Ep. 1630 - The Supreme Court Transgenderism Case EXPLAINED
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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a monumental case that might uphold the right of states to ban trans and kids. And the arguments were not only disastrous for the pro-trans side, they were also just generally hilarious. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. The Michael Knowles Show.

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The Associated Press, The Washington Post, pretty much everyone, including in the liberal media establishment, admit the Supreme Court is likely, based on oral arguments, to uphold the Tennessee law that bans transing kids.

Now, this Tennessee law came about in part because the Daily Wire, specifically our pal Matt Walsh, put up a Twitter thread, just a modest Twitter thread talking about something that people in Tennessee knew about, but a lot of other people didn't know about, namely that Vanderbilt Children's Hospital was transing kids. So that was it. One little tweet.

One little series of tweets. And then the state legislature got involved, and then the Attorney General, Jonathan Scrimetti of Tennessee, got involved. Then this case went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Oral arguments were heard yesterday. The

U.S. Solicitor General who was suing Scermetti, Scermetti, the Tennessee Attorney General, her name is Elizabeth Preligar. There were other lawyers in this case, one of them being a trans-identifying lawyer herself. She's a woman who thinks that her name, she thinks that she's a man, and her name is Chase Strangio. The

The first ever trans-identifying lawyer to argue a case before the Supreme Court has the last name Strangio. If you ever doubt Providence, if you ever doubt the existence and mirth of God, just listen to these things. So what were the big takeaways? I mean, these oral arguments went on for over two hours. I have the highlights, and there were some real highlights. I think that the federal government's case here was weak as could possibly be, and

Justice Alito begins with a little bit of a grilling.

Because the federal government argues these treatments, so-called, namely gelding little kids, are medically necessary treatments in order to prevent depression and anxiety and suicide among supposedly trans kids. And this is the medical consensus, and these backward hillbillies in Tennessee are trying to deny people necessary medical treatment. So Justice Alito had this question for the council.

Can I ask you a question about the state of medical evidence at the present time? In your petition, you made a sweeping statement, which I will quote, overwhelming evidence establishes that the appropriate gender-affirming treatment with puberty blockers and hormones directly and substantially improves pregnancy.

the physical psychological well-being of transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria. That was in November 2023. Now, even before then,

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare wrote the following. They currently assess, quote, that the risks of puberty blockers and gender-affirming treatment are likely to outweigh the expected benefits of these treatments, which is directly contrary to the sweeping statement in your petition. After the filing of your petition, of course, we saw the release of the CAS report,

in the United Kingdom, which found a complete lack of high-quality evidence showing that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh the risks. And so I wonder if

you would like to stand by the statement that you made in your petition, or if you think it would now be appropriate to modify that and withdraw the statement that there is overwhelming evidence establishing that these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh the risks and the dangers.

I, of course, acknowledge, Justice Alito, that there is a lot of debate happening here and abroad about the proper model of delivery of this care and exactly when adolescents should receive it and how to identify the adolescents for whom it would be helpful. But I stand by that there is a consensus that these treatments can be medically necessary for some adolescents. Well, hold on, hold on, hold on.

These treatments can be medically necessary. Even that is bogus. But you just changed your view, Solicitor General, from the overwhelming consensus of all the genius scientists, the medical community says that these are medically necessary treatments to, well, I don't know, maybe sometimes it's not horrible. That's your weakening of your position. Alito just totally destroys the scientific premise behind the case.

And he does it in this beautiful way. I just, I love Alito. The guy is absolutely rock solid and clever and funny in his own dry way. He says, you know, counsel, you begin by saying that the overwhelming evidence suggests that transing the kids is good. However, all of the best evidence says it's terrible.

Do you maybe want to withdraw the chief medical claim in your case? Well, I recognize that it's controversial, Justice Alito. No, no, hold on. Wait, did you not hear what the justice just said? It's actually not controversial. All of the best evidence that we have that has been gathered on this topic, all of the highest quality evidence we have on transiting the kids is that it doesn't help anybody. So it's really not all that controversial.

Everything we know about it is that transing the kids is bad.

So right off the top there, Alito just guts the government's case from a scientific perspective. Then the SG goes away and we get the trans-identifying lawyer who goes by the name Chase Strangio. I don't know what Ms. Strangio's real first name is, but she is a lawyer for the ACLU. And she gets up there to make history as the first trans-identifying lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. And here's what Chief Justice Roberts asks her.

Counsel, is there any significant respect in which your position departs from that of the Solicitor General? No, Your Honor. I love it. You can basically stop listening right there. You say, okay, why after the Solicitor General...

made the best case she could for a completely indefensible action, namely gelding little children in the name of a bunch of perverts, sick fantasies and ideologies. Right after the SG does her best, which was a total failure, now you've got the trans-identifying lawyer coming up to make history. And Chief Justice Roberts asks, hey, hey, lawyer, um,

Is there anything new that you have to add to these discussions? And the trans-identifying lawyer says, no, not really. I just want to talk at the Supreme Court. Like, okay, well, now, you know, it was good, I think, that this trans-identifying lawyer spoke at the Supreme Court.

because she was manifestly unqualified to do so, and having such a profound defect of perception that she thinks she's the opposite sex, probably should not practice law. However, she kept speaking, and Justice Alito asked a perspicacious question to cut through the heart of her argument. Are there individuals who are born male, assigned male at birth, who...

at one point identify as female, but then later come to identify as male, and likewise for individuals who are assigned female at birth, at some point identify as female, I'm sorry, identify as male, but later come to identify as female? Are there not such people? There are such people. I agree with that, Justice. So it's not an immutable characteristic, is it?

Well, I think people's understanding of it shifts, but the evidence shows that there is at least a strong underlying basis. Alito is just so smart. Sorry, I just smacked my little Michael Christmas ornament here that the producers put on my lamp. Alito is so smart because he says, hold on, are there people who they're boys, but then they say that they're girls, but then later on they say that they're boys or vice versa?

In other words, does the trans identity transition for some people over time? And the lawyer has to say yes, because the premise of transgender ideology is that gender isn't really fixed, man. It's fluid, and it goes back and forth. And one day, one morning, you could wake up, and you're a boy. And the next morning, you're a girl. And 50 times during the course of the day, you go back and forth. Okay, okay.

So then transgenderism is not an immutable characteristic. If transgenderism were an immutable characteristic, there might be some really strong anti-discrimination case here. If the law said we're not going to permit black people to do something, if the law said we're not willing to permit women to do something for that matter,

Even though gender remains in flux, you might say, okay, well, they're attacking immutable characteristics. Even these days, you would say if the government discriminates against gay people because now homosexual tendencies are considered to be immutable. Okay, but here, the gender ideology itself, by definition, has to be fluid. It has to be transitory. So he says, okay, it's not immutable then. So it's not really a matter of discrimination. And then Justice Thomas comes in

After all these jabs, Justice Thomas comes in with the right hook. If you are successful, what would your remedy be? Your Honor, if we're successful here, the remedy would be to enjoin the state of Tennessee defendants from enforcing SB1 as applied to our individual plaintiffs. So in practical terms, what would it be? What would you get? Wouldn't you get the...

you would get different treatment based on sex. So many people missed this part of the argument because the way that Justice Thomas speaks is kind of slow and quiet and unassuming and not very provocative. But this was a brilliant, brilliant piece of argumentation here, or rather of argumentation disguised as questioning that the federal government side had absolutely no answer to. Ms. Strangio had no answer to.

The argument is from the government that boys who think they're girls need estrogen treatment. I'm oversimplifying, but only barely. Boys who want to be girls need estrogen treatment. Girls who want to be boys need testosterone treatment. And it is a discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity to deny them that treatment. But if a boy went to the doctor

at age 12 or whatever, and said, doc, I want some testosterone. If a boy wanted the testosterone treatment, not a girl wanting it, but if a boy wanted it, he would not be given that treatment because it wouldn't fit this criterion of gender dysphoria. Same with the girl. If the girl went to the doctor to say, I want some estrogen, the doctor would say no. The treatment would only pertain to people who want to pretend to be the opposite sex, which means that it's discrimination on the basis of sex.

It's a little bit dizzying, but the whole gender ideology is disorienting because the whole thing is a nonsense. So sometimes it's difficult to track the argument that the pro-trans people are making. But Justice Thomas does it very well, and he allows them to fall into the trap that they have set for themselves. Absolute routing of the trans ideology at the Supreme Court. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to leaffilter.com slash Knowles.

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Sotomayor does her best, the leftist justice, Sonia Sotomayor, does her best to try to trip up the Tennessee Solicitor General arguing against transing the kids, arguing in favor of the law banning transing the kids. And here is the best argument that Sotomayor could muster.

Cannot eliminate the risk of detransitioners. So it becomes a pure exercise of weighing benefits versus risk. And the question of how many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits is one that is best left. I'm sorry, counselor. Every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin.

There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that's going to suffer. I'm sorry, counsel. I have to interrupt here.

Do you not understand that gelding a little child, permanently sterilizing a child, turning a kid into a eunuch starting at age 11 and giving them bone problems and failing to ameliorate and perhaps even exacerbating the child's anxiety, depression, and likelihood of suicide is similar to taking an aspirin?

How do you not understand that, counsel? This is the best they got. I think this woman went to Yale Law School. I think she did, didn't Zotomayor? That is weak sauce. And don't even get me started on Katonji Jackson, the most recent leftist justice who boasts two degrees from Harvard and yet who, during her confirmation hearings, couldn't say what a woman is. When she was asked by Marsha Blackburn, what is a woman? She said, well, I'm not a biologist.

You know, I'm not a weatherman, but I know which way the wind's blowing. OK, you shouldn't really need all that specialized training to to know what a woman is. But this is what what really cuts to the heart of this case. The oral arguments went very well for the conservatives. But the whole thing really seems like a charade to me because there are certain matters that.

For which argumentation and the presentation of evidence and persuasive rhetoric really conduce to get you to a certain conclusion. What is a woman, which is really what this case is about, what is a woman is not one of those questions. What is a woman is a question that actually precedes argument.

What is a woman is a question that really is closer to a premise, or the answer to which is really closer to a premise than a conclusion. It's closer to a first principle than something that we deduce using our rational faculties. Sometimes people will say, well, a woman is an adult human female, you know, and give you a knowing wry wink. But that answer is unsatisfactory. The real answer is a woman is the kind of person who isn't a man. You know, the real answer is,

shut up, you know what a woman is. That's actually the answer. We have to begin. It's the sort of thing that Supreme Court oral arguments and deliberations need to just presume. And I'll show you why. In the transcript, obviously I listened to much of this oral argument, but the way that I found the really juicy parts was I read through the transcript. And in the transcript, this person, this trans-identifying lawyer who's a woman who pretends to be a man is referred to as Mr. Strangio. That's a problem.

That means that the Supreme Court is beginning by accepting the premise that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man. But that's really the matter that's being debated ultimately here. Everyone's pretending that that's not the matter that's being debated because Tennessee is trying to narrowly define this as a matter of only transing the kids. And the federal government is trying to define this also somewhat narrowly as a medical matter and as a matter of anti-discrimination. But...

What we're not talking about is the giant elephant in the room, which is the absurd premise that a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man. And unfortunately, the Supreme Court is just presuming that by referring to this woman as Mr. Strangio.

You're accepting that. By using the preferred pronouns of deluded people, you are implicitly accepting transgender ideology. Even by using phrases like biological man or biological woman, you are implicitly accepting that there's some other kind of man or some other kind of woman. You're implicitly acceding to transgenderism. And that's a big, big problem. So

Look, we're called to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. I think the justices, the conservative justices did a really good job here. I think even the liberal media are going to give up on this case. Probably it's just the notion that gelding children is somehow a constitutional right and states don't have a right to pass laws against it. I think it's too far, even for our lunatics and perverts who run our country today. But.

This is bad that we even have to debate this, and it's really bad that we are debating this on terms that are favorable to, that are implicitly accepting the premises of transgenderism. Now, speaking of healthcare...

The CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was just murdered blocks away from where I was staying in New York yesterday. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to ramp.com slash Knowles. It is time to ramp up your financial game with Ramp. Ramp is a corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket.

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You know, I have this series, a little side hustle called Michael And, where I sit down for long conversations and the episodes have millions and millions of views. People seem interested in them because they're not just really news of the day. They're delving into far deeper matters. Well, in one of the most popular episodes we've ever done, I sat down with Blake Healy, who is the author of a bestselling book, The Veil, who claims to be able to see things in the spiritual world, including angels and demons. Here is what he had to say.

I'd seen angels and demons in about equal measure. There was this sense of separation. And even though I could identify that's something that might be scary, there wasn't any sense of immediate danger. I looked up, and instead of my mom, I saw this kind of shadow. As soon as I looked at it, it kind of slunk into the crack, walked around to the edge of my bed. It kind of had these milky white eyes. Its eyes flashed, and I felt this overwhelming sense of fear. Absolute panic was...

just going through my body. It happened night after night after night for three and a half years. You have this question, which is, "Am I a highly functioning schizophrenic?" They talked to me about this concept that I hadn't heard of before that they called "seeing in the spirit." Something in that recipe of expanding the options from either I'm going crazy or the devil's decided to ruin my life to this third option of maybe I have a gift that I just haven't learned how to manage yet. This is your daily experience.

It is. Do you see these things now? Like right now? While we're talking at this very moment. What do you see? Right now, I can see your personal angel standing right behind you, just behind your left shoulder. Watch the full episode to find out, do you believe him? Do you not believe him? If you do believe him, what does it all mean? Watch it on the Michael Knowles YouTube channel. And do not forget to subscribe for the ad-free version on Daily Wire+.

Turning to macabre matters, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was murdered up by Rockefeller Plaza. I was in Rockefeller Plaza four days ago. I was over the last weekend. I was in Rockefeller Plaza, came back to Tennessee. Then I flew back to New York and I was staying just some blocks down, but not too far from where this guy was murdered.

And when I heard he was murdered, I thought, wow. Usually I stay a little further uptown. I said, wow, good thing I didn't stay in my usual spot because had I, I don't know, I might have been near the scene of a shooting. But then when I saw the video, I realized,

I could have been standing right next to that guy. The killer would not have harmed a hair on my head because this was very obviously a targeted killing. I think it took place about a quarter of 7 a.m. outside the Hilton by Rockefeller Plaza. And you can see the CEO of UnitedHealthcare is walking up.

We're in a nice blue jacket. And then a killer shows up behind him, all black, hood on, pulls out a gun. Some are reporting it was a subsonic rounds with a suppressor on it, just shoots the guy. And then he just keeps walking. So the CEO goes down. He just keeps walking. Apparently hopped on a city bike, rode up towards Central Park, and as of airtime, has still not been caught.

Then I was flying out of New York yesterday, a lot of cops all over the airport, probably assuming this guy was going to get away. It would seem as though this guy could have been a hitman. It looked like a pretty professional job. Some are arguing it wasn't a totally professional job. I don't know. It looked pretty good to me. The fact that this guy still hasn't been caught, that he got away from the scene rather quickly, that he targeted him.

Seems like a professional contract killing to me. But then the question is, why was this health care CEO killed? Some suggested, and my mind went here at first too, maybe it's because UnitedHealthcare denies people's insurance claims. Maybe some family member had a claim denied. Maybe a family ended up in a ton of medical debt. Maybe a family member ended up dead and someone was just exacting revenge on this CEO.

Could be. Plenty of people have an ax to grind with medical insurance CEOs. But then I saw this part. Apparently, Brian Thompson was one of several senior executives at UnitedHealthcare who was under investigation by the DOJ because on February 16th, he exercised stock options and sold shares worth over $15 million. That was less than two weeks before news of this federal antitrust investigation went public. That's according to Crane's New York Business Report.

It wasn't just him. UnitedHealth Group Chairman Stephen Helmsley, Chief People Officer, whatever that is, Aaron McSweeney, and Chief Accounting Officer Tom Roos sold a combined $101.5 million worth of shares.

Helmsley, the chairman, netted $85 million, according to the report. So it does seem like there was an intense amount of insider trading going on here. So then why was he murdered? Was he murdered because of a vengeful customer who was jilted by the company? Or was he murdered perhaps because there was this antitrust probe and maybe this guy knew a little bit too much?

Seems to me, having read all of that on the insider trading, it is much more likely to be the latter case. Why do I bring up the story at all? It's tabloid fodder. It's interesting. It's a murder story. It's grisly. I bring it up just as a matter of political thinking applicable to any number of political matters. It's usually wise to follow the incentives. If you want to figure out what's going on, if you want to figure out why someone did something,

It's usually more effective. Rather than thinking in all sorts of abstract, abstruse philosophy or ideology, it's usually a little bit clearer just to follow the incentives. And as of now, if I were a cop, I'm not a cop, if I were a detective, I would probably focus on the money. Now, speaking of incentives and disincentives, some really, really great news coming out of the Trump transition. You might recall that

that some weeks ago on the show, I said that the next White House press secretary should rip up the White House seating chart and replace it. Not only because the establishment media lie and don't have credibility, but also because increasingly they don't have an audience. MSNBC gets like three viewers a night and is being spun off. It's on the chopping block. CNN is dealing with massive problems, massive layoffs, a huge collapse in ratings.

The New York Times and the Washington Post admit that this was the podcast election and that the streamers and the podcasters and the new media really came into their own and the establishment media were on their heels. Washington Post said that new media are eating the old media's lunch. So my conclusion from that was, all right, not even just to be vindictive.

So maybe there's a little bit of that. But also, just because the purpose of the White House briefing is to communicate what's going on at the White House to the American people, to receive the questions from the American people through the media that they trust and that they listen to, because of that, it makes no sense to have CNN in the front row. It makes no sense to have the New York Times maybe anywhere in the room, but certainly up toward the top of the room. It makes no sense for MSNBC to have a chair. You got to redo the seating chart.

So I called for that, made a little bit of news. Then I was on Don Jr.'s show, mentioned this. Don suggested, actually, that he had talked to his father about the matter and his father was amenable to it. Now we're getting a report in The Hill that it looks like it's going to happen. White House press corps recoils at Trump's threat to shake up the briefing room. People close to Trump, writes The Hill.

Okay, hold on. It's not just media that are more friendly to him. That is not what we said. I've been pretty close to the center of this story, so I know whence I speak.

What has been said is that media that have more credibility and a wider reach and a deeper reach, those are the outlets that should be there. It's not just a matter of personal petty grievances. This is a matter of justice, and this is a matter of practicality. What media are actually reaching the people? That's who you should prioritize.

Could replace outlets like major television networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Room's Front Row. Reporters covering the White House in conversations with The Hill this week described a feeling of annoyance, frustration, and dread at such an idea. Yes, they should feel dread.

because it means that their totally undeserved monopoly on political discourse, on the public square, the public square which is where politics happens in a self-governing republic, that that might be coming to an end. This is one of the most important things the Trump administration could do. We said from the beginning,

Trump is already looking to reset the relationship between the citizen and the federal government. Great. That's good. That's a big part of Elon Musk and Vivek coming in with the Department of Government Efficiency. But perhaps just as important, perhaps more important, is Trump's once-in-a-century, at least once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset the relationship between the citizen and the media and the relationship between the media and the White House.

Media really, really matter. Media is the plural of medium. It is the medium through which the citizens relate to their government. And that medium, those media, have become very, very corrupt.

And usually they're just too strong for us to do anything about it. But they're weak right now. And we got to kick them while they're down. And we need to replace them with better media who will do a better job serving the function that they're supposed to serve. Really, really encouraging stuff. Now, speaking of the Libs admitting defeat or the likelihood of defeat, Politico has a rather interesting story out right now.

Joe Biden is considering blanket pardons for some of his top allies, not only in the executive branch, not only in the executive agencies, but also even electeds in Congress. The deliberations touch on pardoning those currently in office, elected and appointed, as well as former officials who've angered Trump and his loyalists. Those who could face exposure include such members of Congress as January 6th. I'm sorry.

January 6th, the worst day in the history of this or any republic committee, as Senator-elect Adam Schiff, former GOP representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Trump has previously said Liz Cheney

Should go to jail along with the rest of the unselect committee also mentioned by Biden's aides for partners, Anthony Fauci, former head of the NIH or sorry, former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a top official at the NIH who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the COVID-19 pandemic. There we go. They even get a little right pounces in there.

Even at the end. It's not that Anthony Fauci lied to us consistently and screwed up our country for years and not only got things wrong, but intentionally hid information and was deceptive and had lots of consequences to that. No, no, no. It's that he was a lightning rod for criticism.

He became a, hey, hey, Politico, how did he become a lightning rod for criticism? Where did all the criticism come from? Was it just these irrational conservatives who decided one day to criticize? No, perhaps he deserved criticism. Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, the January 6th committee. Why would President Trump maybe take issue with the January 6th committee? Is it because the January 6th committee knowingly hid evidence from

That that helped to exonerate President Trump? Is it because the January 6th committee?

targeted the president in a way that was deeply unjust, that maybe they even committed some crimes in there? Did they do anything to attract this criticism? I think probably they did. So Biden, after pardoning Hunter for any crimes that he did or did not or might have committed from just before he got on the board of Burisma and took a bunch of bribes from Ukraine to sell Joe Biden's state influence, all the way up until December 1st of this year,

Right after that blanket, unprecedented presidential pardon, now Biden's going to pardon all of his other friends for any crimes that they may have committed. The question I have is, is this the new normal? This is just what we do now? We just have to pardon? The president has to pardon everyone around him whom the next administration might go after? Yikes. That is bad news bears, man. That is not good. That is banana republic kind of stuff. That is tin pot dictatorship kind of stuff. But I get it.

I get why Biden would be doing it because he reduced America to a tin pot dictatorship and a banana republic. Before Joe Biden, we didn't prosecute former presidents. Before Joe Biden, we didn't prosecute the leader of the opposition. Joe Biden and the Democrats gave us that.

So I can't even say, look, cut it out. Trump won't investigate these people who upended 200 years of our, more than 200 years of our tradition. These people who led a legal insurrection of our country far more significant than whatever the horn hat guy did on January 6th. No, I'm not going to tell Trump, don't do that. The Democrats did something egregiously wrong. And if we don't want that to happen again, we probably need to hold them to account.

And what Joe Biden's going to do to protect himself and his friends is he's probably going to further degrade America into resembling a banana republic. He's going to take his actions all the way to their logical conclusion. If you have ever thought about joining DailyWire Plus...

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My favorite comment yesterday is from Cheryl Calogero. Calogero? I don't know. Who, 3-3-3-0, says, Michael, I love your studio. The decor is very masculine. Fits you beautifully. Great design job. Thank you very much. I can't take too much credit for the design of my studio. I perhaps served as an inspiration for it, but it was our excellent designer, Carol and Ralph and other people who really made it happen.

I mostly just served to veto things, but I didn't even have to veto very much. They did a great job. And then while I was in New York, what did my producers do? They decked the halls for Christmas. And now, you know my views on this. I'm very against advent erasure. Okay, we need to make America great again, make America healthy again, make advent solemn again. So...

What do I make of my, it looks nice what they did. They put, for those of you only listening, they put my, they put stockings up with Michael, Ben, Markella, and Jacob on it. They put up little, little festive bells and little Michael ornaments and holly. And I don't think there's any mistletoe in here.

I really, really hope there's no mistletoe in here when the producers come in. However, what does that mean? It means that they put up a lot of Advent decorations. So thank you for the Advent decorations. It's beautiful. This feels very sober and solemn and looks really nice. Now, we have got some tea to spill. The other day I spilled my fruity seltzer. I am about to spill some tea.

There is a rumor going around Washington, D.C., that Trump is going to pull his support for Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and swap him out for Ron DeSantis. I'm going to say at the outset here, I like Ron DeSantis. I think Ron DeSantis is extremely intelligent, extremely competent. He could do pretty much any job in the entire government in the country. He'd do great at it. This is in no way a reflection of DeSantis' qualifications. He's more than qualified. If I were President Trump, I would not back off Pete Hegseth.

I really, really like Pete Hegseth. I think Pete Hegseth would do a terrific job as the Secretary of Defense. I think Pete Hegseth is already doing wonders. I think his nomination is already doing wonders for military recruitment and military morale. I think that the attacks on Pete Hegseth are in part dishonest and in other parts exaggerated and leading to selective outrage. The real attack on Pete Hegseth is that some years ago he was a Casanova.

that some years ago he was a ladies' man. He hasn't really hid that fact. I think it's been pretty public for a while. And though now he's not that way, he used to be that way, and that's disqualifying. Democrats would never apply that standard to any of their own people. They're trying to accuse him of rape. There's zero evidence for that. That's totally out the window. So if I were President Trump, I would not back off the Hegseth nomination. Because if he backs off the Hegseth nomination...

then they're just going to go after Bobby Kennedy. And if he backs off the Bobby Kennedy nomination, they're just going to go after Tulsi. And if he backs off the Tulsi nomination, they're going to go after the next person. And they're going to, at a certain point, they're just going to sense there's so much blood in the water that the Democrats and the squishes can go after any of Trump's nominees. So if I were President Trump, I would stick it out because I think, one, I really like Pete, and two, I think that Pete can get through.

But let's say that they're trying to work out a deal. What does that deal look like? I mentioned earlier in the show, and I was talking about the murder in New York. You got to follow incentives. If you want to understand how machinations are going down, ideology can be helpful, but cold hard incentives can sometimes be more helpful. And here's this little story. Came out of the bulwark. This is an outlet that I do not usually read, but it's instructive here.

Because the bulwark hates Trump. It was an outlet founded in direct opposition to Trump. And they're pushing this idea that Trump is going to pull off the Hegseth nomination. The bulwark does make one good point here, which is that Marco Rubio is going to be the Secretary of State. Ron DeSantis is the governor of Florida. That means that Ron DeSantis has to figure out who's going to replace Marco Rubio in the United States Senate.

Laura Trump has reportedly expressed some interest in taking the seat in Florida. Obviously, the Trumps are quite prominent in Florida, especially in Palm Beach. So is there a world in which a deal goes down, DeSantis goes to the Pentagon, and Laura Trump goes into Rubio's Senate seat? People are asking, why would President Trump pick Ron DeSantis, the man against whom he fought a brutal primary, wasn't a particularly...

difficult primary. It was never a primary that Trump was going to lose, I don't think. I think Trump's nomination was pretty much a fait accompli from the beginning, but especially after the prosecutions, then it was totally over. But even still, why would Trump pick DeSantis? Look, in part, Trump doesn't take things personally.

He fights brutally. He can fight personally, but then he doesn't really take things personally. He kisses and makes up with Lindsey Graham, who we ran against in 16, with Rand Paul, with Ted Cruz, with Marco Rubio, obviously, puts the Secretary of State. So you could see Trump putting him somewhere, but he'd probably have to have a reason for it. That would explain how to do it. Now, would that be a good deal? Maybe, maybe it would.

However, there is a real cost. If Trump pulls away from his current nominee, now you're going to have two nominees go down before they even really seek the Senate confirmation, Matt Gaetz, and I don't know. To me, that's really dangerous.

I think you get one of those. You get a limited number, and if you're already going to blow your limited number of pulling away on your nominees, then you might wind up in the same trouble that Trump ended up in the first time around, which is that he wasn't able to get a lot of his top picks through for a year, two years into his administration. That seems to me unwise. I would try to lock down the Senate right now, get Hegseth through, but if it goes down, I don't know. I don't...

I don't believe the scuttlebutt until it winds up being real, and there would seem to be an active campaign to put DeSantis in at the Pentagon. But just because it's an active campaign doesn't mean that it isn't true. Speaking of qualifications, finally we get some good news. There is a demographic cliff, according to reports, that is going to change.

shut down a lot of colleges. This, I believe, came out of the Wall Street Journal. It's citing reporting by Bloomberg and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, a model showing that as fewer people are born, first of all, as fewer people then still go to college, researchers have reportedly developed simulations

To determine the likelihood future closures of these schools, finding the worst-case scenario shows schools experiencing a one-time 15% drop in new students. That would result in 80 more colleges closing, affecting more than 100,000 students and students.

20,880 staff members. The significant drop in students seeking higher education is known as the demographic cliff. When I went to college, the year after I went to college, 2009, marked the high point in American high school graduates going to college. I think it was like 70% that year. It was totally crazy. It's petered off a little since then, in part because the costs have gone through the roof. The ROI in terms of professional attainment has really dropped.

And then even the ROI on what university education is supposed to be for, which is not to be utilitarian, not to be trade school, not to be professional training, but to give you a proper liberal education to help you make sense of your freedom, to help you become a cultured and cultivated person. That's also gone away. So not only do you not graduate college with useful skills, you don't even graduate them with what you're supposed to have, which is useless skills. You really get nothing for it. So people have stopped attending college. And then on top of that,

There are just fewer people. We just are not having kids. Americans have not replaced themselves since 1971, and it's dropping off even further. Now people just get dogs, and they treat their dogs as though they're kids. Well, there are going to be consequences to that. One of the consequences is a lot of these institutions are going to be revealed for what they are. A lot of these institutions that cropped up as a way to just force kids to pressure them with the soft pressure of culture and the hard pressure of political funding are

to say you need to go to college to have a good life, those schools are going to go by the wayside. It's a point that I bring up a lot on the show because I think it is the ultimate conservative consolation, which is that things get crazy. People fly away with flights of fancy. It's so nuts that they even think a man could be a woman. But reality reasserts itself in the end. In the end, it might take a long time. We might want to hasten this along a little bit. But in the end, reality will reassert itself.

You can't have institutions charge you a quarter million dollars and give you nothing and have those institutions continue to thrive forever. It doesn't work. You can't have a society that doesn't get married and doesn't have children and doesn't replace itself and have that society continue. It's just not going to happen. Kronos is going to devour his sons. You know, time remains unanswered.

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