The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1799 - President Trump Might Unleash The Military On The Cartels

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

President Trump might launch an attack in Mexico, Elon Musk is posting AI anime quasi-porn, and Cracker Barrel loses $200 million in value in 24 hours. Check it out on the Michael Knowles show. Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/4biDlri Ep.1799 - - - DailyWire+: Join millions of people who still believe in truth, courage, and common sense at https://DailyWirePlus.com Ben Shapiro’s new book, “Lions and Scavengers,” drops September 2nd—pre-order today at https://dailywire.com/benshapiro GET THE ALL-NEW YES OR NO EXPANSION PACK TODAY: https://bit.ly/41gsZ8Q - - - Today's Sponsors: Done With Debt - Start building the life you deserve! Visit https://donewithdebt.com and talk with one of their strategists. It’s FREE! PragerU - Donate today at https://PragerU.com/DW and help push back against radical indoctrination. All donations will be TRIPLE MATCHED. - - - 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 - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Big news for your kids' lunchbox. Welch's fruit snacks are now made without any artificial dyes. A snack parents can feel good about and the same delicious taste kids can't get enough of. All made with no artificial dyes. Try Welch's fruit snacks today. An independent journalist is reporting that the Trump administration is planning a military attack on Mexican drug cartels. Such an attack could have tremendous benefits in stopping illegal immigration, fentanyl poisoning, and human trafficking. But also, if the attacks devastate enough of Mexico,

they could also prove, once and for all, that the best taco bowls in the world are in fact found at Trump Tower. I'm Michael Knowles. It's the Michael Knowles show. Welcome back to the show. Elon Musk is tweeting out AI anime pornography. I didn't, I don't think I ever expected to say that. Anyway, he is, and we'll talk about it for some reason.

First, though, what we're going to talk about is some marvelous news. Wait for it. Drumroll, please. The Mayflower Dream. The long-awated Mayflower Dream, Double Maduro is back in stock. Don't ask me how. The Mayflower Dream has sold out twice, but it is back in very, very limited quantities, very limited supply boxes and fresh packs now available while supply lasts. This is the double Maduro blend with the Pennsylvania Broadleaf wrapper and the Mexican San Andreas Maduro. wrapper. It's sweet, it's subtle, it's medium to full-bodied. It features notes of chicory, cardamom and oak with a little hint of caramel. There are very limited quantities. Did I say that once or twice? They're very limited. We will not be able to get these back in stock for a little while when they sell out again. They might have already sold out by the time I finish reading this brief advertisement. I love that Trump might attack Mexico. So what does it mean? This is all coming from reporting by Ken Clippenstein. Ken Clippenstein is an independent journalist, but he's pretty on the money. And he says, I'll read his words. This is being reported by him. The Trump administration has directed the military to prepare for lethal strikes against cartel targets inside Mexico. Three military sources tell us.

The top secret planning order issued in late spring directs Northern Command to manage the attack plans, which are to be ready by mid-September. We're going into Mexico, baby. Trump, reportedly. Trump, he was saber-ratling up there in Canada, America's evil top hat. He was saber-rattling over in Greenland. And then what happens? Gives you the old reverse Uno card. And he's going into Mexico. Maybe, apparently, reportedly, people up in arms. We can't just send the U.S. military into Mexico, a sovereign state, to take care of the foreign terrorist organizations, criminal cartels that control our entire southern border. that poisoned 75,000 Americans a year with fentanyl,

that traffic human beings that have face tattoos and worship Satan? No, no, that would be wrong for some reason. That would be an improper use of the military, really? What is the U.S. military for, if not for this? The cartels control the border. The cartels are foreign terrorist organizations. The cartels kill tens of thousands of Americans a year and are responsible for the deaths of perhaps well over high.

100,000 Americans a year. We send the military into plenty of sovereign states on the other side of the world to take out terrorist organizations, terrorists which pose a much less significant direct homeland threat to the United States. Why wouldn't we do it in Mexico? This to me is just totally common sense. This is close to home. There are immediate interests here. There are Americans who are dying. They're Americans whose lives are being upended in all sorts of other ways because of the cartels, why wouldn't we? I actually kind of called this from the beginning. When Trump first designated the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, I said, well, you realize what this is for. This is not just so that we can win a rhetorical battle. You know, it's not just about using some new word

to describe the same thing that we've been talking about for decades. This is to give a justification and an authorization for very serious military force. It does not mean that we're going to be carpet bombing Mexico City or anything like that. But it means if they're foreign terrorist organizations, we can go send in Delta Force. You know, we can go send in the seals or something and take these guys out, which is very good. If I were a face tattooed gangster,

if I had fentanyl stuffed into various places to smuggle across the border, I would not be feeling very confident right now. Apparently the attack could occur in mid-September. We'll see. Or it might just be false reporting, or it might

be scuttled or it might just be a threat that was leaked that should scare the cartels. We'll see. Trump's not a great job at closing the border. We now don't have illegals coming across the border. We still have 11 to 16 million of them in this country already. That's a conservative estimate. But I think it's great. I totally support it. When you want to figure out the justice or injustice of something, the propriety or impropriety, I find it's very helpful to get back to nature, to get back to good old Aristotle and the ancient Greeks, they kind of figured it out, which is to figure out what to do. You've got to figure out what a thing is for. The military is for protecting America. Our vital interests before our less immediate interests, the American homeland, before other

places, this is it. This is top tier, grade A. This is what the military is for. Seems like a good use. Now, speaking of the military, it is a great clip going around. of the vice president and the secretary of defense. They're walking through Union Station, and they're being heckled by a group of protesters. This is how they responded. Oh, just perfect. You know what that response is?

That's not like the usual two responses. The usual two responses are, one, to cower. Just, oh, no, we shouldn't acknowledge them. Let's just try to hurry away, head down. you know, that's the kind of squish Republican response. The other response is to get really angry. Get up on your high horse on your soapbox. You get really angry, red in the face, and you yell at them.

That's not what J.D. Vance and Pete Hickseth did there. They laughed. They made a joke. Then they pointed and they laughed at them again. That's her. Look at these losers. Look at these losers. They think it's a bad thing to have law and order in their own communities.

Look at them. And that's what J.D says. And then Hankseth looks and picks his finger up. He goes, look at those losers. Anyway, that is the popular vote laugh. That's what that is. That's not the electoral college laugh. If you just win the electoral college, you don't have the popular vote, then you're maybe a little more circumspect. That's the popular vote laugh. That's the wow, man. We got your political party to come out in favor of carjackings, in favor of robberies, in favor of murders, in favor of face-tattooed gangsters, and against Sidney, against pretty girls and blue jeans ads.

That's the, man, we have just won the common sense. Ha! And look at it. Anyway, moving on, we're going to keep wielding power because we have the whole government, and we're going to take over your city, because it belongs to us anyway. Anyway, hey, get his bullhorn. That's my bullhorn now. Look at me, look at me.

Look at me. I am the government now. I am the government. Beautiful. Beautiful response. A model for other Republicans. Now, speaking of things to laugh over, good news for Trump. Everyone is saying there's some really good news for Trump. And to some degree it is, but not all the way.

And appeals court has just thrown out President Trump's civil fraud penalty from last year. Do you remember this? This was up in New York. Letitia James going after Trump, that attorney general, saying that Trump misstated his property values on some forms and therefore he committed business fraud and therefore he shouldn't be able to practice business in New York and he had to pay. This is what they hit him with. 350 million dollars in penalties. The irony, of course, is that Letitia James, it appears, lied on forms about her businesses and her investments. She might be prosecuted for that, too. $350 million because they say that Trump misstated the value of some of his properties.

Then, when Trump didn't pay it, because it was ridiculous, that ballooned with interest to $527 million, half a billion dollars. They tried to get Trump on. For what? Because he maybe put the wrong number on a government form, maybe. No, no. The reason that they went after him is the same reason they went after him in those four criminal trials, is the same reason they raided his house,

as the same reason they set the stage for him to have his head blown off in Butler, Pennsylvania. They went after him with all the different excuses to try to stop him from becoming president again. It was never serious. The penalty was always ridiculous. It should not be such a shock it got overturned. Now, they're going to appeal it again. It's really not the last word on this.

But that's why I'm hesitant to say this is a big win for Trump. Trump is declaring victory. He should feel vindicated. He should have a victory lap. But I'm not satisfied with this because it was never really about Trump paying. That was always secondary. I'm sure they would like to bankrupt Trump, but it was never about that. They already kind of got what they wanted. What this was really about was hitting Trump, six ways from Sunday, but here is one of the ways, hitting Trump during an election year and intimidating him. They wanted to politically intimidate him and they wanted to politically smear him. They wanted to be able to attach this label to him that he's a fraud. He's a fraudster. He's a schemer. He's a deceiver. And they successfully hit him with that. They wanted to intimidate

him and threaten to take away all his money. They did successfully. hit him with that. Obviously, they didn't succeed ultimately at intimidating him. And the smears didn't stick, which is why Trump got elected, including with the popular vote. But I guess the reason I'm not willing

to totally celebrate this is they got 80% of what they wanted. 80% of what they wanted was just to dirty him up during the election. So now we say, ha ha, see, the president doesn't have to pay you half a billion dollars for nothing.

They say, yeah, okay, whatever. Yeah, we try to. We tried our thing. It had nothing to do with that. We're going to try it again next time. So the real victory that I want to see is the people who waged the lawfare on Trump face consequences. That's the victory to me. Because if Trump just gets out of the ridiculous traps that they've laid for him, that's fine. But they're going to lay it again. And they're going to do it to J.D. Vans, if he is the nominee in 2028. And they're going to keep doing it to Republicans at every level of government. So, yes, it's a good partial victory.

Two cheers for this victory. We need the consequences. Vance made this point the other day. He said, increasingly, it seems, the left only responds to power, so you have to hold them accountable for their abuses of power. Now, speaking of abuses and massive swings of wealth, the Cracker Barrel saga continues. There was a major rebrand, some lady who took over Cracker Barrel is destroying one of the beloved brands in America. and taking all the charm and tradition and and wholesome country, country store charm out of it, and turning it into some just modern millennial minimalist garbage.

And that is costing Cracker Barrel. Hundreds of millions of dollars already. We'll get to that. But first, speaking of lots of money, I want to tell you about done with debt. Go to done with debt.com. The American dream looks different these days. You know what most people are really dreaming about now. It's not the white picket fence anymore.

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It's totally free. Some of their solutions are time sensitive, so do not wait. Go to donewithdeat.com. That is done with debt.com. Cracker barrel, old country store, is no longer the old country store. They've lost the cracker, they've lost the barrel in their logo. Now it just looks like, I don't even know, it reminds me of some, like Long John Silvers. So I don't know, it reminds me of some kind of generic logo.

And then the decor on the inside is awful. They took all the charm, all the banjos off the walls, the handsaws, and now it just looks like some, well, as I said yesterday, like a gay, boozy, millennial apartment just outside of New York City. It's just totally, totally charmless. They even went so far as to ruin the peg game. Give me the peg game. You see this? You know the peg game they have a crowd? I don't know. It's like a hobby horse of mine because I love Cracker Barrel. It's my son's favorite restaurant. So you all win, this little game where it's a little golf teas and you try to eliminate all the teas by jumping them. It's kind of fun. Jump all but one games. And here's what it says on it. Jump each tea and remove it. Leave only one.

you're genius. Leave two and you're pretty smart. Leave three and you're just plain dumb. Leave four or more and you're just plain Egnoramus. Cracker Barrel Country Store. I have one of those games sitting in my office. My boys love to play it. They've had this game forever. It's a lot of fun. I remember playing it as a kid. They've even rebranded the game. Now it's got that ugly, plain, lame Helvetica font and it says, leave only one. You're a genius. You're a genius. leave two rocking the chair but not the game well you're rocking the chair but maybe not quite the game leave three or more

no reason to be embarrassed try again one reason to be embarrassed is they misspelled embarrassed they only put one are but that's the least of it hey ha ha hi I'm a lady who took over cracker barrel and we're going to make it all look like a hospital cafeteria Yeah, we are. And we're going to get rid of the cracker in the barrel. And we're going to make everything really sterile and minimalist. Yeah, and we're going to take that mean game.

That mean game. It's said that kids who didn't do well on it, it kind of made a joke about how they're dumb. We can't have that. You're rocking the chair, not the game. And if you really blow it, you know, it's just don't feel embarrassed. Try again. It just sounds like an HR lady Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It seems so clinical So contrived

So I feel so alienated From Cracker Barrel And I'm not the only one Within 24 hours Of this logo change Of the redesign Shares of Cracker Barrel

fell as much as $8.74 cents That means that Cracker Barrel lost 15% of its value in 24 hours. Cracker barrel lost $200 million in market cap. It rebounded a little bit, but not a ton. CBS News reached out to Cracker Barrel and asked about losing the Cracker and the barrel, you know, the old man and the barrel design. And I guess the old guy's name is Uncle Herschel. And the Cracker Barrel said, Uncle Herschel will remain front and center in our restaurants and on our menu. Our values haven't changed. And the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel haven't changed.

But they obviously have. They obviously have. Look, they realize this is a catastrophe. If I were the board of directors, that lady would have been fired yesterday, would have been fired by lunchtime. That is a disaster. I would reverse course. This is New Coke. Sometimes brands think they can just push through and they're going to force it down the throats of customers and they'll like it eventually. This is not one of those times. Sometimes a rebrand is a completely. complete disaster and you need to immediately reverse chorus like new coke when when coca cola changed its recipe and everyone hated it and they just had to say yep whoops we're taking taking a mulligan on that maya culpa we're going back cracker barrels got to go back why do

i care so much because it's a symptom it's an example of what's happened to our whole culture the rise of minimalism that's been building for about a hundred years now the rise of bow house and minimalism and this silly notion that form follows function, which is not true. Function often follows form. This notion that we just need to reduce ornamentation and beauty and live like we're in a computer screen or something. Like we're in a sci-fi dystopia where we all look exactly the same and talk exactly the same and nothing has beauty or detail or ornamentation. The heart and soul of Cracker Barrel is that it's real old-timey. If you try to update it to make it really modern, you necessarily lose the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel. Why do I care so much

about Cracker Barrel? Is it because I love the dumpling so much? No, they're fine. Is it because I go there constantly? No, I go like twice a year when I'm on a road trip. It's because there was no need for this. And it was such Americana. I mean, it was, it was contrived in its own way to just represent old Americana. And ideologues, wittingly or unwittingly, consciously or unconsciously, have to get rid of that. They're allergic to detail and fun and difference and diversity, ironically, and the past and our heritage and tradition and just keeping things the same. Certain brands need to be updated every six months. It's just part of their company. Apple. Apple needs to be updated. It's got to be modern. It's got to be sleek. It's got to be like for matter

space or something. Cracker Barrel's brand is not. not to change. That's in the brand. And they just don't get that. It drives me absolutely crazy. So they've lost their soul. They need to fire that lady. And I suggested deport her to Buckele. I think that's the only solution. You got it, you got to, there need to be consequences. I was talking about it earlier in the show. That's a bad change. And it's so missing the moment. Americans voted against that just absolutely soulless clinical Helvetica millennial 20-teen slop, progressivism. They voted against that. They're sick of that.

They don't want that anymore. You miss the moment. Go back. Come back. Now, speaking of things changing for the worse, there is a new study out that should really worry Americans because no one reads anymore and it is threatening the future of our country. We'll get to that in a moment first, though. When you want to educate yourself, I'd suggest you go check out Prager U. Go to PragerU.com slash DW.

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Well, they're all right to be worried. every day more and more people are turning away from woke content, finding truth, values, and common sense for Prager You. Here's the thing. Prager You does not take a dime from Washington. Every dollar comes from people like you who care about truth, virtue, and raising kids who think for themselves. Prager You videos reach millions of people every single day, especially young people, and they're changing minds at scale.

Parents are noticing, families are rejecting indoctrination and finding content they can actually trust. Stories about faith, freedom, and personal responsibility lessens your tax dollar will never teach. The best part is, it's all free. Prager You can't grow without your help. If you want to make an impact on the next generation, this month is the perfect time to support PragerU. Every dollar given will be triple matched. That's right. Tripled. Donate right now at Prageru.com slash DW. Triple the impact of your gift. That is prageru.com slash DW. Things change for the worse here. There is a study that's just come out from researchers at the University of Florida and University College London, they found that between 2003

daily reading, for reasons other than work and study, has fallen by about 3% each year, meaning that over time, over this 20-year period, the number of Americans who read for pleasure has fallen by 40%. And I'll even ask, you're very tuned in, you're plugged in, people who are watching this show. Do you read for pleasure? Do you get home and read a book, crack open a book before bed? Maybe not. I'm not on my high horse. Many nights, I do not read. I have to read for my job. Many, many nights, I don't read. Because what? Because I'm distracted. Because I have this glittering portal to hell in my pocket that I can dooms scroll on. Because, because, because. Let's get into the details of the study, while all groups saw decline in reading, there were bigger drops among

certain groups, notably black Americans, and also people with lower incomes or education levels, and those in rural areas. More women than men continue to read for fun. Okay, so why does it matter that certain groups are falling more than others? Because if you can't read, if you don't read, if you're not impelled to seek wisdom and keep your mind active, that's going to have terrible effects for your soul, and it's going to make you depressed, and it's going to mean you don't know what to do with your leisure time. It's also going to mean that you're not going to succeed as much in your job, in your career, in your life. You're going to make less money. You're going to make more mistakes because you're not, Jim Mattis, the general former Secretary

of Defense, he used to say the red like crazy because he wanted other people to make his mistakes. for him. He wanted to learn from the mistakes of others, so he didn't have to do it first hand. You're going to have a worse life if you don't read. And so for groups that apparently already have challenges, it shows it's only going to get worse. But the real reason that this study hits me is people in modernity were so pompous. We think we're so much smarter than everyone that came before us. We're so much better and wiser. That's why we're going to tear their statues down, take down their portraits. We're going to get rid of the cracker in the barrel. We're going to make everything sleek and modern. We're so smart. We know so much better than our forebears. We are living in a new

dark ages increasingly. People talk about the dark ages, which is really just a term of injury that comes out of the Enlightenment to mock the era that we would call Christendom because they were atheists and losers mostly in the Enlightenment. And so even that is a term of derision that isn't totally tied to reality. But if there is such a thing as the Dark Ages, we increasingly are living in it. We don't read anymore. We don't read. Now, there wasn't high literacy in the, in the Middle Ages. There's increasing literacy. There wasn't high books. The printing press had not invented yet. Books were extremely expensive to produce that weren't super widespread. But then people still had a great store of knowledge, even in their minds. They would go to church.

They would hear the Bible. They were exposed to some of the greatest art, which was in the community and not just locked up in museums in European capitals that people don't have. a ton of time to go visit or money to go visit. They had a greater wealth of knowledge. They had a greater relationship to reality than we do today. Now we have cheap books. Now we all have phones in our pocket that we can read. And now we have no excuse not to read.

Now our ignorance is truly self-imposed. We like to mock the dark ages. We're so much smarter. We're living in this age of enlightenment. We are in it, man. We are. and we could learn a lot from the dark ages. What are we replaced?

They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a recesses. Like this commercial break. Did you need 15 seconds away from music? Or 15 seconds to eat or Reese's? Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a reases. I've seen reading with,

we got an answer from Elon Musk. I had to blur this. This is anime that was generated by Grock, the Twitter AI tool, and it's porn. basically. It's kind of like a video, right? Yeah, okay. I had to pixelate this strangely

young-looking AI girl who's wearing underwear, more or less, that Elon posted. I shouldn't let me posted it. He was like, oh, yeah, it was great, huh? And he posted another one that wasn't a cartoon. It wasn't anime. It was just, it looks like a real chick.

Obviously, it's created by AI. She's wearing this very sheer, she's on the beach, so you'd say it's a, bikini or something, but very sheer, very sexy, very, you know, appealing to the prurian interest. She's wearing headphones. It's impressive technology. You can kind of, actually, the fingers are pretty good. The toes are a little off. You know, fingers and toes kind of give it away on AI, but it's still, it's very, very impressive technology.

That is mostly going to be used to generate porn. This is why I actually, I have this esoteric reading of Elon's repeated tweets about this. As he says, long press on any image on. to turn it into a video in about 17 seconds. He posts this like, you know, AI whore. I don't know. It's like anime, you know, lady of ill repute or something. And he says, long present, you can turn it into a video.

Elon is appealing to the Purian interest here. And it just tells you something about how we react to new technologies. And there's bad news with that and there's good news with that. The bad news is we're just going to use it for porn. The good news is we're just going to use it for porn. Meaning when the real futurists, the real sort of accelerationist, futurist, ideologue types, when they think of the future, they think we're going to break free of all constraints, all the limits that are imposed on us, not just by our family and by society, but by biology,

by reality, we're going to make ourselves into gods. This is Yuval Harare, Haurari, Homo Deus. we're going to end Homo sapiens, we're going to become masters of the universe with just a little bit more technology. And the reality is, when we get all this new technology, we're mostly going to use it for porn,

and not just porn, we're going to use it for fraud, we're going to use it to make deep fakes and attack our enemies and plant evidence and whatever. And if we're not going to use it for those dastardly purposes, we're going to use it for wasting time.

It's going to be dumbed, memes and brain rot. That's what we're going to do. And so that's bad, obviously, and you need to figure out ways to stop yourself from falling into all those temptations. But it is kind of good in the sense that it means there are limits to what human beings are going to make of ourselves, which is for our own good

because it's a fallen world. And we have original sin and we have concupiscence. And if we were made into gods, we would very quickly become devils. We would become more powerful than the devil. actually because the devil's not God. It is actually good that we have these limits on us. Think about the 2000s.

Think about the 90s. The internet comes up that's going to connect the whole world. We're going to break down political barriers. We're all going to sing kumbaya. We're going to lift humanity up from its present division and darkness. And no, it's actually mostly just porn and fraud and wasting time. Because human nature remains as it is. Okay.

Speaking of crazy things, this is one study. I have to get to this. I meant to get to it yesterday. There's a big study at a Brazil that measured mental health outcomes of adults who say that they remember past lives. I'm going to repeat that because I didn't quite get it at first either. There are adults. People make all sorts of crazy claims. Some people claim that they are reincarnations, that they had past lives. And furthermore, some of those people claim that they can actually remember things that they did in their past lives. And this study concluded that those people tend to be crazy. And I think, why? How much of modern science could we just do away with by recognizing common sense? Who's really the conclusion from this study is, crazy people tend to be crazy. people who say crazy things are more likely to be crazy.

Why do we have this study? We have this study because you're not allowed to call people crazy anymore. We have this study because you're not allowed to say anything definitively anymore. We have this study because we have a crisis of epistemology where we don't even agree on how you can know things or whether you can know things at all. That's why. And that's why we need some guy in a lab coat to come out and say, it turns out when people say crazy things all the time,

They're often crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean, they are more likely to have depression and anxiety and all sorts of other mental health symptoms. Yeah. Wow, you don't say. Here's a little tease on craziness. There are men, many men who are going to doctors to break their legs to have metal inserted into the spaces between their bones to try to make themselves a few inches taller. Leg lengthening surgery. We don't have time to get to that right now. The best part of waking up, a full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast. Shop Fulgers, K-cup, pods, and more at your nearest retailer. Quick reminder, new annual memberships are 40% off right now at DaleWRplus.com with Code Summer. Here's what you get. Brand new episodes of the Pope and the Fure, the secret Vatican files of World War II, blockbuster documentaries like What Is a Woman and Am I Racist? Plus every show from the most trusted and handsome voices in conservative media,

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My favorite comment of the week, that is from Pinky Mandel, 1530, Michael is a Jewish guy, I'd love if you could put Schmuli Botayek in his place, but please don't call him ral. rabbi. It's like calling someone with an online minister certificate of priest. Yeah, I said that yesterday. I've actually had a number of Jews reach out to me. He said, Michael, please don't call Shmuli a rabbi. He really is an embarrassment to the Jewish people. Please don't. I said, I don't know. This is an internecine fight that I don't want to be involved in. But for those who didn't catch a show

yesterday or catch Twitter, Shmuli Botayek is this prominent, he calls himself a rabbi. He's also a sex toy salesman. And he was really angry about my series, the Pope and the Fure, the secret Vatican files of World War II, which is available exclusively at Daily Wire Plus. It's doing very well. Thank you to everyone who's watched and subscribed for that. Help me to rub the new subscriptions in Matt and Ben's face. We got the big dog over here at DW now, and the big dog happens to be the venerable Pius XVI. He would have thought. Schmulli says that Pius the 12th was a collaborator with the Nazis, and he was Hitler's Pope and a bunch of nonsense. So he messaged me 11 times. He Times publicly on Twitter said,

I want to debate you, and I'll bet you $10,000. I can beat you in a debate. And I'm going to annihilate you in this debate because Pius the 12th was Hitler's Pope. And I said, all these tweets. So I responded. I said, okay, hi, Shmuli. I would be delighted to debate you on this subject. I'm now following you.

I wasn't previously, but he was following me. So I said, now we're following each other. You can message me. And then you can send me an email address. And we'll get our teams to work out the details for a proper debate. Crickets. He keeps posting about it. He keeps talking about it. He's threatening to hold boycotts or something or protests. But I don't know. He hasn't responded. So I don't know if the debate's going to happen, guys, but I've accepted. We've got to work out the terms. But I don't know. It's in Schmooley's court. Finally, finally, we arrive at my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Our mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. I'm a pure talk. I'm a pure talk. truck.com slash Knowles, KNAWLES to get your free phone today. Take it away. Hi, Michael, and good morning. This is Katie. I have a question for you. Do any of these politicians

on the left, like Newsom, Pritzker, members of Congress, too, Crockett, AOC, those types, actually believe the things they say about President Trump and conservatives, or do you think it is all just them lying to the faces of the common people? In other words, only propaganda. I'm trying to understand at what point or with whom does it shift from lying to being had. Because it's clear that all of the leftists in my life genuinely believe that President Trump is a dictator, intent on destroying democracy, one brown illegal sent off to a concentration camp at a time. I look forward to hearing your answer and have a lovely day. Thanks. I think they basically believe it because I don't think they,

understand what conservatives think. I don't think they have any sense of our reasoning. I don't think they have much interest in it. I think for them, they believe that liberalism, liberalism in the year of earlier in 2025 is the only acceptable political ideology. And liberals have always kind of believed this. And so if you are outside of that in any way, you're an enemy and you have to either be extremely stupid or extremely evil or maybe both. And so I think they believe it basically. I don't think they have much curiosity. They are not particularly well educated. They probably aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. And so I think they believe it. Basically, who's ever told them otherwise? They're not exposed to it. If you're a conservative,

you are constantly exposed to what the liberals believe, so you understand their views perfectly. You understand, you disagree with it, obviously, but you know what they're thinking. You can't help it because you're just pummeled with it everywhere from every institution. But the libs don't, they don't know. And they often refuse to associate with anyone

who is conservative or Republican. Study after study shows they're much less likely to have friends on the other side of the aisle than we are. So they don't know. You know, they're just blissfully, not blissfully, sort of miserably ignorant. And I don't think they want to change that at all. I just keep whining and crying and screaming and calumniating. Okay, next one.

Hi, Michael, big fan. I just watched part one of the Pope and the Fur. It was incredible. It really gave me a new perspective not only on the titular characters, but also on World War II as a whole. And I can't wait to see the rest of the series. I had two quick questions for you. one, what is your personal position on Pope Pius X. 11th's death and the mystery surrounding it?

And two, if you did another documentary style series on church history, is there a specific time period or person that you would love to discuss next? You always seem to get a kick out of discussing church history. So I'd love to know what you'd like to dive into in the future. Anyway, I love the show. Keep at it. Thank you for your time. And God bless. Well, thank you so much.

Thanks for watching the Pope and the Fure. All of you can go watch it too, at Dailyware. plus. So the reference there is to something, I think it's in episode one, about Pius the 11th. A Pius XIII died. So he was the Pope right before Pius I, the 12th, who's the star of the show. Pius X the 11th died under kind of strange circumstances in as much as his doctor was an associate of Mussolini. And Pius XI. 11th issues Mitt Bernando Zorga, which is papal encyclical, unusually in German, in the vernacular, not in Latin, kind of smuggled into Germany to, to slow down the rise of Adolf Hitler, and so people have said, well, was he poisoned? Some of him by the doctor. I don't think so. If he was, it didn't work, you know, because then you got Pius

the 12th, who even just in the name you can see, continued the policies of Pius the 11th. He was the Vatican Secretary of State, a close collaborator. He ended up, he actually wrote a lot of Mitt Brinderserga. So, no, I don't buy it. There are all sorts of theories. This guy was poisoned. This is, you know, Pope John Paul I first, actually. He was Pope. for like five seconds. And people think he was murdered. I don't, like, could be, but I don't really see it. Next one. Good morning, Mr. Knowles. I've been listening to your show for about two years now, and it had the privilege of entering the Catholic Church in May of this year. On yesterday's show, you expressed your disdain for dual citizenship, while claiming that a man cannot

truly be loyal to two things of the same kind. I tend to agree, but I struggle to reconcile that view with the churches, schools, and even Catholic accounts on Twitter that proudly fly the flag of the Vatican City. While loyalty to the true religion is not of the same kind as national loyalty, Catholics owe allegiance to the vicar of Christ, who is also the head of a foreign nation state. As an active duty officer in the U.S. Space Force, I feel a little awkward about this arrangement and would love to hear your thoughts. Sure. When Catholics sometimes post the flag of the Vatican, I don't think this is a signal that they are citizens of the Vatican because virtually, in no circumstances are they citizens of the Vatican? You know, it's just a way to represent the church as an

ecclesiastical body, not as a national entity. So those are two things of different kinds, a nation state and the church. Now, the church and the state have had a sometimes tense, sometimes complementary relationship for 2,000 years now. This is a perennial question. It's resolved pretty well, I think, by Dante who points to an independent role for the political body, for the empire in his case, because he says the empire predates the church. Christ is born into an empire. So some popes have argued that the political leaders derive their power from the pope, from the church. But Dante argues, no, the secular powers, the emperor, derives his power, directly from God, just as the ecclesial power, the Pope, derives his power directly from God.

And these two work together. And the secular power can and really should be illuminated by the spiritual power. So in that way, there's a little bit of a superiority. But there are different things. They do different things. I don't think that America and the Vatican are going to war anytime soon. Vatican doesn't really have an army. you know, the papal suave is for not being reconstituted. So I don't see an issue with it. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil, with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop.

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Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. There's much more to say, much more to do, much more mailbag. But we got to get to fake headline Friday. And if you're a member of the Hoypeloy out there, you're not going to make it. You've got to go become a member at DailyWR Plus,

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