The Great Replacement Conspiracy: Liberal Student DEBATES Michael Knowles

Speaker 1 You're evading the question. I'm not.
What's the number? How many migrants should America take in per year? There's a process, and we should let everyone who abides by that process, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, but it's not lit process. It should be on lit.

Speaker 2 You know, even after being screamed at, sprayed with fluids, burned in effigy, and nearly blown up on campus, I still love speaking at universities, which is why I was thrilled when this semester's YAF speaking tour brought me back to my old stomping grounds, Yale.

Speaker 1 How do you prepare to give a speech on campus?

Speaker 2 Well, what most sensible guest lecturers do is either wing it or just give the same speech over and over, which is very tempting.

Speaker 2 But I like to write a new speech every time because it lets me really focus in on the most pressing issues of the time, whatever's going on that week, what's going on at that place, and the current events angle gives me a greater ability.

Speaker 2 to lure the audience into whichever obscure philosophical point or tradition I actually want to talk about. The principle is sort of like a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down.

Speaker 1 How far in advance do you write these?

Speaker 2 I generally write them, if I can, before I am walking on stage. That is about the earliest that I write them though.
There have been times I've been pulling up to the school still finishing it.

Speaker 2 But most of the time I have finished the speech before I had to give it.

Speaker 1 How did you think Yale would respond to your talk titled, An Open Mind Makes Your Brains Fall Out? Do you agree with the title of his speech today? Not necessarily. Not necessarily.

Speaker 1 That sometimes happens. Do I agree with this? I agree.
Open mind.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Do you agree with me?

Speaker 1 I don't like Michael Knowles. I'll say, okay.

Speaker 2 Yaleys are all extremely left-wing. It's generally known as the gay IV.
It's certainly the opposite of populist. And the main political divide on campus is between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

Speaker 1 But... Yaleys are also sociopathically ambitious.

Speaker 2 So I actually did not expect histrionics. I knew to expect a more clubbable kind of protest than the humiliating left-wing displays that other students put on at other schools.

Speaker 2 So, you know, these kids, they don't want to lose their Goldman Sachs job. I knew they were going to be more subtle about it, and I was not disappointed.

Speaker 2 The libs who showed up at Yale, though wrong, were polished and respectful, including the treasurer of a group that I once regularly would beat in beer pong, the Yale College Democrats.

Speaker 1 Who won beer pong? So that's an interesting question. No, no.

Speaker 1 Looks like the Republicans won. Woo!

Speaker 1 Seriously?

Speaker 2 Looks like the Republicans won.

Speaker 1 I think it's great when we have prominent individuals come to campus.

Speaker 1 And while I vehemently disagree with a lot of what Michael Knowles stands for, I would like the opportunity to have, you know, sort of civil disagreement and see, you know, which ideas went out.

Speaker 2 Now, unfortunately, my producer did not bring any solo cups or natty ice, but he did bring a couple couple of chairs so that this young liberal Yaley and I could sit down face to face.

Speaker 1 Zach, thank you for sitting down. Of course.

Speaker 1 So you're the head of the Yale College Republicans, right? No, the very opposite. I'm the treasure of the Yale College Democrats.
Democrats, okay. That's all right.

Speaker 1 I played a lot of beer pong with the Yale College Dems when I was here. I'm all for that sort of bipartisanship.
So you came up.

Speaker 1 You disagree with me. I do

Speaker 1 have a lot of issues. Did I persuade you on anything? No, you didn't.
No.

Speaker 1 Well, the thing is, I do go to a lot of conservative events, so I generally do hear some of the ideas you've been expressing.

Speaker 1 You've rejected them? Rejected them. Okay.
Any in particular? Well, I'd really like to talk about immigration.

Speaker 1 You know, I just saw there was an innocent man who was sent to El Salvador by Donald Trump, and he had no criminal record. Yeah.
You know, and he was sent to El Salvador based on a crown tattoo.

Speaker 1 And it seems pretty clear now that he was not a gang member. But now you might also observe there was an innocent girl named Lakin Riley who didn't do anything wrong.

Speaker 1 She was murdered by an illegal alien, welcomed into New York. That's Joe Biden.
And that's horrible, but

Speaker 1 it's not an either-or proposition. Taking someone like the barber and sending him without due process to El Salvador is not saving people.
But it is.

Speaker 1 I think you can have a moral immigration policy where you protect innocent people in the United States, and you also do not hurt innocent people by sending them to basically a forced labor facility.

Speaker 1 But it occurs to me that we all only focus on the Saab stories when they come out out of the American right.

Speaker 1 But when we look at mass migration, where under Joe Biden, we had millions and millions of illegal aliens come into the country every single year. And it wasn't just Biden.

Speaker 1 This has been going on in Democrat and Republican and Republican administrations. For decades now.

Speaker 1 It seems to me we never focus on the sob stories of the Americans who some were murdered, some were raped, some just... had their society turned upside down.

Speaker 1 Some have lost jobs, some had their wages suppressed. We never focus on that.

Speaker 1 And so, okay, one guy during a mass deportation scheme, one guy falls through the cracks and maybe should not have been deported, but he was. I don't know.
To me, I look at that and I say, hold on.

Speaker 1 You only have one mistake out of however many thousands since the inauguration. Those actually aren't terrible numbers.

Speaker 1 No system is going to be perfect. What's the alternative? I think the alternative is, you know, first off, you need an immigration system, right, where people have a path to legally enter the U.S.

Speaker 1 Why? Because we're a nation of immigrants, number one. Are we? We are.
I don't think so. Everyone,

Speaker 1 my grandparents fled here to flee the communists, right? But my great-great-great-grandparents came here on the Mayflower, which is a great cigar company, by the way. And they were not immigrants.

Speaker 1 They were settlers. They weren't indigenous to the land.
But they were not immigrants exactly.

Speaker 1 And we've had long periods of American history where immigration was drastically reduced or virtually non-existent.

Speaker 1 So this notion that we're a nation of immigrants is a relatively modern notion, is it not?

Speaker 2 We'll get to more across the line in just one moment.

Speaker 2 First, though, if you want the latest news, if you want to understand what the news actually means, you got to come check out and subscribe to the Michael Knowles Show every weekday at noon Eastern.

Speaker 2 I will take you beneath the surface of daily political events to reveal their historical, philosophical, even religious roots.

Speaker 2 Catch it Monday through Friday, noon Eastern now, back to cross the line at Yale.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm going to give two arguments, right? The first one is the moral argument. I think we have a duty to help others.
I know you're a man of faith.

Speaker 1 I'm also, you know, I am Jewish, but I, you know, we have. You're Jewish.
I am Jewish. I wouldn't have guessed that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, a lot of people wouldn't guess that, but there are actually 40 Asian Jews on campus. But digressing.

Speaker 1 That's got to be like all the Asian Jews in the world. It's a significant number of us.
But I want to make this point because I think it's important, right?

Speaker 1 Which is that, you know, number one, I think you have a duty to help others. And even in Isaiah, it says, woe unto those who pass evil laws who hurt the poor.
True. Woe unto those people.

Speaker 1 So we don't want to

Speaker 1 sin the crisis. So cries out for vengeance.
The second is the economic reason, which is that immigration, in addition to being, I think, morally right, is hugely beneficial for the U.S. economy.

Speaker 1 Undocumented immigrants alone pay $100 billion in taxes. And the other statistic I wanted to share is for every undocumented immigrant you deport, you actually are losing American jobs.

Speaker 1 There's a study that came out that says because of the net effect of people who are going to innovate in the economy, you know, work the jobs that a lot of Americans might not want to work.

Speaker 1 You know, that's how a lot of people get started. I think they might work.
You might have to pay them higher wages than

Speaker 1 slave or feudal wages to Guatemalan peasants, but then that's the point. You should pay a fair wage.
My first job is to oppress the poor. My first job, I worked for a landscaping company.

Speaker 1 Most of the people were from Central America. And I also speak Fluent Spanish, I'm bilingual in Spanish and English.
And hardworking, great people.

Speaker 1 Not all of them had immigration status, but we were out there cleaning people's yards.

Speaker 1 No one says illegal citizens can't work.

Speaker 1 But they just aren't supposed to be here.

Speaker 1 Well, my point to you is that you asked me why I favorite immigration, and I said there's a moral issue, but also the fact that economically we benefit as a nation.

Speaker 1 Again, $100 billion in taxes paid by undocumented immigrants. And in fact, they pay Social Security taxes, but don't get Social Security because they're not U.S.
citizens. However,

Speaker 1 one can also pull up studies about the net drag on the economy because immigrants, both legal and illegal, are more likely to receive welfare benefits than native-born American citizens.

Speaker 1 Dramatically so. Illegal immigrants the most, legal immigrants next, native-born Americans after that.
So you're saying, I just want to make sure I'm getting you correct here.

Speaker 1 You're saying that undocumented immigrants are receiving more welfare benefits than normal immigrants. I don't think that's true.

Speaker 1 And I actually would love for you to give me that study because I'd love to read it. If it were true, would that change your view of mass migration?

Speaker 1 It would make me like, I mean, it would be a really stunning fact, and it's definitely not a true. It would change your view.
You're saying it's. It would cause me to consider.

Speaker 1 So, again, because I still have the moral argument here, which is that, again, I think you should help people in need. Okay, should...
Japan take in an unlimited number of migrants.

Speaker 1 Should Israel take in an unlimited number of people. So 3% of the U.S.
population, and we can quibble over numbers. Again, I know Trump always says 18 million.
I see Pew that says 11 million.

Speaker 1 So that's there's a lot of people.

Speaker 1 It's hard to track. But the United States has 340 million people, right? And we have 11 million, maybe you say 18 million undocumented immigrants.
That's around 3% or 4% of the population.

Speaker 1 So the entire notion that we've been taken over by immigrants is not true.

Speaker 1 So you're just talking about illegal immigrants, which are conservatively ranked between 11 and 16 million.

Speaker 1 But when you talk about all migration, when we're talking about all of mass migration, we presently have the highest foreign-born percentage of the population that we've ever had in American history.

Speaker 1 So you would grant that having foreign people in the country creates at least some social issues, some problems of assimilation, would you not?

Speaker 1 Well, I look at the Fortune 500 CEOs and I see tons of immigrants there.

Speaker 1 So if you're talking about... I'm not just asking about GMP, buddy.
I'm talking about culture.

Speaker 1 So how would you, so I'm actually very curious about this because an issue I've seen people in your political lien talk about a lot is culture, right? What would you identify as American culture?

Speaker 1 Because to me, the American culture is always changing. It's a living culture, right? We do things differently now than we did 20, 30 years ago.
Some people... Right, why?

Speaker 1 Well, we used to speak English in this country, and recently we speak much less English, and you have to press one for English because of that. And you have a problem with that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's good for a nation to have a common language.

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Speaker 1 So I think, you know, most people in the U.S. do speak English, right? And again, my first job was working with a Spanish-speaking crew of landscapers.
Yeah. And you know what?

Speaker 1 That's a problem when a country doesn't all speak the same language. Because we all did speak the same language

Speaker 1 in American history until very recently. Well, I think we're a melting pot.
I get it. What do you think that? This is, well,

Speaker 1 there's a ton of benefits. Where does the idea of the melting pot come from? I don't know the origin, but I like the play.

Speaker 1 It comes from a play in the early, I think it's the early 20th century. And it was a good play.
It was written by a Jewish playwright, and it was watched by Teddy Roosevelt.

Speaker 1 And Teddy Roosevelt loved the play, and he complimented the playwright there. And it's about a Jewish guy who wants to marry a Gentile girl.

Speaker 1 And this creates a lot of problems culturally, but they both decide that they're going to leave some of their old identity and melt into the American identity to assimilate.

Speaker 1 So first of all, that means... giving up one's cultural identity to a large degree, though it does also mean adding a lot of culture.
You're adding something, right?

Speaker 1 That's the knowledge. Right.
You're adding. You're giving up a lot of your own culture.

Speaker 1 And you have seen this in waves of American migration that have caused problems too, when it was the Irish, when it was the Italians, when it was the Jews, when it was other people.

Speaker 1 The problem with more recent mass migration from Latin America, especially illegal immigration, is you don't really see so much giving away of the native culture.

Speaker 1 You don't really see people hurriedly learning English. They didn't used to have press one for Italian back in the early 20th century.
So the problems of assimilation have gotten much worse.

Speaker 1 And I guess the question I would ask to you, since you're unwilling to say whether Japan, which has virtually no immigration, should, you know,

Speaker 1 their population is plummeting. Like, you know, any economist right now would tell you that.

Speaker 1 Japan is actually in a lot of trouble because they don't have enough people there. And frankly, immigration would help much.

Speaker 1 Is Japan an immoral country because it doesn't take in a lot of immigrants?

Speaker 1 Is the state of Israel an immoral country? Well, the difference here is that we have millions of people who are fleeing harm and coming to our doorstep. And they're asking us, please help me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because they know that we'll let them in because Joe Biden invited them.

Speaker 1 Now we don't have anyone really coming to our doorstep because Trump has made it clear that he's going to deport illegal aliens.

Speaker 1 Well, I saw those photos of CBP, you know, the border app, people who had scheduled legal appointments, then Trump cut that off. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I think you might like that. But again, again, even though it's not a problem.

Speaker 1 But I think you're evading the moral question because I'm not beating up on Japan, and I'm not beating up on Israel, and I'm not beating up on Italy, which doesn't enforce immigration laws, but probably would like to.

Speaker 1 And I'm not beating up on virtually every other country on earth. Do you think that those countries are immoral because they don't just open them?

Speaker 1 So the analogy is a little bit flawed here because I'm saying there's millions of people coming to the U.S. who are asking for help.

Speaker 1 Japan doesn't have millions of people showing up their doorstep to the extent that we have just

Speaker 1 past week, CBP and NGOs at the border have closed up shop in certain places because so few people have come to the border since Trump's deportation policies.

Speaker 1 Well the other Trump policies with regard to the border, right, you know, the separation of

Speaker 1 children from families. Like he's trying to do things.

Speaker 1 Well, he's trying to do things to deter people from coming that are cruel, right? And it's part of the strategy.

Speaker 1 He's not just saying saying them bad. He's enforcing the law.
What's he doing that's cruel? That's different than any other president's done. What he's doing is different than Salvador.

Speaker 1 He's not dead. No, no.

Speaker 1 The El Salvador thing really gets to me. And again, we're two months into the admin, and this really gets to me.
You're saying millions of people. Because a judge also

Speaker 1 not one guy. These were people.
The issue here is

Speaker 1 this flight had 300 people or so. I don't know how many innocent people were on.
Some innocent people. Not all innocent, right? Some of them probably were one guy.

Speaker 1 Some of them, I assume. But the point is, this speaks to, you know, I think we should hold our government to a high standard, right? Sure.

Speaker 1 What's the standard? Because you're evading the question. I'm not.
What's the number? How many migrants should America take in per year?

Speaker 1 You're asking me to make an immigration policy number?

Speaker 1 I'm asking for a simple number. You're the one arguing that we're going to be able to do it.
Okay, I can actually do this because I've done a little research on this topic. I think the U.S.

Speaker 1 used to accept something around like 100,000 refugees a year, right? And I would say, and Trump has gotten that to zero.

Speaker 1 I could at least tell you right now that I think, you know, accepting those 100,000. So 100,000.
Well, I'm just going to say that. What do you want? That's migration every year, 100,000?

Speaker 1 Well, you got a deal. No, no, no.
I'll take it. No, no, I'm talking about refugees specifically because refugee acceptance programs.
But I'm asking you about total migration, how many per year?

Speaker 1 I think there should be a process where, based on merit, look, I'm not giving, because the people come to the border, and there's actually a law here, and it says when you request asylum, you have to meet a certain number of standards.

Speaker 1 Which is incredible.

Speaker 1 The vast majority of migrants are economic migrants, not asylum seekers. Would you agree with that? I think there's different motivations for people.

Speaker 1 And what is the motivation of most of the migrants? Was there economic migration or is it a significant? Sometimes both. Because if you live in a society where there's no functional police and

Speaker 1 you stand up a little bit and then you're threatened by the gang, and then you come here. You're telling me that the primary motive for the millions of innovations.
People seeking a better life.

Speaker 1 I think that is

Speaker 1 seeking asylum. Well,

Speaker 1 it fits in the category, right? Someone seeking asylum wants a better life. They're trying to escape violence.

Speaker 1 A square is a rectangle, I guess. But a rectangle is not a square.

Speaker 1 The people who are seeking political asylum because they're under imminent danger in their home countries. Credible fear fear is the same thing.
Credible fear.

Speaker 1 They are. But they can't get in now because Trump has stopped that, right? So my point to you is I think it's really wrong when people who actually are meeting the legal definition for credible fear.

Speaker 1 There's a set of laws that we're talking about. So you said 100,000 people were going to take care of the...
Well,

Speaker 1 that's specifically the refugee acceptance program. I was giving you.
Why won't you give me a number for total migration? Because I think it's case specific.

Speaker 1 Because again, there's a process that's going to be a lot of people who are not going to be able to do that. Let's say people come of America every year.
How many migrants should we take?

Speaker 1 You're the one advocating for migration. How many? Again, I'm talking about the process for how people come into the nation, right?

Speaker 1 And that could could be 2 million, it could be 3 million, but it's based on whether they have credible, I'm saying based on whether they have credible fear and they meet.

Speaker 1 Again, I'm not an immigration attorney, but I know there's a standard. You're an immigration.
And all of them. Exactly.
I'm just saying. So I'm asking your view as an American.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I'm happily giving it to you, which is that there's a process and we should let everyone who abides by that process, right? Oh, but

Speaker 1 it should be unlimited.

Speaker 1 By the process. Okay.
Which is what since Reagan, right? Since Reagan, we've had a process for the way that asylum.

Speaker 1 So we've finally gotten to an answer, which is if people abide by the process, an unlimited number of migrants should come every year. Well, right now it's around two to three million.

Speaker 1 So I'd say you go, those two to three million, come through the process, and everyone who qualifies comes in.

Speaker 1 I'm completely fine

Speaker 1 with that because, again, the two arguments, morally, you help people in need. And number two, we benefit hugely from an economic level.
So there's no limit. That's a moral argument.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you another, just I've been wanting to put in this fact, you know, which is that if we were to increase the number of refugees we accept in this country by just 10%, we'd increase our GDP by a billion dollars.

Speaker 1 And in fact, the average refugee

Speaker 1 refugee we let in, once they've acclimated, of course, right, they actually have a higher income than the average American citizen.

Speaker 1 And the reason is when you flee persecution, when you flee violence, when you flee with your family, you have a vested interest in working really hard and striving

Speaker 1 the American dream. I'm a little skeptical that the Somalis committing crimes in Minnesota are really going to tick GDP much higher.

Speaker 1 Again, but even if it were true, the country is more than GDP, we would admit. And so I guess my last...

Speaker 1 Sure, but a morality that only seems to apply to our country and not others. No, I.

Speaker 1 My question, my last question to you is, there was a Harvard-Harris, I hate to bring up Harvard or Yale, but there was a Harvard-Harris poll that said that most Americans, when you ask them if they support immigration, they say they do.

Speaker 1 When you drill down into numbers, the majority, a clear majority of Americans, would like immigration to be 500,000 or fewer total per year.

Speaker 1 That's legal and illegal, which would represent a drastic reduction in migration. This was not just one random poll.
This was backed up in a survey that came out last year. Harvard Harris polling.

Speaker 1 Well, Harvard Harris was the first one. Gallup and Gallup last

Speaker 1 reflected that most Americans want to drastically reduce all immigration. So you want immigration to be in principle unlimited and practically to be two to three million per year.

Speaker 1 Well, I think that's a straw man, right? Who just said that to me? No, no. What I'm saying to you is there's a process, right? And it's good.

Speaker 1 I can't give the exact number, but around two to three million is what I would expect for the amount of people coming to the U.S. I don't know how many of them will meet the credible fear, et cetera.

Speaker 1 But I'm just saying we need a legal process, and Trump has stopped that legal process. There is still a legal process.

Speaker 1 The border invasion declaration, again, I actually just made a presentation on this, so I know the facts, which is that he has stopped even the legal immigration.

Speaker 1 You keep going back to this point because you're evading the question that I'm asking you, which is, if the majority of Americans want to drastically reduce migration, and you want to keep migration at multiples of that level and keep it there or even increase it,

Speaker 1 why do you get to win out? Why don't I dispute the premise to win? I dispute the premise of your point, right? Because I think if we were to... What's the premise?

Speaker 1 I think the premise is self-government.

Speaker 1 If we had a,

Speaker 1 let's just say this was an arena, you know, there's a thought experiment where let's say everyone is watching a debate, right? And everyone will then come to a conclusion of the debate.

Speaker 1 If everyone's watching, and then I tell everyone, you know, I give them two arguments. Number one, the moral one that I've given to you, and number two, the economic one.

Speaker 1 They would go towards the point. They just don't use it.
Again, we have a difference of opinion.

Speaker 1 There's probably a difference of opinion.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you're saying the majority of Americans in both of these polls have called for less migration, drastically less migration, because they just don't understand how great migration is.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. I'm not saying that.
I'm saying I I don't know what the... I haven't heard your beautiful arguments for it.
I have to look at the exact ⁇ so I'm a bit of a polling nerd.

Speaker 1 I look into the polls and the crosstabs. And, you know, if you ask Americans, you know, their opinions on like helping others on immigration, et cetera.
They love it.

Speaker 1 Yes, they love helping others. And we're way out of order.
They don't like it. Wait, wait, wait.
But they're way out of line.

Speaker 1 They completely disagree with the Trump administration is doing. Because, again, there's horror stories out of nations.

Speaker 1 But most voters voted for Trump campaigning on mass migration. But I think people also voted because of prices, right? I was actually knocking doors in Pennsylvania.
I love knocking doors.

Speaker 1 From that, a lot of it was the prices, which now are going up because of Trump's tariffs. Americans care about helping others.
They care about the power.

Speaker 1 I'll make a deal with you.

Speaker 1 If your argument is really just because of the terrible inflation under Biden or whatever, the price is going up, and the Democrats want a campaign on promoting mass migration in the midterms and in the next presidential election, I'm all for it.

Speaker 1 In fact, I might even donate to that campaign. That's not the campaign I'm talking about.
I'm talking about a campaign that is about fundamental values, about, first off,

Speaker 1 it's values that spread to every issue. And ensuring, right, also in migration, right, that we treat the poorest of the poor well.
Two to three million a year. Great.

Speaker 1 Whoever comes through the process, legal process, not shouting it down. All right.
I appreciate the conversation. I'll see you at the midterms.
A pleasure to meet you.

Speaker 1 Hopefully the next time we're back at Yale, you will be the treasurer of the Yale College Republicans. I think that's a little unlikely, but we'll see.

Speaker 2 It's easy to join a protest and shout someone down. It takes a lot more courage and curiosity to sit down and talk, especially with little old me.

Speaker 1 Until next time.