The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 451 - Trump’s High Crime: Hurt Feelings

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

Democrats in the mainstream media and Congress all the way to former presidents throw cold water on the impeachment push. We examine the latest “bombshell” testimony to parse what if anything this is all about. Then, Kanye West spreads the gospel to megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, Pope Francis wants to make pollution a sin, and a dark horse Democratic candidate takes a big lead in Iowa! Date: 11-18-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Democrats in the mainstream media and Congress all the way to former presidents throw cold water on the impeachment push. We will examine the latest bombshell testimony to parse what, if anything, this is all about. Then, Kanye West spreads the gospel to Joel Osteen. Pope Francis wants to make pollution a sin and a dark horse Democratic candidate takes a big lead in Iowa. All that and more. I'm Michael Knowles and this is the Michael Knowles show. More bombshell testimony today. It's the bombshell of the bombshells and the impeachment push to oust Trump for doing. We still don't exactly know what they're trying to oust Trump for doing right now. But we've got the bombshell testimony of Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine. She must have the information, right? The Democrats struck out on their first star witness. Then they struck out on their second star witness.

Now, let's see, if three times is a charm. We will get to that in one second. First, I've got to thank our friends over at Rock Auto. Rock Auto is a family business. They've been serving auto parts to customers online for 20 years. Go to rock auto.com to shop for auto and body parts from hundreds of manufacturers. What you don't need to do when you need auto parts, what you don't need to do is go into a store. I know this because recently, this is probably two months ago now, is driving up to San Francisco.

My car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. This is very frustrating. I tow it. I get to the shop and what can they do for me? It's not like they have any of the parts. You know, of course, are very complicated. There are a lot of options. So what some guy at the shop does is he goes online and he orders the parts and then charges me a lot more money. You don't need to deal with that. Go straight to rock auto.com. They have everything from engine control modules and brake parts to tail lamps, motor oil, even new carpet. Whether it's for your classic or your daily

driver, get everything you need and a few easy clicks delivered directly to your door. Rocka Auto.com's catalog is unique. The best part about this, this is especially good for me. It's very easy to navigate. I don't know all that much about cars other than that I like driving them. You can go and figure out exactly all the parts that are available for your vehicle. Choose the brands, specifications, and prices that you prefer. These guys are so reliable. These guys are so fair in their pricing. They've got a great selection. You can always count on low prices. You don't need to game it out over this week. There will be a sale. And this week, it's just always very, very reasonable prices.

All the parts your car will ever need, go to rock auto.com. And when they ask you in the little box at Rock Auto, how did you hear about us? Make sure you type in Knowles, KNAW-L-E-S, rockauto.com. We have a lot to get to today. We will get through this bombshell testimony. I am in Kentucky for the Men Are Not Women and Other Uncomfortable Truths tour. So if you're in Lexington, Kentucky by chance tonight, come on out at the University of Kentucky. We're going to have a whole lot of fun.

but before that, we've got to figure out if the president is going to stay in office. So you remember last week, Bill Taylor was the big star key witness. And Bill Taylor from the Foreign Service comes out and he's asked, do you have any information on a quid pro quo on some crime that Trump committed? And he said, no. Then we have George Kent. He's a deputy assistant secretary of state. They said, do you have information that's going to oust the president, evidence that Trump committed a crime? No.

So then they bring in Marie Yovanovitch. Marie Yovanovitch is a career foreign service officer. She is ambassador to Ukraine. GOP representative Mark Meadows gets her on the stand and he says, Ambassador Yovanovitch, do you have any information of a crime committed by Trump? Right. This is what we're all here for. And guess what her answer is?

Not at all. Madam Ambassador, as you see at her before us, very simply and directly, do you have any information regarding the President of the United States accepting any bribes? No. Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the President of the United States has been involved with at all? No. What's incredible about that clip, you can hear it in her voice. He asks a very direct question. Do you have evidence of bribe? She should take her less than one second to answer. Nope, no evidence. Do you have evidence that he's committed any crime worthy of impeachment? No, she should know this going in. This is the main

question she's going to be asked. But she doesn't want to be asked the main questions. She just wants insinuation. She just wants this vague sort of implication that Trump is doing all manner of terrible things. Now, when you get clear on this question, it becomes obvious that he hasn't committed any crime worthy of impeachment. But she wants the vagary and Mark Meadows drills down, and she takes that moment. Has the president committed any crimes? Beat, beat, beat. No. Has the committed, has the president received any, or committed any other crimes? Beat, beat, beat. No. So you watch that. testimony, he said it's kind of a flop, right? Then we turn to Fox News as Chris Wallace,

Chris Wallace, who I believe is a registered Democrat. He's one of the more left-leaning, it would appear, voices at that network. Chris Wallace, I guess he was watching a different clip because he was absolutely blown away by the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch. I think that if you are not moved, and we'll have to wait and see what happens in the cross-examination, but if you were not moved by the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch today, you don't have a pulse. This is a woman who had served in seven posts for presidents of both parties over more than 30 years. So I'm just checking here, got my two fingers on my wrist. I definitely have a

pulse and I definitely was not moved. That's actually not fair. I was moved by the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch. But I was not moved to feel that we need to throw this president out of office. I was not moved with great sympathy and empathy and compassion for career bureaucrats. I was not moved at all. I was moved to fury that we are prioritizing the entrenched federal bureaucracy over the decision of the American people in 2016 to elect Donald Trump president. Because that is really what this is all about. You heard her answer to Mark Meadows. She doesn't have any evidence of a crime that Trump committed.

So what is she doing there? What is she so upset about? What she's upset about is that President Trump ran in 2016 on hollowing out that federal bureaucracy, draining the swamp to use his words, prioritizing the democratic desires of the American people over the liberal consensus that's ossified that's unaccountable to anybody outside of Washington, D.C. She's upset that he's going after those D.C. entrenched interests, and they're going to try to throw him out of office for it. Here she is. The State Department is being hollowed out from within at a competitive and complex time on the world stage. This is not a time to undercut our diplomats. That sounds like one of the greatest pitches for Trump 2020 I've ever heard of. The State Department is being hollowed out from within. Good. I'm glad the State Department's being hollowed out from within. I don't like how much power the State Department has. I don't like how independent the State Department has become and how unwarded it has become from

the wishes of the American people and from the executive. They are there to serve the executive. They are there to carry out his policies, not the other way around it. We've gotten into a situation in this country where the tail is wagging the dog, where presidents come and go, but the State Department, in particular, as the image of the entrenched bureaucracy, never, ever changes. I do not care about Marie Yovanovitch. I do not care what she wants. I do not care how she feels that foreign policy should be conducted when that interferes with how the president wants foreign policy to be conducted.

I don't care that the State Department now has to be more accountable to the American people. I don't care that they're upset about that. I'm very pleased to hear that that is happening. Yovanovitch puts all of her cards on the table, right? She says, this is about Trump going after the deep state

or the federal bureaucracy, or whatever you want to call it. She goes on. Is the responsibility of the department's leaders to stand up for the institution and the individuals who make that institution still today the most effective diplomatic force in the world. And Congress has a responsibility to reinvest in our diplomacy. That's an investment in our national security. It's an investment in our future, in our children's future.

That is not the responsibility of the State Department. She says the responsibility of the State Department is to defend the State Department. The responsibility of the State Department is to conduct American foreign policy at the pleasure of the president because we, we, the American people, do not exist to serve the State Department. The State Department exists to serve us. How do they serve us? Through our Democratic and Republican mechanisms of government. We elect the president. She's appearing before the House. We elect, members of the House, she serves us, but they don't think that way at the State Department. They believe if you go into the Foreign Service and you've served there for your whole career and then you end up in some higher-up diplomatic post, it tends to be the case that these guys believe that they have no responsibility to the American people. They know what's best.

Marie Yovanovitch knows what's best. What does Donald Trump know? What do the American people who elected him know? It's outrageous that he's contradicting us. the wonderful federal bureaucrats. He's contradicting us on foreign policy, so that guy's got to go. And that's what this whole thing is about. This has nothing to do with a phone call with Ukraine. This has nothing to do with an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.

There should be an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, but that's not what this is about. This has nothing to do with President Trump's alleged corruption and the oversight responsibilities of Congress or the Constitution or high crimes and misdemeanors. The high crime that President Trump has committed here is hurting the feelings of federal bureaucrats. That's not a crime.

That's not an impeachable offense. Actually, every so often it's an important thing to do to remind those bureaucrats and to remind those lifelong State Department employees that they do not have a mandate by birth to run our government for us. They don't. We still run our government.

Maybe we do. I mean, that's so much of what the last three years has been about. It's what the 2016 campaign was about. and it appears that's what the 2020 campaign is going to be about. Do the American people still have a right to govern ourselves? Or are we going to chip away at our sovereignty? Our sovereignty is a people. And are we going to give it to a distant capital in Washington, D.C.,

and are we going to give it to entrenched federal interests, and are we going to give it abroad? Are we going to give it to international and supernatural institutions, like the IMF or the WTO, or the European Union, or the United Nations, all of these institutions that exist to take power away from the people of independent nations. That's how when people are discussing nationalism, the best version of that conversation is about how to keep our national liberty as a people. We are supposed to be a self-governing republic. We are not living in a technocratic dictatorship run by these lifelong federal

employees. That's not where we are. Maybe that's what Yovanovitch wants. Maybe that's what Chris Wallace wants. I don't know. I'm not putting words in his mouth, but I think when the American people look at that testimony, their jaws drop open and they say, what on earth are they doing? What is this all about? You're going to throw out Trump, even though this woman has no information about any crime he's committed. You're going to throw out Trump because he hurt her feelings. Meanwhile, you cut to Chris Wallace and he says, if you, if your heart didn't break for that war, woman, you don't have a pulse. That is such a removed opinion. That is such an opinion of people in Washington, D.C. and nobody else. And even Democrats are waking up to this, by the way. It's not

just Republicans. So far, this is an absolutely partisan impeachment, which presents challenges of its own. But, I mean, there are not going to be Republicans who throw him out. The one Republican who wants to throw President Trump out has left the Republican Party that's just an Amage. The rest of them are not going to do it. So you're going to have the Democratic Party go in. They're still upset that they lost the 2016 election. They're going to try to overturn that election. Even some Democrats are breaking rank.

There's a Democratic representative Jeff Van Drew, who is throwing cold water on impeachment. Here he is. Congressman Van Drew, you've had such courage and leadership since you took the job in Congress. You are also one of two who have voted against this increase to begin with. Why? I just think we're keep going down this road, keep spending more time.

You know, many of us came to Congress because we really wanted to accomplish goals, really work on issues such as health care, work on issues, dealing with prescription drugs, election security, the debt, the deficit, you know, the list goes on and I can speak on and on about all the things that we need to do. And I just don't think we're hearing anything new. And real quickly, we must understand the importance and the level of what impeachment is. Hundreds of years of history, no one has ever been convicted of impeachment. And that's the point. We're going to have an election next year. Let's have the election. Let's fight through the election.

Let's do what Republicans and Democrats and whomever else does. But this is going to get us nowhere. We've spent millions of dollars, in my opinion. Tons of money, tons of time, tons of hurt. fraction the nation apart. I haven't seen this to be a good thing. So Jeff Van Drew is right about this. The impeachment is pulling the nation apart and the historical example is really important here because especially in recent years we've heard impeachment bandied about so much that we think it's a normal thing. It's not.

It's not normal to impeach the president. In fact, we have never once in this nation's history removed a president from office through the mechanism of impeachment. We had a had Andrew Johnson, who was impeached and then acquitted in the Senate. Then you wait more than 100 years, and you get to Richard Nixon. Democrats also were upset that he won that election in a landslide, so they sought to overturn it. They made moves to impeach Richard Nixon, and he resigned before it could happen. Then you get to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was impeached, but acquitted. And then you get, during the Obama administration, John Boehner said that he was never going to impeach. Barack Obama and then you get to Donald Trump and they've tried to impeach him since before he took office. We'll get to that in a second, but first, when government resources are strained, it can be days,

if not weeks before you can get to fresh food and water. If you have taken anything else away from this show today, I think it should be that you cannot rely on the government when it comes to life and death because there's a lot of dysfunction there. You can't rely on somebody else. You have to rely on yourself. Don't put yourself in a situation where you're you need something that you don't have. Get prepared today. All of the ingredients in wise foods are chef prepared internally by Wise Company. By doing this, they cut out the middleman and pass the savings on to you. All you need is four cups of water. It doesn't even need to be hot. You take the contents out of the pouch, Wise Foods, and you pour them into the water, you stir, you cover. That's it. In 15 minutes, it is ready to go for your family, no matter what the situation.

It's really important. The thing I really love about wise foods, it's very high quality stuff. Of course, I'm a man of simple tastes. I'm easily satisfied by the very best. But what I like about it is it just reduces stress. I mean, I live in L.A., which practically burns down every three months. I don't think that I'm going to end up in the apocalypse. I don't think that I'm going to end up with everything going to hell in a handbasket around me. But I just want the peace of mind to know that sweet little Elisa is taken care of. if we got it, and that I'm taking care of, and my whole family's taking care of. There is no excuse for waiting until it's too late, no better time to prepare than right now. Get it, get wise foods, the wise emergency food is a great investment.

You put it away, you don't have to think about it until you do. My listeners have VIP access to the Black Friday sales event from my friends at Wise Company. It's WI-S-E to 29-691, and you will get a reply with the early access link. If you've been on the fence about getting prepared or if you're looking to add more, this is the best time do it, you're going to save a lot. No better time of the year when so many products are discounted like this. Some are actually 70% off. That's 70. In addition to that, if you text Wise to 29-691, you will be sent a $10 coupon code that can be used toward any item on their website, no exclusions. That is Wise, W-I-S-E to 29-691. As always, shipping is free for my listeners.

Wise to 29-691 for ongoing automated text offers from Wise Company. Message and data rates may live, visit wisefoodstorage.com for privacy and terms. Senate Democrats actually tried to impeach him and set the stage for impeachment before he took office. Shortly after he took office, Representative Al Green, that's the congressman, not the musician, filed a resolution to impeach President Trump. For what? Nobody has any idea. That one failed. Initially, then they went after Russia collusion. Then it was Stormy Daniels. Then it was taxes. Then it was, I don't know, they didn't like the cut of his jib. And now they're trying to oust him over Ukraine. And it is.

tearing the nation apart you don't need to just take my word for it or Jeff Andrews word for it even Barack Obama has implied as much even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in reality and the fact that voters including Democratic voters and certainly persuadable independence or even moderate Republicans are not driven by the same views that are reflected on certain, you know, left-leaning purifers or the activist wing of our party. This is still a country that is less revolution.

than it is interested in improvement. They like seeing things improve, but the average American doesn't think that we have to completely tear down the system and we make it. And I think it's important for us not to lose sight of that. So that was Obama at an ostensibly closed-door liberal fundraiser dinner. Obviously, it wasn't that closed-door. What he said is pretty insightful at the end,

which is most Americans don't want a revolution. They don't want to tear down the system. He's urging caution because he thinks, like the Democratic Congressman Jeff Van Drew thinks, like others believe, like Nancy Pelosi thought for two years, that impeachment ultimately will hurt Democrats because it's an overreach. But when Obama says most Americans don't want to tear down the system, you've got to ask yourself what system they're talking about. It's true. Most, I mean, this is backed up by polls. We'll get to it in a second. and most Americans think this impeachment is BS. However, it's not as though we just have the system of American government and anarchy. Those are not the two decisions.

Those are not the alternatives. We actually have two competing systems. We have the system of American government, the Constitution, and the separation of powers and elections and power to the people. We've got that. And then we have the entrenched interests of the permanent bureaucracy that want to run the government, elections be damned. That's represented by Marie Yovanovitch in her testimony on the Hill.

Those are two irreconcilable systems. One of them is going to win out. You know, Bill Crystal, who is the, I guess, formerly conservative commentator in the era of Trump, he's become a little more eccentric in his political views. A guy I really actually like personally, he was a teacher of mine, but politically now he's really going off the deep end, you would say. When Trump got elected, he sent out a telling tweet. He said, between the Trump state and the deep state, I choose the deep state. And in fairness to him, he said, I'd rather choose neither. But between the Trump state and the deep state, I choose the deep state. Those are the two systems. That's the battle line that is being drawn here. When you see people go on television and say, oh, the poor

bureaucrats, oh, the poor lifelong federal agents, we, my heart bleeds for them. I'm crying for those people in Washington, D.C., you realize they've made a decision. They are defending the deep state, the bureaucracy, use whatever term you want. And the American people do not want that. If they're going to tear down any system, they want to tear down that system that's so entrenched that it takes away power from them. And they support our actual system of government, or at least our old system of government, the Constitution and elections. And you might hate Donald Trump, But between the Trump state and the deep state, you've got to choose the Trump state. Because what you're really saying is between our tradition of government, our constitution,

and an entrenched bureaucracy that has no accountability. You've got to choose your own self-government. If not, what are we even fighting for in these political games in America? This is all reflected in polls. There's a new Reuters Ipsos poll that's out. Do you know what percentage of people are actually paying attention to impeachment? if you were to look at, you know, the cable news networks, if you were to look at the chattering class in Washington, D.C., you would imagine that everybody is glued to their screens watching impeachment. Actually, among independents, so not the hardline partisans, among independents, 36% of independents said they have not watched, read, or heard anything about impeachment.

A full 36% of independence have no idea that this thing is even going on. Then when you look at the 64% of independents who have paid any attention to it, do you know what percentage have actually watched the impeachment hearings? 19%. 19%. Less than 1 in 5 independents is even watching any of this thing. Then 17% said they watched or listened to news summaries. That's what the fancy people on TV in the Coats and Ties.

That's what the Democrats. That's what the left is banking on because they don't want to actually see Marie Yovanovitch say, I've got no evidence of a crime. They don't want to actually see Bill Taylor say, yeah, I don't have any evidence of a quid pro quo. Because if you see that, you realize what total BS this is. So instead, what you want is people in suits and ties on TV who have a political agenda saying, this is bombshell. This is devastating. Our heart breaks for these federal bureaucrats. then so you got 19% actually watched it 17% say they watched or listened to news summaries 30% said they read or listened to news summaries so not watching but reading so the poll shows a huge number of independents have don't know anything about what is going on and they are not that engaged among Democrats obviously the engagement is much higher 35% are watching and listening to the hear compared to only 26% of Republicans. This is not just a partisan event in the House. This is a partisan event in the country. And it gets even more crooked the more you look into it

because the whole thing was kicked off by that so-called whistleblower allegedly named Eric Charmella, according to Real Clear Investigations. He's another one who's a career bureaucrat. He worked at the CIA. Then he worked for Joe Biden on Ukraine. While Biden was engaging in corrupt-looking schemes in Ukraine, And he worked for John Brennan. He just opposed Donald Trump.

The intelligence community inspector general said there were three clear pieces of evidence that he had political bias against Trump. Eric Charmella now, it turns out, is drum roll please connected to George Soros, left-wing mega donor. So this is a new report that's just out. Apparently, because emails have been released about Ukraine policy from a top director at George Soros's Open Society Foundation, we find out that Charamela, the alleged whistleblower, was in contact alongside a number of other Obama administration foreign policy officials with George Soros's guys. They were involved about hearing about George Soros' whereabouts, about George Soros's private meetings about Ukraine, and they were hearing about a future meeting that the billionaire, left-wing activist George Soros, was planning to hold with the Prime Minister of Ukraine. This was not going through organizing for America, the Obama campaign wing.

This was going through the foreign policy apparatus and through Charmella, who was a CIA guy who was then working on Ukraine for Biden. Jeff Goldstein, senior policy analyst for Eurasia at Soros's Open Society Foundation, he sent an email in June of 2016 to Eric Charmella, and he ced other State Department officials who were also involved in European affairs. including a man named Alexander Kassanoff, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. This looks more rotten the more we get into it. And by the way, the whole defense of President Trump on the asking for Ukraine to investigate corruption was that there was pretty bizarre interaction going on between the Obama administration

and the federal bureaucracy, the intelligence community, and Ukraine in 2016. looks like we have evidence of that, and we have evidence of that from the most cartoonishly villainous left-wing activist in the country, George Soros. That is what's going on. And this relates, by the way, this decision that we've got to make between the Trump state and the deep state, between our Constitution and the entrenched bureaucracy. This doesn't just have to do with Ukraine or impeachment. This goes to so many other issues. A major one, you're going to see so many headlines over the next few days is that President Trump granted clemency to U.S. troops who were involved in controversial war crime cases. Now, the way you're going to see this reported in the news is Trump makes

excuses for war crimes. Trump defends war crimes. The reality much more complicated than that. Three guys. Army 1st Lieutenant Clint Lawrence was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of three Afghans. This is within the past few years. Army Major Matthew Goldstein faced murder charges next year for what was being reported as a similar crime. What he actually did was allegedly murdered a Taliban bomb maker and then burned his remains in a trash pit, which to me means he should win an Olympic medal, not be brought up for war crimes. And then the third guy's special warfare operator chief Edward Gallagher, who earlier this fall was actually acquitted of a string of alleged war crimes, and he had his rank restored by the president.

of chief petty officer. These three guys, what does this show? What is this about why is Trump granting clemency to these guys? Well, as you see in the case of Edward Gallagher, we don't know exactly what they committed, right? We don't know that this actually rose to the level of a war crime as it's being reported in the press. In the case of Gallagher, he was acquitted.

But what about these other guys, Lawrence and Goldstein? Let's say that Goldstein did what they accused him of doing, that a Taliban bomb maker was released, he got out, and Goldstein was so furious about this that he killed him, Taliban bomb maker. Is this the sort of thing that ought to be encouraged? Probably not. Do we want vigilantism in the military?

We want vigilance, but I guess we don't want vigilantism. But when you send a guy into a war zone to go kill the Taliban, and then he kills a Taliban bomb maker, he shouldn't have his life ruined for that. And what this really is about is Trump applying the same rules of self-governance to the military that he's applying to the State Department and the bureaucracy. Trump thinks, it seems, that the military has become an experiment round for bureaucrats

and sociologists in D.C. I mean, you saw this with the Obama administration. The Obama administration decided that they were going to allow people who are men who identify as women to serve in the military. People obviously with pretty serious psychiatric conditions who create all sorts of social challenges for the military because you don't know exactly where to put them. It would appear that that does not help military readiness, fitness to fight, which is the purpose of the United States military. But it doesn't matter because for left-wing activists, the military is nothing more than a social experiment. Trump, it would appear, thinks that the military has become overregulated, over-lawyered.

He thinks that there has become mission drift. and I think he's right. I think it's pretty clear that much of the Trump campaign was running against this kind of nebulous, bureaucratic, technocratic malaise. Even on the use of the military, if you're going to use the military, send them in to accomplish a goal and then get them out of there. That's his view. The kind of liberal consensus view, the permanent state view, is just have the military everywhere all over the world kind of doing, I don't know what, basically just administering a large global empire. Those are two different views of the country. And Trump is going in there and saying, we are rejecting that. We are going to have a strong American nation.

And we're not going to let you regulate our military into the ground. It's a controversial decision. It's a gutsy decision. There are good arguments on both sides of this. But the way to make sense of it is to see how it fits into his broader vision. and it does very clearly. I have got to get to Kanye West. Kanye West headed to, I think, the largest megachurch in America, Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church. And I think this is a great thing. Kanye is catching some flag for it.

I think it's wonderful that Kanye West will spread the gospel to Joel Osteen. We will take a look at that. Speaking of the Bible and religion, we will get to Pope Francis's ideas of ecological sin and then Pete Buttigieg is surging in the race. He's up nine points in Iowa. I'm getting texts from Joe Biden's campaign manager. We'll get to all of that, but you've got to go to dailywire.com. $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership. You get me, you get the Andrew Claven show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get the Mount Wall show, you get to ask questions in the mailbag.

You get another kingdom. You get everything. And you get the leftist-tears Tumblr. Go to Dailywire.com. be right back with a lot more. Kanye West is spreading the gospel message to the pastor of one of the largest churches in America. I think this is a great thing. It's Joel Osteen. Now, I have been accused of being uncharitable toward Joel Osteen. If you don't know him, he's that really smiley guy who goes on TV and speaks in sort of vaguely Christian language, but he doesn't talk about Jesus particularly much. Joel Osteen gets lumped in with what is called the prosperity gospel, which is a very pernicious heresy that transforms the true gospel

into a sort of feel good life coaching, be a good person, talk to God, and you'll make a lot of money. Here is Joel Osteen and his wife. Here are the Osteen's preaching the prosperity gospel, just to give you some context. I am blessed. I am strong.

I am talented. I am disciplined. I am focused. I am prosperous. When we obey God, we're not doing it for God. I mean, that's one way to look at it. We're doing it for ourselves because God takes pleasure when we're happy.

That's the thing that gets him the greatest joy this morning. So I want you to know this morning, just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship him, you're not doing it for God, really. You're doing it for yourself because that's what makes God happy. Amen. I want you to get a bigger vision. There are exciting things in your future.

Your future is filled with marked moments of blessing, increase, promotion. God has already ordained before the foundation of the world. The right people, the right opportunity, time and chance are coming together for you. Why don't you get your hopes up? Why don't you start believing that no matter what you have or haven't done, that your best days are still out in front of you? What Joel Osteen talks about is, I am really good, I am really great, your best life now, you are meant to have a really great life here on earth. That is not the

message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is pick up your cross and bear it if you would follow me. The message of the gospel is the martyrs who give their lives for Christ. He who seeks his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for me will have his life abundantly and forever. That's the message of the gospel. It's not the prosperity gospel. And so the fact that Kanye West is going to this church, I think, is a great thing. I mean, I am joking a little bit that one of the most famous rappers in the world is going to share Christianity to Joel Osteen. But I mean it, too. I listened to all of Kanye's album.

I listened to it twice. And I couldn't find very much wrong with it. With one small exception, I found it to be theologically sound. And Kanye went and gave his Christian testimony at this church. And it rang very sincere. And I remember sitting in the hospital at UCLA after having a mental breakdown and there's documentation of me drawing a church and saying, writing a start of church in the middle of Calabasas. And even after that, I went and made the Life of Pablo album.

I said, this is a gospel album. And I didn't know how to totally make a gospel album and the Christians that were around were to, I would say, beaten into submission by society to not speak up and profess the gospel to, you know, to me because I was a superstar. So, but the only superstar is Jesus. I love that line. It's so simple, but it's such a great line. Yeah, I was a superstar, but the only superstar is Jesus. This reminds me of this woman who I just saw the other night at the live action gala in D.C., woman, Johna. Jessen, who survived. in abortion, and so she's got a lot of physical problems as a result of this attempt to kill her

when she was still in the womb. And she gets up there to accept her award and give her speech. The speech was very simple. She said, it's all about Jesus. It's not that complicated. It's about Jesus. Jesus saved my life. Jesus is the sum total of my life, and you all should believe in Jesus. And that's more or less what Kanye is saying. Kanye West conveyed more gospel in his one day at Lakewood Church than many, many, many, many televangelists have ever given out in their entire lives and conveyed throughout their entire careers. And Kanye talks about what that means, what it's meant for his career. And he goes on. And to me, it all sounds urgent and sincere. When I'm in California, when I'm in Vegas, they got posters of advertising, you know, sex trafficking.

because if there's an advertisement for a strip club, that is advertising, sex trafficking, because at the end of the night, when they close up, the manager says, how much traffic do we have? So if it's a man that's going through things with his family or going through things at work and he feels he has to go there, we all end up participating, whether it's the spirits that get advertised to us all the time.

Alcohol is, they call it a spirit. So we get constant advertisement for spirits. We get constant advertisement for strip clubs and other things like that. But then we bring up the name of Jesus. We're told to be quiet. Quiet that down. So even for someone who's professing God and saying this is going to be a gospel album, the devil's going to come and do everything he can to distract people from knowing how to fully be in service.

to the Lord. That is profound and insightful from beginning to end. I mean, I joke with sweet little Alisa now when we drive and see billboards in Hollywood, that they get so racy that they're not even titillating. They're not even sexy. They're just absurd. They're grotesque almost. I mean, pretty soon, every billboard is just going to be flesh, and it's not going to be particularly attractive or alluring. That's the direction it's trending in. Kanye to recognize the pun of spirits, that spirits, right, are opening yourself up to certain spirits, perhaps, that there is a spiritual world in the first place. I mean, transgenderism, so much of the ideology of transgenderism is about trying to come to grips with the fact that we all know

there is a metaphysical reality. We are not just clumps of cells. We are not just flesh and bones. We are more than our bodies. And yet, because the world has told us for the past hundred years, years, that nothing exists outside of material. The people who have gendered dysphoria don't know how to make sense of that. But speaking of transgenderism, what Kanye is saying is you could go to any public library in America just about, and you could say, I want to have a drag queen story hour, and that would be basically uncontroversial. But if you came into those libraries and said, I want to have a Bible study, I want to have a prayer circle, that would be controversial. If you went into an elementary school, give you a more clear example, if you went into an elementary school and said,

we're going to have sex education in kindergarten and talk about transgenderism and how boys can be girls and girls can be boys. And maybe we'll bring in a transgender individual to spread this ideology. That would be uncontroversial, at least among the administrators. In fact, the only controversy would be if you said no to that. It would be all wall-to-wall mainstream media news. But if you went into that same school and said, I want there to be a prayer circle and a Bible study, not only would that be controversial, not only would you be shut down. That would be dubbed unconstitutional. And that is the absurdity, right?

You can go in and spread an absurd ideology, a novel ideology that doesn't make any sense. The boys can really be girls and girls can be boys, but only if you really think so. And actually there's 56 genders. And since I said that, there's actually a new one, so it's 57 genders. you can say that on the one hand, you're encouraged to say that on the other hand. But if you want to read the foundational work of Western civilization, the Bible, that will be dubbed unconstitutional in schools. It's hilarious. It's unfortunate, but if you took the suffering out of it, it would be absolutely hilarious. And that is what Kanye is pointing out.

And he is saying there is spiritual warfare. And that's what he's saying at this church, which is usually all smiles and good old life advice and not really mentioning the name of Christ too much, He's saying you have to give your life to Christ. If you are a Christian, the center of your life is Christ. And it reminds me of the St. Michael Prayer, the St. Michael Prayer, the Catholics pray, says, St. Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

that is not feel good happy happy you're going to make a lot of money kind of messaging but that is spiritual reality to christians in the true christian tradition and unbelievably Kanye west is articulating it beautifully my maga hat goes off to him i tip i tip him my maga hat before we go i got to talk about pete buddage right now in iowa the democratic race is being thrown completely on its head Joe Biden was supposed to be the leader of the primary. That has been going away for a while now. And Elizabeth Warren has been surging. But Elizabeth Warren isn't the one who's up in Iowa. Pete Buttigieg is now leading by nine points in Iowa. I knew something was going on when I got a text on my phone from 303.3.30. Here it is. That's my personal line to Joe Biden. And he texted.

I mean, obviously this was from his campaign, but the campaign texted. It's Joe Biden's campaign manager Greg. Yesterday we got a new poll in Iowa, and honestly, it's not what we want to see. Right now, we're tied for third in Iowa. Losing Iowa doesn't mean we can't win, but it makes winning the primary harder and more expensive. It's not the sort of thing you want to be sending out, especially this far in advance. That's the sort of thing you send out two weeks before the caucus to get your guys rallied up. if you're sending out that kind of message this early, you are having some serious trouble.

So what happened? What allowed Buttigieg to surge? Buttigieg initially was doing pretty well running as this kind of moderate, nice, amiable guy. Then he decided to run to the left and become Pastor Pete and tell Christians that they're not really Christians and say that if you're a real Christian, actually, you support abortion. And just if you're a real Christian, actually, you support all the opposite of Christianity. and it was just so annoying and gaslighting that he really started to lose traction. His debate was, do I go for the Biden wing or do I go for the Bernie wing? When he saw that Biden started to collapse, as his campaign manager just admitted,

then he swung back and went for the Biden wing, and that has been working. Since just September, Buttigieg has risen 16 percentage point among Iowa's likely Democratic caucus. caucus goers, 25% now say that he is their first choice for president. He beats Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren, who are now all clustered around second place. I mean, they're almost 10 points behind Buttigieg. Now, in that last poll in September, Warren was up. She was at the top. She was at 22%. Now Liz Warren is down to 16%. Great news for Pete Buttigieg. It's actually backing up what Jeff Van Drew and Barack Obama, two Democrats, have been saying about this impeachment.

The American people do not want to rip down their system of government. The American people do not want entrenched interests to overturn presidential elections. The American people are not paying attention to this impeachment, and they don't want this kind of radicalism. The Democrats know that. They're trying to impeach Trump because they believe that if they don't impeach him, they won't, that the American people will reelect him. That's what Representative Al Green said in 2017. So they're trying to do it even right before an election year. And I think the American people can see through this. I think that's reflected in the polls. I think even the Democratic Party can see through this. And you're getting a surge from Buttigieg. Now, the problem for Buttigieg is Iowa is great and it'll give him a lot of momentum going into the primary. But he has virtually no black support. And he's got some serious racial problems.

in his hometown, where he's mayor, South Bend, Indiana. There were some police brutality allegations. And now he's actually got a new scandal involving racial politics, which is that Buttigieg has been falsely claiming to have endorsements from African-American leaders, to use the popular phrase, that just weren't true. A lot of those people actually were white. He then used a stock photo from Africa to depict African-Americans. That's a little bit of a faux-pa. And he's he's just not gaining traction among black voters, and that's going to especially matter in South Carolina. That is Joe Biden's firewall right now. Biden is still doing very well in South Carolina. South Carolina is a much blacker state than Iowa, that's for sure. So you can't win the nomination

for the Democratic Party without black voters, and if you're a Democrat, you can't win the general without black voters. If Pete Buttigieg can figure out a way to get black voters to come over to his campaign, he will very likely be the strongest candidate in the race. Before we go, I have to just read out an amazing tweet from President Trump. This was really terrific. You might have seen the headline over the weekend that Kim Jong-un of North Korea went for the jugular against Joe Biden. Kim Jong-un said that Biden had, quote, the temerity to dare slander the dignity of the Supreme Leadership of the DPRK. That's the official name of North Korea. It is the last-ditch efforts of the rabid dog expediting his death. It's about Joe Biden. Rabid dogs like Biden can hurt lots of people

if they are allowed to run out of control. They must be beaten to death with a stick before it is too late. That is not the onion or the Babylon B. That is the actual press release from North Korea. And this comes after in May, Kim Jong-un referred to Joe Biden as the, quote, fool of low IQ and a, quote, imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being. Show me the lie. Show me the lie. No, that's not fair. And even President Trump, who is always accused of siding with dictators over his domestic political adversaries, actually came out and defended Joe Biden in what I felt was a beautiful way. He tweeted out, quote, Mr. Chairman, Joe Biden may be sleepy and very slow, but he is not a rabid dog. He is actually somewhat

better than that. But I am the only one who can get you where you have to be. You should act quickly, get the deal done. See you soon. This is the perfect rebuke to Kim Jong-un. He's not really vociferously defending Joe Biden. That would be disingenuous and uncalled for. But he's also not letting this foreign dictator just absolutely annihilate the former vice president of the United States with his rhetoric. He's hitting this middle ground. And he's doing what he does best. which is tell a little joke about it, defend America, and try to advance his agenda. That ultimately is much, much more appealing than a coup d'etat by federal bureaucrats conspiring with Democrats and leftist donors to overturn a presidential election because Trump

is hurting the feelings of career bureaucrats. That is not going to play in Peoria. That's not going to play with the American people. And you're seeing that reflected in the polls. You're seeing the smart guys in the Democrats pushing. the brakes, but I don't think they can stop now. They are so far gone. Ultimately, though, the conservative consolation is that reality reasserts itself in the end. We are seeing that competition between the imaginary fantasy world of the bureaucrats and the reality of the American

electorate. Well, that election is coming up fast, and the American people are going to get their say once again. That's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show. Come on out to the University of Kentucky tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun. And otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow. If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro Show, the Andrew Claven Show, and the Matt Walsh Show. The Michael Noles show is produced by Rebecca Dobby.

and directed by Mike Joyner. Executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover. And our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Assistant Director Pavel Weidowski, edited by Danny Domeco. Audio is mixed by Mike Coramina. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera, and our production assistant is Nick Sheehan. The Michael Knoll Show is a Daily Wire production.

Copyright Daily Wire 2019. On the Matt Wall show, we're not just discussing politics. We're talking culture, faith, family, all of the things that are really important to you. So come join the conversation.