The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1101 - Why They're Filling Our Cities With Hideous Modern Art

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, a New York City courthouse adorns its building with a satanic

00:00:04.020 monument to abortion. The statue is creepy and depraved and also hideous. In fact, our whole 0.93

00:00:08.400 society is plagued now by hideous and creepy artwork. It's all part of a larger agenda I'll

00:00:12.640 explain today. Also, Project Veritas caught a Pfizer executive on camera and what he reveals

00:00:16.900 is truly explosive. Stick around to hear about that. Plus, Eric Swalwell is traumatized after

00:00:21.300 being kicked off of the Intelligence Committee for sleeping with a Chinese spy. And Google has

00:00:26.040 massive layoffs leading to some unintentionally funny TikTok videos. We'll take a look at those

00:00:29.620 today. All of that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.

00:00:40.100 One of the great tragedies of my life is that I wasn't doing a show last week when Boston's MLK

00:00:45.840 statue, the news cycle, came and went and passed me by. The thing that motivates me to get up every

00:00:52.200 day and host this show is the very hope that one day I'll be able to deliver a monologue on something

00:00:56.960 as hilarious as a statue that's meant to honor Martin Luther King Jr., but instead looks like a

00:01:01.840 disembodied pile of limbs that arranges itself into a different sex act depending on the angle you view 0.88

00:01:07.140 it from. It's supposed to be a memorial to King, but the sculptor accidentally made a memorial to

00:01:12.420 Pornhub. Well, I assume it was an accident. Whether he meant for the thing to be sexualized, to be sort of

00:01:17.700 a sexualized three-dimensional Rorschach test is anybody's guess, but we do know that what he 0.99

00:01:23.680 created, whatever the intention was, is a giant $10 million hunk of garbage. There's a lot to be said 0.98

00:01:30.320 about the subject, not just to simply point and laugh at it, I mean mainly to point and laugh, but also

00:01:36.140 to discuss the continued and rapidly increasing uglification, if I can coin a term, of our society.

00:01:42.500 This is a process that is deliberate and systematic. Beautiful art is taken down and replaced by hideous

00:01:49.560 vomitous nonsense. Why is this happening? What is the end game? These are the important questions,

00:01:56.080 but I missed my chance, or so I thought, to talk about them. That is until New York City came to

00:02:01.000 the rescue. Only a week after the MLK sex sculpture revolted and amused us all, NYC has made their own

00:02:08.660 contribution to the conversation. They are attempting valiantly, I might say, to recover their crown as

00:02:14.600 the ugly statue capital of the country, and with this latest eyesore, they may have succeeded.

00:02:20.420 Here's the article from Time Out, which is a New York City news site. It says, statues of nine men

00:02:27.620 from history and religion perch atop the courthouse near Madison Square Park. Now, for the first time,

00:02:33.260 the representation of a woman has joined their noble rooftop plinths. Hava to Breathe Air Life,

00:02:40.660 an exhibition by artist Shazia Sikander, focusing on things of justice, has brought stunning golden

00:02:47.840 sculptures to Madison Square Park and the nearby courthouse at 27 Madison Avenue. Inside Madison

00:02:53.080 Square Park sits Witness, a monumental female figure measuring 18 feet tall and wearing a hoop skirt 0.99

00:02:59.360 inspired by the courtroom's stained glass ceiling dome. The figure's twisted arms and legs suggest

00:03:05.120 tree roots, referencing what the artist has described as the self-rootedness of the female

00:03:09.960 form. It can carry its roots wherever it goes. You can even use your smartphone to bring the figure

00:03:15.700 to life through AR technology. Adorning the nearby courthouse now, an eight-foot-tall female figure 1.00

00:03:21.900 resembles the park sculpture, but a lotus symbolizing wisdom replaces the hoop skirt. Her horns indicate 0.99

00:03:28.100 sovereignty and autonomy. A delicate collar nods to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader

00:03:32.780 Ginsburg, who often wore detailed collars with her traditional black robe. The statue, the only woman 0.84

00:03:38.240 represented, sits next to figures including Confucius, Justinian, Moses, Zoroaster. At last,

00:03:46.240 this work puts a female figure on a level plane with the traditional patriarchal depictions of justice 0.81

00:03:51.760 and power. Well, not quite a level plane because those other sculptures are legitimate works of art.

00:04:00.440 This one is a satanic monstrosity. It's a woman with tentacles for arms and horns on her head, resembling 1.00

00:04:06.780 like a doodle that a very disturbed 10-year-old might draw. It's the kind of thing that the child in the

00:04:12.300 horror film sketches in his notebook right before his parents realize he's possessed. And on top of all that,

00:04:17.760 it looks cheap as though it was sculpted out of plastic. It looks like it was made of the same

00:04:22.400 material they use for those little green toy soldiers that you buy in a bag at the dollar

00:04:26.840 store. This is modern art in a nutshell. Cheap, ugly, stupid, and vaguely, or not so vaguely in this

00:04:33.700 case, demonic. New York City, by the way, is no stranger to ugly statues. Just a couple of years ago, 1.00

00:04:39.080 they confused us all with a monument sculpted by a, quote, conceptual artist and placed outside the

00:04:45.520 Rockefeller Center that looks like a giant cartoon head, like something that a not very talented

00:04:50.580 caricature artist might sketch. Really, it looks like a parody of African art, though the artist is

00:04:56.200 black, so he escaped the racism charge, I guess. But he certainly cannot escape the charge of being 1.00

00:05:01.680 a talentless hack, which is what he is. Now, to add insult to injury, while New York litters its streets

00:05:08.760 and buildings with these unsightly lumps, it's also actively removing its good art. Just a few days ago,

00:05:16.820 the city finally removed the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that has adorned the outside of its

00:05:21.840 Museum of Natural History for nearly a century. The stated reason for removing this statue is that

00:05:28.800 the depiction of a black man and a Native American man walking alongside Roosevelt makes the whole scene

00:05:35.760 somehow inexplicably racist. No one ever explains why, by the way. Just the fact that you've got a

00:05:42.300 white man and then there's a black man there also, that's racist. But the real reason it was taken down

00:05:48.540 is that the work of art commits two unforgivable sins in the modern age. One, it memorializes a heroic

00:05:54.860 white man, which, of course, you can't do. And two, it's beautiful. That's a beautiful work of art. 0.60

00:06:00.980 And beautiful art is no longer allowed. Of course, you don't need to live in New York or Boston to

00:06:08.660 have your eyes assaulted by these memorials to ugliness. Every American city is plagued by these

00:06:14.000 sorts of modern art mutations popping up everywhere like tumors. A while ago, I mentioned this art display

00:06:22.080 sitting outside the Tennessee Welcome Center right off of Interstate 81. So when I'm driving,

00:06:28.280 if you're coming down from Virginia into Tennessee and you stop off because you've got to use the

00:06:33.680 restroom, you'll be forced to look at this. Now, in times past, they may have welcomed you with a

00:06:39.160 glorious sculpture representing the state's unique culture and history. Instead, they give you this

00:06:46.000 weird orgy of malformed, ambiguously humanoid shapes. And again, you find this stuff everywhere.

00:06:52.680 We were visiting Asheville, Asheville, North Carolina, not to be confused with Nashville,

00:06:57.820 Tennessee, not long ago. And we found ourselves gawking at this towering pile of shapeless scrap

00:07:03.860 metal, which the artist calls Passage, but should have just been called Tetanus. And we could go on

00:07:10.440 with examples. In fact, a Twitter follower, this might be the worst one. A Twitter follower sent me this

00:07:15.260 photo that I had to look this up because I didn't quite believe that it was real. This is a photo of a

00:07:21.800 recently installed statue in Carmel and Indiana. And the statue is titled Rising Sun, but instead it

00:07:28.020 looks like a hairy potato or perhaps like something more anatomical in nature perched on a misshaped

00:07:35.640 platform of some kind. It has the aesthetic quality of like a Nickelodeon cartoon from the 90s,

00:07:41.780 except a lot more explicit. So what's going on? I mean, why are they making this ugly nonsense? Why

00:07:49.140 are our cities pockmarked with these hideously sculpted abscesses? Why are we all forced to

00:07:55.980 live in towns with the artistic equivalent of skin cancer? I think there are a few reasons.

00:08:02.300 And the first is pretty simple. Great artists have skill and they have training and they have

00:08:08.160 proper education. Our artists have none of those, so they're not capable of making anything that rises

00:08:15.180 to the level of classical art. I mean, they couldn't produce a sculpture that could pass for

00:08:20.420 something sculpted 200 years ago, even if they wanted to. One thing is like, notice the lack of

00:08:25.700 detail in all of these statues. This is the thing with all modern, you go to modern art museum, it's

00:08:29.540 the same deal. There's no detail in anything. The demon statue in the New York courthouse is mostly

00:08:35.720 just smooth and featureless, which gives it that kind of cheap flavor. And the artists didn't even

00:08:41.120 attempt to make arms or hands because those are the most difficult to get right. And so instead they,

00:08:47.940 look, when I was in art class in like seventh grade, I used to do the same thing. I couldn't,

00:08:52.800 I didn't know how to draw arms and hands because they're difficult. And so I would do something like,

00:08:56.760 oh, you know, I'm using my imagination. This is a person with, you know, tentacles for arms instead,

00:09:03.780 easier to draw. The sculptor in Boston did make arms and hands, but that's all he made

00:09:09.300 because it requires great skill to sculpt heads and faces. So he simply left them headless.

00:09:16.120 Meanwhile, the other statues didn't attempt to resemble anything at all so that there's no

00:09:19.740 standard they can be judged against. You know, if you try to make something that looks like something,

00:09:29.280 then everyone can look at your art and say, well, they can, they can judge it against what you're

00:09:34.100 trying to capture. If they, you know, it's the thing, if you make art and you're trying to capture

00:09:38.320 something or, or actually say something, then, then that gives people a frame of reference that

00:09:45.560 they can judge your art against. And so all of this in part is a cover for the fact that these artists

00:09:52.380 have no talent, but then even if they could make something beautiful, they probably wouldn't.

00:09:56.740 Modern art is ugly because modern artists can only produce ugliness and also because

00:10:03.880 they only want to produce ugliness. We are witnessing, as I noted at the top, the systematic

00:10:09.840 uglification of society. They make ugly things on purpose because to them, to make an ugly thing is

00:10:16.380 to commit a revolutionary act. They despise tradition. They despise all that came before us. And their ugly

00:10:23.860 art is an attack on tradition. All of this garbage is the diametric opposite of the sort of art that 0.99

00:10:28.920 our ancestors produced and celebrated and passed down to us. And that's reason enough for our cultural 0.51

00:10:35.100 elites, those in charge of facilitating our cultural decline, to prefer the garbage. 0.99

00:10:41.280 But most of all, they make, they make ugly things because they hate beauty. The artists of antiquity 0.99

00:10:47.100 made beautiful things, objectively beautiful. Things that all human beings can recognize as

00:10:54.340 beautiful. And they did this in order to lift the viewer up, to bring them up and into the experience

00:11:02.700 of beauty. Whereas the modern artist, clouded by his own ego, obsessed with his own hangups and

00:11:07.860 preoccupations and anxieties, creates things with the purpose of dragging the viewer down, sinking them

00:11:13.360 into a state of anxiety and confusion. A man named Jeremy Wayne Tate on Twitter made this point very well.

00:11:20.580 He wrote, quote, Renaissance artists aim to uplift the viewer and draw them into beauty. They were primarily

00:11:26.080 interested in their subjects. Modern artists aim to shock and confuse their primarily interested in

00:11:32.100 themselves. And that is the truth, no doubt. And truth ultimately is the enemy here, as always. Modern artists

00:11:41.640 hate beauty because they hate truth. The left in general hates beauty because it hates truth.

00:11:48.500 And as the English poet John Keats said, truth is beauty, beauty is truth, and that's all you need

00:11:53.900 to know on this earth. They know it and they hate it. And so they give us this ugliness instead.

00:12:00.060 Now let's get to our headlines.

00:12:08.220 Our friends at GenuCell Skin Care have exciting news to celebrate in 2023. They're introducing their

00:12:13.180 new microbiome moisturizer, which uses the power of probiotics to target skin redness, pesky wrinkles,

00:12:19.800 fine lines, patchy blotches, and other signs of premature aging. These are the same probiotics that

00:12:24.120 are in your yogurt. As it turns out, these super ingredients can have the same nourishing benefits

00:12:28.340 on your skin as they do for your tummy. So if you've ever been eating yogurt and you thought

00:12:32.460 to yourself, I want this on my skin, this is for you. Probiotic extracts target bad bacteria

00:12:37.100 and it restores balance to your skin's protective barrier. Now every GenuCell

00:12:42.400 most popular package includes their new probiotic moisturizer, free with your order.

00:12:47.160 My talent manager, Tessa, uses GenuCell under eye treatment to help

00:12:50.600 get rid of the bags under her eyes and she swears by it every day

00:12:54.600 when we talk about it. Right now, you can get GenuCell's most popular package for 70% off.

00:12:59.400 Visit GenuCell.com slash Walsh and get your probiotic moisturizer today.

00:13:03.740 Use code Walsh at checkout for an extra 10% off your entire purchase. That's GenuCell.com slash Walsh.

00:13:08.960 GenuCell.com slash Walsh.

00:13:10.520 We begin with this news, major news. I'll read the Postmillennial report because I don't know

00:13:16.500 how well the audio will translate if you can't see the subtitles, but you should go and watch

00:13:19.920 the full video after the show. This is the report though from Postmillennial. It says,

00:13:23.860 Project Veritas released a new video Wednesday in which a Pfizer executive claimed the company

00:13:27.700 is attempting to mutate COVID via directed evolution in order to preempt the development

00:13:33.160 of future vaccines. As a result, hashtag directed evolution trended worldwide. Jordan Tristan Walker,

00:13:41.100 Pfizer's director of research and development, strategic operations, and an mRNA scientific

00:13:45.760 planner claimed that directed evolution is not the same as gain of function research,

00:13:50.080 which according to the outlet is defined as a mutation that confers new or enhanced activity

00:13:54.760 on a protein, meaning that the virus in question can become more powerful depending on the mutation

00:13:58.940 or scientific enhancement. Walker told an undercover Project Veritas journalist,

00:14:02.720 One of the things that we, Pfizer, are exploring is like, why don't we just mutate COVID ourselves

00:14:09.880 so we could create preemptively new vaccines, right? So we have to do that. If we're going to do that

00:14:16.700 though, there's a risk of like, as you could imagine, no one wants to be having a pharma company

00:14:21.160 mutating effing viruses. He added, from what I've heard is they, the Pfizer scientists are optimizing

00:14:28.860 the COVID mutation process, but they're going slow because everyone is very cautious. Obviously,

00:14:33.300 they don't want to accelerate it too much. I think they're also just trying to do it as an

00:14:36.860 exploratory thing because you obviously don't want to advertise that you're figuring out future

00:14:41.480 mutations. And then Walker pleaded, don't tell anyone, promise you won't tell anyone. The way the

00:14:46.800 experiment will work is that we'd put the virus in monkeys and we successfully cause them to

00:14:51.020 successively, successively cause them to keep infecting each other and we collect serial samples

00:14:56.660 from them. You have to be very controlled to make sure that this virus that you mutate doesn't

00:15:02.280 create something that just goes everywhere, which I suspect is the way that the virus started in Wuhan,

00:15:07.440 to be honest. It makes no sense that this virus popped out of nowhere. It's BS. Okay. Like I said,

00:15:12.880 you could watch this whole, I think it's about 10 minutes. You see this whole conversation

00:15:17.600 where a Pfizer executive is saying that they intend to do the same thing they did in Wuhan,

00:15:25.500 but we've got to be really careful. It's like the safety of the human race is at stake and we're

00:15:36.220 just going to trust that Pfizer is careful. Like they can do things that if it goes wrong,

00:15:43.020 millions will die, but it's all right because we could just trust them to be careful.

00:15:47.600 Because we know that these people historically have been very careful, right?

00:15:55.240 Now, I mean, this obviously should be breaking news in every media outlet. We have a high ranking

00:16:00.740 official advisor admitting that they're working on mutating the virus, admitting that it's the same

00:16:05.200 kind of thing they did in Wuhan, pleading that nobody finds out about it. Like how much more

00:16:10.340 explicit can you be? Yes, we're doing this dangerous thing. Please don't tell anyone we're doing it.

00:16:15.860 What else do you need to hear? Big pharma must be stopped. And I'm not interested in voting for

00:16:26.360 any Republican who isn't serious about holding these psychos accountable. They've been operating

00:16:31.860 with impunity for way too long, way before COVID, way before COVID. Okay, before COVID came along,

00:16:39.440 and before the vaccines came along, how about turning half the country into drug addicts,

00:16:45.620 inventing diseases to treat and profit off of, conducting dangerous experiments that imperil the human

00:16:54.200 race, injecting whatever they want into our bodies, lying about it the whole time. It's got to stop it. 1.00

00:17:02.080 We need leaders with the wherewithal to stop it. Now, I've already told you, we talked yesterday about

00:17:07.320 the penalties that I would prefer to see for drug traffickers. So you know what I would like to do

00:17:13.800 with drug traffickers? Well, let's start here. I mean, let's start with the ones who wear suits and

00:17:18.360 have offices on the top floor of fancy sky rises. I mean, after we try them for their crimes and convict

00:17:24.200 them in a court of law, because that has to be the first step, we're way past the point of congressional

00:17:30.920 hearings and investigations. We need both of those things, but they don't mean anything if they don't

00:17:37.040 lead to trials and criminal charges, convictions, punishments. And there are other actual policy

00:17:46.860 changes too that could be made if we really wanted to rein in big pharma. And some of this might seem

00:17:53.640 slightly indirect, but really it's not, and we need to be doing it. Reining in big pharma, right,

00:17:59.700 means, either it means it's simply a talking point, something that you say, but if it's more

00:18:05.280 than a talking point, it means cutting off the funds. It means taking money away from these people.

00:18:10.080 That's how you do it. Or that is at least a major part of any effective plan to rein them in.

00:18:16.700 Another big part is, again, criminal charges, trials, punishments. You got to take the money away.

00:18:22.360 And I'll tell you one way to do that. We've talked about this plenty of times on this show.

00:18:26.500 Ban the pharmaceutical companies from advertising their products directly to consumers.

00:18:33.380 Whether it's a pill that they're pushing or a vaccine or anything, they should not be allowed

00:18:39.800 to advertise it directly to consumers. And that is already the policy in almost every country in the

00:18:46.020 world. Almost every country in the world, most countries, they don't let the pharmaceutical

00:18:49.900 companies advertise directly to consumers. That was the policy in this country until I think it

00:18:54.200 was the mid-90s when the FDA changed it. The fact that this policy was changed and has not been changed

00:19:01.580 back, the fact that we still allow them to advertise to consumers only shows you that our politicians

00:19:09.100 are in their pockets because there's no good argument for allowing this.

00:19:13.140 I just read an article a couple days ago, and I'll pull it up maybe tomorrow. We'll talk about

00:19:19.360 this in more detail because it's very important. But basically, according to this article, the drugs,

00:19:27.200 there's kind of an inverse correlation here because the drugs with the biggest ad budgets

00:19:32.120 have the lowest therapeutic value. And why is that? Because drugs that work and are safe are actually

00:19:42.440 safe and actually effective. They don't need to be advertised. Doctors will prescribe them because

00:19:48.120 they work. There's no reason to advertise it. Okay, if the drug works and it's effective and all that,

00:19:55.820 then you don't need to go to your doctor and ask about it. Can I have this drug?

00:19:59.940 No, it's supposed to be you go to the doctor with your symptoms and then your illness is diagnosed

00:20:05.220 and treated. But drugs that don't work need advertising because they need you as the patient

00:20:14.440 to go to your doctor and ask for them. And then they need to incentivize the medical industry to

00:20:22.100 distribute these drugs, whether they work or not. And the other thing that they do with these

00:20:28.340 advertisements, the drug ads, they're not just selling drugs that are ineffective and potentially

00:20:36.940 dangerous. I mean, they're doing that. But they're also selling the disease. They sell the disease.

00:20:43.900 Right? That's why all the ads are the same. They say, do you have this XYZ symptom? Well,

00:20:48.560 talk to your doctor about this drug. They're not even asking you, oh, well, if you already have this

00:20:54.800 disease, here's a drug for you. It's like, let's convince you that you have this disease,

00:21:00.180 a disease that you might not actually have, diseases that might not even exist. Because

00:21:03.780 big pharma, they also invent diseases that don't exist so that they can treat them and profit off

00:21:08.480 of them. And then once they've toyed with your hypochondriac mind and convince you, you have this

00:21:18.400 thing, you go to the doctor and you plead for the pills that you want. And then most of the time you get it.

00:21:24.800 There is no good reason to allow this. There is just no good reason. The only reason to allow the

00:21:32.280 drug companies to advertise directly to consumers is if you're very concerned about making sure that

00:21:37.500 the big pharma executives make a lot of money. That's the only benefit. The only benefit is that

00:21:41.620 they make tons of money doing this. If you don't let them do it, they make a lot less money.

00:21:45.560 There is no benefit to the population. There's no benefit to me or you. It's only harm.

00:21:55.740 I bring all that up because, again, this is one way you rein in big pharma. But also,

00:22:00.540 if you're wondering why nothing is being done by the powers that be,

00:22:04.680 to hold big pharma accountable when it comes to COVID and the vaccine and the lies that we're told,

00:22:13.980 if you're wondering why, well, all you need to look at is this. I mean,

00:22:20.560 direct consumer, banning direct consumer ads, that should be a bipartisan. That should be one of those

00:22:24.920 very rare bipartisan issues because it should appeal to both sides. The right pretends to be skeptical of

00:22:30.580 the pharmaceutical industry. The left pretends to be skeptical of corporations and corporate greed in

00:22:35.740 general. Well, here you go. Here's an issue that both sides should agree on. And they don't, at least

00:22:42.620 not in Washington, because obviously they're in the pockets of this industry on both sides.

00:22:51.380 All right. I'm sure you recall a few weeks ago when there was great panic across the land because

00:22:57.260 Republicans couldn't agree on who to appoint as the new Speaker of the House. And this was a source

00:23:02.880 of tremendous heartache and fear and misery in the population. And I mean, specifically the population

00:23:08.380 of corporate media offices in D.C. Nobody else really gave the slightest damn about any of this,

00:23:13.540 nor should they have cared about it. But for those, particularly on the right, who are concerned

00:23:18.660 that not handing the Speakership over to Kevin McCarthy automatically, concerned that if we didn't just

00:23:23.940 give it to him, that it would somehow have disastrous effects, I think those people should

00:23:29.460 check out what Kevin McCarthy, now the Speaker of the House, has been doing over the last several

00:23:34.480 days. One of his first acts as Speaker of the House was to kick Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff off of the

00:23:41.240 House Intelligence Committees, which is a very good thing. But the fact that he's doing these good

00:23:46.800 things is not evidence that we shouldn't have resisted his Speakership, but rather it's evidence that

00:23:52.180 it's a very good thing we did. Because it's clear that McCarthy's resistance from the base

00:23:57.220 has resonated with him. We do have some power and control here, but we have to use it.

00:24:06.960 And even if it didn't provoke an authentic conversion experience for Kevin McCarthy,

00:24:11.280 it at least is forcing him to act like something other than an establishment shill for right now.

00:24:16.680 And that's just as good as far as I'm concerned. I don't, like, frankly, I don't care if these

00:24:20.620 people mean it or not. I don't care. I don't care what they actually think in their hearts. I don't

00:24:25.420 care about any of that. It doesn't make any difference to me. Who cares about that? All I

00:24:29.300 care about is what they do, the policies they implement, even if they do it begrudgingly.

00:24:35.320 If they do it and they wish they didn't have to do it, but they're only doing it because

00:24:37.940 they're being held accountable by the base and they hate us and they're muttering about us the whole

00:24:41.660 time. Fine. I don't care. Just do it. If they're doing it to appease us, good. That only shows the power

00:24:49.240 that we have. So McCarthy kicked them off the intelligence committee. And then he had this

00:24:53.700 really fantastic exchange with the DC journalists who challenged him on it. And again, what you're

00:24:59.560 about to hear from him, you would not have heard had we not challenged. If the base had not challenged

00:25:04.280 him, you wouldn't hear this. And we never, we haven't heard anything like this from Kevin McCarthy

00:25:08.520 until now. That's not a coincidence, but we'll watch a little bit of this exchange.

00:25:12.300 He's gotten elected by his district.

00:25:16.760 Okay. Let me be very clear and respectful to you. You asked me a question. When I answer it,

00:25:24.120 it's the answer to your question. You don't get to determine whether I answer your question or not.

00:25:28.140 Okay. In all respect. Thank you. No, no. Let's answer her question. You just raised a question.

00:25:35.360 I'm going to be very clear with you. The intel committee is different. You know why? Because what

00:25:39.340 happens in the intel committee, you don't know. What happens in the intel committee of the secrets

00:25:43.940 that are going on in the world, other members of Congress don't know. What did Adam Schiff do as

00:25:49.140 the chairman of the intel committee? What Adam Schiff did, use his power as a chairman and lie to the

00:25:54.620 American public. Even the inspector general said it. When Devin Nunes put out a memo, he said it was

00:25:59.580 false. When we had a laptop, he used it before an election to be politics and say that it was false

00:26:05.280 and said it was the Russians. When he knew different, when he knew the intel. If you talk

00:26:09.820 to John Radcliffe, DNI, he came out ahead of time and says there's no intel to prove that. And he

00:26:17.280 used his position as chairman, knowing he has information the rest of America does not and

00:26:22.440 lied to the American public. When a whistleblower came forward, he said he did not know the individual,

00:26:27.400 even though his staff had met with him and set it up. So no, he does not have a right to sit on that.

00:26:32.280 But I will not be like Democrats and play politics with these, where they removed Republicans from

00:26:38.060 committees and all committees. So yes, he can. Okay, good. Yeah. And then he goes on to talk

00:26:42.920 about Eric Swalwell. I mean, Eric Swalwell was involved in a, in a romantic affair with a Chinese 0.64

00:26:47.060 spy. So yeah, should he be on the intelligence committee? I mean, he's involved in a romantic

00:26:52.340 affair with Chinese spy. He also has chronic flatulence. So those are two good reasons why, 1.00

00:26:56.320 I mean, it's not fair to the other people on the committee to have him in there for really both of

00:26:59.960 those, both of those reasons. And that's the point that Kevin McCarthy made. Well, he didn't

00:27:04.780 bring up the flatulence thing. I wish he had. That's the, that's the only criticism I have of

00:27:08.180 this moment from Kevin McCarthy, a moment that once again, I, I do not believe we would have if we

00:27:13.520 hadn't challenged him to what we did. Now Swalwell for, for his part is very upset about not getting

00:27:19.860 his committee assignment. It's another one of those things, right? The DC shows how,

00:27:25.480 how terminally out of touch they are with any normal American that they think we care about.

00:27:34.240 Like they can come to us, they think they can come to us with a, with a sob story about not

00:27:38.900 getting a committee assignment. And they think that we'll care about that. They think there's anyone

00:27:43.600 in the country who's sitting around going, I really feel bad for Eric Swalwell, not getting his

00:27:49.000 committee assignment. So he's, he's addressing the media about it and holding back tears. He's very

00:27:55.320 upset. Let's listen. So this is purely about political vengeance. The cost is not only removing

00:28:01.380 us from the committee on the intelligence committee. The cost is not only breaking, shattering the most

00:28:07.720 precious glassware in the cabinet, a committee that's always been bipartisan. The costs are the

00:28:12.580 death threats that Ms. Omar, myself and Mr. Schiff keep getting because Mr. McCarthy continues to aim

00:28:19.320 and project these smears against us. Even though we have said publicly, these smears are bringing

00:28:25.500 death threats. He continues to do it, which makes us believe that there's an intent behind it.

00:28:31.260 But we will not be quiet. We're not going away. I think he'll regret giving all three of us more time

00:28:36.620 on our hands. Oh, he made a threat there himself. That's a threat, isn't it?

00:28:45.920 Yeah, actually, I am worried about Eric Swalwell having more time on his hands.

00:28:50.400 How many other foreign spies can he sleep with in a given year with all that extra time? So I am a

00:28:57.920 little bit concerned about that. By the way, nobody is making death threats to Eric Swalwell. I don't think

00:29:03.940 anyone's ever made a death threat to Eric Swalwell. No one would take him seriously enough

00:29:08.080 to actually make a death threat. He's not a serious enough figure in politics to warrant that to begin

00:29:14.000 with. But also, he wants us to believe that people are making death threats because of him not being

00:29:21.020 appointed to the House Intelligence Committee. No one is even aware of that or cares. And the kinds of

00:29:28.840 people who would send random angry death threats to politicians, these are not the kinds of people

00:29:34.360 who are paying attention to what the committee assignments are. So that's all, all very good

00:29:41.500 stuff. All right. Damar Hamlin, after his cardiac emergency on the football field a few weeks ago,

00:29:48.900 we're told he spent several days in the hospital, but he's now out, though still in need of lots of

00:29:55.720 physical assistance, including oxygen, is what we're told. Now, Hamlin showed up to the Bills

00:30:00.800 playoff game on Saturday or Sunday, whenever it was, and they lost. But the big story was Hamlin's

00:30:06.200 presence, at least according to the media. This is a big story. And he was up in a box seat. He wasn't

00:30:10.240 on the field. He was up in a box seat. He was watching. And the announcers referred to him frequently

00:30:14.580 throughout the game. Cameras kept showing him. And the TV production made a really big deal about him

00:30:20.360 being there. The weird thing is that Hamlin, though he was on camera a lot, he never, we never saw his

00:30:28.100 face. They never showed his face. He wouldn't show his face. And there are a few times where they showed

00:30:31.960 him up in the box seat, but it was like you, you, it was at such an angle that you couldn't really

00:30:37.580 see anything. All you could see is silhouette, had his face covered and all that. So, so he showed up,

00:30:45.480 but they didn't want to show him and he didn't want to be seen. It's a kind of bizarre. And then

00:30:51.600 any kind of bizarre thing will lead to theories on the internet. The internet theorists, some of them

00:30:57.320 speculated about or wondered whether Hamlin wasn't actually at the game, but rather was represented by

00:31:03.300 some kind of body double. And then from there, you know, from that theory, then it branches off and

00:31:08.460 then it could get, you know, even more implausible. But so maybe he's alive, but they sent the body

00:31:13.940 double to the game so they could get the storyline of him being there. Maybe he's dead, you know,

00:31:18.420 and, and this is a body double that they put. So all kinds of theories like that. As you can imagine,

00:31:22.440 the media does not like any of this one bit, very upset about the theories. As this, just one

00:31:28.380 example, this NBC sports article makes very clear headline, crazy, disturbing Damar Hamlin conspiracy

00:31:34.640 theory emerges. And it says in many respects, the modern world has lost its damn mind. Conspiracy 1.00

00:31:40.640 theories abound over everything. And it was unavoidable, we suppose, that some nutty conspiracy

00:31:45.540 theory would emerge regarding Bill's safety to Damar Hamlin. Our original plan was to ignore it,

00:31:50.020 to give it no attention, no credence, no oxygen. Sometimes, however, it's important for the rational

00:31:53.420 to expose the irrational so that some of the irrational aren't tempted to swallow the crazy 0.98

00:31:58.560 ass cheese. What? Who wrote this? I wish I had to swallow the, what kind of writing is this? So 0.99

00:32:06.560 they're not tempted to swallow the crazy ass. First of all, is that, what are we, the crazy ass cheese or 1.00

00:32:13.500 the crazy ass cheese? Which one are we talking about? Both are disgusting, but one is particularly 0.99

00:32:20.520 more disgusting. Anyway, how does the phrase crazy ass cheese make it into an article that is then 0.99

00:32:29.680 published by NBC News? How does that make it through the editing process? What is your editor doing if 0.84

00:32:37.120 they allow, if they're not going to flag you down and say, hey, you know that part about crazy ass 0.97

00:32:40.840 cheese? I don't know if we maybe would at least take out the ass. Anyway, as it relates to Hamlin, 1.00

00:32:49.120 there's actually a theory, completely unsupported by a shred of evidence that Hamlin died from the

00:32:53.260 COVID vaccine and that he has been replaced by a body double. Think about that one. The person who

00:32:57.020 attended Sunday's game between the Bengals and Bills isn't Damar Hamlin. It's someone else disguised

00:33:01.360 as Damar Hamlin and presumably his family and his teammates are in on it. And then it goes on and on

00:33:05.740 and on and it, you know, scolding the people that have spread this conspiracy theory around.

00:33:15.120 Now, a few things about this. First thing is that, as always, actually the media,

00:33:21.120 while they complain about these conspiracy theories and they pretend to be very offended,

00:33:25.980 upset by it, they actually like them and they want more, they want to encourage them.

00:33:29.800 That's the only reason to report on this. I didn't know that this theory existed until I read

00:33:35.380 some of the news articles condemning it. Like so many other people, I only found out about the theory

00:33:41.180 because of the left-wing media scolding those who were propagating the theory, but really they

00:33:47.240 themselves are the ones propagating it because they like it. They want that.

00:33:53.260 Now, I don't think Damar Hamlin is dead and replaced by a body double. Okay. I don't think

00:33:58.020 that for a lot of reasons. I mean, for one thing, just the sheer number of people who have to be

00:34:01.460 involved in a conspiracy of that sort. We're talking about family and friends and doctors and teammates,

00:34:05.580 the NFL, the media, like all of them would have to conspire to remain silent for what, forever?

00:34:11.560 You'd have to keep it going forever and pretend this guy is still alive. And doing that so they

00:34:18.060 can cover up what? I guess the idea is that he died from the vaccine. Well, they already gave their

00:34:22.460 version of why he was in the hospital. So if he died, they would have just blamed that. They would

00:34:27.020 have said he died from the football injury. And if you think that there's some sort of cover-up

00:34:30.900 going on, then that would be the cover-up. It's a lot simpler and you don't need to enlist

00:34:34.680 hundreds of people across multiple industries to cooperate in this conspiracy to pretend someone

00:34:42.100 is alive for the next several decades when he's actually not. Anytime you're theorizing a massive

00:34:48.560 elaborate scheme involving thousands of people who all must stay perfectly in line and silent,

00:34:53.320 this scheme is like hatched in order to achieve some extremely negligible benefit or whatever.

00:34:57.840 Anytime there's a theory like that, it demands a lot of evidence to believe and otherwise you

00:35:02.960 should be extremely skeptical. Doesn't mean that those kind of theories are always wrong. It just

00:35:06.120 means that I'm going to need to see some real good evidence for that. Especially in this case when

00:35:10.800 there's a much more plausible explanation, which is that DeMar, my theory would be that DeMar

00:35:16.540 Hamlin's face got kind of messed up from a stroke related to the incident and he doesn't want people

00:35:21.980 to see. Like that's my, that would be my theory. So that's the most plausible sort of explanation.

00:35:27.840 Which brings me to, if there's a, if there's a scandal here, you know, the real scandal,

00:35:33.460 if there is one, is that the NFL insisted on making Hamlin, they wanted the story.

00:35:40.520 Okay. That's the thing. That's what the NFL cares about. They care about the ratings,

00:35:43.400 obviously. This is what the media cares about. They care about the ratings. They care about the

00:35:46.740 story. They care about that more than anything else. And so, uh, the moment this happened to

00:35:54.120 DeMar Hamlin, the, uh, parasites in the media and NFL corporate offices, they were like,

00:36:02.040 you know, they were, they, they saw the money signs and being able to capitalize on this storyline. 0.52

00:36:10.680 Now they wanted a storyline. And so that's why they wanted to trot them out at this game,

00:36:15.660 you know, insisting on making Hamlin into some kind of hero, some sort of like martyr. And, uh,

00:36:22.920 and, and, and, and, you know, and they really wanted that storyline of him. And in reality,

00:36:27.240 DeMar Hamlin suffered something very terrible, feel very sorry for him. And that's it. Like that's,

00:36:34.260 that's, there's not much else to be said about it, but they wanted to make it a lot more than that

00:36:39.640 because they wanted the ratings and they wanted the storyline. So they brought him out when he clearly

00:36:43.900 was not ready to be out there. And they exploited the whole situation throughout the entire broadcast

00:36:49.960 by going back to it again and again and again. And, uh, the fact that he didn't want to show his

00:36:54.020 face just makes the whole thing all the more bizarre and weird and, and just, uh, you know,

00:37:00.920 gratuitous, I think. But, you know, also, as I've said before, I don't, the people that indulge in

00:37:09.600 elaborate conspiracy theories. Oftentimes I don't believe those theories for the reasons I've said,

00:37:14.880 but I don't blame people anymore for it. I just don't because there's been a total collapse of

00:37:21.900 trust. People simply don't trust any of the supposed authorities that are supposed to be in charge of,

00:37:32.260 you know, disseminating information and telling us what's going on.

00:37:35.600 The public doesn't trust any of those people anymore for good reason.

00:37:40.520 And because they don't trust anyone, then everyone is left to kind of make their own

00:37:44.420 assumptions about everything. And some people tend to make more kind of cinematic assumptions than

00:37:51.680 others. But I think the blame ultimately goes with, uh, the people who have lost our trust

00:37:58.660 and have created this situation. All right, let's get to the comment section.

00:38:05.600 Black Rifle Coffee Company is on a mission to build a support network for veterans,

00:38:19.240 first responders, and law enforcement by serving you the best coffee you've ever had. And thanks

00:38:22.940 to your support, that dream has become a reality. This year alone, Black Rifle Coffee donated over

00:38:26.840 120,000 bags of coffee to veterans and first responders while expanding their own team of active

00:38:31.280 duty service members, veterans, and veteran family members. If you want to continue supporting this

00:38:35.280 incredible company, go to blackriflecoffee.com. Use promo code Walsh at checkout for 10% off your

00:38:40.040 purchase and your first coffee club order. The coffee is truly one of a kind, but it's your support

00:38:44.200 that gets gear, funding, and supplies into the hands of those on our front lines. Go to

00:38:48.800 blackriflecoffee.com. Use promo code Walsh for 10% off. You can also find Black Rifle Coffee in

00:38:53.180 Grocery and Convenience Stores near you. Black Rifle Coffee, America's Coffee.

00:38:58.540 LFTR says, steep and highly socialized penalties work. It's called a deterrent. As society has

00:39:03.340 backed off and reduced penalties for crime, our cities have become graffiti-tagged, crime-ridden

00:39:07.800 hellscapes. This is not a coincidence. It's a direct result of choosing not to punish criminal

00:39:11.780 behavior. Right. Of course it is. That's obviously what's going on. Anyone who claims that, oh,

00:39:18.980 punishments are not a deterrent for behavior. This is someone who is denying one of the most

00:39:23.780 basic realities of human psychology, including their own psychology. Okay. Everybody is motivated

00:39:31.400 by incentives and disincentives. Which isn't to say that people are directly, perfectly controlled by

00:39:39.460 such incentives. No, you can incentivize a certain behavior and there will be some people who still do

00:39:45.120 not engage in that behavior. You can disincentivize certain behaviors and there are people who still will

00:39:48.680 engage in that behavior. So that will happen. But still, people are highly influenced by incentives

00:39:54.200 and disincentives. That's, everybody is. So to deny it outright, as people do, to claim that,

00:40:00.680 you know, no matter how much we clamp down on criminal behavior and no matter how much we punish it,

00:40:09.220 no matter how severe the punishments are, it'll have essentially no effect on the frequency of that

00:40:16.340 criminal behavior. That claim is not credible at all. Let's see. Jay Anderson says, from a historical

00:40:25.600 perspective, drowning women as witches was normal. Just because it was normal in history is no 0.93

00:40:30.080 justification for the same actions today. Obviously, I hope. Yeah. Which is why my argument for

00:40:37.760 corporal punishment and, uh, and the increased use of capital punishment, my argument is not simply

00:40:42.760 based on the fact that people have always done it. That's not my only reason. Though it is true 0.67

00:40:48.720 that, um, when it comes to, we hear cruel and unusual punishments. Well, these punishments are

00:40:54.020 certainly not unusual. They are probably the most usual punishments in the world historically.

00:41:00.360 That's not the be all and end all of the argument, but that is a reality and it's worth pointing out.

00:41:05.980 Because yes, the fact that something has always been done a certain way is not in and of itself

00:41:13.100 a sufficient reason necessarily to keep on doing it. But it does mean that if you are suggesting that

00:41:20.500 we do things in a radically different way, then you need to have a good reason for that.

00:41:27.420 It does shift to a large extent, the burden of proof over to you. Okay. If human society has always done

00:41:33.960 something a certain way and we've got the, the, the testimony of our ancestors going back through

00:41:38.480 the ages saying, this is the way to do it. This way works. It could be that, that we need to change

00:41:44.420 courses and not do it this way anymore. Sure. But if you're coming along and saying that, if you're

00:41:48.620 saying, no, let's cut, no, let's, let's cut it off right here and go in this radically different

00:41:52.940 direction because all those people are wrong. Okay. I'm, I'm open to hearing your argument. I really am.

00:41:57.860 But you got to make the argument. You have now assumed a burden of proof that in so many cases,

00:42:05.320 the people who are demanding that we sever ourselves from our ancestors never meet,

00:42:11.320 they never meet that burden of proof. Instead, they try to go the other way, the other way. It's

00:42:15.860 almost like for a lot of people, the fact that our ancestors did it is reason enough to not do it.

00:42:22.740 And that's supposed to be self-evident, which it isn't.

00:42:28.760 And these days we do have, many people have anyway, a radically different concept of what

00:42:34.440 constitutes justice and what, and, and, and, and, you know, how we should deal with and punish crime.

00:42:42.780 We have a radically different notion of it today. A notion that would have been totally foreign to

00:42:48.100 most people who've lived on earth. That in and of itself doesn't make it wrong, but you got to be

00:42:54.600 able to defend it. And defending it essentially by just saying, well, corporal punishment for thieves

00:42:59.680 is a, that just makes me squeamish. I don't, it doesn't make me feel weird.

00:43:04.920 That seems to basically be most people's argument and I don't find it particularly compelling.

00:43:10.620 B. Reese says, I once spoke to a woman who was against the death penalty. She had bumper stickers

00:43:14.420 that mocked the death penalty. One time, one, one said, why do we kill people who kill people to 0.55

00:43:18.420 show that killing people is wrong? I said, we don't do that. I said, uh, we kill people who

00:43:22.520 kill people so they don't kill more people. Her response, I hadn't thought about that. I said, 0.98

00:43:26.900 well, think about it. After the death penalty is executed, the person will never have a,

00:43:30.840 will never be a repeat offender. Never have a nice day. Well, you're right about that. That is one

00:43:34.640 of the benefits of death penalty is that, uh, the recidivism rate. Okay. So we can talk about the

00:43:38.280 deterrence rate, but certainly the recidivism rate for the death penalty is zero. So that is a benefit

00:43:42.440 of it. But, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, uh, I w I also wouldn't surrender to her argument in

00:43:49.560 that way. Like it's, yeah, you can, it is a valid method to communicate the severity of a crime

00:43:58.640 through the, through the death penalty. So, I mean, look at it this way.

00:44:06.100 Kidnapping someone, right? If you, if I were to take someone and lock them in a cage in my basement,

00:44:11.920 I would be kidnapping them and I'd go to jail for that, but I'm going to jail and they're locking

00:44:17.500 me in a cage. So would this woman say, we shouldn't lock people in cages to show them 0.99

00:44:21.860 that locking people in cages is wrong. Now, the answer to that is, yeah, that's exactly what we

00:44:27.840 should do. What are you talking about? That's actually a great way to show someone that what

00:44:32.780 they've done is wrong. Okay. If you don't know that locking people in cages is wrong, probably the,

00:44:37.700 the best way to show you that it's wrong is to put you in a cage. How else? What's a better way

00:44:44.080 is a better way. If you really want to show them locking people in cages is wrong is a better method

00:44:49.220 to keep them out of a cage and just, uh, sit them in a classroom and, you know, and give them

00:44:53.880 instruction. Maybe have a, have them talk to a therapist who tries to convince them by the force

00:44:59.900 of argument that they shouldn't lock people in cages. No, the best way to communicate it is,

00:45:04.560 okay, here's what that feels like. Here you go. And so, yes, it is entirely valid to make a

00:45:13.220 societal statement that, uh, that killing is wrong by killing people who kill as an entirely valid

00:45:20.600 method. And, uh, let's see what else. Finally, Kenny says, let's, we'll end on one person who agrees

00:45:31.360 with me anyway. Uh, I was a career criminal. I was in prison. Guess what? Mr. Walsh speaks truth.

00:45:35.920 And I have to tell you, Kenny, that I, that I, I hear this a lot from people who've actually been

00:45:39.540 in prison and who have lived a criminal life and have, uh, come out on the other end of it and have

00:45:44.040 reformed themselves. They tend to be bigger fans of law and order and criminal justice and punishment

00:45:52.140 than the people who have never experienced this.

00:45:54.900 And I think that probably tells you something. Yesterday, I told you about how YouTube removed

00:46:00.760 an episode of our show because my comments about men who want to have uteruses implanted in their

00:46:04.600 bodies were deemed too offensive and hateful. Well, these restrictive speech policies exist because

00:46:10.020 the world is on a mission to make you woke. But our good friend, Dennis Prager is on a mission to

00:46:14.760 make you wise instead. And thankfully, Dennis has created a brand new series with Daily Wire Plus

00:46:18.860 called The Master's Program to do just that. We've had a longstanding relationship with Dennis Prager

00:46:22.800 for a good reason. He's been leading the charge against stupidity for longer than I've been alive 1.00

00:46:27.620 with content like Prager used five minute videos and so many other things as well. The Master's 0.98

00:46:31.880 Program takes 40 years worth of wisdom and experience from one of the most influential

00:46:35.060 conservative thinkers in America today, distills it all down in a way that is relevant and accessible

00:46:38.740 to everyone. Episodes explore topics like, is human nature basically good? I think we could say

00:46:44.060 for certain that I'm obviously good, but I can't speak for anyone else. We'll see what Prager says.

00:46:48.400 The series also covers the consequences of secularism, which by the way are so dire it

00:46:53.640 needed two episodes to explore. And those two episodes of Prager U Master's Program are available

00:46:58.700 to stream right now, but only on Daily Wire Plus. So head to dailywireplus.com to become a member and

00:47:03.080 watch Prager U Master's Program and more. That's dailywireplus.com today. Now let's get to our daily

00:47:08.900 cancellation. A little while ago when Elon Musk took over Twitter and began making sweeping layoffs,

00:47:17.660 he was condemned as a heartless profiteer, a man who took over a company and gutted it out of

00:47:22.820 spite or just for fun. But recent events would suggest that Musk was only ripping the Band-Aid

00:47:28.160 off. He was doing what needed to be done, but doing it in a much quicker fashion. A few months

00:47:33.520 after those layoffs, the rest of big tech is now involved in its own purge of its workforce.

00:47:38.440 The Daily Wire reported this week, quote, Spotify revealed plans to cut headcounts by 6% due to

00:47:43.660 macroeconomic turmoil following similar moves from other prominent technology firms.

00:47:48.060 Spotify CEO Daniel Ek informed staff members in a Monday note that the music and audio platform

00:47:54.160 will reduce headcount to streamline operations. The announcement implies that 600 of the company's

00:47:58.760 9,800 employees will lose their positions. Spotify is one of the several technology companies to

00:48:03.560 announce layoffs in recent weeks as a response to overzealous hiring in the sector and broader

00:48:07.660 economic woes. Microsoft revealed that the company would dismiss some 10,000 employees while

00:48:12.160 Google will reduce its headcount by approximately 12,000 positions. And Amazon plans to dismiss

00:48:16.600 18,000 employees. More than 46,000 workers have been discharged from prominent American technology

00:48:21.780 companies in the first month of 2023, according to a report from Crunchbase, even after firms in the

00:48:26.960 sector dismissed 107,000 positions last year. So perhaps, as it turns out, the most successful

00:48:32.860 businessman in the world made those layoffs because it was the right business decision.

00:48:37.100 Maybe he didn't become the richest human in history by doing things haphazardly or without

00:48:41.000 good reason. There's an interesting thought. And what's even more interesting is that big tech

00:48:46.020 employees themselves, while still complaining about layoffs, have in the past inadvertently

00:48:50.500 revealed why the layoffs were necessary. Case in point, Nicole Tsai, who's a partner services

00:48:56.540 program manager at Google, or I should say a former partner services program manager at Google.

00:49:02.020 Tsai, like several infamous examples from the Twitter ranks, enjoyed posting these insufferable

00:49:07.020 day-in-the-life videos to TikTok, where she documented her exploits throughout the day,

00:49:11.620 which mostly consisted of bragging about all the perks that she enjoyed as a big tech minion. 0.99

00:49:16.080 I still remain personally perplexed as to why or how these day-in-the-life videos become so popular.

00:49:22.680 I can understand watching such a video about somebody who lives an interesting life

00:49:26.260 and does interesting things, like maybe a day-in-the-life of a scuba diver who explores shipwrecks,

00:49:32.780 or of a scientist on a remote research station in Antarctica, or even one of those guys who

00:49:38.700 repairs power lines 150 feet up. Like, I'd watch that. That, a day-in-the-life of that guy, I want

00:49:43.980 to see. These are impressive jobs that would make for fascinating content. A day-in-the-life

00:49:50.100 of a Silicon Valley pencil pusher doesn't exactly measure up. Yet, even so, Nicole Tsai posted this.

00:49:57.480 Here it is. A day in my life working from the Google LA office. I always grab some candy from

00:50:03.440 the reception before heading in. This used to be an old aircraft hangar, so the decorations hanging

00:50:08.160 from the ceiling kind of looks like an aircraft flying in. Before it was a Google office, this

00:50:12.260 aircraft hangar belonged to Howard Hughes, so there's tons of memorabilia. Next, I'm going to pass

00:50:16.640 by these art installations. They're a really good photo op, or you can sit in there and get some work

00:50:21.060 done. I'm going to head to the coffee shop to grab some coffee and a fruit cup since I missed

00:50:25.200 breakfast, and then I'm heading over to this butterfly-themed room to take my first meeting.

00:50:28.880 Then I'm going to head over to the confetti room to take my next meeting. It's so sparkly

00:50:32.520 and beautiful in here. I love that a lot of our rooms are themed. Then I'm going to grab my two

00:50:36.660 favorite drinks, which is this green tea and coconut water. Next, I'm going to go upstairs and grab some

00:50:41.580 lunch. They always have pizza and a variety of different vegetables and meat. The food is always

00:50:46.360 really good, and of course, everything you see in the office is free. On my way out of the cafe,

00:50:51.000 I ran into a doogler, which is a dog googler, and ran into some ghosts. When they were renovating the 0.70

00:50:56.280 office, there were a lot of spooky stories from the crew, so there's a whole area in the office

00:51:01.140 where you can listen to them. Then I got more work done and headed over to the massage chairs to wrap

00:51:05.740 up my day. Let me know what you want to see next. Well, it's important to get that massage in 0.73

00:51:11.360 after a grueling day of eating candy, drinking coconut water, taking selfies, perusing art

00:51:17.280 installations, petting the dog Googler. Now, in fairness, she did take two meetings, okay? So

00:51:24.180 there were two meetings, and that was her entire day. She had the two meetings and the rest of that

00:51:27.900 mostly just hobnobbing around, taking it easy, attending a meeting or two. The one thing missing

00:51:34.320 from her day is work or anything that we might call work. She didn't do anything or create anything or

00:51:45.140 make any important decisions from the looks of it. It's not clear from that video why Google needs her

00:51:52.000 in the building, and it apparently wasn't clear to Google either, which led to this unintentionally

00:51:56.460 hilarious follow-up video. Here it is. A day in my life getting laid off at Google. So I woke up to

00:52:02.140 this really ominous text from my boss, and I honestly had no idea what it was going to be about. So I called

00:52:06.540 her the minute I woke up and saw this, and she told me to check the news and my email. So I rushed

00:52:11.080 downstairs to find out that I had lost access to basically everything. I couldn't log into my email

00:52:15.940 or even check my calendar. I called my boss back, and we just sobbed over the phone because she was

00:52:20.760 also finding out about my layoff for the first time today too. I started getting calls from a bunch of

00:52:24.960 my co-workers and started finding out who else was let go on my team and some neighboring teams as well.

00:52:30.160 But I think the worst part is that it seems like no one was consulted on this decision, and everyone was

00:52:35.260 just finding out about the layoffs at the same time. It just felt like a really bad game of Russian roulette,

00:52:40.140 and there was no consistency around who was let go. It was also not performance-based,

00:52:44.920 so it just felt really random. I opened up LinkedIn, which honestly was not great for my

00:52:49.160 mental health. There were so many people who were in the same boat that were both equally as shocked

00:52:53.900 and blindsided, but it did help me feel a little less alone. Honestly, I spent so much of the day

00:52:58.780 crying that I just felt so tired from being sad and wanted to do something that would just make me feel

00:53:04.220 better. Luckily, I have an annual pass, so I headed over to Disneyland because I wanted to go eat my

00:53:09.220 feelings. So I started off with a cinnamon galaxy churro and then went to the teriyaki turkey leg.

00:53:14.960 This is a special limited edition item for the Lunar New Year celebration at Disney California

00:53:19.180 Adventure. I had some Rice Krispie, a corn dog, did some drawing, and even had another churro. I don't

00:53:25.080 really know what's next for me, but I'll be vlogging my journey and posting more content about it,

00:53:29.160 so feel free to follow along.

00:53:30.400 I have a sick sense of humor, so I really want someone with an even sicker sense of humor to make

00:53:38.940 a parody video of what would happen if one of these people was on death row and had to do a day in the

00:53:47.700 life of their execution. I just think that'd be fun. Here's a day in the life when I'm being executed.

00:53:54.340 I woke up, had my last meal. A couple of things. First of all, she says that the layoffs were a

00:54:00.900 really bad game of Russian roulette, which seems to suggest that there's such a thing as a good

00:54:05.520 game of Russian roulette. The whole point of Russian roulette is that someone dies at the end,

00:54:09.240 so it's going to be a very bad day for someone at least. Although maybe not for you, so okay.

00:54:13.440 Second, she just got laid off, lost her source of income, and her first reaction was to run down to,

00:54:18.700 was it Disneyland, to blow her discretionary funds on carnival snacks? Doesn't seem like a great

00:54:24.280 strategy. Third, listen, I don't have anything against this woman. I'm predisposed to dislike 1.00

00:54:31.800 her because she works for big tech, but for all I know, she's a very nice and delightful person,

00:54:36.340 for all I know. But my ability to feel sympathy for your tears is severely limited when you take

00:54:41.180 out your phone to capture your tears on video. I have been sad in my life. I've experienced setbacks

00:54:47.540 like we all have. I've never once felt the urge in the midst of that sadness to document it with my

00:54:52.200 phone. That's actually the last thing I would want, is I'm very sad about something and then

00:54:57.500 I have a phone in my face. It's the last thing I want. The instinct to pull out your phone while

00:55:02.340 you're crying is not one that I can begin to understand, and it automatically makes your

00:55:07.360 sadness at least partially performative because you're using it for content. You're using it for

00:55:12.640 clout. You're not taking your own misfortune seriously, and so why should I take it seriously?

00:55:18.720 Finally, there's a lesson here that I hope Nicole learns and all younger people learn.

00:55:24.160 It's not fun, but it's the truth. In the working world, everyone is expendable. Everyone is

00:55:33.820 replaceable. Now, you're not expendable as a human being. I'm not saying that you as a human are

00:55:39.560 expendable. You're not expendable in certain contexts, like in the context of your family. You're not an

00:55:44.780 expendable person. But at your job, you can be replaced. And eventually, one way or another,

00:55:50.760 you will be. Whether you quit, fired, laid off, retire. I mean, one way or another, eventually,

00:55:55.920 you're replaced. And that's the case for all of us. But you can greatly mitigate your replaceableness.

00:56:03.220 You can make yourself much less expendable. You can make it so that though you can still be replaced,

00:56:09.940 there are not that many people who can replace you. Your own vulnerability in this regard,

00:56:16.440 the reality that you will never be entirely indispensable, that shouldn't be a cause for

00:56:20.940 despair, but rather it should drive you and make you more ambitious and innovative and propel you

00:56:26.360 to work harder. Not in a paranoid way, but just in a like staying humble and working hard kind of way.

00:56:32.480 And if it does, if it does motivate you that way, then even if and when you are replaced,

00:56:38.980 you're nearly certain to continue on the path to success, though by the way of a detour.

00:56:44.600 We will always be, to one degree or another, expendable at our jobs, but you can become

00:56:49.100 virtually undeniable in pursuit of your larger goals. If you hone your abilities, if you never

00:56:54.480 become entirely complacent, if you work harder than everybody around you, you will be successful.

00:56:59.360 It is virtually guaranteed. I have never known in my life a hardworking, talented person who was

00:57:06.220 not by some measure successful. Maybe not rich, but rich is not, rich is one potential manifestation

00:57:13.740 of some forms of success. It is not in and of itself success. So maybe I'm not saying that every

00:57:18.160 hardworking, talented person is a millionaire, but they are all successful at the same time.

00:57:23.300 So here's your problem, Nicole, and it's a problem shared by many. You don't seem to be doing anything

00:57:30.960 or even attempting to do anything that cannot be done by virtually anyone. That is the most

00:57:36.920 vulnerable position you can put yourself in when you are contributing in a way that could just as

00:57:43.780 well be emulated by nearly anyone who walks in the door. In fact, your contributions can be absorbed

00:57:50.320 by other people without anything really being lost. You've made yourself highly, highly replaceable

00:57:57.860 and you've deprived yourself of any leverage. Further down the professional ladder, there are some

00:58:03.660 workers in the fast food industry who find themselves in the same position. They clamor for higher wages,

00:58:07.600 but they have almost no leverage because their positions can be simply erased and replaced by touch

00:58:12.480 screens. Now, the best response then is to work hard, develop your skills, become innovative,

00:58:18.740 put yourself in a position either in the same industry or somewhere else where you bring something

00:58:23.560 to the table that very few people can match. Now, this isn't about defending corporations or greedy

00:58:29.540 billionaires. I'm not telling you how I wish things were. This is not my vision of how I want the world

00:58:36.320 to be. I'm telling you how it is. And all we can do is to start with confront the fundamental reality

00:58:44.000 for what it is and figure out how to succeed within its confines. Whether you like the confines of reality

00:58:51.920 or not, there they are. You have to figure out how to operate in spite of them. That's the way forward.

00:59:00.480 Though for now, I must say you are still canceled. And that'll do it for this portion of the show as we move

00:59:05.320 over to the members block. Hope to see you there. If not, talk to you tomorrow. Godspeed.

00:59:08.400 Hope to see you there.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 26, 2023

Ep. 1101 - Why They're Filling Our Cities With Hideous Modern Art

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript