Michael Knowles Says The Daily Wire is Upping Security After Journalist Linked Company to Nashville School Shooting
Michael Knowles says The Daily Wire, based in Nashville, is taking additional safety measures after an NBC contributor linked the company and its hosts to the Nashville school shooting that left six dead.
On Monday, after the shooting at the Covenant school in Nashville that left three children and three adults dead, NBC contributor, Benjamin Ryan, tweeted news of the shooting while connecting the tragedy to the conservative media company.
He deleted this tweet.
But it's too late. pic.twitter.com/kzIPMRnGI6
— Jeff Charles, Agent of Chaos🏴 (@jeffcharlesjr) March 27, 2023
“NBC has ID’d the Nashville school shooter as Audrey Hale, 28, who identifies as transgender and had no previous criminal record. Nashville is home to the Daily Wire, a hub of anti-trans activity,” Ryan wrote in a now-deleted tweet, tagging Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, and Knowles in the post.
Knowles shared the news of the extra security measures in an interview with radio personality Glenn Beck.
“Michael, first of all, you guys safe?” Beck asked.
“We are safe here. I hope — I trust — Daily Wire, takes security very, very seriously, and we are upping that security now because as you pointed out, Glenn, not only have there been calls for violence against the so-called transphobes for a long time now, there were calls for violence after the shooting,” Knowles said.
Knowles referenced the former press secretary to Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Josselyn Berry, who resigned after tweeting a controversial meme seemingly condoning violence against “transphobes” after the shootings.
“You’ve got the Trans Day of vengeance calls for that to take place in Washington D.C. and in Nashville,” Knowles said. “You had ABC News blaming the shooting on Republican legislators in Tennessee for passing a bill, saying, you can’t mutilate children. You had NBC News blaming Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and me, because of our refusal to go along with transgender ideology.”
“So you’re seeing a pattern here. You’re seeing a huge pattern emerge and then the allegedly reasonable voices on the Left. What do they blame? They blame the guns,” Knowles concluded.
Other Daily Wire hosts have reacted to Ryan linking the company to the tragedy, with Candace Owens declaring it “Left wing FILTH.”
“His argument is that the transgendered psychopath had to murder children because people at the DailyWire do not support the mutilation of children’s bodies, under the guise of “gender-affirming care,” Owens tweeted.
Ben Shapiro tweeted “A self-identified trans person with a manifesto shoots up a Christian school, and the media have decided to run with Tennessee legislators owning guns, “anti-trans legislation,” and The Daily Wire. The dishonest pretzling is astonishing.”
And Matt Walsh even canceled a scheduled speech over safety concerns for his own family.
“Sadly I have to postpone my speech at Washington and Lee University. Due to threats against my family and other serious security concerns in Nashville this week, I cannot leave my family and fly to another state. I hate to push the event off but my wife and kids come first,” he wrote on Wednesday.
He said the events would be rescheduled and reiterated that the cancellation had nothing to do with the speaking event itself.
“In case it wasn’t clear, this has nothing to do with Washington and Lee University. The event was coming together well and everything was perfectly fine. May have been some protests planned but nothing major. The potential danger is at home, which is why I need to be at home,” Walsh wrote.
