The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1669 - Trump and Elon Prove the Media Really Are Fake

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Journalists are caught on the U.S. government dole, AOC claims illegal aliens are the reason Americans survived COVID, and Elon Musk hires Big Balls.   Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/4biDlri   Ep.1669   - - -   DailyWire+:   Go to https://JeremysRazors.com now. Get the 2nd Gen razor and embrace the future.   "Identity Crisis" tells the stories the mainstream media won’t. Stream the full film now, only on DailyWire+: https://bit.ly/3C61qVU   Order your Mayflower Cigars here: https://bit.ly/3Qwwxx2 (Must be 21+ to purchase. Exclusions may apply)   - - -   Today's Sponsors:   Hillsdale College - Start learning today. Go to https://hillsdale.edu/knowles to sign up for over 40 free online courses.   Momentous - Ready to start living on purpose? Visit https://livemomentous.com and use code KNOWLES for 20% off your order today.   Policygenius - Head to https://policygenius.com/KNOWLES to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save.   - - -   Socials:   Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RwKpq6   Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3BqZLXA   Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eEmwyg   Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3L273Ek Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms apply. I've finally found it. After years and decades even of searching, I have finally found the most perfect mainstream media article ever written. It comes to us, thanks to President Trump, by way of Reporters Without Borders, Headline. Trump's foreign aid freeze throws journalism around the world into chaos. Now, that headline alone is pretty funny. Why would the presidents enacting a policy throw journalism into chaos? Shouldn't that be good for journalism?

Isn't the president doing things the sort of thing that journalists exist to cover? Why is that throwing journalism into chaos? We learn the reason in the subheader right here in bold. President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including over $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information. I want you, hold on. Pause, did you catch that? $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media. That, I'm pretty sure, is a contradiction in terms, because media outlets that depend for their very existence on hundreds of millions of dollars

from the government are, by definition, not independent. Those outlets are extremely dependent. They are the dependent media. Traditionally, we call them state media, actually. But Reporters Without Borders goes on and doubles down. The paragraph concludes by calling, quote, on international public and private support to commit to the sustainability of independent media. Public support, that's government support for independent media.

And the demands are increasingly desperate, like the Wizard of Oz when he is revealed as a fraud. We are the great and powerful independent media. no attention to those government hacks behind the curtain. But the jig is up. The establishment media are cut off and in free fall. No wonder they lied and deceived and fought so hard against the facts and the will of the people to keep Trump out of office. Their very existence depended upon it. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show. Welcome back to the show. President Trump has just signed one of my favorite executive orders yet. This touches on a very politically incorrect subject. And it's not transgenderism. Enough about transgenderism. It's an even more

important subject. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to hillsdale.edu slash knolls. As February unfolds, many of us are settling into our routines, but that does not mean the opportunity for fresh starts has passed. Whether your January goals are still going strong or need to reset, this month offers the perfect moment to embrace learning and growth. This February, I encourage you to spend time exploring something new. Why should January have all the fun when it comes to personal development? When you want to explore something new, you go to check out Hillsdale College, offering more than 40 free online courses in the most enduring and important subjects. You can learn about CS Lewis, the Book of Genesis,

the U.S. Constitution, the Roman Republic, or the ancient church. I would personally recommend Marxism, socialism, and communism. This brand new online course features Hillsdale professors of history, politics and economics as they examine Marx's life and writings, the consequences in the Soviet Union, and the spread of cultural Marxism in America. I really love Hillsdale. Hillsdale is one of the few reputable, serious institutions of learning left in the United States. So right now, you can avail yourself of their resources. Go to Hillsdale.edu.edu slash Knowles. It's free. Super easy to get started. Hillsdale.edu slash Knowles. Hillsdale.edu slash Noles. While we're talking about stupid headlines, there's one that I cannot let go.

This is probably my favorite headline I've seen in the past week or two. The Reporters Without Borders won. That's the most perfect headline. That totally sums up the farce of the fourth estate of the great intrepid journalists and media. But this one's my favorite headline from Vox.com, explanatory journalism from a liberal perspective. Vox.com headline, J.D. Vance accidentally directed us to a crucial moral question. And this is in response to J.D. Vance on television talking about the order of charity. And some people are calling it the hierarchy of love and the ordo amouris in Latin.

J.D. Vance getting into a big fight with all of these prominent lib journalists and Yale professors and Yale affiliated people over a deeply Christian concept. But a concept that even just comes from our common sense going back to Aristotle to some degree, St. Augustine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Ordo on Maurice. The reason I love this headline so much is just this word accidentally. You know how happy I am that we are now living under an administration in which the vice president will be giving lectures on scholastic philosophy in Latin, on television, on Twitter. But this word accidentally, whatever you want to say about J.D. Vance. I really like J.D. Vance. Maybe you don't like J.D. Vance. The libs hate J.D. Vance.

whatever you want to say about him. Does anyone seriously doubt that he is intelligent? He seems like a pretty intelligent guy, right? He graduated Yale law school. Came from nothing. Drug addicted mother, very difficult circumstances. Came from nothing. Rose up to graduate the top law school in the country, top ranked.

Went on, wrote a book that was so powerful. It became a number one bestseller. Hollywood gobbled it up, made a big movie about it. He gets elected to the Senate. He makes a boatload of money. with Peter Thiel. He's a intelligent guy, right? And whatever you want to say about him, the very fact that he is explicating scholastic philosophical concepts in Latin on Twitter would seem to suggest he's fairly well-educated, even if you don't agree with his conclusions. Generally

speaking, when indisputably intelligent and well-educated men explicate philosophical concepts in Latin, in public, they are not accidentally stumbling into moral questions. Whatever you want to say about JD, that's not accidental, guys. Vox.com is accidentally stumbling into a moral question

because J.D. Vance raised it for them and they could not ignore it because he's the vice president of the United States. And now we're having a national debate on the Ordo Amoris be still my beating heart. That's the accidental part.

I think Vox.com accidentally stumbled That's what I think just happened. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. Now, speaking of immigration, AOC, we haven't heard from her a lot lately. AOC just went on some random podcast to present her view of the reason we must have illegal aliens in the country. And I'd never heard this claim before. AOC says, we need illegal aliens because Americans would not have survived COVID.

without illegal aliens. Understand that America's immigration force and our community of immigrants, including and especially the millions of undocumented people in this country, are why America has prospered, especially why we survive the COVID-19 pandemic. And for all of the people who cast a vote based on grocery prices and inflation, if you think your groceries are expensive now, wait until the farms are empty. If you think houses are expensive now, wait until there's no one building them. Understand the consequences of what this means.

Because for America to not accept immigrants is the definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Okay. Now, part of this argument I have heard a lot. before. Part of this argument is the argument that the left consistently makes for illegal immigration. Namely, if we don't allow criminal cartels to import a bunch of third world peasants into the country so that we can pay them slave wages, who's going to pick our grapes, who's going to clean our houses, who's going to fix our toilets? I don't think a lot of illegal aliens or plumbers, actually, that's more of a skilled position. But in any case, that's their argument. Who's going to

who's going to clean our floors and pick our grapes and work as our indentured servants, afraid that we could deport them at any moment so that we can continue to mistreat them. That's their argument. It seems like a really nasty argument to me, but that is their open defense of illegal immigration right now. But what about this? We would not have survived COVID without illegal aliens. Well, AOC is just pointing to a particular moment of national crisis to say that our economy

could not survive without illegal aliens. That's the broader point that you. she's making. That we are economically dependent upon illegal aliens. And she's right. She's totally right about that. Got to give credit where credits do. She's right. The United States is economically dependent upon mass migration, certainly, and practically speaking, upon illegal immigration. That's true. That's why we need to enforce the law. She thinks that's an argument for just keeping the borders open and allowing the cartels to shove a bunch of people into the country and the Democrats will get an electoral benefit. But even just from an economic standpoint, she thinks

that's the argument for it. But no, this is the point that Trump is making. This is one of the reasons that people elected Trump to another term is it is very bad for America to be this dependent upon mass migration. That's not sustainable. That means that we're not having kids. We're not replacing ourselves. We're not a strong country. It is really bad for America to be this economically dependent upon people who are subverting our law, who exist outside of our legal system. That is not sustainable in the long run. It is really bad. Let's broaden it out. It's really bad. We learn this from COVID for the United States to be this dependent upon China for our supply chain. It's really bad because if a virus comes out of China and the world gets shut down,

we're up the creek without a paddle. And that was ostensibly just a virus that popped out of nowhere. Imagine now if we go to war with the places that produce all of our stuff, that have stolen all of our intellectual property. Right, it's all bad. The liberals on the left and the right are arguing, no, we need to keep the status quo, man, because, you know, we're just so dependent upon it.

But what we're saying is the status quo is totally unacceptable. It's hollowed at our manufacturing base. it's been bad for American families. It subverts our immigration laws. It leads to rape and murder and a ton of fentanyl poisoning our country in the case of illegal immigration. It makes us totally dependent on China and slave labor in China. It's just that's unacceptable. So yeah, I say you're right.

Thank you for highlighting the problem. You're right. All the more reason to hurry up with the Tom Homan deportations is we need to fix our economy so that we're not dependent on crime. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to live momentary. Ventus.com, use code noles. Success is not built on resolutions. Those are made to break. It's built on taking action and building unstoppable momentum. When it comes to optimizing your health span, living longer and living better, certain things are non-negotiable. Quality is at the top of that list,

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Creepure, the highest-grade creatine monohydrate available, an essential supplement for both men and women seeking peak physical and cognitive performance. Right now, go to livemomentous.com use code Knowles for 20% off your order today. We're getting some breaking news right now. This is breaking news coming to us from CNN, a major update from the Department of Government efficiency and Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration. CNN, please take it away. Yes, so this is a 19-year-old high school graduate who has used the unfortunate nickname Big Balls Online, so that would be one way that we could refer to him. He is now working at Musk's behest inside Doge, and we looked into his background.

And so we found, you know, several notable things, Aaron, one of which is that this individual has founded multiple companies, including one with another unfortunate name, Tesla.Sexy LLC, which he established in 2021. He would have been around 16 years old. Now, this LLC controls dozens of web domain. I love 2025 so much. I love it so, I love it so, so much. It's already so great.

The vice president lecturing on St. Thomas Aquinas, CNN complaining that Elon Musk, who's now kind of in the government, has hired a teenager, genius, engineer entrepreneur named big balls to cut away all of the waste. And frankly, those are probably a prerequisite if you want to take on the Leviathan federal government and the liberal patronage systems that Elon and Trump and the whole Doge team are trying to root out. Really, really beautiful stuff. Right before that lady started talking about, how do I clean this up?

I don't want to have to repeat that phrase on it. You know, this is not CNN. Okay. we're an elevated, sophisticated, wholesome show. Maybe Grandi collione, is that, does that count? Okay, big, big cahones. Let's call big cahones. Right before she starts talking about him, CNN, Giddily was reporting on a story of some guy who was working for Doge, who just got fired because he had some racist social media posts or something.

And so he's, he has to leave Doge. It's so troubling that this guy had racist social media posts, to which I would say, Look, I don't know, maybe that guy had racist social media posts. Not big Cajones, but some other guy who was a little bit older. Maybe he had some racist social media posts, but here's what I know for sure. The people who worked for the Biden administration in the government, the people who worked for the Obama administration, the people who work in democratic politics broadly, they don't just have some racist social media posts. They have a racist public philosophy and ideology. They don't just post about their racial preferences on some message board on social media.

They speak about it openly and they enshrine their racist views into law. They say that we need to punish white people in college admissions and in hiring. They say we need to promote our favored races in college admissions and in hiring. They say things often openly like we need to abolish whiteness. Like whiteness is a problem. okay so i don't know you're you're telling me let's just take cnn at its word that some random guy who worked for elon had some racist social media posts okay pretty much everyone who works for the democrats espouses open racism and they're not even good engineers so i don't know man i'm not really

gonna sweat it okay if we got some guy who's a really good engineer who is certainly no worse in his political ideology than the mainstream american left and he can actually ask actually like get things done in the government? I don't know. I'm not, I'm not sweating that. I guess he's been fired. I guess he's out. But I'm not sweating that. You know what? You know what we need in the government? We need big cahones. That's what we need in the government right now to root out the deeply entrenched patronage system that that has apparently been creating a feedback loop. I mean, all the way down to my favorite headline, the most perfect mainstream media headline I've ever read. Namely, oh no.

Trump is cutting off all this government funding what will happen to the independent media. I guess there just is no independent media. I guess sweet little Elisa told me this. She's been telling me this for months, maybe over a year at this point. She goes, Mag, I don't think there are any actual liberals. She's been saying that, I've told you this.

And I said, what do you mean? She goes, I just, everyone, every, like, real person I talk to is not a liberal. Is it just all fake? And I said, I don't know, that's kind of interesting. And the more that we learn about federal spending at USAID, the more that we learn about the federal government just subsidizing all of these supposedly independent media outlets, the more, yeah, it might just all be fake. It might all be a total si-op. Now, speaking of the economy and President Trump's tax and spending priorities, Caroline Levitt,

White House Press Secretary, just answered questions, not on the spending side, but on the tax side. Are we going to get, come on, this is a Republican administration. When are we getting a tax cut? The House Republicans are pulling the idea of a five-year extension of the Trump tax cuts. President Trump wants it permanent. Would he sign a bill that has just a five-year extension? So I'm glad you brought up taxes. Do you mind holding this? I can bring my receipts.

I like to bring their receipts. So these are the tax priorities of the Trump administration that the president has laid out for members in that meeting today. No tax on tips, which is obviously a very public campaign promise that the president made. No tax on senior social security. no tax on overtime pay, renewing President Trump's 2017 middle class tax cuts. Again, these are the president's priorities. Adjusting the salt cap, eliminate all the special tax breaks for billionaire sports team owners, close the carried interest tax deduction loophole, tax cuts for made in America products.

This will be the largest tax cut in history for middle class working Americans. The president is committed to working with Congress to get this done. Okay. Not surprising at all, this is not man by its dog. Republican administration plans to cut taxes. Trump cut taxes the first time, and now he's going to cut taxes even more. This is a notable political story because it undercuts what some in the ideological avant-garde of the American right seem to have been promoting, namely that Trump is this revolutionary figure who's going to totally upend the, the, traditional conservative views on anything, on taxing, on foreign policy, on this, on that. And I don't think that's what Trump is. I said, I don't think it's so much that he's changing

GOP Orthodox. In practice, he is changing how the GOP operates. But it's not so much that he's revolutionizing GOP orthodoxy as he's just doing what other Republican presidents promised to do. Just a great example on Israel. Some of the right-wing, you know, avant-garde, extreme fringe really doesn't like Israel and wants to change America's relationship with Israel, and they think that Trump is going to do that. Trump is not going to do that. I promise you, Trump is not going to do that. How did Trump change the GOP in his first term?

He supported Israel even more. That's what he did. The official American policy for decades has been that they're going to move the embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He did that. that's what he did. It's not that he was revolutionary. It's not that he was innovative.

It's that he just followed through on promises. If anything, he was extra traditional. Now, one can debate the matter of Israel and how America should relate to Israel or whatever. I'm just pointing out what a lot of people think they're going to get from Trump is not really what they're going to get from Trump. He's not a revolutionary.

He's just traditional. He's playing the hits. Okay, he's the rolling. stones. But he's like really playing the hits. He's really doing it. When it comes to taxes, there are many in the right wing avant-garde who I think don't want us to cut taxes a lot. I think some of them want us to raise taxes. Some of them want us to become more economically left-wing. I traditionally understood his left-wing. That ain't Trump. You can debate that. There's plenty of room for argumentation about that, but that ain't Trump. Trump is going to cut your taxes.

Now, how about on tariffs? You say, well, Trump is really upending the GOP on tariff policy. Not really, you know, the GOP was founded on tariffs. Abraham Lincoln said, give me a tariff, I'll give you the greatest country in the world. He's just giving you a fuller version of the hits, of what the GOP is. One can debate that all one wants. But I'm just saying, if you go into the Trump administration thinking that he's some revolutionary who's going to upend everything, you are going to be disappointed. That's not what he's doing.

He's doing something even more complex, even more nuanced, even, in a sense, even more revolutionary. Namely, he's a Republican who keeps his promises. He's a Republican who does what everyone else said they were going to do for decades. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to policygenius. com slash Knowles. Securing your family's future has never been more critical than it is today. Someone who advocates for smart financial planning, I can tell you that proper life insurance is not just about sleeping better at night. It's also about empowering your loved ones with choices when life takes unexpected turns. That is why I want to tell you about policy genius. It's not an insurance company, which is actually why you can trust their numbers. They are the country's leading online

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and see how much you can save. PolicyGenius.com slash knolls. My favorite comment yesterday is from Jay Toro, who says, dude can't be saying the word dastardly while looking like a Hannah Barbera villain. So true. This is Al Green, the Democrat Congressman.

I will impeach Donald Trump for, dastardly deeds done. And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kids and your dog too. Okay. Speaking of Trump cutting things. And speaking

of a really rough couple weeks for journalists, Representative Brian Mast just went on CBS News, Face the Nation. It's that, actually that same woman who was interviewing J.D. Vance when he was lecturing her on to Mystic Philosophy.

she was pressing him on how Trump is cutting the government. Here's his beautiful response. Authorize purging of State Department personnel. What does that mean exactly? Well, if you want to take a look at the State Department where DEI has been a priority over, let's say, diplomacy in many accounts, I can give you hundreds of examples of where they were authorizing. Sure. Let's list them off. Half a million dollars to expand atheism in Nepal.

$50,000 to do, let's see, a transgender. opera in Columbia, $47,000 to do an LGBT-trans comic book in Peru, $20,000 a pot to do drag shows in Ecuador. Shall I continue with more examples of where DEI was the priority? It certainly seems like there could be a review of things. Foreign aid, as you know, is less than 1% of the entire federal budget. So we're talking small amounts of money by comparison. We're still talking about tens and tens of billions of dollars. And if you want to go to somebody else on the other side of the aisle. Samantha Powers, she had a worthy goal, although it was a stupid goal. She said she was hoping to get the amount of foreign aid,

US aid dollars that go to actual aid, up to 30 cents on the dollar from 10 cents on the dollar. Beautiful, beautiful. First of all, big lesson here. Make sure you know your stuff. Make sure you've got evocative examples whenever you are engaging in a political debate. It's not just about abstract principles and upper level. You've got to paint a picture for people. and whatever, whatever he's talking about there, you know, transgender painting in Peru or something, it's just really evocative. Now, her response, when she's been defeated in this exchange, she says, well, whatever, it's not that much money. It's not that much money. Which brings me back, I think it was Isaiah Berlin, who was recently reading, writing about this in two conceptions of liberty,

where he discusses the distinction between the political and the technological. And this is, really important because this is a shift that we're living through right now. For much of my life, the political debate between the Republicans and the Democrats consisted of people saying, look, at least the Republicans would say, look, we agree on the ends that we desire. We agree on where we want to go. We all want the same stuff. We just disagree about how to get there. You know, so we all want, XYZ policy. I don't even want to list them. We all want. We all want, you know, equality and fraternity and liberty and whatever. You know, we all agree on the political ends, but we just disagree on the most efficient way to get there. Okay. Well, that's not actually

a political debate. That's why we refer to the politics of the last 20 or so years as the Uniparty. Because there wasn't really, that's why we don't really even view the shifting of many of these administrations as being a transfer of power so much as a changing of shifts, to quote Walter Kern. It was just a technological debate. What's most efficient? A political debate involves debate over ends. What do we want? Is it good to have a more egalitarian society? I don't know. Or do we actually want a little bit more order and do we want to preserve more natural distinctions and do we want to give people a greater opportunity without handicapping them? Do we really want a more open society or do we want a society that's actually a little bit more closed off to certain peoples, you know, face tattooed

gangsters from Mexico for instance? And that's more closed off to certain ideas like communism or Nazism. Do we want, I don't know, I don't want a more open society. I want a more closed society in certain respects. What do we want? Do we, I actually don't know that we really want to go to the same. Do we really want a society that doesn't recognize the distinction between men and women? That's what the left wants. I don't want that.

We have different political ends. That's a real political debate. Okay. And so the rejoinder from the left, which is, oh, it's just 1% of the federal budget. First of all, 1% of the federal budget, as Brian Masspoint said, is a huge amount of money. Federal budget of trillions and trillions of dollars. But even beyond that, it doesn't matter if it's 0.1% of the federal. It doesn't matter if it's 0.001% of the federal budget. If it's bad stuff that is advancing a bad

agenda and taking our country to a bad place, I don't want it. Because we do differ in the political ends that we want. I want a society that is more better ordered toward the good, the true, and the beautiful to take it up to the 30,000 foot view. And the left seems to want a society that is ordered toward the bad or that denies the moral order all. altogether, that is ugly, that doesn't pursue standards of beauty, and that doesn't even acknowledge the reality of truth. What truth? Your truth or my truth?

Those are totally different ends. So I don't want one red cent of my government's money. I can't even say my taxpayer dollars because we're a debtor nation at this point. So I don't want any single penny that the United States is spending to go toward that nonsense around the world. That's what Trump is saying. That's why it feels like a sea change. We're finally saying, no, I think we want different things.

And we have the power now, and we're going to pursue the things that we want, which happened to be good. One of which is killing the Department of Education. There was some confusion over this because Trump campaigned on ending the Department of Education. Then he picked Linda McMahon to run the Department of Education. It became unclear. Are we really going to end this thing? Are we just going to reform it? Trump being a polarizing figure.

Not anymore. Now most Americans voted for him. But it was unclear. Are even the squish Republicans going to go for this? Are there? Well, we've got some really strong backing now for ending the Department of Education from one of the great leading lights of education reform in America, Betsy DeVos. Okay, and Betsy DeVos is a really important figure in education reform, one, because she's been very successful at it. But two, because she can speak to the whole GOP.

She was Trump's Education Secretary in the first term, but she also worked with Jeb Bush when Jeb Bush was governor of Florida. Jeb Bush, who's definitely a representative of the more established wing of the GOP. And Jeb Bush, whose greatest achievement in Florida was an education, in large part thanks to Betsy DeVos. This woman has credibility on this issue, on the substance of the issue and with the whole GOP. And Betsy DeVos just came out. Great column in the free press. Shut down the Department of Education. I served as the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education. That's how I know it's beyond repair.

Clear a sign yet. Department of Education is over. This is happening. Now, one really great Trump executive action that's coming out, this was announced at the National Prayer Request yesterday. Trump is finally going to take on anti-Christian bias in our government. To confront such weaponization and religious persecution, today I'm signing an executive order to make our Attorney General, who's a great person, she's going to be a great attorney general, Pam Bondi, the head of a task force brand new to eradicate anti-Christian bias. About time, right? Anti-Christian bias. I love this. And we'll get into the details of this.

The executive order, it says that in this atmosphere of anti-Christian government, hostility, and vandalism, against Christian churches and places of worship surged, with a number of such identified acts in 2023, exceeding by more than three times the number from 2018. Catholic churches and institutions have been aggressively targeted with hundreds of acts of hostility, violence, and vandalism. So there are a lot of particulars here. We'll see how it's all implemented by the DOJ. but just even from Trump's announcement, I love that he's saying anti-Christian hostility,

anti-Christian bias in the government. Because a lot of squish Republicans would say, we want to just generally and universally speaking, protect all religions of all, it's all kind of whatever, man. No, there aren't really threats against all general religions kind of broadly, man. That's not the problem.

America wasn't founded on the principles of just kind of all the religions, generally universally meant. The specific problem that we saw explode during the Biden administration was bias against Christians. The DOJ wasn't spying on Zoroastrians, all right? The DOJ was spying on Catholics, on the Latin mass, actually, the mass of the ages. The problems that we saw, the attacks, the overt hostility, the discrimination was against Christians, okay? So we need to be particular.

When you want to enforce universal conceptions of justice, you have to do it in the particular. Life exists within particulars, particular times, particular places, particular people. And in this case, the problem to be addressed is anti-Christian bias. And you're not allowed to talk about it. Just as you're allowed to talk about discrimination against any race except for white people, so too you're allowed to talk about discrimination against any religion except for Christians. but Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world, and it's not even close. And Christianity has been seriously persecuted in America recently by our purportedly Catholic president, Joe Biden.

And that's the problem that has to be addressed, and that's the specific problem Trump is addressing, and I love it. You know, at The Daily Wire, we don't just watch culture, we build it. Now we're building the future with AI. Yesterday, Jeremy Boring dropped the first ever fully AI-produced Jeremy's Razors, commercial, if you've not seen it yet. Good news. We're showing it to you now. A tale is told of a star that fell in the days when men were hair-covered brutes roaming the earth. This shard of celestial steel was unlike anything early man had ever encountered. And from those five fortuitous stainless steel blades came the world's first smooth, silky shave. And it was in that

moment, manliness burst into existence. This blade charged forward through the ages of steel and dragon fire. Great conquerors slew tyrants. Founding fathers revolted, and as men's mains were tamed, so they tamed the wild frontier. Also, Steve used it to get a good shave, and he's a pretty solid guy. But as power often breeds enemies, so a wild-bearded philosopher despised the blade for its glorious manly freedom, this enemy of clean shaves bore the razor to a fiery peak and cast it in. The blade was gone. A dark age of unmanliness ensued,

an age of men wearing buns, drinking vegan milkshakes, and wearing really tight pants and acting like a bunch of cry-baby commies. Until one day, the great archaeologist and CEO Jeremy Boring went on a dangerous quest on which many before had perished.

Through seas, mountains, and deepest catacombs, he found the blades, still sharp as starlight. His mission was to restore the blade to mankind and thereby restore manliness. Will my razor make you as manly as the actual greatest man in all of human history? I guarantee it will in the most emphatic way that isn't legally binding. Hey, at least you'll be as manly as Steve. Jeremy's Razors, carve out your legacy. That is crazy. Oh, I kicked a little bear there. That is crazy. I know some people have gotten accustomed to AI now, but I remember it was probably five years ago more at this point. I was at a college reunion. I was talking to buddy mine who's working, he was working on AI pretty sophisticated stuff before anyone really knew about it. And he said, hey, AI can make a poem and make pictures now. And I know we all know this now, but at the time it was completely mind blowing. And it's still pretty mind blowing to me that that can happen. You know, the Daily Wire believes AI is not here to replace us. It's here to create epic things like wrestling a bear, launching razors into a volcano, and of course riding a lion. But you still have to shave the old-fashioned way. So do it with Jeremy's Razors. Go to jeremy'sraisers.com right now. Get the second-genres. And embrace the future. Finally, finally, I've arrived at my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag.

Our mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to puretalk.com slash Knowles. Claim your new iPhone or Gavis. Galaxy phone with a qualifying purchase. Take it away. Hi, Michael. First, I just wanted to say, I love your show. My name is Kendra. I'm a 20-year-old. I'm a senior in college. My question regards a class I'm taking, which is a requirement for part of my degree. The professor is very liberal and makes sure her political stances are known in class. In fact, on the first day of class, she said, to the white Judeo-Christian, cisgender, straight males, to be made uncomfortable. And that made me uncomfortable. The content in her class is highly affected by her views and differs from the textbook. So my question is, do I drop the class? Do I report

through her professor? Or do I grin and bear it and try really hard not to tear my hair out? Anyways, thank you. Good question. I would say if you can withdraw from the class right now without getting a W on the transcript, if it might still be early enough. I don't know. So if you can withdraw from the class and not have it affect your graduation or, you know, show up with the W on the transcript, I would do it. That would be my prudential advice because this woman sounds like a complete lunatic, so you're not actually going to learn anything in her class. It's good to take classes that challenge your thinking. I'm all for studying wacky stuff, you know, and taking Carl Mark seriously and all the rest. But

it sounds like this woman is just not, you're not going to learn very much from her. So I would withdraw if you can do it in a way that won't affect your graduation and your transcript. And then I would report her. I wouldn't report her before you withdraw because then you might get blowback. She sounds like a vindictive, crazy woman. So that's what I would do. And if you can't withdraw without getting a dub on the transcript, then I would probably grit your teeth and bear it and remember for next time not to put yourself in that position. But you got to no one to hold them, no one to fold them, no one to walk away, no one to run. This would seem like a run situation. Next question. Smokey Mike, I love your show. I really just want to weigh in on women in combat.

It seems clear to me that women already serve a sacrificial role in an ordered society. Biologically, just existing as a woman, it seems are forced to be made vulnerable. just through their biological processes, once a month, and especially so during pregnancy. From my experience, service in the military is sacrifice. We don't ask troops with missing limbs that have already lost them in war to serve again. They would be at the bottom of the list to be drafted, if ever. It's disordered to ask women to serve on the battlefield. Even losing their war, the Japanese during World War II didn't train their 18-year-old girls to be kamikaze pilots.

I just can't imagine storming the beaches of Normandy and seeing these women getting shredded by Nazi machine guns. I was a medic in the army, and I promise you, I couldn't have done my mission seeing that. Thanks for your clarity and your cheer. My pleasure and well said, I totally agree with you on that take. It's women already are called to certain sacrifice. That's not to say that men aren't called to sacrifice.

Men are called a physical sacrifice, too. like combat in some cases, but we're called to different things. And so I suppose part of this debate hinges on what you think the military is about. If you think the military is about you, the individual pursuing your desires and your ambitions and having every right to do what everyone else gets to do and you want to do it, then you can see an argument for women in combat, namely, why should the fellas get to have all the fun? But if you view military service as what it ought to be understood as, namely a sacrifice, then it's harder to see that.

Because telling women who want to serve on the front lines and catch bullets from jihadis, telling those women's, hey, sorry, you don't get to. It's bad for military fitness. You are not as physically strong as the men. It's disordered for a nation to send its women out to catch. bullets for it and it's going to compromise men on the battlefield who are going to have a natural and good and virtuous response to go try to save you in particular rather than the other guys. So you have to make yet one more sacrifice. The whole thing is about sacrifice. Well,

here's one more sacrifice. You have to sacrifice that particular ambition of yours to do something else. I think that really reveals the debate for what it is, which is premised on a misunderstanding of what the military is even about. Okay. If it's about sacrifice, let it be about sacrifice. Totally agree. Next question. Greetings, Michael. You recently spoke about psychedelics and I'd like to offer a perspective grounded in virtue ethics. In Aristotle's framework, virtue lies in the mean between excess and deficiency. In excess, psychedelics are used irresponsibly, say at parties or among pagan priests inside of yurts. In deficiency, they are entirely prohibited, as you might suggest. but could the virtuous mean be careful intentional use in a sacred and prayerful setting?

Research has shown that a single use of psilocybin in a controlled environment has been remarkably effective in helping individuals overcome addiction to alcohol and smoking. Could this not extend to those burden by other vices like pornography, addiction, or self-hatred, if used in the proper preparation, such as confession in the holy space or before the blessed sacrament? That doesn't dismiss risks but asks whether psychedelic, use reverently could become a tool for grace and transformation. Thank you for reflecting on this. I hope you enjoy these thoughts from the Lyceum of Minnesota. Yes, it's a very good question. I have considered that before, but you've articulated it very well. I'm skeptical because Aristotle

recognizing that we want means between excesses does not mean that we'll take into its extreme that kind of logic could justify anything if you exceed the reasonable bounds placed upon it by Aristotle and by his followers. So the question is, all right, is using psilocybin one or two times, is that the virtuous mean between the excess or deficiency, the excess of doing a bunch of like bathtub acid with your college friends every week or the deficiency of not doing acid at all. Or is the virtuous mean among substances to maybe

smoke a cigar every now and again, but not go all the way to actually doing acid or psilocybin? I don't know. The question you have to ask yourself is, how does psilocybin work? Even accepting your anecdote, how does psilocybin work at stopping people from wannabe boozehounds

or from smoking or getting over PTSD or something? Well, the layman explanation, is it rewires your brain. Okay. Is that a good thing? I mean, we can rewire our brain all the time by practicing virtuous habits. Is it good to just take that shortcut? Can we really control the way that psychedelics rewire our brain? Is there a possibility that the costs of rewiring our brain in that way will outweigh the benefits? Is it possible that the costs of rewiring our brain in that way are intrinsically bad to do, just as it's not wrong to have a drink socially, but it is wrong to

get blackout drunk because you lose control of your rational will. Well, isn't that what happens with psychedelics? I don't know. If your argument says, look, we need to research this a little bit more, we need to give more attention to this issue, okay, fine, research it all you like. But I would not take that argument as or a few anecdotes of guys, you know, quitting booze because they tripped on mushrooms a few times, I would not take that as a license to do it myself or even an encouragement. I'm, I'm skeptical. It seems dubious to me. Next question. Hello, Mr. Knowles. My name is Charles. I recently finished reading the Divine Comedy and found the last half of the Paradiso and Lightning, particularly St. Peter's examination of Dante's faith in Conto 17. During this episode, Dante's

to provide what can be assumed as his best argument for believing in the resurrection. That is, for Christianity to have spread throughout the world without the assistance of the divine, a miracle far greater would have occurred. Do you believe this to be the best argument for the resurrection? If not, what argument would cede even the most incredulous to believe in the resurrection, and why did Dante not use it? Thank you, Mr. Knowles. Godspeed. Okay, really good question. I'm glad you're reading Dante. Yeah, that's a good argument. There are other good arguments, though, namely that you have 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrection, that all but one of the apostles went to their death to attest to the resurrection.

So people generally don't take ships over to India to be ripped apart by tribals for a lie, as St. Thomas went over there. you could also point to contemporary historical accounts, people like Josephus or Tacitus or Suetonius. So I think those are all good arguments too. So why wouldn't Dante feature that in the final contos of the Paradiso? Well, because he's making a work of art. So I think that the arguments he makes, the pictures that he paints are fitting. I think it's the greatest work of art basically ever made.

But if Dante, instead of writing a big, beautiful epic poem, were instead writing some rigorous logical syllogism or treatise, as he's done before, you know, the monarchy is a logical syllogism. He might have relied on some of those other arguments, too. Okay, it's Friday, which means it's fake headline Friday, which means I need your help to help me figure out what the fake headline is. The rest of the show continues. Now, you do not want to miss it.

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