The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 801 - Donald Trump v. Hipster Rasputin

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

Trump sues the oligarchs in Silicon Valley, a SF Gay Men’s Chorus is coming for your children and BLM attacks the American flag. My new book ’Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds,’ is now available wherever books are sold. Grab your copy today here: https://utm.io/udtMJ  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Six months ago, a handful of billionaire oligarchs in Silicon Valley decided to censor and ostracize the duly elected sitting president of the United States. Now, President Trump is fighting back by suing Big Tech to reinstate his social media accounts. I just want to say that I stand before you this morning to announce a very important and very beautiful, I think, development for our freedom and our freedom. freedom of speech, and that goes to all Americans. Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I'm filing as the lead class representative,

a major class action lawsuit against the big tech giants, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as well as their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pucci, and Jack Dorche, and Jack Dorsh. three real nice guys. Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful, it's unconstitutional, and it's completely un-American. We all know that. We know all know that very, very well. The Squishes hate this lawsuit. I love this lawsuit, and it's got a lot more merit than people are giving President Trump credit for. While you're right to question the political process,

Your right, even to point out the difference between men and women, comes under attack from the big tech sensors. All sorts of radical leftist speech is flourishing. A famous gay chorus is singing about its plans to convert your kids. Their words, not mine. The nation's largest teachers union doubles down on the right to pedal critical race theory in schools. And BLM attacks the American flag. I'm Michael Knowles. It's the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show.

My favorite comment yesterday from Jenna Janicki, who says, Joe Biden should announce his preferred pronouns are they and them, since they is our president. This is a good point. When Biden is there and he says, well, they told me to say, they told me I'm not, I guess they is his pronoun because they, they is governing us. Really, it's enough to give you a real headache, enough to give you a real guy. It's sort of like a hangover, I feel. And when I want to get rid of something like that, I turned to like what I be. I hosted a bachelor party a couple of weeks ago. You know, as one does at the Bachelor Party, we indulged in some adult beverages, okay? Just a handful or a couple dozen handfuls or many adult beverages.

And we took one delicious pouch of, oh, that wonderful, wonderful powder. And we felt much better the next day. Liquid IV, baby, that's what I'm talking about. Liquid IV, hydrates faster and more efficiently than water alone. I do not think I would have survived this bachelor party without this great stuff. More vitamin C than an orange, as much potassium as a banana, healthier than sugary sports drinks, no artificial flavors or preservatives, and less sugar than an apple. It's also really good if you're working out and you know, you just want to, you just want to kind of hydrate yourself.

But especially if you're a derelict like my pals. Liquid IV, great way to hydrate. Grab your liquid IV in bulk nationwide at Costco, or you can get 25% off when you go to Liquidive.com and use code Michael at checkout. about 25% off anything you order when you get better hydration today using promo code, Michael at Liquidiv.com. Trump is suing the big tech billionaires for censoring him. The question that a lot of people are asking is, is this really a free speech issue?

Well, there are really two questions here. Is it a First Amendment issue and is it a free speech issue? Because it's not, it's the same broad topic, but they're actually different questions. So there are lawyers who are rather expert in this field. I'm thinking of Alan Dershowitz, former professor emeritus at Harvard Law School. I'm thinking of Eugene Volok, a really, really prominent lawyer and commentator who say, you know, maybe this lawsuit does have some merit on First Amendment grounds. Maybe. It's a big maybe. They'll have to prove it in court. Is this a free speech issue? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the days of build your own Twitter

Google's a private company. They can do whatever they want, build your own Facebook or whatever. That's over. First of all, they won't let us build our own Twitter. We tried to do that several times and they just won't let us do it. Second of all, if you control the speech of a Democratic Republic, if you and let's say two of your buddies in Silicon Valley control, who are the guys? We've got hipster Rasputin, you've got Jack Dorsey, you've got Mark Zuckerberg, and then you've got in President Trump's words, Sundar Pucci. It's Sundar Pichai. And I love that President Trump did not even take the time to learn his name. He's the head of Google. But if you and your two buddies control the flow of information around the internet, if you control 90% of speech in the digital realm, which is the

public square now, you are by definition engaging in a political act. Because in a Democratic Republic speech is politics and politics of speech. This is the thing. This is the thing. theme of my book, Speechless, which is available now, as many of you have heard. So you are, even if you don't work for the government, you don't, frankly, Google and Facebook, and probably Twitter, for that matter, have a cozier relationship with the government than I think many people are aware of. But even if they did not, even if they just pretended to be totally private companies, if you are controlling the speech around a republic, you are engaged in a political act. and the people have a right to have a say in that political process.

Like Mitch McConnell said, as establishmentarian man as Mitch McConnell, he said, a woke corporation can act like a parallel government. And in this case, those woke corporations in Silicon Valley are even less accountable to the people than the jokesters in Washington, D.C. So this absolutely is a free speech issue. This, I think, is the defining issue of our time. I think it's more important than immigration. I think it's more important than tax cuts.

I think it's more important than whatever's going on in Iran and Syria. This is the issue that will determine who rules us and how we are ruled. So thankfully, even beyond this lawsuit, the House Republicans are doing something good on this front. They rarely do, but they're actually doing something that we hope will be productive. Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and McMorris, coming out with a plan to rein in big, tech. When I sat down with then-attorney general William Barr back, when was that about a year ago, I guess, Bill Barr said there are three ways to attack big tech. You go after their Section 230 protections, their legal liability protections in the Communications Decency Act, which is a law

from the 1990s. You go, and it was created actually because the internet was exploding at that time, and it just hasn't really been updated. So you got to update that. You can go after the money. You can go after them on antitrust. Obviously, we just haven't had companies like this before. We took down standard oil when it became monopolistic, but we just haven't had a company that controls speech like this before. Okay. And third, fraud. And this is an aspect that a lot of people haven't talked about, though Barr did bring it up. He said, these companies built their critical mass on a fraudulent premise that you could follow the people that you wanted to follow and you could hear from the people you wanted to hear from that you would be able to exchange information. And then with

shadow banning, with all of the capricious activities at these companies, that went out the window. So those are three good ways to go after them. House Republicans begin by going after Section 230. This would limit the liability protections for the moderation of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment. It would preclude big tech from discriminating against Americans based on their political views, namely from discriminating against conservatives. And it would require reauthorization of Section 230 so that Congress can update the regs. This is really good stuff and probably should have been baked into the cake from the beginning. So let's hope that goes through. Mandates that any big tech content moderation decisions or censorship must be listed

with specificity on a publicly available website. One of the issues with these companies, probably the biggest issue, is not even that they have rules. Don't forget, I'm a fan of standards. I'm a defender of standards. I'm a defender of cancel culture, in principle, not the way it's applied, but in principle. Of course, every culture has standards and taboos. But the issue with big tech is, no one knows what the rules are. We've been joking about how the New York Times keeps snubbing me from its bestseller list because the New York Times bestseller list is not a bestseller list. It does, it does not reflect the books that are selling best in the country. It's a totally opaque process. Well, who cares about the New York Times

list? I do care about the public square. I do care about Facebook and Google and Twitter who are controlling our political discourse in many ways. We need to know what those rules are. This would also, this bill would provide an expedited court process with direct appeal to the Supreme Court that would empower state attorneys general to go in after Big Tech and rein in their power. And it would require Big Tech to implement and maintain a reasonable user-friendly appeals process. These are all good changes. I should hope that the Democrats would get behind this. Very likely they won't because don't forget, it's not, the political battle in this country is not the Republicans versus the Democrats. It's the conservatives versus the squishy Republicans, the Democrats, the bureaucrats, big tech, the media, Hollywood, the universe is the lower education, the everything.

So it's extremely lopsided. And the elected Democrats are on the same side as big tech here. And frankly, some of the Republicans are, too. So it's very dubious, I suppose, that this will go through. But we should keep up the pressure. I think this issue more than any is going to be the issue that defines the country moving forward. When you want to protect yourself, I would strongly recommend ring. There are a thousand reasons that protecting your home should matter to you. For me, all thousand reasons, my cute little newborn baby.

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Ring.com slash knolls. Ring.com slash knolls. So we got good news in terms of reining in the power of big tech. We got President Trump's lawsuit. We got good news. We got the House Republicans bill that hopefully goes through. We've got even more good news. This is so rare to get good news in politics and especially rare on the big tech side. But the sister website to Porn Hub is closing up shop. We've talked for a long time and you hear it in the mailbag every week.

Young men, not usually women, some women I guess have, but mostly young men writing into this show who are 18, 19 years old who say porn has, has, ruin their lives. Some men even are older than then. They'll say porn has ruined their lives. They got hooked on it when they were nine or ten years old. They can't break it. It's messed up their view of the world. It's messed up their view of themselves. It's cultivated bad habits. And yet we're told by the squishes. You can't ban porn. You can't regulate porn. No, it's a free speech issue, isn't it? No. The idea that high-speed internet porn is a sacred American institution protected by the First Amendment would cause James Madison and John Adams and all the rest of them to roll over in their graves. But in recent years, people have come to think this very silly idea.

I think the tide is turning on that. I think the conservatives of, I don't know, say the 80s and 90s, who are even probably the 90s and 2000s who believe that porn is American as apple pie or something, I think that view is really being marginalized. And I think that serious, conservatives of an older generation and especially of the younger Gen Z generation, I think they're beginning to realize, no, this is bad stuff. It's like a drug. There's no protection for obscenity. Just get rid of it. It's just poison in the culture. Well, good news is one of these websites is closing up shop. X-tube, which I guess is owned by the same company as Pornhub, or it's a sister site. They are going to close. The parent company, by the way, is called Mind Geek.

and I think part of the reason they're going to have to start to batten down some of their properties is because they're now getting increasing scrutiny over sex trafficking, over video of rape on the platforms. So X-2, it only began in 2008, so I guess it's relatively not that old, but they will be disabling video and photo uploads this week, and then by September 5th, the site will be shuttered. This is good stuff. This is good stuff.

It would be a win for the American free space. speech tradition if all these sites went away. It would. And the people who are calling for this among the younger generation, it's not the prudes, it's not the scolds, the Bible thumpers. No, it's people who are aware of how evil this kind of thing is. They're aware. What is the good that comes out of that? What about Pornhub or any of these other websites really permits society to flourish. Nothing. Nothing at all. Get rid of it. We can we can know things, folks. We can know that some things are really, but we can have some settled consensus, actually. And one of the, when we can team up with the radical feminists, the traditionalists, the religious right,

the, even the public, some people who are concerned with public health, I guess, public health is divided on this. Some people really want you to look at porn all the time, like the public health agencies told you during the coronavirus lockdowns. But others realize this actually does, this does bad things to your brain, it does bad things to your body. When we can form a coalition like that and say, get rid of this thing, let's do it. Let's take that opportunity. Speaking of creepy sex stuff, though, turning to San Francisco, the San Francisco gay men's chorus has a message for all you Bible thumping, arch conservative, slippery slope, hysterical alarmists. They are, in fact, coming for your kids.

Say we all lead lives you can't respect, but you're just frightened. You think that we'll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. It's funny, just this once, you're correct. We'll convert your children. Happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly, and you will barely notice it. Just like you worried, they'll change their group of, of friends, you won't approve of where they go at night

to protest Oh and you'll be disgusted When they start finding things online that you've kept far from their sight We'll convert your children Yes we will Reaching one and off

There's really no escaping it Because even grandma likes Rupal And the world's getting kinder Gen Z's gayer than Grindr We're coming for them We're coming for your chair The agenda is coming

The KIA I think the creepiest thing about this video Is how talented these guys are So it actually kind of sounds You're kind of bopping along to it And you think, wait a second And you're going And this video, I believe, has since been taken down

Because it's elicited at a little bit of negative press as one might imagine. But the pushback against the pushback is, oh, come on, guys. Oh, you religious nuts. They're just joking. They're just, come on, it's just a joke. It's like, well, is it?

I'm sure that this is in part tongue and cheek. You're making fun of the fears over the gay agenda or whatever. But what about this is a joke? We're going to subtly re-defeiting. find the standards of the culture done. We're going to expose children to unusual sex stuff, especially through the internet. True. That's obviously happening. We're going to encourage them to go out to various protests for these kind of radical causes. True. That is happening. Right. So it's as often as the case in jokes, there is quite a lot of truth here.

And then the question becomes a political question. For the real political activist radical wing of the homosexual rights movement, I think there is a widespread belief that you should not be able to view any kind of wild sex act with moral opprobrium, with traditional moral opprobrium, whether that be of Jewish sexual ethics, Muslim sexual ethics, Protestant sexual ethics, Catholic sexual ethics, even the old-timey pagan sexual ethics. No, there's actually, there is this new sexual ideology that pertains to the kind of behaviors you can engage in, your gender identity, whatever you want to call it. And that is the only one that's acceptable.

And if you don't go along with that, you are on the outskirts of society. You should not be tolerated. This reminds me of there was a piece in The New York Post some months ago about from a public school teacher in Brooklyn, who said that it is now part of a curriculum in a public preschool in Brooklyn that you can choose your own gender. And no one has the right to tell you what gender you are. That is a very rigid sexual morality that your kids are being indoctrinated into. The most arch-traditionalist Catholic school in the world does not have the kind of rigidity and make the kind of radical claims that that public school is in Brooklyn or that the gay men's chorus in San Francisco is

doing. A joke, but what's, what is the joke? I think the joke is probably the truth. By the way, also, just as a rule to any other choirs out there, to any other people making musical videos, pride month is over. I'm not, that doesn't mean that you can't express your sexual views or desires or whatever, but enough of the damn musicals, okay? We've had it. We get one month a year, you can make the musical videos and they go all around and they often sound sort of pretty. That's it. Okay, no more. I'll see you again next June 1st. Speaking of the craziness that is being taught to your children, the American Federation of Teachers President Randy Weingarten just held a conference, the AFT conference, and she insisted,

She insisted that critical race theory is not being taught in schools. Critical race theory is not taught in elementary schools or middle schools or high schools. It's a method of examination taught in law school and in college that helps analyze whether systemic racism exists. and in particular whether it has an effect on law and public policy. But cultural warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism, or discrimination, SCRT to try to make it toxic. They are bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students' accurate history. what she just said is not true. Very little of what she said is true. Let me rephrase that. Nothing she said is true and there are multiple lies that she told. She says that CRT is an analytical

framework to discover whether or not systemic racism affects society. That's not true. Critical race theory assumes, presumes that structural racism pervade society. That is the lens through which it views society and then it tries to change society accordingly. It did begin in law school. That's a little kernel of truth there. But it has now spread out throughout not just the high schools and the middle schools and elementary schools, but through the military, through the media, through corporate America. If in your school you are taught that whiteness is a problem that pervades society and that America is structurally unjust because of whiteness, your child is being taught through the lens of critical race theory.

That's just a fact, and no lying teacher union president or anybody else can change that fact. Do not, they keep going back and forth. They defend critical race theory. They deny that critical race theory exists. They defend critical race theory. They deny that critical race theory exists outside of law schools. They go back and forth. Don't let them do it.

If your kid is being taught of the evils of whiteness, your kid is being taught through the lens of critical race theory. You know, Ben is going to be talking about the shocking allegation and apparent evidence that Tucker Carlson was spied upon by the NSA. I was on Tucker's show last night. I'll get into a little bit too, but go check out Ben's show today. Also, fellas, really, really pleased to announce, speechless, number one nonfiction bestseller in the whole country last week. I was really, really pleased. by that, especially because it was the week going into the 4th of July weekend. So I really, something really American. Thank you to everybody who has bought the book. We've since then sold an unprecedented number of books. The book is available. Everywhere, books are sold, including Amazon in hardcover and Kindle edition and audiobook edition. So you can go get that. I think you may still be able to order a signed first edition over at Premier Collectibles, though I'm not positive,

but I really, really appreciate everyone who has read the book, who has left a review, let me know what you think of it. It's really, really terrific and I love that the libs who are putting together their own quote-unquote bestseller lists have to, even if they can lie about which books sold the most coffees. I really like that. We all know the numbers. We all saw the publisher weekly list and thank you to everyone who's done that. It means no matter how hard that liberal establishment tries to suppress certain messages. Still getting out. Gives me some hope for the country. We'll be right back with a lot more. supremacy is pervading the country and it's the white racist supremacist. Is that the big problem?

Not so sure. Heat crimes are way up in New York City right now. They've risen by a reported 139% in 2021. This is according to New York City Police Department data. And so this means that it's got to be those racist whites, right? It's got to be those, it's MAGA country, right? Those racist Trump-supporting neo-Nazis attacking black people and others, right? Well, the cops say that they've investigated 320 reports of possible bias attacks through June 27th. This is up from 134 incidents during the same period in 2020. Offenses against Asians are up 400 percent, generally not committed by white people. Now it's at 105 reported cases compared to 21 last year. Anti-Jewish assaults are up 69% reaching 113 incidents this year from 67% in 2020 again.

Not typically committed by white supremacists. And then attacks on black people are up. The NYPD is reporting 28 attacks on black people this year compared to last year's 15, so a little less than double. However, there are also 11 hate crimes against white people, which is up from four people in 2020. Also up on Muslims, Hispanics, and everyone else. I want to point out here,

the increase in the number of hate crimes, just as a percentage of what was going on last year, is significantly higher against white people than against black people. I know that you hear a lot about how white supremacy is the greatest threat to the country, and even Merrick Garland, the attorney general said, It's the greatest terror threat our nation faces. The data do not bear that out. And that might be a comforting lie for liberals, but it's just not true.

The data do not bear that. This is just one example. We're looking at hate crimes in New York City. It just is not true. I think people are really concerned about this stuff. I think people are really concerned with crime spiking everywhere. I mean, I heard a story of guy mine in his own business. on a bus in Chicago caught a stray bullet in the head and died, just because bullets were flying

in Chicago because they can't tamp down the crime there because we've got to defund and abolish the police, because we've got to let more criminals out of prison, according to the left and according to the squishes on the right. I think people are really concerned with the surge in crime. I think people are really concerned with their little four-year-olds being taught to hate themselves on the basis of their race and on the basis of their sex and actually that they should become another sex. I think parents are really concerned about that across races, across demographic groups. And yet, I think I know people are concerned about censorship by the woke oligarchs, because if you say anything to question, for instance, election integrity measures in the 2020

election, if you question the efficacy of the vaccines, if you question the threat of COVID to various groups, you could be kicked off of social media. No people are concerned about free speech. And yet, and yet, what does the GOP believe we need to focus on what's going to be the winning message in 2022? Well, according to the House GOP conference chair, Elise Stefano, more tax cuts. Republicans are going to focus on economic growth and focus on how we are the party of tax cuts and not tax hikes. As you pointed out, President Biden has proposed trillions and trillions of dollars of new taxes, whether it's increasing the rate of the deaths, taxed through the step-up, or whether it's getting rid of our tax sovereignty and farming it out to Europeans, which puts American workers and American

companies at a disadvantage. It's particularly troubling, Larry, because we're coming out of a pandemic, and we still have over 9 million Americans who are unemployed. We need to focus on job creation, not policies such as higher taxes, which will lead to job losses. And I think the polling is quite interesting. This resonates not just with Republicans, but with Democrats and independence as well. I know in my district, at this time, particularly as Americans are facing inflation, the highest rate since 2008. The last thing they want is higher taxes. That, yeah, that'll get them. That's going to rouse people. That's going to, that's going to rouse people. Another tax cut. Wow. I expressed some concerns about Elise Stefanik. She replaced Liz Cheney as the, you know, a third in command

among Republican leadership in the House. Not a terribly prominent position, but it's still in leadership, House Conference Chair. I expressed concerns because she actually had a much more liberal voting record than Liz Cheney did. And I thought Liz Cheney certainly should be out of position because she just took every opportunity to attack Republicans and to attack Trump and his supporters. So I knew she had to be at it. But I said, wait, why are we replacing Liz Cheney with a woman who's more liberal than she is. And I think this shows the problem. I don't think anybody gives a damn about some slight tax increase. I don't. Look, you know I love low taxes as much as the next guy. I truly do. I hate paying more money in taxes. I want to substantially reduce taxes.

A political movement is about more than trimming away taxes. By the way, the tax code is so complex. It like doesn't even matter that much. It doesn't because there's so. so many loopholes. There are so many questions. No one has any idea what they actually owe to the federal government and taxes. Don Rumsfeld famously sent a letter to the IRS when he turned in his taxes. He said, Dear IRS, I just want you to know, I have no idea whether or not my tax returns are correct. I'm a fairly intelligent guy with a college degree and I've got very powerful, expensive accountants. And none of us have any idea because the tax code is so complex. If the right makes arguments from

trimming away at the edges and making the liberal establishment a little more efficient and that let's spend a little bit less and we'll tax a little bit less they are not offering voters an alternative to the liberal establishment. They're not. They're just, they're saying that they're going to be more efficient liberals.

They're going to be more efficient managers or something. The only issue, as far as I can tell, that we've made any progress on whatsoever on the right in the last 50 years is abortion, because we've at least held the line. And you'll notice that is maybe the one, and guns, a little bit too, actually. Those are the one or two issues where we're not making efficiency argument. We're not making utilitarian arguments. We're not making managerial, technocratic, egghead spreadsheet arguments. We're making arguments from justice. This is right, this is wrong. This is the way reality is, this is why we're not going to tolerate the destruction of babies in the womb.

or the curtailment of our clear Second Amendment constitutional rights. Those are the issues we win on because people want justice arguments. We are not primarily motivated by keeping a few extra pennies in our pocket. Why the GOP can't understand that is beyond me. It's not beyond me. It's because the GOP lacks a substantive moral vision. It's because the GOP also lacks courage to stand by its convictions. The few convictions it actually does have.

Democrats are talking about a lot more than just raising taxes. Democrats have an actual ambitious, substantive vision for the country. That includes, by the way, going door to door, knocking on your door and trying to get you jabbed with the experimental drug that is, what am I allowed to, I don't know what am I allowed to say on here anymore? Am I allowed to point out that the vast majority of people in this country do not face a particularly grave statistical risk from COVID. Am I allowed to say that? I hope I am. I don't know. Sometimes I get pushback. I'm not allowed to say these things.

It's obviously true. The CDC admits it's true. All the data admit it's true. Nevertheless, Joe Biden is going to go door to door. Not personally. Joe Biden can't even walk outside his own door, but Joe Biden's thugs are going to go door to door and try to get you and your kids jabbed with this thing. It's not just Jen Saki saying this. It's Joe Biden himself. In today's briefing, we discussed how our administration is going to devote the remainder of the summer to a special focus on five ways to make gains in getting those of you who are unvaccinated, vaccinated. Because here's the deal. We are continuing to wind down the mass vaccination sites that did so much in the spring to rapidly vaccinate those eager to get their first shot and their second shot, for that matter, if they needed a second. Now we need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood,

and off times door to door, literally knocking on doors, to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus. The virus that's so dangerous that a lot of people don't want the vaccine, the vaccine, which is so great that you've got to go door to door to get people to take it, right? That's what you've got to do. Not a really compelling argument. I think there are plenty of people who are probably on the fence about the vaccine. Well, I don't really need it, but maybe I'll get it.

I don't know. I'm kind of on this age. maybe I'll do it. When they hear that government thugs are going to go door to door, I think that's going to make them less likely to get it. And at least some Democrats, by the way, are beginning to realize, huh, maybe we're going a little bit too far. One of the big hobby horses of the Democrats recently has been voter ID. They make this argument that if you have voter ID laws, if you have to prove that you are who you say you are in order to cast a vote, that this is somehow racist, because, you know, black people, they're completely unable to get an ID. They just, how could you expect black people to know how to get an identification card? That's so outright. They can't do that. They're not capable of that, say the Democrats.

So James Clyburn, Democrat congressman, majority whip for the Democrats, he is now trying to shift this because it turns out the majority of American support voter ID. including, according to some surveys, the majority of black people, no matter how much propaganda shoved down their throats. So Jim Clyburn comes out and he says, hey, by the way, I always supported voter ID. We are always for voter ID. We are never for this proportionate voter ID. When you tell me that you've got to have a photo ID and a photo for a student activity card is not good, but for 100 and a hundred and a hundred and a lot of, it is good, that's where the rough is.

I don't know of a single person who is against ID in themselves when they go to vote. But we don't want you to tell me my ID is no good because I don't want a gun and I don't go hunting. Now, this sounds like a stupid argument, but there is actually a sort of cleverness to it. He's saying, no, I support ID. I just don't think you need to show a picture. No, what if I, you know, I show up, let's say, I've got this piece of paper and then I draw a little guy with some hair and a little Italian nose and a smile and says, Michael, here you go, here's my ID. Here's my ID. No, there's no photo on it and it's not standardized in any way and I have no idea if it's an official document or not. But that's one all. We all support that. We all support IDs that you can very easily fake. We just don't support IDs that are trustworthy. that you can rely upon.

And his other argument is, well, you don't, according to some of these states, you'll need to show a more official form of ID to vote than you would to buy a gun. Right, because voting is a more significant act for our electoral system than buying a gun, right? Because buying a gun is your constitutional rights laid out right there in the Second Amendment, whereas voting has always been, throughout American history, significantly, has always involved significantly more regulations. It's a system that is established by the states. There are lots of rules that go along with it.

And you should have to prove you are who you said. So James Clyburn is admitting that the principle is fair enough. He's actually granting the premise to the conservatives. Yeah, sure, you should be able to prove who you are. But then in practice, he's totally undercutting. He's saying, but you shouldn't have to actually prove who you are. It's an interesting argument. I wonder if more Democrats are going to pick up on this thing.

Because it's the same kind of gaslighting. When Republicans point out that Democrats are trying to pack the Supreme Court, Democrats just redefine the term, right? They say, no, because you've, you appointed judges to vacancies, so you're packing the court. So that's not what court packing means. Core packing means adding new seats to a court. Well, no, but what if it means this other thing?

Hey, yeah, no, we support voter ID. you're the ones who you want disproportionate voter ID. What? You don't support voter ID if you don't actually think you need an official document with a picture to prove who you say you are. It's a curious, by the way, James Clyburn, just to show you how disingenuous this is. He has previously said South Carolina's voter ID laws are reminiscent of post-reconstruction Jim Crow laws recently called George's election safeguards, quote, the new Jim Crow.

He called voter ID laws in 2020 form of voter suppression. So it's completely disingenuous. I think he's looking at the polling and saying, ooh, this isn't going to really play very well in Peoria. And speaking of ID, speaking of proving you are who you say you are and people knowing who you are, you know, Tucker Carlson made this claim on his show a week or two ago. He said the NSA is spying on me.

They have obtained my emails, and they are going to leak them in an attempt to take down. on this show. And the left made fun of him and said it wasn't true. And the squish Republicans said, no, this isn't true. Spoiler alert, the NSA is not spying on Tucker Carlson. Then the NSA came out and issued a fake denial. And the left and the squishes all said, oh, see, this is proof that the NSA didn't do that. And I said, remember, I read it on this show. I said, read the words of this quote unquote denial. They didn't deny anything. They didn't. They just very cleverly arranged their words to give the impression that they

were denying spying on Tucker. But they never actually did it, which by the way, way is in itself very good evidence that the NSA was spying on Tucker. Well, Tucker has got the receipts. He's got the actual proof now. Tucker Carlson comes with proof last night to his show that the NSA was in fact spying on him. Take a listen. They don't actually have anything on me, but they do have my email. So I knew they were spying on me. And again, to be totally blunt with you, as a defensive move, I thought, I better say this out loud because, I have no other way to defend myself. I'm just an American citizen.

I don't have, you know, any position of official authority, but I do have a megaphone, so I should say this out loud. And I did. And the NSA didn't deny it. Then yesterday, I learned that, and this is going to come out soon, that the NSA leaked the contents of my email to journalists in an effort to discredit me. I know because I got a call from one of them saying,

oh, this is what your email was about. So it is not in any way a figure. of my imagination. It's confirmed. It's true. They're not allowed to spy on American citizens. They are. I think more ominously, they're using the information they gather to put leverage and to threaten opposition journalists, people who criticize the Biden administration. So he makes this point. Tucker actually first teased this on Maria Bardo's show on Fox Business. Coincidentally, I happened to be on Tucker Carlson's show last night. We were talking about big tech. We were talking about the manipulation of speech in America. And this is the flip side to that,

which is the NSA goes in. They're spying on all of us, but usually we are masked. At least that's in theory, usually in theory, they can't tell whose information is whose. Then in the case of Tucker Carlson gets unmasked. And the proof is, Axios gets a scoop. Tucker Carlson sought Putin interview at time of spying claim. Tucker Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host accused the National Security Agency of spying on him. Sources familiar with the conversations tell Axios. Who are the sources? The source, the Kremlin? I don't think so. I think the source is the same

people who were spying on Tucker Carlson. There's no question about it. The squishes and the left won't admit that they were wrong. They don't care because they're shilling for the liberal establishment of which the NSA, no such agency, is a part. The reality of our government is jarring to some people because we are taught in civic, well, now we don't have civics classes, but when we did have civics classes, you're taught that the government works with the three branches of government, the checks and balances and the separation of powers, and I am a bill, up on Capitol Hill, and I'm, you know, no, that's not how it really works. The NSA doesn't fit into that scheme, does it?

You're not really taught about the NSA. You're not talking about mass surveillance on Americans in the fourth and fifth grade. You're taught about creepy sex and how boys are actually girls, but you're not taught about all the rest of that stuff. This is pretty jarring. And now that I, since I went on Tucker's show last night, does that mean they're spying on me now? Yeah, I hope not.

Don't send me any weird emails, guys. that would be a really, really bad idea. Seems like we need to rein that in, not just the private companies on the big tech side. We have to do that too, but also, also the government. John McAfee, another tech pioneer, just got suicided in a jail in Spain. Remember, allegedly killed himself, even though he had said for weeks,

and months and months, he said, I'm not going to kill myself. People are trying to kill me. if I turn up suicided, don't believe them, people are trying to murder me. And then he shows up suicided. So John McAfee's wife says, the story of John's suicide was already prepared and presented to the public before I or his attorneys were even notified of his death. Words cannot describe how enraged I am at the fact that I had to hear the news of John's death via a direct message on Twitter, so she wasn't even told. Now it's being conveniently reported. There was a suicide note found in his pocket,

something that was not mentioned when I collected John's belongings from the prison and another piece information the media somehow got a hold of before myself and John's attorneys. The investigation ended John's death is still ongoing, but I will share what information I can, when I can. Until then, I do not accept the suicide story that's been spread by the malignant cancer that is the mainstream media. They and their unnamed sources are not to be trusted. Of course that's true. Of course, of course they're not to be trusted. Just shows you, I mean, the fact that none of us really believes that John McAfee killed himself, the fact that none of us believes that Jeff Ray Epstein killed himself, that is some crazy stuff when you

when it reveals to you how political power actually works in our country and throughout the West. Speaking of potentially being hunted down by agents of the state, Spike Lee, a filmmaker, particularly of the black power variety, Spike Lee wearing a 1619 hat, just lamented at a recent conference, black people are being hunted down by the police. Since you brought up, do the right thing. A couple weeks ago was the 32nd anniversary of the film. That film came out in 1989. I wrote it in 1988.

When you see Brother Eric Gardner, when you see King George Floyd murdered, lynched, I think of Ray Rahim. And you would think and hope that 30, some motherfucking years later, the black people stopped being hunted down like the animals. Black people are not hunted down like animals.

None of the data show that whatsoever. It's not even close. The idea that black people are being hunted down by police is an absolute farce. It just doesn't happen. The idea that George Floyd is a king is also suspect. We're just living in this bizarre narrative

that is so disconnected from reality. Spike Lee might genuinely believe these things. He's wrong. He's hallucinating. He's imagining these things. But that is the power of speech in a republic. You know, BLM, BLM of Utah, didn't know there was a BLM of Utah. Utah, not the blackest state in America, but okay, there's a BLM of Utah, just came out and said that the American flag is a symbol of hatred. You know, I hate to say I told you so, but I said this. This is the power of speech the power of standards. We now have a new national, it's the black national anthem. We now have a new national independence day. It's called Juneteenth. It's right there in the title of the bill.

We now have a new origin story of our country. It's not 1776 or 1620 at 1619. We now have a new sense of ourselves. It's not a good country. It's an evil country. It's a racist country. We're going to have a new flag. We already do sort of have a new flag. Because the star spangled banner is a symbol of hatred. This is the power of speech. We've got to get a handle speech and on our narrative, or else we're going to have a completely different country if we don't already. I'm Michael Knowles. It's the Michael Knowles Show. See tomorrow. If you enjoyed this episode, 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 Walls Show. The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies, executive producer Jeremy Bore. Our technical director is Austin Stevens, supervising producers, Mathis Glover, and Robert Sterling, production manager, Pavel Vidovsky, editor and associate producer, Danny Domeco, audio mixer, Mike Coramina, hair and makeup by Nika Geneva, and production McKenna Waters. The Michael Knoll's show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2021. Today on the Ben Shapiro show, new allegations emerged that Tucker Carlson was caught up in a surveillance sweep and his emails leaked by the deep state that's today on the ben shepuro show give it a listen