that's where I put my efforts.

00:39:44.900 That's where I've been practicing for 20 years.

00:39:47.020 That's why I got my training.

00:39:48.640 That's why I teach young doctors to provide the care that I do, really so that women get the best care that they can.

00:39:54.100 And that should be a priority for everybody.

00:39:56.060 Well, doctor, I have to thank you for coming on.

00:39:58.600 Not a lot of people who are on the left will come on my show, and very few people who are in your position are willing to speak to conservative outlets.

00:40:07.780 So I certainly have to thank you for doing that, and I'll be praying for you.

00:40:13.480 Okay, I welcome the opportunity.

00:40:15.200 Thank you.

00:40:15.800 Thank you, Dr. Davis.

00:40:16.740 Take care.

00:40:19.720 Wow, I know we ran really long, but I just can't believe it.

00:40:23.760 It's an amazing thing when you have the opportunity for that sort of conversation because she just won't accept, she won't even acknowledge the premise.

00:40:35.840 She wouldn't even acknowledge the premise.

00:40:37.920 Is there any chance that this human life that we know is a human life, it's not a platypus, and it's not dead, it's a human life, is there any chance that that has moral significance?

00:40:47.480 She wouldn't even acknowledge the premise.

00:40:49.640 I think that tells you everything you need to know about the abortion debate.

00:40:52.120 We'll try to get to a couple mailbag questions.

00:40:54.280 If you're on dailywire.com, thank you very much.

00:40:56.360 You help us keep the lights on and covfefe in my cup.

00:40:58.680 If you are on Facebook or YouTube, we definitely got censored after that discussion.

00:41:04.240 That was far too frank and honest a discussion to possibly be allowed to be had on social media pages.

00:41:09.760 So, please go to dailywire.com.

00:41:11.540 It's $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.

00:41:14.540 You get me, you get the Andrew Klavan show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get to ask questions in the mailbag, although this week you only get to ask like two because we ran a little late in our conversation.

00:41:23.160 And you get to ask questions in the conversation, speaking of, which we'll next time have Ben Shapiro, the big boss himself.

00:41:29.660 None of that matters.

00:41:31.440 You need the Cory Booker vintage.

00:41:35.820 You need it.

00:41:36.640 You need it.

00:41:37.140 He's running for president.

00:41:39.000 Senator Cornyn said it today.

00:41:40.880 He's running for president.

00:41:42.820 We're going to need to make a bigger vessel.

00:41:44.520 We're going to need a bigger boat.

00:41:45.660 We're going to need a bigger vessel when Cory Booker runs for president.

00:41:48.140 Go to dailywire.com, get your Tumblr.

00:41:49.620 We'll be right back with the mailbag.

00:41:53.160 I'm going to burn through as many of these as I can, all right?

00:42:03.820 I'm fired up.

00:42:04.800 From Matt.

00:42:05.900 Michael, I just finished your book, Reasons to Vote for Democrats.

00:42:08.800 I loved it, but I had a question.

00:42:10.640 Could you elaborate more on what you meant by, and I quote, looking forward to your response?

00:42:18.720 I will comment on it.

00:42:20.440 Obviously, when I wrote, there was an exoteric meaning, which it seems you've picked up on,

00:42:27.700 and there also is an esoteric meaning for those great readers, for those best of men

00:42:33.020 who can understand the conversation that I'm having with the ancients.

00:42:37.520 But I couldn't possibly explain it more clearly for fear of persecution in the art of writing.

00:42:42.980 From Donna.

00:42:43.640 Dear Michael, you're a millennial born in New York, attended Yale, or a relative of Hillary Clinton,

00:42:48.960 with a name like Beyonce and looks like Rachel Maddow. 0.99

00:42:52.000 With all of that, how in the world did you become a conservative?

00:42:55.840 I think that's why.

00:42:57.580 Isn't that why?

00:42:58.340 That's got to be why.

00:42:59.880 Conservatives tend to be a little contrarian.

00:43:03.300 In our culture, a conservative is contrarian.

00:43:05.480 We stand to thwart history yelling stop.

00:43:07.720 And if you're willing to weather the slings and arrows of that in our culture, you're certainly contrarian.

00:43:11.920 So I actually do think there is something to that.

00:43:15.000 If you grew up in all these crazy places and you look like Rachel Maddow, why would you become a conservative?

00:43:19.260 That's part of it.

00:43:20.440 I used to fear that if I grew up in the middle of Texas, I'd be a communist or something.

00:43:23.840 But I don't think that's true.

00:43:26.940 I was born with like hair parted, smoking a cigar, you know, reading the Wall Street Journal or something.

00:43:33.640 That is true.

00:43:34.040 I did that from a young age.

00:43:35.180 But I went through a little lefty period when I was in high school.

00:43:37.840 I think a lot of teenagers do that.

00:43:39.860 I went through my atheist phase from 13 to 23 or so, but about 10 years.

00:43:44.920 And it was great to come out of that.

00:43:48.480 You know, Bill Whittle has this great idea that like when you don't know anything, you're a Democrat.

00:43:54.060 And then when you know a little bit, you're a Republican.

00:43:58.580 When you know a little bit, you're a Democrat.

00:44:00.320 And then when you know more, you become a Republican again.

00:44:02.960 I think there is something like that.

00:44:04.400 You kind of go through the fire of it and then you come back out.

00:44:07.860 Part of it is that the left has gone so insane that people who aren't like me to the right of Attila the Hun, people who are like Dave Rubin, have come over to the right as well.

00:44:17.840 Because they sure can't stay on the left.

00:44:19.360 There's no room for them in the Democrat Party.

00:44:21.460 I was a conservative before I had any religious views again.

00:44:29.260 So I don't know that you have to have those religious views.

00:44:31.940 But once you accept the reality of Christianity or Judaism or whatever your theistic religious views are, it's very hard if you follow those ideas to their logical conclusions.

00:44:45.000 It's very hard to remain a leftist because the left has totally embraced materialism, has totally embraced a scientistic materialist worldview that precludes any sense of meaning and the human soul and sin and grace and redemption.

00:45:01.200 So I think I think that will also help bring people back over as well.

00:45:05.920 But as for me, I don't know.

00:45:06.940 I came I came out puffing a cigar from Timothy.

00:45:09.620 What is your favorite C.S. Lewis book and why?

00:45:11.600 Thanks, Michael from the block.

00:45:13.380 That's my when I run against Ocasio-Cortez.

00:45:15.540 That's going to be my nickname.

00:45:16.600 Michael from the block.

00:45:18.020 You don't you know, you know, I don't even remember the lyrics to quote them.

00:45:22.100 My favorite Lewis books.

00:45:23.800 It's really hard to pick two.

00:45:25.840 Mere Christianity and Abolition of Man are my two favorites. 1.00

00:45:31.600 Mere Christianity is essential reading. 1.00

00:45:33.580 Abolition of Man is terrifically wonderful reading.

00:45:36.900 But Weight of Glory is great miracles.

00:45:39.180 Problem of pain.

00:45:40.100 A grief observed.

00:45:41.160 They're all so, so good.

00:45:42.840 I love them all.

00:45:43.620 I haven't read the Narnia books.

00:45:45.240 I don't really.

00:45:46.620 Friends of mine don't really like his novels.

00:45:48.640 So and I don't read novels that much.

00:45:50.260 But those two at least are good to start with.

00:45:53.240 Well, we got time for one or two more from Corey.

00:45:55.160 Hey, Michael.

00:45:55.620 I've been looking more and more toward the Catholic faith.

00:45:59.240 What would you say to convince someone that Jesus Christ not only existed, but was also

00:46:02.900 the son of God?

00:46:04.100 To be 100% honest, I enjoy your show far more than any other Daily Wire podcast.

00:46:09.160 Yeah, baby.

00:46:10.240 Keep up the good work, Corey.

00:46:11.500 All right.

00:46:11.940 Good stuff, Corey.

00:46:14.020 That you're you're asking that question in that way is is one great evidence of God.

00:46:17.780 That's a good evidence of grace and providence.

00:46:23.200 OK.

00:46:25.600 I'll put it this way.

00:46:26.560 I'm trying to figure out which step you should go through first.

00:46:28.900 I'll just tell you how I came to it.

00:46:32.000 I the arguments for God are much better than the arguments against God.

00:46:35.800 I don't think there's really any compelling argument against the existence of God, except

00:46:39.580 perhaps for the problem of pain, which ends up and suffering, which ends up becoming

00:46:43.740 one of the great arguments for the existence of God.

00:46:46.140 So we grant the existence of God.

00:46:49.800 Then the question that you have to grapple with is what sort of God is it?

00:46:55.520 You have to grapple with the person of Jesus Christ.

00:46:57.940 And this is one of the great arguments for Christianity is that it really happened.

00:47:04.360 It's not just a poem.

00:47:05.740 It's not just a philosophy.

00:47:07.940 It begins with journalism.

00:47:09.880 It begins with a fact.

00:47:11.340 The fact of God being incarnate, being enfleshed, coming into the world, living in the world,

00:47:18.500 having a body, working with his hands, teaching, suffering under Pontius Pilate, being crucified,

00:47:24.580 dying, being buried, rising again from the dead.

00:47:27.900 You have to ask yourself who this person of Christ is.

00:47:31.880 One, are these accounts that we have of him reliable?

00:47:34.900 Well, they certainly seem to be.

00:47:37.680 Very few historians would suggest that there was no historical person of Jesus,

00:47:41.980 that the historical narrative we have of Jesus is radically different from his actual life.

00:47:46.800 I don't know of anybody who would really say that.

00:47:49.080 Certainly no serious person.

00:47:50.780 So then you have to look at the Gospels, which are good texts and narratives of the life of Christ,

00:47:56.380 and say, do they line up?

00:47:59.060 Do they seem to line up with reality?

00:48:01.140 Sometimes people try to disprove the historicity of Christ by saying the Gospel accounts vary a little bit.

00:48:09.760 Some say he was here at this day and then he was there.

00:48:13.540 That's actually an argument for the historicity of Christ.

00:48:16.320 If this were just made up by some conspiracy and they were writing a legend,

00:48:19.960 there wouldn't be any discrepancies.

00:48:22.560 Just consider the difference between a novel and a newspaper.

00:48:24.960 In a novel, you don't have any discrepancies because it was all thought out in a fiction.

00:48:29.100 Newspapers disagree with each other every day because you're talking about real facts that people see.

00:48:33.300 And if they're written 30 years later or 20 years later, there might be some discrepancies.

00:48:39.280 So that, I think, is actually an argument for the historicity of Christ,

00:48:42.020 to say nothing of the rest of the New Testament and other historians of that time who would describe Christ

00:48:49.560 and the writers of the patristic era and the Acts of the Apostles.

00:48:53.100 Another argument for it is that the apostles gave their lives for Christ to spread church.

00:48:59.420 These were people who knew Jesus, who saw him rise from the dead, who went to the ends of the earth.

00:49:04.360 We know that they went to the ends of the earth to attest to this and to be killed for it.

00:49:08.520 We know that they went all the way to Rome.

00:49:10.640 We know that they went all the way east to Socotra and India.

00:49:13.660 My confirmation saint, Thomas, went all the way to India where he was killed.

00:49:20.400 Compare the founding of Islam and Christianity. 0.94

00:49:22.320 Islam was founded by people who spread their religion with the sword. 0.96

00:49:27.640 Christianity was spread by people who spread their religion and had their heads chopped off, 1.00

00:49:33.140 who spread their religion in spite of the sword and ended up meeting the sword at the end.

00:49:37.660 It is very hard to convince me that those people were just in on a really funny joke,

00:49:43.000 a joke that was so funny that they were willing to give their lives immediately,

00:49:46.660 to leave their boats, to leave their communities, and follow Christ all the way to the ends of the earth

00:49:52.760 and all the way to death.

00:49:54.160 Very hard for me to believe that, which is the more compelling explanation.

00:49:59.840 It seems to me that the fact of Christianity is true,

00:50:02.480 and the fact that it is a fact is a good argument for the truth of it.

00:50:06.420 Okay, that's all we've got time for.

00:50:07.580 I know I ran late.

00:50:09.000 Sorry, too bad.

00:50:09.820 I don't even care.

00:50:10.240 Sorry, I'm not sorry.

00:50:11.680 Hashtag sorry, I'm not sorry.

00:50:13.180 Make sure you binge Another Kingdom, because we're recording season two.

00:50:17.300 It's really, really good.

00:50:18.760 Season one is still available for you to binge,

00:50:22.100 and this new one is going to be even better.

00:50:24.320 So get ready for that.

00:50:25.300 Otherwise, I'll see you on Monday.

00:50:26.180 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:50:26.920 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:50:28.020 Have a good weekend.

00:50:33.740 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal,

00:50:37.320 executive producer Jeremy Boring,

00:50:39.420 senior producer Jonathan Hay,

00:50:40.880 our supervising producer Mathis Glover,

00:50:43.880 and our technical producer is Austin Stevens,

00:50:46.460 edited by Jim Nickel.

00:50:47.980 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:50:50.280 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:50:52.860 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:50:56.040 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

00:51:10.980 Answer and 죄송ats.

00:51:13.580 There's a helmet on today.

00:51:16.240 We go.

00:51:17.840 pension are a good job.

00:51:18.260 He has the greatest killer 973 001 one. 0.84

00:51:20.360 He has the highest Yu eineờ... 0.94

00:51:21.360 He has the highestarella Auroro up in guitars,

00:51:22.160 for most of its own life.

00:51:23.220 You

The Michael Knowles Show - September 06, 2018

Ep 213 - Sweeps Week

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript