The Matt Walsh Show - September 14, 2018


Ep. 104 - Saving Sex For Marriage Solves Lots of Problems


Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

169.66393

Word count

3,714

Sentence count

190

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Christine Ford has come forward with a new accusation against Brett Kavanagh. She claims that he sexually assaulted her at a house party when she was 17 years old in the early 1980s. She says that he pinned her to a bed and tried to remove her clothes.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 Brett Kavanaugh has been, I'm sure you've heard by now, Brett Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault when he was 17 over three decades ago.
00:00:12.220 And the Democrats became aware of this accusation months ago, but have only coincidentally decided to come forward with it now while right before the confirmation is supposed to go through.
00:00:27.900 So they, you know, just coincidentally, they decided at the very last minute to say, oh, hey, by the way, here's this thing.
00:00:35.660 Now, we'll get to the Democrats' role in all this in a second, but let's first take a look at the allegation itself.
00:00:44.500 I'll read, this is the allegation as reported by Fox News.
00:00:49.460 It says, the woman, Christine Ford, is a professor at Palo Alto University, according to the Washington Post, which published her account on Sunday.
00:00:57.900 I'm looking for the actual accusation.
00:01:02.740 Ford, a 51-year-old registered Democrat who has published in academic journals and trained students in clinical psychology, described the alleged incident on Sunday, saying it occurred at a Maryland teenage house gathering.
00:01:14.040 Ford claimed she headed upstairs to a bathroom when she was suddenly pushed onto a bed as rock and roll music blared. 0.89
00:01:19.400 However, Ford told the Post she did not recall exactly who owned the house, how she came to be at the house, or how the gathering was arranged.
00:01:24.880 She remembered only that the house was in Montgomery County near a country club and that parents were not present.
00:01:31.840 Ford said she remembered that during one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend, Mark Judge, were stumbling drunk and laughing maniacally, those are both quotes,
00:01:40.060 when Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to forcibly remove her one-piece bathing suit as well as the clothes she was wearing. 1.00
00:01:45.300 According to Ford, Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth when she attempted to scream.
00:01:49.000 I thought he might inadvertently kill me, said Ford, who works as a research psychologist in California.
00:01:54.080 He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.
00:01:56.100 Ford claims she was able to escape to a bathroom and then outside of the house when Judge, Mark Judge, the other guy allegedly involved,
00:02:03.760 jumped into the fray and sent everyone in the room, quote, tumbling.
00:02:07.360 Okay, now we're told that Ford, the accuser, she told this story to a therapist in 2012 and the notes of that therapy session have been given to the Washington Post.
00:02:23.420 And she also passed an FBI lie detector test and a lot of people are making a big deal out of that, that she passed a lie detector test.
00:02:31.600 Now, I don't, you know, the fact that she told this to a therapist is potentially significant.
00:02:37.120 We'll get to that in a second.
00:02:39.140 The fact that she passed a lie detector test doesn't tell you anything.
00:02:43.840 Because, number one, lie detector tests are junk science.
00:02:48.280 You know, the way people talk about lie detector tests, polygraph tests,
00:02:51.540 it's as if people really think that it's literally a lie detector test.
00:02:56.820 Like, it can read your mind, and if you tell a lie, it says, whoop, that was a lie.
00:03:02.340 But that's, of course, not how it goes.
00:03:04.300 It reads certain body signals, certain things that are going on with you physically,
00:03:09.560 and then the person administering the test interprets that as being, you know, a sign of anxiety or nervousness,
00:03:17.280 which is then interpreted as being a sign that you told a lie.
00:03:20.960 So there, it's just, there's a lot of interpreting going on, and as I said, it's junk science.
00:03:26.660 Because here's the thing about a lie detector test.
00:03:29.760 Ironically, if you're really good at lying, and you lie all the time, if you're a pathological liar,
00:03:35.480 if you tell a lot of lies all the time, then you'll probably pass a lie detector test.
00:03:41.040 But if you're very honest and scrupulous, there's a very good chance that you'll fail the test.
00:03:46.000 So that's why you can't, you can't take this stuff seriously.
00:03:51.140 But she did, okay, so she told someone in 2012.
00:03:55.140 That is, you know, a new piece of information that is potentially significant,
00:04:00.440 because that would seem to alleviate the concern that she just concocted this whole story now out of the blue.
00:04:08.040 Although, she didn't apparently name Kavanaugh in 2012, and her story has changed.
00:04:14.320 She said in 2012 that it was four guys who were involved.
00:04:17.140 Now she says it's two.
00:04:18.300 That's a significant change.
00:04:19.800 That's, we've just cut in half the number of attempted rapists, which is significant.
00:04:26.860 I mean, that proves that, that would seem to indicate that there is a certain degree of unreliability in the story that we're being told.
00:04:37.720 Which doesn't necessarily mean that she's lying.
00:04:39.660 It could mean that she just really doesn't know exactly what happened.
00:04:44.660 Okay, so let me make a, let me back up for a minute.
00:04:48.780 I'm going to just make a few general points about all this.
00:04:52.900 And just give you my perspective on it.
00:04:56.340 Number one, going back to the Democrats, I want to be clear on one thing.
00:05:01.340 That the Democrats are truly evil.
00:05:05.100 I mean, they are despicable, wicked, disgusting, satanic, evil.
00:05:09.800 I mean, I mean, what we know about this, no matter who's lying, who isn't lying, no matter what happened, no matter what happened 35 years ago, here's what we know for sure.
00:05:21.140 That the Democrats involved here are scumbags.
00:05:23.820 We know that the Democrats are scumbags.
00:05:25.380 Whether Kavanaugh's a liar, whether Christine Ford's a liar, whether, you know, whatever else, we certainly know that the Democrat politicians involved with putting this allegation out there, they are scumbags.
00:05:37.360 Because they were contacted with the story months ago, but they held it, they saved it until right before the confirmation so that they could cause maximum panic and prevent Republicans from confirming someone else.
00:05:48.260 So what they were concerned with, you know, they don't care about women, they don't care about this woman, they don't care about women in general.
00:05:53.760 This is a transparent ploy on their part.
00:05:56.640 They are using this cynically and blatantly for their own benefit.
00:06:00.420 And they're scumbags either way, because either they think that this allegation is not credible, in which case they're scumbags for coming forward with it, or they think it is credible, in which case they're scumbags for holding on to it all this time.
00:06:15.000 So they're scumbags either way, we know that.
00:06:17.360 Number two, when we first heard this story out of nowhere on Friday, I said that the allegations deserve to be dismissed out of hand if no additional evidence is provided for them.
00:06:29.840 Well, since then, we found out about the polygraph, we found out about the therapist thing.
00:06:34.200 Now, I don't know if we would call that, that's not really evidence, okay?
00:06:37.420 That's not evidence against Brett Kavanaugh.
00:06:41.780 Well, evidence would be like an eyewitness that can corroborate her testimony.
00:06:49.940 But the only other eyewitness, Mark Judge, has already denied this.
00:06:55.040 So now it's two against one.
00:06:56.920 So I don't know if we could say that there's any evidence on her side.
00:06:59.180 However, the fact that she told this story or a version of it, you know, several years ago, before Brett Kavanaugh was, you know, in the running for the Supreme Court, that would seem to indicate that she probably isn't lying about the whole thing.
00:07:16.920 Um, she may be even telling the truth, the entire truth, as she sees it.
00:07:22.760 That does not, however, mean that it happened exactly as she's telling it.
00:07:27.600 Maybe it did.
00:07:29.620 Maybe it didn't.
00:07:30.820 But she's foggy on the details, and it happened a long time ago.
00:07:34.600 She doesn't remember when it happened.
00:07:36.100 She doesn't remember where it happened.
00:07:37.420 She doesn't remember how she ended up, where she was.
00:07:39.380 So we've been given a very cloudy snapshot of an event that occurred somewhere in Montgomery County, sometime in the early 80s.
00:07:48.200 I mean, that means we can't really say that this happened exactly as she said, because she doesn't even know exactly how it happened or who was involved.
00:08:00.320 Even if she's not being dishonest.
00:08:02.340 So we don't even need to get into, you know, accusing her of lying, accusing Kavanaugh of lying.
00:08:09.180 Given the fact that this happened 35 years ago, allegedly, and that she's so cloudy about the details, there's just a lot of, there's a lot that isn't known.
00:08:18.100 Third point.
00:08:19.720 Um, even some supporters of Kavanaugh are saying that, well, look, if this is true, then he lied about it.
00:08:27.620 And lying is a very serious thing, especially if he wants to be a Supreme Court justice.
00:08:31.520 And if he lied to the FBI during all those background checks that he's taken throughout his career, then, uh, you know, then that's reason enough.
00:08:37.640 I mean, even their argument is, yeah, this happened, uh, three and a half decades ago, but the lying is much more recent.
00:08:48.860 And I agree, by the way, that if this did happen, and if he has been lying about it all this time, then that is disqualifying, clearly.
00:09:01.840 But hold on a second.
00:09:03.760 She says herself that Brett Kavanaugh was stumbling drunk.
00:09:06.940 Those are her words.
00:09:07.680 So isn't it possible, isn't it even quite likely that if it did happen, he really doesn't remember this thing that happened when he was extremely inebriated as a teenager 35 years ago?
00:09:21.180 Isn't that very possible?
00:09:23.440 Isn't it possible that for 35 years, this has all been to him a non-memory, or at best, a very hazy, you know, recollection of something happening at a party when he was drunk?
00:09:33.380 I mean, I think in order to call Kavanaugh a liar, you have to assume, A, that it happened, and B, that he remembers it happening, exactly as Ford says that it happened.
00:09:45.540 And I think both of those assumptions, especially the second, are dubious at best.
00:09:50.880 Uh, number four, going back to the vagueness of these allegations, remember that, um, she is unsure of some of the fundamental details, like when and where.
00:10:01.880 So she doesn't know when and where, but she knows who?
00:10:04.800 Well, she doesn't even know exactly who, because she said four before, now she says two.
00:10:07.740 So that's, that, that's a, that's a problem.
00:10:10.920 And also there are other details here that she, you know, how do we know that she's clear about some of the other details?
00:10:16.680 Details like she says that she was shoved into the bedroom.
00:10:21.180 She says that, uh, Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth.
00:10:24.620 So in order to hold this against Kavanaugh, we have to assume that all this happened, he remembers that it happened, he's been lying about it, and, uh, we also have to assume that she is absolutely 100% sure about those few details there.
00:10:44.660 That she's not misremembering them, or she's not exaggerating them, or inventing them, I mean, all these different possibilities.
00:10:51.360 Because, hypothetically, if this, if some sort of incident did happen, but she wasn't shoved into the bedroom, let's say she went into the bedroom willingly with two drunk guys, and the hand over the mouth thing never happened.
00:11:06.480 Like, if you remove those two things from the situation, it starts to color everything a little bit differently.
00:11:12.080 So the point is, with something like this, every last detail is so important, yet we have a lot of, we have very, we have many very good reasons to doubt the details that we've been given.
00:11:27.540 Also, another point, I don't know, I mean, I've, I don't know if anyone's asked her this yet, but, um, was she herself drunk?
00:11:36.480 At this party?
00:11:37.620 Because she was at a house party with other teenagers, the others were plastered, according to her.
00:11:41.560 So was she stone-cold sober, or was she also drunk?
00:11:44.920 Because if she was, then that would obviously hinder her ability to remember what actually happened.
00:11:49.520 Fifth thing, uh, fifth point I want to make.
00:11:52.380 Okay, let's assume, let's assume for a minute that, that this did happen.
00:11:58.940 It did happen, like she said it happened.
00:12:01.100 Let's assume that.
00:12:01.880 Now, I don't think we can assume that.
00:12:03.160 Because, as I said, we've got to, we'd have to, we'd have to leap over some other very real possibilities.
00:12:10.460 That she's lying, that she's misremembering, that there, you know, that there's some combination of truth and fiction.
00:12:15.800 We'd have to skip over all of those to land on the assumption that it actually happened.
00:12:21.100 I don't think we can do that, but let's, for a second, let's say that we do do that.
00:12:25.240 Let's say that we assume that it did happen.
00:12:26.820 Then we're left with another question.
00:12:28.600 I think it's an important question, and that is, should a man be denied a position because of a bad thing that he did while he was drunk as a high schooler 35 years ago?
00:12:38.660 I, it seems like there are a lot of people who are 100% sure that, well, yeah, of course.
00:12:44.340 I don't think it's so obvious.
00:12:45.580 Now, if it did happen, then it's a really bad thing.
00:12:50.280 This is not like knocking over mailboxes or egging somebody's house or even shoplifting a pack of gum from CVS.
00:12:56.940 But, assuming that this is not part of a pattern of behavior, assuming that he hasn't continued doing these things, if he did do it at all,
00:13:04.920 and there hasn't been any other women that have come forward to accuse him.
00:13:07.220 In fact, there have been 65 women that came forward to attest to his, to his, his, his character.
00:13:13.120 So, assuming that it was, you know, that this is not part of a pattern, then we have to ask ourselves,
00:13:18.140 what should we do with the bad behavior of a 17-year-old guy 35 years ago?
00:13:25.500 So, this is where, and I know a lot of you will disagree, but I, you know, I give a fair amount of leeway to people
00:13:35.880 for indiscretions, even really bad indiscretions from their teenage years.
00:13:41.060 I just have trouble with the idea that a person's life and career should be destroyed
00:13:44.560 because of the worst thing they did as a drunken kid decades ago.
00:13:48.340 And I also think that the vast majority of people setting that standard and defending it now
00:13:52.260 would not be happy if it was applied to them.
00:13:54.520 Listen, I'm not saying that most people have sexual assaults in their background or attempted assaults.
00:13:59.720 I'm not saying that this kind of thing is, quote, normal for, for teenagers.
00:14:04.760 But, you know, there, there, there are a lot of really bad things that teenagers can do to each other,
00:14:12.820 a lot of different ways they can abuse each other.
00:14:15.860 And so there are a lot of people who have bad things from their teenage years in their past,
00:14:23.700 even if it's nothing sexual, right?
00:14:26.620 So think about, you know, let's just take a common example.
00:14:29.440 Think about a guy who was 16, 15, 16 years old, whatever.
00:14:34.520 And he was a vicious bully.
00:14:36.380 Let's say he bullied.
00:14:38.180 Let's say that he was, there was one particular kid in school who he tormented and he bullied.
00:14:42.920 And, uh, even to the point of physically assaulting him, right?
00:14:48.460 Now, is that as bad as what Kevin Kavanaugh allegedly did?
00:14:53.040 Uh, yeah, I mean, maybe, I mean, it kind of depends, but that, that, that could be at least as bad.
00:14:59.200 Um, and anyone who, you know, growing up was ever tormented by someone else in school to that extent,
00:15:07.860 you know, that this, I mean, this is, it's the kind of thing cause, cause lasting psychological.
00:15:14.180 Um, but it's like, uh, just a terrible person as a teenager, just awful.
00:15:19.980 And then let's say they grow up and, um, so they, they've spent like twice as long being a decent person
00:15:27.440 as they spent being a horrible teenager, uh, or three, you know, even longer than that.
00:15:33.260 Should we then go and dig up those skeletons decades later and use it against them?
00:15:38.500 That's the question.
00:15:42.320 I'm, I'm just, I'm uncomfortable with that because teenagers can be extremely vicious, selfish, ruthless.
00:15:50.620 Dishonest.
00:15:51.720 That doesn't excuse the behavior.
00:15:54.640 And that's not to say that all, that all bad behavior as a teenager is, is, is to the same degree.
00:16:00.260 And is, you know, is it's not all equal, right?
00:16:05.260 But my point is that it's perfectly plausible that a person could be terrible as a teenager,
00:16:10.620 just be a terrible person and do terrible things, but then turn into a decent, honest adult.
00:16:17.140 That's perfectly plausible.
00:16:18.520 It happens all the time.
00:16:19.980 And if you understand the psychology of teenagers and all the things that go into it, you know,
00:16:25.660 it's just, they're, they're, again, it's not an excuse.
00:16:29.100 It's just putting things into a certain context.
00:16:31.620 And then asking to what extent, decades later, should you be held to account for things that, that, that you did as a, as a kid.
00:16:42.760 And the transition from teenagehood to adulthood is a transition where a person can really change, transform significantly.
00:16:52.560 A lot of people do.
00:16:53.400 Most people do, hopefully.
00:16:55.720 So it's, this is not the same.
00:16:57.340 Look, this is not, it's, this is not the same thing as saying that just because something happened a long time ago,
00:17:03.940 that automatically means that you are, you know, that you shouldn't be held responsible for it now.
00:17:10.660 Because, you know, if, if, if you're 55 years old and you did something terrible when you were 35, which is 20 years ago, that's a long time, but you were 35 years old.
00:17:24.620 So you were a grown adult at that point.
00:17:27.760 Or if you're 70 years old and you did something when you were 60 or in your fifties, yeah, you could say, well, that was two decades ago.
00:17:34.060 That was a decade ago.
00:17:35.340 Yeah, but you were a grown person at that point.
00:17:38.260 I mean, you were completely, totally grown.
00:17:42.080 So you could certainly argue.
00:17:44.520 Now, of course, people do, people can have transformations even as adults.
00:17:48.280 But most of the time, if you're a total scumbag at 35, then you're probably going to be a scumbag at 50.
00:17:54.500 And if you were a scumbag at 50, you're probably going to be a scumbag at 70 and, and so on and so on.
00:17:59.820 Because in, now there are exceptions, but in most cases, people's character and personality kind of solidify at a certain point.
00:18:08.760 And then that's just how they are.
00:18:11.840 So that it's kind of rare that you would, you know, you would know somebody when they're 40 and they're a total scumbag.
00:18:18.920 And then you don't see them for a while.
00:18:20.300 And then you, and then you meet them again at 60 and they're completely changed and everything is different about them.
00:18:25.320 That does happen.
00:18:26.340 It's rare.
00:18:28.300 On the other hand, it's very common that you could know someone when they're 16 and then meet them again when they're 36 and say, wow, this is a totally different person.
00:18:36.400 A person's character and personality has not set in, has not solidified at the age of 17 or 20 or even 25 these days.
00:18:51.740 So I, I, I just think you have to allow, you have to take that into consideration.
00:18:59.760 You know, you have to allow for that, um, reality while you're, you know, when you're, when you're analyzing these sorts of situations.
00:19:07.200 So that's all, I mean, when you, when you, if you're looking at a guy now, and then you find out that 35 years ago when he was a kid, he did a really terrible thing.
00:19:20.020 What bearing does that necessarily have on who he is now?
00:19:23.860 Um, and remember that, uh, that if, well, here's the sixth thing with all these things considered, I don't see how you could take this nomination away from Brett Kavanaugh.
00:19:40.320 And in fact, not only should it not be taken away unless something changes like between now and I mean, unless there's some huge revelation, something significant change, but as it stands right now, I don't see how you could take this, uh, this nomination away from Kavanaugh.
00:19:52.520 And in fact, I think it'd be a very, very, very dangerous precedent.
00:19:56.220 If you did think about the precedent, the precedent is that a guy at the last minute can have an opportunity or position taken away from him based on unsubstantiated, uncorroborated accusations, which are, which are, which have been vaguely transmitted, um, from someone who can't even remember all the details, uh, you know, accusations dating back to when the person was a kid decades ago.
00:20:23.100 That to me is a very dangerous precedent.
00:20:25.140 And it's a precedent that, um, a lot of the people that are setting that precedent, if it were applied to them, they would be not happy.
00:20:35.360 Even if they don't have sexual assaults or a quote, you know, alleged attempted assaults in their background, they have things that they did when they were teenagers that, you know, now that it's 20 years later, 30 years later, if it was held against them or used as justification to take an opportunity from them, they would think it was the most unjust and unfair thing in the world.
00:20:57.740 But I think that's the case for a lot of the people who now want this precedent to be set.
00:21:02.700 On the other hand, if the confirmation goes through, what's the precedent there?
00:21:07.180 Well, the precedent is that you can't come at the last minute with these unsubstantiated allegations from decades ago when the guy was a kid.
00:21:15.020 You know, you can't do that.
00:21:16.640 And that's, and that's a fine precedent.
00:21:18.500 That's a good precedent.
00:21:19.840 That's what the precedent should be.
00:21:21.420 So unless something changes, unless something really serious changes, I think you just have to go through, push through this.
00:21:32.080 And if Republicans allow themselves to be beaten back and they give up on Kavanaugh because of this, because they're scared away by it, I think that would be an enormous, enormous mistake.
00:21:47.560 Thanks for watching, everybody.
00:21:48.760 Thanks for listening.
00:21:50.720 Godspeed.
00:21:51.420 Godspeed.