The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 806 - Save Us, Florida Man!

00:00:00.000 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is now selling merch on his campaign website that says,

00:00:05.740 Don't Fauci My Florida, which is very effective merchandise because all sensible people think that

00:00:12.040 Dr. Fauci is a big jerk who should be exiled to St. Helena. But it also reveals that Governor

00:00:18.380 DeSantis is seeing where the real divide is in America. The real divide in America right now

00:00:23.080 is not geographic. It's don't California my Texas or whatever. It's not really that. People leaving

00:00:28.960 California to go to Texas generally are extremely conservative. It's not partisan. By the way,

00:00:34.380 if you look at the federal government, very often it's Republicans and Democrats pushing the same

00:00:39.080 stuff that the majority of Americans really do not support and which actually harms the interests of

00:00:44.220 a lot of Americans. The real divide right now in the United States is between the people and the

00:00:50.980 technocratic ruling elite, which is symbolized and led by Dr. Fauci, who is the most powerful

00:00:57.220 politician in America. That ruling elite right now is, as we're seeing with increasing news reports,

00:01:03.880 poisoning people with drugs, censoring people from getting their views out there, and in some cases,

00:01:10.420 even prosecuting Americans by a double standard that would make the Founding Fathers roll in their

00:01:17.740 raves. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:27.040 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday from Christoph Rodriguez, who says,

00:01:32.320 Democrats flying to DC, I guess referring to the Texas Democrats flying to DC, is actually the sequel

00:01:37.640 to Snakes on a Plane. That's true. And I have had it with these. I won't say it's a family show. I won't,

00:01:44.180 I won't say the entire line. It's a family show. And sometimes, you know, when you're with the

00:01:48.800 family, you're kicking back in the summer. It's very nice to have a nice glass of wine. It's why

00:01:53.040 I would strongly recommend First Leaf. First Leaf is a wine club that curates and ships you wine based

00:01:59.980 on your preferences. So I was very skeptical. I've been a member of other wine clubs and the wine's no

00:02:04.220 good in a lot of other wine clubs. And it's very, we, a lot of us have had that experience and I'll just

00:02:08.380 be blunt about it. So I was very skeptical of First Leaf. You go on, you, you click on your preferences.

00:02:12.520 Oh, I like this kind of wine. I prefer this or a little taste like this or whatever.

00:02:16.220 And you get the first box for an incredibly low price. Then you try it. You say, well,

00:02:20.720 I was actually really shocked. The wine was excellent. And then some of them though, I said,

00:02:24.340 oh, I didn't, I didn't want this kind of wine. I said, I don't like this kind of wine. But First

00:02:27.420 Leaf wants to test your palate a little bit. So they'll, maybe they'll give you one that they say,

00:02:30.740 maybe you just tried this. And then I forget which one, I think it might've been a Sancer or something

00:02:34.440 like that. I really liked it. And so then you go on, you rate the wine. And as you continue to rate it

00:02:39.320 more, the wine becomes more and more tailored to your tastes. Whether you're hanging out by the

00:02:43.580 water, whether you're grilling with friends, whether you're taking it easy with the family,

00:02:46.480 First Leaf is the perfect summer staple. Right now you can get six bottles of wine to try for $29.95

00:02:53.180 plus free shipping. It's an insane deal. Just go to tryfirstleaf.com slash Knowles. Six bottles

00:02:58.140 of wine for $29.95. An insane deal. And free shipping, even more insane, go to tryfirstleaf.com slash Knowles.

00:03:05.400 I actually saw Ron DeSantis last night. I was at an event here in the great state of Florida

00:03:09.680 and I saw Governor DeSantis and he's very impressive. You know, he's obviously running

00:03:13.600 for president. He's going to need to be vetted. There's going to be a primary campaign. He's

00:03:17.720 going to have to get through a governor's race first for reelection. But he's a very impressive

00:03:22.380 guy. And all I know is regardless of the governor himself, whoever becomes the Republican nominee

00:03:29.420 in 2024 needs to channel what Ron DeSantis is channeling right now. Period. That is the zeitgeist.

00:03:38.440 That is the spirit of what is going on right now. Dr. Fauci is the symbol and the actual politician

00:03:47.120 that is representing so much that has gone rotten in our country. And by the way, Dr. Fauci is

00:03:55.180 insistent after all the power grabs he's had, after all the demands he's made of you, wear the mask,

00:03:59.900 take the vex, lock yourself up, don't have Christmas, don't have Thanksgiving, don't shut

00:04:06.280 up sheep, all the demands he's made. He now wants your three-year-old child to wear those filthy cloth 0.98

00:04:13.600 masks. Now we're a year and a half past 15 days to slow the spread. He wants your little kid to wear

00:04:19.380 those masks. He said there is no doubt that that's the right thing to do. The children who are not

00:04:24.480 able to get vaccinated because of their age should follow, their parents should follow with them,

00:04:30.600 the guidelines of the CDC. That unvaccinated children of a certain age greater than two years

00:04:36.920 old should be wearing masks. No doubt about that. That's the way to protect them from getting infected

00:04:42.460 because if they do, they can then spread the infection to someone else. So the CDC guidelines

00:04:49.660 for unvaccinated people, including children, are not changed at all. You see the three-year-olds

00:04:57.440 who even Dr. Fauci, I think is tacitly admitting here, face an infinitesimally small risk of any

00:05:03.340 serious complication from COVID. The three-year-olds you see, if they don't wear the masks, which Dr.

00:05:09.380 Fauci told us at the very beginning of the pandemic are not effective at preventing the

00:05:13.420 spread of a virus, then he contradicted himself later on. And there have been studies that have

00:05:17.920 raised a lot of questions about this, which we've read on this show, even though big tech doesn't

00:05:21.320 want us to. What Dr. Fauci is saying is even if the three-year-olds don't face a great risk from

00:05:27.400 COVID, they can spread it if they don't wear the mask. Now you might be saying, Michael,

00:05:32.980 all the other people are vaccinated. So if you're in a demographic that is at very high risk of COVID,

00:05:39.380 presumably you are vaccinated at this point. The vaccines have been out for a very long time.

00:05:43.780 If you're not vaccinated, there's a very specific reason why. It's very intentional

00:05:46.720 why you would not be. So if the vaccines work, then the three-year-old doesn't need to wear the

00:05:52.380 mask. But the vaccines, I guess, don't work at preventing the spread. So therefore the three-year-olds

00:05:59.580 need to wear the mask. But no, the vaccines do work, which is why you have to get it, which is why

00:06:03.380 anyone 12 and up needs to get it. And hopefully children younger than that, according to the public health

00:06:07.340 administration, it's whim, it's caprice, it's changing every day. Much like political correctness,

00:06:15.780 actually, the public health regime, which is just sort of the most noticeable aspect of the broader

00:06:23.840 progressive technocratic regime, is less about the rules themselves, whatever the rules are changing

00:06:31.320 all the time. It's less about that. And it's more about the imposition of the rules, the very fact

00:06:36.600 that the Dr. Fauci's of our technocratic elite can just get you to do whatever they want you to do.

00:06:43.220 And they can say, don't go to church, but you can go to a casino and you can go to a liquor store,

00:06:47.600 but you can't go to Thanksgiving. And they can just, they can just make it up and you have to follow

00:06:52.420 it. That's a big divide. And I think people across the political aisle, across the partisan lines,

00:06:56.680 are sick of that sort of thing. And on the point of this vaccine, by the way, a lot of people don't

00:07:02.700 want to get it. A lot of people don't want to get it. And I think they have perfectly good reason not

00:07:07.020 to. And the White House, despite bragging about how everyone's getting it, and that's where I almost

00:07:11.720 at 70%, 80%, 90%, they clearly are not hitting those numbers because the White House and the ruling

00:07:20.200 class are enlisting pop culture figures to try to get young people to get vaccinated, including

00:07:25.500 Olivia Rodrigo, someone I had never heard of until yesterday, who showed up to the White House press 0.99

00:07:30.840 briefing to get your kids vaccinated. I have a special guest with me today. Joining us in the

00:07:38.320 briefing room is actress and multi-platinum recording singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, who

00:07:44.120 traversed red lights and stop tines to see us. If you know her music, you'll get that dad jokes there.

00:07:49.800 And we just want to thank you for using your platform and your voice for elevating the important

00:07:56.480 issue of young people getting vaccinated. She's here today to meet with the president and Dr. Fauci

00:08:01.800 later this afternoon, but she agreed to come say a quick hello to all of you first. With that,

00:08:07.140 I'll turn it over to you, Olivia.

00:08:09.060 Hi. First, I want to say I am beyond honored and humbled to be here today to help spread the message

00:08:15.460 about the importance of youth vaccination. I'm in awe of the work President Biden and Dr. Fauci have

00:08:21.700 done and was happy to help lend my support to this important initiative.

00:08:25.920 All right. Olivia Rodrigo says it's important for kids to get the vaccine. I guess, I guess it's true 1.00

00:08:31.100 because you see, we've got to follow the science. We've got to listen to the experts. And that means

00:08:37.180 that when a parent musician that I've never heard of tells you to do it, then you do it, right?

00:08:41.840 That's how she's the expert. They are the experts, the ruling elite, not just the scientists, but

00:08:49.080 the people in big business, the people in higher education, the people in media, the people,

00:08:54.940 they're all the experts, right? CNN, it's the expert. Pop singers, they're the experts too.

00:09:00.340 This sort of thing used to work a lot better. I get why Biden is doing this because Biden is 100 years

00:09:07.060 old and he was coming up in politics during a time when there was more of a common culture.

00:09:14.900 So if you could get the big movie star to come out and support your political cause,

00:09:19.240 that was a really big deal. If you could get the big pop singer to come out, that was a really big

00:09:23.800 deal. What has changed though is that the culture has fractured. Part of this was cultural because

00:09:30.280 of the cultural revolutionaries of the 60s broke up our common culture. So part of this is the

00:09:34.580 chickens coming home to roost for the left. Part of this is technological. There are no longer just

00:09:38.580 three TV networks. It's a zillion TV networks and none of which anybody watches. A lot of internet

00:09:43.980 channels, a lot of podcasts. So that's broken up to, because of that practical aspect, I suspect this

00:09:51.480 is not going to have a great effect. I mean, we talk about how difficult the political situation is

00:09:57.520 right now on this show. But a glimmer of hope here is that the left is dealing with this double-edged

00:10:05.740 sword. They upended the common culture during the 1960s and 70s and they broke the political

00:10:11.680 consensus and they made everything political. So now who washes the dishes is political. Your running

00:10:15.700 shoes are political. Your chicken sandwiches are political. And everything is kind of divisive and

00:10:21.100 everything makes a political statement okay. But the flip side of that is that now that they're

00:10:26.280 trying to settle that culture back down along their own standards, people are still pretty

00:10:30.500 divided up. There's still a lot of niche audiences out there. And I just don't think people are buying,

00:10:35.700 I don't think Olivia Rodrigo is going to convince people to take an experimental drug just because of 1.00

00:10:42.500 the strength of her records or whatever she sells. When you want to be safe, I would strongly recommend

00:10:49.360 you check out Ring. I love my little son, my cute little six-month-old bundle of joy. I love him.

00:10:54.500 I don't want anything bad to happen to him okay. And it's why I'm really glad that my wife and my son

00:11:01.620 can know who is outside of the door before they open that door with Ring. It doesn't matter if you're

00:11:07.080 in your house, if you're at the office, if you're in another state or another continent, you can see

00:11:13.240 and speak to whoever is at your door with Ring. And it's not just at the doorstep by the way. It's also

00:11:18.580 every other inch of your house which you can monitor with Ring. You can control it all from your phone.

00:11:24.020 You can install it yourself in minutes. Even I can, and I'm not exactly the handiest guy in the

00:11:28.160 world. Very, very cool technology. Makes a great housewarming present and allows you to know,

00:11:32.940 is the delivery man at the door? I'll open it. Is the pizza guy at the door? I'll open it. Is my

00:11:36.860 mother-in-law at the door? Don't breathe. Don't say it. No, I'm joking. I'm joking, am I? Start

00:11:42.500 protecting your home today with Ring Alarm. Go to ring.com slash Knowles to get your Ring Alarm

00:11:46.320 security kit today. You can build the system that's right for your home. Have it up and running in

00:11:49.980 minutes. Go to ring.com slash Knowles, ring.com slash Knowles. When the liberal establishment

00:11:57.360 is not trying to jab your kids with experimental drugs, the establishment is trying to mutilate

00:12:04.180 them. And when I say the establishment on this show, because I'm not just talking about the

00:12:09.560 government. Okay. And I, by the way, I don't want to sound like I'm a conspiracy theorist or something

00:12:13.120 like it's a shadowy cabal of people, you know, operating in the shadows. That's not what's going on.

00:12:18.100 They're operating out in the open and they're obviously colluding with one another. When there

00:12:22.060 is a negative news story that affects the democratic candidate for president, it's not

00:12:26.700 just the government that's going to shut that down. It's Twitter and Facebook and Google working

00:12:31.140 on behalf of the liberal establishment. And there are formal relationships and informal relationships

00:12:36.920 between the administrative state and these big tech companies. But it also involves the media and it

00:12:43.140 also involves big corporations who will change their corporate policies to better record with the

00:12:47.040 liberal. And the institutions of higher education and lower education, which are indoctrinating your

00:12:52.140 kids into the ideology of the regime. They're all sort of working together. And so one ideology that

00:12:59.580 they're pushing right now is transgenderism. And they're doing this not because a zillion people

00:13:05.500 in this country are men who believe that they're women or vice versa. It's not because the psychological

00:13:10.040 problem affects that many people, though there is a social contagion aspect. So it is spreading

00:13:14.220 actually. But they're doing it because if they can redefine nature, if they can redefine sex 0.54

00:13:21.660 itself, that is the culmination of their decades, actually centuries long political plan of liberation,

00:13:32.660 the political plan of emancipation, the political plan of redefining nature. I mean, this was what Marx

00:13:39.820 set out and his ideological heirs set out explicitly to do. And it's what so many revolutionaries in the

00:13:45.240 modern era have set out to do. They've set out, as Whitaker Chambers, the ex-communist says,

00:13:49.420 to pursue what the serpent told Eve in the Garden of Eden. They set out to pursue the plan of ye shall

00:13:55.780 be as gods. And so that's why the pronouns are such a big political fight. That's why transing the kids 0.92

00:14:00.760 is such a big political fight. So two Amazon employees just quit, at least two, maybe more,

00:14:07.000 because Amazon is continuing to sell my friend Abigail Schreier's book, Irreversible Damage,

00:14:13.200 about people who come to regret transing their kids and the kids who come to regret having their

00:14:17.980 bodies mutilated by irresponsible parents and by pervert public health officials. 0.63

00:14:22.940 Now, this is good. Abigail Schreier actually responded to Amazon and said, you're welcome,

00:14:29.000 Amazon HR department. I've just relieved you of some terrible employees, which is true. But

00:14:34.040 I make this point because we've been having some discussions over the past few days,

00:14:40.300 just with various friends of mine and colleagues, trying to work through this issue of transgenderism.

00:14:45.840 And some people have said, look, we don't want to throw bombs. We don't want to just be

00:14:49.360 needlessly provocative. And so we shouldn't needlessly call Bruce Jenner Bruce. Bruce,

00:14:55.540 that's his dead name. Now he's Caitlin. And my response to that would be, well, Caitlin is a

00:15:00.640 woman's name and he's not a woman. So he's not Caitlin. Well, and maybe we shouldn't call him he.

00:15:05.740 Maybe we shouldn't call him she, because he's obviously not a woman, but we should avoid 1.00

00:15:08.480 pronouns altogether. We shouldn't just be throwing bombs. Now, I think, first of all,

00:15:16.560 compassion involves telling people the truth. I don't think lying to people is particularly

00:15:21.420 compassionate or kind. I think the truth will set you free. And I think lies are actually very

00:15:25.580 disrespectful. I think that comforting people sometimes involves a little tough love. I'm

00:15:30.500 reminded of the bio tapestry. It's the depiction of the battle of Hastings. There's a guy with a big

00:15:35.500 club and he's beating people with it. And it says here, Bishop Odo holding a club comforts the boys.

00:15:41.400 We don't think about comforting in that way, but he was comforting them. He was saying, get back in the

00:15:44.700 fight, you guys. He's smacking him with a club. Sometimes you need a little tough love, even if

00:15:49.340 that means explaining reality in a way that might offend people who are living in a delusion. But

00:15:54.520 even beyond the redefinition of sex and the pronouns and everything, consider this.

00:16:01.300 No one is suggesting that we call Bruce Jenner a pervert. No one is suggesting that we call Bruce

00:16:06.480 Jenner a degenerate or a language that would really be quite offensive. We're suggesting that we call Bruce

00:16:12.520 Jenner, who is a man, by the male pronoun. And that is now considered provocative. That is now

00:16:20.340 considered bomb throwing. That is now considered red meat to the base. Red meat to the base has been 0.62

00:16:26.160 redefined, has been so hollowed out that it now involves calling a man a man. That's the red meat.

00:16:33.440 And no polite person would ever do that. And we should be compassionate.

00:16:35.960 That's, I think that is evidence in itself of this hugely successful process of redefining all of

00:16:43.580 reality. And speaking of transitioning, we can't just talk about sex. We've got to talk about race.

00:16:49.000 And Hilaria Baldwin, Hilaria Baldwin is Alec Baldwin's wife. I guess she's something of a social media star

00:16:55.560 herself. His wife got caught pretending to be Spanish. For years and years and years,

00:17:02.180 Hilaria Baldwin pretended to be Spanish. She's not really Hilaria. She's Hillary. She didn't, 1.00

00:17:08.740 she didn't grow up with, you know, exclusively speaking Spanish or anything like that. She grew

00:17:12.920 up in America and she speaks English. She got caught because people noticed that her accent would

00:17:18.340 change depending on what interview she was giving. So she was on an NBC show and she, she somehow

00:17:23.620 couldn't remember the English word for a cucumber. We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes.

00:17:30.460 We have, um, what do you say? Cucumber. Cucumbers. We have, um, red pepper.

00:17:37.340 Okay. We have, um, what is, uh, how you say, how you say in English, uh, oh, a cucumber. Right.

00:17:43.660 So, okay. Wow. This woman, she doesn't speak English very well, but she's trying. That's good. But then,

00:17:47.620 then you hear another interview of her and her English is, is perfectly fine.

00:17:51.220 It's not easy. And I think part of it is that I'm in shape before I have a baby and then I stay

00:17:56.160 active when I'm pregnant and I, you know, I'm not trying to stay thin. I'm just trying to keep

00:18:01.120 my circulation going and stretching and keep my muscles going up. And then when I have the baby,

00:18:05.340 I've been so lucky to have pretty good labor and delivery. So then I can kind of hit the road

00:18:09.840 right afterwards. So Hilaria Baldwin is like that person who studies abroad for a semester in college

00:18:16.280 in, in England, for instance, and then comes back and says like, well, I write it governor.

00:18:20.660 No, you're going to the pub later tonight for a pint. Yeah. I, I want some more. You want some

00:18:26.420 more, you know? And I actually, I know a person who did this and it was, it's very strange. I mean,

00:18:31.260 it is clearly something has gone a little, a little awry in their psychology. There, there was a gal 1.00

00:18:36.140 that I knew who she went to London for like a month or less and she came back and had the most

00:18:43.000 preposterous fake British accent I've, I've ever, ever heard. And actually a friend of mine who's from 1.00

00:18:48.100 the UK asked, he said, Oh, where, where did you live in the UK? He doesn't have an accent by the

00:18:52.580 way. And she said, Oh, you know, in London. Yeah. We're in London. Well, you know, like on the,

00:18:57.540 next to the tube or whatever, you know, next to the pub. So it's, it's, this is very sad and

00:19:02.380 embarrassing. And so Hilaria Baldwin, you know, took her licks and kind of, you know, just tried to 1.00

00:19:09.140 disappear for a little bit. So now she's back and she's saying that actually she is trans cultural

00:19:16.100 and this is perfectly good. She's culturally fluid. She says, when you are multi, whatever

00:19:21.460 multi, everyone's multi now, we all contain multitudes. It can feel hard to belong. You're

00:19:25.900 constantly going back and forth, trying to be more of this or more that you feel you have to explain

00:19:30.020 why you are the way you are trying to fit into a world of labels where there might not be one that

00:19:34.780 perfectly defines you. You will never quite fit in because of the other parts of you shape and

00:19:39.220 influence all your parts. We need to normalize the fact that we're all unique. Our culture,

00:19:45.000 our languages, sexual orientations, religions, political beliefs are allowed to be fluid.

00:19:51.380 No two of us are completely alike. Got to be fluid. We're all fluid these days. Nothing's fixed.

00:19:55.360 Nothing's set. You see this reflected in language, by the way, people no longer state plain facts.

00:20:01.160 They no longer say this is true. They'll say, I think this is true. Then it became, I believe this

00:20:05.520 is true. Then it became, I feel like this is true because I feel like is unfalsifiable. You can't

00:20:11.100 have an argument with someone who feels like because they're not making a truth claim. They're

00:20:15.580 just talking about their feels, man. I know this seems subtle. Some people might say I'm reading

00:20:21.420 too much into it, but I don't think I am. Michael, you're just talking about semantics. Well,

00:20:25.460 semantics means meaning. This is the premise of my book, Speechless. I think this is the most

00:20:29.620 important tool that has reshaped our culture. These things really do matter. No one wants to be pinned

00:20:34.420 down on anything. Everyone's a pan, bi, trans, fluid, whatever. You know, nobody is the plain

00:20:41.340 old thing that they say that they are. Which brings me to a tweet yesterday from The Economist.

00:20:46.800 I don't watch soccer. I don't like soccer very much, as I've mentioned on this show. So I didn't

00:20:50.880 follow the, I guess it was the World Cup or some big soccer game and Italy won. And The Economist

00:20:55.520 tweets out, quote, the most striking aspect of Italy's 26-man squad before it took to the pitch was

00:21:02.380 that alone among the main contenders, it did not include a single player considered as being of

00:21:08.380 color. Even that phrasing is strange. Considered as being of color. What they're saying is there's no

00:21:13.060 black people on the team. And that's very bad. That must be racist or something. But then I thought,

00:21:18.500 hold on a second. Italy, Italy is not, you know, a propositional nation founded on an idea with where

00:21:25.920 everyone just comes in from all of it. Italy is the country of the Italians. So The Economist

00:21:32.280 says, the most striking aspect of Italy's soccer team is that they were Italians. But you never,

00:21:38.840 you never see the reverse. The most striking aspect of Nigeria's soccer team is that it did

00:21:43.420 not include even one single Norwegian. What that would, that's not striking. That would be expected 1.00

00:21:48.700 because it's the Nigerian soccer team. So they don't, but it's striking, it's striking that the

00:21:54.180 Italian soccer team contains Italians. Because we're all supposed to be trans and fluid, man.

00:21:58.900 No one's supposed to have a nation at all. Even Italy, it's like one of the oldest nations.

00:22:04.780 You know, it's a nation that has been conquered and has been a little fluid on its borders over

00:22:11.320 time. But the idea that Italy would comprise Italians, this is too shocking to people who

00:22:17.540 don't, no one wants to be pinned down in this culture.

00:22:20.640 Is your home's title still in your name? With one forged document, scammers can steal your home title

00:22:25.500 and equity. But now you can protect yourself. Home Title Lock's million-dollar triple lock

00:22:29.640 protection provides 24-7 title monitoring, urgent alerts to changes, and if fraud happens,

00:22:34.820 they'll spend up to a million dollars to fix it and restore your title. Use promo code

00:22:38.760 dailywire at hometitlelock.com for a free title history report plus a free 14-day trial

00:22:43.620 of their million-dollar triple lock protection. Head over to hometitlelock.com now with promo

00:22:48.440 code dailywire to ensure your title is still in your name.

00:22:52.720 Things are not going very well in the West right now, as Candace will tell you today on her show.

00:22:57.800 Go check out Candace. You can subscribe right now to dailywire, dailywire.com. Use code

00:23:04.300 Candace. You'll get 25% off your new membership. Candace is going to be talking about Cuba and

00:23:10.060 communism and all sorts of terrible things. Also, you can pre-order Ben's new book. This is a great

00:23:15.760 book to pre-order after you order my book, Speechless. It's great. It's really, it's a great

00:23:20.000 one-two punch. You order Speechless, you pre-order Ben's book. I really like the title of Ben's book

00:23:25.300 because it will be my campaign slogan. The Authoritarian Moment. So go check that out and

00:23:29.880 prepare for Knowles 2028, The Authoritarian Moment. We'll be right back with a lot more.

00:23:33.400 Things are not going great for the West right now. This is true in our political system crumbling,

00:23:53.680 the lockdowns everywhere, faith in our institutions falling apart, divisiveness across all sorts of

00:23:59.740 lines, through the roof, but especially you can see it in the population. We are not having babies

00:24:09.160 and that's a weird thing. It's weird when populations decide to die. And so the United

00:24:15.640 States has been below replacement level birth rate for a very long time now and it keeps dropping

00:24:20.160 steadily, which is part of the reason, by the way, that the country floods itself with illegal aliens 0.99

00:24:26.060 and legal immigrants for that matter too, is just to kind of keep the country afloat while

00:24:30.560 the native population across races is not replacing itself. That's bad. And then the flip side of that

00:24:37.480 is people are killing themselves. They're killing themselves by committing suicide and they're

00:24:40.800 killing themselves with drugs, especially with drugs. In 2020, drug overdose deaths hit the highest

00:24:48.240 number ever recorded according to the CDC. Ever. There is a good, I know, I know people who,

00:24:55.020 friends of mine, died of drug overdose deaths last year. I suspect many of you out there could say

00:25:01.840 the same thing. I think a lot of people know people who have dealt with drug problems, especially

00:25:07.460 during 2020 when everyone was locked indoors. The number rose by 30% year over year. The drug deaths

00:25:15.140 skyrocketed to 93,000 deaths in 2020. That's an increase from 72,000 in just 2019 and it was already bad.

00:25:25.020 In 2019. You could say right now the biggest problem in America is the drug overdose death.

00:25:32.300 And I don't think it's coincidental that it happened in 2020. I don't think it's coincidental

00:25:36.820 that when you locked people inside for a year and you told them that they can't see their families and

00:25:41.200 they can't go to Christmas and they can't go to their, be with their loved ones while they're dying

00:25:45.340 and they can't have their weddings and they can't have their college graduation, they can't do

00:25:48.880 anything that you would see more deaths of despair. You are seeing here the culmination of two really

00:26:00.260 bad arguments that our ruling elite have been pushing for a long time. The first one is fairly

00:26:08.080 narrow and it was an argument made during the early days of the lockdown, which is, and Andrew Cuomo made

00:26:13.180 it actually, which is funny because he was the worst, worst governor in America on COVID, COVID as we

00:26:17.620 call him. Andrew Cuomo said, if we can save just one life, it'll all be worth it to shut down the

00:26:23.280 entire state of New York. It'll all be, if we save just one life. Okay. Maybe he saved one. I don't

00:26:27.580 think he did. I think actually his policies are directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of

00:26:33.180 senior citizens, which he knew about and covered up from the federal government. That's actually what I

00:26:37.040 think happened. But even if hypothetically, you could say, okay, well, one, one life was saved from

00:26:42.240 COVID because of the lockdown policies. Even if that were true, which it is not, how many lives were

00:26:48.460 ended because of those lockdown policies leading to deaths of despair, like suicide and especially like

00:26:54.920 drug overdoses? How many? It looks like 93,000 people killed themselves. That increase, that, that, uh,

00:27:00.620 20, 21,000 death increase. Hard to explain that apart from what was going on in the entire society

00:27:09.080 last year with the lockdowns. You can only, if you can only save one person and kill 21,000 people, it will

00:27:15.520 have been worth it. Really? I don't think so. I mean, I think that even that calculation is pretty crass,

00:27:20.740 isn't it? These, these calculations of just utilitarianism, it's really ugly stuff. So I think the, if we can save

00:27:28.020 one life argument just was preposterous because there's more to society, there's more to human

00:27:32.960 life than just staying alive from a virus. I mean, the, this is actually a problem that Trump had too.

00:27:38.740 At Trump's COVID press conferences, the only people he had behind him for the most part were public

00:27:44.400 health officials. But America is about more than public health. Our government, our society is about

00:27:50.600 more than public health. He should have had the public health, not Fauci. You should have, that guy

00:27:54.180 should have been exiled to an Island somewhere, but some public health guy, okay. And you should

00:27:59.460 have had an economic advisor and you should have had a military advisor and you should have had

00:28:04.500 all sorts of advisors behind him to say, okay, well, here's the effect on COVID infection rates.

00:28:11.980 And here's the effect on our national security. And here's the effect on our economy. And here's the

00:28:16.240 effect on people's livelihoods. And here's the effect on this, that, and the other thing. And then I

00:28:21.340 think we would have had a very different decision. The other argument here that is, that is really

00:28:27.120 too bad on the drug, drug overdose deaths is an argument that the left has made for a long time

00:28:31.740 that the right has bought into. And it's one that we've talked about on the show a lot, so we don't

00:28:34.820 need to go too much into it, but is the, it is the confusion of liberty and licentiousness. The idea

00:28:40.620 that freedom means that I should be able to do drugs whenever I want. You hear a lot of people on the

00:28:45.100 right calling for the legalization of drugs, all sorts of drugs. You're seeing this, this push go on now

00:28:49.480 in state after state after state. And it's just a bad idea. And it's based on a preposterous logic

00:28:55.020 that if you, if you legalize all the drugs, fewer people will do them. You can't legislate morality

00:29:03.120 anyway. And you know, you can't, you can't control people's behavior with, or shape people's behavior

00:29:09.400 with the laws and politics is downstream of culture, whatever. You necessarily legislate morality.

00:29:16.620 That's what all legislation does. If legislation doesn't shape behavior, then it doesn't do anything 0.69

00:29:21.440 at all. The entire, the exclusive function of legislation is to shape behavior, to encourage

00:29:27.120 certain behaviors and discourage other behaviors. And when you create incentives for some behaviors

00:29:32.920 and you punish other behaviors, do you know what happens? You get more of the former and less of

00:29:38.580 the latter. That's, that's just the way it works. You know, actually, uh, because the law,

00:29:44.440 it has all these in inverse relationships with behavior. We need to legalize murder because then

00:29:48.540 we'll have less murder. Will we? I don't think we will. I don't think we, call me crazy. I guess

00:29:52.040 I'm not an economic expert. I don't, I'm not, but I'm pretty sure that when you reward some behavior

00:29:57.020 and you punish other behavior, you get more of the former and less of the latter. And there is no

00:30:01.780 natural right to do drugs. It is not good. It is not, it does not lead to freedom. It leads to slavery

00:30:06.700 and the right needs to shake itself out of that very silly idea. Otherwise we're all, we're going

00:30:12.760 to become a nation of Cuomo's who spout a bunch of preposterous platitudes and end up governing

00:30:19.820 ourselves in the worst possible way. And actually on the Cuomo aspect on COVID here, not only does

00:30:27.120 Cuomo had the scan, he had the sex scandal, which I always felt was just a Democrat distraction so that

00:30:31.520 people wouldn't talk about his actual scandal, which is about lying about the number of COVID deaths.

00:30:35.640 Uh, so he was lying about the number of COVID deaths in the nursing homes, but then turns out

00:30:40.400 he, he also very likely was undercounting COVID deaths more broadly. So the irony of this is so,

00:30:48.020 so sweet, especially because I saw a governor DeSantis last night. Chris Cuomo last year tweeted out,

00:30:54.840 can we trust the data from Florida's governor? This is Fredo Cuomo, the one who's on CNN. He said,

00:31:00.800 can we trust the data? Yeah, the data show that DeSantis is doing a better job in Florida than

00:31:06.840 Cuomo's doing in New York, even though the media are saying DeSantis is doing the worst job on COVID

00:31:12.660 and Cuomo's doing the best job on COVID and he's going to win Emmy awards for it, which makes sense

00:31:16.800 because it was a fiction that was going on in New York. But he says, can we trust the data from

00:31:21.880 Florida's governor? And it turns out we can. We can trust the data from Florida's governor. He counted

00:31:27.240 the deaths and he just is doing a good job on his policies, but it turns out we can't trust the

00:31:32.120 data from Chris Cuomo's brother, Andrew. It turns out that Andrew Cuomo in New York was doing the exact

00:31:38.100 same thing that the left was accusing the Republican governors of doing. Once more, an example of the

00:31:45.380 projection of the left, they do this all the time. They accuse you of doing what they are brazenly doing

00:31:50.160 themselves. Cuomo's COVID death count includes only laboratory confirmed COVID-19 deaths at hospitals,

00:31:59.060 nursing homes, and adult care facilities. Now, other states have taken the approach that's more

00:32:04.900 in line with the CDC. And these states, some are Republican like Florida, some are Democrat like

00:32:10.440 California, some have unconstitutional election practices like Pennsylvania, some are left-wing like

00:32:15.980 New Jersey. All of these different states have followed the approach that's in line with what

00:32:20.380 the CDC says to do, which includes in fatality counts, all cases where COVID-19 is an associated

00:32:26.560 or contributing factor. This has been such a broad count that in some cases it's led to this ridiculous

00:32:31.320 over-counting of COVID deaths, where if you have COVID and you don't even know you have COVID,

00:32:35.380 then you get shot in the head, you get counted as a COVID death because you tested positive at your

00:32:39.520 autopsy or when you're brought to the hospital. So all of these states are doing that,

00:32:44.380 but Cuomo, because he did such a bad job in New York, is undercounting it. Speaking of bad governors,

00:32:51.320 Governor Nussolini, the leader of my former state of California, is being recalled. And the campaign

00:32:58.100 has been pretty rough because the only major nominal Republican who's running against Newsom is

00:33:07.020 Bruce Jenner as Caitlyn, who says that he has no loyalty to the Republican Party and the only thing

00:33:14.940 he really cares about is LGBT issues with an emphasis on transgenderism. So you think, well, hold on,

00:33:19.780 the Republican candidate is somehow worse than the sitting Democrat. He was a terrible governor,

00:33:26.800 but he's somehow worse because at least with Newsom, you know what you're getting. With Bruce Jenner,

00:33:33.720 he's saying he's a Republican, but then he's saying he's not a Republican. He's saying all he cares

00:33:37.000 about is transgenderism, which is very much the opposite of the sort of policy Republicans want

00:33:41.220 to pursue. Well, now there's some hope because a friend of mine has announced he's running for

00:33:45.500 governor, the sage from South Central, Larry Elder, who just last week announced his run.

00:33:52.120 We have rising crime, ridiculous laws that allow a person to steal up to $950 a day without being a

00:34:00.280 felon without fearing going to jail. We have an attack on the police, calling the police to pull

00:34:06.420 back. We have incredible homelessness here in California. It is estimated that maybe one quarter

00:34:11.740 of all the homeless population in America is here in California. And why not? We're not dealing with 0.75

00:34:17.740 the underlying problem. We're throwing money after money after money, building homes and attracting

00:34:22.660 other people who get free homes without dealing with the underlying problems. And maybe just maybe I

00:34:27.600 can do something about that. So I am hereby announcing that I am running for governor of

00:34:33.180 California in this recall election to be held on September 14. If you want to help, please go to my

00:34:38.420 website, electelder.com. That's electelder.com. I cannot do it without a great deal of money because

00:34:46.000 my opponent, Gavin Newsom, has no spending limits. I do. He doesn't. So this is really great news,

00:34:54.000 I think, for Republicans in California. Because there are other candidates in California who are

00:35:00.800 running who I think could be perfectly decent governors. I'm thinking of Kevin Falconer down

00:35:05.780 in San Diego. Seems like a fairly conservative guy. I think he's running for governor. But the

00:35:12.500 problem is he doesn't have very high name identification. He's not doing great in terms of

00:35:16.380 fundraising. So it doesn't matter. He could be the second coming of Coolidge or Churchill or Reagan or

00:35:22.260 Washington all combined. And nevertheless, it would be a very uphill battle, especially because

00:35:26.800 no other Democrats are running in the race. So Newsom doesn't really face any challenges in that

00:35:32.960 regard. But he doesn't have that name idea. And I think Larry Elder does. I mean, Larry's been on

00:35:38.000 the radio for a long time. He goes on TV quite a lot. I agree with him on a great many things. He's

00:35:45.340 probably a little more libertarian than my views. You know, he's not quite to the right of Attila the

00:35:49.840 Hun. But he's good. He's a good guy. He would be a good governor. And I am glad that now there is

00:35:55.360 an alternative to Bruce Jenner. I think the embrace of Bruce Jenner is just the death of the

00:36:02.800 Republican Party in California. It's just pathetic if we can't. The GOP, I get it, in California or New

00:36:08.980 York, also my home state, New York. I know that they've had to make compromises to be in any way

00:36:14.340 electorally viable, even in some local races. And I understand that's a political reality that

00:36:19.300 Republicans have to deal with there. If we as Republicans cannot even stand up for the

00:36:26.860 difference between men and women, if we cannot stand up and conserve the ladies' room for men 0.53

00:36:34.660 entering into it, we're not conserving anything. And as far as I can tell, the only thing we would get

00:36:42.280 out of a Bruce Jenner governorship is a misguided sense of owning the libs by adopting their most

00:36:49.940 sacred metaphysical premises, which doesn't seem like totally owning the libs to me. All you'll

00:36:55.480 hear, you're actually hearing this now from some prominent Republicans. They're saying, you know,

00:36:58.840 Democrats are the real transphobes. What? What does that even, I don't even, I don't even think that

00:37:02.820 word means anything. Why? And now we're adopting that kind of language. I'm really glad, great to see

00:37:07.080 that Larry Elder is running for governor. Wish him the best of luck in his campaign. I hope that he

00:37:12.300 can raise some money. I hope that he can really mount a challenge because he, he, if he just went

00:37:19.300 in there and just cleaned up the crime and fixed the budget even slightly, that would be such great

00:37:24.420 news for California. There are a lot of Republicans and there are a lot of conservatives and there are a

00:37:28.820 lot of disaffected liberals in California. This is how Gavin Newsom got recalled in the first place.

00:37:33.300 And so, uh, certainly wish Larry the best of luck because at the federal level right now,

00:37:38.340 the federal government is really, really clamping down on right-wingers. And I think that

00:37:43.780 the advances we're going to make in the near future are going to be at the state level.

00:37:48.980 The federal government right now is spending $6.1 million on just a database, just an, an evidence

00:38:00.320 database to prosecute the Capitol rioters. You know, the, the participants in the insurrection,

00:38:08.800 the coup d'etat, the greatest threat to our Republic since World War II, since Pearl Harbor,

00:38:19.100 since 9-11. I'm seriously, people on the left, prominent leftists have made that comparison

00:38:23.900 between September 11th, between planes flying into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and the guy in

00:38:30.840 the horn helmet dancing around the Capitol. They've, they've compared those two things.

00:38:35.300 I'm not saying the federal government is spending $6.1 million to prosecute them. They're going to

00:38:38.580 spend a lot more than that. I'm saying they're spending $6.1 million on just the evidence database.

00:38:44.260 Now you might say, Michael, I think what happened at the Capitol is ugly. It's bad. I don't like it.

00:38:48.700 I don't want that to happen in our country. It was ill advised. It was wrong as a matter of justice

00:38:53.960 and also wrong as a matter of tactics. Okay, sure. Yeah, right. I'm not making any comment on that.

00:39:00.500 I'm pointing out that horn guy danced around the Capitol and smiley guy took Nancy Pelosi's lectern.

00:39:07.440 And the only person who was killed in the violence of that day was a Trump supporter named Ashley

00:39:12.440 Babbitt killed by a police officer, despite all the lies told to us by the New York Times and the

00:39:18.980 Washington Post, which they later had to retract about Trump rioters attacking police officers.

00:39:26.040 I'm pointing out that for six to eight months, BLM and Antifa burned down the country and killed a lot

00:39:33.720 of people and destroyed a lot of property and stole a lot of property. And they're largely getting off

00:39:39.100 the hook. And there's no $6.1 million database. And there's no massive law enforcement campaign to hold

00:39:44.960 these people responsible. And in a lot of cases, they're getting plea deals to plead way, way down and

00:39:50.780 avoid jail time. And in some cases, the charges are just being dropped entirely or not even brought in the

00:39:55.760 first place. This is an unacceptable double standard. And it's really, as we pointed out before, it's

00:40:04.080 hierarchy. It's saying that when the Democrats riot, it's good. And when Republicans

00:40:08.920 riot, it's, it's the worst thing in the world, even when the Democrat riots are by every measure,

00:40:13.940 much, much worse. According to the ruling liberal elite, the conservatives are the big problem

00:40:22.740 that we, the country hasn't been this divided since the civil war and the GOP, they're the Confederates. 0.51

00:40:27.920 The assault on free and fair elections is just such a threat. Literally. I've said it before.

00:40:34.620 Remember, we're facing the most significant test of our democracy since the civil war. That's not

00:40:41.540 hyperbole. Since the civil war. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists

00:40:51.020 did on January the 6th. I'm not saying this to alarm you. I'm saying this because you should be alarmed.

00:40:59.080 So I'll make the point, I don't want to harp on it, but it is, it's an irony. So I have to point it out

00:41:06.280 that the Confederates were all Democrats and the union were all Republicans. The parties did not

00:41:13.440 switch as the left insists that they did. But of course, political parties change and they evolve.

00:41:18.400 And so, you know, there's, it's not a direct analog. I don't, you know, I don't want to just retreat to

00:41:22.620 that typical Republican talking point of, you know, Democrats haven't been this angry since we freed

00:41:27.680 their slaves or whatever. Yeah, I get, but political parties do change over time. And so I think that's

00:41:32.420 a little bit of a cheap shot though. It is ironic and one has to point it out, but notice, no, here,

00:41:38.700 here is a real comparison between the Democrats and the Confederates. The Confederates seceded. The

00:41:43.840 Confederates wanted the war. The Confederates, I mean, that, that is, that was the, the very essence 0.70

00:41:51.600 of secession is saying we are no longer a country. And they hoped that the North would just let them go.

00:41:56.180 And that, that doesn't happen in a country. You can't just secede from a country. The logic of a

00:42:00.020 country does not permit you to do that. Okay. Who's talking about the civil war right now? I know

00:42:05.720 some people on the right ask questions about this. Are we headed for a civil war? There's so much

00:42:09.780 political violence. Are we, but I'm talking about at the top level of politics, who's talking about

00:42:14.680 civil war? Is it Donald Trump? No. Is it Ron DeSantis? No. Is it Ted Cruz? No. Is it Josh Hawley? No. It's

00:42:24.960 the Democrats. It's Joe Biden. It's other people. Hillary Clinton saying you can't be civil with

00:42:31.720 your opponents. It's Maxine Waters saying go become violent with Republicans. It's,

00:42:35.380 it's Kamala Harris bailing out leftist rioters who were committing violence against their political

00:42:40.500 opponents, among other people. They're the ones talking about civil war. They're the ones calling

00:42:46.600 for violence against, against conservatives. And yet, because they control all the organs

00:42:54.220 of communication, they say that it's, it's us. They're gaslighting. It's projection. It's

00:42:58.840 exactly the opposite of reality. And the regime is backing them up. The regime, the broad, the 0.66

00:43:05.640 blob, the establishment, the ruling class is backing them up. Kevin McCarthy, who's the House

00:43:11.880 GOP leader. He tweeted the other day about how inflation is really spiking. And this, and he's

00:43:18.340 tying this to Joe Biden's policies, which is certainly fair. But it's just, just a tweet about

00:43:24.160 inflation. Twitter slapped a sensitive content label on them. Not a call to violence, arms,

00:43:32.300 insurrection. No, just pointing out that inflation is spiking because of Joe Biden's stupid economic

00:43:36.160 policies. Sensitive content. That is big tech, which controls the flow of information around

00:43:42.740 the internet, controls speech in a republic, meaning it controls politics doing the bidding

00:43:46.940 of the dominant liberal regime. Sensitive content. There's a video, I'm not even going to play the

00:43:55.200 video. There's a video going around right now from Cuba of, of the government shooting a man.

00:44:01.000 They're, they're now killing the protesters in the street, shooting a man in front of a toddler.

00:44:04.020 And this follows the threat from the dictator of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said,

00:44:09.020 we will do anything to preserve the quote unquote revolution, to preserve the ruling regime. We

00:44:13.240 will do anything. It's a very nearly explicit call for violence. And then he backed it up with

00:44:19.120 violence. Miguel Diaz-Canel is still on Twitter. The dictator of Cuba, who is killing his own people

00:44:25.580 now, still on, still on Twitter. Donald Trump was booted off of Twitter after telling his followers

00:44:32.580 to be peaceful. Remember, be peaceful. Don't be violent. Be peaceful. You're getting kicked off

00:44:38.340 Twitter, Mr. President, for, for inspiring violence. Miguel Diaz-Canel saying we will do

00:44:43.840 anything and go to all measures possible to preserve the regime. He's still on Twitter because

00:44:49.420 it's not about a principle and it's not about violence and it's not about preserving our democracy

00:44:53.860 or anything like that. It's preserving the dominant liberal regime. That's, that's what this is.

00:44:59.460 That's the divide here. And so we say, save us, Florida man. Florida man, you're our hope. Please

00:45:05.220 save us, Florida. And really help us out any Republican who will channel that, who understands

00:45:10.640 what DeSantis in particular is recognizing right now. But I think the majority of ordinary Americans

00:45:17.400 are recognizing too. That's the divide. And we've got to defend the people and we've got to defend the

00:45:21.400 constitution against a technocratic elite that wants to undermine both of those things. I'm

00:45:26.900 Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. I'll see you tomorrow.

00:45:28.400 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

00:45:38.840 word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on Apple

00:45:44.320 Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other

00:45:49.880 Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.

00:45:54.960 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies. Executive producer, Jeremy Borey. Our technical

00:46:00.620 director is Austin Stevens. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling. Production

00:46:06.260 manager, Pavel Vidovsky. Editor and associate producer, Danny D'Amico. Audio mixer, Mike Coromina.

00:46:13.420 Hair and makeup by Nika Geneva. And production coordinator, McKenna Waters. The Michael Knowles

00:46:18.700 Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2021.

00:46:22.380 Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, BLM proves once again it is a garbage communist organization.

00:46:27.660 We'll talk all about it. That's today on The Ben Shapiro Show. Give it a listen.

The Michael Knowles Show - July 15, 2021

Ep. 806 - Save Us, Florida Man!

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript