The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 2068 - Obama Claims Women Could Fix The World In "2 Years"

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Socialism reaches record highs in public polling, Ukraine considers legalizing pornography to fund its war with Russia, and a new candidate emerges in the 2028 presidential primary. Ep. 2068 - - - Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers - Know where your meat comes from. Good Ranchers delivers 100% American meat from American farms and ranches straight to your door. For a limited time, get a FREE 4-lb bundle of 100% American Angus Ground Beef with your first order at https://GoodRanchers.com/KNOWLES. Good Ranchers. American meat delivered. PureTalk - Stop overpaying and make the switch: https://PureTalk.com/KNOWLES for 50% off your first month. Then unlimited high-speed data is just $34.99 a month. Young America's Foundation (YAF) - Apply to NJC today at HTTPS://yaf.org/national-journalism-center Kalshi - Visit https://kalshi.com/r/knowles to see live prediction markets - - - DailyWire: Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://get.dailywire.com/infidels 40% off annual plans with code FIGHT 🍿 Watch our new movie Run Hide Fight: Infidels https://www.dailywire.com/videos/run-hide-fight-infidels 📲 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

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More bad news for Republicans as socialism reaches record highs in public polling, all while young men surge to the Democrats in the pre-midterm polls. Then, Ukraine weighs legalizing pornography in order to fund its now decade-long war after Russia's invasion. Does not seem like the best way to get God on your side for a war. We'll see how it plays out. And a new candidate emerges in the 28 presidential primary. A, shall we say, big political figure, a well-rounded statesman. And now we're all wondering, with Mr. Christie entering the race, is the Chris Asant's

upon us. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knoll's show. Welcome back to the show. If you've not yet seen RunHide Fight Infidels, you need to go see it now. What are you doing? What are you missing? Go to DailyWire.com slash subscribe. Go see the movie. Everyone's talking about Run Hyde Fight Infidels. You think that Run-Hide Fight Infidels presents a gloomy outlook on America. I got something that'll top it. It is this new Gallup poll, which shows that socialism is more popular in America than ever,

than ever. Socialism has been around for a long time. Okay, socialism's been around since at least the 19th century, and it spiked, you know, Marx hits the scene. You see the beginning of socialist revolutions start brewing in the 19th and early 20th centuries. then socialism as this long run in the 20th century. Communism as this long run in the 20th century. Yikes, you know, terrible regimes, lots of death. But there was a moment in America when it really could have boiled over in the 1920s and 30s. And then it's back and it's more popular than ever. 40% approval of socialism in the United States.

Among Republicans, obviously, it's still pretty low at 14%. And then among independence, it said 45%. 65% of Democrats say that they have a positive view of socialism. So it's really, really high and it's still growing. Now, why is this happening? It is happening in part because of the bad education system. That's real. The concern is we always say, you know, it's these schools that are indoctrinating kids into socialism.

That's true. How did we get there? We got there because Republicans have not been tough. enough about excluding socialism from the classroom. It's mostly the Democrats' fault. It's mostly the left's fault, but it's the rights fault for letting it happen. And the way that the right let it happen is that we weren't tough enough. The conservative movement was founded. I think most people probably date the post-war conservative movement to William F. Buckley Jr., the founding of a place called National Review and the publication of a book called God and Man at Yale. God and Man at Yale,

which said that we need to stop academic freedom. Academic freedom is fake. It's a superstition. We need to fire the socialists who are teaching at our universities. Many modern conservatives, including people who feel that they're in the Buckleyite trend, the National Review, the movement conservative line of thinking, day to day, if you said that we need to go into the schools and fire all the socialists based on their viewpoints, they would tell you you're an authoritarian, you're a fascist, you're Franco, you're, we can't do that. It's not just the, I'm happy to blame the left, but it's a lot of the mainstream conservatives

too, who refuse to fight back. So because of that, because we feel that the calls of William F. Buckley Jr. were akin to fascism. We have allowed this to happen. And to this day, there are many squishes on the right who refuse to do much of anything about it, to fire the socialist teachers, to use the heavy hand of the state, and certainly the trustees and the funding and the elements of civil society to discriminate against certain viewpoints, to prefer some viewpoints to others, and to do what needs to. be done to exclude the socialists from society. No wonder they've indoctrinated the students. That's part of it. The other reason that socialism is surging is that much of what passes for modern conservatism is essentially just giving corporations whatever they want. And it's a crony form of capitalism and it's sometimes we dress it up in the guise of meritocracy. So it sounds like it's really principled. It sounds like it's something that the founding fathers would have supported.

and we say, hey, corporations should have every right to just import foreign labor and undercut the wages of American workers. And that's actually meritocracy. They deserve it. But the term meritocracy does not represent some eternal kind of political principle. The term meritocracy is a term of propaganda. The term meritocracy is a euphemism. It's a slogan.

What is it is, what you're supposed to think that it means is that people get what they deserve. What you're supposed to think that meritocracy means is just a, a kind of synonym for justice, justice, which is this consistent habit of virtue to give to people what they deserve. But is that really what it means? What does it mean to merit something? Does the random person living in India or China or anywhere, Timbuktu, does that person merit an American job? Does that person deserve by right an American job or a place at an American? university or a green card to live in America or American citizenship? Do they really deserve that?

They might get good scores on standardized tests, but does that really mean that they deserve this place in the American political community? Not necessarily. I think the descendant of the guy who fought in the American Revolution or who fought in the American Civil War, I think that guy can make a claim to deserve something in the American political system. Maybe his SAT score isn't as high. Maybe, I don't know, maybe he didn't do as many extracurriculars as the guy in the foreign country. But this term of propaganda, this term meritocracy, is assuming a very, very narrow, highly ideological view of merit of what people deserve in a political community. And this is one of the arguments made by the more classical and traditional conservatives, contra to the libertarians and the neoconservatives on the right in recent years, as we say, hey, guys, there's more to a country than just G. there's more to a country than just standardized test scores that a political community involves a lot

more than that. It involves traditions. It involves being here for a long time. It involves sacrifices that you've made for the country. It involves language. It involves religion. It involves culture. It involves a lot more than that. That's what you're seeing. So there are many people who otherwise might be on the right who realize that what passes for the conservative view of society, the traditional view. capitalism even, is really just a kind of form of cronyism that is being abused by bad actors who are not oriented toward the public good, but are only oriented toward their selfish interest. The vice president just posted today that the White House is, well, I'll just read it. I actually just retweeted it even before the show began. Let me see, I'll pull it up here on my Twitter. You have it from J.D. Vance. Where is it? Okay. Hold on. Wait. Nope, I've lost it. I don't know. I've lost it. Here we go. J.D. Vans, our message to corporate America is simple. We're not going to let you lay off American workers so you can replace them with cheap foreign labor. That's pretty simple. That kind of message, I think, will help turn people away from socialism. But he's being pilloried by the more establishment figures on the right for promoting socialism. If you don't allow your country to be flooded by a bunch of foreign workers who have nothing in common with your culture, then you're a socialist. That's the argument. Now, guess what? If that's the message that you give to voters, you're going to see support for socialism hit record highs because you're going to have. all of the leftists who believe in socialism, true socialism ideologically, and you're going to turn off all of the ordinary Americans, the working Americans whose wages have been undercut, whose way of life

have been upended, whose communities have been flooded by foreigners, you're going to turn them off. You're going to say, hey, if you oppose our program, then you're a socialist. A lot of them are going to say, you know what, I guess I'm a socialist. I guess you're right. Or at least I'm an independent, or at least I ain't voting for you. So you're seeing this swing play out electorally, really worrisome full from Cigna comes out, says that young men are flocking to the Democrats. And that's not quite the whole story. That headline is a little sensational too, but there's a big underlying problem. Here's a problem.

In 2024, President Trump carried young men. It was narrow, but he carried young men. Charlie Kirk had a lot to do with that. In fact, the White House Chief of Steph Susie Wiles said at Charlie's funeral that Charlie made the winning difference, specifically with young men. So why are the young men flocking to the Democrats right now? In part, it has to do with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In part, it has to do with the fact that we didn't really clamp down on the left after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The left took a victory lap. We saw that just a couple of weeks ago. But the poll doesn't actually show that all those young men who voted Republican are now going to vote Democrat in the midterms. According to the Signap poll, the Democrats' generic ballot lead among men ages 18 to 30 who say they're most. most determined to vote is 57 to 40. So you look at that, you say, yikes, that's a big swing. We went from, what, 52 to 48, 51 to 49, whatever, to 57 to 40 in favor of the Democrats. Yikes. But hold on. This is the lead among young men, ages 18 to 30, who say they are most

determined to vote. Okay. I don't think this really represents a ton of right-wing men who are now going to go out and vote for the Democrats. I think this. This represents a kind of disillusionment, a pulling back of those young men that we had pulled into the right wing coalition and got animated to vote. It's a pulling back of those men. They're just not going to go vote. And so there are still some men who vote for Democrats. You know, they're a little bit, they're a little bit light in the loafers. They're a little bit, I don't know, they're not the manliest men, but there are men who vote for Democrats. Those guys are animated. Some people who are on the fringes, maybe you're switching over. but it just shows that Democrats are really, really excited about this election. The Republicans are feeling disillusioned. And unfortunately, the Republican messaging has been a little weak here. And unfortunately, some of the underlying problems, not the least of which is the Iran war, that is really shaping. That's really motivating voters as we head into the midterms.

Meanwhile, I'm not, I want to say it's just bad news. I'm certainly not a dumer, but I want to give you the truth. Okay. I'm not going to flatter you. I'm not going to pander. I'm not going to give you pure Republican propaganda. The Democrats are playing this Iran war issue beautifully. Even the most eccentric, controversial candidates, guys like Abdul al-Syad, for whom the Iran war should be actually a tougher issue. He was just asked a question about this

at an on-campus event. He did a great, great job. We will get to his town hall answer in a second. First, I want to tell you about pure talk. There's a lot more to say first, though. You know something I love doing on my phone. It's watching cat videos. And you too can watch those cat videos at PureTalk.com slash Knowles. You can't watch it at PureTalk.com. You got to go and get the phone. Think about what you're paying for wireless every month. Now, ask yourself whether that number is anywhere close to 3499 because that is what Pure Talk charges for unlimited high speed data. 3499 per month, period. I have had my Pure Talk phone and my Pure Talk phone. And my Pure Talk service for a long time. I can make calls, send texts, watch videos, use the unlimited data. The

coverage is superb. We're talking about the best towers in the country. You can also take it overseas. Apparently, I'm not the only one. In a recent industry surveyed more than 120,000 wireless customers, PureTalk was the only wireless company to earn five out of five stars in every category. Coverage, support, value, and data. So you're not sacrificing your service to save money. Go to Peartotoc.com slash Knowles, you will also get 50% off your first month. Then unlimited high speed data, just 3499 a month. Peartock.com slash Knowles, 3499 a month for unlimited high speed data. Stop overpaying and make the switch. Abdul al-Sayyad, one of the worst Democrat candidates running. Alternately, a jihadi and a communist. He doesn't, you know, it depends. Is he appealing to the Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan? Is he appealing to the

purple-haired white liberal ladies who have graduate degrees, which are his actual base? He's, it's a tough campaign because there's this wedge in between his supporters. So he was asked about a wedge issue at this town hall event. Listen to his answer. You can imagine our surprise as Persians, our sadness when we heard you, Abdul, a leaked audio tape of you saying that you didn't want to comment on Supreme Leader Hamine's death and that people in Dearborn were sad when he died. And I just have a simple question, Abdul. That silence was, had a gaping hole in our community and I want to ask if you regret that silence. I want to ask if you renounce the people that held vigils that supported this terrorist for all the stuff that he's done.

I wanted to ask if you stand unequivocally against the IRGC, against the Islamic Republic of Iran that has killed 50,000 protesters, Abdul. I haven't heard anything from you about the protesters Abdul. Please. I appreciate your question and thank you. What I will tell you is this, for too long and too often, when we think about our role in the world, we have turned ourselves into the world's policemen. And I think what we all want, what we all need is more democracy, more freedom in the world, but also an understanding of what we actually can and should do with respect to that.

here's my my my my point one can disagree with the governance of a foreign country one can stand in solidarity with freedom and democracy movements but my worry is one when one decides that we are going to go in and take out the leadership of a foreign government oh i hate this i hate this answer so much because it's a great answer it's a great answer you got to give the devil is do. It's an excellent answer. He goes on, we don't have time to get to the whole answer. He goes on. He says, you know, there are sometimes selfish motives in these wars. And, you know, sometimes they're really being fought for private interests and oil companies. It's a good answer. It is. You see the setup here from this young man who's obviously an opponent of Abdul al-Sayed. It comes out, thank you. But Abdul,

Abdul, will you please stand with the Persian people against the IRC? And Abdul al-Said goes, hey, yeah, I do. I stand with freedom and democracy movements, but statecraft isn't just a bad ideology in the abstract, and we need to do what's best for the American people. His answer, Abdul freaking El-Sayed, communist jihadi. His answer is basically, we just need to look after Americans first. Communist jihadi, Abdul al-Syad says, you know, we actually need prudence in politics, because prudence is the paramount political virtue, and we need to make sure that we're behaving in the appropriate way and not making the situation worse and not getting bobbed down in wars in the Middle East. And it's just an excellent answer. I don't know whether he really believes this. I think

he'd be a horrible senator. I hope he loses and his candidacy goes down in flames. His candidacy ain't going to go down in flames with that kind of answer. The Iran war is polling at 33% approval. So then, all right, I've said enough nice things about Abdul al-Sai. I'll try never to do that again. I hope I don't have to do that again. I want to know. the motivation of the questioner here. I don't know if that questioner works for the opponent's political case, you know, for Mike Rogers' political campaign. There's no evidence that he does. I don't know if he is actually a Republican. I don't know that he was put up to it. Maybe it's just a totally sincere question could be. Whatever it is, though, that question is not helping Mike Rogers. That

question is not helping the Republicans. They think it is. I'm sure some genius political strategist, some brilliant Beltway consultant thinks this is a good way to help the Republicans. Yeah. Get Abdul al-Said to weigh in on the IRGC in the oppressive Islamic Republic of Iran, not the brave Persian people. Voters don't care about the brave Persian people. Hate to break it to you. Voters don't want to hear it. Voters are not motivated by the kind of slogans that Republicans ran on during the global war on terror 20 years ago.

Republicans lost eventually because of those slogans. These people are not that interested. American voters are not that interested in spreading democracy as a global secular crusade. Increasingly, we're interested in a religious crusade, but we're definitely not interested in one of these secular, liberal, global crusades, the kind of which we saw 20 years ago. Americans are far less concerned with the freedom and democracy of the Iranian protesters than they are with the price of diesel, than they are with focus of. than they are with focusing on issues that are nearer to home. In other words, I want to clarify this for any GOP consultant or any candidates out there who are listening. You are not going to improve your numbers by trying to pin the Democrats down on the Iran war.

Every second that you spend talking about the Iran war, you are losing. The Iran war is simply a losing issue for Republicans. By the way, there is an argument that it was a good thing to do. There is a grand strategic, you know, I cautioned restraint on this most recent Iran war as a practical tactical tactical matter. There is an argument that the Iran war could end up being a good thing in the long run. If the Iran war had gone well from the beginning, it would have been the greatest grand strategic victory. So there are strong arguments for the war from the standpoint of geopolitics. But from the standpoint of electoral politics in the midterms, it is simply a loser.

Don't talk about it. The only way that Republicans are going to improve their chances in the midterms is by reducing the importance of the Iran war in people's minds. It's not about trying to win the argument about the Iran war. It's not about talking about the poor, poor beleaguered Persian people. It's not talking about spreading democracy. It's not talking about the perfidious, evil, awful mullahs. It's not... It's like Ronald Reagan, you know, his old line, when you're explaining, you're losing. Well, that is especially true when it comes to this issue. And the fact that Democrats have a good answer.

Democrats don't need to offer an alternative. They don't need to come out and say, yeah, you know what we want to do? We want to buy off the mullahs. You know, what we want to do? We want to improve the political standing of Iran. Yeah, you know, we don't want to defend American interests. Yeah, we want to abandon Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and Israel and our other allies. and they don't have to say any of that.

They just have to say diesel price is bad. We would have done it differently. They just have to sit there as armchair quarterbacks and say they would have been way better. That will be more persuasive to people. Not good. Not good. Especially at a time when it looks like Abdul al-Sai that's going to win that race. Anything could happen.

It's a tight enough race. Anything could happen in the meantime. But if Iran remains the top political issue, it's going to go very well. for Abdul. Okay. Now, speaking of candidates, let's look ahead to 2028. It looks like that Republican field. It's already becoming quite populated. On the one hand, the nomination of the vice president seems like a fait accompli. His nearest rival, Marco Rubio, has already endorsed him. President Trump has effectively already endorsed him multiple times. He's the guy. He's the next in line. He's done an excellent job. I think he's the most popular member of the administration.

Certainly of anyone who could run for president. So you say, okay, it's going to be J.D. Vance, right? except other people signal they're going to run. The first person to do that was Rand Paul. There's a libertarian lane. Second person to signal that was Senator Cruz. There's a Reaganite lane. Ron DeSantis has kind of signaled that a little bit. There's a lane for him too. His lane would be Trumpism outside the administration. Trumpism without the baggage of, I don't know. That's a tougher lane. But he was a very good governor so he could do it. Well, we have a new one. We have a new candidate. You were not expecting him. I've been expecting him.

I am never taken by surprise by the political ambitions of Governor Chris Christie. The Christi Renaissance, the Chrysons, the croissants, we call them, might be upon us for the restoration of Christendom. Are you ready for Christie 28? We'll get to that in a moment. First, I want to tell you about YAF. There's a lot more to say.

First, they'll go to yaf.org slash national hyphen journalism. center. If you're young and you know that you want to make an impact in media or politics, please do not spend the next five years waiting for somebody to give you permission to start. I love Yaff. I've worked with Yaff for, gosh, almost 10 years at this point. I remember when I was a student and I was able to hear great conservative speakers because of YAF. Well, YAF has the National Journalism Center since 1977. NJC has been helping launch young journalists into political media through a 12 paid full-time internship in Washington, D.C. This is not an internship where you spend three months getting coffee.

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and go get the experience. Get off the sidelines, get into the game, apply to the National Journalism Center today.iaf.org slash national hyphen journalism hyphen center. Chris is signaling it. Christy is signaling that he's going to run. Where is it? New Jersey Globe. That's what they call him, by the way. The New Jersey Globe. No, it's not nice. Come on. I don't mean to make jokes about that. I actually do have quite a lot of respect for Christie as a politician because he's He's just a political animal. Forget about ideology. Forget about the shots he's taken. He's just, he's a political survivor. He just keeps running. He's tenacious. But anyway, so the New Jersey Globe, as we say, says that Chris Christie is considering a third presidential bid in 2008. The former New Jersey governor says midterm results could determine whether the GOP is ready for a different direction. I'm going to say it now. I know I said it again. I said it in 2024. And I was early. My Nolstradamus predictions were early. But I mean it. Chris Christie has a lane. He might need a few lanes actually in the race. But no, he does. Chris Christie has a lane.

Because here's how I see the field shaping up. I think Vance is going to be the nominee. Probably. I think basically anyone putting money down today would say that Vance is going to be the nominee. But there are other candidates who are going to run our friends over a Kalshi have all sorts of odds for people who are going to run for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Obviously, right up there at the top is J.D. Vance, but you've got some other people. There's still some odds for Rubio. I don't think he's going to run. You've got Thomas Massey. I bet he will run. He and Rand Paul are going to fight for the libertarian lane. Rand Paul is going to run in the more mainstream libertarian lane. Massey's going to run in the more dissident outsider libertarian lane. Right now, Cal she has Christie at 31%.

So his odds are spiking. And I think he has a lane because, as I mentioned before, J.D. almost certainly the guy. Rubio probably doesn't run. DeSantis probably doesn't run but could. His lane would be, I'm running as Trumpism but better. I'm Trump without the baggage. Trump without the tweets. Trump without the eccentricities.

That's how he ran in 24. It didn't work because he was literally running against Donald Trump. So he was running as Trump, bigger, better, faster, or stronger. But all of his natural supporters were anti-Trump. So there was just this intrinsic conflict in the campaign and it didn't work. The same dynamic is going to play out again because Trump is going to be very involved in 2028, whoever the nominee is. Let's say it's J.D. Vance right now.

J.D. will be the avatar for Trump, so DeSantis probably gets squeezed. Senator Cruz has signaled that he's going to run. Senator Cruz definitely has a lane. Cruz was the number two guy to Trump in 2016. Senator Cruz is very good at running for president. He has a natural base of support for people who are always a little bit skeptical of Trump and some people who don't like J.D. Vance, whether because they think his foreign policy views are not interventionist enough, whether because they think that his economic views are too

interventionist, whatever it is, there is a kind of Reaganite lane for Senator Cruz. I think he's going to dominate that lane. There's always the Rand Paul, sorry, the libertarian lane, which, probably is going to be Rand Paul or Thomas Massey or somebody. But then who's running is the actual establishment Republican? Who's running is the actual Mitt Romney character? Chris Christie could own that lane. The only way that it works is if the Trump administration totally implodes.

The only way that the Trump administration totally implodes is if Iran goes off the rails. I don't think Iran's going to go off the rails, but it's going to go on for a long time. It's a long shot for Christy. But if the Trump administration goes totally off the rails, improbable though it may be, then nobody in Trump's blast radius is going to actually win the presidency. So that means that Senator Cruz is in a much better position than the people currently within the administration or even run DeSantis. But Senator Cruz has also worked with Trump very well.

It was very big of Cruz. They ran a brutal primary against each other in 16. And then they have a very good working relationship. So that's good. If the race is calibrated just perfectly, the Trump administration hasn't totally imploded, but the figures in the administration have lost their popularity, Trump's lost a little bit of his touch,

and you want the kind of an alternative, but who can kind of work with the Trump world, Senator Cruz has got it. He's got that area totally mapped out. But if the calibration goes totally off kilter, if there's too much weight on one side or the other, And you need a counterweight, like a big, giant counterweight. That's your Chris Christie.

Because Christy is totally outside of Trump world. He's totally establishment now. He was an effective governor. He's a political animal. He can take hits. He's tenacious. He'll never give up wanting to be president. I'm not predicting Christie's going to be the nominee or that he's going to be president.

I'm just telling you he's got a lane. The Chris Asante might be upon us. Okay. Speaking of who should run the world. Barack Obama just said something that, oh, it makes you roll your eyes. It makes your cortisol spike. He's going viral for it. Barack Obama said that if women ran the world for just a couple of years, everything would improve. Even when I was president, I sometimes fantasized about if you put women in charge of every government for like two years.

And then just kind of saw, all right, how are things going? I have a strong belief that things would, they wouldn't be perfect. But they'd be better. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Obama. You hear this from every feminist guy who's trying to get some feminist chick to undress. You see this. You hear this from every feminist guy who's trying to flatter some chick.

says, you know, I think, if we just got the women to run the world, could you imagine how better things would be? I think we just need to get women to run the world for a couple of years. Oh yeah, you think that Barack Obama? That's funny, because I seem to recall your life's work culminating in not letting a woman be president. You remember that? I know it's ancient history now. 2008, Hillary was the presumptive nominee for the Democrat Party. And then Barack Obama comes out of nowhere and spends 18 months insisting that she should not be the leader of the free world. Remember that? So if Barack Obama believes the world be so much better if women ran it for two years, why did he do that? Because Barack Obama, like every feminist man, is a liar. He does not really

believe that. And it's particularly absurd and tone deaf to actually absurd means tone deaf. It means out of tune. Just a little etymology trivia for the show today. It's especially tone deaf right now, because we are coming off of a national episode in which women have looked crazier than they have looked maybe in the entire history of the world since Lysistrata. This is coming off of the Lindsay Clancy episode where you had hundreds of women showing up to the courthouse, some with their kids to defend a woman who murdered her kids. You have many, many more women on social media creating videos in solidarity with Lindsay saying, now we're told that these women, they're really peaceful, they're really smart, they're really rational, okay, I'm super pro-woman, I love women.

It is not true. If women ran the world, there would be more wars. Women hate each other. They do. They just do. Come on. We know, you know, ladies, we all know it. Women sometimes are a little bit more emotional than men. I think, I think we would all have to admit that's true. women can be rather violent in different ways than men. The women have become more violent and more crazy as the result of left-wing social policies, notably abortion. Yesterday was the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Fulton Sheen said, he said, can you imagine,

with the legalization of abortion in Roevey Wade, can you imagine what it's going to be like in 10, 15 years how crazy women are going to be when they have the guilt of murdering their own children on them? So all of that is true. say this to denigrate women, men have their problems too. I'm very pro-woman. I believe in the complementarity of the sexes, the spiritual equality of the sexes, but it's just not true. And I guess my biggest takeaway from this, and I rarely hear this brought up in these kinds of debates and commentary. So imagine, you know, men have been running the world forever. Imagine if women ran,

the men have done such a bad job. Imagine if women ran the world, how much better things would be. Okay, let's look at the issue from the other direction. Why is it the case that men have been running the world forever? You've had some great female leaders, some very impressive female leaders. Elizabeth I didn't agree with some of what she did, but she's an impressive female leader. Margaret Thatcher, she was a great female leader, very impressive. It happens, but it's the exception. Queen Victoria, certainly.

But it's the exception. Why is it? And by the way, women do better as monarchs than they do as prime ministers or presidents. why is it the case that men tend to lead in public life? Is it possible? I guess this, to me, what's interesting about this actually has very little to do with men and women, and it just has to do with the way that liberals and conservatives look at the world. The liberals look at the world and they see how things are and they say, well, the world sucks.

I'm unhappy with the world. I'm discontent. I want to change the world. So everything that is should be the opposite. It should be opposite day. That's what, that's basically liberal politics. And the conservatives look at the world and they say, okay, well, this is the way things are and the way that things basically have always been everywhere. Maybe there is a reason for that.

It's just fundamentally two different ways of looking at the world. One from discontent and revolution and resentment on the left, and one from curiosity and humility and interest and interpretation on the right. Those are just two different ways of looking at the world. So as a conservative, I look at the fact that men generally run politics. I look at that and I say, well, why is that? I guess that tells you something about men's nature, about how men work, about how politics works. Men usually don't stay home to take care of the kids. Men usually run the government.

Maybe that tells you something about it. And then I say, okay, now I want to learn about men and women. I'm going to infer something from me. I'm going to try to understand that. Obama says no, no, no, no. They say, okay, I see how reality works. Let's just do the opposite. Let's burn it all down. By the way, those liberals are about to very likely win a lot of political power. Okay. So much more I want to get to. Okay, I will get to just one more story. It's actually two stories, but they're kind of related. A substitute teacher just got caught on Onlyfans. A substitute teacher in, I don't know, some, in her kids' school, actually. St. Louis County, she just got caught on only fans. So she was fired as a substitute teacher.

I think that's pretty fair, right? Then she was told she can no longer volunteer at the school. And now she's up in arms. This substitute teacher comes out. She says, hold on. Look, I knew that I, because I produced pornography of myself, I knew this was going to come out, people find this stuff. And so I had a feeling I might lose my job.

But hold on, you're telling me that I, can no longer even volunteer at my kids' school, she's horrified by this. It's like all of a sudden, she says, I've done something so wrong and sinful that I'm not even allowed to volunteer at this school. I can find another job. I can handle the backlash and the criticism. But when it affects my child or my children, that's where I draw the line. And she really believes this. What's so sad is how tone-deaf she is. How absurd her reaction is. He goes, hold on. Now you're affecting my children. No. As if her own decisions didn't affect her children. As if it's never occurred to her, that it might be bad for her children that she made herself into a public prostitute. She prostitutes herself on camera.

That could never have any effect on her children. It's the fact that now they won't let her help out in the lunchroom. That's going to have the negative effect on her children. She never even asks, why is it that I've been fired as a substitute teacher? She's been fired as a substitute teacher because of the scandal, because she will be scandalizing little kids, which the Gospels, Christ and the Gospels tells us, merits a millstone being tied around your neck, scandalizing little kids in particular. She says, well, okay, but, I mean, that's fine.

You don't have to hire me for this job, but why can't I keep scandalizing little kids as a volunteer? Totally tone deaf, doesn't understand it at all. And this relates to another story out of Ukraine that I mentioned at the top of the show. Ukraine has been in this war with Russia, for a dozen years now. Russia first started to invade

the eastern part of Ukraine in 2014. And the United States has been involved in that proxy war since 2014 too since the Maidan Revolution. But this war has been going on

for a long time. And then Russia obviously comes in and formally invades Ukraine about eight years later in the Biden administration. And they're running out of money. And we've given them

a ton of money, but they're running out of money now. So they've decided they're thinking about legalizing pornography to pay for their war. I can't help but think this is a bad idea. You see, facing a massive defense budget shortfall,

Ukraine has not been able to cash in on the millions of dollars earned by its clandestine adult content industry. This is the point, it's like that old Mitchell and Webb bit, you know, a bit where the Nazis are looking around and say, are we the baddies? Ukraine has this massive pornography industry. But to Ukraine's credit, it's illegal. So they don't get tax money from it.

It's all illegal. There's a black market of only fans and weird sex stuff. But they say, we're not going to profit from this. We should clamp down on this. They basically look the other way. But we're, you know, this is wrong. And we don't want a country of pornography. Well, the war is dragging on.

They need some money. There's a lot of money being left on the table. Ukraine has this $27 billion budget gap. And they realize that the porn industry is making a lot of money. So they say, you know what? We're going to legalize porn. And we're going to tax it. So we're going to fund our war by prostituting our women.

this seems like probably a bad way to fund a war. Certainly if you're trying to present the war as a righteous moral crusade. I wouldn't, especially if you want God on your side. I'm not going to speak for God, but that doesn't seem like a good way to do it. So if the war in Ukraine, getting all the way, we were talking about international wars at the top of the show, if the war in Ukraine is this righteous crusade against a revanchist, expansionist Russia that is just a. invading and killing people, civilians willy-nilly. If that's the war, I can get behind the Ukraine side. If it's a war for the just defense of a country being invaded by hostile power. But if the war is to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity for the purpose of liberal globalism, the liberal global empire, it actually does make sense that you're going to fund the war on pornography. That does. Pornography is a big part of liberal globalism. Sure. Okay. But

now I'm a lot less interested in funding that war. It's just, it's so perverse. You read that story you say, I know, I know how we'll fund the war. We'll prostitute our women. I don't know. Those don't sound like the good guys. Russia, I think Russia is the, or the bad guys. But Ukraine is doing everything they can do to convince me otherwise. Not smart. I hope they withdraw that bill. Now, I'm very excited to get to the mailbag. First, though, I want to tell you about lien. There's a lot more to say first, though, go to take lean.com, use promo code Knowles. Fall arrived approximately five minutes ago. Suddenly it's gloomy, gets dark earlier, everyone wants to stay inside.

We've officially entered the portion of the calendar where physical activity steadily declines, while food consumption moves aggressively in the opposite direction. We're only getting started. Next comes Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Pretty soon, we're approaching three straight months of candy, pie, stuffing, cookies, cocktails, Christmas parties. Somebody will inevitably wake up. January 2nd and announce that it's time to get healthy. But people talk about preventative Botox. May

I propose preventative lean. Do not wait until January to start paying attention. Lean from Brickhouse nutrition was developed by doctors for people seriously trying to lose 10 pounds or more. Its studied ingredients are designed to support healthy blood sugar, fat metabolism, and apocite and craving control. This is not permission to eat 17 Christmas cookies. If appetite and cravings are usually where your good intentions fall apart, lean can be another tool alongside a healthy diet and exercise plan. People in our office take it. They're very pleased with the results. Other people in our office should take it. Maybe some people on my team even. I don't, I'm not going to name names. Perhaps this year, we do not wait for the New Year's resolution.

Go to takeleen.com. Use promo code Knowles for 20% off plus free shipping. That is takelein.com promo code Knowles. I did not pick the comment yesterday. The producers did. My favorite comment is from Justin Lee, who says, the more I hear about this Hitler guy, the more I don't like him. Yeah, That was a very wise man who first said that. Our mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. Atopurtock.com slash Knowles to get 50% off your first month. Take it away. Hey, Michael.

My name is Melanie, and the question that I want to ask you is about purgatory. So I'm a Christian. I guess you could say Protestant. And I have always understood the Bible to mean and say that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So if you're a Christian and you're saved, when you die, you go to heaven. The opposite is true. If you are not a Christian, you die. You immediately go to hell.

However, I have heard you reference and other Catholic friends that I have referenced purgatory. And I'm just curious as to where that is in the Bible and what the understanding of purgatory is and where that comes from in the Bible. I do have a little knowledge of the bosom of Abraham. and that in the Old Testament, but to my knowledge and understanding, Christ dying on the cross and making that atonement for our sins, removed all of the prior Old Testament sort of laws or understandings around, you know, life after death. So, yeah, if you could just explain that, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Yes, very good question. It's not the bosom of Abraham. So, yeah, there's the bosom of Abraham, which is sort of like Hades, you know, it's like before Christ's hell. and that's kind of what the bosom of Abraham is talking about. Don't think of purgatory that way. In fact, it's probably helpful not to think of purgatory as a place at all. I think it's more helpful to think of purgatory as a process. Where do we get the idea of purgatory in scripture?

We get it from the first John, where John is writing about the distinction between mortal and venial sins. All sins are bad. All sin is unrighteousness. but there are some sins which are not mortal. What does he mean by this? He means there are some sins that they just kill you. They totally sever this relationship of grace and some just are, they're bad, but they're distinct and they're less grave.

Okay. We have our Lord talking about the debtor, the debtor who will not get out of the debtor's prison until he pays the very last far. We have all sorts of talk throughout the entire Bible about how we will be judged according to our works. We're not saved by our works. So get that out of your mind. But there is some kind of judgment that somehow kind of involves our works. Okay. And then in the book of the Apocalypse of St. John, the book of Revelation, we know that nothing imperfect is permitted into heaven.

So what does all this mean? It means that if we believe in Christ and we follow him and we take up his yoke, his yoke is easy and his burden is light and we do what he tells us to do, then we can be saved. Okay, that's really great. but nothing imperfect can enter into heaven. And some sins totally kill us, but some sins don't totally kill us. And so how does that work? At the end of my life, if I'm not perfect,

and I haven't yet paid the very last farthing, and I'd have committed sins, which are not mortal, but what do I, what happens? St. Paul writes about this in the first letter to the Corinthians. First Corinthians 3 versus 11 through 15. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hayst, double, each man's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed

with fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. This is probably the clearest description of purgatory, which again, people get hung up on it because they think it's like some third option. Some people go to heaven, some people go to hell, some people go to purgatory. That's not what it is. If you go to purgatory, you are going to heaven. But I think it's easier, especially for the modern mind, to think of purgatory as a kind of process.

this process of testing by fire, of burning up, of a kind of salutory fire. And the fire imagery is exactly what we get from St. Paul. It's not like the fires of hell. It's a salutary kind of fire that makes sense of all of those other verses. We haven't even gone through all of them. But it makes sense of all of the other verses that will tell you about what it means for heaven to be absolutely perfect, for you not to be absolutely perfect and for Christ to save you. Okay, next one. Good morning, Michael. This is Arun. So a couple of years ago, before the AI revolution was in full swing,

I had a debate about transgenderism with a friend of mine who asked me if I think that an AI can have a gender. And at the time, I told him, well, no, it can simulate a gender, but real gender requires gonads and chromosomes and such. but it looks like at some point in the near future, AI will be able to simulate almost every facet of human consciousness, and perhaps we'll even have physical attributes that currently are only applicable to humans, perhaps even sex organs. So I am curious, in light of that, how would you answer his question? Thank you as always for your wisdom. Excellent question, Arun. I'm sure people are thinking about this. as the robots become more and more human-like. And I've predicted for a long time,

once AI pornography and the robots are perfected, the sex robots are made, that will be the extinction of the human race, of course, but will they really truly have a gender? And the answer is no. They won't have a gender because gender sex is an inseparable accident of the individual. So St. Thomas Aquinas writes about this. It's actually a very helpful way to think during the big transgender debate is what is sex?

Is it some part of our nature, but of our souls or something? Well, if that were the case, if sex were totally part of our souls and our nature, then men and women would be different species. And it sometimes feels like we are, but we're not actually. So it's not that. Sex and gender are inseparable accidents of the individual. They don't pertain to our nature as such. It's to the individual creature.

the natural substance. So men and women have sex. The sexual difference is known by its T-loss, which is making babies. It is ordered toward making babies. Not every man, not every woman is fertile or able to have a kid, but their sexual distinction is ordered toward the making of babies. That's what it's for. And so it's clear, even just from those observations,

that the AI will not have gender. even if you do weird stuff with the AI, it will not actually have a gender or a sex because sex and gender pertain to natural substances. AI is just an artifact. It's just a machine. AI is just a really, really complex version of the Leftist Tears Tumblr or the microphone or the candle. That's all that it is. It is categorically different than we are because we human beings are natural substances. We're hyalomorphic.

we're bodies, but we're also souls, and the soul is the substantial form of the body. So that's why I'm not just a combination of molecules bopping around and carbon and water, but I am a distinct creature called Michael. That's because my soul gives form to my body. When it comes to AI, it's just hardware plus software, plus gonads, apparently, is what you're going to add on to it. Okay, there's so much more to get to. I know I'm running late. I don't care. Give me another mailbag. Michael, over the years I've noticed that the conspiratorial mindset has become way more mainstream amongst your average normal person who's not even necessarily politically dialed in. It's no longer just people in the early 2000s listening to Alex Jones, but it's your average friend or family member.

I've also noticed a compounding effect of this where it's not just the major events of, you know, JFK assassination type of things or 9-11. that are conspiracies, but it's everything. Every little thing is a farce, a facade. There's a veil over it of some kind being put on by Big Brother. Obviously, the Internet, social media plays a huge part in this, but I was just wondering if you've noticed this amongst your average person and what the reason behind it is. It was COVID.

It was COVID. COVID is the reason that the conspiratorial mindset has proliferated and with good reason, because all of our officials lied to us. They lied to us and they shut down the whole world and they seriously damaged our lives and it was a major trauma that we still haven't dealt with. And so that's why. I'm not saying it's good.

I mean, you know, conservatives have always, right-wingers have always gotten a little kick out of conspiracy theories in part because it's the sign of an active mind and they're kind of fun, but they can go dark too. But the reason it totally accelerated is because of COVID. And so that's on the authorities. At a certain point, you have to be skeptical of a lot, a lot of things. People have made that observation that conspiracies have proliferated because of COVID.

The part that I haven't heard them talk about, and this is the second thing that's made the conspiratorial mindset spread, it was transgenderism. It was transgenderism because all of the big, powerful institutions told us something that was obviously false. And they made us lie about it, and they wielded power to make us go along with something that was so obviously false that it totally destroyed anyone's belief in the judgment of those people. If they would lie to us so brazenly about something so obvious, they must be lying to us about everything. That's why. So it spreads. It's perfectly natural that it's spread. It's bad. You don't

want people to be skeptical of literally everything because then you just can't function as a society. But that's where we are. And it's really not primarily the fault of the conspiracy theorist. It's primarily the fault of the authorities who failed them. Okay, I know I'm running late. What did I tell you? I said, I don't care. I want more voicemail. Last one.

Hey, Michael, I have a question for you. Since one of the main ethosies of the Protestant sect of the Christian faith is being able to read and interpret scripture for yourself, does that necessarily lead to the more LGBTQ affirming churches like the Episcopalian church? Yeah. I was a short question, and the answer is, yeah. I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here, because obviously there are a lot of Protestant communities

that are super anti-LGBT, that are much more orthodox and not crazy libs and everything. But yeah, that is a feature of Protestantism itself. There are a billion things to criticize the functioning of the Catholic Church for. There are a billion things. I've made some of those observations myself. But you'll notice on the big issues,

on the big, real important stuff, the Catholics are basically the only ones that have held out. Even despite all sorts of pernicious bishops over the years and all kind of, we've had bad popes over the years. But despite that, even at the height of the cultural revolution, when all the mainline denominations are embracing the sexual revolution, you get a fairly liberal Pope, Pope Paul the 6th. He comes out with Humana Vita.

He says, nope, no gay stuff, no contraception, no abortion, none of that. We are holding to the perennial teaching. And that might be a miracle. That could be viewed as a miracle itself that the church did not cave in the 1960s and 70s to that stuff. But beyond that,

without kind of going down a checklist of, ah, the Protestants did this right and the Catholics did this right and that. Yes, I think to your intuition, this is just a feature of Protestantism. Protestantism as such, with all the denominations, is what distinguishes Protestantism from Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and to some degree Anglicanism, even though Anglicanism is Protestant. What distinguishes it is that it exalts private judgment above any other interpretive principle. So it says, go out there and figure out what the religion means yourself. The ultimate authority is your own conscience. You might say that you submit to the authority of some pastor or some preacher or something, but if you don't like what he says, you're just going to go find another church. and the Catholics don't have that.

We owe some obedience of our intellect and will to our priests and our bishops and ultimately to the Supreme Pontiff. And so Protestants don't like that. And I kind of get it. But that is what has permitted the Catholic Church to avoid that and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I think, to avoid some of those pitfalls. Is the church says, yeah, you can have individual conscience. you definitely should read the Bible. You should go to adoration and to mass and say all your prayers and think and reading and all the great doctors of the church. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can disagree with each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But ultimately, we are claiming an authority that is above private conscience. We are claiming an authority that is above individual interpretation. We believe that we possess the positive faith, the magisterium of the church. We believe that Christ gave to Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven a kind of authority. A kind of authority. that we believe, I think with good reason, has been present since the earliest days of the church. And so, no, you don't get to just believe whatever you want. And so there are going to be plenty

of Protestant communities that say, well, no, we've stuck to our guns on all sorts of good stuff. He said, that's great, good for you. That's awesome. I love that. But then you're going to get James Tala Rico's pastoris who says, actually, I don't think that Jesus even existed. And I don't believe in the virgin birth, and I think everyone should be a lesbian. And you're going to get that. And there's not any mechanism. There's no ecclesiastical system or authority that is going to be able to tell her she's wrong. Okay. It's fake headline Friday.

The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. I have a special guest on. I have a buddy of mine who's coming on this show today. I'm not going to tell you who it is. It's Nick Fratus. Become a member used code Noles at Chegger for two months free in all annual plans. Every significant movement in history has started with protesting.

Not traitor. Uncle Tom. This is our generation's civil rights. I have no idea what the protest is about. Bingo. Given the current climate, should a figure as polarize you as Clay Saunders. You can be allowed on campus? Ah, can you hear me okay? Saunders is a close personal friend of Chancellor Friedman. This is a decision I cannot fight.

Islam will conquer the West. Islamu'aikum. Are we paying attention? They've taken over the building. They're downstairs and they've blocked the doors. I seek forgiveness from Allah, the Almighty. We cannot run and hide. messenger of God. There is no God but

Allah. What do you say? We turn those S-O-Bs into a fine red mist. As we move, one man will cover while the other guys go. They call that leap project. Stretch them out and listen. You need a course in safe weapons handling. Well, polls tell you what voters said at one moment,

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Trade what happens next on Cali. Use code daily, D-A-I-L-Y, to get up to $25 when you trade $25. That's Calshy K-A-L-S-H-I-C-C-Trad on anything. 18-plus-only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contracts, trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Cal-Shee products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, you can go see calshy.com slash regulatory.

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