The Michael Knowles Show

00:00:00.000 Happy New Year. Iran-backed terrorists attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on New Year's Eve,

00:00:06.180 but decisive leadership dispelled the violence. We will examine why Baghdad didn't turn into

00:00:11.640 Benghazi and what it means as we look forward to the coming decade. Then, speaking of violence,

00:00:17.480 the Pope smacks a woman's hand for grabbing him too forcefully. Good for him. We analyze the Pope

00:00:22.760 slap heard around the world. A trans man gives birth using female sperm, according to the British

00:00:28.760 media, and Anderson Cooper muses on the biggest phalluses in Hollywood on CNN. Finally, the

00:00:35.380 mailbag, all that and more. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:45.660 Happy New Year. We begin this new year on a somber note. We lost a real one just moments ago.

00:00:53.580 Julián Castro dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential field. Poor one out for Julián. He

00:01:02.120 was a real one. My favorite candidate in the race, and now he's gone. I was on Leland Vittert's show on

00:01:10.060 Fox News as Julián Castro announced that he was running for president, and Leland asked me for my

00:01:17.380 reaction, and I told him what I ate for breakfast that morning. It was some sort of omelet, and I

00:01:22.320 told him that was more consequential news than Julián Castro entering the presidential race,

00:01:27.500 and it turns out I was right, but I do want to commemorate his candidacy because the candidacy

00:01:34.380 of Julián Castro took political correctness to the furthest extreme we've ever seen in presidential

00:01:40.500 politics. This was during, I believe it was the second Democratic presidential debate when he said he

00:01:46.360 didn't merely support reproductive freedom. He supported reproductive justice, and not just for

00:01:52.940 women. He supported abortion rights for trans women as well, meaning biological men, people without

00:02:03.340 uteruses, people who could never, ever possibly have an abortion. That was Julián Castro's campaign,

00:02:09.260 and it only got more outrageous and ridiculous from there. I am seriously going to miss him

00:02:15.380 in this presidential race. Julián, I really hope that you run again next time so that we can enjoy

00:02:21.040 this all over again. We will get to the biggest news of the decade, and there's only been two days

00:02:26.420 so far in this decade. First, I got to thank our friends over at ExpressVPN. I can say with full

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00:03:27.420 many other tech experts write ExpressVPN, the number one VPN in the world. Look, you know,

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00:04:01.700 In the news beyond poor Julian dropping out of the race, the year started off in a pretty

00:04:09.080 auspicious way. Pretty, it was actually a pretty good start to the year. Why? There was an attack

00:04:16.000 on a U.S. embassy. That's not a good start. Well, the good start was the response and it shows you the

00:04:20.580 difference between the 2020s or between right now and say the Obama administration. Maybe there's a

00:04:27.820 difference in these two decades. On New Year's Eve, Iran backed terrorists tried to attack the U.S.

00:04:33.260 embassy in Baghdad. This was a replay of the Benghazi attack on September 11th, 2011. You remember that

00:04:40.360 during the Obama administration in Libya, there was attack on the U.S. embassy, four Americans killed,

00:04:45.020 including the ambassador. It was an absolute disaster. When the militants started to attack,

00:04:51.860 nobody responded. There was no reaction from the political leadership in Washington. They just let

00:04:57.700 the consulate be attacked over there. And unfortunately, these Americans died. And then

00:05:03.040 there was a coverup afterward. Barack Obama sent his national security advisor on national television

00:05:07.760 to lie about the attack. They said that it was a spontaneous uprising caused by a YouTube video

00:05:14.100 that virtually nobody had seen. Of course, it wasn't that. It was a terrorist plotted, planned,

00:05:19.180 and executed attack. And it led to years of investigations. Hillary Clinton famously testified

00:05:25.720 about it and said, who cares? What difference does it, at this point, does it make if they were

00:05:30.280 terrorists or YouTube video demonstrators? Who cares? It's no big deal. And of course, it does matter.

00:05:35.420 It does matter. This attack in Baghdad failed because of decisive leadership. So what happened is

00:05:44.000 hundreds of terrorists, of militiamen and their supporters showed up to this embassy in Baghdad.

00:05:50.440 They broke into the compound. They destroyed a reception area. They smashed windows,

00:05:56.760 smashed up the whole building, put graffiti all over the walls. This was to protest U.S. airstrikes

00:06:03.100 against an Iran-backed militia that ended up killing 25 terrorists. So now they're protesting

00:06:10.380 this. There's going to be a response because the United States is fighting with Iran through these

00:06:13.900 proxies. Now, why didn't it turn into this disaster of Benghazi? It didn't turn in because

00:06:20.320 the U.S. responded immediately. And yesterday, the militiamen, the terrorists, withdrew. They withdrew

00:06:27.320 after two days of clashes with American security forces because the minute the attack began,

00:06:31.840 the United States sent in a hundred Marines. The United States sent in 750 paratroopers to the

00:06:37.400 region. They deployed troops out there and they said, you are not taking our embassy. And of course,

00:06:43.160 eventually after that show force, the terrorists withdrew. President Trump was asked about this on

00:06:49.180 New Year's Eve at Mar-a-Lago. So he's there in his tuxedo, looking great by the way. And Melania is

00:06:54.280 standing there looking significantly better than just like the picture of elegance and grace. And they're,

00:07:00.200 they're being asked about this attack. And Trump has one clear message for the terrorists,

00:07:04.460 for the international community, and for the American people. He says, this will not be

00:07:09.440 another Benghazi. I think it's been handled very well. The Marines came in. We had some great warriors

00:07:15.460 come in and do a fantastic job. And they were there instantaneously. As soon as we heard,

00:07:21.540 I used the word immediately. They came immediately and it's in great shape. As you know,

00:07:27.000 this will not be a Benghazi. Benghazi should never have happened. This will never,

00:07:31.780 ever be a Benghazi. But we have some of our greatest warriors there. They got in there very

00:07:36.680 quickly. As soon as we saw there was a potential for problem, they got in and there was no problem

00:07:42.320 whatsoever. I also want to thank the Iraqi government. They really stepped up. I spoke to

00:07:47.940 the prime minister today. I thanked him, but they stepped up very nicely.

00:07:52.040 All right. This story tells you two important things. It shows you for one, the absolute

00:07:59.340 corruption of the media, which was basically taking the side of the terrorists and sort of

00:08:05.200 lamenting the fact that this wasn't turning into Benghazi. That was the, that's the first part.

00:08:09.100 The second thing it shows you is the importance of political leadership. It shows you something that

00:08:15.520 I predict will possibly define this decade, which is the importance of taking control of your own

00:08:22.760 political destiny. The ability of us to use our will, to use our decision-making powers to come in

00:08:29.300 and take control of our political destiny. We are not simply leaving ourselves up to circumstance.

00:08:34.040 We have the ability to shape our political future. We'll get to both of those in a second. We'll read the

00:08:40.220 New York Times, this take on it. The New York Times, they outdid themselves on this attack in

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00:10:32.220 Drats. What this attack in Baghdad shows you is the corruption of the media and that we have the

00:10:41.420 ability to form our own political future. So the New York Times, when they're responding to this,

00:10:45.560 initially takes the side of the terrorists. I don't think that's an overstatement. Here's what

00:10:50.220 they tweeted. You decide for yourself. Quote, hundreds of Iraqi mourners tried to storm the U.S.

00:10:56.460 embassy in Baghdad shouting down, down USA in response to deadly American strikes this week

00:11:01.560 that killed 25 fighters. First of all, who are the fighters? The fighters are Iran-backed terrorists.

00:11:07.120 They're fighters. They don't want to use the word terrorist, they use the word fighter.

00:11:10.660 There were U.S. airstrikes against terrorists. Good. That's a win. And then in response,

00:11:16.860 a group of mourners showed up to attack the U.S. embassy. First of all, I don't think they were

00:11:21.740 mourners, okay? Because when I think of mourners, I think of people wearing all black,

00:11:25.120 black, crying, sort of just sad and dejected, possibly despairing. That's not what these guys

00:11:29.960 were doing in Baghdad. What they were doing in Baghdad was busting down the door to the

00:11:33.020 compound to try to kill Americans. Those aren't mourners. This reminds me of when the Washington

00:11:38.040 Post ran an obituary on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS. It described him as an austere

00:11:44.760 religious scholar, not a terrorist, not an absolute gang leader, the leader of one of the biggest death

00:11:50.800 cults in modern history. No, no, no. He was an austere religious scholar and these terrorists

00:11:55.080 in Baghdad were mourners. Okay, that's the media for you. Joy Reid was upset. She was,

00:12:00.920 she was hoping, you could, you could read the desperation as she was typing on Twitter saying

00:12:05.960 that this was going to be Trump's Benghazi and yet it wasn't. Why wasn't it? It wasn't because

00:12:11.780 of the importance of individuals, of decision making, of political leadership, of our own

00:12:19.060 free will. The left constantly tells you that individuals don't really matter. Okay, individual

00:12:26.000 decisions, individual leadership. They tell us on the left that history is moved by great impersonal

00:12:33.080 forces. Circumstances dictate our destiny. The presidency is too big a job for any one man. You can't

00:12:40.000 possibly ascribe responsibility to individual politicians when you look at these great forces

00:12:46.800 in the world. Well, if that's true, then how do you explain the difference between Baghdad

00:12:52.100 and Benghazi? How do you do that? You can't. I think this is the theme of the 2020s. I think the

00:13:00.060 theme is going to be people waking up and realizing, hey, wait a second. We're not just victims of

00:13:05.100 circumstance. We're not just victims of a sort of global consensus on the left and the right,

00:13:12.740 Democrats and Republicans. This consensus that's going to outsource our jobs and get rid of our

00:13:17.200 political futures and destroy our, our homes. And we're, we're not just victims of social

00:13:22.080 circumstances, cultural circumstances that will destroy the family, that, that take away our

00:13:26.300 constitutional rights. We're not. We're going to say no. We're going to fight back. And look,

00:13:30.900 our decisions, our own leadership can have a positive effect. You know, there was a church

00:13:37.280 shooting over Christmas and New Year's. The shooting at West Freeway Church of Christ,

00:13:42.200 a drifter, lunatic, drug addict showed up with a shotgun. He came there. He was known to the

00:13:48.880 congregation. He had mental issues. He had drug issues. All right. This guy had a long rap sheet.

00:13:54.080 He's got a long criminal history and he showed up with a shotgun. And the, the very sad news is he got

00:14:00.360 off a couple of shots and killed two members of the congregation before anybody was able to stand

00:14:07.160 up. Now the, the silver lining to this, the reason that he killed two people instead of 240 people

00:14:12.720 is that the congregation was armed and a very well-trained person who was a firearms expert,

00:14:21.680 who was a firearms teacher, got up there. His name is Jack Wilson. One single shot, he killed the

00:14:27.240 shooter. Saved 240, 250 lives right away. Now the mainstream media were horrified by this. Here's

00:14:35.160 a USA Today. USA Today ran an op-ed here. Said armed, even in church, Texas shooting is about a lot

00:14:42.120 more than Jack Wilson's heroism. The real story isn't heroism here, right? The real story they write

00:14:47.940 on Twitter, quote, Jack Wilson is exactly the type of person you want around with a gun because he's

00:14:52.480 also a firearms instructor. But we know nothing about the, at least six other parishioners who also

00:14:57.860 appeared to draw their handguns. And that's terrifying. Why is it terrifying? What's terrifying

00:15:04.540 about it? So you got seven parishioners pull out their guns the minute this guy starts shooting

00:15:08.420 because he's trying to pick off the whole congregation like sitting ducks. And seven people

00:15:14.320 pull out their guns. One person neutralizes the target and that's it. It's not terrifying at all.

00:15:21.300 These people all, every single one of them used their firearms responsibly. They didn't just start

00:15:26.160 shooting left and right, get in the middle of a gunfight. They pulled out their guns. This guy,

00:15:30.580 Jack Wilson, was able to take out the target immediately. And then they put their guns away.

00:15:35.360 That's a wonderful thing. These people took control over their destiny. They weren't simply going to let

00:15:40.400 the cruel and the deranged run roughshod over their entire congregation and kill 240 innocent people.

00:15:45.860 This is, this is a real silver lining here. I mean, it's awful. The loss of any life, two,

00:15:52.020 two lives is so, so terrible. They saved 240. There was a spate of, of anti-Jewish attacks

00:15:58.760 over the Christmas break. All throughout New York, New Jersey, all around that area in particular.

00:16:05.460 Now they haven't been reported on very much, these attacks, because the assailants

00:16:08.700 weren't white guys generally. They, they, they don't fit the media narrative that Trump has unleashed

00:16:13.360 this spate of white supremacy, neo-Nazism. And so they've, they've mostly been out of the news,

00:16:19.400 but these were, these were major attacks. I mean, some were killings. Some of them were just

00:16:24.480 assaults on the street, but there were a number of them. How do we respond to this?

00:16:30.540 I suspect religious conflict is going to increase in the 2020s. I think we're looking at a decade of

00:16:35.900 more intense religious conflict because

00:16:37.980 all of these religions are getting kind of muddied. You know, the religion, especially of

00:16:44.220 secular leftism, of environmentalism, of gender ideology, these are religious movements and they're

00:16:51.580 very exclusive. So, you know, just to use environmentalism as a great example, if you

00:16:58.040 oppose environmentalism, you're accused of destroying the world. That's why we've had eco-terrorism

00:17:02.620 for the whole history of the environmentalist movement. On the fringes, you get eco-terrorism

00:17:06.440 because it is such an intense and exclusive religion. But this is true of other religions too.

00:17:12.720 Obviously, we've, we've had a lot of violence from Islam in the past several decades.

00:17:18.440 This is, this is true. You're seeing rhetoric increase around gender ideology. If you, if you

00:17:23.740 oppose the gender ideology, you're called a bigot, a hater, denying people human rights. There are new

00:17:28.460 laws that are being passed to stop you from that. I think we're going to get a little more conflict in

00:17:33.180 this religious ideological landscape. Now, how do we protect ourselves? There's a simple answer from

00:17:40.620 the church shooting, from the attacks on Jews, from all around, which is to arm yourself, avail

00:17:47.540 yourself of your constitutional rights, take some responsibility, take some control. David French

00:17:53.460 tweeted this out. David French, the writer, formerly a national review, now he's at the dispatch.

00:17:58.120 David French tweeted out, Hey, one thing you can do right away to protect yourself is to get a gun and

00:18:04.980 learn how to shoot it. People jumped on him on Twitter. And the reason they jumped on him is not

00:18:09.480 just the guns. Okay. It's not just the idea that, okay, there's a second amendment and I can use my

00:18:14.520 gun to protect myself. Everybody already knows that. The reason that people attack David and other

00:18:19.520 people who suggested arming yourself is because of the sort of novel idea over the last several years

00:18:27.140 that you have some control over your own destiny. And this is going to be a key theme of the 2020s.

00:18:36.000 Last decade, people were told that they were powerless. We, the people were told we had no

00:18:40.500 control over our government, over our trade, over our economy, over our culture, over our future. We

00:18:45.000 were told we don't have any power. And then we realized we do. There's a movement going on,

00:18:50.740 not just in the United States. It's bigger than the U S it's bigger than Trump. It's going on

00:18:54.240 throughout the West where people realize that we can take control of our political destiny.

00:18:59.020 We'll get to what that means in a second. We'll get to a trans man giving birth or something. I

00:19:03.620 don't, you know, good luck figuring that one out. And we'll even get to the Pope slap. But first,

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00:19:46.260 it's three in the morning, and they talk to people who are trying to break into their home.

00:19:49.240 But that's the more serious version. Another version of this happened to friends of mine.

00:19:53.580 They kept seeing some motion going on. They thought there was someone casing the joint.

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00:20:36.900 This is the story. Okay. Last decade, the Obama administration, if you want to try to neatly

00:20:42.960 delineate the time, last decade, we, the people were told we were powerless on our rights, on our

00:20:48.880 law, on our trade, on our economy, just to use trade, just to use the example of trade. We were

00:20:54.120 told there's just, there's no way to keep manufacturing jobs. There's no way. It's impossible.

00:20:59.140 Neither party is going to do it. You can't, how could you possibly keep manufacturing jobs? We've just

00:21:03.280 got to go. We've got to send all of our jobs overseas. We need to just buy cheap consumer goods

00:21:08.400 from China that are produced with slave labor. And then we've got to live in tiny little pods and eat

00:21:12.500 bugs. That's what we're going to do because we have no power over ourselves, over our lives. Of course

00:21:16.840 not. Same thing with immigration. We were told there's no way to slow down immigration. We take

00:21:21.160 in a million illegal aliens a year and 1.2 million legal immigrants, far more generous than any other

00:21:26.620 country in the world by a long shot. There's no way to slow it down. There's no way to stop it. You can't

00:21:30.800 control who comes in and out of your country. There's no way to slow down the progressive

00:21:34.860 destruction of our culture and our rights. No way to stop Obama. Can't impeach him. Can't do

00:21:39.560 anything. The Trump election was this prefiguring of grabbing back our rights. The Trump election is

00:21:48.180 often referred to as a middle finger to the elites and the bureaucrats and the technocrats.

00:21:52.440 And that's true. So what does that mean? What is the significance of that middle finger? The

00:21:56.580 significance is you can't tell us what to do or you can't tell us what to do forever.

00:22:04.200 And what has happened as a result of taking back our rights? Has the whole world fallen apart?

00:22:08.380 That's what we were told was going to happen. But that's not what happened. Things are actually

00:22:14.940 going great. The economy is going gangbusters. We have, we just found out Trump has issued the

00:22:19.900 fewest regulations in 44 years. This is a 44 year low. The economy's doing great. Just over

00:22:26.240 Christmas, the economy soared. Consumer confidence way, way up. We had a great Christmas season.

00:22:31.880 Manufacturing jobs have returned. Again, just to use that one example, we have some control.

00:22:37.540 Even the arguments over porn, over the social issues that kind of dominated the last few weeks

00:22:41.780 of 2019, they're about this. They're about the question, can we take back our political future?

00:22:46.960 Can we decide how to govern ourselves? Can we have a spirit of an exalted freedom,

00:22:51.300 a social freedom? Of course we can. And I predict that the 2020s are going to be about reclaiming

00:22:57.160 control over our political future all around the West because we know that we're on the precipice,

00:23:01.800 all right? We know that things have fallen apart. They've, they've broken down to such a point

00:23:06.940 that we can't even say what a man is and a woman is anymore. We can't even say that a baby is a baby.

00:23:12.040 We can't say these basic things. We can't say what marriage is anymore. And that is too far. We know

00:23:19.200 it. We know how much we have to lose. Just to use this example, I love this story from The Mirror.

00:23:24.740 This is a UK tabloid. The headline is, quote, transgender man gives birth to non-binary partner's

00:23:32.820 baby with female sperm donor. That is some Julian Castro level political correctness. I don't,

00:23:41.080 what, let's try to break that down. Transgender man. Okay. So that's a woman gives birth to non-binary

00:23:50.280 partner's baby. Okay. I don't know. Non-binary. What does that mean? With female sperm donor. Now

00:23:57.020 I'm no biologist, but last I checked, there is no such thing as female sperm. So you read the article

00:24:02.720 and it explains to you what it really means. Proud dad, Ruben Sharp today tells how he, capitals,

00:24:08.400 gave birth to a miracle baby in Britain's most modern family. The 39 year old transitioned to

00:24:13.920 a man 12 years ago, but he still had maternal instincts. And six years ago, stopped taking

00:24:19.780 testosterone in the hope of one day having a child. And that dream came true when he and partner Jay

00:24:26.020 had a bouncing baby. Jay is non-binary, so does not identify as male or female.

00:24:30.780 Well, the sperm donor was a trans woman and even the doctor was transgender. And while a handful of

00:24:37.040 other UK men have fallen pregnant after transitioning from a woman, Ruben and Jay are among the first

00:24:42.820 couples to speak out about their remarkable journey. Except it isn't remarkable. The journey is not

00:24:50.100 remarkable because once you cut through all the imaginary gender categories that Britain apparently

00:24:56.780 has embraced and certainly this tabloid media have embraced, what you realize is it's not that a

00:25:02.640 transgender man gave birth to non-binary partner's baby with female sperm donor. What happened is

00:25:07.060 a woman who now identifies as a man, but she's a woman, used sperm from a stranger to conceive a baby

00:25:14.740 and give birth, which has happened many, many times. There's nothing new about that. There's nothing

00:25:22.640 particularly interesting about that. It's been going on since the dawn of time. A woman used sperm from

00:25:29.540 someone she didn't know very well to conceive a child and give birth. It's the story of the human race.

00:25:35.780 Now, there's a, there's just a lie in the headline. They say that this transgender man, well, I guess the,

00:25:41.260 the whole headline is a lie, but they say the transgender man gives birth to non-binary partner,

00:25:45.780 non-binary partner's baby. That's not true. The non-binary partner had absolutely nothing to do with

00:25:51.500 the creation of this baby. The headline would be more honest if it said woman gives birth to baby

00:26:00.080 conceived with sperm from a stranger and that woman also has a girlfriend. That's what happened. But,

00:26:07.980 but the, the gender categories make it so confusing. It doesn't have to be that confusing.

00:26:13.060 All right. There's no, there's nothing unclear about this situation other than all of the sort of

00:26:18.660 ornamentation we've put onto it, all of this gender ideology. And this is the importance of clear

00:26:24.160 language because if you use the leftist jargon, then you can be convinced that a man just conceived

00:26:32.000 and gave birth using female sperm. That's a very strange world to live in. Or you can just realize

00:26:40.780 that a woman gave birth as women always do. That's what's really happened. It also, this,

00:26:45.740 this also breaks down some of this gender ideology because we've, we've defined man and woman down

00:26:52.480 to be absolutely nothing. So we're now at the point where a, if a woman identifies as a man,

00:27:00.540 but then says she wants to give birth and menstruate and have a normal female cycle,

00:27:06.740 she's still a man. Well, if that's true, then what is a man? I mean, at the very least,

00:27:13.640 it's the most basic definition we had before of gender ideology was that you are however you

00:27:19.240 identify. But if you start identifying as someone who menstruates and, and conceives a child and has

00:27:23.800 a baby, surely you're no longer a man, right? I mean, what, there, there is no definition that

00:27:31.420 could possibly fit this for men and for, for women. I, I predict looking forward at 2020s,

00:27:37.120 I think we're going to see a return to a little bit of reality. I think so much of the pushback on

00:27:43.300 leftism has been these crazy metaphysical claims about men and women and gender ideology and even

00:27:52.320 abortion, the beginning of human life, what a human is, a clump of cells. I think we just,

00:27:56.660 we see that it isn't true and we see the disastrous effects of it on our culture. And we are,

00:28:02.520 we are ready to be rid of it. We're ready to return to normal and reclaim some of our future

00:28:08.740 from these fantastical ideologues, which is something pretty hopeful when you're looking

00:28:13.560 at the next decade. Uh, we will get to the Pope slap heard around the world. We will get to Anderson

00:28:18.140 Cooper referring to the largest phalluses in Hollywood on national television because CNN,

00:28:23.680 real news, serious journalism. And we will get to the mailbag first though, based on what we've seen

00:28:29.120 so far, 2020 is shaping up to be a pretty wild year as Democrats rally to get rid of president

00:28:35.380 Trump. The best way to stay informed on all things 2020 is to become a daily wire member and get

00:28:41.640 comprehensive news and opinion from us on demand. Now, because we know that you need to stay up to

00:28:47.760 date, we are giving you 20% off all memberships until January 6th, 20% off to celebrate 2020 when you

00:28:55.920 use promo code DW 2020. Members get our articles ad-free access to all of our live broadcasts and

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00:29:25.180 for 20% off until Monday, January 6th. Join today and stay informed on all things 2020. We will be

00:29:34.780 right back with a whole lot more. The Pope slap, the CNN Anderson Cooper phallus discussion and the

00:29:41.760 mailbag. Head to dailywire.com. We'll be right back.

00:29:44.380 The Pope slap heard around the world. We have to get to it. It has created quite a lot of

00:30:00.940 controversy online among Christians, among, among Catholics specifically, even among conservatives.

00:30:06.760 The Pope was meeting thousands of people and he's going around and a woman grabbed the Pope's hand,

00:30:13.020 his arm and wouldn't let him go. She yanks him back in. And so he smacks her right on her hand and,

00:30:18.400 and sort of chides her for grabbing him so forcefully and then walks away. Here is the

00:30:23.720 clip. I will, I will narrate it. So the Pope, he goes, he pulls away and she yanks it and she won't

00:30:29.200 let him go. And then he gives her a nice little smack on the hand and walks away. He looks really

00:30:33.440 kind of angry about it. He looks a little peeved. He goes, ow, stop pulling me. What are you doing?

00:30:37.560 Stop that lady. And then he gets out of there. Okay. Was the Pope correct to act this way?

00:30:44.840 Some are saying it was totally unchristlike. Some are saying it was very Christlike, you know,

00:30:49.780 because on the one hand you have Christ saying, turn the other cheek and, you know, give away your

00:30:55.480 possessions and you just live to serve. And on the other hand, you have Christ throwing people out of

00:31:01.540 the temple and overturning tables and whipping people and saying, go buy a sword. And so

00:31:05.260 there's a little bit of debate on both sides. Certainly the Pope was within his rights to chide

00:31:14.700 this woman for what she was doing. I don't just mean this in a kind of liberal individual autonomy,

00:31:22.000 my rights, my body, my choice kind of way. I mean this as a matter of justice and prudence

00:31:28.500 and responsibility. The woman has no right to yank the Pope and for him to just necessarily

00:31:34.960 roll over. Okay. If, if nuns at a Catholic school are able to give you a little smack on the hand

00:31:40.380 with their ruler when you're misbehaving, surely the Pope can give you a little smack on the hand

00:31:45.160 when you're yanking him and pulling his arm in and not letting him get away. It's perfectly right,

00:31:51.040 perfectly just for him to do that. However, the Pope should not have lost his temper.

00:31:57.080 That is the real, the problem isn't the smack. The woman needed a little smack.

00:32:01.580 It can be very encouraging to smack people. On the bio tapestry, there's this famous image,

00:32:07.100 the battle of Hastings of Bishop Odo wielding a club, smacking these retreating soldiers.

00:32:14.660 They're his own soldiers and they're trying to retreat and he's got a club and he's just

00:32:18.160 smacking them over the head and saying, go back there, go back and fight. And, and the,

00:32:21.700 the bio tapestry says here, Bishop Odo wielding a club encourages the boys. So it can be encouraging

00:32:27.480 and supportive to give people a little smack, which is what the Pope was doing. However,

00:32:32.440 he should not have lost his temper. He should have given her that little smack out of love.

00:32:36.720 And I think that's the subtlety here that is being lost in this whole debate is he looked visibly

00:32:42.920 angry and sort of marched away. And then he, he apologized. And I think he probably should have

00:32:47.640 apologized. Not for the smack. The woman deserved it. And she needed a little corrective to teach

00:32:52.260 her how to behave when the Pope is around. But because he lost his temper, he shouldn't have

00:32:56.440 done that. People make mistakes. A good reminder that the Pope is fallible, except for the very

00:33:01.460 rare instances when he's infallible. And he apologized as he should have. Before we get to

00:33:06.160 the mailbag, have to talk about the biggest fallacies in Hollywood, or rather we have to talk about the

00:33:10.660 CNN journalist, super serious facts first. This is real news. Describing the biggest fallacies in

00:33:16.820 Hollywood on CNN, on live national television on New Year's Eve. Here is Anderson Cooper.

00:33:22.820 She turned to Anderson and said, he's not going to ask me who has the biggest bleep of anyone I've

00:33:30.200 ever been with. Right? No, it was, she turns to me out of the blue and goes, he's not going to ask

00:33:36.980 me who has the biggest in Hollywood, is he? Okay. That's what she asked. And just said it. Okay.

00:33:41.440 All right. There he is, just giggling away on New Year's. Now, the thing about CNN's New Year's

00:33:46.940 coverage is that it's always pretty degenerate these days. The hosts are doing shots on TV.

00:33:52.800 Last year, there was a bunch of pot on TV during CNN. And now Anderson Cooper talking about his

00:33:57.960 very famous socialite mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, and all the men she slept with, and who has the

00:34:03.180 biggest phallus in Hollywood. I mention this not to really attack Anderson Cooper or CNN.

00:34:10.040 I don't care. Nobody's watching it. Nobody saw this live anyway, other than the people who had

00:34:14.140 the misfortune of walking through airports on New Year's Eve. But I do it to point out that CNN

00:34:20.220 is not a news channel. There was a piece in National Review on this the other day. CNN is not a news

00:34:26.380 channel. It has no credibility. It has no standing. It obviously has no dignity. It's a

00:34:33.060 kind of tabloid entertainment channel for leftism on cable. And it's pretty much been that the whole

00:34:38.680 time. And now we can see it. Okay. And it's worth remembering because when they air their really

00:34:44.220 super serious journalism ads, facts first, this is a banana. We're real news. Just remember that,

00:34:50.660 no, you're not real news. You're the station where Anderson Cooper jokes about the biggest phallus in

00:34:54.680 Hollywood and calls conservative Republicans teabaggers. And that was Anderson Cooper too. And where

00:35:00.760 Don Lemon shows up and he looks super serious right after he gets back from Murphs and allegedly

00:35:05.860 assaults people at bars late at night. It's a bunch of derelicts. Okay. This, this news channel

00:35:12.700 is, doesn't have that kind of credibility. Now that's fine. They provide sort of tabloid cable

00:35:18.880 entertainment. Okay. They've got an audience for that, but don't let them harangue you about real

00:35:25.500 news and serious journalism and the separation of powers in our constitution. They don't get to do that.

00:35:30.260 You talk about the biggest phalluses in Hollywood and you giggle about it while doing shots on TV,

00:35:34.200 you lose that right, which is fine because I think it's kind of the theme of the decade. I mean,

00:35:41.400 if I had to, if you can predict a theme of a decade, that's what it is. It's we, the people

00:35:46.480 looking forward, taking back some of our political destiny, taking back our culture, taking back our

00:35:52.160 rights, taking back our seriousness of purpose. And what happens on the left? The politicians on the left

00:35:58.100 are screaming about socialism and soaking the rich and all this kind of crazy cockamamie gender theory.

00:36:05.060 And on the mainstream media, you have them giggling about phalluses. Okay. That's, that's what they're

00:36:10.640 doing. They've, they've run their course. And now I think we, with a little bit of hope, are pivoting

00:36:16.660 back and taking control of our destiny. Let's get to the mailbag before we have to go.

00:36:19.980 From Ben. Hi, Michael. Happy new year. I'm getting married on August 30th this year to the

00:36:26.360 love of my life. And I wanted to know what your advice would be to a Christian couple regarding

00:36:30.280 the cultural environment. How do you navigate being in the world without being a part of it?

00:36:35.000 Thank you for the excellent podcast. And I hope to see another fantastic book soon. Thank you very

00:36:39.980 much. This one may even have words in it. The important lesson in my vast experience as a married

00:36:47.900 man is to remember that there's no such thing as a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. So you cannot

00:36:57.100 try to live a virtuous, upstanding, good Christian life by not doing the things of this world.

00:37:06.100 You're, that's not going to work by not doing this, not looking at this, not drinking that,

00:37:11.880 not right. You're not, that's not going to happen. You are going to be able to practice the

00:37:17.840 virtues by actually practicing the virtues, by affirmatively doing something. So for instance,

00:37:24.040 late at night, when you're lying around your apartment, you could do a few things.

00:37:30.360 You could binge eat, right? You could just sort of stuff your fat face. You could watch 5 million

00:37:35.900 episodes of some show on TV. You can look at porn, getting back to our debate, you know,

00:37:41.540 week though in the last weeks of 2019. You could drink yourself silly. You could, or you could pray,

00:37:48.940 right? Those are all activities that will take up, I don't know, call it half an hour to an hour late

00:37:55.820 at night. And so it, you can't, you can't do the culture. You can't be virtuous. You can't practice the

00:38:06.880 virtues by avoiding. You have to do something else. And so what I would recommend is you do those things

00:38:13.040 that are going to make you in the culture, but not of it. You know, you're going to do those things

00:38:18.120 that are allow you to thrive in society, but be living for another place. And maybe that means going

00:38:24.000 to church. Maybe that means praying. Maybe that means availing yourself of the sacraments. Maybe that

00:38:28.360 means going to confession. Maybe that, I don't, it means doing. And so it's very foreign in this culture

00:38:35.380 where all we ever want to do is sort of sit around and loaf and scroll on Instagram or something.

00:38:40.060 But what you've got to do is turn away from that. Kanye West sang about it in his new Jesus is King

00:38:45.740 album. He said, you got to put the gram away. You got to, even things that seem kind of trivial,

00:38:50.020 like scrolling mindlessly on your phone or something, they can be harmful. You've got to do

00:38:55.340 something else. Have a conversation, read a book, go pray, go to church. It sounds like you're pretty

00:39:01.440 proactive anyway, and excited to do that. So I wish you the best of luck and happy

00:39:05.060 engagement. From David, hey Michael, I'm a recent subscriber and a big fan. I'm debating a couple

00:39:09.640 friends currently about the morality of capital punishment, and they are saying that the death

00:39:13.520 penalty is immoral, or at least that we shouldn't use it because one, it is irreversible versus

00:39:19.080 something lifelike in prison. And two, in the New Testament, specifically using John 8,

00:39:24.660 Jesus wants us to have mercy. What are your thoughts? Also of note, they cited the Catholic

00:39:28.380 Catechism 2267. This is this new change to the Catechism by Pope Francis, which says that the death

00:39:34.320 penalty is impermissible. Although I'm not Catholic, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this as well.

00:39:38.800 Thanks so much. Okay. Yeah, there's so much misunderstanding about capital punishment.

00:39:43.480 First of all, your friends are saying that capital punishment is bad because it's irreversible,

00:39:49.080 unlike all those other punishments, say life in prison. But those are irreversible too. If you're

00:39:54.100 stuck in prison for 35 years because of bad evidence or something, those 35 years are gone. You can't

00:40:01.180 reverse that. It's just like capital punishment is irreversible. Now you might say, at least you

00:40:07.500 can get out of prison and have a good five years before you croak. Whereas with capital punishment,

00:40:11.840 you can't. But what this speaks to, and I think the reason why opposition to capital punishment has

00:40:16.220 grown is because of the advance of secularism. We used to believe from the dawn of time until just

00:40:21.120 about five minutes ago, that this world is not all that there is, that the human person has a soul,

00:40:27.420 that there is ultimate justice, that our justice comes from divine justice, that our laws come from

00:40:33.200 the natural law, and that there will be a judge and we will see him face to face once we die.

00:40:39.120 I still believe that. Religious people still believe that. But among the kind of shallow secular

00:40:45.300 culture, that is gone. So I think that's part of the reason why there's now opposition to capital

00:40:49.820 punishment, even though it's not terribly reasonable. Then in the New Testament, Christ wants us to be

00:40:56.280 merciful, but he also is a God of justice. So there's mercy, but there's also justice.

00:41:01.840 So at the same time, when Christ tells us, go, you know, put away the sword, give away all of your

00:41:07.780 possessions, he also says, go right now and sell your possessions, sell your purse, so that you can

00:41:14.820 buy not just one sword, but two. All right. And this kind of reminds us of how there is a time for

00:41:22.540 every season under heaven. There's a time for peace and a time for war. There is a time

00:41:26.220 for all of these things. We don't just have an ideology that is pacifistic. The Christianity is

00:41:34.020 not pacifistic and it's a shallow Christianity that would pretend to be pacifistic. There's nothing

00:41:38.880 good or virtuous or moral about letting the cruel rape the earth. Nothing right about that at all.

00:41:44.720 And when it comes to the Catholic catechism, it's true the Pope has used very confusing language on

00:41:49.460 this. He's used the word inadmissible, but that's certainly not been the case. Throughout 2,000

00:41:55.440 years of Christianity, Thomas Aquinas defended killing heretics, using the power of the state to

00:42:00.080 kill heretics. Okay. So is Thomas Aquinas now anathema? I don't think so. There can be legitimate

00:42:05.400 disagreement over the death penalty among Christians, as Pope Benedict pointed out. And let's not be

00:42:10.760 confused about that sort of thing. What the key to the death penalty is, is justice. Okay. We think now

00:42:18.200 that the purpose of all criminal justice is rehabilitation and deterrence. Those are important

00:42:24.460 aspects, but the primary aspect is retribution, justice itself, punishment for violating the

00:42:32.240 moral law, for violating the civil laws too. That's the key. The purpose of it is justice. Everything

00:42:38.560 else falls downstream of that. From Joshua, if the stock market and job growth drops in any significant

00:42:44.580 way, can Trump still win in 2020? Would he be able to successfully make the election a referendum

00:42:49.620 on the Democrats' devastating economic policies, in your opinion? Happy New Year. If the economy

00:42:56.080 collapses, Trump will have a much harder time in 2020. Luckily, there's no sign that the economy is

00:43:01.420 going to collapse. I mean, everybody says we're due for a recession, but you're never really due for

00:43:05.260 a recession. Recessions are caused by the economic cycle, but they're also caused by policies. And

00:43:11.780 fortunately, the economy has been going gangbusters because of policies, because the Trump administration

00:43:16.920 has come in and said, no, we can get our manufacturing back. We can get consumer confidence up. We can get

00:43:21.980 manufacturing confidence up. Things are going really, really well. You know, the fewest federal

00:43:26.620 regulations issued in 44 years, that is a, that is a really good thing. And so I, I would suspect as much

00:43:35.220 as you can predict these things, I think Trump is probably going to have a pretty good economy going into

00:43:39.040 2020. But even if it started to falter, I think there is a chance that Trump could still win based

00:43:45.780 on first principles. I mean, let's not forget the misery index was pretty high when Barack Obama got

00:43:50.160 reelected. The power of the incumbency is, is pretty important. And there's so much more going on

00:43:55.640 in terms of judges, in terms of culture, in terms of national security under Trump, that he might have

00:44:00.820 a little leeway, but still the economy is probably going to lead the election. From Josh, Michael,

00:44:06.240 what types of things are going on in your earpiece during your show? Thanks. It's pretty much just

00:44:11.920 like hauling notes on repeat, just kind of happy 1980s music, just to keep me all pepped up, you

00:44:17.060 know, ready to go. Obviously nothing professionally important is ever going on in my earpiece. The

00:44:22.060 minute they try to tell me anything that actually has to do with work, I just, just turn that down.

00:44:26.760 Of course. From Johnny, hey, Michael, love your show. Just wondering, do you think it's possible

00:44:31.600 that we could legally classify news sites such as CNN as tabloids? I was going to the store and it

00:44:37.520 struck me when I realized how tabloids get away with publishing literal lies, at least from what I

00:44:42.080 hear, about celebrities and how the media does the same thing. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, I think it pretty

00:44:46.520 much already is considered tabloid news. The mainstream media, CNN, New York Times even, I think

00:44:53.200 those already are considered tabloids. What would be the legal distinction though? There, there really

00:44:57.420 isn't one. We have very strong freedom of the press in this country. So we have very weak libel laws.

00:45:04.580 It's very difficult to successfully sue somebody for, for libel, for defaming you. And, and so,

00:45:11.040 yeah, the mainstream media are going to publish lies all the time. They publish lies about me

00:45:14.300 personally, and that's just what they get away with. The key is exposing them, as you say, as tabloids,

00:45:20.240 as shallow yellow journalism. And they, I think that's already happened. I think that's probably the

00:45:25.040 defining feature of the Trump era is the absolute just collapse of the press and their credibility.

00:45:31.140 And that's a very good thing. All right, last question from Jairo. Hey, Michael, I'm in the U.S.

00:45:36.120 Army. I'll be deploying again soon after the holidays. I'm an avid reader and I love books about U.S.

00:45:41.620 politics, history, economics, et cetera. I was wondering if you had a short list of books that you would

00:45:46.420 recommend for me to take with me or have my wife send to me if possible. Very respectfully, Jairo.

00:45:51.000 Well, first of all, thanks for your service. I hope you have a good deployment. I do have

00:45:56.520 recommendations for books. And actually, that timing worked out very well. We're about to launch

00:46:01.580 a show with PragerU in addition to this show, but I will have another show on PragerU called The Book

00:46:07.040 Club. And we're going to be going through some of the most important books that you should read.

00:46:10.680 We're going to do one a month. We're starting that out this month in January. We're going to begin

00:46:15.240 with Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And that guest on that episode is going to be

00:46:20.420 Dennis Prager, the man himself. So stay tuned for that. I'll put out some lists of the books

00:46:25.020 that we're going to be covering on that show. Then you can read along with me and then we'll

00:46:29.060 be able to chat about it once a month. So stay tuned for that. It's one of the many things I'm

00:46:33.480 excited for this year. That's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:46:37.260 Happy New Year, everybody. See you Monday.

00:46:45.240 If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.

00:46:50.820 And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends

00:46:55.140 to subscribe. We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.

00:47:01.140 Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show,

00:47:06.080 The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.

00:47:08.260 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies, director Mike Joyner, executive producer Jeremy

00:47:14.220 Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.

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00:47:38.380 On The Matt Walsh Show, we're not just discussing politics. We're talking culture, faith, family,

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Ep. 471 - Why Baghdad Wasn’t Benghazi

Summary

Transcript