#Michael Knowles

[saywhat-politics]

Daily Wire host likens Trump's mass deportation to the Trail of Tears, Japanese internment, and more: “Mass deportation is as American as apple pie”

Knowles: “Have you ever heard of the Trail of Tears? I know a lot of people don't defend the Trail of Tears. But that was a mass deportation.”

From the January 24, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Michael Knowles Show

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gideon Taaffe at MMFA:

During the inaugural prayer service, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde urged President Donald Trump to “have mercy” on undocumented migrants and LGBTQ kids, and right-wing media responded by calling her a “fake bishop” with “deranged political beliefs,” saying her sermon was “heretical” and “satanic,” and claiming she was “forcing left-wing platitudes down everyone’s throat.” 

Budde’s comments about mercy provoked Trump

The bishop leading the inaugural prayer service at Washington National Cathedral made a plea to Trump to “have mercy” on behalf of LGBTQ kids and migrants. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” said Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.” She added, “They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues.” [NBC News, 1/21/25]

Trump attacked Budde the next day and demanded an apology. He wrote on Truth Social: “The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. … She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA.” [Rolling Stone, 1/22/25]

Appearing on The View, Budde clarified that her responsibility “was to reflect, to pray with the nation for unity” and that her remarks were an attempt to “say we need to treat everyone with dignity, and we need to be merciful.” She stated, “I also realized that unity requires a certain degree of mercy, mercy and compassion and understanding and so knowing that a lot of people, as I said, in our country right now, are really scared, I wanted to take the opportunity in the context of that of service for unity, to say we need to treat everyone with dignity, and we need to be merciful.” She also said she would be open to a one-on-one with Trump, saying, “I could assure him and everyone listening that I would be as respectful as I would with any person, and certainly of his office, for which I have great deal of respect.” [Deadline, 1/22/25]

Faux outrage alert: Right-wing media commentators big angry over Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde asking Trump “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared” to his face.

[mylionheart2]

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

“If freedom were merely choice, then God would not be free, because God cannot choose to sin, because God’s very being precludes evil.

God, obviously being free, is free because He wills perfectly and understands perfectly. We will be free only inasmuch as we align our wills and our intellects with God.

Intellectual darkness, lies pervading society, compromise all of our liberty, because they stop us from willing good and true things. And the society crumbles.”

- Michael Knowles, The Michael Knowles Show Ep. 1339

[tang0w0tek]

Thanks Spotify for showing me how fucking strange my dad is

(HIS SPOTIFY NOT MINE)

[atarahderek]

Decided to rent a month of Apple TV+ to watch Franklin. I'm enjoying it so far. Love the friendship between Temple and Lafayette. And Michael Knowles is so far doing a great job portraying the great Dr. Benjamin Franklin. But you know, it would be really nice if someone at some point could cast a left handed actor to play a left handed founding father.

[our-queer-experience]

basically what he said about us, right? so its ok?

[justme21stcentury]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Young America’s Foundation, a right-wing group involved with Project 2025, hosted an event last December featuring anti-surrogacy and anti-IVF commentator Michael Knowles. During his speech, Knowles called surrogacy and IVF a “crime,” a “growing evil,” “ghastly,” “absolutely horrific,” and “just about the most rotten thing a society can possibly do to children.”  Young America's Foundation is an organization which claims to “help students like you find support, promote your conservative views and take action.” It is an advisory board partner for  Project 2025, the Trump-connected extremist plan to guide staffing and policy priorities for the next Republican administration.  Media Matters has documented how Project 2025’s proposals would significantly diminish reproductive rights, with possible implications for surrogacy and IVF. 

Kevin Roberts, the Project 2025 architect and president of the Heritage Foundation, wrote a forthcoming book (with a foreword by Trump running mate JD Vance) which attacked IVF. 

Roberts told Knowles (“my friend”) on Roberts' own program last month that he ���is one of the most important messengers, thinkers, communicators, not just about conservatism, not just about Christianity, but about the future of America.”  Young America's Foundation has ties to right-wing media, including Fox News. In August 2023, YAF partnered with Fox News to host a Republican primary debate where the network chose a YAF representative to ask a question.  The organization is also closely tied to Knowles, a right-wing host for Daily Wire with a history of vitriolic rhetoric. He has said that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely,” “divorce should basically be outlawed,” and “I support Christian nationalism.” He has also attacked surrogacy and IVF on his program.  YAF hosted Knowles for a speech lasting more than an hour on December 6, 2023, at Clemson University in South Carolina. Knowles' talk was devoted to attacking surrogacy, IVF, and the parents who chose to have children through those means. 

The Daily Wire host Michael Knowles gave a speech at Clemson University on behalf of the right-wing Project 2025 partner organization Young America’s Foundation (YAF) on December 6th, 2023.

During his speech, Knowles launched unhinged attacks against IVF and surrogacy, which have anti-reproductive freedom and anti-LGBTQ+ connotations.

[lynntheninja]

POV: You Are That Conservative Uncle at Thanksgiving

@a-republican-mind This aged like a fine wine

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

For the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology — at every level.

Michael Knowles

[talkingpointsusa]

Michael Knowles floats an insane theory that Trump intentionally tries to get people to make fun of him on TikTok so that they associate him with “humor and delight”

If there's one thing you should take away from this blog, it's that the Daily Wire is a horrendous news source. Even for them though, Michael Knowles manages to constantly outdo himself in the realm of being an absolute idiot.

So, right-wing media has all decided that the racist myth about Haitians eating pets is 100% true. Myths like these are dangerous and will absolutely get somebody killed in a hate crime. As a matter of fact, Springfield Ohio has already been the target of bomb threats that have led to hospitals being put on lockdown and schools being evacuated. This rhetoric being pushed by the right-wing media right now is legitimately dangerous and it might end up killing somebody.

Nobody has shown a proven case of pet eating actually happening but that hasn't stopped the right-wing media from trying to prove that this rumor is totally factual. This brings us back to Michael Knowles being an absolute dipstick.

02:22, Michael Knowles: "Do Haitians eat cats? That is the question that has implausibly come to dominate our political discourse in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election. Liberal politicians and journalists, such as David Muir, say they don't. But Haitians say that they do. Like this second generation Haitian American in a video reposted by Elon Musk."

So, the TikTok video that Michael and Elon Musk are holding up as proof that Haitian immigrants are eating pets is an absolute nothing-burger. In the video, this person who claims to be a second generation Haitian immigrant explains that her dad told her that Haitian's eat dogs and cats during voodoo rituals.

If you're wondering how this proves anything, it doesn't. This is some "my friends cousins great uncles dog told me" type bullshit and it still isn't an actual example of a Haitian eating a pet. Michael loves this video though because it confirms him and the rights little racist narrative.

04:06, Michael Knowles: "The political nerd class hated that President Trump brought up Haitians eating cats at the presidential debate. I disagree -- I disagree with their revulsion. This is one of Trump's greatest political skills, he can translate complex frequently dry policy issues into vivid images."

So, Trump can spread racist lies and demonize minority groups effectively, got it. I don't think Michael realizes this, but creating moral panics out of nothing is an extremely bad thing. Those "vivid images" are going to lead to a hate crime!

Also, "the political nerd class". I guess I'm also one of those guys but come on Michael, you run a politics podcast. You're one of us! Embrace the nerd Mikey!

Michael does an extremely long ad for razors and comes back with more xenophobic BS.

06:55, Michael Knowles: "Do the Haitians eat cats and dogs? I -- not all Haitians. That lady, a second generation Haitian American, she obviously doesn't eat cats and dogs and she doesn't practice voodoo and she's Christian. But do some of these people, unvetted, from a failed state where there's rampant cannibalism and ubiquitous voodoo, do these people eat cats and dogs? TikTok has weighed in. One of the top trends on TikTok right now, I am reliably informed by my Zoomer associates, is this remix of President Trumps debate comments."

I guess when you have no evidence to back up what you're saying you might as well throw some remix on TikTok in there as evidence.

The reason why Haiti is a "failed state" is because they've been continuously punished for their freedom by western nations like France and the United States. They literally were forced to pay "reparations" to France for their freedom from slavery, a process which took centuries for Haiti to pay off. There's years of history there and none of these guys ever get into it. It's just pure ignorant ahistorical bigotry and it ticks me off.

According to the World Religions Database, 94.26% of Haitians practice a form of Christianity with the majority being Catholic. It's almost as if those scary minorities aren't so different from you or I and it's racism that's leading to these ridiculous rumors spreading around the internet.

07:47, Michael Knowles: "I was discussing this yesterday with my friend Jack Posobiec on his show and he raised the question, he said 'This trend going around on TikTok, all these Zoomers dancing around to eat the dogs eat the cats. Is this good for Trump? Is this pro-Trump or is this anti-Trump?' And that's the wrong question. This is the kind of question that you'll hear in elementary poetry classes. You know, 'what does the poem mean'. People don't really read a lot of poetry anymore, I like poetry but they'll look at the poem and they'll say 'Ok, what's the hidden meaning'. But that's not what poetry does. The reason that good poets write poetry is to convey meaning in a way that it cannot be conveyed in an essay or a book or a tweet. It's just a different way of communicating."

And the award for dumbest metaphor goes to Michael Knowles.

First of all, Michael clearly doesn't know anything about poetry. If he did he would understand that subtext and metaphor are huge elements of poetry. From the sounds of this, the way that Michael interacts with poetry is the most shallow and surface level way imaginable. Michael's mind is going to be blown when he learns about poetic irony.

Trump isn't a poet, he's somebody trying to be a world leader. The standard for honesty is obviously way higher for the guy trying to be a world leader. Trump can't just spread an untrue rumor about a group of people to "paint an image in peoples heads". Millions of people are listening to him and spreading rumors when you're in a position like that is extremely dangerous.

09:20, Michael Knowles: "The memes just kind of delight you and I think that's the experience people are having. The zoomers who are dancing to this and the many many many more people who are -- who are watching these reels and these little TikTok's. You watch it and you kind of laugh and it's just kind of funny, it's delightful. You have a sensory experience of surprise, of humor, of delight, and then you associate those things with Trump. Trump is the medium of those experiences."

Well, I guess I'm going to keep making fun of Michael Knowles on this blog and if he protests we should remind him that he's the medium of those experiences which means that it's actually a good thing that we're making fun of him. After a while we'll start to associate him with humor and delight after all.

That's one way to deal with everyone making fun of your candidate I guess.

"Oh ya?! Well, when you're laughing at him for being a moron he's still the reason that you're laughing in the first place! Ha! You're gonna be Trump supporters before you know it!"

And that conveyance is happening through TikTok's. Things that people famously spend a lot of time watching individually as opposed to scrolling through them at rapid speeds while only giving them half of their attention. Michael Knowles is truly a brilliant political strategist.

10:05, Michael Knowles: "Frankly, I strongly suspect this is what inclined Trump to bring it up during the debate at all."

Yes, it couldn't possibly be because Trump is a racist lunatic. He's playing 4-D chess by....tricking people into making fun of him I guess.

10:42, Michael Knowles: "And what's the consequence of that? If there is a downstream political effect it's going to be people realizing that Trump is not, you know, Hitler 2.0, he's just kind of -- he's like a funny guy, you know? Hitler wasn't that funny, I don't know, I'm not totally familiar with Hitler but he was always screaming and banging the lectern."

Ah yes, spreading a racist myth about a marginalized group of people is a great way to distance yourself from fascist leaders like Hitler. It's not like that's been one of the main elements of every fascist regime ever.

Also, really really stupid analysis of the Nazi's from Michael. I guess that fascists are physically incapable of being funny. There's a genetic trait in fascists that make them physically incapable of cracking a good joke....actually, I've watched Republican comedy so maybe this sarcastic diatribe has some truth to it. Still, really dumb stuff here.

Michael then plays a video of some MAGA lunatic at a city council meeting spewing a racist rant about Haitians. Michael then does an advert for his own YouTube channel and goes back into being a bigot.

18:47, Michael Knowles: "Now, the minute I say that I know that the Democrat activists who watch my show every single day and who subscribe to the Daily Wire to do it, they're gonna start writing their headlines. Michael Knowles spreads misinformation, false news, fake news, about illegal aliens voting in elections. It does not happen, this is not real, it's a calumny. Well, what do you make of this news report aired on a CBS affiliate?"

Yeah, hi Michael. I guess I'm one of those guys that he's talking about. I don't subscribe to the Daily Wire though, I'm not giving these grifters a red cent (I also couldn't afford it even if I wanted to but that's an entirely separate issue, #collegestudentlyfe and all that).

So, the CBS News report that Michael played is about an undocumented immigrant by the name of Angelica Maria Francisco who was caught forging a passport and voting in two elections illegally. Here's the thing about this story, Michael should've buried it.

If there's indeed a controlled plan on the Democrats end to smuggle migrants into the country to vote in elections, how come the big scary Biden DOJ proceeded to catch and arrest this woman?

Just because there was one migrant who committed voter fraud once doesn’t mean that there’s a major scale democrat plot to bus migrants in to vote illegally. We don’t even know who she voted for in those elections, for all we know she voted for Trump or even Jill Stein. There's a lot of assumptions being made here on Michael's end.

19:54, Michael Knowles: "That's one woman in Alabama, not exactly a swing-state. One person who's been prosecuted. Now, there are many more examples of this that are reported, this is just the latest one. But you know what the libs are gonna say, they're gonna say 'Oh, you know. This is just a one off'. Well, we don't really investigate this sort of thing. By definition this is a very difficult crime to pin down. It's an act of deception that half of our country and most of our political class is intentionally obscuring. The reason that the libs are importing these foreigners into our country is to rig elections in the long run, many have said that openly, so it's hard to figure it out."

"We don't really investigate this sort of thing" he said while talking about someone being prosecuted and charged for doing the thing that he says we don't investigate. I'd love to see those videos of top politicos admitting that they're intentionally bringing in migrants to rig elections by the way. Michael never plays them so either they're not real or the Daily Wire is sitting on the biggest story in decades.

I'm not denying that people have attempted voter fraud in the past. What I am denying is that there's a widespread conspiracy on the part of the Democrats to bring in migrants to rig elections. That's great replacement theory nonsense that's contradicted by the story that Michael's reporting on.

20:56, Michael Knowles: "If you are illegally in this country and you need to get a false document to get a job, which is not true, many times you can just get the job without a false document but lets say that's why, why would you imperil your freedom, your ability to skirt the law even, by going to vote? And then if you're voting why would you specifically vote in these presidential election years, 2016 and 2020? Do you think someone maybe suggested that she do that?"

There a million different reasons. Maybe she just wanted to be a part of the political process. Maybe she just did it because that's what people do around that time and it helps you blend in. That explains why she'd vote in the presidential elections as opposed to the congressional ones. Think about it, if she was a Democrat operative wouldn't it make more sense to vote in the Alabama congressional elections as opposed to the Presidential elections? You're way more likely to get a Democrat into the senate in Alabama than turn Alabama blue. That's another issue, why would the Democrats import all of the illegal voters into Alabama as opposed to a swing-state. You're not going to flip Alabama but you might flip Michigan. Michael's story might as well be called swiss cheese with all the holes its got.

Anyway, this voter fraud story is just dumb and doesn't really have anything backing it up. Most of the remainder of the episode is devoted to Michael complaining about an article in the Washington Post. It's a filler segment that is not worth our time.

Conclusion:

The cope was hard in this episode. I will say that "He's intentionally trying to get people to make fun of him, really guys we promise" is a new one and I don't think that Michael's going to get very far with it. Since Candace Owens left, Michael Knowles is the new reigning champ for dumbest Daily Wire guy with Matt Walsh as most disgusting and Ben Shapiro as most irritating. Glad to see that he's holding on to his title in this episode.

Cheers and I'll see you in the next one.

Sources Cited:

Helmore, Edward. “More Bomb Threats Hit Springfield, Ohio, after Trump Elevates False Claims about Haitians.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 14 Sept. 2024.

Bhatia, Pooja. “US-Backed Foreign Intervention Has Led to the Disaster in Haiti.” The Guardian, 19 Oct. 2022.

Rosalsky, Greg. ““The Greatest Heist in History”: How Haiti Was Forced to Pay Reparations for Freedom.” NPR, 5 Oct. 2021.

“National Profiles | World Religion.” Www.thearda.com.

“Undocumented Individual Charged in Connection with Voting Fraud and Passport Fraud.” Justice.gov, 5 Sept. 2024.

[renee-writer]

What It's Like on the Ground in Israel | With Nicole Zedeck

[queercowpoke]

I haven't seen this on tumblr but its worth sharing. My city came out en mass to protest Michael Knowles speaking at the University of Pittsburgh. The protest was student led and organized and most of the protestors were students. This is the 3rd and so far largest protest against transphobic speakers at Pitt. There were approx. 400 people there at one point, although after a firework was set off the crowd shrank to about 250. These are trans kids and young adults fighting for their lives against a man who has said he wants to "eradicate transdenderism" In the very debate they were protesting he advocated for institutionalization of all trans people. They could use the support and encouragement of the wider trans community.

Images taken from Pittsburgh Tribune Review

[juniperika]

If you've seen a couple of episodes, or even parts of it bur you're aware of the basic plot/main characters, please consider yourself familiar with the series.

I am intrigued, so please vote (also, I don't have a lot of followers, so I'd appreciate reblogs!)

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Christian PSA: sign of Jonah was NOT an eclipse!