The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 2020 - AOC Says She's "Working Class," Not a "Leftist" — Do You Buy It?

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Democrat thought-leader Hasan Piker endorses Mao ahead of the midterms, Olive Garden institutes better security measures than American elections, and scientists unfairly blame Taco Bell for an explosive outbreak of the Aztec Two-Step. Ep. 2020 - - - Today's Sponsors: Cardiff - America’s favorite small business lender, provides the liquidity to move at the speed of business with same-day funding up to $500,000. Apply in under 3 minutes with zero credit impact. Apply now at https://cardiff.co/knowles Hallow - Download Hallow today and get 3 months free to join the American Heroes Challenge at https://hallow.com/knowles Helix Sleep - Go to https://helixsleep.com/knowles for 27% OFF sitewide. Lean (Brickhouse Nutrition) - Get 20% off when you enter code KNOWLES at https://TakeLean.com - - - DailyWire+ 🎆 🇺🇸 Our America 250 SALE is still available! Get 3-Months of DailyWire+ for just $17.76 📜 Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://dailywire.com/subscribe Becoming a Daily Wire member allows you to see all of our content ad-free. 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. 📘 My book "Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds" is available here: https://dwplus.shop/Speechless 📗 My book "Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide" is available here: https://dwplus.shop/ReasonsToVoteForDemocrats 🕯️ Get your Michael Knowles candles: https://thecandleclub.com/collections/michael-knowles 👕 Don’t dress like a squish. Shop my merch here: https://dwplus.shop/MichaelKnowlesMerch - - - Socials: YouTube — https://youtube.com/@MichaelKnowles Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/michaelknowlesshow Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/michaeljknowles TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@notmichaelknowles X — https://twitter.com/michaeljknowles - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Cardiff, America's favorite small business lender, with over 12 billion funded since 2004, apply in under three minutes for same-day funding, up to $500,000 at Cardiff.co slash Knowles. While the Democrats attempt a major working class rebrand led by AOC and Zoran Mamdani, streamer Hassan Piker reveals what they're really thinking with a pre-midterm's endorsement of communist dictator Mao Zedong. We will get into the fake populism push and the polling, shocking polling really, that explains why the Democrats are so desperate to make it happen. Then Olive Garden institutes better security measures than American elections and scientists unfairly blame Taco Bell for the recent explosive outbreak of the old Aztec Two Step.

I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show. Welcome back to the show. Democrat Senate candidate in Maine, Ashley Webb has just revealed that he secretes mucus during his trans menstrual cycle. So we will analyze the top Democrat candidates around the country, the priorities that are top of mind for all of them, I'm sure. That one, just right above the economy, immigration, and foreign policy, I'm sure trans. menstrual mucus is right there on your priority list. Before we get to any of that, though, Hassan Piker, left-wing streamer, who is one of the leaders, really, of the American left and the Democrat Party. Don't have to take my word for it. The New York Times, after any major national event, they're looking to Hassan Piker for thought leadership.

Democrat candidates who are running for office, really top Democrat candidates, Mamdani, AOC, they're looking to Hassan Piker for thought leadership. Here is Hassan Piker, thought leader of the left, endorsing Mao Zedong ahead of the midterms. I got stopped by a cop who thought I was like making fun of Mao Zedong, which I never would and never will. Mouseroyal Deng is one of the great leaders of this world, okay, a man who changed the entire universe, the entire planet. okay for real for real yes I mean there was a lot of

in excesses let's be real but the people's republic of China would not exist without Mao Zedong okay so Mao Zedong one of the great leaders of our world he's been dead for a little while

I don't know if Mr. Piker's aware of that but he says he changed the universe he didn't not just the country not just the world and changed the whole universe he was one of the great leaders and so Hassan Piker will never make fun of him. Mao Zedong, of course, for those who missed history class in school,

or probably for those who attended history class in school, Mao Zedong killed an estimated, I'm being somewhat conservative in my estimates, 30 to 45 million people during the Great Leap Forward alone. He killed an additional 2 to 8 million people through political persecution. The number could actually be much higher than that. I'm being relatively restrained here in my estimates. However, before we clutch our pearls, before we feign shock and outrage that one of the real thought leaders of the American left is openly endorsing Mao Zedong.

We should remember he's already told us this. This is the guy who said that the streets should run red in capitalist blood, who's called for the murder of Senator Rick Scott in Florida, who's called for the murder of Senator Tom Cotton. This is the guy who said that America deserved 9-11. and this is the guy that Democrats to this day choose to be associated with. Mamdani, giving him fist bumps and high fives, AOC. Big Democrat leaders. He's going out there. He's campaigning for people.

The New York Times is platforming him time and time again. So that's who they are. That's what they believe. And the only difference, the only shocking thing about Hassan Piker's statement, is that he will state it explicitly, whereas the rest of the left, including the mainstream left, just kind of wink at it. They wink at it, they imply it, but Hassan Piker will just state it openly. But they all believe it. All of the other evils of Mao aside, he killed a lot of people. He killed a lot of his political opponents. But then again,

a lot of the mainstream left supports political violence against his political opponents. Hassan Piker is just more open about it. And so in some ways, you got to kind of give Piker some credit. He's just saying the quiet part out loud. He's being more consistent and honest about what a lot of the left believes in, that's why they keep embracing him. You know, it's not even like we're trying. I remember there was this op in, when was it, 2010 or something, where the Democrat strategists tried to say that Rush Limbaugh was the de facto head of the Republican Party. He wasn't really the head of the Republican Party. He was an important broadcaster, an important voice on the right without question. Very, you know,

he's the guy who was the king of talk radio. But he wasn't the de facto head of the Republican party. When it comes to a guy like Hassan Piker, I'm not saying he's the head of the Democrat party. I'm just saying he's without question one of the most important thought leaders on the left. And he supports murdering moderate Republicans in the Senate and he supports Mao Zedong. So it's an important thing to keep in mind for the midterms. And I think voters know that. And I think it's showing up in the polls. So this is why, speaking of Mamdani, the Democrats are trying to make a hard pivot right now. The Democrats, which in recent years have been defined by woke, by trans rights for kids or whatever, you know, boys and girls' bathrooms, by abortion on

demand without apology, by slut walks, by totally open borders, by the George Floyd riots. The left which has been defined by woke is trying to shift away from this cultural radicalism towards, economic populism. You're seeing a coordinated effort between Mamdani, AOC, and others. They're screwing it up, though. Now here's, here's the momdani screwing it up with the New York Times just yesterday when he was asked, hey, you say you're a working class hero. What is the working class? And according to Mamdani, the working class is people who make less than a million dollars a year. I've drawn it at about a million dollars a year. Okay. So anyone under a million dollars a year? and income is working class.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying in terms of the practicality when it comes to fiscal policy. Right. I think a lot of our politics has been a debate over who you leave out, and I'm more interested in debates of how you bring more in.

And I think that that is, it's part of what I'm looking to be a part of is a vision where people understand, no matter what you call it, that there's room for them too. But yes, I do want to raise taxes people who make more than a million a year. It just feels like someone who is a janitor is going to feel some kind of way about that description if you're lumping them in with someone who is a lawyer.

That feels like a distinction that might matter. Do you think everyone's in the same club? You know, when I was running, a lot of the questions I would face is, what does it mean to be a democratic socialist? And I only bring that up because I think sometimes there's a fixation on a definition of something. And what I found is when I would knock on New Yorkers' doors, they would just ask, am I part of your vision? Okay. So you got to give credit to the New York Times here. They're doing it in the New York Timesiest way. You know, I just feel like people are going to feel like kind of some kind of way, you know, like with the big liberal glasses and the kind of crazy clothes. But they ask the question. They say, okay, so you're working.

class hero, so what's the working class? And he says, well, you know, I'm going to raise taxes on people who make more than a million bucks a year. And so the woman goes, hold on, you're working, if you're making $999,000, $99,000, 99 cents per year, you're working class. And he says, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. But yes, that is what I'm saying. And, you know, I just want to bring people in. And I just want, and you know, why do we even, it's like, what do words even mean, man? You know, it's like, hold on one second. You York Times. Let me just pull up this bong here. It's like, man, what are words? Why do we care about definitions, man? Oh, well, we care about definitions because the way we communicate is through words, which are signs. And in order for the communication to work, you need to have a common understanding of the meaning of the words, which is why you have definitions. That's why. But politicians like you, who are cheats and crooks, you try to obscure the definitions of words so that you, that you can try to get one over on us, but he can't even get one over on the New York Times.

It's a very good follow-up from the New York Times, which is, hold on. You want to say you're a working-class hero. So you run on a campaign platform of Eat the Rich, but then you get into office and you realize you need the support of some rich people. So you decide that you're just going to redefine working class to include people who make a million bucks a year.

Don't you think a janitor work in two jobs for very low pay in unpleasant conditions, and some hot shot lawyer at Kravath, Swain and Moore, who makes a million dollars a year, don't you think that the janitor might object to your lumping him in with that person? Wouldn't anybody object? It's just absurd to suggest that those people are in the same socioeconomic class. Mom, Donnie says, enough with definitions, man. You know, come on. What is the working class?

The median household income in the United States is actually higher than I thought it was. The median household income in the U.S. right now is $84,000. Now, that's not owing to real wages rising mostly. It's mostly due to inflation, but nevertheless. Median household income is $84,000. The working class income is somewhere in the range of $30,000 to $60,000. Now, income doesn't tell the whole story. You could have a super rich guy who sold his company for $20 million,

and he has not a lot of income. So you also have to include net worth. Working class net worth is estimated between $20,000 and $100,000. All of those numbers. are going to be higher in New York and California because there's higher cost of living because there's bad liberal economic policies. Nevertheless, the point that the New York Times lady is making is that there's an economic component to the working class, which Momdani gets wrong. By basically no definition of the working class can someone who makes a million dollars a year

be considered working class. But there's also a quantitative element. There's also a qualitative element, which is that working class usually implies a physical job. A tradesman, say, a manual laborer. The term working class usually implies something about education. It usually implies no college education. The reason this is really important is because there are lots of tradesmen who didn't go to college who make more money than PhDs in gender studies who are associate or adjunct professors at some kooky liberal school.

In other words, there are people who qualitatively seem like they're in a higher, more prestigious class who actually make less money than the people who qualitatively are categorized in a lower class. And this is brutal for the Democrats class politics because when it comes to the actual working class, people who are tradesmen who have an actual physical skill, who regardless of their income, you know, are not making $2 million a year at Gravath, Swain, and Moore, but the people who fit into that category don't support Momdani. That's the real key. Momdani's strongest support in the election came from the middle and upper middle income voters.

And so Momdani's class warrior appeal does not appeal to the working class by any definition. Whether you're talking about money, whether you're talking about skill set, whether you're talking about education, Mom Dani does not appeal to the working class, to tradesmen, to truck drivers, to manual laborers. That's not who he's appealing to. He's appealing to a trust fund kid, even if the kid doesn't make a lot of money, the trust fund kid who's a Columbia graduate student, who's getting a degree in social work

or in sociology or something like that. In other words, Mom Dani's appeal. He appeals to immigrants and some of that. one area where in some cases you're getting a lower income, but it's not like what you'd call the working class. In other words, Mamdani's appeal is cultural. It's not primarily economic,

which is why the Democrats attempting this rebrand away from woke, which is a cultural movement, into economic populism, is not going to work. The right now, I'm sure they're going to figure out a way to screw it up, but the right, the Republicans right now, do a much better job on economic populism,

running against mass migration. It's basically just the Republicans and Bernie Sanders who understand how to run against that. That's economic populism. Running on tariffs, that's economic populism. Running against NAFTA and globalization and unfettered free trade. That's economic populism.

The Dems can't do that. The Dems are running on chopping off your kids' genitals. That's what the Democrats. That's what they're running on on, they're running on Mausadong. Even that. That is actually cultural radicalism. That appeals to the Columbia graduate student. It does not appeal to the carpenter.

Now, AOC, who is smarter at this than Mom Donnie, she's attempting her own version of it. That's also going to flop. But she might run for president. We'll get to that in a moment. First, though, I want to tell you about Hallow. Download Hallow and use code Knowles, KNAWLAS. July is here. Vacations, cookouts, road trips, the kids are home all day. It's a great month, but it is also one of the easiest months to let your prayer life fall completely off the rails. Hallow wants to make sure that does not happen. This July, Hallow is releasing their fifth series of their Saints and Seven Days Challenge, three brand new saints, three new voices. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza, author and mother, Catherine Schwarzenegger Pratt,

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two or three weeks ago and in that i asked him you know who's the democrat nominee in twenty twenty eight and he said oh there's no question michael and before he said gavin newsome which what I was expecting. He said, there's no question. It's AOC. He said, what? No, you mean that? He goes, oh, yeah, there's no question. She's the frontrunner right now. And she's been getting a lot of presidential buzz. And she's not exactly poo-pooing it. The latest headline, after a conversation with Politico, she says she has not ruled out a 2028 run, which to translate that from politician speak means she desperately wants to run for president in 28. She's doing everything she can to learn mine up donors and some popular support.

Oh, I haven't ruled it out. That means I am running like my life depends on it. Though, she adds this. She goes, I am working class, not a militant leftist. This is her new line. She says, hold on, where is the exact wording? That's the headline wording. Yes, here it is.

I come from a working class family. I didn't come from a militant leftist family. I believe that these are prescriptions that are going to help us as a country. Look, guys, my opponents have been portraying me as some crazy, kooky leftist, some culture warrior. That's not me. I'm just working class. This is the rebrand. There was a memo that went out.

I guarantee it. There was a memo that went out from the Democrat campaign operations that say, hey, stop painting yourselves as woke, definitely. stop painting yourselves as leftists, paint yourselves as working class that is identifiable with a lot of voters, and 35% of Americans identify themselves as working class, even if their income and their wealth don't necessarily fit that definition. They identify that way. So identify yourself as working class. This is Grompsian politics 101. This is when the left is really cooking, this is what they do. We're common sense. We're working class. We want economic populism. Doesn't work for AOC, though, because I recall on, let's see, when was this, October 7th, 2019, AOC tweets out, I know the term prison abolition is breaking some people's brains. The right is already freaking out. Yes, the U.S. incarcerates more than anywhere in the world. We have more than enough room to close many of our prisons and explore just alternatives to incarceration. I'm not a radical leftist. I'm just working class. Now, let's empty all the prisons and let all the criminals out on the street. Let's storm the Bastille. I'm just working class.

November 17th, 2025, AOC writes, This Transgender Awareness Week, we celebrate the resilience, courage, and beauty of the trans community. Your lives matter, your stories matter, and your right to thrive and exist authentically is non-negotiable. We stand with you today and everyday trans flag.

I'm not a militant leftist. I'm just an economic working class class warrior, are you? AOC, October 14th, 20205, this is just eight months ago, nine months ago. Congresswoman AOC shares powerful message of support for trans kids. I'm not a militant leftist. I'm just working class.

Now, hold on, I got these hedge clippers over here. Give me your kid. Give me your little boy. I'm not, no, don't worry. I'm not a radical leftist. I just want to castrate your child. But I'm working class. Don't worry.

I've got common sense. I'm a normal person. It's not going to work. Not going to work at all. The left made its bed with wokeness, and we need to rhetorically wrap that one around their necks. I mean, this one really is inescapable for the left. It's inescapable because there are just so many tweets. There are just so many clips. This is why James Tala Rico is having

a big problem in Texas right now is every time he tries to position himself as a moderate. You know, I'm just a straight, white, male Christian, but every time he does that, there's some clip of him saying that God is non-binary, that using the Blessed Virgin Mary to justify abortion, to say that women are our neighbors with uteruses. It's just there's too much evidence from too recently that these guys are super woke. But the other problem for them is they can't be economic populists because their base of support is not the working class. Their base of support really is wealthier people.

And so even if they were able to pivot and make a real economic populist message, it wouldn't work for them. what their base wants is not true economic populism. Their base hates the tariffs. Their base loves free trade. Their base does not want to reshor manufacturing. Their base thinks manufacturers are icky and yucky. They think they're gross hoiploy. The left wing base thinks it is much better than the manufacturers and the tradesmen and the carpenters and the laborers and the truck drivers. It just doesn't work. There's no overlap. So really all the left can muster if it wants to get some attention, if it wants to seem avant-garde or new or different, is the cultural radicalism. So they're really boxed in and I can't wait to watch them squirm. Okay. All of this is showing up in the polls. In my, how long has it been? It's been 30 years since I've been a political nerd, arguably more than that. I first got interested in politics when my, grandfather taught me it's a grand old flag in his kitchen when I was about two years old. I got interested in politics when I was two, three years old. I have distinct memories of this,

by the way, when Bill Clinton was running for president. And George H.W. Bush said, read my lips, no new taxes. That was one of the first phrases I recall. I know. I'm like a, a young Republican built in a laboratory, but that was one of the first phrases I ever learned. A campaigned to run my first grade classroom for Bob Dole, 1996. That's where I really trace the beginning of my political life. And in all of those years, I have just seen the craziest poll I've ever seen in politics, and it's about these midterm elections. We'll get to that momentarily.

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That's Helixleep.com slash Knowles, Canada WLAS, for 27% off site wide, exclusive. for listeners to this show. The GOP is supposed to get blown out in the midterms. It's supposed to get completely destroyed. It's supposed to get completely destroyed, even if things are going really well, because that's what happens in the first midterm election after a party wins the presidency.

That is especially what happens in the first midterm election after a party wins the presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and holds the Supreme Court. When one party is a unified government, you are supposed to get destroyed in the midterm elections. That's assuming everything's going really well. But things aren't totally going well in the sense that we are currently in this war with Iran that most people don't want to get into.

Most people do trust Trump, most people on the right, I should say trust Trump, but the war itself is deeply unpopular. It's causing economic disruptions, mostly because of the oil markets. You're in a time where President Trump won on mass deportations, but there have been a lot of hurdles to mass deportations, such that thus far we've only, we've had fewer than a million formal deportations. We've had more self-deportations, but fewer than a million formal deportations. So there's discontent that was already baked in and that's come about. You would expect the Republicans to be in the negative numbers. You would expect the Republicans not only to lose seats in the midterm elections, you would expect them to be like exiled to Saturn. Okay. And yet, here's the poll. Washington Post

Ipsos poll July 9 through the 13th. Generic congressional ballot, 26. Democrats, 48, Republicans, 45. Democrats are leading by three points. I don't see the margin of error on this poll. That could be within the margin of error. What? What?

Which political party do you agree with more on important issues? Democrats, 40, Republicans, 41. In a midterm election that by historical and even current calculations should see the Republicans getting completely destroyed, they're actually more popular than the Democrats? Which political party do you trust to do a better job handling the economy? Democrats 35, Republicans 39. It's, it actually boggles the mind. It's not like this is some super right-wing poll. Usually rasmus me. and trends a little more right wing. They also tend to get things correct. But nevertheless, we're looking at WAPO and Ipsos.

And Republicans are dominating. And even on the generic congressional ballot, it's basically a tie. If this is true, that means that everyone's, the big debate right now is, are the Republicans going to lose the House or are they also going to lose the Senate? That's the debate. However, if these poll numbers are, correct, the Republicans might hold the House. If these poll numbers are correct, along with redistricting, because the Democrats tried to racially gerrymander and the U.S. Supreme Court and the Virginia Supreme Court

both struck that down. So the Republicans got a net gain of a handful of seats, not as many as they could have, but a handful. If all of that is true, you could see the Republicans, I don't think this is going to happen. You could see the Republicans picking up seats in the midterms. And if that the case. If the GOP survives or even kind of thrives in the midterms, we need to repeal the 22nd Amendment and we need Trump to be Caesar. We need Caesar Trump to rename his son Baron Octavian later to be Augustus. It would be such an upending of historic trends in American politics. it would signal that Trump just is the GOP and is the strongest weapon we've had in the GOP

certainly since Ronald Reagan. And it's not just, I've heard people saying, I actually think we're going to do really well. I think we're going to grow the majority in the midterms. For goodness sakes, I spoke with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a man I greatly admire. We spoke months ago, and I said, how are you feeling about the midterms?

He said, I think we're going to grow the majority. And I thought, can I have whatever drug that guy's on? Can I please have, sir, what is in your, coffee. And then I kind of wrote it off and I said, look, it's his job to be optimistic. It's his job to be hopeful. Now it's showing up in the polling. That would be pretty crazy. Now, speaking of election security, right now, one fear for the Republicans is the Democrats are very good at rigging the elections. That was part of the president's national address the other night on all the ways that our election systems are very vulnerable to foreign hacking, how this has

been demonstrated, how there are many foreign nationals on the federal roles of a quarter million on nationals on the federal voter rolls. We have now discovered that Olive Garden has tougher security measures than our elections. Because Olive Garden has just come out with the latest version of their never-ending pasta pass. The never-ending pasta pass, I'm not totally familiar with this. The never-ending pasta pass means you pay $100. And then for 13 weeks, you get unlimited pasta. Olive Garden. You get unlimited pasta along with, this is amazing, super salad and breadsticks. You just get as

much as you want. You pay $100 once. You get 13 weeks of that. This is the greatest investment in America. But look, it's Olive Garden. It's not like that expensive from the broader standpoint of dining. And that has tougher security measures than American elections. I'm being informed by the producers, Professor Jacob and his girlfriend, Destiny, they got a never-ending pasta pass. I was, I guess my, look, good on them. And unfortunately, it's not transferable, or I would, I would rob Jacob after this show. Because my two takeaways from this are, first takeaway, I want that. That sounds delicious. I want the pasta pass. I can't even, I can't even offer to buy it from someone because you can't, it's not transferable. But I want the pasta pass.

What a great deal. What a great country we live in. What a great contribution of the Italian Americans to give us a place like Olive Garden that has a never-ending pasta pass. That's beautiful. It's my main thought. My second thought, though, is the pasta pass is the perfect indictment of Democrat election rigging. We talk about this. We say, hold on, you got to show an ID to get a pack of cigarettes. You got to show an ID to buy a beer. But you don't think that we should have a higher threshold or at least the same threshold of security for our elections. That's a lot more important than buying a pack of cigarettes. But when it comes to Olive Garden, it's even better.

Because what the Democrats say, the Democrats' main pitch against the Save America Act, the Democrats pitch against voter ID, which is an 8515 issue in America. Everybody supports voter ID, except for Democrat politicians. Their argument against it is that black people and women are too stupid to get IDs. That's actually their argument. And maybe Hispanics, too. Their argument is that blacks and Hispanics and women are, really, really stupid, completely incompetent, barely human, only arguably sentient, and they can't go get an ID.

What's so funny about the Olive Garden comparison is that Olive Garden is not considered Michelin-rated dining, right? Olive Garden is not the most exclusive restaurant in the world. Olive Garden is a very accessible restaurant. Olive Garden's patrons are not the upper crust of the upper crust of the socioeconomic ladder. It's kind of a middle class restaurant. It's accessible to working class. And the Democrats who are supposed to be the working class heroes, the party that's really in touch with the common man, they're saying, well, we can't have voter ID because what?

The average voter isn't as smart as the average Olive Garden customer. Is that it? Talk about the soft bigotry of low-executive. expectations. What are we doing here, folks? Love it. I love keep promoting the pasta pass. Also, I want a pasta pass. Speaking of popular dining options, Taco Bell is under fire because they have been blamed by scientists for a recent, brutal, much reported on outbreak of Montezuma's revenge. There is, if you read the news, if you watch the news on TV or on podcasts, apparently there is an historic, explosive spate of the Aztec two-step. And scientists have been blaming Taco Bell,

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People are really, really impressed with the results here over at the Daily Wire. This summer look your best. Get started with 20% off free rush shipping so you can add lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Takeleen.com enter Knowles for your discount. It is promo code NOLES, at take lean, L-E-A-N dot com. I did not pick the comment yesterday. This is from the producers. It says at Benjamin, not Netanyahu Davies. Why do you never pick a comment? Also, go follow the new Behind the Wire, Instagram, behind the wire. Oh, my goodness. That's what I get. That's what I get for not. It's behind the wire underscore, by the way. That's what you got to go look up.

That's what I get because I didn't pick the comment because I was busy, you know, doing all the other work for the show, basically doing every single other part of the show and carrying this entire Daily Wire corporation on my shoulders. Like Atlas, we've been talking about Odysseus. I am the Atlas of the Daily Wire holding this all up. And I ask for one thing from the producers to pick the comment. What do they do? They turn it into a commercial for their podcast behind the wire available on DailyWare Plus and now on Instagram. Okay. Taco Bell has been blamed for this outbreak of it's called a cyclospora, but the way it's being reported in the press is just as explosive, you know, I don't like to go blue on this show, but Deli Belly. You know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm saying? The old Montezuma's, okay, the FDA now, which blamed Taco Bell is now walking back its claim. Taco Bell was falsely accused.

According to the New York Post, the FDA is walking back its initial claims that a Taco Bell lettuce supplier is responsible for sickening hundreds of Americans with explosive excretions, saying that the original test results

were a false positive. The stunning reversal comes after the agency double-checked a lettuce sample, which found that the leafy green supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico did not have traces of cyclospora,

the parasite that causes in the New York Post's words, the crappy condition. So there's a false positive. They say there's, you know, basically, you have this huge group of people in America who are running to the bathroom. There's this outbreak of some kind of parasite. They're all running for the water closet.

And I'm using as many euphemisms as I can. And so we're going to test and see if this came from Taco Bell. And they said it did. It definitely came from Taco Bell. But then they reverse it. They say, no, that was. is a false positive. And I guess just as someone, I've been a Taco Bell customer for, you know,

roughly 36 years of my life. And I would just say, probably in retrospect, the scientists should have expected a false positive there. It's not, if they were merely looking for the outcome as proof of the parasite, they were always going to get a false positive. It's like they didn't know what Taco Taco Bell is. But we know. And so you can't, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is you need a control. In science, you need a control to test, you know, whatever you're trying to test, and you're not going to get that control at Taco Bell. Okay, it's enough of that, right? This is a high-class show.

The reason I mention this as a political matter, though, is it's wall-to-wall coverage of this disgusting story because apparently some people are, you know, having the need to run over to the bathroom. Okay. Why is this major news? do we really need a national campaign about this that if people eat a bad taco they might need to clear their afternoon do we really need it's not that big a deal

do I really need to read about this every day there are real problems in the world look maybe this is why Trump is doing so well maybe this is why Republicans are doing so well in the polls I thought we had bigger problems in this but if our bigger problem is people are running to the loo after Taco Bell I don't know. I don't need...

That's not a man-bites dog story. Now, speaking of excretions, I promise the show is going to take a turn after this story, but I do have to get to this one, because we're talking about the Democrats' failure to pivot from woke to economic populism. We're talking about the Democrats' apparent failure in the midterm elections thus far on the polls.

Ashley Webb. I don't know Ashley's real name, but he goes by Ashley Webb. He is one of the main Senate Democrat candidate. he is a trans activist. He says that he's a woman. He's now going viral, not for his tax policy or his immigration policy or even his view of foreign policy, but for his claim that even though he has an X and a Y chromosome, even though he does not have ovaries or a uterus or anything like that, he claims to have a menstrual cycle, which is evident from his derrier, because when he imagines himself to be ovulating,

he excretes mucus. Can future Senator Webb, take it away? I would feel really good on like the 15th day of every cycle, and it was a 29, 29 day cycle that I was experiencing. I mean, this sounds pretty, sounds pretty, cyclie there. So let me reach you. Oh, I was going to.

Go ahead. During that time, like I also leak like a mucus, which they can't really explain. Oh, interesting. Interesting. You want to call yourself transgender despite not necessarily knowing what all parts are inside. Well, I mean, the doctors gave me the label and I want to keep it because I see. Even if I'm intersex, like the intersex community pretty much tossed me out and didn't want to talk to me.

Oh. Any story there you want to finish? I thought I had ovaries and possibly a uterus. And I was asking him, like, I have these catscans. Can you take a look? And, you know, tell me what you think. And I guess it annoyed them. So they kicked me out.

Oh. Okay. So just to translate that for saner people, he says, that he has a menstrual cycle. But it's the exact quote, this is a direct quote from him in another interview. When you don't have the proper hole, it finds one of two exits.

My exit connection was made with my colon, because when I get this monthly pain, that is where the blood comes out of. So he claimed that there was some biological aspect to his gender identity, and he had medical scans, and no, that isn't real. that even if

what he was imagining was real the blood in his colon would have not that's just complete delusion and so then he goes to hermaphrodites and people who are intersex who have gender ambiguity and they kicked him out and said no you're just a crazy guy who thinks he's a woman

and so he identifies as trans and anyway I mention all of it to say that I want to reiterate my full and complete endurance of Ashley Webb for Senate. Ashley Webb, sorry, for Democrat nominee for Senate. Ashley Webb needs to be the Democrat nominee for Senate in Maine. When AOC, pull up the AOC tweet about trans solidarity.

Where's my AOC tweet? Do you remember? Yeah, AOC just last year said that she had a powerful message of support for trans kids. What about the other one? Trans pride. This transgender awareness week, we celebrate the resilience, courage, and beauty of the trans community. your lives matter, your stories matter, your right to thrive and exist authentically as non-negotiable. We stand with you.

Prove it, AOC. Prove it. Put your money where your mouth is. She wrote that in November of last year. Do you really believe that? Then I am calling on AOC to endorse Ashley Webb for Senate in Maine. If you're not just a liar who is abusing the LGBT community, cynically exploiting them to try to get some votes, If you really stand with the trans community every day, then stand with Ashley Webb, AOC, and endorse Ashley Webb for Senate in Maine.

That person needs to be the Democrat nominee for Senate in Maine. Because you know what? That actually would authentically reflect the Democrat Party's priorities. That would authentically reflect where the left stands. A hell of a lot more than economic populism would. Okay. Speaking of, speaking of, well, turning to, I suppose, more serious matters. I do want to get to some more frivolous stuff before we go, but turning to actually more serious matters. The Iran war is still going on. The Iran war has been, you know, it was on, then there was a ceasefire, then there was an MOU. Now hostilities are backup. Iran violated the memorandum of understanding, violated the ceasefire, fired missiles at U.S. assets in Jordan, and recently killed, as of last night. It was two were identified. Now it's three U.S. soldiers.

So the first one that the Department of War has identified as private Isabella Gonzalez, 19 years old of Carrollton, Texas. Second one is First Lieutenant Tyler James Fian, 25 years old of Iwa Beach, Hawaii. The third, this one just came in this morning. I don't have his rank. It's Michael Emanuel Swinton, 30 years old. Very, very sad. We should pray for them.

We should pray for their families as we are grateful for their service to the country, service and a sacrifice that the vast majority of Americans don't make anymore. We should do all of that. Then we should ask ourselves, when you hear all of this very sad news, does any of it strike you as particularly sad or particularly wrong? Put aside whatever you think of the Iran War, the particularities of the Iran War. just America has engaged in lots of wars over the years, some of which people thought were just,

some of which people thought were not just. Really, for every war, there's mixed opinion. But put aside your particular views of the Iran war. Just recognize that the United States is in some kind of war right now, and these three soldiers have been confirmed killed. Does one of them bother you more than the others? And the answer is obviously yes. the sacrifice of the two young men is heartbreaking

but it's the 19 year old girl that it just feels different to us doesn't it yes because she's young because she's younger and also especially because she was a woman the young woman's death hits people harder because it is an indictment of our national policy people know at a deep level that nations should not send their women off to die in war. We hope that we don't have to send anyone off to die in war.

But we recognize that war exists, war will always exist, this side of the eschaton, and we're going to send our men off to war. It's going to be the young men, by the way. It's not going to be the old men we send off to war. It's going to be the young men we send off to war. And that's going to make us think about the reasons that we go to war and the justifications for war and the frequency of war.

But nevertheless, that's part of politics. That's part of statecraft. That's part of human life in this world. It's recognizing that there's going to be war and we have to send people off to it. But I think most of us know at a deep level, it is really wrong. It is just an absolute wicked national policy

that we would send our women off to be killed in war. We didn't have women in combat until very recently. We didn't have women in the military for most of history. It is because of our, the introduction of liberal politics, lowercase L liberal politics, and egalitarian politics, and especially feminist politics, that we do that. And it just strikes us as wrong. It's not that women can't be brave. There are a lot of brave women. It's not that women might not want to

sign up and fight in combat. Plenty of young women perhaps do. It's not even that men and women are physically different from one another and that men are physically stronger than women. That's all true, but that's actually beside the point here. It has nothing to do with the women or their courage or their sacrifice. It has everything to do with what kind of country we want to be. Do we want to be the kind of country that sends our young women off to be blown up by jihadis? I don't think so. And if you're a conservative, if you're just a normal person, and you think that men and women really are different, and they're complementary rather than indiscernible and identical, and they really do have different roles,

then I think one of the clearest places that would be expressed is military combat, right? It's not, the reason not to put women in combat is not because the women don't want to and not even that they can't do it. It's because we don't want to be the kind of country that does that. Very sad. Pray for all of these people, obviously. And then we need to reflect on this.

And we need to be very honest about it. As we're going through the great unwokening, as we're going through a kind of cultural return from the brink of especially the gender insanity of 2022, 2022, 2023, this is something we need to seriously consider. For the vast majority of American history, we did not have women in combat.

And I don't want to be the kind of country that sends women off to die in wars. Okay, today's TEE Tuesday. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member use code, Knowles, W.L.A.S. Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

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