‘Am I Dreaming?’: Michael Knowles Pleasantly Surprised As Democrat NYC Mayor Eric Adams Bemoans Prayer Leaving Schools

Daily Wire host Michael Knowles was pleasantly surprised as New York City Mayor Eric Adams lamented the fact that gun violence has replaced prayer in government schools.

Adams, a Democrat who assumed office last year, commented during an interfaith breakfast that the decline of religiosity in New York City has contributed to its decline. “If we are bringing our best fight in the ring, we would not have homelessness in this city. We would not have a crisis of domestic violence,” he said. “Because when we took prayers out of schools, guns came into the schools.”

The official dismissed the view of “separation of church and state” often professed by members of the Left. “Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state,” Adams continued. “State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies.”

Knowles remarked during an episode of “The Michael Knowles Show” that Adams rendered a correct observation about human nature with his comments. “He’s not giving a historical study here. He’s making a philosophical and anthropological point,” he remarked. “When you discourage them from worshiping God and turning their eyes up to good things and to virtue and to truth, they’re going to turn it somewhere else. They’re going to turn their attention to bad things. They’re going to turn their attention to false idols. They’re going to turn their attention to falsehoods and vice. That is what’s going to happen.”

Knowles had previously discussed the overwhelming loss of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the city’s elections on Tuesday; the comments from Adams added to his unexpected optimism. “Eric Adams said something really true. Is something wrong? Hold on, am I dreaming? Am I? I want to pinch myself,” he said. “Something is going on in our cities. Chicago threw out Lori Lightfoot, the New York City mayor is saying something true and smart.”

The speech from Adams provoked rebukes from left-wing entities such as the ACLU; indeed, Knowles observed that the comments about the effects of removing prayer from schools more closely resemble the viewpoint of a right-wing politician from Texas. He expressed hope that the phenomena in New York City and Chicago indicate that residents are realizing that the secular vision they once held for their communities has failed.

“You’re seeing some rays of hope here creeping in, which is that people are beginning to realize maybe that was a mistake,” Knowles said. “Maybe when you create a national policy turning your country away from God, maybe that’s not going to work out so great.”

Knowles referenced his comments from a previous episode in which he lauded Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for imprisoning violent gang members and causing the Latin American nation’s murder rate to plummet. Knowles cited a second video from Bukele in which the official commended soldiers for embracing virtues such as “strength, discipline, patriotism, honor, loyalty, and love for your fellow man,” which are necessary for maintaining a prosperous nation.

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“History students will be studying this speech years from now. This is beautiful, simple, and true,” Knowles reacted. “The president of El Salvador sounds like an American founding father in that speech. More so, he sounds like Governor Bradford, Governor Winthrop, or some of the very earliest Americans who helped to build our country.”