Primary Topic
This episode analyzes President Biden's unusual address to the nation, discussing its implications and the political maneuvers behind his decision not to seek reelection.
Episode Summary
Main Takeaways
- Biden's speech attempted to reaffirm his fitness and leadership amid declining public confidence.
- Knowles criticizes the Democratic administration for its handling of crises, particularly the border crisis.
- The episode discusses the political implications of Biden's decision not to seek reelection.
- Misinformation and political rhetoric from both sides of the aisle are highlighted.
- Knowles offers a conservative perspective on the current political landscape, focusing on the failures of the Biden administration.
Episode Chapters
1: Biden's Address Overview
Michael Knowles opens with a critique of Biden's speech, questioning the effectiveness and sincerity of the address. Michael Knowles: "It was a failure even in its final Oval Office speech because he didn't answer the fundamental question."
2: Political Implications
The episode explores the broader political implications of Biden's address and his decision not to run for reelection, including the shift in Democratic leadership towards Kamala Harris. Michael Knowles: "Now it's Kamala. Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee, and libs are working overtime to protect her."
3: Critique of Democratic Strategies
A critical analysis of the Democratic strategy, especially in handling the border crisis and immigration policy. Michael Knowles: "They are retconning this. They just memory hole everything."
Actionable Advice
- Scrutinize political communications for consistency and factual accuracy.
- Stay informed about political developments and their broader implications.
- Engage in discussions that challenge political narratives.
- Support transparency and accountability in leadership.
- Advocate for policies that address the root causes of national crises.
About This Episode
Joe Biden gives a proof-of-life speech, the libs claim JD Vance has weird views on gender, and pro-Palestine protesters burn flags at Union Station in DC.
People
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Michael Knowles
Companies
None
Books
None
Guest Name(s):
None
Content Warnings:
None
Transcript
Michael Knowles
This episode is brought to you by Adele Natural Cosmetics. Adele Natural Cosmetics is a christian family run holistic skincare and cosmetic company made right here in the USA without using parabens, synthetic fragrances, preservatives, or anything else on an ingredient list thats difficult to pronounce. So what are you waiting for? Visit adelenaturalcosmetics.com to get your free foundation color matching consultation. Use code DAilywiRe for 25% off your first order. That's Adel naturalcosmetics.com with code Dailywire for 25% off your first order. President Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office last night, in part to prove that he's actually alive and in part to give some explanation as to why he suddenly has declined to run for reelection.
Joe Biden
You know, we've come so far since my inauguration.
On that day, I told you as I stood in that, a winter we are stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities.
Peril and possibilities.
We're in the grip of the, we were in the grip of the worst pandemic in the century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst attack on our democracy since the civil war.
We came together as Americans.
Michael Knowles
Hmm. Funny, I don't remember much of that happening.
I don't even really remember Biden describing the winter that way in the early days of his presidency. Here's what I remember.
Joe Biden
For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death. For unvaccinated for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they'll soon overwhelm.
Michael Knowles
A winter of severe illness and death. That's a little bit harsher than peril and possibilities. But, of course, the reality of Bidens presidency was much harsher than whatever promises he made at the inauguration.
It just didnt work out. The whole thing was a failure on pretty much every front, the economy, national security, foreign affairseven trying to run for reelection.
It was a failure even in its final Oval Office speech because he didnt answer the fundamental question.
If hes too old and feeble to run, if he's slurring his words on national television in what was pitched as a live speech and would appear to be a pre taped speech, if that's the best he's got, how on earth can he serve as president for another six months? I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show.
Welcome back to the show. Pro Palestine protesters just set an american flag on fire at Union Station in our nation's capital. We will get to that. And what all of that means first, though, speaking of setting things on fire, you need to go to the candleclub.com and you need to get your sicilian summer candle. Now. We have got a lot of great candles there. I'm partial to the wise man. I also like old soul chem du lacheme. PSL is great, though. It's not seasonal right now. Those are just the Michael Knowles candles. Then there is the Mayflower line of candles. Those are even more elevated. Nice lovely colored glass holders.
The sicilian summer, though, that's our seasonal offering, and you got to get it now@thecandleclub.com. dot I mentioned there in my intro that it would appear that Biden's speech was not live, even though it was pitched as a live speech. And the way that the Internet figured this out is they looked at his watch.
So the speech went live, supposedly at what, 810 pm eastern time. But the watch was set for 06:07, which makes sense. Joe Biden, when he was still trying to cling to the Democrat nomination for president after the disastrous debate performance, he said, yeah, I'm going to stop doing events after 08:00 so if he's not going to do evening events anymore, then why would he give the most momentous speech of his presidency in real time in the evening after 08:00 it wouldn't happen. So that would appear to be just one more lie on top of the lies that he mentioned in the speech, on top of the many lies that he said during his presidency, which tops off the failed promises that he made at the beginning of his presidency. It was just a flop. Now, at other times of the day, Biden still seems to have a little bit more energy. Biden was just speaking at an event, again, to give a little proof of life.
Hes a liar. So he was spreading more of the typical lies about Donald Trump, but he did it with a little more vim and vigor.
Joe Biden
By the way, remember when he was trying to deal with COVID he said, just injected a little bleach in your veins.
He missed it all went to his hair.
Brian Kilmeade
Look.
Joe Biden
I shouldnt have said that.
I probably shouldnt have said that.
Benjamin Netanyahu
True.
Joe Biden
You guys are a bad influence on me.
Michael Knowles
So obviously, Trump didn't tell people to inject bleach into their veins. This is one of the many lies about Trump that Biden's been spreading for years.
But I can't even get that riled up about it because you watch this. And in a way, I'm as right wing as they come. I really don't like Biden I think he's a nasty, nasty mandeh, terrible president. But you kind of pity him a little bit in a way. You almost feel good that he got a little of his vim and vigor back.
It's weird watching him now. It's weird watching him after he was shuffled off the stage, yanked off the stage in Las Vegas, thrown into his home in Rehoboth beach, had the presidency taken away from him, or at the very least had the 2024 nomination taken away from him, totally sidelined in a palace coup. And then he comes back out and you think I. Okay. All right, buddy. Yeah, that's, you know. Yeah, that's a good one. You sure burn Trump there.
It's like watching someone who you know is terminally ill. He is politically terminally ill. We know his political career is about to end.
He might literally be terminally ill. He still hasn't been forthright about his medical conditions. But I don't know. I think you just go softer on someone when you know that they're in that kind of feeble condition.
That's where Biden is. So even when he shows energy now, it's just kind of sad because, you know, this guy is not long for this world. At the very least, he's not long for the political world. And just looking at his age and his behavior, probably not long for the rest of the world either. So now it's Kamala. Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee, and libs are working overtime to protect her. On one specific point. Kamala has a number of weaknesses, but one of her biggest weaknesses is she was put in charge of the border. President Biden said, I am going to make Kamala my point person on the border. She's the border czar. This is how this was reported. And the libs obviously hate that fact because the border has been the most conspicuous failure of the Biden presidency, and it's the failure that people are most riled up about. It's right there in the top two or three issues of the campaign. You've got the economy and immigration. Those are, that's pretty much it.
So Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, he responds to this observation by JD Vance that Kamala was Biden's border czar. He says, this isn't true. This isn't true. The Biden put Harris in charge of the border. Narrative is made up. Ok. That's the claim from Chris Murphy, hack of hacks, Democrat, propagandist and politician. So how about his claim? Where did republicans get the crazy notion that Kamala Harris was the border czar for Joe Biden.
Brian Kilmeade
And now to the Biden presidency. President Joe Biden announced Vice President Harris will lead the effort to tackle a sudden surge of migrants at the US southern border.
Michael Knowles
The announcement came as the federal government opened another emergency shelter to deal with the influx. CB's four's Donia Backus reports.
Joe Biden
If you deal with the problems in country, it benefits everyone.
Brian Kilmeade
President Biden is tapping his vice President Kamala Harris, to oversee us diplomatic efforts to address the recent influx of migrants.
Michael Knowles
Along the southern border. Okay, that wasn't Fox News. That wasn't the daily wire. That wasn't the blaze. That was CB's news.
Now here's Biden in his own words.
Joe Biden
I've asked her, the VP today because she's the most qualified person to do it, to lead our efforts with Mexico and the northern Triangle and the countries that help us need help in stemming the movement of so many folks stemming the migration to our southern border.
Michael Knowles
There you have it. So it's not even just one isolated event this week Kamala is going to deal with this particular challenge on immigration. No, he says, this woman is my point person. I'm putting her in charge of the border, and the border no longer exists. For all intents and purposes, we have had more migrants cross into the country illegally by multiples than we've ever had in american history. You don't need to take CB's word for it. You don't need to take Joe Biden's own word for it. Here you have the Associated Press. Biden taps VP Harris to lead response to border challenges. That's from March 24, 2021. Keep that date in your mind. Axios reported it. At the time everybody reported it, but now they're deleting it.
Here's axios. This is a center left publication.
Editor's note this article has been updated and clarified to note that axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris aborters are in 2021, incorrectly. Hold on, hold on. First of all, among the news outlets, every news outlet reported that because Joe Biden said that you just heard it in Biden's own words.
But they've got to memory hole that.
So what does it tell us?
They are retconning this. They are to cite an overused work of literature that seems to describe the situation, 1984. They just memory hole everything. They rewrite history. The party controls every, there is no history. There is no past. It's just whatever the party says in the present, theyre focusing on the border because they know this is Kamala's biggest liability. This is the issue that the Republicans need to hammer. Americans hate this influx of mass illegal migration.
They hate it because it makes a mockery of our laws. They hate it because it floods our country with criminals. Because the border is not controlled by Kamala Harris, it's controlled by criminal cartels. They hate it because it's flooding our country with poisonous and killing many, many people. Worst mass poisoning in american history.
They hate it and Kamala is responsible.
That's what they can. They're going to rewrite their own articles from three years ago. Well, thankfully, the Internet is forever. This should be at the top of every republican campaign ad. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to puretalk.com knowles. There is only one cell phone company that gives you free premium access to the Mediaev that you actually care about, and that is PureTalk. This might be the best offer PureTalk has come out with. When you switch your cell phone service to PureTalk on a qualifying plan, you will get a free one year Insider subscription to DailyWire. Plus, take advantage of unlimited talk, text, 15 gigs of data and mobile hotspot on America's most dependable 5g network for just $35 a month. And you will get one year free of Dailywire plus. The DailyWire Plus Insider plan gets you access to our entire library of movies, series and documentaries, including lady Ballers, what is a woman, Mister Burcham, Run Hot Fight, and more. Plus, you will get all our daily shows uncensored and ad free. The only way you can get the special offer is by going to puretalk.com knowles. I have been telling you to stop overpaying for your cell phone plan for a long time. If you haven't made the switch over to Puretalk yet, now is the time. Puretalk.com knowles head on over there today. Switch over to a qualifying plan, get one year free of daily wire. Plus insider in the Biden speech, you heard some lies.
The economy was the worst. It was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. I'm old enough to remember when that was Barack Obama's campaign line in 2008.
I'm running. I took over after the worst economic crisis, the Great Depression. Now listen here, and probably Joe Biden's just getting confused between the time he was vice president, the time he was president.
This is the worst crisis in America since the civil war. And I would know, Jack. I was around at the civil war. Me and corn pop, we're fighting opposite sides up there in Scranton.
So you get all of this kind of hyperbolic language, and then what do you get? You don't really get him citing specific accomplishments. Cause he doesn't have any. So it's all about the future. And for the next six months, I'm gonna keep working on my moonshot to cure cancer. Bro, you've been working on the moonshot to cure cancer since what 2016 is, when Barack Obama tasked you with that in 2016, Barack Obama said, I am appointing. Just as Joe appointed kamala to fix the border, Barack Obama appointed Joe Biden to cure cancer. Probably not the best choice. If you said, Michael, if any one person in America is going to cure cancer, who do you think it would be? I would bet pretty much every penny to my name that it would not be Joe Biden. And so he hasn't, obviously hasn't done that. And so it's all about the future. And we're going to do this. We're going to do that. Hey, bro, you've been in politics for 54 years at the national level and you haven't accomplished anything. Really. You had a crime bill that was okay in the nineties, but that all got unwound.
Other than that, what have you?
Nothing. You got nothing. So it's all about the future. So the libs have to lean into identity without any accomplishments and with a lot of failures behind them, they've got to lean into identity. This is why it's helpful to them to have Kamala Harris, because they can say that she's black even though she's half Tamil Indian and half Afro Jamaican, which is, she doesn't really have any african american ancestry. But, you know, they can kind of make it look a little bit if you squint like, she's african american and she's a woman. So they're gonna lean into that and they're going to viciously slander and attack anyone who is in any way vulnerable to the charge of racism as they did yesterday to Brian Kilmeade on Fox News. Listen to what they went after Brian Kilmeade for.
Brian Kilmeade
Obviously, you compare him to President Biden, who is muddling his way through speeches. People know who.
Michael Knowles
Yeah, anything could be better, right?
Brian Kilmeade
Yep. Couldn't go more than 15 minutes. She's very good on the prompt. And no one even doubted that she had 3000 people there. Why are they there? A lot of them have to do with, hey, I'm a Democrat. I thought we were going to go down in flames. Now we have a shot. The problem with Kamala Harris, number one, she has not had a record, exploited heavily because people thought and marginalized her even in the democratic party they said wow, what a bad choice Joe Biden made. Number two is she hasn't sat down for an interview. When she sits down in an interview and says do you want to to fund ice? Where do you stand on Medicare for all? Where why didn't you show up? The most recent decision already you got a question. She will not show up for the prime minister's joint session of Congress today. She rather address in the summer a sorority, a college sorority. Like she can't get out of that. So that's her decision and that's her decision to back up the protests. How about the border? When they ask her about the border, I haven't been to Europe either. Remember she said that she's the border czar. She didn't go to the president, she didn't go to the border. And now we're learning that two of the border chiefs, the last two border chiefs she hasn't talked to.
Michael Knowles
Okay, if you're a normal person, you listen to that clip, you're probably struggling to figure out what on earth could the left find objectionable about that clip.
All of the stuff that Kilmade just said is true. So what are they going after the libs, I'm not joking. Are pretending that when Kilmeade said she'd rather go talk to a college sorority than talk to an interviewer who's going to ask her tough questions, they're saying that Kilmeade said colored sorority.
She'd rather go speak to a colored sorority. Now we have the tape. You can go back and play it a million times. Its clear enough to me. Even if he garbles his word a little bit at the end, you can hear the first syllable very clearly and the first syllable is Kal.
Whats funny about this totally dishonest attack on Brian Kilmeade is its actually not the same syllable.
College and coloured are different. They are spelled about the same but they're different sounds. Col c a h l col and cull. C U H l, cull.
Colored. It's not collard like collard greens or something. It's he said college. College sorority of course. But then so very dishonest attack. Very, very silly. But I see everyone defending kill Mead and saying he would never say such a thing. It's outrageous to suggest he would say such a thing. My response is so what if he had? So what if he had the libs tell me that I have to refer to women like Kamala Harris as women of color. That's the new euphemism. I'm not allowed to call them black or in her case, I guess, Tamil Indian. I'm not allowed to use any other word throughout american history that has ever been used in a neutral, technical way to describe people of a certain ethnic and racial background. I today am required, as a matter of political correctness, to use the term of color.
So why is it that I am required to call Kamala Harris a woman of color, but if someone on Fox News were to have referred to colored sororities, which they did not, no one did, that that would somehow be a hideous violation and terribly racist.
Colored and of color are semantically identical statements, so who cares? My defense of Brian Kilmeade is, yeah, it's just a matter of fact that he didn't say what they were accusing him of saying, but even if he did, he would just be using the idiom of the left.
But of course, when the left uses it, it's good, and when the right uses it, it's bad.
Which brings us back to a phrase coined by Michael Anton, the celebration parallax. When the left talks about replacement migration, it's wonderful because they're celebrating it. Look at all this wonderful replacement migration we have. But when the right talks about replacement migration, it's a hideous, awful, racist conspiracy theory. They're talking about the same thing. It's just the difference is one's perspective.
If you think it's a good thing, it's true. And if you think it's a bad thing, it's a crazy, wild conspiracy theory. I'll say with of color and colored.
So they're going to try to paint Kamala as untouchable. You can't criticize her at all. And they're going to use JD Vance as a foil.
These are the two now young candidates in the race.
And Kamala is a brave, beautiful, wonderful woman of a color. And JD, he, oh, he's the worst of the worst, the worst kind of person you can be. He is a straight white man and he has the audacity to know that he's a man. He is a cisgender. He's just every terrible thing in the book. And so you have a politico piece that just came out.
Politico as Beltway establishment as it gets, a piece in the magazine. JD Vance has a bunch of weird views on gender as the headline.
The people who tell you that you have to believe that a little boy can become a little girl.
The people who tell you that a big, husky dude with 05:00 shadow and an Adam's apple must be permitted to strip down naked in your daughter's changing room at the public pool. Those people are telling you that JD Vance has weird views of gender. So what are the views?
I read this whole article, I'm sorry to say, and I outlined all of the views. First one is he says the country is run by childless cat ladies.
Show me the lie. By the way, he's not making fun of women who suffer from infertility. Obviously, that's a great pain for a lot of people, and I've seen it a little bit up close, and it's obviously a very terrible thing. That's not what he's talking about. Because one of the childless cat ladies he cites is Pete Buttigieg. So he's obviously referring to a type. We all know who this type is, and we all know that he's right about that. We are run by childless cat ladies, if not literal, at the very least spiritual. He then expresses skepticism of gender ideology.
Politico put that in quotes. Gender ideology.
That's one of his weird views. He doesn't think dudes can become chicks. He opposes abortion, so he thinks that we shouldn't murder little babies.
That's one of his weird views. He supports pro family policies, like the policy in Hungary, which encourages people to get married and have more children. So about as common sense a political policy as you can imagine. He supports that. That's a weird view. He believes marriage is between a man and a woman. So he has this really weird view that every single person on earth forever believed until 2015, that he supports this really weird, crazy view that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and then running mate to be Vice President Joe Biden ran on, that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Yeah, he holds that view, but he holds that view about nine years after you're allowed to hold that view, which had been held for all of history. He thinks divorce has become too common, so he's not really gung ho on divorce.
That's another weird view. That's it. That's all the views. Those are all the views. I'm not hiding. I'm not selectively choosing this one or excluding that one. That's everything they cite is a weird view.
If those are weird views, then the vast majority of Americans are weird.
Those are the most normal views that I can imagine on the issue of sex and gender. The libs views obviously are quite weird.
And they're when they go up for a vote that the ballot box or is a big issue for a candidate's campaign, they are roundly rejected by the voters.
Shows you how weird our Beltway elite really are. But, okay, if JD is weird, that's great. I guess we got a real weird country then, because that is what most people believe.
You know, the greatest interview show on the Internet yesterday now is more than just the most fun you can have on YouTube. It's also the best way to get to know your favorite YouTube stars, such as Brett Cooper. Does Brett think women should drive? Does she think Helen Keller was faking it? You will get those answers and so much more in our episode. Check it out.
I admit I do sympathize a little with Dylan Mulvaney because I, too, was once an impressionable theater kid. And who knows what could have happened to me if I was cast in rent on Broadway in my wayward youth. I sympathize with Del Mulvaney cause I was a theater kid. Let's answer and I'll comment. One, two. 3521,600 minutes is how long that episode is. By the way, yes or no game. It's now back in stock. So not only will you watch me and Brett playing that, but you can play it yourself. Go to Dailywire.com shop to get your game today. Dailywire.com shop, or yes or no today. Also, just a little instruction, because voicemail bag is coming up tomorrow, and the written mailbag is coming up tomorrow. If you want to send a mailbag question in, you go on the website, you go to the Michael Knowles show page. It's under watch. Then the Michael Knowles show. Then you click submit a mailbag question, and you can either write it so you write that mail by question, or if you want a voicemail bag, just record it on your phone, just on any app, whatever app you use to record audio and attach it to the email. But I implore you, I'm begging you on bended knee, keep it to less than a minute. Some people, it's very nice. You're loquacious. You want to talk, you want to send me in your ten minute manifesto. I can't put that on the show, so you got to keep it tender a minute and then we can play it on the show. And I look forward to that tomorrow.
One last little note on JD as they go after him, because there's not much to go after with Trump anymore. Everyone knows everything that Trump has ever done, every scandal or would be scandal or totally contrived hoax that the libs could come up with. They've pretty much already tried. And people have formed their opinions of Trump, so now they're going after JD. Pro publica, left wing outlethe is also insinuating that JD is totally crazy. A headline yesterday in private speech, JD Vance said, the devil is real, and praised Alex Jones as a truth teller. Now, the joke here that JD made about Alex Jones is he said, you watch Alex Jones and you watch Rachel Maddow. Alex Jones gets more things right than Rachel Maddow does. They call Jones a conspiracy theorist. The left are far more prolific conspiracy theorists.
First line there. JD Vance said, the devil is real.
Here's what he said.
He said that every person in attendance for his speech believed something that's a little crazy in his case. He said, I believe the devil's real and that he works terrible things in our society. That's a crazy conspiracy theory to a lot of very well educated people in this country right now. And that's how propublica is taking it. That's how the libs are taking it. This reminded me of a beautiful interview Antonin Scalia did, the late, great Supreme Court justice in 2013 with New York magazine. He was talking to some know nothing young reporter for New York magazine, and she was asking him his views about religion. They said, yeah, I'm Catholic.
Oh, you believe in heaven? You believe in God? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Oh, wow. That must be awful scary to believe in hell, isn't it?
Yeah, well, sort of. I mean, you know, Scalia is giving his answer, and. And she's so stunned by Scalia being Christian that at one point, he leans over and a theatrical whisper, he says, you know, I even believe in the devil. And here's what she says to him, the reporter, isn't it terribly frightening to believe in the devil?
And his response, I love this response. I go back to this response again and again.
You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My God, are you so out of touch with most of America? Most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil. It's in the gospels. You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil. Most of mankind has believed in the devil for all of history.
And here's the kicker.
Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil. I love this.
JD Vance is really weird because he believes in the devil. He thinks men and women are different. He thinks divorce is generally bad. He thinks it's kind of generally a bad thing to murder babies.
He thinks marriage is between a man and a woman.
But let me promise you something.
Having followed JD Vance's career a little bit, JD Vance is much more intelligent than the person who wrote this Propublica piece. JD Vance is much more intelligent than the person who wrote the Politico piece. JD Vance is much more intelligent than the vast majority of people, not just in the country, but especially in our political class, especially in the people who consider themselves the geniuses and the experts.
Antonin Scalia was much more intelligent than whoever this New York magazine reporter was.
But forget about that for a second.
Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil and have believed in all the things that people have believed in for thousands of years, that have helped to build up our civilization, that have helped us to see a little bit more clearly the fabric of the universe, our place in the cosmos, to see the truth.
And the supposed geniuses who are now mocking these people, they would appear to be mistaken. Now, speaking of the decline of intellectual life, there's a new study out.
Headlines everywhere. Terrible, terrible news. It turns out adults are no longer reading.
New study by the reading agency sheds light. This is out of the UK, though it's a problem throughout the western world, half of british adults do not regularly read.
The survey shows that 24% of people between the ages of 16 and 24 have never been readers, and it surveyed 2000 people who are nationally representative of uk consumers. The 50% of adult respondents who say they do read regularly represents an 8% decline since 2015. So over the course of nine years, you've got an 8% drop in the people who regularly read.
58% of adults. Eight percentage point drop. So it's even much more significant.
58% of adults answered affirmatively to that same question nine years ago.
So the normie response to this is, this is terrible. People don't read. People are idiots now. Used to be so much better, or everyone needs to read more or else we're all going to become dolts.
I enjoy reading.
Sure, I'm actually kind of a slow reader. I've probably read more books than the average person, but I haven't read nearly as many books as many of my friends. Those Klavins basically read three books an hour.
But should you read more? Should you read more? People are going to see those headlines say, ah, Doug, gonna. I really need to read more. I need to set a reading plan. I need to.
No, actually, I don't think the problem is that people need to read a lot more. In fact, some people need to read a lot less. And I go back to a french philosopher, Catholic. He was some member of the clergy. Antonin Gilbert Certillange, I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that. He wrote a book called the Intellectual Life, in which this is a guy who lived at the end of the 19th and early first half of the 20th century. He condemned, quote, the passion for reading, the uncontrolled habit, the poisoning of the mind by excessive mental food, the laziness in disguise, which prefers easy familiarity with others thought to personal effort.
In a way, there is a problem in modern society, which is that people are reading too much.
In a way, you say they're not reading enough. In a way, you say they're reading too much. They're just reading the wrong stuff. You have to be careful about what you read. There are so many dumb books out there, and the comparison between reading and eating is a good one.
If you eat healthy food, that's good for you. If you eat too much healthy food, if you eat even healthy food in excess, that can be bad for you. You've got to eat the appropriate amount of healthy food.
If you eat too little healthy food, you'll die.
But if you eat junk food, then there's really no amount that's good for you. It can always be bad for you. And so a lot of people today, they want to read. Either they'll just read paperbacks for entertainment, which, okay, I guess either you scroll or you watch tv or you read paperbacks.
Fine, I guess, if you want some recreation. But the people who read self help books, for instance, I think that's generally bad for you. I think that generally leaves you worse off than you were before. People who read pop philosophy written by fashionable left wing atheist materialists, that's bad for you. Very often you are left dumber and more incorrect at the end of the book than you were beforehand. It can lead you down a very, very bad path.
This is very contrary to the wisdom of our age, including on the right where we say, no, you just got to read more. You got to think everything. You need, total free speech. You need to say and do whatever you want. No, man, that can be really bad for you. That can lead you to cultivate bad habits, to come to erroneous conclusions, to develop even bad mental habits and desires and lead you way off the straight path.
No, what you need is curated reading. What you need is teachers.
What you need is proper education, which guides you. Okay?
Certilange suggested that people read pretty much just three books.
They read deeply. And they reread into authors. And one guy I talk about all the time, that's basically what I've done. I go back to the same three or four authors with a few extras sprinkled in over there.
But to go back to my favorite author, Dante, that whole poem is about Dante being led by guides by teachers, first by Virgil, then by his beloved Beatrice, then by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. And he's meeting all sorts of other teachers along the way. His teacher, brunetto Latini, his teacher, his ancestor Caciaguida, all the rest of them. That's an expression of how education ought to be. It has to be guided. If you just go out there on your own and consume a bunch of crap, you're probably going to end up dumber than you were when you started. Now, speaking of confused people, pro Palestine protesters just lit an american flag on fire at Union Station in Washington, DC.
Okay? So you see a lot of Palestine flags, a lot of protest at Bibi. The israeli president, Bibi Netanyahu was there.
And now you see some kind of Uncle Sam being hanged in effigy. Uncle Sam holding an american flag and an Israel flag, can't tell whose face is depicted on the effigy.
And then they're burning the us flag. Okay? A lot of kefiyas, that sort of thing.
I see this a lot.
Sometimes I notice patterns, you know? And I've noticed the more Palestine flags at a protest, the greater the likelihood that an american flag will be burned.
I've just noticed that I've never seen a patriotic, pro Palestine protest in America. Have you? At one point, some hero in Washington DC goes in to try to save the american flag from being burned in protest. Here's what happens there.
Mister Gigachad, wearing his white oxford shirt and chinos, grabs the flag, runs off with it, and then some kefia clad, loose lunatic lady goes and tries to tackle him and take the flag back so that they can further desecrate it, because the flag is a symbol. So the reason that you, if you're raised right, you don't want an american flag to touch the ground is not because there's some magic in the cloth or something, it's because it represents the country and you don't want to show disrespect to the country.
So this guy says, no, I don't want the flag to be disrespected. But the reason they burn it is because they do want to disrespect it, because they recognize that there's a relation between a symbol and the thing that it symbolizes.
And they really, really hate America.
So what do we conclude from this?
The Israel Palestine conflict is a complex one. Americas interests do not always line up with Israels interests. There are some people who are extraordinarily pro Israel who insist that Israel and America are basically interchangeable and we have exactly the same interests. I dont think thats true at all.
However, if youve got to kind of pick a side in the Israel Palestine conflict, I cant help but notice that at the pro Israel rallies they wave the american flag and at the pro Palestine rallies they burn the american flag.
I dont think you need to know all that much about the conflict to have some sense of which side you maybe should be at least somewhat inclined to favor.
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My favorite comment yesterday is from mega Casper C who says they didn't want to be burdened by what has been like by the constitution. That's true. That's the scary thing about Kamala's stupid catchphrase.
We need to imagine what can be unburdened by what has been, inasmuch as that has a meaning.
It's a jacobin political meaning. It's a radical liberal political meaning to say get rid of tradition, ignore the wisdom of the ages, spit on our forebears.
The past is evil, the present is a crisis, and the future is going to be great if you give us the power. That is a very scary political program because that's what it entails. Unburdened by what? Well, the constitution has been, the american way of life has been the american family has been Christianity.
Guiding America's destiny has been. It's a thing that has been noticed and understood and cherished. So if you want to get rid of everything that's been, you're going to try to include those things, too. The pro Palestine crowd was out in force yesterday because the prime minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, showed up to give a message to Congress. Here is his message.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Well, I have a message for these protesters.
When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you. You have officially become Iran's useful idiots.
Michael Knowles
All right, so you see mostly the Republicans applauding at that. The Democrats seem kind of irritated. And then you have Rashida Tlaib.
She's one of the squad. She's sort of like the ringo of the squad, but maybe the George Harrison of the squad. I don't know. She's not one of the, she's not, you know, Ilhan or AOC. That's more the Lennon McCartney side. But she's a far leftist, doesnt know very much, wants to abolish prisons and do all sorts of crazy stuff domestically. And shes extremely pro Palestine on the foreign front. And so shes wearing a Palestine kefiyyah around her neck and a Palestine flag button on her lapel.
Shes wearing some kind of blazer, I guess, for some reason. And shes holding a sign that says war criminal to describe Bibi Netanyahu.
Would anyone disagree with that phrase that Netanyahu used to describe these people?
Again, you don't need to know all that much about the Israel Palestine conflict to observe that the people who are most vociferously pro Palestine are the people who are most clearly wrong about everything else.
I don't know very much about Israel Palestine. I do know about crime and punishment a little bit. I do know that when you put more criminals in prison, that's good for society. And when you let the criminals out of prison, that's generally bad.
So if I look at people who they're wrong on law and order, they want to abolish prisons. They want more socialist economic policies. They want to encourage people to go get gender studies degrees for hundreds of thousands of dollars that are paid for by taxpayers. They want an open border.
They want all sorts of terr, they support Biden and Kamala Harris and all the worst politicians. If I notice that the people who are wrong about pretty much everything also tend to be the most pro Palestine, that is going to color my view of the Palestine Israel conflict. I'm just going to assume, I think reasonably, that if they're wrong about everything, they're wrong about that, too.
And that's what Bibi Netanyahu's counting on. That's why the Republicans were applauding him, one of the reasons the Republicans were applauding him. Then he goes on to explain to Americans why Iran is such a threat for Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israel is first, America is next.
So when Israel fights Hamas, we're fighting Iran. When we fight Hezbollah, we're fighting Iran. When we fight the Houthis? We're fighting Iran. And when we fight Iran, we're fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America.
And one more thing.
When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel and threaten every american city, every city that you come from, we're not only protecting ourselves, we're protecting you.
Michael Knowles
Okay. So is Iran the most murderous and radical enemy of America? I don't think, I would say that. I don't think that's true. Relatively small country compared to some of our other adversaries and relatively moderate compared to some of our other adversaries. I think of North Korea. I would say probably North Korea is a little more radical than Iran. I would say that China is a little bit more substantial in terms of throwing its weight around than Iran.
I'm not saying Iran doesn't pose a threat to America. Iran obviously does. Iran tried to murder Trump just a few weeks ago. They've had assassination attempts plotted against Trump for years now.
Iran causes all sorts of problems for us.
But here there's a difference between the us perspective and the israeli perspective. For the US, Iran is an adversary.
And sometimes we can work a little better with Iran. Sometimes it's a little harder. But America has a complicated relationship to the Middle east. You've got hijackers on 911 coming from Saudi Arabia, but you also have Saudi Arabia as one of America's best allies in the Middle east, and Saudi Arabia propping up us currency because of the petrodollar. And you've got other alliances in the Middle east with Kuwait or Bahrain. And then as a result of some of those alliances, then you've got some adversaries like Iran and Iran's coalition, and that's before even considering Israel into the equation. So what I'm saying about America's relationship with Iran is it's adversarial, but it's complicated when it comes to Israel.
Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. Iran does not pose an existential threat to the United States. So there's a difference of perspective and vulnerability there. So what does this mean for conservatives? What's the upshot of it? Well, probably the upshot is what Trump says about it, which is, hey, I'm going to go in there and resolve these conflicts.
And it sounds overly simple and kind of silly and dismissive or glib or something like that, but I actually don't think it is.
Americans do not have the appetite for regime change in Iran back in the era of George W. Bush and the height of the neoconservatives. Maybe Americans would have had more of an appetite for regime change in Iran. They don't now.
Trump has no desire for that either. He might go in and kill their top general, but I don't think he's going to try to overthrow the regime otherwise. Trump is kind of a dove. Trump is unpredictable politically, and this is just a fact. Trump had the most successful Middle east policy of any president in my lifetime.
He might have had the most successful Middle east policy of any president, certainly since Ronald Reagan and maybe, I don't know, since world War two.
He did a pretty good job balancing these issues. You know, Biden doesn't want to meet with Netanyahu. Kamala doesn't want to attend the Netanyahu speech.
Trump's gonna meet with Netanyahu. And Trump at the same time, just received a letter and sent a letter back to Mahmoud Abbas, who calls himself the president of Palestine. Abbas saying, trump, I'm so sorry that you were nearly assassinated. He said, mahmoud, it's a great image. It's right there on his truth social page. Mahmoud, thank you for the kind note. All will be good. Yours, Donald.
We're going to work it out. There's going to be great peace in the Middle east.
That's it. You don't need to be clamoring to go topple Iran.
I'm not clamoring to topple Iran. I have no appetite to do that whatsoever.
To simultaneously recognize that the people waving the Palestine flags hate your country and are wrong about pretty much everything.
Speaking of the US Senate, one little good story coming out of the US Senate and actually out of both parties, the Senate just unanimously passed a bipartisan bill to provide recourse to victims of deepfake porn.
Sexually explicit, non consensual images created with AI.
So, you know, this most notably affects celebrities who have filed lawsuits about this. You know, you type in so and so's face and make them look really hot and naked or whatever. You know, pointed out when this technology appeared on the horizon, I said, the big problem with this is not going to be the celebrities who already have to deal with similar problems. The big problem is going to be the girl in your math class where some pervert decides to create fake porn and it looks pretty real and passes it around the school. That's a big political problem looming. So the legislation is called the disrupt explicit forged images and non consensual Edits act.
Nothing DC loves more than a good acronym or initialism.
The Defiance act passed unanimously had the support of it was co sponsored by Josh Hawley, Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, a lot of great Republicans, some Democrats, too, sponsored by Dick Durbin, AOC in the House. And then a lot of Republicans co sponsored it. So as divided as we are, there are some things that we can agree on. And I've been making this point. I made this point in my book. Speechless. Controlling words, controlling minds. I've made this point. Thank you. For years, a lot of the commentary in the political elite, they say you can't do anything about porn. It's a free speech issue. You can't regulate porn, and it won't be popular. Americans love their porn. You shouldn't regulate that. I said no. There has been an appetite, a bipartisan appetite to do something to regulate and restrict porn for decades now. And it was stymied because of crazy judges. But you saw it with the Child Online Protection act and the Communications Decency act in the nineties, major provisions of which were gutted by judges. But it was Democrats and Republicans. Bill Clinton was signing these things into law. Look at this. AOC and Mike Lee agree on something. When was that ever going to happen? This is a winning issue.
It's a major public health crisis. It's a major political problem.
It's a matter of fraud and obscenity and all of these sorts of problems. But it's a political winner, too. So great to see that. Let's see more of it.
Much more to say. But, you know, we've been talking about matters of love, and I often say I'm a lover, not a fighter, but I'm also a fighter, too.
And I am going to be entering the ring as a corner man tonight for a major fight.
I'm going to be in the corner of smiling Sam Alvey. You might know him from the UFC. You might know him from all other sorts of fighting leagues, mixed martial arts, karate. Well, I'm going to be there, and I'm going to be giving Sam all the advice that he needs to do the left hook and the right punch and every. And I'm going to.
So you gotta. If you're in Nashville, you gotta come to this fight tonight. If you're not in, you gotta watch it. If you're not in Nashville, I'm gonna be talking to smiling Sam right now in the membrane segmentum. The show continues now. You don't want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles, Kennedy, WLS at checkout for two months, free on all annual plans.