The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 979 - OK Groomer

00:00:00.000 Ever since Democrats came out swinging against Florida's parental rights in education bill,

00:00:05.980 which bans sexual conversations from kindergarten through third grade classrooms,

00:00:11.920 the Libs have found themselves on the receiving end of a new political slogan,

00:00:16.620 OK Groomer. Some conservatives think this slogan is hyperbolic and counterproductive.

00:00:23.040 I, for one, think it's great. After years of Democrats bandying about the word racist,

00:00:29.140 unfairly to destroy people's lives and shut down debate, I am all for a potentially equally

00:00:35.900 powerful word like groomer, which in this case I think is being used fairly. Conservatives are

00:00:41.860 arguing that if you insist on having sexual conversations with kids in the classroom or

00:00:47.860 anywhere else and then hiding those conversations from their parents, you are a groomer. You are

00:00:54.200 priming kids for certain kinds of sexual behaviors, for a certain kind of sexual

00:00:58.600 perspective. The attack so far seems pretty effective. According to recent polls, the vast

00:01:05.440 majority of likely voters support the Florida law and oppose sexual conversations with little kids.

00:01:11.820 And yet, despite the popularity of this bill and other bills, Democrats are doubling down all the

00:01:19.300 way up to the White House, which now says it's going to fight to protect sexual conversations 0.97

00:01:24.500 between teachers and little kids in Florida and all around the country. Bad news for kids,

00:01:30.540 bad news for the culture, but potentially bad news for Democrats too, as voters head into the midterms

00:01:36.860 pissed off and eager to protect their kids. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:49.300 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Sunshine Coolwater, who says,

00:01:54.820 I didn't even know my teachers' first names until I got my yearbooks. This is true. This is true. I

00:02:01.120 loved my teachers. I still speak to a number of my teachers, including teachers all the way back to my

00:02:05.960 kindergarten teachers, as a matter of fact. So I love my teachers. We have kept in touch,

00:02:10.760 at least with many of those teachers. But we never had any of these kinds of conversations

00:02:16.700 when we were in the classroom. I agree. I didn't know many of my teachers' first names.

00:02:22.280 I certainly didn't know what they were doing on date night. And that all seems to have changed now.

00:02:27.940 I always want to be fair on this issue. I do not want to be a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.

00:02:35.120 And so I have twisted the arm of my friend, Jessica Tarlov, who is one of, if not my very favorite

00:02:41.240 Democrat out there. Jessica, you know her from The Five. She's a co-host of The Five.

00:02:45.720 She's vice president of Insights at Bustle. She is the author of America in the Age of Trump,

00:02:52.220 Opportunities and Oppositions in an Uncertain World. If Trump runs for president again,

00:02:57.520 we might get a second run of that book. We might get The Age of Trump, part two.

00:03:02.900 So Jesse, first of all, thank you so much for coming on the show. I very much appreciate it.

00:03:07.240 So I have talked to a colleague of yours, Ethan Behrman, about the substance

00:03:11.880 of this law in Florida, the parental rights and education bill. I'd be more than interested,

00:03:17.280 certainly, in hearing your take on the substance. But first, at least, I want to get to your thoughts

00:03:22.920 as a political strategist. The opposition to this bill and others seems to be a total loser for

00:03:28.940 Democrats in Virginia, in Florida, in every poll I've seen on the subject. Why are Democrats doubling

00:03:36.120 down? Well, you're right. Well, first of all, I want to know if Ethan Behrman is potentially your

00:03:42.160 favorite Democrat, since you said I was your favorite. You rank so much higher. It's not even

00:03:47.900 close. He is. You can't even see him from where you are on the list. Well, he's actually a lawyer,

00:03:52.720 which I am not. So he's probably good to speak to about the substance of the bill in a different way

00:03:57.540 than I am. In terms of this being a loser, Democrats have fared very poorly with culture war issues

00:04:03.720 as of late. Obviously, we had a good year in 2020 and was able to take back the presidency

00:04:08.560 and control of the Senate, which made all the difference. But we do know that that was obviously

00:04:14.940 affected by the fact that we were in the midst of a global health pandemic and we had Trump,

00:04:19.820 who's a very particular type of Republican on the ballot. I know you're a fan, but there are many

00:04:24.420 Republicans who remain uncomfortable with his style. In terms of the don't say gay bill, which I

00:04:31.720 will admit when I first heard about this, I then searched for the term don't say gay in the bill,

00:04:37.040 because you would think that it was in there. It is not explicitly in there. It's part of it.

00:04:41.560 It's a quirky slogan. It's something that people think will be catchy. It has been used in a lot

00:04:47.220 of ads here. And I think it's very confusing for a lot of people. Now, I happen to think that the bill

00:04:51.940 is dangerous. I don't think that there's a need for it. And I've seen a lot of counter arguments

00:04:55.840 against it. Going back to, first of all, how often are these conversations happening? And I'm sure

00:05:02.180 that people would say, well, one time is too many, but we can't legislate for an entire state or an

00:05:07.260 entire country based upon outlier issues. I've seen pushback from teachers who have said that this means

00:05:13.000 that they can't talk about their lives with their students. And you may not have known your teacher's

00:05:17.420 first name or whether they were married or if they had kids. But I went to school here in New York

00:05:22.660 City and I only called my teachers by their first names. I knew their entire families who were active

00:05:27.960 participants in my school. And I ended up just fine. And I have a new daughter and I'm not, you

00:05:35.740 know, she identifies as a girl because I said that she identifies as a girl and she even wears pink 0.61

00:05:39.940 sometimes. So I really don't think that this is nearly as dangerous as an issue as Republicans would

00:05:47.420 have it be. But I know it's all about politics all the time. And I believe that it is a winning issue

00:05:52.380 for them now that we have parents that are pissed off about CRT. And now they're pissed off about

00:05:58.400 sexual indoctrination at the age of six. So to your point on whether this is a real issue or not,

00:06:06.080 it seems to me Democrats are running into a contradiction, which is, and they ran into the

00:06:09.820 same contradiction on CRT, which is on the one hand, they're saying it's not happening. CRT is not

00:06:14.400 being taught in the classroom. These conversations are not happening in kindergarten. It's not a big deal

00:06:18.040 at all. But then on the flip side, they say it's the end of the world if we ban these conversations,

00:06:23.700 if we ban CRT from the classroom, or if we ban sexual conversations from kindergarten. And so

00:06:28.460 I'm noticing they're going back and forth here. And I'm not sure if there is a consensus,

00:06:32.500 but if it's, if the conversations aren't happening, then great, the law is no big deal.

00:06:36.600 It's more wasted ink in government, but hey, we've got a lot of that already. So what, so then I come

00:06:42.360 back to this political question and, and it seems you agree with the political outlook on how this

00:06:48.020 is going to fare for Dems in the midterms. So then what happened? Are they just crazy? Have

00:06:52.540 they just lost their minds and they're running with a bill that they, one, don't think even

00:06:56.420 matters all that much? And two, is it deeply unpopular with voters? Well, there's always an

00:07:02.600 issue and it's on both sides of the aisle between the extremes, right? We had that obviously when the

00:07:07.360 Tea Party came to power, right? The moderate Republicans were looking at them saying this is absolute

00:07:11.500 madness. And we have an extreme left and in our party right now. And the people in the middle,

00:07:17.060 the moderates that are trying to win races in Virginia and Michigan, et cetera, are looking

00:07:20.940 at them and saying, excuse me, could you please stop talking? I don't want to hear to fund the

00:07:24.700 police. I don't want to hear about socialized medicine. We want to hear about middle of the

00:07:29.020 road solutions, which is how Joe Biden won. So I think there's a bit of a communication problem

00:07:33.560 there because often the most extreme people have the biggest platforms. They're the most effective

00:07:38.000 on social media. They're kind of screaming from the rooftops about this. But there's this fundamental

00:07:42.560 problem going on right now with my party about what we should be focused on. And voters have been

00:07:48.640 clear. They care about inflation and the cost of living. That's it. That's really all they care

00:07:53.640 about. We would like to save Ukraine from Putin. Sure. We think Afghanistan was bungled. Sure. But we're

00:08:01.400 happy to be out of the war, et cetera. Climate change, still a really big deal, but not as big of a deal

00:08:06.560 as a 22% rise in the cost of beef at your average supermarket. So that's what the midterms is going

00:08:14.320 to be about. And the moderate wing of the party certainly understands that. The left-wing side of

00:08:20.240 the party, I think, is A, running in districts that are probably too safe for their own good,

00:08:25.360 and B, just doesn't want to say that they're listening to polls. And that is, as someone who was

00:08:29.920 a former political pollster and now does it for consumer brands, I can tell you that's where everything's

00:08:36.000 won. That's where the dollars are won. That's where the elections are won. And the moderate

00:08:40.000 wing of the party is message testing all of that. They're listening to their focus groups,

00:08:44.240 and they're saying, this is just a loser for us. And there's too much time to be having this

00:08:49.920 conversation that it can go on and on and on and actually allow Republicans to be focused on these

00:08:56.000 culture war issues, which they have been winning as of late, rather than having to put up their own

00:09:00.480 plans. And I brought this up on the five yesterday, for instance, on the health care issue.

00:09:04.400 Mitch McConnell was on a Sunday show last weekend and was asked about, well, what's the Republican

00:09:08.400 plan? So that's a really good issue. I'll get a really good question. I'll get back to you.

00:09:12.720 Republicans may very well win on the health care issue, but they haven't put forward a plan.

00:09:17.520 But with Democrats screaming about these other ancillary things, it won't make a difference

00:09:21.520 necessarily at the polls. And that's where my frustration with it lies. And to your point about if

00:09:26.400 these conversations aren't happening, I didn't say they weren't happening at all. But I do remain

00:09:31.520 fundamentally concerned about the young kid, a six, seven year old. And there are a lot of people who

00:09:36.320 are gay, straight, grow up to be trans, et cetera, who say that they knew that, sorry, I shouldn't have

00:09:41.840 said gay, straight, who are gay, who feel that they knew that when they were really young. And if they

00:09:46.960 don't feel like they can talk to their parents about it, why shouldn't they be able to go to their

00:09:50.640 teachers to have those conversations? And I'm not saying that parents should be left out of the loop.

00:09:55.040 But if you are someone who believes that you were born in the wrong body and they've reported kids

00:09:59.360 as young as four years old who are saying that or saying, mommy, I don't think I'm a girl. I think

00:10:03.840 that I'm a boy. And if they can't say that to their mommy, they need someone who can help them,

00:10:09.920 who they can go to and talk to about that, not to get on puberty blockers, but to have an open

00:10:14.320 conversation. Well, okay. Because that's an important distinction. I think my response, if a child came to,

00:10:20.720 if my own child came to me and said, I think I'm a girl, even though I'm a boy, I would tell him as 0.96

00:10:26.400 lovingly, as gently as I possibly could, I'd say, well, you're not, you're not a girl. You're, you 0.99

00:10:30.400 might, you might have a psychological condition. You might have seen something on the news. You might

00:10:34.760 just be a little kid who gets confused about things. If it were a little girl, I might say, 0.98

00:10:38.280 you might just be a tomboy. I'm not denying your feelings, but you'll grow out of it as most people do.

00:10:43.220 And, but I would lovingly try to deal with that. And so what you're saying is kids need a resource

00:10:49.040 if they've got awful, terrible, regressive parents, but not to the point to put them on puberty 0.94

00:10:53.040 blockers. I think the fear here is, and we're seeing stories all around the country of this,

00:10:57.980 kids before puberty, by definition, are being put on these kinds of drugs. There was a whistleblower

00:11:03.820 just came out, a school nurse who said 11 year olds are being put on these kinds of drugs

00:11:07.240 without their parents' notification. And so it, it does raise this, I mean,

00:11:12.320 I guess this is where you get the actual title of the Florida bill, parental rights and education.

00:11:18.200 Whose right is it? If you've got two fundamentally different worldviews, the traditional worldview

00:11:21.900 that says boys, if you've got a boy's body, then you're a boy and you can't be a girl secretly.

00:11:27.120 They just deny the whole premise of transgenderism. And the new sort of secular transgender view,

00:11:32.080 which says, no, your body and your true self can be totally different. You should deny the body

00:11:37.080 and go on puberty blockers and whatever else is going to be following that. Well,

00:11:42.680 who wins out? Who wins? People might think the old Christian view or Jewish view or traditional view

00:11:47.320 is, is regressive and terrible and harmful. Though, by the way, the studies, I don't think really back

00:11:52.200 this up on the efficacy of puberty blockers at reducing suicidality or depression, but, but let's

00:11:57.600 put that aside for a second. Who gets to choose? Is it the, is it the parents? If the, who, let's say

00:12:03.060 they even deny transgenderism. Let's say they even look on homosexuality with moral opprobrium.

00:12:07.240 They're Orthodox Jews. They're traditional Christians or whatever, or the teachers who are

00:12:12.880 the representatives of this new secular culture. Well, I think fundamentally that parents should

00:12:19.720 be responsible for these types of decisions with their children. But even the example that you

00:12:23.240 talked about, the case of the 11 year old who was put on puberty blockers and the school knew and the

00:12:28.260 parents didn't know, that's an 11 year old. And this bill is talking about five year olds through

00:12:32.600 three grades. So that's right. Five through eight year olds. Well, that's good. Yeah. They

00:12:37.460 certainly shouldn't be put on the puberty blockers and they can't be legally put on puberty blockers,

00:12:42.160 but I'm just saying that we're not actually, that's an extension of this that is totally separate from

00:12:47.600 that bill. And I think that that's part of the problem when we talk this fast and loose about

00:12:52.960 things like this. And so few people actually read the substance of these bills and they're just railing

00:12:57.880 about, well, I heard this and I heard that instead of getting down to the nitty gritty of what's in

00:13:02.940 there. So we were talking about extremely young kids. You're not denying the fact that children,

00:13:07.720 you said even my children could potentially feel this way and express a concern about their gender

00:13:13.240 identity. But when you said that you would lovingly say this to them, I could push back easily and say

00:13:19.980 it's not actually loving of a child who's coming to you and telling you that they're struggling with

00:13:24.780 their gender identity to tell them, well, it's just not true. And yeah, little girl, like it's 0.97

00:13:29.640 fine if you want to be a tomboy, but you're not a boy because unless you fundamentally refute the

00:13:36.100 possibility that transgenderism exists and there are a lot of- I do. I fundamentally refute it. I think 1.00

00:13:40.820 it's a complete fantasy. I think it's not to get too down the weeds, but I think it's just a new

00:13:46.360 version of the old Gnostic heresy that says that our bodies and our souls, and really when we're

00:13:50.700 talking about transgenderism, we don't like to use these theological terms, but that's what we're

00:13:54.300 talking about. We're saying my physical self is totally different from my metaphysical self,

00:13:58.660 and the physical self should be denied, and the metaphysical self that I at least imagine

00:14:02.660 should bring the physical body more in line with what it perceives itself to be.

00:14:07.420 I think it's just bogus. I think it's an old crazy religious heresy. I think it's harmful to

00:14:12.300 everyone who's involved in it, and I think it should be discouraged. And I think when you go from

00:14:16.960 0.001% of people identifying as transgender to now 20.8% of Gen Z identifying as transsexual or

00:14:27.660 pansexual or some other gender identity issue, clearly that either Alex Jones is right and there's 1.00

00:14:33.560 something in the water, or this is a social phenomenon that's going on that is related to

00:14:39.020 how we're even talking about these things. Well, Alex Jones is not right about anything.

00:14:43.500 So I'm unwilling. He was right about the frogs. He was right about the frogs. Yale proved it.

00:14:49.340 I don't even know what you're talking about, but I cannot go along with it, and I try to block out

00:14:54.260 as much Alex Jones anything as possible. So I do think that social constructs certainly plays a role

00:15:04.020 in what's going on in the rise of people identifying as gay, as queer, non-binary, transgender, etc.

00:15:11.560 But I would posit as well that we are at a different time culturally where people are feeling

00:15:16.860 like they can actually speak honestly and openly about who they are and not feel like they're going

00:15:22.780 to lose their jobs, not feel like they're going to be ostracized from society. There's obviously

00:15:26.840 been a huge evolution in terms of how we treat people who identify in these ways. And there are a

00:15:33.820 lot of psychiatrists, and you're a lot of things, but I don't believe that you're a psychiatrist.

00:15:37.520 I'm more of a biologist myself. Ketanji Jackson is not, but I consider myself more of a biologist.

00:15:44.720 Well, as a woman, I can tell you that there are plenty of psychiatrists out there that believe

00:15:52.380 strongly that transgenderism is something that is real. It's something that also that if it doesn't 0.90

00:15:56.920 get addressed is going to lead to tremendous spikes, and we've seen this in terms of suicide

00:16:01.180 and self-harm and depression, and I go back to the original North Carolina bathroom bill,

00:16:07.140 which basically came down to who cares? Really, who cares what some, if you want to-

00:16:13.360 The left cares.

00:16:15.240 No, no, no, no. It was because the right had a problem with people who identified as the other

00:16:20.320 gender using that bathroom. 1.00

00:16:22.420 Right. Yeah, that's the change though, right?

00:16:23.940 But isn't that the change? Previously, the men who identify as women were not allowed in the

00:16:29.240 women's bathroom. The libs wanted them to be able to use the women's bathroom, and the right said no. 1.00

00:16:34.240 But we're not the ones who changed the rules, right?

00:16:36.940 No, but it was because Republicans made up an issue. They said that these people were identifying,

00:16:43.680 that men who were identifying as women were going to go into bathrooms and hurt people.

00:16:47.980 No, yeah, that it was just disordered for them to go in.

00:16:51.880 And that's a huge problem and such a misrepresentation of the way that transgender people live. 1.00

00:16:58.140 And if you, obviously, I have plenty to say about Leah Thomas, and I played sports up to the collegiate

00:17:03.680 level, not certainly at the D1 level, the D3 level, but I understand that that is a rich debate that is

00:17:11.280 very textured. But to deny transgenderism, when so many people have studied this,

00:17:17.980 for their whole lives, and so many people who live this life have said that they are happier,

00:17:25.040 more effective, have better relationships.

00:17:27.480 But I would tell you, Jesse, sometimes they say the plural of anecdote is not data,

00:17:33.020 though, frankly, I think it is, right? The plural of anecdote actually is data.

00:17:36.120 But I've talked to multiple people who had gender confusion, who even went through the process,

00:17:41.820 went on testosterone, started transitioning, and who deeply regretted it.

00:17:45.720 I've probably talked to half a dozen people who deeply, deeply regretted it and wished that

00:17:49.360 someone told them the truth. And when we talk about who's a psychiatrist or who's a biologist or,

00:17:54.360 I mean, really what we're talking about is who's a philosopher and who's a theologian and who's

00:17:58.240 talking about this question that you're bringing up too, which is, who are we? What is our true

00:18:02.980 identity? Is our true identity what we perceive it to be? Does it have to do with the body? Does it have

00:18:06.880 to do with what my teachers tell me in kindergarten? We have to leave it there because I'm seven minutes

00:18:10.920 over. But you, though, though you may be, you may not be a biologist, you may not be a psychologist,

00:18:19.000 you may, you may very well be a philosopher. You, you do remain among my top three favorite

00:18:23.900 Democrats. And I very much appreciate you coming on. Where can people find you?

00:18:28.080 Everywhere.

00:18:29.120 Well, on Fox a lot, on Twitter at Jessica Tarlov, but I try not to read my mentions because I work

00:18:35.160 at Fox. So Twitter, that's basically it. Wonderful. You can find Jessica on Twitter,

00:18:41.680 find her on Fox, and I hope find you back on this show very soon.

00:18:46.340 Thanks so much, Michael.

00:18:47.080 All right. Thanks so much for coming on. Now, when you want to protect the sort of things you're

00:18:54.220 looking for, you know, you're looking, you're Googling, what is a man? What is a woman? You

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00:20:08.820 to check out the VPN that I trust. I love the okay groomer political messaging. And, and my friend

00:20:14.740 Jessica here has convinced me that it's the way to go because Republicans are winning on that issue.

00:20:20.800 I'm really, I'm glad that we could get into the substance because, you know, we're talking about

00:20:26.400 the issue itself. Who are we? What's transgenderism? What's, what are our five, can five-year-olds be

00:20:32.060 transgender? Can anyone be transgender? I like that. But she started out at the political level. 1.00

00:20:37.280 What does this mean in the midterms? And I think it's clear as day to me that this is a huge winner

00:20:45.240 for conservatives. When voters see people talking about transitioning children, it just turns them

00:20:54.380 off. There was some lunatic mother who went on ABC News the other day and talked about how from her 1.00

00:20:59.540 daughter's very first words, she began to identify as a girl. She was a, it was a boy, but then identified

00:21:09.080 as a girl. When Chazie, our daughter, when she really started to communicate to us, and that was at the

00:21:16.920 earliest moment that she actually had words and language to communicate to us who she truly was,

00:21:23.180 we were a little surprised because we didn't expect it. And then as we just literally raised her,

00:21:33.160 supported her, just like all parents do raising, you know, we're teaching her the right values.

00:21:37.980 We're teaching her to give back. You know, one of her favorite things in the world to do is to 1.00

00:21:42.740 volunteer and be in service to others. You know, that surprise evolves into something just really

00:21:50.340 cool and important. And, and that is the realization that she's our daughter.

00:21:56.760 That's the realization she had when she started saying Google Gaga, we just knew, we just knew if

00:22:01.800 anyone who's ever had a child knows that this is preposterous. First of all, it's, it's preposterous

00:22:06.740 because your kid's first words are like, you know, doggy, right? Your kid's first words don't even

00:22:11.680 sound like words. They're just kind of sounds. And so this woman is projecting something. I don't 0.98

00:22:16.800 know what she's projecting. And then it's so sad because she shows photos of her son who she's

00:22:20.640 dressed up as a little girl. And it's obviously, he's a, he's a boy. He's a boy. It's obviously a

00:22:24.960 boy. And I think the, the pictures here are the key to it because you hear these lunatic women like 1.00

00:22:31.460 this, this person here, men and women, but this woman in particular. And she says, my, my eight month

00:22:37.360 old baby obviously was transgender. And you say, this woman's off her rocker. And she's saying the 0.99

00:22:42.200 same kinds of things that elected Democrats are saying. She's saying the same kinds of things

00:22:44.900 that the white house is pushing right now. And then you see it, you see it so clear. You see it

00:22:49.040 in what your kids being taught, which became very clear during COVID when kids were being taught

00:22:53.220 online. You see it when you look at the picture and you say, no, the boy actually isn't a girl.

00:22:57.520 And the girl actually isn't a boy. And we're careening toward the midterms right now.

00:23:01.320 And this is not going to go very well for Democrats. There's a teacher in Kansas who is

00:23:11.200 insisting, he's a kindergarten teacher in Kansas, who is insistent that kindergartners are ready to

00:23:19.720 learn about transgenderism. When they've been exposed to information, they're ready to learn

00:23:24.240 about it, whether you think they are or not. And the research says that there is no age too young to

00:23:29.220 talk about pretty much anything. If they know about it, they're ready to learn about it, right?

00:23:35.000 So there is no, you know, what we think is always age appropriate. It is if they don't know about it.

00:23:41.460 They haven't been exposed to it. And yeah, you can give them time to develop.

00:23:46.540 But once they're exposed to it, and social media is going to do it, right? I know some kindergartners

00:23:51.660 in this school with cell phones. Mine had a cell phone. And so they get access to information,

00:23:58.400 they can, they can learn quickly. The world is teaching them faster than probably you are.

00:24:03.240 They're students as early as kindergarten who are identifying as non-gender conforming, non-binary,

00:24:11.760 that are transgender. And so because they're in our school, they're in our classrooms,

00:24:18.680 then that becomes a responsibility on the adults to say, okay,

00:24:23.720 I have a student who identifies this way. And so it's my responsibility to make sure the classroom

00:24:31.200 is inviting to them, just like it is to someone who might be Asian, Laotian, Korean, African,

00:24:40.560 whatever the identity is.

00:24:43.560 Yeah. So this five-year-old, he's African. And so we're going to affirm that he's African. And this

00:24:48.800 five-year-old says that he's a unicorn. And so we're going to affirm that he's a unicorn, right?

00:24:54.260 Which is just as coherent as saying that the little boy identifies as a little girl. There's

00:24:59.320 a difference here, of course, because there are such things as Africans. There are such things as

00:25:04.600 Asians. There are, your, your race is something that I can look at and say, okay, that's real. 0.99

00:25:10.200 Just like your sex is something that I can look at and say, that's real. 0.85

00:25:13.540 But your imagined identity, that is not real. That's fake. And that shouldn't be affirmed.

00:25:19.120 The point he's making here is so subtle and it's so dangerous. He's saying, look, I don't want,

00:25:24.320 I don't want to teach kindergartners about transgenderism. I don't, I don't want them to 1.00

00:25:29.300 learn about transgenderism. But once they find out about it, then we have to talk about it. Then 0.96

00:25:33.700 they've got, they're already, they're already hearing about it from social media, from their

00:25:38.220 cell phones that the five-year-olds have, from the smartphones that five-year-olds are being given.

00:25:43.060 And he says, I gave my own five-year-old a cell phone. Right. That was a mistake. That was bad

00:25:46.520 parenting. You shouldn't do that. You, that was, that was your first mistake. Now you're going to

00:25:51.000 compound that first mistake. You're going to use that mistake. You're saying, look, I'm exposing

00:25:54.760 my kids to all this kind of transgender insanity. So now we've got to talk about it. Well, we wouldn't 1.00

00:25:59.840 have to talk about it if you weren't exposing them to that in the first place. So it's a way of

00:26:04.520 subtly getting that in there. And then he goes even more wrong where he says, and once it comes up,

00:26:09.640 then I've got to affirm their transgenderism. No, you don't. You should deny it because it's not 1.00

00:26:14.140 real. It's just not real. It's just made up. I don't want to sound cruel or insensitive. I actually

00:26:20.120 think I'm being quite compassionate and sensitive here. When I tell you, I would tell a five-year-old

00:26:25.240 and I would certainly tell his kindergarten teacher, it's just not real. Yeah. I'm sure the experience of

00:26:31.320 it is real. A feeling of it's real, but it is not because a boy actually can't be a girl.

00:26:36.240 And this is the radicalism you're seeing. And you're going to see this from just about every

00:26:40.480 teacher. Well, it comes up in the classroom. Sure, it comes up in the classroom. And you're

00:26:44.240 totally right. You do probably have a responsibility to address something that comes up in the classroom.

00:26:50.340 So how are you going to address it? Well, one of two ways. One of three ways, I guess. One is you

00:26:54.660 shut it down and you say, talk to your parents. Two, you say, no, Johnny, boys can't be girls. Or three,

00:27:01.500 you say, yes, Johnny, boys can be girls. You are teaching something. This is why it's not enough

00:27:06.240 for conservatives to just say, get the politics out of the classroom.

00:27:10.440 The politics are going to be in the classroom. Politics just means public stuff. It just means

00:27:14.240 the stuff that people are talking about, the way that we live our lives, that's going to end up in

00:27:17.680 the classroom. It's not enough to say, hands off, don't talk about it. You actually have to have a

00:27:21.100 point of view. As I say in my book, Speechless, free speech doesn't mean anything to people who don't

00:27:25.340 have anything to say. So it's not enough. These laws are a good start to say you can't preach

00:27:29.600 transgenderism in kindergarten. They should go further. You should teach an affirmative, 0.98

00:27:35.060 accurate, true understanding of human nature. You should say, boys are boys and girls are girls.

00:27:42.960 And when a man and a woman love each other very much, they leave their families and they get

00:27:46.620 married. And when they get married, because the sexes are complementary, they have children and they

00:27:51.200 reproduce. And that's a good thing, actually, that they do that. And that's how we all got here.

00:27:55.460 And you do that at age appropriate times, but you can't just bury your head in the

00:27:59.480 sand and you can't just avoid reality. I want to talk about what's going on with kids right now.

00:28:04.620 The most horrifying story probably I've ever seen in the news, we've been talking about it for a

00:28:10.240 couple of days, this live action story about how in DC, there were five babies who were killed through

00:28:17.080 abortion. And now a whistleblower brought these bodies that were photographs taken. A pro-life activist

00:28:24.140 broke the story. And so the authorities are, of course, investigating the pro-lifers. They're

00:28:30.380 letting the abortions soft the hook. They're investigating the pro-lifers. It's not just

00:28:35.060 five babies, by the way. This has happened well over a hundred times. And they've only got evidence

00:28:40.980 of the five. They've only got physical evidence of the five. Well, it turns out live action has a clip

00:28:45.480 of the abortionist, this butcher who committed these atrocities. And this goes back years now.

00:28:53.100 And he admitted that he was allowing, in violation of the law, allowing babies who were born alive

00:28:57.600 simply to die. Take a listen.

00:28:59.880 Obviously, you're here for a certain procedure. And if your pregnancy were, let's say you went into

00:29:05.980 labor, the membrane ruptured, and you delivered before we got to the termination part of the

00:29:11.040 procedure here. Then we would do things, we would not help it. Let's say we wouldn't intubate.

00:29:19.460 Okay. Okay. So you would make sure. Yeah, we wouldn't do any extra, you know, it's like,

00:29:23.840 yeah, it would be, you know, a person that would be a terminal person in the hospital, let's say,

00:29:31.560 that had cancer. You know, we wouldn't do any extra procedures to help that person survive. 0.97

00:29:36.960 Okay.

00:29:37.140 They had, like, do not resuscitate orders. Okay.

00:29:39.640 You know, we would do the same thing here. Okay.

00:29:41.640 Whereas if you were in a hospital in Virginia, let's say, and you went into labor, and you went

00:29:48.240 to the hospital, and then they saw you deliver, they would do everything possible to help that

00:29:53.620 fetus survive. Okay. But you won't?

00:29:56.340 We wouldn't. Okay.

00:29:57.200 Yeah, we wouldn't do it. You know the thing that all the hospitals do because that's the law?

00:30:02.060 We don't do that here. You know how they help the fetus survive? Even if you're going to use

00:30:06.820 a silly word like fetus instead of baby. People say fetus because they don't want to admit that

00:30:11.400 a baby in the womb is a baby. The fetus, quote unquote, stops being a fetus by any definition

00:30:17.240 once he's out of the womb. So then what he's saying is we wouldn't help the fetus survive. He's

00:30:20.940 saying we wouldn't help the baby survive. So do that here. He talks about, oh, this poor woman,

00:30:24.620 she went to the hospital once because her abortion didn't work out for her. And then 0.98

00:30:28.440 she gave birth to the baby, and they wouldn't let her kill the baby. This guy, how many times

00:30:33.260 has he done this? It's almost funny. If not for the incredible suffering involved, it would almost

00:30:41.080 be funny how ghoulish this guy sounds. His name is Dr. Cesare Santangelo. You probably haven't even

00:30:45.820 heard that name. Dr. Cesare Santangelo. This guy, we talk about Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin's a

00:30:53.040 butcher. He's committing war crimes. Sure. We talk about people like Bashar Assad, the dictator in

00:30:57.600 Syria. He's a butcher. He's committed war crimes. Sure. Cesare Santangelo is just as bad, probably

00:31:04.800 worse, because he's focusing all of it on innocent little babies. That's his job. That's how he makes

00:31:10.100 his money in violation of the law. He seems to know it. Stone cold psychopath. The guy should at the

00:31:15.680 very least be locked up for the rest of his life. Frankly, I would recommend a harsher punishment from the

00:31:20.720 civil authority than that. And this name, this name, no one even knows this name. You should be

00:31:25.360 posting this name. You should be publicizing this name. Cesare Santangelo, the worst killer,

00:31:30.580 the worst serial killer, murderer in this country right now. Who knows? Who knows how many victims

00:31:36.000 he's got? Maybe the worst in American history. Shine a light on that. All of the entrenched powers

00:31:41.760 are trying to cover it up, cover up for this psycho and trying to bury the bodies, actually trying to 0.54

00:31:46.400 incinerate the bodies without even doing an autopsy. Don't let him get away with it. You know,

00:31:51.280 you know, sometimes on this show, I have to say, I told you so. Sometimes that's happy with good

00:31:56.240 political predictions. Sometimes it's sad with bad political predictions, but I was still correct.

00:32:00.220 Well, all of my prophecies that have come to light have inspired a new collection of merchandise over

00:32:05.880 at dailywire.com slash shop. This is the Noel Stradamus line. That's right. That's right. You all know

00:32:11.560 that the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is six months these days. I have this

00:32:16.480 wonderful new merch and I see it. I foresee it in your future. Go to dailywire.com slash shop today.

00:32:22.240 Order from the Noel Stradamus line. We'll be right back with a lot more.

00:32:26.380 The Democrats are so upset about this okay groomer slogan. The fact that Republicans are accurately

00:32:46.260 criticizing them for having, insisting on having sexual conversations with little kids without 0.56

00:32:51.020 their parents knowing about it. They're so upset that they're trying to throw that punch back on

00:32:55.640 Republicans and it's not working. It's extremely dishonest the way they're doing it. Tennessee,

00:33:00.240 my state, was trending yesterday on social media and it was trending because of a bill, Senate Bill 562,

00:33:06.740 House Bill 233, brought forward by Representative Leatherwood, which would redefine certain aspects of

00:33:16.280 marriage in Tennessee. The headline, according to all the media, was Tennessee Republicans want to get

00:33:24.500 rid of age limits for marriage. Tennessee Republicans take out an age limit in a marriage statute so they

00:33:32.760 can cover up for child abuse and have child brides and their pedos and they're the real groomers. 0.88

00:33:39.700 That was the headline. And I saw that headline and I said, no, that's not true.

00:33:43.320 I didn't know anything about the story. I hadn't read the bill. I said, that's just obviously not true.

00:33:47.140 So you can read the bill. It's two pages long. It's not that hard. And it's mostly just kind of

00:33:53.580 boring government gobbledygook, but it changes a little bit the definition of marriage. And what

00:34:00.360 it appears to do, just from my first reading, is it gives a protection to public officials who do not

00:34:07.500 believe that marriage can exist between two men or two women, who adhere to the definition of marriage

00:34:14.120 that has existed everywhere throughout all of human history until five minutes ago, and who feel that

00:34:19.100 it would be a violation of their conscience and their religious beliefs, if not reality outright,

00:34:25.080 to participate in such unions. That's what it's about. The representative who brought it said,

00:34:32.620 quote, all this bill does is give an alternative form of marriage for those pastors and other

00:34:36.940 individuals who have a conscientious objection to the current pathway to marriage in our law. Tom

00:34:41.800 Leatherwood quoted by WKRN. It doesn't even get rid of gay marriage or the redefinition of marriage

00:34:51.800 that we got from the Supreme Court through the Obergefell decision. It just clarifies marriage

00:34:56.240 and gives a specific category, a specific carve out to the definition of marriage we've had for all of

00:35:00.960 human history everywhere in the world. So what happened with the age requirements? Well, I knew it the

00:35:06.880 second I heard about this. Obviously, the state reps just messed up the language a little bit. 0.90

00:35:12.220 Obviously, as they were amending a statute, they just, they accidentally left out one part or didn't

00:35:16.560 include, but no, no one in their right mind would ever propose a bill to say that you should be able

00:35:23.780 to marry a five-year-old. That's just, no one, no one did it. No matter how poorly the left-wing

00:35:30.300 thinks of us, how evil the left-wing thinks that we are, how stupid the left-wing thinks we are,

00:35:34.420 no one would do that because it's not right. And it's politically just completely idiotic.

00:35:40.060 Even if some psycho thought that it's a good idea to be able to marry five-year-olds,

00:35:44.320 he still wouldn't put it forward because it's a total political loser. And there's no evidence

00:35:48.540 whatsoever that the people who proposed this bill ever suggested anything like that. In fact,

00:35:53.440 there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. In March, in a committee hearing in March,

00:35:57.140 the representative, Leatherwood, who put this forward, said that as he understood the very

00:36:02.880 legislation that it would, quote, not allow minors, children under the age of 18, who haven't even

00:36:07.940 reached the age of consent, to enter into a marriage contract. So it's just a completely

00:36:12.340 made-up issue. It's a total non-traversy. But the fact that the Democrats are focusing on this

00:36:18.120 completely made-up part of the bill tells you two things. One, they're really sensitive about the

00:36:24.160 groomer line. One, they're very vulnerable on this groomer issue, that they're being accused of

00:36:30.660 weird sex stuff with kids. And now, the fact that their Supreme Court nominee's most glaring part

00:36:36.200 of her judicial record is that she lets pedos off the hook, that certainly doesn't help. So they're 1.00

00:36:40.180 very sensitive about that. It's a good area that Republicans should keep pushing on. But two,

00:36:45.340 it's that they don't want to talk about the real issue of the bill. The real issue of the bill,

00:36:48.760 and maybe you agree with it and maybe you don't, is that the people pushing it do not believe that

00:36:53.500 the Obergefell decision was legit. They do not believe that there is any such thing as gay marriage,

00:36:58.620 same-sex marriage. No slight to gay people, no slight to people with differing or eccentric

00:37:03.700 sexual desires, but they just believe marriage is marriage. It actually has a meaning. You can't

00:37:09.180 change the meaning. You can't completely upend it. And so they're trying to give a carve-out for people

00:37:12.920 who still believe that. Maybe you support that. Maybe you oppose that. But one thing I know for sure

00:37:18.660 is that the Democrats don't want to deal with that issue head-on. Just like they didn't want to deal

00:37:22.500 with the redefinition of head-on period, the redefinition of marriage head-on period,

00:37:25.840 when it was put up for a vote, do you want to change the definition of marriage to include

00:37:31.600 monogamous same-sex couples? For now, they'll probably change it again. 0.97

00:37:35.640 When it was put up to a vote, it failed. When it was put up to a vote in super-duper liberal

00:37:40.720 California, it failed. Proposition 8. Then nine robed judges on the court decided to just rewrite

00:37:49.680 the Constitution and invent this right. Anthony Kennedy, the romantic poet on the Supreme Court,

00:37:54.200 just invented a new definition of marriage completely out of nowhere. And the Democrats,

00:38:01.360 who insist that this is very popular and it's a wonderful thing to do, they don't want to defend

00:38:05.340 that. And so they make up a bunch of nonsense that's not in the bill. By the way, the lawmakers

00:38:10.220 already filed an amendment to clarify that minors are not allowed to do this, that you have to reach

00:38:16.060 the age of majority to do it. Completely made up. But I think the Democrats are actually telling

00:38:21.140 on themselves and they're telling Republicans how to fight this political battle come November.

00:38:27.500 Now, Joe Biden is focusing on anything he can to try to win back November, to try to stem the

00:38:40.800 tidal waves that he's going to have to deal with in November. He's losing on the economy. He's losing

00:38:45.340 on jobs. He's losing on foreign policy. He's losing on COVID. He's losing on the weird,

00:38:49.820 creepy sex stuff with the kids. He's losing, losing, losing, losing. So the one Hail Mary he's

00:38:56.140 trying to throw here is to pause payments on student loans. The Biden administration just announced

00:39:04.140 that they are extending the federal student loan payment pause. They are going to move the return

00:39:09.640 of student debt repayment from May 1st of this year to August 31st. They had already paused it in

00:39:16.040 December of last year. No serious economist thinks this is a good idea. Forget conservatives for a

00:39:23.020 second. Even Larry Summers, former president of Harvard, former top economist to Barack Obama,

00:39:27.980 when Joe Biden was vice president, said this is nuts. He said it's very hard to understand this in

00:39:32.700 policy terms. This is not a small macroeconomic thing. At a time when the economy is overheating,

00:39:37.960 student debt action will be injecting money into the economy at a $100 billion a year annual rate.

00:39:43.760 This is a macroeconomic step in the wrong direction. So to put that into layman's terms,

00:39:47.920 what he's saying is right now we're dealing with inflation. Inflation is going through the roof.

00:39:53.140 There's just too much money swirling around right now. And so what Joe Biden is, and a lot of that

00:39:58.820 is caused by not just Biden's policy of this, but years and years and years of just printing money

00:40:03.180 and giving away money. And so the money's not as valuable and things cost a lot more. And what this

00:40:07.440 Biden policy does, rather than trying to pull that back, trying to get a hold on inflation,

00:40:12.540 it's going to inject another $100 billion a year into the economy of just free money that the 0.93

00:40:17.220 students or the graduates now are not paying for no reason whatsoever. These college graduates by

00:40:24.080 and large are doing better economically than people who don't have a college degree. Their degree might

00:40:30.180 not be worth what they paid for. It's probably not worth a quarter of a million dollars to go study

00:40:34.480 lesbian dance theory or whatever else we're talking about. Frankly, even to get a regular old degree 0.94

00:40:38.780 from an ordinary academic program these days, it's not as valuable because people aren't being taught

00:40:43.340 as much. And the practical value of a university education is not what it once was. But regardless,

00:40:49.000 they're still doing better. These are still wealthier Americans. These are still the upper

00:40:52.640 class Americans who are now being bailed out by everyone else. That's not fair. That's not fair at

00:40:58.780 all. But this does make sense of it. I now get from a policy perspective why Joe Biden's doing this.

00:41:04.340 Larry Summers might not get it because economically it doesn't make sense. But politically, it makes

00:41:09.140 a lot of sense. One, it's a de facto federal takeover of education. The Democrats are having

00:41:14.980 a hard time selling free college. They're having a hard time selling it because it's just a handout

00:41:20.020 to the upper classes in America. Most people in America don't graduate from a four-year college.

00:41:25.780 I think it's what, one in four Americans graduates from a four-year college? And then they go on and

00:41:30.880 make more money and have a more economically prosperous life. So why are the lower classes 1.00

00:41:36.120 going to be paying extra money to the upper classes? Because the upper class has made a 0.63

00:41:40.940 poor financial decision. It can't pay back the debt on their college degrees. It doesn't make a lot.

00:41:44.700 It's not a big seller. It's not going to play very well in Peoria. So the Democrats are having a hard

00:41:48.780 time doing that. So what they're doing is just saying, okay, we're going to pause it. We're just going

00:41:52.920 to pause it and run out the clock. And the more the government is involved in education in this way,

00:41:57.320 the more influence they're going to have over the educational system. He who pays the piper

00:42:02.100 calls the tune. That's the first part. Second part is it's a payoff to Biden's supporters.

00:42:06.720 College graduates, people who have spent four years, maybe not learning a whole lot of the

00:42:11.340 classical tradition or of the liberal arts, but definitely learning a lot of leftist ideology,

00:42:15.500 they're more likely to vote for Democrats. And so it's a payoff. It's a payoff to the people

00:42:20.200 who are more likely to vote for Democrats. And it's an incentive to other people to go and get

00:42:25.440 these degrees, knowing that very likely they're not going to have to pay them back anyway.

00:42:29.040 And the Democrats know that if kids go to college and spend four years getting indoctrinated in this

00:42:33.400 crap, they're more likely to vote for them. Free money. It's a way to ensconce yourself in power, 0.98

00:42:42.080 as long as the money doesn't run out. A California city is doing this right now. Palm Springs in California

00:42:47.100 is testing out a policy to just give people money for calling themselves transgender.

00:42:54.860 To just give them money, to give them a payment of $900 per month, only if they identify as transgender 0.98

00:43:01.480 or non-binary, which those things don't exist. But if you identify that way, you get the free money 0.97

00:43:07.860 from Palm Springs. I could go to Palm Springs. I say, hey, I want my free money. They say,

00:43:12.500 are you transgender? I say, no, they don't give it to me. But then if I came back, maybe I put a 1.00

00:43:17.960 little mustache on or grad show glasses. I said, hey, it's me again. Yeah, I'm transgender now.

00:43:22.560 I say, okay, here's your money. You have to meet a certain poverty threshold, but it's specifically

00:43:27.580 for transgenderism. Why? Why are they doing this? The only conclusion you can draw is that they want 0.90

00:43:36.920 more people to identify as transgender. That's it. You don't need to be Larry Summers. You don't need 0.98

00:43:42.760 to be one of the top economists in the country to know that when you incentivize something,

00:43:47.480 you get more of it. That's why you incentivize it. And the left is incentivizing this. They are

00:43:54.700 grooming kids. They're doing it. I don't think they're doing it primarily because they want to

00:44:00.820 diddle kids or something like that. Maybe, I don't know, maybe. But I actually don't,

00:44:03.980 I don't think that's the primary motivation. I think it's because they want kids to believe

00:44:09.580 in their political ideology. And their political ideology is one of liberation, liberation from

00:44:16.280 oppressive systems, liberation from custom and tradition, from the past, which is also awful, 0.55

00:44:22.540 liberation from human nature itself. Some of the people pushing this are cynical politicians,

00:44:28.240 but some of them, I think, are true believers. And they know, this is why they focused on education

00:44:33.060 so long. They know that if you can get kids when they're really, really young,

00:44:38.560 that you're going to be able to mold their brains. The classroom is a crystal ball for

00:44:43.120 your country in 20 years. And they know that sex is one of, if not the primary driver in human nature.

00:44:49.900 It's not the top top, but it's pretty important. And so if a five-year-old, if a three-year-old,

00:44:55.480 if a one and a half-year-old, like that lunatic mother said on TV, 1.00

00:44:58.520 is inculcated in this transgenderism, that's just going to be part of how they view the world. 0.99

00:45:07.380 If you really, think about how important that is. Think about how important your

00:45:10.080 religious foundation is, for those of you who grew up with religion.

00:45:14.100 It colors the way you see the entire world. And the left wants more of this.

00:45:20.640 And there are many reasons why they want more of this. Part of, I mean, the most basic reason,

00:45:26.160 we should do a whole episode on all of the reasons. But the most basic reason is,

00:45:29.660 for the left, the family has always been the greatest impediment to their political takeover.

00:45:33.260 They have to turn people into radical atomized individuals in order to gain power, in order

00:45:38.640 to push their ideological agenda of radical liberation, and in order to gain much more government

00:45:44.320 power, in order to control your lives much more and take away your freedom and take away your way

00:45:48.820 of life. So this is one way to do it. How better to break up the family than to break up the basis of

00:45:53.780 the family, which is sexual difference. It's been effective for the left in conquering the culture. 0.77

00:46:00.740 There's just one little impediment to them, and that would be the voters. And the voters hate this

00:46:06.240 stuff. And the voters, I hope, come out and give them a real shellacking in November,

00:46:10.480 because the fight is not over. It's just beginning. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the

00:46:13.320 Michael Knowles Show. See you tomorrow.

00:46:14.620 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies.

00:46:43.720 Executive producer Jeremy Boring. Supervising producer Mathis Glover. Production manager

00:46:49.240 Pavel Vidovsky. Editor and associate producer Danny D'Amico. Associate producer Justine Turley.

00:46:55.800 Audio mixer Mike Coromina. And hair and makeup by Cherokee Heart.

00:47:00.180 Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2022.

00:47:04.680 Hey there, this is John Bickley, Daily Wire editor-in-chief and co-host of Morning Wire.

00:47:09.020 On today's episode, the CDC will conduct a month-long comprehensive review.

00:47:14.240 China seeks to keep its companies listed in the U.S.

00:47:17.100 And new reports show the Black Lives Matter organization purchased a $6 million home in

00:47:21.600 California. Join us and get the facts first on the news you need to know with our show,

00:47:26.100 Morning Wire.

00:47:26.500 Morning Wire.

00:47:26.540 Morning Wire.

00:47:27.540 Morning Wire.

00:47:28.540 Morning Wire.

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The Michael Knowles Show - April 07, 2022

Ep. 979 - OK Groomer

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