The Michael Knowles Show

00:00:00.000 The bad news for Joe Biden is that most Americans blame him for the collapse of Afghanistan.

00:00:05.860 The worst news for Joe Biden is that most Americans don't think he can even finish his

00:00:10.520 presidential term. Some people say this is the end of the road for Biden. Some say it's the end

00:00:16.300 of the road for America. And still other people, myself included, say it's the end of the world

00:00:21.520 as we know it. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:30.000 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday from MJ, who says,

00:00:36.240 breaking news. Biden demands whoever the president is to take full responsibility for this mess.

00:00:43.440 I could not possibly agree more with Joe's statement. We have got to track down whoever

00:00:48.060 is running the country. I don't know. I don't know who it is. Joe don't know who it is.

00:00:52.480 But whoever it is, is not doing a great job. If you want something done right,

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00:01:00.000 When you want a part for your car or truck, you can either do it yourself, rockauto.com.

00:01:04.940 Super easy, reliably low prices. You can always get, you know, you don't have to wait on Tuesday

00:01:09.900 afternoon is going to be the special deal or Wednesday, or it's a different price for pros

00:01:14.180 and do it yourself. So you can either do that or you can go to the auto parts store, brick and mortar.

00:01:20.140 You pull up, you get out of your car. If your car is still driving, you walk in,

00:01:24.220 you wait in line. You're waiting. Then you get up there. The guy says, hey, what year,

00:01:28.400 what make, what color, what model, what this, what that, what that. And so like 10 minutes goes

00:01:31.940 by. Okay, let me go see if I got the part. He goes in the back. They probably don't have any

00:01:35.860 parts in there, frankly. There's too many parts to stock. So I think he goes on rockauto.com. He

00:01:39.560 orders the part. He charges you twice as much. He comes out, says, yeah, okay, that'll be, you know,

00:01:43.560 whatever, however much money. It's overpriced. And you're going to have to wait a few weeks. And

00:01:47.540 okay, bye. Then you go, walk out, back out, get in your car, drive home. Why would you do that?

00:01:52.020 You've just wasted so much time and money. Go to rockauto.com right now. See all the parts available for

00:01:56.300 your car or truck. And they'll write Knowles in there. How did you hear about us box? So they

00:01:59.740 know that we sent you. Poll just came out from the Daily Wire. So this is an exclusive poll we

00:02:04.240 commissioned with Survey Monkey. We have discovered here at DW. And by the way, I know some people think,

00:02:12.380 oh, you know, it's a Fox News poll. That's right wing. Or it's a CBS poll. That's left wing. I mean,

00:02:17.560 these polls follow pretty rigorous methodology. And we are making sure that we, if anything, are being a

00:02:23.440 little generous to the Democrat side of the aisle so that we're not being accused of bias.

00:02:29.140 And our poll has just discovered that Americans believe the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan

00:02:34.360 is Biden's fault, not Trump's fault. A lot of people are trying to blame Trump now. They're

00:02:39.000 saying he made the deal with the Taliban. He set Biden up or whatever. You know, they're just trying

00:02:44.700 to avoid responsibility. Joe Biden has at least ostensibly been president for eight months now,

00:02:49.020 but the American people aren't buying it. 36% of Americans believe that Biden is responsible for

00:02:54.600 the current crisis in Afghanistan. That's compared to 21% of Americans who fault Donald Trump. And then

00:03:00.380 this is important to 29% of Americans say it's neither Trump nor Biden's fault. I put a somewhat

00:03:07.820 longer piece up yesterday at the Daily Wire with my take on Afghanistan, which is a little bit different

00:03:13.180 than the take of my colleagues here at the Daily Wire. And I think it's a little bit different than

00:03:17.340 you're hearing really anywhere else in the conservative movement. But it gets to that

00:03:22.480 question. Is it Trump's fault? No. Is it Biden's fault? A little bit, but there's a broader problem

00:03:29.500 in Afghanistan. Independence, by the way, and this is really bad news for Biden come 2022 and 2024,

00:03:36.120 if he's even still president. Independents are twice as likely to blame Biden than to blame Trump for

00:03:43.180 the debacle. So that's really bad news because assuming the voter integrity laws are somewhat

00:03:48.460 reinstituted at least, that means that Democrats are really going to have to win over the middle

00:03:53.120 and the independents. And right now, especially on this issue, they are breaking heavily for the

00:03:58.220 Republicans. Now, the question of 2024 raises the specter of who's going to be the Democrat nominee.

00:04:05.280 We don't know. Nobody believes that Joe Biden is fully lucid. Okay. I'm not taking cheap partisan

00:04:12.140 shots here. I'm not trying to be an armchair psychologist. For those of you out there,

00:04:17.700 I know there are some of you who support Joe Biden. Do you really believe that this guy is

00:04:21.580 totally with it? He's totally lucid all day long. I don't think so. I don't think anyone believes that,

00:04:27.780 especially after the way he handled the Afghanistan communications, not even the lead up to pulling out,

00:04:33.000 but the communications afterward. Afghanistan collapses and then Joe Biden disappears. He's at Camp

00:04:40.080 David. No one hears from him. No one talks to him. He finally gives an address to the nation

00:04:45.020 and it's at three o'clock in the afternoon. These sorts of addresses to the nation are usually in

00:04:53.540 prime time. They're usually from the Oval Office, but they're certainly in prime time.

00:04:57.720 You think of addresses from Obama, from Trump, from Bush. I mean, basically every major presidential

00:05:04.980 address on a topic such as this for my lifetime and further back has been during prime time,

00:05:10.140 seven, eight o'clock at night. And yet the Biden press conference, three o'clock in the afternoon,

00:05:17.920 what's that about? Is he maybe not all with it later on in the day? Is that why they had to wait a few

00:05:22.940 days? It's not just me who's raising these questions. Rasmussen asked a thousand likely voters,

00:05:29.640 how likely is it that Joe Biden will leave office and be replaced by Kamala Harris before 2024?

00:05:36.420 It's not even that a plurality said that it's very likely or somewhat likely. It's a majority.

00:05:44.120 51% of likely voters said that it is very or somewhat likely that Biden will leave office before 2024.

00:05:50.860 That's compared to just 37% who say that it is not very or not at all likely. Not a good place.

00:06:00.640 This is why you're going to see Democrats continue to double down on COVID. It's the only issue

00:06:04.400 that Biden has any positive numbers on. So he's going to lean into that. He's going to try to

00:06:09.220 ignore immigration. He's definitely going to try to ignore Afghanistan. And then they're going to try

00:06:13.080 to cheat, which is what they always do. And I know we're not allowed to raise the prospect of voter

00:06:16.740 fraud because our big tech overlords who are proxies and instruments by which Democrats cheat

00:06:22.720 at elections like they did the last time. They don't want us to say that there's ever any question

00:06:27.360 of fraud, but look at what's happening in California right now. Okay. So I probably received

00:06:33.240 a ballot in California, even though I moved out many months ago because they're sending ballots to

00:06:37.360 everybody. And I've heard from multiple friends in California that they're getting not just a ballot,

00:06:44.040 but multiple ballots, they're getting ballots that weren't supposed to be sent to them.

00:06:47.820 So it's a complete mess by design, one suspects. But then there was a video just came out from a

00:06:53.640 California voter on the recall, right? Now the recall election of Gavin Newsom has two questions.

00:06:58.680 Should the Democratic governor be recalled? Yes or no. If 50% plus one voter says yes, he should be

00:07:06.000 recalled. Then it goes to the second question, who should replace him? And you just answer both.

00:07:10.740 So take a listen to this woman's description of what her ballot looks like.

00:07:16.200 Make sure that you put yes. That means that yes, you want Gavin Newsom to lose his job.

00:07:24.500 The next thing you're going to check is who you're going to vote for to replace him.

00:07:30.720 I am going to vote for Larry Elder and his box is on the back of the page.

00:07:36.320 Um, I think that it is important that we unite around one candidate. But like I said,

00:07:42.880 the most important thing is that we get him out. Um, this is the sketchy part. This is the crazy part.

00:07:51.160 So when you fold up your ballot, more than likely, it seems natural, you're just gonna slip this in.

00:07:59.500 Um, but you have to pay attention to these two holes that are in the front of the envelope.

00:08:08.940 You can see

00:08:10.700 if someone from the outside of the mail-in ballot, you can see if somebody has voted yes to recall Newsom.

00:08:19.600 This is so freaking clever. It's so wrong, but it's so clever. So on the mail-in ballots,

00:08:29.500 there were two holes, just like you took a little hole puncher. And I guess this is for

00:08:34.320 sorting purposes or I don't know. I've seen them on the envelopes before.

00:08:38.140 They're two little holes right on either side of where you sign your name to say, this is my ballot.

00:08:42.400 The only question that matters on this ballot is just one question. It says, should we recall

00:08:49.220 Gavin Newsom? And it's placed kind of bizarrely on the ballot. It's placed in kind of the middle

00:08:54.400 column, a little up toward the first top half of the page. And then you saw all the way on the right

00:09:00.680 and all the way up and down, you see who should we replace him with? But the question, should we,

00:09:04.120 or should we not recall Gavin Newsom? So if you can either darken the circle, yes, or darken the circle,

00:09:11.200 no. And just coincidentally, the circle for yes lines up perfectly with the hole on the envelope.

00:09:22.920 Meaning you can see with great, a great degree of certainty from the outside of the envelope,

00:09:31.600 whether or not this ballot is to recall Gavin Newsom. And you know, if that circle happens to

00:09:40.180 be a little dark, I wonder, you know, what happens to that ballot? Does that ballot,

00:09:45.380 does something happen? Does it disappear? Does it, is it, is there an error with it? Is it,

00:09:50.540 or is maybe the signature not quite right? I don't know. Of all the, this is a very long ballot,

00:09:57.640 of all the places that the only question that matters could possibly be on that sheet of paper,

00:10:03.140 front or back. It just so happens to line up perfectly with the hole in the envelope.

00:10:11.900 What are the odds? What are the odds? Such, it's so typical. It's, it's clever, but it's typical.

00:10:21.860 You see things like this a lot before, and this is why we neither trust nor like our government.

00:10:26.480 This is why we want to recall the people who are running our government like Gavin Newsom,

00:10:31.620 which brings me to some of the news from yesterday. You may have heard there was a

00:10:37.320 threat at Capitol Hill. There was a bomb threat on Capitol Hill. And there was a video, a live stream

00:10:43.720 from the person who made the threat. Take a listen. They sitting in cars all over this

00:10:48.960 place around here because you thought the South wasn't coming. Well, Joe Biden, the South's come.

00:10:55.140 The roads are blocked. And I'm waiting on your phone call. It's your call. You got an option.

00:11:08.040 You can shoot me and kill me right here and blow up two and a half city blocks and let all the

00:11:14.920 patrons out in the country know because I ain't here to blow nobody up. I ain't here to hurt

00:11:21.740 nobody. If I was, I wouldn't have told them to tell people to leave. I would have gunned

00:11:28.140 this mother and wrote it right up in your front door. But I'm here for a reason, Joe Biden.

00:11:37.780 I'm here for a reason.

00:11:42.020 I'm here for the American people.

00:11:43.560 Thankfully, this guy was taken into custody. He was disarmed. Nobody got hurt. It wasn't,

00:11:50.240 there was no horrible consequence of this. Most interesting though, is not what he did or what

00:11:54.880 the cops did. It's that a lot of people don't believe that any of this is real.

00:12:00.320 So the big trending news all of yesterday is the Capitol bomb threat, even as Afghanistan is in the

00:12:08.440 news, major, probably the worst debacle so far of the Biden administration. I guess compared to the

00:12:15.000 immigration problem, it's their neck and neck. One is the major domestic debacle. One is a major

00:12:19.820 foreign debacle, but really bad week for Joe Biden. And then this is in the news that this

00:12:25.680 may be right winger. I mean, he doesn't like Joe Biden. He's from the South. There's a chance that

00:12:29.740 he's a right winger, that he's there trying to blow up the Capitol. So the cops disarm him.

00:12:36.460 They take him into custody. We haven't heard very much since. To me, what's much more interesting

00:12:41.820 is if you look in the comment section on people on the video, on articles about the video,

00:12:49.200 it's a lot of people saying, yeah, this looks staged. This looks fake. This isn't real. This

00:12:56.340 isn't op. This is just, they're trying to pull another one over on us. Now I'm not, I'm not saying

00:13:04.440 that's the case. I think he's just a guy who was a kook and now he's been taken into custody.

00:13:11.840 But I understand why people don't think this is real. They don't think it's real for the

00:13:19.340 political reason that our leaders lie to us and they cheat and they rig things and they try to

00:13:24.840 pull a fast one. And our administrative state, the bureaucracy, the deep state, the surveillance state

00:13:30.260 has gotten completely out of control. And we know that not only do they perform clandestine

00:13:35.320 activities on Americans, but they lie about it too. I mean, we know this from the fact that the,

00:13:39.660 the surveillance state spied on Donald Trump at the behest of Barack Obama during the 2016 election.

00:13:44.480 We know that they continually tried to subvert his presidency. We know that they spy on Americans.

00:13:49.940 We know they were spying on Tucker Carlson for goodness sakes. So we know these sorts of things happen.

00:13:54.340 Uh, so that would be one reason. That'd be the political reason. We just don't trust these guys.

00:14:00.780 But there's the technological reason too. It all seems like a movie. I mean, it literally is a movie.

00:14:08.780 The only reason anyone knows about this is because this guy is live streaming it from his truck and

00:14:12.840 we're all inside his truck with him. And we know that technology can be very deceiving with the advent of

00:14:18.700 deep fakes with the advent of just streaming technology generally. These, these sorts of

00:14:25.560 things can be produced and cultivated and curated for our consumption, for a particular end of

00:14:34.800 communications. We don't, this is much deeper than just, we don't like our government and we don't

00:14:40.220 trust them. I mean, that's a big problem too, but it's a, it's a technological revolution that's

00:14:45.160 taken place that is, that is challenging our belief in reality itself. We just don't, I, I can no longer

00:14:54.320 believe my lying eyes in a world with the ability to manipulate media and push it out to millions and

00:15:02.320 millions and millions of people as we have. We can no longer just believe the things that we see even

00:15:08.240 with our, it used to be don't believe everything you see in, in newspapers. Now it's don't believe

00:15:12.200 everything you see on video or here, or perhaps even with your own eyes, which brings us to another

00:15:18.120 aspect of this from the so-called private sector, which is from Apple. You, you may or may not have

00:15:24.000 heard about this story, but very shortly, Apple is going to start scanning the images on your phone

00:15:32.120 and on your iPad and on other Apple products to see if you have any illegal content. They're just,

00:15:38.600 just the, the images that you keep on your phone, just whatever, you know, your kid or your baby,

00:15:43.600 or maybe some things that are less savory than that. I guess that's actually what Apple's going

00:15:47.320 after. They're just going to scan it and they're going to upload it to servers and they're going to

00:15:55.200 scan it through machine learning. And then if you have images that are deemed illegal, then

00:16:01.440 individuals are going to review them. And then if the individuals confirm that they're illegal,

00:16:05.980 they're going to send them to the authorities and you might get a knock on your door from the men in

00:16:09.460 black without even knowing that anyone was looking into you. Now what's the, what's the good part of

00:16:17.480 this? The good part of this is it's aimed to go after child pornography, right? That's, that's at

00:16:22.700 least the, the reason that Apple is giving. And we all agree if you're, if some guy is downloading

00:16:28.700 lots of child pornography or selling it or trading it or whatever, then he, he's a sick puppy and he

00:16:34.380 ought to go to prison or ought to face consequences for that. But it is stopping those guys worth this

00:16:43.660 because something tells me that when we give big tech, and by the way, Apple is the best of all of

00:16:50.720 the big tech companies in terms of privacy. Famously, Apple is infinitely better than Google,

00:16:56.600 certainly than Google, Google, Facebook, all the rest of them. Apple has refused to crack open the

00:17:02.420 phones of, of terrorists to federal authorities. That's how seriously they take privacy. So now

00:17:07.380 they're going to go in and scan your images. Okay. If it were just, if, if, if there were some way to

00:17:16.140 guarantee it were just restricted to child pornography, I bet maybe not everyone would go

00:17:20.320 along with it. Maybe some people like a ton of privacy rights groups are, would even say even that

00:17:24.380 is too far. Even that is, is a law enforcement measure that is, that is too invasive and we can't go

00:17:29.460 along with it. But I think a lot of Americans would say, okay, that's fine. You know, if, if you're

00:17:33.200 just going after pedophiles and child abusers, okay, that's fine. But there's no limiting principle.

00:17:40.040 We know this. We, we know that big tech companies do not stop at illegal content.

00:17:47.420 They banned the sitting president of the United States. While, while he was sitting on January 7th,

00:17:54.180 the duly elected sitting president was deplatformed for saying things that contradict to the political

00:17:58.820 narrative. You and I were not allowed to send damning information about the Biden family in the

00:18:05.500 run-up to the 2020 election. We weren't even allowed to privately message it on social media

00:18:10.320 platforms. They shut that down. When we post on Instagram or Twitter or whatever, some infographic

00:18:17.800 about how maybe the official narrative about the coronavirus in terms of lethality, in terms of

00:18:23.340 mitigation measures, maybe it's not totally right. Maybe, maybe actually the experts have gotten

00:18:28.020 something wrong. You'll see a big disclaimer covering up the image. So do we really think

00:18:34.740 that giving Apple the ability to scan our phones for the putatively, ostensibly good reason of

00:18:41.460 stopping child abuse, do we, do we think it's going to end there? I don't believe that for a second.

00:18:45.800 I don't believe that for a second. I have no problem taking away the privacy of child abusers and

00:18:50.600 throwing them in prison. But I think that's an excuse. I don't think that's actually what this

00:18:54.940 is going to be used for. Speaking of creepy sex stuff, by the way, there is some good news on the

00:18:58.580 creepy sex stuff front. OnlyFans, OnlyFans, which is a, I guess it's a social media network for porn.

00:19:07.220 I mean, you know, I covered this when it first got into, sort of cropped up in the popular culture

00:19:13.320 because it was, to me, it was so shocking. Not that girls are posting, you know, naked images.

00:19:19.660 It's the world's oldest profession, first of all. And second of all, that's what the internet is,

00:19:24.900 right? It's like 150% pornography and then like 2% business. But what was so creepy about it was

00:19:33.960 it's not, the reason OnlyFans succeeded is not because men wanted to see naked women on the internet.

00:19:39.780 You can already do that for free, right? You can already find any naked lady you want or

00:19:43.500 any type of naked lady or whatever. You just type it into Google. What was creepy about OnlyFans is,

00:19:50.160 what was so perverse about it was that the men did not just want to see a naked lady.

00:19:56.240 They wanted a relationship, I think. That's my read on OnlyFans. They wanted to subscribe. They

00:20:01.180 wanted to pay money to feel as though they have a relationship with someone. They'll get special,

00:20:05.540 you know, perks and it's exclusive and not everyone gets to see the lady. And that to me is very sad

00:20:12.220 because it's a channeling. It's a recognition that guys who are looking at a ton of porn want

00:20:17.780 something more than that. They want something more substantial and relational. But instead of just

00:20:23.020 going out and getting a girlfriend or a wife or something that's a little healthier, they'll just

00:20:27.820 channel that into a different kind of porn. So a lot of people have been going after this also

00:20:32.520 because it suckers in girls who want to make a quick buck and it has them make decisions that

00:20:36.580 will affect the rest of their lives and that they certainly will come to regret. So OnlyFans

00:20:41.220 is banning sexual content. You never hear of something getting better in the culture,

00:20:48.500 but OnlyFans, and they're doing this because they recognize that their regulation is coming,

00:20:56.880 that people are turning against this sort of thing. The licentious, you know, do whatever you want,

00:21:00.740 like whatever you want, you know, just don't scare the horses in the street. That attitude is going

00:21:05.700 away. And the attitude of the internet is the complete wild west. That's going away too.

00:21:12.240 And so OnlyFans is trying to secure a more stable platform. I mean, this is what they said in order

00:21:17.780 to ensure the long-term sustainability of our platform and to continue to host an inclusive

00:21:21.300 community of creators and fans. We must evolve our content guidelines. There's so rarely good news

00:21:28.060 and the culture on this front, but good stuff. Good stuff for the culture, good stuff for the guys

00:21:32.900 who subscribe, good stuff for the girls who are making a buck on it right now and will come to

00:21:36.460 regret it. Speaking of gainful employment, there was a story out of Capitol Hill. This was probably a

00:21:43.440 couple of weeks ago now, and we didn't have time to get to it on the show, but I don't want to let

00:21:47.020 this go because it shows you what's wrong with the Republican Party. So, you know,

00:21:53.860 Senate Republicans helped green light this infrastructure bill. It mostly was not

00:22:00.180 actually an infrastructure bill. It was mostly just a bunch of random Democrat spending, but

00:22:05.280 there was a tiny little bit of infrastructure in it. And so they called it the infrastructure bill.

00:22:09.480 It wasn't just Democrats here because Democrats could have held it up. 19 Republicans went along with it.

00:22:15.420 So, I'm going to say their names. Dan Sullivan, Shelley Morcapito, Mike Crapo. Is that his name?

00:22:24.340 Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Deb Fisher, Lindsey Graham, Rob Portman, Tom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski,

00:22:30.440 John Risch, Chuck Grassley, Bill Cassidy, Kevin Kramer, Roger Wicker, Mitch McConnell, Joe Hoven,

00:22:36.480 Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney. So, even if you don't recognize every name on that list, I don't

00:22:40.820 recognize every name on the list, but these are the squishes, right? These are generally the squishier,

00:22:45.420 Republicans. And they've gone along with this infrastructure bill. Okay, well, they want to

00:22:50.500 pass something. That's fine. A provision of this bill will provide giant carve-outs for industries

00:22:57.540 to bypass the Buy American rules that were particularly pushed by the Trump administration.

00:23:04.820 This idea that, okay, if the government wants to spend a jillion dollars, they've got to spend it here.

00:23:10.920 They've got to employ American workers. They've got to employ American factories and producers. Yes,

00:23:15.980 it's going to cost a little bit more money. First of all, they're spending trillions of dollars

00:23:18.840 already, so give me a break. But now you're worried about cutting costs when you have to

00:23:23.220 employ Americans. Now you're worried. Now you want to pinch pennies. But this is a sort of America

00:23:29.480 first provision that we'd finally brought back in. And this is typical of countries that are serious

00:23:36.120 about growing their stature, their manufacturing, their position in the world, taking care of their

00:23:44.260 workers. This is something you see as far back as Louis XIV and Versailles, this idea that you've got

00:23:52.060 to buy French, wear French, support the French people, that there is a loyalty beyond the almighty

00:24:00.120 dollar, that there is a loyalty beyond getting the best deal. And that is to America, that there's

00:24:05.980 something about buying America. I remember this when I was a kid, people would buy American cars

00:24:09.820 because they said, we want to put food on Americans' tables. We want to support our country.

00:24:14.500 Ronald Reagan talked about this stuff. Now you just don't see it anymore. It used to be,

00:24:18.340 if you were on a political campaign, Democrat or Republican, and you wanted to buy bumper stickers or

00:24:23.940 lawn signs, you had to buy made in America, union made, both parties. They did this because they

00:24:31.000 were appealing to the American worker and a sense of patriotism and loyalty to the country. Now I'm

00:24:35.460 not sure that either party does that, or at least not consistently. But we don't care anymore. No one

00:24:43.260 seems to have all that much loyalty to America, the nation, or Americans more broadly. Speaking of

00:24:50.180 American interests overseas, the AP has revealed yesterday up to 15,000 Americans remain in

00:24:56.560 Afghanistan after the country's collapse. No plan whatsoever to take them out. Other countries are

00:25:00.880 using special forces to get their people out. Joe Biden says, yeah, we can't do it. We don't know.

00:25:04.720 We're trying. I don't know. Well, hopefully the Taliban will let the Americans out. Absolutely

00:25:08.620 pathetic. Speaking of contempt for Americans, there's an article in the Washington Post we can't miss.

00:25:13.600 This sums it all up. Quote, an Alabama doctor watched patients reject the coronavirus vaccine.

00:25:20.180 Now he's refusing to treat them. That's it. Jason Valentine, he's a doctor in Alabama. He says,

00:25:26.640 look, these pay, I'm telling them they can get the vaccine, but you know, if they don't want to get

00:25:32.160 the vaccine, then I'm not going to treat them. I'm not going to provide them medicine. They're not

00:25:35.780 doing everything I told them to do to prevent the infection. So no, I'm not going to treat them

00:25:39.160 anymore. Sorry. He says, if they asked, I told them COVID is a miserable way to die and I can't

00:25:45.040 watch them die like that. Sorry. Wow. Yeah. That'll show them, right? A lot of left-wingers

00:25:49.900 cheering this on. I even hate to say, what if it were on the other foot? What if, hypothetically,

00:25:55.940 because that conservatism is going to die with the what ifs and the imagine if this were on the

00:25:59.300 other foot, but, but still imagine if it were AIDS, just imagine if it were AIDS. Yeah. A doctor says

00:26:07.280 you should not engage in homosexual behavior because that dramatically, dramatically increases

00:26:12.740 your chances of contracting AIDS. So, you know, if you do, if you're a gay guy, then I'm just not

00:26:18.240 going to treat you. If you have AIDS, I'm not going to treat you. I told you not to do it.

00:26:22.240 And so look, AIDS is a miserable way to die. And so I'm just not going to treat you. Sorry. Just don't

00:26:25.920 do it. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Forget even AIDS for a second. A doctor's not going to

00:26:32.980 treat fat guys. No fat. Look, if actually, if you're fat, that dramatically increases your risk

00:26:38.080 of dying from coronavirus and a myriad of other health conditions. Sorry, buddy. No, you've been

00:26:46.980 eating too many burgers. You're no longer my patient. No, of course not. The reason that they

00:26:51.980 can do it with the, the non-vax issue is because it tends to be conservatives who are a little more

00:26:57.960 skeptical. Conservatives and, and black Americans who are generally not conservative, but we, the

00:27:03.320 Democrats sort of forget that they're resistant to the vaccine, but conservatives say, ah, you know,

00:27:07.400 I'm not that worried about the virus. And, uh, you know, I don't really trust Dr. Fauci or anybody.

00:27:11.300 So yeah, I'm, maybe I'm not going to get the vaccine. And because we're now permitted to

00:27:15.280 other, we're now permitted to scapegoat. We're now permitted to publicly deride and ostracize

00:27:20.360 conservatives. They can now even be denied medical care and the Washington Post will cheer them on.

00:27:26.340 Contempt for Americans. Right now in the largest County in Virginia, that County, this is Virginia,

00:27:33.100 you know, the, one of the true home places of America, George Washington state for America's 250th

00:27:39.880 birthday, which it is this year. Uh, this County will not celebrate America's birthday. They will

00:27:46.280 commemorate it. The reason is, uh, Fairfax County's semi-quincent, semi-quincentennial working group,

00:27:55.400 how's that word? Say that five times fast. Said that, uh, events in, I'm sorry, in 2026, not this

00:28:01.720 year, in 2026 should be a commemoration of, of America's birthday. And not just 1776, but also

00:28:09.500 1607, Jamestown and 1619, the true, the new true founding of the country. Now why? The government

00:28:16.700 commissioned a survey that said that 65% of respondents thought it should be called a

00:28:21.860 celebration. So the, the vast majority think it should be called a celebration, but the researcher

00:28:26.840 ignored the results of this survey because it, the, the people who wanted it to be a celebration

00:28:33.100 skewed traditional rather than neoteric. Those are fancy words to say. It was the conservatives

00:28:39.740 who wanted the celebration and the libs wanted it to be called a commemoration. And so because of a

00:28:44.880 minority, a distinct minority of liberals don't want to celebrate America, we're not going to

00:28:51.240 celebrate America anymore. That's the way the country works. That's the way. It's not just the

00:28:55.340 end for Joe Biden. If we can't get it together, if we can't, if we don't have any faith in our

00:28:58.860 institutions, if we don't like our country, if we think that our country is basically a tragedy,

00:29:02.420 and even if the majority of Americans don't agree with that, if the people in power think that our

00:29:06.980 country is a tragedy, barely, if it must be to be commemorated, certainly never celebrated,

00:29:13.200 then it's not just the end of the line for the Biden administration. It's the end of the line,

00:29:17.780 period, for the civilization. You know, if you want to stay well-read and informed,

00:29:23.660 the Daily Wire Reader's Pass is for you. For just four bucks a month, the Daily Wire Reader's Pass

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00:29:51.920 Also, if you're a fan of the Matt Walsh show, then you probably heard of his sweet baby gang.

00:29:56.380 I just heard of this the other day. What a title. What a beautiful title.

00:30:01.340 The Sweet Baby Gang is in need of a sweet baby anthem. The Daily Wire is opening up for submissions.

00:30:06.380 All submissions should be in the form of YouTube video links. It will be judged American Idol style

00:30:09.860 by Matt and all of us Daily Wire hosts. But you, the viewer, will be voting on which song wins.

00:30:13.500 So go to dailywire.com slash SBG. Submissions end on August 25th. Voting will take place on Labor Day.

00:30:20.160 So tune into the Matt Walsh YouTube channel to watch the judging of submissions.

00:30:22.940 The winner will be announced September 8th on the Matt Walsh show. Go to dailywire.com slash SBG.

00:30:27.240 Anything else to plug, guys? We good? All right. We'll be right back with the mailbag.

00:30:42.840 First question from Camille. Michael, do you believe in ghosts? In my Catholic high school,

00:30:48.140 I had one teacher tell us that ghosts are, in fact, real. But if they are trying to interact

00:30:52.540 with us, they're most likely bad because good souls would not be in limbo in our physical world.

00:30:58.220 What are your thoughts on this? Sincerely, who are you going to call?

00:31:02.420 Yes, ghosts are real. They are. They're real. It's undeniable that ghosts are real.

00:31:07.360 There is more twixt heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy, Horatio.

00:31:12.600 So ghosts appear in the Bible. Sometimes you will hear Christians say,

00:31:16.720 ghosts, if you think you see a ghost, you can say with 100% certainty it's a demon. It's not really

00:31:21.160 a ghost. Ghosts are in the Bible. Ghosts are in the first book of Samuel. Ghosts are in, I believe,

00:31:27.440 second Maccabees. Ghosts are in the New Testament. You see Moses and Elijah in the transfiguration,

00:31:36.620 but they have not yet been resurrected. So what is a ghost? A ghost comes from the word

00:31:41.900 geist. It means spirit. So yeah, are spirits real? Yeah, spirits are real. And do we have evidence

00:31:47.280 of them appearing to humans? Yeah, we do actually. I know that the scientific materialists are going

00:31:54.920 to laugh at me. The secularists are going to laugh at me when I say that. But yeah, we have a lot of

00:31:58.720 evidence. One, we see it in the Bible. So if you're a Christian or a Jew, then certainly you would

00:32:03.360 have to admit that ghosts are real. But even if you're a hardened, stone-cold agnostic or atheist,

00:32:12.280 we have reports of people seeing ghosts, seeing spirits of strange phenomena

00:32:20.420 everywhere for all of history, in every single culture, in every single place on earth,

00:32:27.980 up to and including the present day. We have these unexplained phenomena. We have

00:32:32.740 anecdotal tales of people seeing spirits, things that cannot be explained. So it just seems to me

00:32:37.980 as a cultural matter. I know that you probably can't see the ghost under a microscope, but it

00:32:43.360 just seems to me, first of all, there is more between heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our

00:32:46.300 philosophy. If you have even the slightest modicum of humility, you have to admit that.

00:32:53.500 And it seems as a cultural matter, we can infer that, yes, there is something going on here.

00:32:59.400 We know that we have spirits. Again, unless you're the most hardened materialist of all,

00:33:05.320 you have to admit that we have something like a spirit. I mean, transgenderism, the whole

00:33:08.860 transgender ideology is based on the idea not only that we have spirits, but that our spirits are

00:33:13.380 entirely our true selves and our body is not our true self, right? So even people who are maybe

00:33:18.560 atheistic or think that they're atheistic or agnostic in modernity, even they believe that there is such a

00:33:26.380 thing as a spirit. And yeah, and that the spirit and the body are distinct and that spirits are

00:33:34.460 around sometimes. You should not seek out mediums or things like that to communicate with ghosts.

00:33:40.000 That's a bad idea. You should not engage in necromancy. The Bible also says don't do that.

00:33:44.680 That's not good stuff. And also demons are real too. I know. I mean, we'll wait for another question

00:33:50.300 to go into how obviously angels and demons are real, but yeah, I mean, sometimes demons can mess

00:33:56.360 with people. So don't, you know, like don't seek them out, but are ghosts real? A hundred percent.

00:34:00.480 From Noah, dear Michael, this question is about relationships again. Here we go.

00:34:04.440 I'm pursuing a relationship and things seem promising with the one woman I mentioned earlier.

00:34:08.460 However, I can't help but feel guilty that I'm a porn addict while in pursuit of her.

00:34:12.620 Now, I'm just going to pause it here. It's good of you to write in this question because it's an

00:34:20.340 embarrassing topic to talk about. How many questions do I get? I get, this is like half my

00:34:25.480 mailbag is guys writing in that they're dealing with porn. And then I, we'll discuss on the show

00:34:30.260 how maybe we should regulate pornography. And then we're told by the libertarian types that this would

00:34:35.700 be, you know, the greatest, greatest tragedy in American history. Just listen to the number of young

00:34:42.060 men, even who just write into this one show, clearly a problem. Ties in also with the OnlyFans

00:34:47.520 talk today. Okay. Question goes on. This guilt is basically like when one receives the Eucharist

00:34:52.880 in an unworthy state. There are times where I feel that I need to take the time to make myself worthy

00:34:59.040 of her hand, but I fear that I might lose this chance during that time. What should I do?

00:35:03.220 Yeah. If you wait until you're perfect, buddy, you're never going to get married. And definitely this

00:35:07.000 chickie is going to move on and I guess it's going to take you a while. Okay. But I don't mean to

00:35:11.200 make light of your problem. This is a serious problem and you really, you really ought to stop

00:35:16.160 it and you need to stop it. The thing that you need to remember is that virtue and vice are habits

00:35:24.740 contrary to what we are told in modern theories of the mind that, that liken the mind to a steam

00:35:32.600 engine or to a computer or something like that. You are not, your vices are not alleviated by blowing

00:35:40.720 off a little steam or by just changing a few lines of code or something. Your mind is more like a

00:35:46.800 muscle, right? Virtue becomes easier the more you do it. Just like lifting weights becomes easier the

00:35:53.960 more you do it. So I'm told. I don't have a ton of direct experience with this. Or vice becomes

00:35:59.640 easier the more that you do it and harder to break the more that you do it actually. So what I would

00:36:04.140 recommend you do, it sounds like you're Catholic because you're talking about receiving the Eucharist

00:36:07.760 outside of a state of grace. What I would recommend you do is go to confession regularly. Obviously I

00:36:12.880 think there's great spiritual benefit to this, but even for people out there who are not Catholic or

00:36:18.520 they don't believe that much, there is also just a psychological effect. There is a physical effect

00:36:24.340 to getting on your knees, to confessing the sin to a guy that is, that's very awkward. That's very

00:36:31.420 embarrassing. It's very, it's, it forces you to confront the reality of the sin when you say it

00:36:36.860 out loud to another guy. And then the psychological effect of that, not just with porn, but with any

00:36:45.300 other sin actually, is that the next time you are tempted to commit that sin, you're going to think

00:36:51.620 twice about it because you don't want to go through the rigmarole of having to go and confess this sin

00:36:56.320 because it's embarrassing because it forces you to confront your own shame. That's the first thing I

00:37:00.340 would do. Then I was just talking to, to my friend, Matt Frad. Matt Frad has famously dealt with a

00:37:07.260 pornography addiction. And he said, one of the, one of the ways out of this is there's sort of

00:37:10.640 software that you can put on your devices. If you, if you want to be held accountable, where you can,

00:37:16.260 you know, if you try to search for a porn website, it'll send an email or a text or something to,

00:37:21.640 to, you know, you could, I don't know, you can put your girlfriend on, probably that's too much,

00:37:25.000 but you can put a buddy of yours or a family member or something to get the email. So that,

00:37:28.380 that would be another way of holding yourself accountable. Um, I think you should keep dating

00:37:33.280 the girl, but I think that you, obviously your heart's in the right place. You want to break

00:37:37.940 this addiction, just like people want to break addictions to drugs or booze or overeating or

00:37:42.580 whatever. Uh, so that's good. That's the first step. Now you have to set concrete, tangible measures in

00:37:49.620 place to force you into that. And it will be very difficult. Just like breaking any addiction will be

00:37:54.040 very, very difficult. And you should give yourself a little bit of grace, by the way. You know,

00:37:57.760 you don't want to turn one slip up. You don't want to turn one sip of whiskey into a week long

00:38:02.000 bender. And then same holds true of drugs or porn or whatever. You know, if you slip up,

00:38:07.220 then it's a slip up. And then you get back right back on the wagon and you just keep working on this

00:38:12.600 because it's just like working out. It's just like building up any other muscle or building up

00:38:15.900 any other skill for that matter. The same is true at virtue. And, uh, I don't think you need to,

00:38:20.740 uh, lay all of this at the feet of your girlfriend. I think that's actually kind of weird. I don't

00:38:24.460 think that's a weird conversation. You're sitting down saying, Oh honey, what a lovely dinner this

00:38:28.540 is. By the way, I'm a porn addict. And I look, you know, I do all these things. By the way,

00:38:32.600 you know, I, I'm, I'm, all I'm craving is a drug right now or something like that. No,

00:38:36.860 I wouldn't do that. I would just work on this steadily. You're not alone. Was it 90% of men

00:38:41.620 are dealing with this? Uh, but, but you're not going to get anywhere if you just keep it all vague

00:38:48.380 and you keep it all in your mind and you just think about it and you think, I'm going to really

00:38:51.480 try really hard in my mind not to do this. No, you've got to put it in your body when you confess,

00:38:56.000 when you have strictures, you know, put on your computers and things like that.

00:39:01.380 That's the only way you're going to do it. I remember one time when I was coming back into

00:39:03.860 the faith, I went to confession and I, I confessed my sins in these really vague terms, you know,

00:39:09.340 father, I gave in to wrath, you know, and father, I gave into these real, I was just kind of

00:39:14.920 listing off the seven deadly sins and the priest sighed and he said, I need numbers. I need dates.

00:39:22.420 I need specifics. Otherwise, if you don't keep track of this stuff, you're just going to keep

00:39:26.460 doing it and you're not going to get better. And so you got to, you got to really take it seriously

00:39:29.400 as you would training for a marathon, but best of luck from Brandon. Michael, I had a question

00:39:33.940 regarding a Bible. Again, you know what? Did you ever notice this? That even if the show is almost

00:39:38.660 entirely political, the mailbag is almost entirely religious. This is because

00:39:43.100 even agnostics and atheists, I think recognize that at bottom, all human conflict is religious.

00:39:49.500 And you know, we, if we say that politics is downstream of culture, culture is going to be

00:39:52.900 downstream of religion. So he writes it. Michael had a question regarding a Bible verse and how

00:39:57.300 we as Christians are to abide by it. The verse I'm referring to is Matthew 7, chapter 7, verse 1,

00:40:02.620 where Christ says, judge not lest ye be judged. How are we to comment on relevant cultural issues

00:40:06.880 such as transgenderism, casual adultery, the glorification of abortion, much more without judging.

00:40:13.100 This is one that sometimes stops me in my tracks when I'm being critical of modern degeneracy,

00:40:17.440 but maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Your insights appreciated. P.S. I'm almost done with

00:40:21.680 Speechless. It was a great book. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. That's very kind.

00:40:25.320 Judge not lest ye be judged. The measure that you meet out in your judgment is the measure that will

00:40:31.500 come back to you. This is not Christ saying, do not ever judge. In fact, he tells his apostles,

00:40:39.500 judge with right judgment. He tells people that if you have a problem with your brother,

00:40:44.260 go to your brother and confront him about it. And if he doesn't listen to you, go get three other

00:40:48.160 people and hash it out among all of you. And then if he still remains unrepentant, then don't deal

00:40:54.480 with him anymore. He will be to you as a tax collector. He'll be anathema until he rights his

00:41:01.820 wrongs. He's not saying that. He gives his apostles the keys to the kingdom of heaven. It says,

00:41:06.780 whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained. What he is saying is,

00:41:11.940 one, have a touch of humility. And two, if you are going to judge, make sure you've got your own

00:41:19.260 house in order first. Make sure that before you take the speck out of your brother's eye,

00:41:23.180 you take the log out of your own eye. He's not saying that we can't correct our brothers in love.

00:41:29.880 He's not saying that we shouldn't judge with right judgment, as he tells people to do elsewhere.

00:41:34.860 He's saying, you've got to hold yourself to this standard. You've got to get yourself in order

00:41:40.480 as well, or you will not have credibility and you will be hypocritical. And your judgments in love

00:41:46.360 won't even do what they're supposed to do. For Marissa, Michael, I have told my mom and sister

00:41:51.180 about the law of attraction. How many questions am I going to get about the law of attraction? This is

00:41:54.660 that new agey thing where people believe that if they just demand something of God and of the

00:42:00.240 universe, that they will get that thing. It's very popular in that book, The Secret and kind

00:42:05.940 of other new age heresies. So Michael, I told my mom and sister about the law of attraction and what

00:42:10.000 you said. However, they keep saying that it is just positive thinking bringing positive things.

00:42:14.440 I have argued that that thought process is fine, but the law of attraction is not just about

00:42:18.320 positivity. How can I explain to them that positivity is great, but the law of attraction is

00:42:22.260 not, and those positive things are not from it? And if I am wrong, let me know.

00:42:25.440 Sincerely pass the positivity. Yeah, you're right and your family's wrong.

00:42:30.000 The power of positive thinking is a really seductive idea that you should not fall into.

00:42:37.040 If the power of positive thinking means be confident and hopeful, that's good. Yeah,

00:42:43.620 you should do that. Hope is a theological virtue and confidence is an important thing and it's

00:42:49.300 attractive and we ought to do it. If we mean manifestation and the laws of attraction and

00:42:57.820 this new age Gnostic heresy, what we're saying is that we can make demands of God and they will be

00:43:05.600 fulfilled. We can bring God, force him into accord with our own will. That is wicked. I mean, that's a

00:43:11.600 really evil idea. You should not do that. And that won't work, by the way. I mean, and if it does seem

00:43:18.960 to work for a time or two, that should have you even more worried. No, have confidence, have hope,

00:43:24.280 but recognize it rains on the just and the unjust alike and don't pervert your vision of the world

00:43:29.540 anymore. One last question from Charlie. Hey, Michael, question regarding American culture.

00:43:33.000 I was wondering if you think that America has a singular culture, a multi-culture, or no culture.

00:43:36.960 I came across this question from school and wanted to know what you thought. Found myself stuck when I

00:43:40.660 heard, but I knew you could answer because you're the man. Thanks very much. By the way, huge fan of

00:43:43.800 the show, Blood Speechless, love it. Very important on current issues from Wickedie Way. Have a great

00:43:47.980 day. Thank you, Wickedie Way. America has neither a culture nor a multi-culture nor any of these other

00:43:54.680 cultures. America has an anti-culture. It's an anti-culture right now that is attacking the

00:43:59.840 traditional American culture. So it's a culture of debunking. It's a culture of deconstruction.

00:44:05.860 It's a culture of tearing down everything that has made up the culture. It is an

00:44:10.220 anti-culture. And many other thinkers and writers have talked about this. Jacques Borsen talks about

00:44:16.960 this very well in Dawn to Decadence, wonderful history book of modernity. But you're seeing,

00:44:21.960 you don't need a history book to tell you this. You're seeing it happen all around you. It's an

00:44:24.920 anti-culture tearing down everything. That's why we need to, I think, eschew the culture of

00:44:30.480 debunking and deconstruction and ruthless criticism and critical theory. And we need to have

00:44:36.580 constructive thinking in a culture that doesn't just debunk, but edifies. I'm Michael Knowles.

00:44:42.740 This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you Monday.

00:44:44.220 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:44:50.960 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

00:44:54.720 word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on Apple

00:45:00.220 Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other

00:45:05.780 Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.

00:45:10.860 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies. Executive producer, Jeremy Boren. Our technical

00:45:16.200 director is Austin Stevens. Supervising producer, Mathis Glover. Production manager, Pavel Vidovsky.

00:45:22.700 Editor and associate producer, Danny D'Amico. Associate producer, Justine Turley. Audio mixer,

00:45:28.560 Mike Coromina. And hair and makeup by Nika Geneva. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:45:34.260 Copyright Daily Wire 2021.

00:45:36.760 Hey everybody, this is Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. You know,

00:45:40.240 some people are depressed because the republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching,

00:45:44.680 and the moon's turned to blood. But on The Andrew Klavan Show, that's where the fun just gets started.

00:45:49.580 So come on over to The Andrew Klavan Show and laugh your way through the fall of the republic with me,

00:45:54.140 Andrew Klavan.

Ep. 826 - The End of the World as We Know It

Summary

Transcript