The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 2048 - Trump Ranks the Best American Presidents

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

President Trump ranks the greatest presidents and has conservatives irate, Lake Ontario becomes "Lake America," and archaeologists "discover" Jesus' tomb. Ep. 2048 - - - 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 PureTalk - At just $15 a month for your first three months on ANY plan… now’s a great time to choose PureTalk. Simply go to https://PureTalk.com/KNOWLES to claim this offer. PreBorn! - For just $28, PreBorn can provide one free ultrasound and help equip a new generation of parents to choose life and build strong families. To donate, dial #250 and say "BABY" or visit https://Preborn.com/knowles - - - DailyWire: Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://dailywire.com/subscribe 🎆 🇺🇸 Celebrate America 250 with 3-Months of DailyWire for just $17.76 📜 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. 🍿 Run Hide Fight: Infidels will premiere on The Daily Wire, Wednesday September 16th. 📘 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

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with over 12 billion funded since 2004, applying under three minutes for same day funding up to 500,000 at Cardiff.co slash Knowles. President Trump releases his list of the greatest to the worst presidents with FDR and Woodrow Wilson at the top and people like Republican hero Calvin Coolidge way down there by the bottom. Conservatives are furious. What was Trump thinking? I think I know the answer. Then, speaking of wild Trump stunts,

the president has officially renamed Lake Ontario. And speaking of geography, archaeologists have reportedly uncovered the true site of Jesus' tomb. And you will never guess where it is. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show. Wall Street Journal has a big op-ed out that J.D. Vance is the GOP's Obama.

This is the new line of attack. Now, you got to remember, J.D. Vance started this fight. He went after the Wall Street Journal just the other day in a speech in Ohio. Wall Street Journal smacking him back. It says J.D. Vance is the GOP's Obama. And yet I can't help but think that this is not the smartest line of attack if you want to take down J.D. Vance. You know, Obama did win two terms, right? It was like a pretty popular president, got a lot of stuff done. So anyway, we will get to what that means. First, I want to tell you back Cardiff. Go to cardiff.c-O-C-O-L-E-S. There are some good problems to have in business. The good problem is people want to buy more of your product. The good problem is they need more of your services in more places at the same time. Those are good problems, but they're expensive problems. Cardiff helps business owners get the capital to do something about them. This is why business owners should know about

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Let's start with Lake Ontario. President Trump comes out yesterday and he likes renaming things. He likes putting his name on a lot of big buildings. He renamed the body of water that was once called the Gulf of Mexico. That's now the Gulf of America. And in keeping with that very simple renaming technique, Lake Ontario, according to President Trump, is now Lake America. We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately to Lake America. That's going to take place right now as I signed the order. Do you have anything to say about it, Yes, sir. So this is a straightforward but important executive order. It directs Secretary Borghum and the Department of the Interior to update the geographic names information service to reflect that the lake once known as Lake Ontario will, from the state forward, be known as Lake America. Lake America. I love the total straight face. Yes, sir, this is a very important executive order. It's very good, very simple, though. We're just going to rename the lake.

Okay, so what's the context here? The context is that Trump is a this trade dispute with Canada. And he has long been in this trade dispute with Canada. And Canada's not really playing ball with him. So what does he do? He's threatening tariffs. He's threatening all sorts of punitive measures. And cherry on top of the Sunday, he's going to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America. And it's especially funny because Lake Ontario has been Lake Ontario since before Canada existed. Ontario, a name associated with New York, just as it is with Canada. people are going nuts over this thing. People are going nuts. The left especially is going nuts. Hillary Clinton just posts on Twitter. Just so angry, passive aggressive. It's like Ontario.

Who's the other one? Kathy Hochel, governor of New York, Democrat. She goes, New York won't be calling it that. It's like Ontario. What is he doing? What is Trump doing? Because it's not just the left that is upset about this. There are a number of right-wingers who are upset about this. And we'll get into their motivations in a second. First, though, to help us understand it, we have someone who worked for Trump, worked at a very high level directly under Trump, who hates Trump, who comes from a different faction of the GOP than Trump does, who has been prosecuted under Trump's administration. So this guy, no love lost with the president, really, really clearly doesn't like the guy. Might face jail time because of Donald Trump or because of his time working for Donald Trump. Nevertheless, here is former National Security Advisor,

John Bolton's take on what Trump is doing with Lake Ontario. In the first term, I was in the Oval Office one day and I walked in to tell him something. And Trump was in the middle of dictating a tweet to Dan Scavino, who was his tweeter in chief. Now he's Deputy White House Chief of Staff. That's how you rise in the Trump administration. But anyway, Trump's dictating, and he turns to Skavino at one point, says, capitalize every word in that last sentence. And then he turns to me, and he said, you know why I do that?

And I said, no, why? And he said, because it drives them crazy. And that's what Trump is doing to Canada. Lake America, forget Lake Ontario. He's just trolling them. And you can't, you can't let that get to you. I love John Bolton. I know it's unpopular in certain quarters today to love John. But I always had a great deal of respect for John Bolton. And he's totally right in his in his take here.

He's just trolling. You can see this with the capitalization. You get all these people saying, he's not even using grammar and language correctly. And you say, no, he's not doing the random capitalization because he doesn't know how to capitalize words. New Yorkers, I will say, do randomly capitalize words. But nevertheless, as you can hear from one of Trump's enemies who worked very closely with him. He's not doing it because he doesn't know the rules. He's doing it because he does know the rules and he knows that it irritates people when he breaks the rules. That's what it's about. That's what the Lake Ontario thing is about. And so I understand the Republicans who say this is silly to rename Lake Ontario. This is silly. They don't think that

this will be effective in the trade dispute. They don't think it's good to antagonize Canada. I understand that point of view. I understand the people who say, you know, we've got a difficult economy and we're at war and we need to deport more people and they're more important priorities to focus on than renaming a lake. I get that. I think it misunderstands a little bit how the White House works because you can do a lot of things at once. Whether or not we rename Lake Ontario has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on how the Iran war is going to turn out. But nevertheless, I totally get that objection. What I don't understand is. is the Republicans who are upset about this.

Who cares? Who cares? Why? Well, because it's just, it's so, it's silly and it's undignified and it's not, it's embarrassing, and it's not. To whom? We're worried about being embarrassed in front of Hillary Clinton or Kathy Hokel. We care what they think of us. Those people are terrible. They're wrong about absolutely everything. And I will point out, if there is any political advantage, to renaming the lake at all. The one political advantage I can see is that in a midterm election year, which is very difficult, horrible historical wins for the Republicans, in that election year, you are now getting the Democrat Party uniformly to campaign against America. They're all coming and saying, we prefer the Canadian name. We hate the name Lake America. They're literally campaigning

against America. So again, I don't think this is going to be all that significant in the race, But it is a win of some kind to have all of the Democrats saying we don't like America. We object to America. So I just think, I don't know, you don't need to celebrate it. You don't need to think it's some huge win or it's really important to rename Lake Ontario. But why would you be upset about it? I'm with John Bolton on this. You just can't, he's just trolling Canada.

It doesn't really matter all that much. And as much as it matters, it's not bad for Republicans. It's not bad for America. Who cares? Why would you get right? you can't get upset about that. Oh man, if you're getting upset about that, you must have been in a coma the last dozen years.

I don't know. It doesn't, I don't see it. Now, something that conservatives are really upset about that Trump did. Is he posted this meme, essentially, on truth social? But it's his list of the greatest presidents. And this is causing Republicans and conservatives' eyes to pop out of their heads. It's a chart. I won't go through the whole thing,

but it's got the greatest, great, great, near-great average, below-average failures. Who do you think Trump put as the greatest president? One guess. You got one guess. Yes, you're right. He put Trump as the greatest. Then in the next tier, great presidents.

He is Lincoln. Okay, I know some people don't like Lincoln, but most Americans I think he's a pretty great president. Washington, everybody agrees. He's a great president, if not the greatest president. FDR. Whoa, hold the fort. FDR?

The Democrat monarch? the man who blew past George Washington's standard of two terms they had to pass a 22nd Amendment after he died in office because they didn't want another FDR. FDR who completely upended our system of government created the deep state blew through almost destroyed the Supreme Court

and the only reason he didn't destroy the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court finally gave in and let him completely change the government in ways that most people thought were unconstitutional. Franklin Roosevelt, oh, no one could be worse than him except the next guy, Woodrow Wilson. Trump puts in the great list of president. Woodrow Wilson is probably the single worst president we've ever had.

He created the blueprint for that deep state for upending our whole system of government. The guy was just awful in every way. Followed by Jefferson. Okay, Jefferson is not my absolute favorite president, but yeah, he's a good president. Jackson, founder of the Democrat Party, but still a very powerful president, very Trumpian figure. I kind of get that. Teddy Roosevelt then comes in at near great. We like Teddy. He was kind of progressive, but we like him. Cleveland, interesting. John Adams. Oh, yeah, John Adams is one of my favorites. Polk. Polk, that's interesting. Then average, we have Bill Clinton, John Quincy Adams,

James Monroe, Hayes, Madison, Van Buren, Taft, Chester Arthur, one of my faves, McKinley, Johnson, Hoover, Harrison. And below average, you get to guys like Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Calvin Coolidge. Wait a second. Calvin Coolidge is every conservative movement guy's favorite president just about. Silent Cal, the business of America's business. And the businessman knows his business best. Silent Cal, very quiet guy refused to run again because he didn't want to have more years in office than George Washington. He was a guy who shrunk the government. What, him? And then failures. He puts Biden Obama, U.S. Grant. I don't think he was a failure. Harding, Carter. Okay. How to interpret this. We don't need to spend too much time on this list, but people are kind of misinterpreting it. The simplest way to understand it is the John Bolton point on Lake Ontario. He's just trolling. But the only point that really matters to Trump, I think, on this list is that he's the greatest. But people are scratching here. It's why did he put these people in these tears? What a little bit of context you need to have is he didn't make the list.

This list is almost entirely copied from a list published in the 1940s by historians from Harvard. So people are wondering, why isn't Reagan on this list? Hold on, wait a second. Where's Reagan? Where are the Bush is? Where's Kennedy? The list was made before those guys were president. So that's why they're not on the list.

He took a list made by liberal historians from Harvard in the 1940s. He then added all the people he hates and put them at the bottom, Biden, Obama, Carter. He put Clinton in the average area because he kind of likes his personal friends with Clinton. And then he puts himself at the top. And that's basically what he did. So that's the slightly deeper way to understand this. But let's just approach this chart for a second, not trying to impose our own views on the chart, not trying to argue with Trump posting the meme. But let's just see, let's approach this as we should approach any text to see if there is something that we can learn from this.

If there is some wisdom that we can pull out of this. Maybe there's not, maybe there is. But let's approach this text, not in a spirit of activism and anger, but in a spirit of interpretation, which is the smartest way to, to approach all texts. Is there anything we can learn here? Yes, I think this actually does tell us something about Donald Trump. The greatest, great, near-grade, average, whatever, the tiers are clearly not being compiled according to partisanship. It's not that the Republicans go to the top and the Democrats go to the bottom. Obviously not. It's not that you see this by ideology. The conservatives go to the top and the leftists go to the bottom. the way that this chart is actually structured, first by the Harvard historians in the 40s and then

affirmed by Trump, is according to power how the presidents wielded the presidency. That's what actually unites the various tiers. Take the Trump outlier aside for a second, though perhaps not. Lincoln. Lincoln refounded the country. He saved the union by waging a civil war. George Washington actually founded the country. FDR was the American monarch who got us through World War II and totally restructured the country in many terrible ways, but nevertheless, he did it. He beat the Supreme Court. Woodrow Wilson, he was the architect of that. Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States. Andrew Jackson founded the oldest extant political party in the world. He was the hero of New Orleans. He transformed the country. It's all about how they wielded the office of the

presidency. Followed by guys like Teddy Roosevelt, John Adams. John Adams, not quite there. He didn't get his extra term in 1800. Then you get guys like, why would Clinton be average, but Biden, Obama, and Carter be failures? Well, Clinton got two terms. He was good on the economy, in part just because it was the 90s and it was the post-Cold War dividend, but also because Trump is like personal friends with him. The rest of them, though, it all follows by the ways in which they wielded power. And so you might say, well, that's not conservative. He never said this was a conservative movement take on the presidency. Again, like, I don't think it's all that deep. I don't think Trump was thinking all that consciously about this. But the reason that this kind of a list could get past his radar or might even

appeal to him is because it is a list of people who wielded power. In other words, it is a commentary, not on ideology or partisanship, but on the nature of the presidency, the presidency, which is not supposed to be nothing. A lot of libertarians think that today, but the presidency, as envisioned by the framers, was supposed to be the spirited part of the government, the themotic part of the government. It is supposed to be a little bit muscular.

That's the point of it. When the presidency was created by the Constitutional Convention, it was because of the failure of the Articles of Confederation, which did not have a strong executive. So I think that's what we can learn. Again, I don't want to read too deeply into it or anything, but it is simply a fact that this list from the Harvard historians made it to Trump's desk. He affirmed it. He added some different people in different places. He puts it out there. Again, the people on the right are going to complain about this. One, because they're viewing it through a lens of ideology rather than a commentary on the nature of the presidency itself.

But two, because they're going to say, oh, this is a waste of time. Why is he making memes? I don't know. The White House has a lot of social media guys. You can do a lot of things at once. To me, This is very interesting because, yes, it offends from the level of ideology and partisanship, I guess. But inasmuch as it is a commentary on what the presidency is, there's actually a lot of insight there that we should understand. No, we don't want to have a Republican FDR who does all the terrible things FDR did, or Woodrow Wilson, heaven for fend. But we do want a Republican president. I do. I'll speak for myself.

I want a conservative president who wields the presidency in just ways, in constitutional ways, but in ways that recognize that he is the executive power in the United States. And the threat of tyranny, as far as I'm concerned, does not really come from a conservative executive who's too strong. It comes from a conservative executive who's too weak. The very fact that this so offends the sensibilities of many conservatives is illustrative. actually tells us something. It's kind of insightful. No, do not misunderstand me. FDR. No, it did a lot of terrible things. Woodrow Wilson, probably the worst president we've ever had. Thomas Jefferson, I have some problems with Thomas Jefferson, but he was a great president. Jackson is an underrated

president, my humble opinion. Lincoln and Washington, they understood the presidency. And conservatives should get with the program. Because for the last 20, 30 years, we've had these people running for president who say, well, I don't want to wield any power. I just want to do nothing and I just want to give away all the power and elect me so that I can leave you alone. And that doesn't, that's just contrary to the nature of the office. Also, Trump is just trolling and he wants to make himself the best. Okay. We will get to a really shocking historical claim. Not political, not pertaining to the Trump administration. Archaeologists have reportedly just uncovered the true sight of Jesus' tomb. You'll never guess where it is. First, though, I want to tell you about Pure Talk.

Go to Peartalk.com slash Knowles, K&WLES. I would like to tell you about something very unusual today. Something has gotten cheaper. Now, it sounds implausible. Food costs more, houses cost more, cars cost more. Basically everything you need to remain alive now requires some form of financing. But your wireless service does not have to follow the trend. Right now, Pure Talk is offering any plan for 15 bucks a month for your first three months. That includes their top tier unlimited plan, normally 65 bucks a month, $15, which means you can save up to $150, over those first three months. You're not signing your life away to get the deal. Pure Talk has no service contract and no cancellation fee. They have 100% U.S.-based customer service. If you need some help, you're talking to someone here in America. It's one of the few bills in your life that you can

actually make smaller. You should probably take advantage of that. For now, for just a few more weeks, Pure Talk is offering unlimited data for just 15 bucks a month for your first three months. After that, got unlimited data for as low as $34.99 a month. No contract. I promise you it's less and what you're paying. Go to Peartotalk.com slash Knowles, K&WLAS, to make the switch to my favorite wireless company, Pure Talk. There is a better wireless choice out there at just 15 bucks a month for your first three months. Now is a great time to choose Peartotalk. PureTalk. PureTalk.com slash Knowles. New York Post is reporting this. True tomb of Jesus Christ found after 2,000 years, and it matches the biblical telling. Okay. So you can read the article. It's based on some excavations.

and some archaeological evidence, according to the leader archaeologist Francesco Romanus Zazola, from La Sapienza University of Rome, we have found evidence of a funerary landscape underneath the ground, and where is it?

It's beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the place that Christians have considered to be Jesus' tomb, the site of Jesus' tomb, for 2,000 years. It's exactly where we've always said it is. The church of the Holy Sepulchre was built in the 4th century by Emperor Constantine. Emperor Constantine's mother, Helena, went over to the Holy Land.

He obviously converted to Christianity at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge when he received a sign from the heavens across in the sky. And it said, the historical accounts, there are two main historical accounts of this. They disagree a little bit over the details, whether it was a vision, whether it was a cross, whether it was a dream. But nevertheless, he received this vision. He had the Romans put on their shields a Christian symbol, probably a Cairo, and then they win the battle. And so Constantine converts to Christianity, legalizes Christianity throughout the empire. His mother goes to the Holy Land, discovers the true cross. Anyway, he builds this church, the Church of Holy Sepulchre, which the Muslims have destroyed multiple times over the years. but nevertheless, there remains Church of the Holy Sepulchur today in the Holy Land in Jerusalem. And that is where the archaeologists believe.

Shocking discovery, Christ was entombed. He's not entombed anymore, as you well know, but that's where they say it was. What's so delightful about this story is, one, it's a little more historical evidence for the faith, for the historicity of the faith, because Christianity is an historical faith. it's not merely an idea, it's not, you know, that we're just going to sit like b'baz on the Ganges and try to destroy ourselves and thought and lose our egos or anything like that. It's like God enters into history in a real place and a real time, does real things, is actually

killed by the state and rises from the dead on the third day and found the church. So that's all great. The other really delightful part of the story for me, at least, is even if you're not Christian, even if you're not religious. It's a reminder that tradition is usually right. This is an important reminder for conservatives of all religious stripes, even those who are irreligious. Tradition is pretty right.

We have this prejudice in modernity. We have this bias against tradition. We think that the things that came before us are bad. I think of Descartes, who was writing in that age of enlightenment in modernity, when we're going to get rid of the scholastics and the medievals in the past. And he says, don't even read old books in Latin. Don't even read the old philosophers because you might repeat their errors. No, no, we have to begin the world anew.

Descartes, who famously tries to reduce all knowledge down to the most empirical aspect, which is, I think, therefore I am. And then he tries to rebuild the world based on that premise. And yet, what we discover time and time again is tradition is usually right. even legends, you know, legends about saints like slaying dragons and things like that. Even that, some of it is embellished, some of it develops into legends over time. Nevertheless, there's usually quite a lot of truth to those as well. Where did Constantine, and Constantine's mother, where did they come up with the idea for the church of the Holy Sepulgar?

It was Christians in Jerusalem, told them, yeah, this is where we've just known for, you know, two to three hundred years. This is where our grandpa's told us Christ was entombed. So that's where it is. And it turns out they're probably right. very important. I was saying the other day to a sweet little lease, I said, you know, the older I get, the more I realize growing up is just realizing your grandma was right about everything. Growing up is realizing your grandma was right about everything. And having a mature civilization is realizing that our ancestors were, they were, in the aggregate, they were smarter than we are. And they actually knew things. And we didn't, they don't just all start making up random stuff. stuff, usually. Yes, the things that we have always believed are usually true. That's true. Okay. Speaking of accuracy in reporting, an amazing, amazing report from NBC News. This is going after Secretary of Health, Bobby Kennedy. You know, Bobby Kennedy has been pretty anti-vaccine for decades now.

Now that he's the Secretary of Health and Human Services, he's changed the vaccine schedule and the left fears that he is causing vaccine hesitancy. And so you're seeing all this reporting about measles cases. Measles, which used to be not that big a deal, the Brady Bunch had a whole funny story about getting the measles. It was nothing. It was like the chicken pox. There was no who cared. But there's a lot of fearmongering in the reporting, including this new report from NBC News. Two people have died recently of measles. And they say one of the two people who recently died of measles in Pennsylvania was an infant citing the health department. So we will get to that report because there's just one problem with their reporting.

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If you're a business owner, would you consider a larger donation to claim a right-off? Donation of $1,000, $2,000, $10,000, $15,000 will sponsor an ultrasound machine for a needy clinic helping to save countless babies' lives for years to come. All gifts are tax deductible and will reach eternity. Get involved today. Also, folks, we just had a great panel with, I'm welcomed on a new guest, a new left-wing guest, who I thought was very good, Colton. This also included Doug Wilson, Father Gerald Murray, our returning bar fight contestant. We had a lot of great people here to debate is Jesus a socialist. When we want to talk as Christians, we have to learn to stop talking in secular categories and definitions of words and understand things like freedom and property and rights, Christianly.

We know definitively that the Lord Jesus was not a socialist because he was. successful at feeding people. I don't know a single socialist that thinks that people can't own things. There's a big difference between owning a toothbrush and owning the factory that makes the toothbrushes. It's not a guy who needs to brush his teeth. It's a guy who wants to swipe a whole handful so we can go resell it at a bodega or a flea market. There it is. You guys always hate on poor people, man.

Okay. Is that our Lord of Socialist? Go check it out on the Michael Lowe's YouTube channel and on Daily Wire. NBC News reporting, one of the two people who recently died of measles in Pennsylvania was an infant. Now, that was the post. They then replied to their own post. And here's just a little follow-up, a little additional detail for the story. After the Pennsylvania Health Department announced Wednesday that one of the two people whose deaths in the state were associated with measles was an infant,

the coroner involved in the case has said he does not consider measles to be the cause of death. Can you go back to the first one? Can we take a look? What was the fruit? So NBC reporting, one of two people who recently died of measles was an infant. Can we go to the actual reply hours later to that tweet? Actually, the coroner says that wasn't true. But other than that, good reporting, guys. Now, what they're doing here, it's the same thing that the papers have always been doing since they were physical newspapers, which is they run the fake news on the front page. And then, Three weeks later on page 372, they issue a tiny correction in 0.8 font. And they're just hoping, because people don't really read the replies as much. They read the main tweet, but they don't read the replies. But it actually says, here's the big story, baby dies of measles. Actually, nope.

How about you delete the tweet? How about you delete the whole story? How about you issue a big correction in the headline of the story? We got this story entirely wrong. I don't think they're going to do that. Just pure, you know, Trump is a little loose. with the term fake news, this is as pure as it gets. It's like the New York Times 1619 project.

The thesis of the 1619 project was the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. And then months later, after left-wing academic historians wrote into them and said, this isn't true, months and months later, they said, okay, well, actually, that might not have been true. The 1619 project was not fully retracted. It was already in curricula around the country. They already spent millions and millions of dollars on it. They say, oh, oops, our thesis was wrong.

is a similar, similar dynamic at play. Actually, thanks to Daily Wires very young, Christina Lewis made this point. She was focusing in on the Washington State Democrats. So she saw these numbers come out from the Washington State Democrats. And they said that the state economy had lost 16,000 jobs since Trump took office. They said, look, this is proof that Trump is terrible for the economy. Washington State has lost 16,000 jobs since he took office. So intrepid Christina Lewis goes in to look at the actual numbers, the labor numbers, and she writes a question to the Washington Democrats, says, hey, saw this reporting, but I don't think the numbers show that.

Actually, it looks like the state has gained 16,000 jobs since Trump took office. And to their credit, the Washington State Democrats write back. And what they say is, oh, yeah, sorry, I guess we misread the data. And then they update the article. And do you know how they updated the article? They didn't say, hey, we got this totally wrong. Hey, we actually, what we reported was exactly the opposite. Yeah, those news networks that carried our report. Yeah, no, they got it exactly wrong. Therefore, good job Donald Trump. You know what they said? They said, hey, they rewrote it. They didn't acknowledge your mistake. They said, hey, great news. Washington State has gained 16,000

jobs recently, all thanks to Democrats. So when they wrongly thought that the state had lost 16,000 jobs, that was Trump's fault. But when they discovered that the state had gained 16,000 jobs, that was only because of Democrats. Do you see? I mean, look, it's a party apparatus. I guess it's their job to spin. But that is shameless. That is shameless hackery and partisanship.

And do you see any proper correction in any of the news outlets? No. The only place you're going to hear about this story is on this show. thanks to the reporting of Christina Lewis at the Daily Wire. That's what it is, though. And you see, you have to be able to read it that way. This is also why, in the face of that kind of perfidy, in the face of that kind of relentless propaganda, I'm sorry that I can't get upset about Lake America.

I'm sorry. I know people want me to be upset that Trump renamed the lake. I can't get a, I don't care. I don't care. I don't really. Does it, is that, is it bad, really? Oh, no. Trump posted a meme where he said he's the great.

greatest president. And he even made it kind of inadvertently or advertently made an interesting commentary on the role of the presidency and the government. Okay. Yeah, Woodrow Wilson sucks. Yeah, we all agree. Okay. Am I supposed to be? I'm supposed to be upset about that. I don't, sorry, I can't be. We got to focus on real things. There are real concerns, obviously. Republicans inherited this very bad situation. So inflation was really bad under Joe Biden. They brought the rate of inflation way, way, way down. But the price of goods hasn't gone down. That's not how inflation works. So that's a issue. That's a problem they're going to have to deal with with voters. The war in Iran. Yes, most Americans don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. But most Americans also

didn't want the war in Iran. And the war in Iran is very popular. Unpopular. Sorry. So, yeah, that's a problem for the White House. I don't envy them. It's a very, that's a brutal problem. And it seems somewhat intractable. Yeah, okay, that's a real issue. You got to deal with that. I ain't getting upset over the lake guys. Sorry. Sorry. Can't do it. But, okay, before we get into the mailbag, my favorite time of the week, there's a Wall Street Journal op-ed that pertains to the Trump administration that's worth pointing to. So, J.D. Vance is fighting with the Wall Street Journal, and he kind of started it, in fairness. He was given this speech at his grandpa's old plant in Ohio, and he said, look, I think the Republicans need to recognize

that a lot of the economic policy since the 1990s have damaged the American working class, lower middle class. They've outsourced manufacturing jobs. they've imported a lot of foreign workers to undercut Americans' wages. Obviously, there was this uniparty move for mass migration, pushed by the Democrats who wanted endless votes, and pushed by the Chamber of Commerce Republicans who wanted cheap wages. And anyway, it's really hurt the American working class, so we need to rethink that policy.

And he went after the journal, because the Wall Street Journal had run an editorial 40 years ago that proposed a constitutional amendment saying there shall be open borders. And he goes after them for it. So they're going after him. There's an op-ed by Barton Swain in the Wall Street Journal. J.D. Vance is the GOP's Obama. He and the former president have much in common and both disdain Republicans.

So we'll scroll down a little bit. He says, Mr. Vance's propensity to caricature arguments with which he disagrees puts me in the mind of Barack Obama. In his first address to Congress in 2009, the 44th president said, I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves. That says government has no role in laying the foundation for common prosperity. Over the next eight years, Obama constantly rejected beliefs.

Nobody held. You know, he was straw manning his, his opponents. Then the journal goes on. Ideological differences aside, the personas and careers of Messrs. Vance and Obama bear weird similarities. And they point out, you know, they kind of came from obscurity, had these Ivy League degrees, we're in the Senate for a short period of time, were elevated to higher levels of government. Okay. All very interesting. I think that this is probably a bad line of attack against J.D. Vance. And it's a bad line of attack against J.D. Vance. in the same kind of way that relates to Trump's meme about the greatest presidents.

If it is the case that J.D. Vance is the Republican Obama, that is great news for J.D. Vance and the Republicans. Because Barack Obama got elected twice. Barack Obama was a very successful president. He was terrible because he was the Democrats. Obama is the Democrats Obama. J.D. Vance would be the Republicans Obama, according to the Wall Street Journal. Obama was awful for the country, but he was very, very successful. For goodness sakes, we're fighting the global war on terror. The guy's middle name is Hussein, and he somehow still gets to get elected president. He beats a war hero named John McCain. He gets elected president. He gives the Democrats the biggest win on health care that they've had probably since FDR. Major transformative legislation,

probably unconstitutional, but he bullies the Supreme Court enough that they let it go through by pretending that the Obamacare payment, the penalty, was a penalty for one purpose of the law, but a tax for another purpose of the law. So it allowed the Supreme Court to hear the case, but didn't force the Supreme Court to strike down the law. I mean, he was hugely successful, hugely transformative. He's the president on whose watch the White House shifted its view of so-called gay marriage. He ended up, and that came to flourishing in 2015. Also during his presidency, during the Obergefell decision, redefined the fundamental political institution. That guy was super important and successful. So I don't know if J.D. Vance is the Republicans Barack Obama, but I tell you what, if I were the Vance campaign, I'd be running on that. You're accusing Vance of being popular and effective?

I don't know. That's not a good line of attack. I see why the Wall Street Journal is upset at Vans. I probably would be too if I were the Wall Street Journal. But not smart. And if it's Vance, I'm running on that one. if they said he was a leftist or if they said he was, you know, evil or something, that's one, but it's a bad idea to attack presidents for being effective, whether we're speaking historically or looking ahead to the future. I want an effective president. Whoever our next president is,

who are the candidates right now? The people who are floating around on the Cali markets are J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis. Everyone else is pretty far behind that, but Rand Paul might run. I don't know. Thomas Massey thinks he's going to run. Whoever it is, whoever it is, whoever becomes the GOP nominee, I hope he's effective. I hope he's got a little bit of that Obama to him. I hope he wins and I hope he can finally ram some legislation through the stalemate of Congress. Okay. So much more, so much more I want to get to, but I don't have time. My favorite comment yesterday is from Toby Breedlove, who says, Darling, Darling, Darling, Darling, Darling, I'm begging of you.

Don't take my Senate seat. Well, she's going to. It worked out for Dolly. It probably did not work out for the conservatives who don't like Darlene Graham because she's probably going to get that Senate seat. Okay. Finally, finally, we arrive at my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. The mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk.

Go to PeartTalk.com slash Knowles, K&WLAS. Make the switch to my favorite wireless company today. Take it away. Hi, Michael Knowles. It's Lisa again from Rosie Red Missouri. I sent in a question a few weeks ago about blanket legal immunity for mommas who abort their babies. In your answer, you say that it's not necessarily just, but that it is merciful and prudent to not pass laws to try moms who will abort their babies with murder, even though, as you said,

abortion is murder. And a reason that you gave was because they've been propagandized for so long, I think that same logic could apply for much of the violence from the left because they have also been propagandized for years into liberal ideology, as you point out. But I'm sure that we agree that that's no reason that we would advocate immunity for those individuals. In fact, you point out often that soft on crime never mitigates crime, but it actually perpetuates it because the law is a teacher. And my question is, shouldn't our laws teach that abortion is murder? And how do we do that if we don't apply laws that say murdering a pre-born person is the same as murdering a born person? you know, very good question. But I think you're conflating a couple of things, at least a couple of things, which is you say, well, the reason not to imprison or execute women for having abortions is because of mercy and prudence. Yeah, let's focus on the prudence part, though. The prudence part, I think, is key here. Because you're very right, the law is a teacher. And my argument for not insisting that all abortion legislation involves like imprisoning or executing women is because, you're very right, the law is a teacher. And my argument for not insisting for not insisting, you know, is because, you're not insisting,

you'll never get any anti-abortion legislation as a result of that. The reason being that America's split 50-50 on abortion, women are split about 50-50 on abortion. And there are many, many pro-life women who are repelled by the idea of imprisoning women for abortions. Also, on top of that, because women, when they do have abortions, sometimes they go full Lindsay Clancy and they're just killing their kids in cold blood, and they shout their abortions and they're really happy about it. But a lot of the time they feel pressured or they convince themselves that they're not really killing their child or they, you know, as you mentioned, they've been propagandized for their whole lives. When it comes to left-wing violence, the overwhelming majority of Americans, even when you include the left, which is more violent than the conservatives, but the vast majority of Americans oppose political violence. So that's an easy win.

when you say we need to deport Hassan Piker or execute Tyler Robinson or whatever, when you go at, when you say those things, that is a 6040, 80, 20 kind of issue. You can win over those Americans. So you have a great chance of success. And the more you punish, to your point, as the law as a teacher, the more you punish the violent leftists, the less violent leftism you will get. When it comes to the abortion issue, though, I just don't see that. I am making a pure prudential, calculation here. I'm not making an argument from justice. Yeah, if you commit murder, then you should be punished for that. But I'm making a purely prudential argument, and I don't see any evidence that I'm wrong about it. If you come out there and say, we are going to run on a pro-life platform where we are going to execute women who kill their kids through abortion, you would get, a gosh, could you, I don't know, 20% of the vote, 10% of the vote, it just wouldn't happen. And so we don't want to, uh, I, we don't want to grant an unjust premise. We don't want to say that women who have abortions are not doing anything wrong or culpable

or in any way. But politics is the art of the possible. And so if you can show me a world in which, you know, 80% of women say, absolutely, we should imprison women who have abortions. Okay, I guess maybe I would change my calculation, but that's not the world that we live in. And so I'm more interested in the practical effect of saving babies and advancing the pro-life cause than I am in the ideological purity. I mean, this goes back to Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas, who argues that the law is a teacher, of course, he makes that point. But when you're passing laws,

you can't have the standard be an ideal of perfection because people in a society are at different degrees of vice and virtue. And at different times, the people on the aggregate are at different degrees of vice and virtue. And so if you create a standard that is too high, you are not going to raise up the virtue of the people, you're going to crack them. They're just going to snap like dry spaghetti and you would be in a worse position than you were before. This is his argument in favor of not outlawing all forms of prostitution. So that's prudence, which is the paramount political virtue. Okay, next question. Hey, Michael. Long time listener, first time sending in a mailbag question here. First of all, I've got to say, absolutely love your show, watch it every day without fail.

I like to watch Matt and Ben too, but I think you're my favorite out of all of them. But my question for you is I am considering pursuing a career in politics. I am a young guy. I just turned 21 not too long ago, newly married. And my grandfather actually and my wife and a few close friends of mine have all encouraged me and brought it up to me that they think that I would do well. and in a career in politics. And my question really is if you would know or have any advice in where to start in that. It doesn't really matter. Like I'm not saying running for office specifically or anything, but where would you advise starting if I'm considering pursuing a career in politics

or even what would be some things to consider if I want to pursue a career in politics? Thank you very much. work on a congressional campaign. That's my advice. That is the best, most efficient political education you can get. Now, it's a little unclear from what you say. Do you want to work in politics like run for office, take an appointed position, work as a hill staffer, or do you want to be in political media where you're giving your opinion and writing columns and doing that sort of thing? I am of a dying breed that believes that the people in political media should have experience in practical politics. I am of a dying breed who thinks that those two should actually be together. But many people in political media don't talk about anything pertaining to real politics. They talk about aliens and whatever, crazy conspiracies and they don't, and sensationalism and gossip and nonsense.

But whatever, it gets more clicks. They probably have better ratings than I do. But I remain of the opinion that political commentary and political media should actually should actually pertain to real politics and should try to advance the political cause. So if you're in my opinion, then either way, it doesn't really matter. If you want to just do political media, then I don't know, go study aliens and listen to AM radio at 3 o'clock in the morning. But if you want the real thing, work on a congressional because it gives you a lot of access.

You can rise very quickly in a congressional campaign because it's difficult to attract talent to those campaigns. You won't make a lot of money. you will have access to national issues, because congressional campaigns are run on national issues mostly, but you will see politics at a very close local level. Tip O'Neill, the old speaker of the House, used to say that all politics is local.

I'm not sure that's true anymore, but it is substantially local. And so you get all of that. You get the whole perspective, and you get to see the distinction between what the chattering class is talking about. You know, you log onto Twitter, and it's people blabbing about, you know, well, The post-liberal integral integralist neo-Paleo-Cans are actually reading Joseph de Mestra instead of David Hume.

And it's just not, it has like nothing to do with what actual voters are thinking about or care about. The actual voters care much more about Lake Ontario than they do about, like David Hume. So the being on the ground will give you a sense of what's actually going on in real politics. And it'll teach you how to work with people. And it will force you not only to speak to people across the conservative coalition, but also in the middle, people who are low information even and on the left. So very, very good education. Just don't expect to make any money doing it. Okay. I have so much more to get to. But I don't have any time because it's fake headline Friday. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it become a member use code. NOLS Canada WLS.S and check out for two months free on all annual plans.