Ep. 1544 - Olympic Boxing Controversy EXPLAINED In 3 Minutes

Michael Knowles
The US and Russia agreed to a major prisoner exchange yesterday, the most significant exchange since the Cold War. Four us residents were released, mostly journalists, Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, also Kormashiva and Vladimir Kara Murza. In exchange, we released a bunch of Russians, including spies, fraudsters, and a hitman. President Trump criticized the deal as yet another example of american weakness under Joe Biden.

But what really raised eyebrows was Joe Biden's response. President Trump has said repeatedly that he could have gotten the hostages out without giving anything in exchange. What do you say to that? What do you say to President Trump now? Who. Former president.

Speaker B
Why didn't he do.

Michael Knowles
Who's president, sir? What did you.

He didn't do it while he was president because they hadn't been taken hostage yet. One of them had, but three of the four, Gurshkovic, Kuramasheva and Kara Morza, were taken on Joe Biden's watch, and they were likely taken hostage because of the war that Joe Biden invited and then mismanaged.

I am reluctant to give Kamala the credibility conferred by the incumbency. But with Biden's inability to remember even basic facts pertaining to when he became president, one has to consider at least invoking the 25th amendment, except for the fact that a conscious Kamala would likely be as bad or worse as a demented Biden. And exhibit a is that it was Kamala's campaign that posted that clip. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show.

Welcome back to the show. A California father has won full custody of his kid after the little boy's mother tried to raise him. Non binary, which is mostly good news. It's basically a good story, but there's a lot of negative aspects to it, too, that no one's talking about. We'll get to that in one moment. First, though, folks, preserve your cigars on the go with the brand new Mayflower travel humidor. Did they bring me my humidor back? Yes, they did. There it is.

These people, we don't. They're very short supply, so people keep coming in and stealing my humidor. But we have it back. Here it is. It's got this cool, nifty handle. Nice, soft little thing here. Very often, these travel humidors don't include this. Then we've got the beautiful design, Mayflower from dawn to dusk. Perfect seal over here, which is really what you want. Nice soft padding, protects your stogies. You throw it in your backpack, you throw it in your suitcase, you throw it in your briefcase, you take it anywhere you wanna take your cigars.

This is the way to store your premium handmade cigars on the go.

The way you get it, well, the way you get it is you order it right now because it is going to sell out. But the place you get it is the Mayflower cigars website. Go to mayflowersigores.com dot. You must be 21 years old or older to order some exclusions apply.

Speaking of crime, Javier Millet, the leader of Argentina, is raising all sorts of eyebrows on the left, on the right, by promising to use AI to predict future crimes. Argentina security forces have announced these plans to use artificial intelligence to, quote, predict future crimes. And of course, the left and a number of people on the right are raising all sorts of a ruckus to say that this is going to infringe on people's rights and this is like minority report or something like that. And it's kind of funny because Javier Millet has positioned himself as the most libertarian national leader in the entire world. So hold on. Doesn't this oppose civil liberties? Isn't this some horrible, dystopian, tyrannical future?

It's hard for me to get too worked up about this. I actually think this is probably a good idea because I'm going to let you in on a little secret. This is a very politically incorrect secret.

You don't need AI to predict crimes.

I'm talking about broad neighborhoods, type of crime. You don't need AI to predict that. You just need common sense.

You need pattern recognition. But we're not allowed to have common sense or recognize patterns in our politically correct, woke, liberal, whatever euphemism you want to call it, age. So if Javier Millet were saying that we're going to scan people's faces, and then we're just going to predict with 87% certainty that they might commit a crime in the future, and then we're going to arrest them. Yes, obviously, that would be a violation of people's rights. That would be minority report. That would be very terrible. But that's not what they're saying.

They're saying they're going to use AI, first of all, to find people who are on the lam. So they'll scan people's faces to find out if they are currently wanted for crimes. That seems like a good use of Aih. And then furthermore, they're going to use machine learning algorithms to analyze historical crime data to predict future crimes. That's a good idea.

That's good. The reason that we're not allowed to do that, the reason we're not allowed to look at crime data and recognize patterns and then take proactive measures to police those areas is because the moment you do that, you're accused of profiling. This is what happened in New York with the stop and frisk policy.

It turns out, you're going to be shocked to hear this, that more crime is committed in bed Stuy than on Park Avenue on the Upper east side. And it turns out different types of crime on the Upper east side, they might be committing, I don't know, tax fraud or insider trading, but the kind of crime committed in bed Stuy is a little bit more violent, a little bit more street crime. However, you're not allowed to acknowledge that. So New York had this policy. It was a very successful policy called stop and frisk, and the policy exists elsewhere in the country. It's known as a Terry stop. It's based on a Supreme Court decision some years ago, and it would allow cops to look at the people who were obviously committing crimes and just talk to them a little bit, and in some cases, even frisk them, because you go to some project in some awful part of Queens or Brooklyn or the Bronx, and you see these gangsters, you know who they are, and you know they're running drugs, and you know they're pimping women, and you know they're doing all sorts of terrible things.

So you stop and you talk to them.

And this was called racist because a disproportionate number of the criminals were black and hispanic, or disproportionate number of people stopped for these presumptive crimes were black and hispanic. What they didn't tell you, of course, was that the cops were black and hispanic, too. And the people who were calling in the crimes were black and hispanic, too, because the neighborhoods are black and hispanic. And so the focus was on protecting the criminals on the basis of their race, but there was never any focus on protecting the victims on the basis of their race.

It was totally silly. So now we have to pretend. This is why.

When you read about crimes being committed, Ann Coulter has a rule, which is that if the longer you read the article and it doesn't mention the race and it doesn't mention the sex, you can be certain that the perpetrator is not a white man. Because whenever a white man commits a crime, it's always the top of the headline. That's perfectly fine with political correctness, but if it's a different race, if it's a woman, queer, LGBT, elemental, whatever, then they don't mention it. Seems like common sense to me, and I think it's good. Call me crazy, I guess I'm not the biggest libertarian in the world. I think it's good to have order, peace, stability. I actually think that's pretty much the whole point of the state. I think that's fine. I have no problem with what Malay is doing down there. Speaking of common sense, the plot thickens on this fighter, Imani Caliph, who has fought at the Olympics.

Imani Caliph. I think actually a fair bit of my segment on this fighter was censored from my show yesterday because of the big tech rules around discussing this. So I'll be very careful in my language. But this is a very important story.

Imani Caliph is a fighter who's fighting against women in women's boxing. And the way this has been portrayed in the press is that Imani Caliph is a Mandev who identifies as a woman who's fighting these women. And that's what a lot of the discussion has surrounded. Now, there is some question, actually, as to whether Imani caliph really is a man.

There have been conflicting reports over Imani Caliph's chromosomes, over Imani Caliph's testosterone levels. Is Imani caliph really a woman born with some sexual abnormalities or a man born with some sexual abnormalities or intersex or maphroditic or whatever, really know? There's a lot of conflicting information. We do know that Imani Caliph was prohibited from fighting women according to one of the major boxing associations. But then the Olympics cleared Imani Caliph to fight this italian. And then they get in the ring for 46 seconds, one punch. And the italian girl says, I'm out. This person's gonna kill me. You know, I've never been punched that hard in my life. And so that's why there's an uproar. So what I said yesterday on the show is very controversial. I said, look, the leftists are all claiming that it's perfectly fine for a man, in principle, to box a woman.

The liberals, modern liberals, classical liberals, progressive liberals, libertarians, the liberal types are saying it is wrong for a man to box a woman. Only women should box women. But there's actually a third perspective here, and that's the conservative perspective and that's my perspective, which is that women shouldn't box.

It's wrong. I can't watch it. I think it's, and I, furthermore, I think it is wrong politically for society to establish and encourage and fund and promote spectacles in which women are getting their skulls cracked in. I think that's wrong. I think that's disordered and disturbing.

And there were many, many people who came out and said, michael, you're far too extreme. You're a far right authoritarian. Many people who would call themselves conservatives said that. I pointed out, I said, hold on, you want to conserve the great tradition of women's boxing? When do you think women's boxing began? In the Olympics 2012. Women were banned from boxing in the Olympics until a dozen years ago. Okay, when do you think women's boxing became a thing worldwide?

Outside of a handful of rare occasions that were quickly snuffed out, women's boxing only began to hit anything even resembling the mainstream at the turn of the second millennium, 1998, in the UK, 99, 2000. So hold on, you're telling me that my extreme, far right, authoritarian, fascist, conservative position is something that everyone agreed with 25 years ago? That everybody, regardless of your political views, you're telling me that you.

Look, I'm a conservative, but I strongly support women knocking their skulls in on tv.

Your view, which is supposedly conservative today, that would have been a radically leftist view 25 years ago, frankly, even a dozen years ago.

So all of that as context to say what now?

Imani Caliph, some are saying, is not really biologically a man, that actually, there's some sexual ambiguity is raising the prospect that this person might be intersex or might be a woman, and we just don't know. So what then, if this person is intersex, it's a rare but real medical condition.

Someone with sexual abnormalities. Should that person be allowed to fight? Or do we need yet another boxing league? We need the intersex boxing league.

Or do we need, we just test testosterone and then we meld the women's and the men's boxing leagues? Or what do you think? Let's just take it even further. Let's say this person is a woman biologically and is just like the strongest woman ever. Let's say that the claims made by the Imani caliph supporters are true, and this person is biologically, at least plausibly, a woman.

And she's just, for whatever reason, super strong.

And that's why after 46 seconds, this italian lady had to jump out of the ring. Cause she was about to have her skull cracked in.

Do you support that? You think that's good? Well, it's win. It's two women. They agreed to fight. So, you know, let's go crack her skull and let's watch that woman bleed from the head.

No, I don't. That's not my view. At least I think it's still wrong. Not because a man or a woman is doing the punching, but because it is a woman who is being punched in a public spectacle, I think that's just wrong.

And if your best defense of that is, well, look, they agreed to do it.

Look, they wanted to do it. They agreed to do it. If your politics always comes down to a matter of voluntary actions, you're a lib.

There are many such cases. There are a lot of libs these days. We've lived in liberal modernity for a long time. But that is a very liberal point of view because I think, call me crazy. Call me an old fuddy daddy, I know this is my crazy, extreme view that virtually everyone agreed with until not so long ago.

I think politics is about more than just acts of the will.

I think it's about more than just consent. Consent is an important thing, but I think there's more to it. I think people can consent to things that are really bad and should be proscribed, thank God. Like doing heroin. You could consent to that, but I think that's bad. I don't think we should legalize heroin or, I don't know, snuff films, filming like dead people and people dying. I think that's probably bad. Being killed. I don't know. I think cock fights in general, I guess animals can't consent to anything.

The chicken owners could, I guess, consent to it, but I don't think we should dog fighting and stuff. I don't know. I just think there's a lot.

That's my conservative view. And furthermore, I think it is especially disordered to watch some poor woman get her head cracked in for whatever reason by anyone.

Call me old fashioned. I'm just one of those really old fashioned guys who thinks like everyone did in 2012. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to balanceofnature.com comma use promo code knowles. Balance of nature fruits and veggies is the most convenient way to get whole fruits and vegetables daily. Nature is pretty good at giving us the nutrients we need through our fruits and vegetables. So balance of nature takes fruits and vegetables. They freeze dry them, they turn them into a powder, then they put them into a capsule. Balance of nature is just one ingredient of a balanced lifestyle. Has no intention to replace a healthy diet, exercise, sleep, or any other healthy habits. But especially when you're living in this fast paced modern world, it is a really, really great way to get your fruits and veggies. Go to balanceofnature.com comma use promo code nolts k O W L E S for 35% off, your first order is a preferred customer. Plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com promo code knowles. When they come to your house, you can be so happy that you get to eat them, unlike here at the daily wire when they arrive and all the hyenas pounce on them, well, they pounce on them for good reason, because they love balance of nature. You will love it too, and you won't have to share when you order it yourself. Go to balanceofnature.com promo code knowles.

Speaking of relations between the sexes, this is a really funny headline.

This is the funniest headline I've seen all week. This is from the Washington examiner, why doctors say that ozempic patients on birth control should use condoms.

So it seems like a mad lib, you know? Well, they are mad libs, actually, who do these sorts of things, but it seems like a mad lib. You just fill in why doctors say that ozempic patients on birth control should use condoms. Okay? And I guess because the Ozempic weakens the efficacy of the birth control contraception pill, so then you have to use a more physical, tangible method of contraception.

Again, we're talking about what a fuddy duddy I am, what an old timey figure.

What if, just hear me out.

What if you didnt do any of that?

What if instead of using condoms because the Ozempic is messing up your birth control, what if instead you just, you didnt use any of those things and then you got married and you had kids and you aged gracefully, can we even propose that anymore?

Well, and I know there's, you're going to say some people need ozempic because they're 800 pounds. Okay, sure, in some extreme case, some extreme measures might be called for. Okay, sure, maybe.

But you got to ask yourself if you're one of these people who's just maybe like a little bit overweight, and you get some ozempic because you want to lose, you want to look better in your swimsuit or something like that, and then you're taking the birth control pill, but the birth control pill is not working anymore, so you got to use the condoms. And I guess you got to ask yourself, why are you doing any of that? Why you're taking the birth control pill so that you can have promiscuous sex and not have children.

Why, though? Why are you doing, I know why. I mean, cause it feels good, sure. But wouldn't it be better to have children? Wouldn't it be better rather than go out and hook up with people who don't care about you, who don't want any accountability, who don't want to realize love between two people and make it so real that it actually becomes another person and welcome the greatest that God can give you in this terrestrial plane.

What's the point of it all?

What's the point? And even with Ozempic taking out the extreme cases, just the people who are kind of using it to lose some weight.

Why are you trying to look super hot when you're 50? 50 year olds aren't supposed to be hot. They can look beautiful. Women of a certain age, men of a certain age can have an elegance to them. But you're not supposed to be on the COVID of Sports Illustrated when you're 50 or 60 or 70. That's not what it's for. And you're not.

The purpose of your sex drive, which is something so close to the heart of human nature, the purpose of it is not to just go out and meet some random person and bump uglies and then maybe not even get that person's phone number. And then heaven forfends you get pregnant.

That would constitute some kind of sexually transmitted disease, some horrible fate to be avoided. That's not what any of that stuff is for. It's not going to make anybody happy. Listen, I come from New York, I lived in Laden, I went to a very liberal university. I have a lot of friends who do this kind of stuff. None of them are happy. It doesn't make any, you know, the people who are happy, the ones who are just kind of normal. Generally speaking, that means getting married, working to get married, then being open to the possibility of life and having a family. And I tell you, I've traveled the world, you know, I've had lots of really wild, wacky experiences. Nothing compares to looking my kidney in the face. None of it. I've traveled to South Asia, I've been in the Middle east, all over Europe. Oh, man, it's cool. I've had a zillion brunches. I've gone to a billion bars. It can be fun.

Not any of that equals one little look from my cute little kid, okay?

So many people desire that and they can't do that. It just drives me crazy that people are actively cutting themselves off from it for tantalizing goods that are really not so good. After all, they're not really going to make anybody happy. Is it any wonder marriage rates are collapsing, birth rates are collapsing, the country's collapsing, is it any wonder you could just ask yourself, why am I doing these things? Kind of crazy? There's so much more to say. First, though, go to preborn.com knowles. It's been over two years since the overruling of Roe v. Wade, which was supposed to be a great victory for the pro life movement. But the number of abortions has increased since then due to the fact that the abortion pill is now more available. New estimates show more than 1 million babies were aborted in 2023. The abortion pill accounted for over 66 0% of them. Preborn is currently providing free ultrasounds and life saving resources to expectant mothers, helping them choose life for their babies. They are on the front lines, offering support to those facing unplanned pregnancies. Thanks to the Daily Wire's partnership with Preborn, I'm excited to announce we were able to make our powerful documentary choosing life, available on daily Wire. Plus, this film serves as a crucial counterpoint to the left's narrative on abortion, presenting the undeniable truth about the humanity of the unborn. It is available to you now free of charge@dailywire.com. dot join me in thanking Preborn for bringing this important work out from behind our paywall and consider making a donation today to support their life saving work.

You can sponsor one ultrasound for $28. You can sponsor the whole network for $5,000. I personally support this group. I encourage you to give what you can as well. Preborn.com knowles donate today preborn.com Knowles Ordell pound 250 say keyword, baby. Pound 250. Keyword, baby. My favorite comment yesterday is from rvmaxtube says, it's funny that Joey Joe Biden literally said diversity, equality and inclusion just before saying Kamala's name. It's perfect. You couldn't have scripted it better.

Kamala's a Dei hire. How dare you say Kamala is a dei hire?

Biden said Kamala is a Dei. That's not my words. That's not the republican words. That's what you guys said. No, no, it's different.

When he said it, he meant it as a good thing. So then she was a dei hire, but now that you're saying it's a bad thing, she's not a dei hire. Okay, got it. Speaking of marriage and family, there is a basically good story.

A California father has won full custody of his son, his four year old son, after the four year old's mother tried to raise him as nonbinary. Here's the story.

Speaker B
So sorry's mom started identifying that way herself, to the best of my knowledge. And she started trying to call him they all the time. And weird neutral pronouns like that, as well as some incidents where, you know, she tries to put dresses on him or forces him to wear some sort of girly clothing or attire.

Michael Knowles
So it says, the cali dad told a host, I know he's a boy. He wants to be a boy. He gets angry when you say he's not a boy.

He was overjoyed to learn that his then girlfriend was pregnant in 2019, but she abruptly really changed, you know, and now she started identifying as a they them.

And he was finally able to meet the boy when the boy was 15 months old.

And then the boy's mother was arrested for felony child endangerment. So that really motivated him to try to get custody. After some unspecified incident, child protective services recommended that the father be granted custody.

And then the New York Post points out, this is not the first relationship to fail after one of these trans ideology phenomena started to crop up. Yeah, that's true. So this is generally good.

Generally good stuff, right?

Sure. The woman got pregnant out of wedlock, but they chose not to kill the kid. That's good. And then the father wanted to be involved in the kid's life, but then the mother had all these sorts of problems. So then he won the custody. So luckily, this derelict mother was not able to trans her kid, her poor little boy. And so a lot of good stuff here. I can't help but notice, though, a through line in a lot of these stories, custody battles, overdose, the trans ideology, a through line is divorced and unwed parents, right? Isn't that the through line? In a lot of cases, it's some divorced father suing his wife because the wife now either has become a lesbian or the wife just embraces the gender ideology and wants to raise the kid as they them or whatever.

At the heart of basically all of these stories is a cracked up family.

There's a cracked up family, and no surprise there's going to be a cracked up ideology that's going to try to crack up a kid. Of course, I wonder how many of these cases of the gender ideology would exist if we had significantly lower rates of divorce, even when it's not one parent trying to peddle the ideology on the kid and fighting the other parent about it. Just divorce traumatizes kids.

And then they spend a lot of time online and they go on various social media platforms. I've interviewed de transitioners about this, and they spend a lot of time and they've got all these complex emotions to process, and they look for an outlet. And this is the latest identity fad.

Just wonder if you.

We're always trying to treat the symptom of a social pathology, but we don't seem to get to the actual cause of the pathology. So you see this especially today. We were talking about this a little earlier.

Everyone agrees. All sensible people agree. We need to stop this trans ing the kids.

Transing the kids is really bad. Okay, yeah, that's really bad. But what about transing the adults? The reason transiting the kids is bad is that a man can't become a woman. So if that's true, then why do we let the adults trans themselves? Well, because our politics just all comes down to acts of volition and consent. Okay, well, if a kid looks up and sees that Uncle Jerry is now Uncle Jane, if a kid in the entire popular culture sees constantly this propaganda that a man can become a woman, that's going to incline him to believe that a man can become a woman.

So you actually can't solve the transing the kids problem without dealing with the transing the adults problem.

But how do we get to the trans ing the adults problem? Well, because we've said for decades now that men and women, for all intents and purposes, are the same and interchangeable. We've done that by changing the definition of marriage and pretending that a husband can be a wife and a wife can be a husband, and you can have a marriage of two husbands or two wives.

And even before that, we established this premise by embracing feminism and the notion that a woman needs a man like fish needs bicycle. So it goes way, way deeper. And one of the fruits of feminism, maybe one of the causes of feminism, was the ease of divorce, no fault divorce, which was unheard of in american history until relatively recently.

And what's driving a lot of this behavior and a lot of these social pathologies, probably divorce, because the family is the bedrock political unit. So if you have a crack in your bedrock political union, you're probably going to have a crack in your broader polity.

There's good stuff here, but we can't call this a win that a father got custody of his kid from some crazy mother, because there's so many problems beneath the surface of that news story. Now, speaking of aging gracefully, President Trump has a great proposal. In my humble opinion.

He just posted on truth, social seniors should not pay tax on Social Security.

Q we've been a little tough on the libertarians today, but. Q. Some of the libertarians and the beltway types who are really focused on entitlement reform, which is an important thing.

In due time.

Trump, I think, is really getting it here. I think this is a really smart proposal. Why, a lot of people don't even know that you have to pay tax on Social Security. You've had to pay tax on Social Security since 1983. Ronald Reagan signed this into law, and the purpose of it was to shore up the solvency of the Social Security Trust fund. There is a tax of up to 50% on Social Security benefits. If your income is between $25,000 and $34,000, there's a tax of up to 85% on benefits when income is over $34,000. That's according to the Social Security Administration, some pretty low threshold.

On married couples, up to half the benefits are subject to income tax. If the combined income is between $32,000 and $44,000 past $44,000, you're talking about 85% of the benefits taxable. So why not? What's the argument for continuing to tax Social Security benefits? Or rather, I should say, what's the argument for Trump not making this campaign promise to win over the votes of seniors? The argument is, well, this will lead the Social Security trust fund to become insolvent sooner. Okay, well, let's look at the analysis.

How much sooner? According to the Committee for a Responsible federal budget, which is obviously quite opposed to proposals like this, the Social Security Trust fund is expected to run out in 2037. And under this new proposal, it would run out about a year earlier.

So the difference here, the difference for Trump in making this promise, is, do I win the election or do I lose the election?

Do I win seniors who are motivated to vote, or do I lose seniors?

And the difference from the perspective of public policy is, does Social Security run out in 2037 or 2036?

It's not that big a difference, guys. We blow money on so much stuff.

Taxing Social Security or not taxing Social Security is not even close to the tip of the iceberg of entitlement reform. Why not? The libs buy off groups all the time, and the libs do it in a far less just and defensible way. The way the libs do it is they say, hey, college kids. Who are likely to make more money than most Americans. Hey, college kids. You know, we're talking about, what, a quarter to a third of Americans who are four year college graduates. Yeah, we're gonna forgive your student loans. We're gonna make the poorer people pay for it, and we're gonna do it. Cause you're likely to vote for us, whereas in this case, you have Trump saying, hey, senior citizens who've worked hard and you paid into this system, we're going to let you get a little bit more of a benefit out of that.

To me, that's a no brainer.

Smart stuff. Now, I know that the ideologues are going to say, well, no, that's irresponsible. And that's a violation of the sacred principles of, I don't know, the sacred principle of needing to cut entitlements or something.

Okay, good. You can enjoy those sacred, rather dubious principles under the Kamala Harris administration.

And I don't know, I think I'd rather give seniors a little bit extra money under the Trump administration, which is actually going to fix our problems because it'll have the political power to do so. So much more to get to when it's time to get to the mailback. Daily Wire is about to release its very first theatrical film. It's going to be huge. Am I racist? It's not just a movie. It's an attack on the DEI industrial complex that's infecting our nation. Mount Walsh went undercover surrounded by professional race baiters and diversity grifters. The guys who brought you what is a woman? Are now asking the question that makes liberals break out in hives. Pre sale tickets are available August 14. Mark your calendars. Watch the trailer now. Miracist.com.

get a taste of the madness. Our mailbag is sponsored by Puretalk. Go to puretalk.com knowstoday. Take it away.

Speaker C
Hi, Michael.

I just graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison, and I earned a commission into the army as a second lieutenant.

Since I don't start my army career until September, I decided to take up a job at Starbucks to earn a little bit extra money and to truly understand how the other side lives.

Over the course of the past few months, I've grown quite fond of my job and have decided to remain quiet on any political topics that come up while I am at work. However, since it's my last week there, I'm really considering coming out to all of them. As a staunch Trump supporter, how should I go about this? Or should I just remain quiet? Thanks, Michael P's. I really enjoyed when you came to our campus to speak back in the spring.

Michael Knowles
Oh, well, it's wonderful to hear from you again.

Look, I like Starbucks. I know conservatives dunk on Starbucks, and it drives me crazy that period where they were decristmassing the Christmas cups. And I know there are problems with it. But overall, I think it's a good corporation. And there are a lot of secret conservatives at Starbucks. I know a lot of the baristas dress kind of crazy and everything, but I've met a number of secret conservatives there.

So I see why you're fond of your job. The question you gotta ask yourself is, what purpose would coming out as a conservative serve?

If the purpose is to win over your colleagues who you seem to like, even though some of them might be pretty lib, then yeah, I think that's a good idea.

And how do you do it? The way you do it is not some kind of big reveal. Haha. Look, I've been lying to you the whole time. Mega, mega, Mega. The way you do it is you just insert it casually into conversation. Oh yeah, I like him. I know people don't like Trump, but I think he's great. I think country's better off under him. And you see what they do if they like you. If you've grown fond of your job and you get along with your colleagues, they might probably, they'll try to chop your head off. But one or two of them might just say, oh, interesting.

I thought all Trump supporters were evil, but I know this person isn't evil. So I guess maybe I have to reassess my premise.

That's what I would do.

If your purpose in doing it is just some fireworks to say, hi, you know, suckers, I got you. I wouldn't do that. There's really nothing to be gained from that. But if you're going to persuade them, I think it's a good idea. Next one.

EJ
Hey Michael, this is EJ. Col. I wanted to ask you what exactly the establishment is supposed to be in the republican party. For all my life, I've heard conservatives and Republicans complain about the establishment trying to undermine conservative values in the republican party and serve their own interests. But I've yet to meet a single person who can define what the establishment is. If we go by political or financial support, then that would currently make Trump the establishment candidate from the outset, because 90% of Congress endorsed him before the primaries began, and over half of the GOP donor class backed him, along with almost every single major political pundit on the right. Yet I still hear people talk about the GOP establishment trying to sabotage him. Trump. To be honest, it just seems to me that establishment is just a buzzword people throw around to blame all their electoral problems on someone else, so they don't have to self reflect or take responsibility for their own mistakes. And to be clear. I don't reject the idea that we have elites in this country or even the notion that there are high class donors or politicians out for their own interest. Right now, I see all of those things being mobilized to silence any disagreement with Trump rather than it being used against him. So again, I'm left asking, what is the establishment and how do we define it? Thanks.

Michael Knowles
So, good question. No, the establishment is not just political support. It's not just popularity. Establishment refers to institutions. Think of like a church establishment in England, for instance. So the GOP establishment is made up not of individuals, not even of donors, exactly, but of institutions.

And what are those institutions? Some think tanks. I don't know, the Heritage foundation or AEI or CAto, even some media organizations. News Corporation, Fox News would be the biggest one among them.

Daily wire is pretty young, but I don't know, we've grown so big so fast. In a way, maybe we're probably not exactly the establishment, but we could almost, maybe throw our weight around a little bit in this. Maybe. Certainly if we stick around longer, we might be able to throw our weight around a little bit there.

Certain lobbyist groups, certain trade organizations, the Chamber of Commerce would be a good example of that. And so when you examine the established institutions, then you ask yourself, okay, who do they support? And in some cases, look, heritage was, seemed not to be super pro Trump, but now is reasonably pro Trump.

You know, maybe even more than, you know, moderately pro Trump at this point.

Fox News was kind of anti Trump until they had to be pro Trump. They kept, in 2016, as in 2024, they tried to find another candidate. It didn't work. So now I guess they'll be kind of pro Trump again. You think of the National Review, National Review magazine, founded by William F. Buckley Junior, considered the flagship magazine of the conservative movement. They hated Trump. They had the against Trump movement, and many of them were still never Trumpers.

Chamber of Commerce was a little opposed to Trump, maybe more than a little bit opposed to Trump.

And you could keep going. AI doesn't seem to really like Trump that much.

I don't want to speak for any of these groups because there are lots of different people within them. And someone at one of these think tanks or media outlets might say, no, I'm very pro Trump. But the institutions themselves were broadly by and large opposed to Trump, which is the reason that Trump can still, even after having already been president, having been the nominee now, it's the third time he's the republican nominee for president. He can still credibly claim to be outside of the establishment, because the establishment is the institutions, and most of the institutions don't really like him that much. Next question.

Simcha
Hi, Michael Simcha here. Big fan of the show.

So you've been saying pretty consistently that the war in Gaza and Israel is complicated, but you'd rather be on the side of people who are not burning the american flag.

I don't really see why it's very complicated. The Jews just don't want to be killed. And Hamas and largely the palestinian population, vows to kill the Jews, as have many people throughout all of our history.

We just don't want to be killed. And that's why the whole notion of a ceasefire is preposterous, because they don't want to have a cease fire. They themselves say that they want to kill all the Jews, and that's why we're going to fight to keep our indigenous land that we've been living for thousands of years before Islam was even invented. So I don't really see why it's very complicated.

Maybe you can enlighten me.

Michael Knowles
I can. That's a good question, though.

The reason it's complicated is that the state of Israel was founded in 1948, which is quite recently.

And how was the state of Israel founded? It was founded because of a push by the United nations, and before that, the United Kingdom and the backing of the United States, which is the successor to the British Empire.

What was this area of land before the state of Israel was established?

It was the british mandate of Palestine. Okay, what was it before mandatory Palestine? It was the Ottoman Empire. Okay, what was it before the Ottoman Empire? Well, if you go back far enough in history, you see a lot of people conquering this land, some Muslims. Then you get some crusades, and then you get. And you go all the way back and you ask, okay, when was the last time the Jews had political control, even some political control in this land? And you get back to the second century, you get back to the Bar Kokhba revolt, after which this was the third of the roman jewish wars.

The Romans basically destroy them and many Jews flee and spread.

And the first of the roman jewish wars happens when? In the first century, and it culminates in the destruction of the Second Temple. Okay.

And then there's fighting over the land even before that, which we all read about in our bibles. And, you know, there are Philistines, there are Canaanites, and it goes back to back a while. So why is it complicated? Well, because the Jews have not had political control over this land for something like 1800 years. Now you say, well, we're indigenous to this land.

Sure, like maybe, but the Iroquois are indigenous to New York state. That's not very persuasive. We're not going to give New York state back to the Iroquois. So then why should we support the state of Israel?

There is a religious argument, the religious argument that God gave the land to the Jews. Okay, that's not going to persuade people who are not jewish. It will persuade some people who are not jewish. But many people who hold differing religious views are not going to be persuaded by the religious case for Zionism. How about the historical case for Zionism? Again, that is not going to persuade many people who are not jewish. It will persuade some Christians. It actually won't even persuade some Jews, which is a separate matter.

So then what's the case for Israel?

My case for Israel, my pro Israel case is as a prudential matter, which is for the Jews, it would be nice for them to have a place where theyre not getting pogromed all the time. Itd be nice for them to have a little bit of political autonomy.

And two, I think id rather have our jewish friends looking after the holy sites than other groups sometimes are not as nice about the holy sites and dont make it as easy to go visit everything.

And as a prudential matter, we just sort of, there's more alignment between the political views of the state of Israel and western civilization than between, I don't know, like the pro Palestine movement. And, oh, by the way, here's a rule of thumb. At the pro Palestine protests, people burn the american flag. And at the pro Israel protests, they don't. So even if you don't know anything about the history of the region, you might say, okay, it looks like those guys are more on my side than those guys. So that's why I say, as a prudential matter, there's a strong case to be made for defending Israel. But it's a complicated issue. Of course it's a complicated issue, and I think to deny the complexity of the issue is not going to persuade anybody. Next question.

Speaker F
Mister Knowles, I'm wondering if you could help me with this quandary.

Apparently there are two Michael Steeles. There's the Michael Steele who was the RNC chairman, and then there's the Michael Steele, who apparently is the MSNBC chairman and sends around pictures of Kamala Harris flexing, dressed like Captain America. Those two things seem polar opposite to me, and I'm wondering if you could help me figure out what in the world happened to Michael Steele.

Michael Knowles
Yes, for those who don't remember, Michael Steele was the chairman of the Republican National Committee during the Obama years, and he was succeeded by Reince Priebus. And then he became a huge lib. He was always a huge lib. But now he goes on NBC and talks about how terrible republicans are. So what happened?

It's not just Michael Steele. This happens to a lot of Republicans. It happens to a lot of Republicans because the people who run the republican party very often feel that they have more in common with liberal elites than they do with their own constituents. Many of them look with disdain on their own constituents. And part of the reason is that man is a social creature. And these guys live in Washington, DC. It's a very liberal town, or they live in New York, or they live in LA even. Or they live in cities where there is some political power, but especially Washington, DC. And their friends are more liberal and their social milieu is more inclined toward liberalism than conservatism.

And they go where their buddies are and they go where their paycheck is. NBC is not going to pay Michael Steele to go talk about how great Donald Trump is. The rest of the show continues now.

You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code knowles at checkout for two months. Free on all annual plans.

Republicans are Nazis. You cannot separate yourselves from the bad white people. Growing up, I never thought much about raising. Never really seemed to matter that much, at least not to me. Am I racist? I would really appreciate it if you love. I'm trying to learn. I'm on this journey. I'm gonna sort this out. I need to go deeper undercover.

They gonna say I'm racist. Joining us now is Matt, certified Dei expert. Here's my certification. What you're doing is you're stretching out of your whiteness. This is more for you and less for you. Is America inherently racist? The word inherent is challenging that. I want to rename the George Washington Monument to the George Floyd monument. America is racist to its bow. So inherently, yes. This country is a piece of white folks trash. White supremacy, white woman, white boy. Is there a black person around here? Black person right here. Does he not exist?

Hi, Robin. Hi.

Speaker F
What's your name?

Michael Knowles
I'm Matt.

Speaker F
I just had to ask who you are because you have to be careful.

Michael Knowles
Never be too careful. They go say you race in theater. September 13, rated PG 13.

Ep. 1544 - Olympic Boxing Controversy EXPLAINED In 3 Minutes

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction to the Controversy

2: Societal Implications

3: Media Censorship and Public Debate

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Companies

Books

Guest Name(s):

Content Warnings:

Transcript