Ep. 1621 - What Is A Man In A Women's Restroom?
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A battle over bathrooms takes over Capitol Hill, and we are actually pretty close to the center of it. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

Welcome back to the show. Mentioned on the show five, six days ago that this trans issue on Capitol Hill was going to be a big deal and the libs were going to try to put a man in the women's bathroom and Republicans were going to have to deal with this fight. It was inevitable. And Congressman Nancy Mace has taken up the issue and actually stood up for sanity and reality and the rights of women. And Nancy Mace is going to be on the show.

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I love them. I like these more than the gigantic baseball bat ring gauges. They're finally here. They're in the shop. They're going to sell out. You want them for Thanksgiving or Christmas, get them now. This is a good day. This is a good day for a lot of reasons. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has been asked questions about this issue that

Really, you know, I hate to say I told you so, but we kind of brought this to the forefront. And now Congressman Mace is running with this on Capitol Hill. And so leadership has to deal with it. Yesterday, Mike Johnson was asked what he is going to do about Tim McBride, this man who thinks he's a woman, wanting to use women's bathrooms on Capitol Hill. Here is Mike Johnson's response. Mr. Speaker, is freshman elect Sarah McBride a man or a woman? Hmm.

Look, I'm not going to get into this. We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people. I believe it's a...

a command that we treat all persons with dignity and respect, and we will. And I'm not going to engage in silly debates about this. There's a concern about the uses of restroom facilities and locker rooms and all that. This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before, and we're going to do that in deliberate fashion with member consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person. That's all I'm going to say about that. Do you plan on bringing...

Nancy Mace's transgender bill and putting that into the rules package? I'm not going to address the plans on any of that. I just told you what I'm going to say about the issue. I'm not going to engage in this. We don't look down upon anyone. We treat everybody with dignity and respect. That's a principle that I pursued my whole life, and we will take care of this issue of first impression for Congress as we will any other thing. We'll provide appropriate accommodation for every member of Congress.

Okay, Mike Johnson was raked over the coals by conservatives for this answer. And I give him a little more grace on it because we're called to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. And I am hopeful that Mike Johnson will do the right thing as the Republican leader in the House of Representatives. I am hopeful that he is going to say, no, boys can't go into the girls' room. And so if he doesn't want to take the reporter's bait on a question like this, I'm okay with it.

so long as he does the right thing in the end. Now, the outcry against his response here, simple question, is Tim McBride a man or a woman? He doesn't want to take the bait, I get it, but it's a simple question. He ended up clarifying his statement later in the day. Hello, everybody. I just want to make a statement for all of you here and be very clear. I was asked a question this morning at the leadership gaggle, and I rejected the premise because the answer is so obvious. I

For anybody who doesn't know my well-established record on this issue, let me be unequivocally clear. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. And a man cannot become a woman.

That said, I also believe that's what scripture teaches, what I just said. But I also believe that we treat everybody with dignity. And so we can do and believe all those things at the same time. And I wanted to make that clear for everybody because there's lots of questions. But that's where I stand. I've stood there my whole life. And those are facts. Okay. So you see Mike Johnson here.

Saying, look, he's a man. That's what the scripture teaches. And sure, that is what scripture teaches, but it's also what biology teaches. It's also what our eyes teach us, what our functioning faculties of reason teach us. He's a guy.

And so he's a very confused guy. He obviously has a defect of his perception that is leading him to believe that he's a woman, or else he has a defect of his will, which is leading him to desire to be a woman against all reality. But in any case, Tim McBride is not a woman. He's a man. And Republicans are going to have to deal with this. Okay? There is no avoiding this issue for Republicans. Okay?

I think a lot of Republicans risk averse on Capitol Hill. They want to avoid this issue entirely. There's no avoiding it. Either you invite this man into the women's bathrooms and you violate the legitimate rights of women and you implicitly accept trans ideology, or you tell the guy he can't go into the women's bathroom. And then the press calls you mean for a little bit.

Those are the only two options. The guy is going to have to use the bathroom at some point. And so this question will have to be answered. The Republicans are the leaders in the House. We're going to talk to the woman who is leading the charge on Capitol Hill to defend reality and sanity and the legitimate rights of women. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to puretalk.com slash Knowles. Did you know that Pure Talk, my cell phone company, supports veterans? As a veteran-led company, it is their passion project.

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We are extremely privileged today not just to be commenting on what we think is going to happen on Capitol Hill with the McBride fight, the question of whether or not women on Capitol Hill still get to have their own bathrooms. We actually get to speak to the woman who is leading the charge to defend reality and the rights of women. That would be Congressman Nancy Mace. Representative Mace, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

Yes, sir. And thank you for talking about this really important topic. Do women have rights or not is the question at the end of the day. And it needs to be answered. It's a simple question. I was hoping that all of your colleagues in the Republican conference would leap at this and say, you know, this is so obvious. As a matter of justice, women deserve their own bathrooms. Even as a matter of politics, the vast majority of Americans are on board with reality on this issue. And yet,

So far, you are basically the lone voice. So please tell me a little bit, what is this resolution you are proposing and what are the next steps?

Well, I filed a resolution this week that would ban biological men from women's private spaces. So that would be the bathroom, changing rooms, locker rooms up here on Capitol Hill. But I'm not going to stop there. I'm also filing a bill that we're giving you exclusive copy to and copy with that would ban biological men from women's restrooms and women's private spaces in every federal property across the entire country. So I'm going to do everything I can to protect women and girls here on the Hill.

But also all across the nation. I mean, this question needs to be answered. Do women have rights or not? Are we going to allow these men to bully us into submission? And I say, no, no more. I'm done with this. I mean, I was built for tough. There's no amount of bullying and threats on my life that they've made this week.

That's going to stop me from this. And I was the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. I was built for tough, and I am not going to back down. And I'm urging my colleagues to join me in this fight. This is common sense. This isn't controversial. So you mentioned this is an exclusive. Thank you for breaking the news here. You're not merely introducing a resolution into the House to say, look, you're

female members of Congress get to have their own bathrooms. You are going further to say, we're going to defend reality and the rights of women on all federal properties. My first take is, wow, that's so ambitious and radical. And then I have to correct myself. I say, wait a second. This is the way things always were. This is just common sense. But I guess common sense isn't so common right now.

Well, common sense is out the window. There are literally members of Congress today that are saying I'm a bigot and that I'm a bully because I'm defending my right to privacy. Now, a lot of people may not know I'm a survivor of rape. I was raped at the age of 16. I'm also a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual abuse. And so I am absolutely triggered by the idea of a man's genitalia being in

Being in my bathroom or a locker room or a space where I'm changing, that is a hard pass for me. And it will come to throes. There will be fists if this happens. I mean, I just can't even, I'm absolutely triggered by the idea that women don't have rights in this country. And I'm going to make sure that I protect them. And this shouldn't be controversial. I came from a district that's as purple as my dress.

And as you say, independents are with us. There are most Democrats that are with us. It's just the radical left that are forcing this crazy gender ideology down the throats of our children and other Americans across the country for one half of one percent. I'm not giving up women's rights for one half of one percent of people in this country. And they clearly there's a mental illness here or mental health issues. I'm being threatened.

by some of these men dressed as women. They're literally threatening to kill me if they can't use a women's restroom. And I ask why? Like, it's insanity to me. Of course. In many ways, you're the perfect champion for this issue because, well, you're a woman, despite the modern confusion. But two,

You come from a purple district. You are not the most far right-wing representative by any stretch. You're willing to reach across the aisle and work with people. As you say, you were the victim of sexual violence yourself, so you know the consequences of blurring these boundaries and taking away women's private spaces.

This really is scandalous to me. I know that politics, there are all sorts of crazy fights that happen, but it is really scandalous to me that in the year of our Lord, 2024, women are being told, hey, if you insist on having your private spaces that you've had for time immemorial, if you insist on not being in vulnerable positions in front of men,

that you're somehow a bigot. I mean, what do you say to these colleagues of yours who are accusing you of bullying this new member of Congress, Tim McBride?

Well, I can't say what I want to say because it'd be a four letter word. To be frank, I went to the military college and I use very colorful language. It's not OK because I'm literally being bullied and they're trying to bully me into submission. And it's just it's not it's not going to work. This is a fight. I mean, if Democrats want to die on this, so not once but twice. They didn't learn from the election two weeks ago. This women's issues were on the ballot and

women overwhelmingly, they supported Republicans more so than they supported Biden four years ago. Kamala didn't win women overwhelmingly the way that Joe Biden did because Joe Biden didn't have these crazy far-left policies. He didn't want the government to pay for gender surgery, for illegals. This stuff is crazy and

And we have to draw a big, fat, red line in the sand and say, no more, because my rights are worth fighting for. Your daughter's, my daughter's rights are worth fighting for. I'm going to die on this hill. And I'm not going to allow it. And this is just the start to see the left just become totally unhinged means that we're winning. They're now, not only are they threatening to kill me, but now they're making all these personal smears and taking shots at me. And I'm like, bring it.

I'm not going to go quietly in the night. I'm just going to double down on a really important issue for women all across the country, because conservatives and Republicans, we're going to be the party that protects women. It ain't going to be the left. It's going to be conservative women protecting women across the country. That's right. Certain issues, tax rates, you know, you can have a middle ground. You want 20 percent. I want 40 percent. OK, it's we'll do 30. But in this case,

It's one or the other. Either women get to have their own bathrooms or they don't. And I think your point is so good on the election, which is...

Look, I mean, as a matter of justice, this is how things obviously ought to be. But Republicans take the win. This is a winning issue. This is an issue that flipped Virginia red. This is an issue that helped DeSantis win reelection in Florida. Take the win, guys. I mean, Republicans, they seem to have this this nasty habit of clutching defeat from the jaws of victory. So in terms of the raw politics of it on both the resolution and on the bill to, you know, enshrine reality in all the federal properties, I

Is it going to pass or no? Well, we'll have to see. I mean, the leadership promised me that this provision would be in the rules package. And now there sounds like there might be some waffling or some quote they call nuance. I'm not here for nuance. There's nothing nuanced about men and women, especially when you're trying to protect women

women from abuse. And I'm not going to allow it, not on my watch. And I'm going to fight like hell for women and girls on the Hill, for women and girls across the country. And the raw politics of this is that this is reality. And we have to fight for our reality. We have to fight for our rights. And it's crazy that in 2024, here we are, just over 100 years since women's suffrage, we're here having to have this debate. To me, there is no debate.

This is not up for debate. Women get private spaces. And I'm not going to allow some guy with his genitals out be walking around in front of other women and girls. It's not going to be the reality, not in my country, not on my watch and over my dead body. It's so offensive. It's dangerous to women, as we've seen time and time again. And it is deeply disrespectful to force all of us to lie.

You know, it's one thing you want to live in delusion. OK, but you're going to force all of us to lie. You're going to violate the legitimate rights of people. I don't think so. I mean, I give a lot of grace to Republican leadership in the House. I know it's like herding cats. It's a tough job. OK, but on this one, I don't know. I really hope

if leadership is watching or if staff members for leadership are watching. This is a yes or no kind of issue, guys. This has got to be clear as day. The voters just gave Republicans a mandate to govern, unified government on basic common sense stuff. If they're going to fumble the ball right out the gate like this, Republicans don't deserve to govern. What you're doing, Nancy, is fabulous. You're

It is really, really important. Thank you for having courage, even when a lot of people don't have spines amid all of our anatomical confusion on the Hill. Best of luck to you. For anyone listening, please support Nancy Mace's efforts and call your congressman and call leadership and make sure that they do what is right and they ensconce common sense in our law. Congressman Nancy Mace.

Thank you for coming on. Thank you. Let's get them on board. Thank you. Really, really good. I'm glad some people have courage up on the Hill, aren't you? It's in short supply these days, I guess. What the left is saying in response to this is that if you want to have

women's bathrooms, that it's far-right extremism. That's what Tim McBride has said. He says, quote, this is a blatant attempt from far-right extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, healthcare, and childcare, not manufacturing culture wars. Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible. That's what I'm focused on. I actually bet

Delawareans, I bet many Delawareans sent this guy to Congress without even knowing that he's a man. This is not a presidential race, okay? This is a down-ballot race.

He calls himself Sarah. There's Photoshop for palm cards and TV ads. I don't think he campaigned on the trans issue because the trans issue is repellent to so many voters because it is an insult to our intelligence. And it makes clear that the person who is holding this identity has defective judgment and defective perception. He's saying the far right extremists, you think women should have their own bathrooms. That makes you a far right extremist these days.

He wants to get back to the important work that the Delawareans sent him to do. Hold on a second. Congress hasn't even started yet. We're just talking about basic ground rules that we previously didn't have to talk about because they were just common sense and everyone agreed with them. Now this guy goes on MSNBC and he accuses us of manufacturing a culture war. He accuses us Republicans of trying to distract with this issue.

Because whenever you see a politician or a political party focus in on an issue that impacts a handful of people in a handful of places, you have to ask yourself why.

And the answer to that is they are trying to distract. They are trying to distract from what they are actually doing. And over the next four years, every single time we see any member of the Trump-Bantz administration talk about trans people, talk about immigrants, talk about Muslims, talk about any vulnerable group in this country, look what they're doing with their right hand. Because I can guarantee you at that same moment, they are working to pick the pockets of American workers. They're working to fleece seniors by privatizing Social Security and Medicare.

There it is. There he just gave up the whole game. His premise is faulty. His premise is if anyone ever talks about enforcing immigration law, curtailing the mass invasion of our country, they're just trying to distract. Even though most voters rank that number one or number two of the issues. No, no, no. They say that's just a distraction. If anyone ever talks about transgenderism, hold on it.

We Republicans didn't start the transgender issue. We didn't wage this cultural battle. The left started waging. It was the left that said men need to go into the women's bathroom. The left that said men need to compete against women in sports and give them concussions and lifelong paralysis. The left that is forcing this on us. We're just responding to the left. Okay, so it's not, we're not, even if you want to call that a distraction, it would have been coming from the left. But he gives the game away when he says the Republicans are just distracting from their attempts to privatize social security. Hold on.

accuse Trump of whatever you want. The guy's not going to privatize Social Security. He's made that clear. He's made that clear for a decade now. He's changed the Republican position on entitlement reform. There is a 0% chance that Trump, I mean, there are many Republicans who want him to try to privatize Social Security. Ain't going to happen. That is a completely made up issue. So then when you listen to that, you have to come to the conclusion, wait a second,

Maybe it's this guy who was trying to distract. We're just talking about a simple thing here. Can we all agree women get to use their own bathroom on Capitol Hill? He says, no, no, no. There are Republicans are trying to distract. Let's talk about privatizing Social Security. No one's talking about privatizing Social Security. Buster, you're the one who's trying to distract.

You're the one who's trying to distract because you know that your position is completely untenable. It is repellent to most Americans. It's totally disconnected from reality. So, look, I'm not saying we need to expel this guy from Congress, though perhaps we should because he obviously has very defective judgment and perception. That said, if psychiatric problems were caused to expel people from Congress, we'd probably lose most of our government. So we're not saying expel him from Congress. We're not saying don't seat him. But...

You got to respect women's rights. Respect is a two-way street, man. And to accuse us of distraction when you are just making stuff up at this point is quite rich. There's so much more to say. First, though.

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right now, remember, in this fight for life, every ultrasound gives a baby a fighting chance. Preborn.com slash Knowles. Believe it or not, Thanksgiving is eight days away. Eight days away. We at The Daily Wire are getting you ready for that conversation with those family members. You know, you're not, it's good. It's like the culture war. I mean, it is the culture war. You are not going to start the big conversation at dinner. Some, the liberal family member is going to start it and you're going to, it's going to be the aunt,

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All right. Enough about transsexualism on Capitol Hill. I want to turn to other important matters in the long run, maybe more important, at least to your wallet, and that is President Trump's picks. President Trump has just announced his pick for Commerce Secretary, and it is Howard Lutnick. Howard Lutnick is the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor Fitzgerald, a legendary company in New York because...

Most of the company was wiped out in the 9-11 attacks. It was just so awful. I remember my mother knew a friend of hers worked there. A lot of New Yorkers knew people who worked there. It was wiped out. Howard Lutnick did great work, charitable work for the families of those who were killed, rebuilt the company.

Trump has announced, I'm excited to announce that Howard Letnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, will join my administration as the secretary of commerce. He will lead our tariff and trade agenda with additional direct responsibility for the office of the U.S. trade rep. Okay, this is an interesting choice.

because Lutnick clearly wanted to be Treasury Secretary. He was up against a couple other people, Kevin Warsh, who was a former Fed governor, and Scott Besant, who was a hedge fund manager for George Soros, which is kind of funny. But I don't know. I guess there are conservatives who work for George Soros. Lutnick did not get Treasury Secretary.

So he's now in charge of trade, and Lutnik was the most pro-tariff of those choices. But he's not going to have the really big job of Treasury Secretary. And it looks like Scott Besant will be up for National Economic Council chairman.

All of this to say, Trump is going to keep threatening the tariffs, but I'm not so sure that he's going to carry through on the full-on William McKinley new era of tariffs for America, you know, let's rip up the income tax kind of radicalism that he was threatening on the campaign trail.

Uh, it looks as though president Trump is going to be a little bit more responsive to markets perhaps. And some people are going to cheer that on in the conservative movement. Some people are going to wish that he would go further, but that's my read on it. He's going to keep making noise about the tariffs. He might institute some tariffs, but he's not going to put the most pro tariff guy in the biggest job. Uh,

So he's kind of hedging a little bit on that. Liberal media is still furious over Trump's cabinet picks, not just Letnick, not just anyone else he picks, but specifically Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. Bob Woodward, the chairman of the board of liberal establishment journalists, he went on Jen Psaki's show, Joe Biden's first press secretary, to whine and complain about Trump's choice of Hegseth for the Pentagon.

You know, that's what we're living in now. This is the era of fear because he's going to be president for four years. And if this is the idea, it is so it's it's almost unconstitutional. Literally, it's not. But it is.

Look at it. Why do you want somebody who doesn't know what they're doing? Check engine light has just gone off and we've pulled in to the wrong store. Makes no sense. And it is a form of giving his middle finger to the American people.

Trump picks Pete Hegseth, who Woodward says is totally unqualified, picks Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary. And Woodward says this is Trump giving the middle finger to the American people. Au contraire, mon frere. It was the American people who gave the middle finger to the liberal establishment when it elected Trump. So the Trump picks for his cabinet that make Bob Woodward's head explode, that is not giving the middle finger to the American people. That is following through on the American people's middle finger to the lib establishment.

This is what Woodward is reduced to. Listen to this. Listen to this mindless whining. He says it's basically unconstitutional. I mean, it's literally not, but what? Hold on. What are you even saying? It's kind of unconstitutional to pick a military veteran with degrees from Princeton and Harvard who has a popular morning show, who's worked with veterans. It's

It's sort of unconstitutional to pick that guy to run the Defense Department. I mean, it's literally not, but okay, then what are you saying? But it's just, you know, it's just not good. He's not the guy I would have picked. Right. That's why Pete Hexeth got it. It's because he's not the guy you would have picked. Bob Woodward has a career because...

In the 1970s, he partnered up with the deep state to overthrow another very popular U.S. president, Richard Nixon. Bob Woodward with Carl Bernstein, he was the journalist who teamed up with Mark Felt, who was an assistant secretary or assistant director of the FBI, to leak a bunch of nonsense about Richard Nixon to throw him out of office after he won his reelection in a landslide.

Richard Nixon engaged in a typical dirty trick that virtually all political campaigns have engaged in, and the deep state threw him out of office for it. And so Woodward was a propaganda outlet. He was a tool for the administrative state, the bureaucracy, to overthrow a popularly elected president. And he's still kind of doing that now. He's still opposing popularly elected presidents now.

But it's just not working as well. The deep state did try to overthrow Trump. The FBI specifically tried to overthrow Trump with the ridiculous Russia collusion story. And that went nowhere. Crossfire hurricane, that went nowhere. It's Mueller time, baby. That went nowhere. Impeaching him twice, that went nowhere. Trying to prosecute him four times, that went nowhere. Kicking him off the ballot, that went nowhere. Justifying his assassination, which almost occurred twice, that went nowhere.

So now he's just reduced to whining on a show that very, very few people watch. These guys are much less relevant today than they were even five years ago. There's a report that just came out from AP, less and less relevance for the establishment media, including the Associated Press for that matter. One in five Americans gets his news primarily from influencers.

That's the headline. This is what they're all whining about. Can you imagine? They're not reading the New York Times anymore. They're not reading the AP. They're not listening to Bob Woodward. They're getting their news from influencers. Oh, what a disgrace. But what does that mean? This is a finding drawn from a survey of 10,000 adults. It's a big survey. But what does it mean to get your news from influencers?

Does it mean just some random chick on TikTok? No, it means other people. It means podcasters. It means streamers. It means people who have actually as much credibility, or I think significantly more credibility, than the establishment media who have beclowned themselves, who have not only done the bidding of the state, but who have lied on behalf of the state, who regularly get stories wrong. The New York Times constantly getting stories wrong.

That's why people are tuning them out and tuning into the streamers. MSNBC's Mike Barnicle, kind of funny that his name is Barnicle, and he's lamenting his irrelevance and how the times they are a changing. Mike Barnicle just came out and he's wondered, he said, I don't know how to make cable news relevant again.

I don't know how they make themselves, how we make ourselves relevant again, because we can't compete with 20 second snippets on an iPhone, walking up the street, getting your entire news digest of the day in less than a minute on your phone as you're walking in the crowd with coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. I don't know how we catch up to that. How do we compete with these short form people who are deceiving gullible rubes into pretending they can get all their news in 20 seconds? Hold on.

Hold on. Ironically, that is not what influencers do and podcasters and streamers. That's not what they do. Ironically, that is what cable news did. And that is in large part why they're tuning it out. What's an influencer? I think I'm technically an influencer. Ben Shapiro is technically an influencer. Joe Rogan is kind of an influencer. He's not a cable news host, that's for sure. But does that mean that we're presenting news stories in 20-second snippets? No, that's what cable news does.

I've been on cable news many, many times. I've probably been in a billion cable news segments, roughly thereabouts. And I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to reach older audiences if I can. But they're really stupid. Not the people. The segments are really stupid. Because you've got to fit complex issues into three minutes. Two minutes sometimes. A five-minute segment, let's say. And you can't really get into nuance and complexity. You know where you get into nuance and complexity? On podcasts. On streams.

on X spaces. That's where you get into it. You get into it with the influencers, actually. He's got it totally backwards. Cable news has reigned for about 30 years, and cable news replaced newspapers and public affairs programs like Firing Line, for instance. Long opportunities to air out

contentious issues. And cable news dominated for a while, but that was not sufficient for people. People got sick of the stupid 30-second soundbites. That's why they turned to podcasts, which is in many ways not a destruction of the old media. It's a restoration of the best parts of traditional media, which these guys totally blew. But the whining continues. Joy Behar now whining on The View, demanding that we stop claiming that Trump has a

And by the way, this idea that Trump won with some kind of mandate is not true. I mean, we have information there. He beat Kamala Harris by 1.6 percent. Joe Biden beat Trump by 4.5 percent. And nobody said it was a mandate. So get that out of your lips, out of your mouth. These people were saying it's a mandate. It's not a mandate. And another thing, one more thing. Why are all these cabinet members, people that he's seen on television, is he going to put Vanna White in there? Yes. I mean, every single one of them is known to us.

Okay, Joy Behar once again is very confused. The reason that Trump is said to have a mandate here is not because he won the election by 1.6%. He didn't win the election by 1.6%. He won the election in a landslide. He got 312 electoral votes. Electoral votes is what determines who wins the presidential election. He only needed 270 to win, and he got...

312. He totally destroyed Kamala Harris. That number, the 1.6 or 1.8% that she's referencing is the popular vote. Trump also won the popular vote. First time a Republican's done that in 20 years. Democrats have an advantage in the popular vote because Republicans generally don't campaign in the big Democrat states, New York and California, because the Democrats are going to win it anyway. It's a waste of campaign dollars and time. If they did campaign there, they'd win the popular vote by a lot more, presumably.

So it was the fact that he won the popular vote at all means there was a mandate. But even beyond that, the reason there was a mandate to govern is that the voters gave the Republicans unified government, the House, the Senate, and the White House. And the conservatives already have the Supreme Court. That's why it was a mandate. Then she compares it. She says, well, Biden won by a far greater number in the popular vote. Well, yeah, sort of. The Democrats changed all the election rules, and there were a lot of...

A lot of sketchy changes to how elections were conducted there. And when the rules started to go back in the other direction, Kamala lost in a landslide. Then furthermore, she complains that Trump picks people who are good on TV. Yeah, look, this is responsive government. Okay, in a popular government, government of the people, it's very important for politicians to be able to communicate. So Trump picks people who have

Good credentials, generally, who are really talented people, who have achievements under their belt, and who also happen to be able to communicate good. That is a vindication of popular government. That is what the people asked for when they gave Trump a mandate to govern. There's so much more to say. First, though, go to balanceofnature.com. Use promo code NOLS. Balance of Nature Fruits and Veggies is the most convenient way to get whole fruits and vegetables daily.

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And you can thank me later. My favorite comment yesterday is from Caseman434, who says, so funny that on this video, we're seeing a YouTube note from the Associated Press. Haha, yeah, I know. It's the AP and all these guys. The New York Times and Washington Post both trying to pressure YouTube to take our shows off the air. Because the only way these guys are going to cling to relevance is by coercion, by force.

They're going to insist on being the trusted sources. They're going to insist on making people read them. They wouldn't read them of their own accord. At least one person in America has learned a lesson from the 2024 election.

That would be Ann Selzer. You remember Ann Selzer? She's the Iowa pollster who actually has a relatively quite accurate record. She's got pretty high accuracy scores, but she totally blew it in 2024. She said that Kamala was going to win Iowa by three points and then Trump won Iowa by 13 points. So it was a pretty big swing. And Ann Selzer, now just a couple of weeks after the election, has announced she's done. She's retiring. She's out from election polling.

This is a classy move. She says, look, I've had a good career. I've got an A or A plus rating on my accuracy. Wish I'd gone out on a good poll, but anyway, I'm done. I think this is the political equivalent to seppuku. You know, the Japanese say, I have dishonored my trade. You put the samurai sword right in you. But it's a dignified thing to do. Okay, I'm done. Got it wrong. I've had a good career. I guess I'm starting to slip. I'm out.

That's the right move. For most pundits, for most people, especially on the left, they're going to say, okay, we got everything wrong in 2024. We were wrong about Trump. We said he was Hitler. He's not. We said he destroyed democracy. He won't. We were wrong about what the voters want. We were wrong about America's priorities. We were wrong about everything. That's why you need to listen to us now.

And CNN's ratings go down the tube. MSNBC's ratings go down the tube. No one wants the AP. No one reads the New York Times. Doesn't matter. They're going to stick to their guns and they're going to try to force you to continue to listen to them. Ann Seltzer here showing a bit of class. Okay, you know, I guess time's up for me. Now, speaking of changing of the guard, this is a story that I've been meaning to get to for a few days here. I want to get to it. A story out of CNN. I guess I'm the last person to read CNN.

But observing a good trend, or not a bad trend, but an interesting trend, there is a rise in atheist chaplains. What is an atheist chaplain? Headline, atheist chaplains are forging a new path in a changing world. I won't read through the whole story.

but a growing number of atheist chaplains. Being an atheist, non-believer, unaffiliated, whatever you want to call yourself, lends itself really well to chaplaincy because we naturally don't project our own stuff on the people. He isn't there to preach or pray. He just reassures people. He'll go into hospices, speak to people who are dying, and just say, hey, yeah, I'm not here for any particular reason. I can't really comfort you all that much. I'm just trying to be nice, but...

He, like so many people in America, doesn't really have any clearly defined religion. What's the point of an atheist chaplain? I like this story. And the reason I like it, as I puff on my delicious Mayflower Compact here, Mayflower Dawn, Petit Corona, the reason I like this story is not that I think this is good for people. It's not that I think the atheist chaplain is even a coherent category of occupation. It's that it's a reminder that

You can't stamp out religion. You can't do it. Atheist chaplains, in a way, have already existed for a long time, and we just call them psychiatrists. It's just people who have often, sometimes purely psychiatric problems. Usually, though, it's deeper spiritual problems. And they go, and they want to...

What they really want is to go confess their sins to a priest, but they can't bring themselves to believe that or think that that would be a worthwhile endeavor. So instead, they go and confess their sins to a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist, unlike the priest who can give you the absolution of God, the psychiatrist just gives you drugs to numb the pain and blur up your head a little bit. But they do that. People need to talk about their problems.

People still have the eternal questions on their mind. What am I? What am I here for? Am I here for anything at all? What happens after I die? People will always demand chaplains because people will always die. And the ultimate questions will always be before them. No matter how many drugs they take, no matter how much they try to get it out of their heads, there's always going to be a demand for chaplains. There's always going to be a demand for priests. And so we can have...

harmful, unhelpful versions of chaplains and priests, you know, self-help gurus and, you know, modern liberal yoga teachers with face tattoos. You're going to have that, but you're still going to have that longing because man is fundamentally a religious creature. And because man is made in the image and likeness of God, we're always going to have that longing. We're always going to have that there.

So the question is not, as I say this for the Republicans at the top of the show, bring it full circle. The question is not, will you deal with the transgender issue on Capitol Hill or not? The question is just, what are you going to do about it? Either you're going to let the man into the woman's bathroom or you're going to protect women's bathrooms. But you have to pick one because the guy's got to go to the bathroom.

The question isn't, are we going to have priests and chaplains? Are we going to talk about our problems? Are we going to try to find solutions to the eternal questions? The question is just, how are we going to do it? Are you going to go talk to some atheist chaplain while you lay dying? Are you going to talk to a priest? Are you going to go confess your sins to some liberal with a medical degree who's going to give you Prozac? Or are you going to go confess your sins to a priest? Are you going to go bring your questions ultimately to God?

But you're going to have to figure it out because you're a human being and you are going to die and you're going to have to face those questions. Now, speaking of causes of anxiety and psychiatric issues, Australia is doing a very good thing. And Australia is a huge lib government. They have all sorts of problems, but you got to give credit where credit's due. Australia has a proposal to ban social media for kids under 16. Children and teenagers under the age of 16 could be banned totally from social media because

after the labor government announced it would back this higher cutoff limit. The government had previously said that it would introduce legislation that would get kids off social media by the end of the year.

Um, now they're kind of trying to work through what the proposal looks like. This is so obvious. This might be a little bit of a point of departure between the conservatives and the libertarians, but I doubt it actually. I think people realize how pernicious a social media can be, can give kids all sorts of body image issues, all sorts of anxieties. It could do that to adults too. Everyone's comparing their lives to the picture perfect curated version of life that we all see from everyone else at feed. It, it,

feeds on envy and it helps to encourage envy and pride and vanity and sloth and all sorts of bad stuff and you think okay even if you're the most hardcore libertarian you know do whatever you want kind of person we all still believe that you can have an age cut off for buying cigarettes or cigars for that matter we all believe in an age cut off for buying booze or for pornography

At least we should. I mean, you know, if you want to go buy a Playboy at the magazine store, you have to show an ID. You don't have to do that in most states now for online high-speed porn, but in some states you do. Increasingly, we're recognizing, look, this is crazy that we're just allowing little kids to be exposed to this. This is really bad for them. For goodness sakes, we can ban scary movies for minors. We have an R rating on scary movies. You're not allowed to go see a horror film if you're 12 years old, but you can go use TikTok, Instagram, totally crazy.

Really, really dangerous stuff. We need bills like this too. And it's going to upend the way that Republicans think about government. But you're seeing this really in the Trump fight right now. You're seeing this even in the picks, in the internal roilings within the presumptive Trump administration.

This rift on the right. Are we going to double down on the old country club policies of you do you? We're not going to deal with the social issues. We'll let men do whatever they want. They can put on a dress, go into the women's room. Just don't bother me and don't raise my taxes. Are we going to go to that kind of republicanism?

Or are we going to think a little bit more about what kind of society we want to live in? Standards, norms, virtue, dare I say the common good. Are we going to actually dig in on these issues and say, hey, we're not just going to have fights about procedures, how bills are going to be passed, if the federal government's going to take up an issue or if it's going to be left to the states. We're actually going to also focus in on the substance of those issues. Should kids really be

allowed into the wild, wild west of social media? Is that good for them? Probably not.

All right. So even, you know, every man is my teacher and I can learn from him. Even Australia, which is so nuts. I mean, it's a nation that was founded as a penal colony and they've, you know, they've had extremely far leftist policies. But here I think they've stumbled on something right and conservatives should take that up too. As we deal with the substance, as we deal with the issues, what is a person? What is good for a person's flourishing? How are we going to live well as a society? How are we going to come to some common agreements on even what the meaning of the word woman is? Well, this would be a good place to say, okay, maybe

Maybe there's an age limit. No more 12-year-olds on TikTok. If Michael Knowles is good for anything, it's Mayflower cigars. And luckily, boxes of Mayflower's premium handmade cigars are now back in stock with limited quantities. Now it's time to sample Mayflower's signature blends and stock up on your favorites. Plus, get yourself a beautiful Zykar double guillotine cutter. Don't wait. These will sell out. You must be 21 years or older to order. Some exclusions apply. Go to mayflowersigars.com today.

There's no member block today because I need to finish my cigar. No, it's because I actually have a fun project I'm working on, but I got to fly out of town. So, no membrum segmentum, mi dispiace, but we'll get to the Chum du Lachem tomorrow. Until then, I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you then.