The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1285 - Harvard's Diversity Hire President Finally Resigns. Is This The Beginning Of The End For DEI？

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Wall Show, Harvard's plagiarizing diversity hire university president has finally

00:00:04.980 resigned, but how did someone so unqualified, unimpressive, intellectually vacuous, and morally

00:00:10.000 corrupt ever get into that position in the first place? We'll talk about it. And the media has

00:00:13.980 humiliated itself in its attempts to defend the plagiarist. We'll look at some of the most

00:00:17.600 egregious and hilarious examples. Also, Dave Chappelle goes viral with another joke that

00:00:22.680 the trans activists don't like. Plus, Disney has hired the director for the next Star Wars film.

00:00:27.440 She's a feminist, an activist, and her stated goal is to, quote, make men uncomfortable. 1.00

00:00:33.100 Disney is apparently determined to have its biggest flop yet. We'll talk about all that

00:00:36.520 and more today on The Matt Wall Show.

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00:02:05.480 It was over a year ago in October of 2022 that a Substack blogger named Chris Brunet published an

00:02:11.860 article warning Harvard not to name Claudine Gay the president of the university. And here's what

00:02:16.520 he wrote all the way back in October of 2022. He wrote, quote, I can't stress enough how much of

00:02:21.920 a tragedy a Claudine Gay presidency would be. This must not be allowed to come to pass. She will ruin 1.00

00:02:27.440 Harvard. She's an intellectual lightweight. Her entire body of critical race theory research is

00:02:32.300 flawed and or fake. She's a far, far-left DEI activist and corrupt as hell. Now, you might point out 1.00

00:02:40.640 that it's a little too late for anyone to ruin Harvard. Harvard's credibility hit an iceberg

00:02:46.080 and sank into the icy depths a long time ago. You cannot destroy that which is already laying in

00:02:51.680 ruins at the bottom of the ocean. But even so, Brunet's point was, and he still had a good point,

00:02:57.520 it was disregarded, along with all of his reporting about Claudine Gay's misconduct. And instead,

00:03:03.280 Harvard announced that Gay, who had never published a book in her life, only had a handful of publications,

00:03:08.680 really hadn't achieved anything of note at all in her professional career, that she would become

00:03:15.560 the university's next president. And she formally took over the position this past summer. But in

00:03:22.040 December, everything began to change and unravel very quickly. First, Gay told Congress that it's

00:03:27.640 not clear whether a call for Jewish genocide would violate Harvard's code of conduct. She said it depends

00:03:34.420 on the circumstances, you know, because you can't condemn genocide in principle, she's saying. I

00:03:41.120 mean, it really depends on the context and the nuances of the genocide you see. And then shortly

00:03:46.720 afterwards, Chris Brunet and Chris Ruffo published evidence that Claudine Gay had plagiarized significant

00:03:52.760 portions of her dissertation. Within 48 hours, the Washington Free Beacon followed up with many more

00:03:58.440 examples of Gay's plagiarism, including entire paragraphs that she lifted from some of her peer-reviewed

00:04:04.860 publications. And all of this snowballed over the course of a few weeks. And then yesterday, as you've

00:04:10.520 probably heard, Claudine Gay finally resigned. So those are the very broad outlines of the story, which, again,

00:04:17.840 you've probably heard. What you may not have heard is an explanation for how a blogger on Substack,

00:04:25.320 with a few hundred thousand subscribers, could possibly have more insights into Claudine Gay

00:04:31.360 than Harvard's board, which supposedly spent months interviewing hundreds of candidates before

00:04:37.800 promoting Gay. How could this person, this Substack writer, somebody without any affiliation to Harvard 1.00

00:04:44.780 whatsoever, understand that the university was going to destroy its own reputation, what's left of it,

00:04:50.200 in a matter of months? And then exactly that thing happens. Is he some kind of Nostradamus? Or was

00:04:57.820 something else going on here? Well, the truth is that regardless of what you may have heard, what

00:05:02.700 happened to Claudine Gay over the past few weeks was not shocking or unforeseeable. It wasn't even

00:05:09.320 unique, really. It was, in fact, extremely predictable. Chris over at Substack was able to post about

00:05:16.940 Claudine Gay's corruption, not because he had any special insight necessarily, not because he had any

00:05:22.500 information that was given to him, some secret information, but only because he was one of the

00:05:28.420 only people who were brave enough to publish what hundreds of academics have been saying in private

00:05:33.660 for years. If you're a conservative wondering when our national DEI fever dream is going to end,

00:05:41.140 this is what makes the Claudine Gay story interesting. Beneath all the Ivy League trappings,

00:05:48.000 this is yet another manifestation of a phenomenon that we've seen repeated many times in just the past

00:05:54.240 few years. Once again, it's a prominent brand, really over the past year especially. Or once again,

00:06:01.200 you have a prominent brand that's a tarnish, tarnishes itself in a predictable fashion that for some reason

00:06:08.080 the powers that be decided to ignore until it was too late. Target's brand collapse was predictable.

00:06:13.560 So was the collapse of Disney and Bud Light and Fox News. In every one of these cases, major brands

00:06:19.860 have decided to ruin their own reputations in obviously preventable ways. All Bud Light had to do

00:06:26.340 was talk to a single normal person before signing Dylan Mulvaney. They would have been told not to do it.

00:06:32.120 All Target had to do was not sell satanic merchandise and perverse clothing to minors.

00:06:38.080 Disney could have simply continued doing what it had done for generations, which is make cartoons

00:06:43.900 that are, you know, and family-friendly shows that don't sexualize kids or teach them to hate this

00:06:49.880 country or whatever else. Fox News could have decided to treat its viewers with some respect instead of

00:06:55.020 promoting Pride Month and shutting down the shows people actually watched. But they didn't.

00:07:00.740 In all these cases, corporations decided to self-sabotage. And now we can add Harvard and

00:07:07.700 its governing body, the Harvard Corporation, to that list. All they had to do was listen to the

00:07:13.620 warnings about Claudine Gay or look at her resume, what little there was to call her resume,

00:07:20.900 and then go with a qualified candidate. Instead, they walked directly into this debacle.

00:07:29.080 The question is why we keep seeing this happen over and over again.

00:07:33.660 Well, if you look deeper into the timeline of Claudine Gay's removal, you'll start to see

00:07:38.100 what Harvard was thinking. Put simply, as we saw in the case of all those other left-wing

00:07:43.860 corporations, there's a lot of hubris involved here. They thought that they could protect

00:07:49.740 Claudine Gay. They knew that she was a fake scholar long before Chris Ruffo, Chris Brunet,

00:07:55.680 and the Washington Free Beacon published a single story about her. But they also believed that they

00:08:00.220 had enough power and influence to sort of just power through the scandal. And that's why in October,

00:08:06.740 Harvard threatened to sue the New York Post, which was working on the gay plagiarism story.

00:08:11.000 You may not have heard about that either. I mean, the media had this. They knew about it.

00:08:17.200 Specifically, Harvard's lawyers told the Post that it was demonstrably false to say that Gay

00:08:21.260 had plagiarized anything. The lawyers claim that Harvard had conducted a comprehensive review into

00:08:26.840 all of Gay's writings, and they had cleared her, and so she's good to go. And they went on to promise 0.67

00:08:32.300 that they would sue the Post for immense damages if they went ahead with the story. And so the Post

00:08:37.400 relented. They didn't publish the story, even though they had it, even though they knew

00:08:41.540 this woman was a plagiarist. And for a while, it appeared that Harvard's strategy had worked.

00:08:47.320 It wasn't until mid-December, two months later, that Chris Ruffo and Chris Brunet did what the New

00:08:52.720 York Post was too afraid to do. And by the way, if you notice, they're not getting sued into oblivion for

00:08:58.840 it, because you can't sue someone for publishing correct information. And Ruffo and Brunet, they

00:09:06.400 circumvented the usual media channels, and they published the story themselves. They obtained

00:09:10.940 documents from a source, probably a professor at Harvard or a similar university, who had meticulously

00:09:16.260 documented several clear instances of Gay's plagiarism, and they released that document.

00:09:22.440 And then, and this is the key part, they didn't stop there. It wasn't just like one story. Oh,

00:09:31.400 look at that. This person's a plagiarist. Let's move on. That's how conservatives have operated for

00:09:37.180 many years. Okay, we hit that. Let's move to the next thing. No, they kept up relentless pressure on

00:09:44.180 Harvard, even after Harvard's board put out a statement saying that they had cleared Claudine

00:09:48.920 Gay of any wrongdoing. And they stood with her 100%. Ruffo and Brunet didn't back down. Neither

00:09:53.280 did the Washington Free Beacon. And now the New York Post, now that they felt emboldened enough

00:09:57.920 to actually report the story. I went back and checked, and these outlets published a new story

00:10:03.740 on Claudine Gay pretty much every day from mid-December until now. They found new instances of

00:10:09.800 plagiarism, or they spoke to some Nobel Prize winner who thought that she had to resign, or they spoke to

00:10:15.500 the black women that Claudine Gay had plagiarized from, et cetera. And whatever it took, they kept 1.00

00:10:21.080 the story alive. And that is not what Harvard was anticipating. That's not how they thought this

00:10:26.520 would go. Because they thought, and really, you can't blame them for thinking, because this is

00:10:30.540 usually how it goes. They thought that if people like Barack Obama lobbied on behalf of Claudine Gay,

00:10:37.920 and he did, then the story would die off in a few days. I mean, that's all it usually takes.

00:10:42.900 What they weren't taking into account is the lesson that conservative activists have learned over the

00:10:48.100 past year, which is that it takes relentless and consistent pressure to hold anyone accountable

00:10:54.340 when they are protected by the system. It doesn't mean you can't do it. I mean, you can do it. It just

00:11:00.720 takes consistency and relentlessness. Harvard and the media tried to circle the wagons around Gay

00:11:08.960 until so many examples of her plagiarism piled up that it just became unsustainable.

00:11:14.520 By the same token, Bud Light thought that they could make their crisis go away by sponsoring the UFC

00:11:19.300 and hiring Peyton Manning to shoot some ads. But this kind of strategy doesn't work anymore.

00:11:25.100 It doesn't convince anyone. It just highlights how inauthentic and desperate they are.

00:11:28.600 Now, in the case of Harvard, keeping the pressure on is important because the longer these frauds have

00:11:35.880 to defend their position, the more obviously indefensible it becomes to every sane and reasonable

00:11:40.340 person in the country. So here, for example, was a CNN expert and making his effort to defend

00:11:48.340 Claudine Gay yesterday, even after she resigned. And here's what he came up with. Listen.

00:11:54.180 These plagiarism allegations where Claudine Gay has had to issue corrections, multiple corrections.

00:12:02.380 Now, we should note that Claudine Gay has not been accused of stealing anyone's ideas in any of

00:12:08.800 her writings. She's been accused of sort of more like copying other people's writings without

00:12:14.980 attribution. So it's been more sloppy attribution than stealing anyone's ideas.

00:12:19.280 Oh, no, no, no. She didn't steal ideas. She just copied their writing. You know, it's not plagiarism. 0.65

00:12:27.480 No, no, this isn't plagiarism. I didn't plagiarize. I just copied what these other people said and

00:12:32.040 didn't attribute it to them. I didn't steal your car. I just got in it and drove it away without

00:12:39.640 permission. So you see, that's the difference. She didn't plagiarize. She just plagiarized. That's all.

00:12:47.560 Now, any high school student knows how absurd this all sounds. Because, you know, from high school

00:12:55.960 and before, they drill into your head what plagiarism is and why you shouldn't do it. But they're trying

00:13:01.580 to pass this off to adults watching CNN as the standard that should apply to the president of

00:13:08.020 Harvard University. But again, it's unsustainable. I mean, the more they have to explain their position,

00:13:13.180 the more this is dragged out, the more ludicrous they sound. Not to be outdone, over at NPR, 0.51

00:13:20.080 Eric Deggans had this observation, quote, the intimidation is the point. Will the next president

00:13:25.020 at Harvard stand for diversity? Will that person be female? Will that person be black? If not,

00:13:30.060 they have forced several steps back. And everyone across the school gets the message.

00:13:35.760 Now, it's not even worth addressing what Deggans said there, but it is worthwhile to take a quick

00:13:41.220 look at his bio. It turns out that he's an adjunct professor at Duke University, which makes you

00:13:45.780 wonder about Duke's academic standards. And Deggans is also the author of a book entitled

00:13:51.000 Race Bader, How Media Wield Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation. That's actually what his book is called.

00:13:59.280 And you know that saying about writing what you know, I guess. Well, Deggans took that advice as 0.98

00:14:03.860 literally as possible. And we saw many other examples of this obvious desperation in her

00:14:08.620 resignation letter. Claudine Gay never apologized for her plagiarism. You know, she never really

00:14:14.280 admitted to anything, even as she was stepping down. And instead, she claimed that she was the

00:14:18.820 victim of racism, of course. The Harvard board put out a statement basically agreeing with her.

00:14:24.440 And that's especially galling, by the way, given that Harvard hosts events with titles like

00:14:28.080 disrupting whiteness in the classroom. So, you know, the racism is coming from inside the house at

00:14:33.180 Harvard, obviously. And for their part, the state propagandists at NPR complained that gay

00:14:38.340 had been targeted by extreme right-wingers. There are many other examples. Mark Lamont Hill

00:14:44.440 demanded that, quote, the next president of Harvard University must be a black woman. 0.99

00:14:49.420 You know, we hired this person just because she's a black woman and she was a plagiarist. 0.99

00:14:52.860 So let's do it again. Just keep hiring black women until we find one that isn't a plagiarist. 1.00

00:14:58.740 Never mind the fact that Mark Lamont Hill, I mean, he can't even tell you what a woman is or explain 0.97

00:15:04.980 why it's so important that the next president be a woman. No. As always, anytime one of these people 0.68

00:15:11.680 say, well, the next president needs to be a black woman. What's that? Tell me what that is and we 1.00

00:15:15.620 can talk about it. But he's just making incoherent demands at maximum volume because he's, you know,

00:15:22.480 agitated. This is what they do. This is what happens when the right refuses to relent. The more these

00:15:27.820 race hustlers are forced to explain themselves, the more they discredit all of their social 0.99

00:15:32.920 engineering. They fall back on these crude non-arguments that amount to racism on their,

00:15:39.240 you know, from them and just sort of screaming into the void. I mean, they can't defend anything

00:15:44.900 that Claudine Gay actually did. All they can do is lash out at people based on their skin color. 1.00

00:15:49.640 And that's what Henry Rogers, aka Ibram X. Kendi, did. He wrote that, quote,

00:15:52.860 racist mobs won't stop until they topple all black people from positions of power and influence 0.98

00:15:58.640 who are not reinforcing the structure of racism. What these racist mobs are doing should be obvious 0.99

00:16:03.740 to any reporter who cares about truth or justice as opposed to conflicts and cliques.

00:16:09.140 So if you're upset about the president of Harvard plagiarizing 50 separate times,

00:16:15.120 then you're racist. You know, there's a word for this and it's projection. As we know, they always

00:16:24.160 accuse you of doing precisely what they are doing. And all that said, there was one moment of truth in

00:16:30.880 what these DEI pushers said yesterday. Al Sharpton called Gay's removal, quote, an assault on the health,

00:16:38.580 strength, strength, and future of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Well, yes. I mean, that's exactly what

00:16:46.980 this moment represents. If the conservative movement follows through, this could be the beginning of the

00:16:53.160 end of DEI, which by definition punishes certain Americans based on their skin color while rewarding

00:17:00.160 others. This certainly is. You know, this attack on Claudine Gay, it's an assault on two things,

00:17:08.680 on plagiarism, and yes, on DEI. It is that too. And it could be, as I said, the beginning of the end of

00:17:17.740 DEI. Now, will it be? Well, let's see. According to the New York Post, Harvard's current plan is to keep

00:17:23.700 Claudine Gay on the faculty and pay her a salary of around $900,000 a year. And I didn't add a zero

00:17:30.140 in there. That's actually what they're planning on paying her, $900,000 a year, even after she's

00:17:35.680 been outed as a plagiarist. And that's a pretty clear sign that they don't actually plan to change

00:17:41.220 anything. Harvard's hoping that the right will celebrate this victory and then forget all about

00:17:46.580 the broader war on DEI. And you know what? That would have been a safe assumption a few years ago.

00:17:53.840 Thankfully for everyone who cares about merit and morality, and unfortunately though, for frauds like

00:17:59.760 Claudine Gay, I don't think it's a safe assumption anymore. Now let's get to our five headlines.

00:18:13.640 Okay, a little bit more on this Claudine Gay story because, you know, as always, as they say,

00:18:20.180 you know, it's not the crime, it's the coverup. And so it's the attempt by the media

00:18:26.020 to cover for Claudine Gay. That becomes the story in and of itself. I mean, they could have just said

00:18:33.500 after she was exposed as a plagiarism, the first time that a plagiarism exam, because really it

00:18:39.360 should be a one and done with plagiarism when you're an academic and you're the president of

00:18:43.700 what's supposed to be one of the most prestigious schools in the world. Should be like one example of

00:18:48.880 plagiarism and you're done. And so the media, the left, all the, they could have just said after the

00:18:54.980 first example, oh, okay, well, turns out she's a plagiarist. We condemn that. She should be fired. 1.00

00:19:01.780 And then, and then you move on. And then if you're on the left, yeah, you try to go find some

00:19:05.560 other quote unquote diverse person who's not a plagiarist. And then, and they could have just

00:19:09.520 done that. And then the whole thing wouldn't be nearly as embarrassing for them. But you've got all

00:19:18.360 these media outlets who have decided to just continue to continually step on the rake

00:19:24.380 in an effort to, to defend Claudine Gay, you know, and so you end up with men. It's like,

00:19:33.340 it's like the, of course, the infamous moment from CNN where they described the BLM riots as fiery,

00:19:38.520 but mostly peaceful. And so there've been many little fiery, but mostly peaceful moments from the

00:19:44.440 media about this story. And this is, and we went over a few of them in the opening monologue.

00:19:52.420 This is maybe the worst one. And it only, it just, you start reading it and it gets worse and worse

00:19:59.200 and worse. So we'll walk through this, but here's the AP headline about this, all this. Headline is

00:20:05.580 Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges, plagiarism.

00:20:15.660 And let's just stop there for a second. Just like pretend you didn't know anything about any of

00:20:19.300 this. Okay. You didn't know anything about the Claudine Gay story and you saw that. And you also

00:20:24.620 didn't know anything about the AP's political leanings. So you've really been just living in a cave

00:20:29.580 somewhere. And you read that headline. How would you even interpret that? I mean, you would,

00:20:37.420 it certainly sounds like conservatives are using, are plagiarizing themselves. Okay. So conservatives

00:20:44.800 are somehow using, are committing plagiarism in some sort of effort to attack universities.

00:20:52.660 Like plagiarism is our weapon that we are using. So it makes it sound like we are the plagiarists.

00:20:59.360 But no, in fact, the weapon is the plagiarism that these, that the university president herself

00:21:07.880 committed. So our weapon is pointing it out. It's noticing. So really what the headline should say

00:21:16.020 is Harvard's president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges,

00:21:22.420 noticing plagiarism. That's our weapon is that we've noticed it. And as we've learned,

00:21:27.460 when it comes to plagiarism and when it comes to so many other things, that the cardinal sin that you

00:21:34.440 can commit as a conservative is to notice things. You're not supposed to notice really anything

00:21:40.260 until they give us permission. They'll give us, there's certain things we're allowed to notice,

00:21:44.840 but only very specific things.

00:21:52.060 So let's just read a little bit of this article.

00:21:53.820 American higher education has long viewed plagiarism as among the most serious of offenses.

00:21:59.740 Accusations of plagiarism have ruined the careers of academics and undergraduates alike.

00:22:03.800 The latest target is Harvard president Claudine Gay, who resigned Tuesday.

00:22:07.880 Reviews by Harvard found multiple shortcomings in Gay's academic citations,

00:22:11.620 including several instances of duplicative language. While the university concluded the

00:22:17.360 errors were not considered intentional or reckless. Oh, they're just duplicative. It's not

00:22:23.960 plagiarism. You see, this language is not, it's not plagiarizing something else. It's just duplicating

00:22:30.580 it without attribution. While the university concluded the errors were not considered intentional

00:22:39.960 reckless and didn't rise to misconduct, the allegations continued, with new ones as recently

00:22:43.700 as Monday. Many came not from her academic peers, but her political foes, led by conservatives who

00:22:49.520 sought to oust Gay and put her career under intense scrutiny in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. 1.00

00:22:54.520 Her detractors charged that Gay got the top job in large part because she's a black woman, 1.00

00:22:58.860 which of course is exactly why she got the job. And also remember,

00:23:04.320 that's actually, of course, everything I'm reading now is all nonsense, obviously.

00:23:10.220 And this is not how it actually worked. It didn't work like she got the job and then conservatives said,

00:23:17.480 oh, we're really, we're really mad that they gave, that they have this diversity hire. And so we're going 0.62

00:23:21.800 to find a way, we're going to go looking for something, you know, we're going to go looking

00:23:25.700 for ammunition. If that is what happened, it would still be fine. Like it doesn't actually matter what

00:23:32.940 the motives are of the people who find the plagiarism. But what matters is the plagiarism.

00:23:41.880 But that's actually, that's not even what happened. As we went over in the opening monologue,

00:23:46.160 this stuff was known before she was even hired. And there were some conservatives who were trying

00:23:54.000 to help Harvard out by saying, hey, she's a bad choice. Don't hire her. You're going to embarrass 0.99

00:23:59.120 yourselves. And they chose to do it anyway. AP continues, in Gay's case, many academics were

00:24:06.700 troubled with how the plagiarism came to light as part of a coordinated campaign to discredit Gay

00:24:12.320 and force her from office, in part because of her involvement in efforts for racial justice on 1.00

00:24:16.780 campus. Her resignation came after calls for ouster from prominent conservatives, including

00:24:20.220 Representative Elise Stefanik and Harvard alumna, Harvard alumna and Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge

00:24:26.620 fund manager who donated millions to Harvard. Now then they just, so they just, at the top of the

00:24:33.080 article, they indicated that this wasn't actually plagiarism. And then a little bit later, a few

00:24:38.920 paragraphs down, they say, what's really troubling is how the plagiarism came to light. So it is

00:24:44.800 plagiarism then. But the plagiarism isn't troubling. It's how it came to light that's troubling.

00:24:52.620 So you notice that they aren't really disputing the plagiarism charge. 0.90

00:24:57.520 What they're saying is, yeah, she's a plagiarist, but you only care about that because she's black. 1.00

00:25:02.200 They, you know, they're, what they're doing, they're basically treat, to use a football analogy, 0.58

00:25:08.460 because I try to fit them in wherever I can. They're basically treating plagiarism like it's

00:25:13.800 holding in football. And, you know, fans, if you're a fan of a, of a team, anytime the ref calls

00:25:19.580 holding, you're going to complain about it. And, and you're going to say, and when it comes to holding,

00:25:24.860 you're kind of right that, well, you could call holding on every play. Everybody holds. So it's,

00:25:29.360 it always, it's like, it always feels a little bit arbitrary when they call it, because you can,

00:25:33.480 you could call, you could look for holding and charge everybody on the defense with holding,

00:25:37.500 everybody on the offense with holding. And that's kind of what they're doing with plagiarism.

00:25:42.860 Suddenly, what was once considered the greatest sin for an academic has become something that,

00:25:48.680 according to the media on the left, it's like everyone does it. So we should just let it slide.

00:25:52.420 I mean, yeah, if you're good, if you go looking for plagiarism with a, with a, an Ivy League

00:26:00.940 university president, of course, you're going to find it.

00:26:06.060 Um, and I, I've seen this from the left too, where they say, oh, well, you know, if you're going

00:26:10.840 to hit Claudine Gay for this, well, then you should scrutinize every college professor 1.00

00:26:16.180 and every president to see if they plagiarize too. And I guess we're supposed to object to that.

00:26:25.060 But instead we say, yeah, absolutely. It sounds good. But like, yeah, let's do it.

00:26:31.640 Let's look at all these people.

00:26:32.840 I mean, if Claudine Gay's plagiarism is actually as routine as they make it sound, 0.94

00:26:40.300 then by all means, let's, let's fire all the other university presidents too, 0.96

00:26:46.840 including the white ones. That definitely, in fact, I'd be in favor of this just to show you how 0.96

00:26:54.640 much I believe in racial equality. I say, maybe we should just fire all of the university presidents

00:27:00.440 automatically in one fell swoop and then look for the plagiarism afterwards.

00:27:07.400 So when it comes to, I'm all for a shoot first, ask questions later kind of approach when it comes

00:27:11.520 to this, whatever results in, in more university presidents and university administrators unemployed,

00:27:19.840 I'm in favor of. But if you don't like that approach, then I guess we're left with only firing

00:27:28.140 them after the plagiarism has been proven. And with Gay, it has been proven literally 50 times.

00:27:38.420 I mean, this whole thing is just, the left claims that they aren't lowering standards in the name of

00:27:45.000 diversity, right? They say that we can prioritize diversity and inclusion, but not lower standards,

00:27:52.580 they claim. And we already know that's a lie because obviously if you are hiring somebody

00:27:58.540 based on anything other than merit, you are lowering standards.

00:28:07.420 But here we have the most dramatic and glaring evidence yet that the standards are being lowered.

00:28:14.400 I mean, they have lowered the standards so much, they have obliterated the standards to such an extent

00:28:19.660 that they are now excusing plagiarism by university presidents.

00:28:27.060 They will now accept plagiarism in the name of diversity.

00:28:30.660 You honestly cannot lower the standards more than that.

00:28:34.260 And I realize in saying that I might eat my words because they're going to look for a way to do it.

00:28:38.300 Every time you think the bar can't get lower, I mean, they dig a hole and lower it even more.

00:28:41.940 But when you consider the job, it's like plagiarism is the worst thing you can do.

00:28:49.640 It's like, I don't know, hiring a chef for a five-star restaurant who serves microwaved chicken nuggets.

00:28:58.680 It's just, you can't lower the bar any lower, given the job.

00:29:03.680 I mean, there are worse things, there are worse things a person can do in life than plagiarize.

00:29:12.560 But when it comes to a university president and that job specifically, it's as bad as it gets.

00:29:21.080 But I haven't even mentioned the best part of this AP article.

00:29:25.100 And before we move on, I have to mention it.

00:29:27.460 So let's sort of read this paragraph to you.

00:29:30.680 Christopher Ruffo, a conservative activist who helped orchestrate the effort against gay,

00:29:36.420 celebrated her departure as a win in his campaign against elite institutions of higher education.

00:29:41.620 On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote, 0.98

00:29:43.740 scalped, as if gay was a trophy of violence. 0.99

00:29:47.480 Invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans. 0.98

00:29:55.580 And actually, so here, so that's the end of the sentence.

00:30:00.680 He said scalped, which evokes scalping, which was done by white colonists against Native Americans.

00:30:09.660 And now, anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the history of the new world, of this part of the world,

00:30:22.280 you know that scalping, yeah, now it is true that white colonists, in some cases, did take up the practice of scalping.

00:30:31.800 But guess where they learned it from?

00:30:35.240 In some cases, the white colonists would, yeah, they would collect scalps because they saw the Indians doing it. 0.99

00:30:42.020 And I guess a few of the white colonists said, well, it looks like a good idea. 0.98

00:30:44.760 We should try that.

00:30:45.860 Which certainly is not something that can be justified.

00:30:50.480 But, no, this is actually a Native American practice.

00:30:55.440 And there's evidence of scalping that goes back hundreds of years before any white man set foot on these shores.

00:31:02.580 So, the AP, they went apparently, and I'm trying to sort through this, but, because there are two different versions of this article.

00:31:13.440 And so, it appears that at some point over the last few hours, they went back and they changed, they edited this sentence.

00:31:23.400 So that now, it says, scalping, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans,

00:31:31.100 and also used by some tribes against their enemies.

00:31:34.640 They went back and changed that.

00:31:36.100 They all said, yeah, okay.

00:31:38.280 Because they were hoping that nobody would notice that.

00:31:40.180 They could just throw that in.

00:31:41.180 And then a bunch of people noticed it and said, that's insane.

00:31:44.860 And so, now they went back and, yeah, okay.

00:31:46.700 A few Native Americans did it, too.

00:31:49.480 And by a few, we mean, like, every Native American tribe did this.

00:31:57.620 They just, they cannot stop embarrassing themselves.

00:32:02.360 It's amazing.

00:32:02.840 All right.

00:32:04.880 Well, let's, a couple other things.

00:32:06.560 As the illegal immigrant crisis continues to unfold and threatens to destroy our country, 1.00

00:32:12.080 the mayor of Boston, who was last seen hosting a racially segregated holiday party, remember that?

00:32:18.360 We talked about it.

00:32:19.620 Well, she has some thoughts about all of this.

00:32:22.180 And, you know, whenever she's talking, you expect great insight.

00:32:28.200 And we get some of it here, for sure.

00:32:30.280 Listen.

00:32:31.740 Every person, every human being has the legal right to come to the United States and seek asylum or shelter.

00:32:37.860 And those policies have been in place for a long time.

00:32:42.440 But when the review of that individual's particular situation and the, then, decision to allow the pathway to stay

00:32:53.240 and or work authorization that comes along with that, when that process is so drawn out, people are stuck.

00:32:58.780 They are looking to work, looking to contribute, looking to be in a safe democracy where they can raise their families.

00:33:07.980 And we, at the city level, are now dealing with many of the impacts of the processes, having people fall through the cracks at the federal level.

00:33:17.140 So we're working very closely with the state.

00:33:19.200 This is affecting municipalities across the Commonwealth, to be able to triage the situation, create temporary housing so that families can get settled.

00:33:29.800 Okay.

00:33:30.440 So, I mean, all the rest of that we didn't really, it's sort of irrelevant.

00:33:34.880 The key point is the very first thing she said, which is that every person has a right to come here for asylum and shelter.

00:33:44.380 And the second part of that is important, because asylum means, supposedly, there's supposed to be a legal process of coming here and claiming asylum.

00:33:56.040 But she also throws in shelter, and shelter is just, you know, it's just anything.

00:34:02.820 So she's not just saying, and this would also be wrong, by the way, but she's not just saying that everyone has a right to come here

00:34:09.440 for any reason.

00:34:39.440 Just to remind you, if you're not keeping track of the tally, there are currently 8 billion people on Earth.

00:34:48.460 Earth's not overcrowded, despite what they say.

00:34:51.860 There is, in fact, plenty of room for everybody.

00:34:57.320 Vast swaths of the globe are still basically uninhabited.

00:35:02.860 And that includes many thousands of square miles of land that could be inhabited.

00:35:07.740 So I'm not just talking about, like, Antarctica here.

00:35:11.420 So the world is not overcrowded.

00:35:13.220 It's not overpopulated.

00:35:17.720 But certain parts of the world, you know, can become overcrowded and overpopulated.

00:35:25.640 So, like, if you tried to fit everyone on Earth into United States of America, well, yes, now you've got a real crowding overpopulation problem

00:35:34.860 because you've crammed everybody in.

00:35:36.940 So 8 billion people on Earth is not an issue.

00:35:41.280 It's not a problem until you open up the borders of our individual country and say everyone on Earth has a right to come here. 0.92

00:35:52.580 Which is not true.

00:35:58.880 You know, anytime we talk about rights, and we know that on the left, and they're doing this more and more if you listen to the language that they use.

00:36:08.500 More and more on this issue and on many issues, you know, they're not, they don't frame it around, well, they still talk about compassion and diversity and all these things.

00:36:18.380 But they have learned to, as much as possible, frame things around the idea of rights.

00:36:27.260 Because that's a fundamental American value.

00:36:29.980 And they know that most Americans, they hear rights, and they just, they have a positive association.

00:36:36.260 And so they try to frame everything around that.

00:36:39.840 And so you have a lot of sort of competing rights claims that are made, and it becomes very confusing.

00:36:45.500 Everyone's claiming they have a right to everything.

00:36:50.680 So how do we know what's an actual right and what isn't?

00:36:54.400 Well, one of the ways that you know something is not a right is if, just imagine what would happen if everybody claimed this right.

00:37:05.900 And if everyone claiming the right would result in the destruction of civilization, or a particular civilization,

00:37:15.600 then we probably know, then it's a good indication that that's not an innate human right.

00:37:21.840 So if everyone has the right to come to the United States, what happens if everybody calls in that right and says,

00:37:29.540 all right, I have a right to it, I'm deciding to do it.

00:37:31.300 What if everyone does it?

00:37:32.080 We literally can't fit everybody.

00:37:39.440 So pretty good indication that's not an actual human right.

00:37:43.200 It's also not a legal right.

00:37:46.160 It's not anything.

00:37:48.900 I'll tell you what is a right, though.

00:37:50.380 The people who live here and who are citizens of this country, we have innate human rights, just like any human being does on Earth.

00:38:02.640 And we also have specific legal rights that we specifically are entitled to because we are citizens of this country.

00:38:10.960 And one of the both human rights and legal rights that we have is to national sovereignty.

00:38:23.140 Put another way, like we have a right to our nation, to our national identity.

00:38:28.540 We have a right to that.

00:38:31.980 We are entitled to it.

00:38:34.960 Which means that the people who are in power in this country are obligated to defend our national sovereignty.

00:38:45.060 That's who has a right.

00:38:46.020 Okay, another quick thing, and this just kind of annoys me, so I'm going to mention the band Green Day.

00:39:01.020 And yes, they still exist, and they're still making music, apparently.

00:39:05.680 Well, they made waves somehow when they performed on New Year's Eve, and they threw in a line into one of their songs during this New Year's Eve.

00:39:14.460 I don't remember what network they were performing on, but ABC or NBC or one of those.

00:39:20.420 And they threw a line into one of their songs attacking Trump supporters, something about the MAGA agenda.

00:39:26.360 Doesn't matter.

00:39:27.760 Anyway, this has been grabbing headlines among right-leaning outlets for days now.

00:39:33.700 I mean, for days, there's been headlines about Green Day attacking Trump supporters.

00:39:40.400 And they did a segment on it on Fox News.

00:39:42.800 Let's watch that.

00:39:44.540 I think that it's imperative that we start to define what they mean when they say MAGA agenda.

00:39:48.680 What does that actually mean?

00:39:49.820 What does that look like?

00:39:50.920 Does that mean lower crime?

00:39:52.480 Does that mean actually secure borders?

00:39:54.360 Does that mean a better economy?

00:39:55.740 Because why would you, maybe he is raging against the machine if that's what he's actually asking for.

00:39:59.780 Yeah, well, I mean, that song, the original song, was actually a post-9-11 song because the band at the time was upset about what was happening overseas and the Iraq war and all that.

00:40:11.940 But they're probably their biggest hit, right?

00:40:15.680 But now, to change it, to just continue to make it political, you're just alienating people.

00:40:21.740 Okay, Green Day has been a lame, liberal, faux-punk band for 35 years.

00:40:35.800 They've been around for almost as long as I've been alive.

00:40:40.280 Green Day has.

00:40:41.040 And they've been doing this for 35 years, this exact thing.

00:40:45.980 Attacking conservatives, attacking the right.

00:40:48.200 They've been doing this the entire time.

00:40:52.760 And trying to grab headlines that way and get attention that way because their music is terrible.

00:40:58.860 I mean, it really is awful.

00:41:01.440 And it always has been.

00:41:05.720 Like, even in the 90s, back when they were popular.

00:41:09.160 And I'm not going to say that my music taste in the 90s was impeccable.

00:41:13.560 But even then, I recognized, like, this is pretty lame.

00:41:17.960 And yet, still, 35 years later, you've got Fox News doing segments.

00:41:24.140 What is this Green Day becoming political all of a sudden?

00:41:29.040 Hey, kids, you hear about this Green Day band?

00:41:31.860 You know this musical band, Green Day?

00:41:34.540 You hear about them?

00:41:35.960 They're getting all political.

00:41:37.420 Can you believe it?

00:41:38.120 I want Green Day to get back to what they were doing before, which apparently was not political at all.

00:41:48.100 I mean, look, I know that I'm one to talk, you know, when it comes to complaining about people taking the bait.

00:41:54.220 Okay?

00:41:54.480 So I know that I am notorious for taking the bait.

00:42:00.080 But we've got to get a little better about it sometimes.

00:42:02.340 And if you're still doing Fox News segments on Green Day and complaining about their left-wing agenda, then I think it might be time to stop taking the bait.

00:42:16.560 All right.

00:42:18.040 One other clip I want to play.

00:42:19.200 This is sort of a long one.

00:42:20.580 But this is from Dave Chappelle's latest special.

00:42:23.940 And it's going massively viral.

00:42:27.480 And it's a long setup to a joke.

00:42:30.220 And you need the whole thing or it doesn't make sense.

00:42:32.660 So we'll play it for you.

00:42:34.760 And then we'll talk about why this clip is getting all the attention that it is.

00:42:38.160 Let's go ahead and play it.

00:42:39.420 And the only thing that got me out of that space was a comedian friend of mine, the late, great Norm MacDonald.

00:42:47.160 That's right.

00:42:48.340 Shout out to Norm.

00:42:50.660 And what Norm did, which I'll never forget, is he knew that I was the biggest Jim Carrey fan in the world.

00:42:56.120 Now, I'm not going to go all into it.

00:42:57.480 But Jim Carrey is talented in a way that you can't practice or rehearse.

00:43:01.060 What a God-given talent.

00:43:02.860 I was fascinated with him.

00:43:05.020 And Norm knew that.

00:43:06.000 And he called me up and he goes, Dave, he says, I'm doing a movie with Jim Carrey.

00:43:10.220 Do you want to meet him?

00:43:13.060 And I said, yes, I do.

00:43:16.040 And it was the first time I could remember since my father died being excited.

00:43:21.100 And the movie was called Man on the Moon.

00:43:24.260 I didn't know any of this.

00:43:25.160 And in this movie, Jim Carrey was playing another comedian I admired, the late, great Andy Kaufman.

00:43:31.640 Yes, and Jim Carrey was so immersed in that role that from the moment he woke up to the time he went to bed at night, he would live his life as Andy Kaufman.

00:43:43.160 I didn't know that.

00:43:43.920 When they said cut, this was still Andy Kaufman.

00:43:49.740 So much so that everybody on the crew called him Andy.

00:43:54.120 I didn't know any of that.

00:43:55.200 I just went there to meet him.

00:43:56.440 And when he walked into the room where we were supposed to meet, I screamed, Jim Carrey.

00:44:00.000 And everyone said, no.

00:44:04.620 Call him Andy.

00:44:07.140 And I didn't understand.

00:44:08.720 And then he came over and he was acting weird.

00:44:10.400 I didn't know he was acting like Andy Kaufman.

00:44:11.880 He was just like, hey, how you doing?

00:44:13.200 And I was like, hello.

00:44:18.360 Andy?

00:44:20.960 Now, in hindsight, how am I that I got to see one of the greatest artists of my time immersed in one of his most challenging processes ever?

00:44:31.020 I'm very lucky to have seen that.

00:44:32.780 But as it was happening, I was very disappointed.

00:44:42.040 Because I wanted to meet Jim Carrey.

00:44:45.280 And I had to pretend this was Andy Kaufman all afternoon.

00:44:51.620 And he was clearly Jim Carrey.

00:44:53.320 I could look at him and I could see he was Jim Carrey.

00:44:57.120 Anyway, I say all that to say, that's how trans people make me feel. 1.00

00:45:02.780 All right.

00:45:07.600 So we got a little bit about Jim Carrey and Andy Kaufman.

00:45:09.740 And then we get to the joke there at the end.

00:45:11.520 So and that is apparently I haven't watched the Dave Chappelle special, but that is apparently how he opens the special.

00:45:19.740 He comes right out with another trans joke. 0.89

00:45:23.840 And we know all the heat that Chappelle has been taking for making jokes about trans people.

00:45:30.360 And he comes out right away with a long, drawn out joke about trans people, which is which is fantastic. 1.00

00:45:38.480 I give him a lot of credit for that.

00:45:40.300 But, you know, Dave Chappelle is not on our side.

00:45:46.600 When I say our, I mean, as conservative, he's not a conservative on really any issue.

00:45:51.980 And I know there are some conservatives that every time Dave Chappelle has another trans joke, there are some conservatives say, well, we shouldn't be applauding him.

00:46:01.140 He's still a left wing guy on most.

00:46:02.880 Yeah, understood.

00:46:06.160 But and I would even say, like, if Dave Chappelle was coming along now and for the first time he had found the courage to make a joke about the trans phenomenon, then I would say I don't give him any credit for that at all, really. 0.93

00:46:23.420 But he's been doing this all along.

00:46:27.080 And so I put him in the same category as someone like J.K. Rowling, who is not a political ally and has made it clear that she doesn't like me personally.

00:46:37.620 And yet still, I give her a lot of credit for not just being truthful about this issue, but for being truthful pretty much all along about it.

00:46:48.440 And it does make a difference in the culture.

00:46:57.080 To have people like J.K. Rowling and Dave Chappelle treating this stuff as the farce that it is, it really matters a lot.

00:47:09.000 And when I talk about how I think culturally on the trans, in the fight against the trans agenda, culturally, I believe that we are winning, which isn't to say that we've won, which isn't to say that the battle will be over anytime soon or really ever over completely. 0.76

00:47:29.560 But we are winning, and it's not because of people like J.K. Rowling and Dave Chappelle, but that has been a crucial aspect in us winning the war culturally.

00:47:44.540 And that's why everyone appreciates this.

00:47:47.660 Here's the other thing.

00:47:49.020 And I would say this about most of the jokes I've heard Dave Chappelle say or tell on the trans issue.

00:47:57.560 Like most of the jokes are not that funny.

00:47:59.780 They're not hilarious.

00:48:03.040 And a lot of times they're kind of like punchlines that you've already seen on Twitter a million times.

00:48:07.140 I mean, that particular joke, I don't even laugh out loud at that joke.

00:48:09.820 In fairness, I don't laugh out loud at anything, but, you know, I don't think in general it's a laugh out loud joke necessarily.

00:48:18.100 But people, it's funny, but people appreciate it because they just, they, this is the kind of thing that comedians are supposed to be making fun of.

00:48:31.120 And I do think that, again, people like Dave Chappelle have been, you know, you could say that, and you would be right in pointing out that people like Dave Chappelle and J.K. Rowling shouldn't necessarily have all the cultural influence that they do, but they do.

00:48:52.380 And it's impossible to overstate how important it's been to have people like them telling truth, even if they won't tell the truth about anything else, at least telling the truth on this.

00:49:06.780 And in Dave Chappelle's case specifically, it's not just telling the truth about it, but it's treating it like a joke, making a mockery of it, because that's what it is.

00:49:17.960 Let's get to Was Walsh Wrong?

00:49:22.380 So yesterday we had the story in the Daily Cancellation about the gay activists in Seattle who had rallied together to put a stop, put a kibosh on a playground that was supposed to be built,

00:49:33.360 and a playground that was going to be funded by a private donation from an anonymous donor, half a million dollars.

00:49:38.200 This person was donating to build a playground in a part of the city where there apparently has, there aren't any other playgrounds that are in close walking distance.

00:49:46.080 So they want to build a playground for families and children in that part of the city. 0.94

00:49:48.980 But the gay activists saw this as an anti-gay conspiracy, as another example of gay erasure, because the playground was close to a beach where these gay activists like to hang out naked. 0.60

00:50:04.200 And because of the, even though the laws are extremely permissive in Seattle and in the state of Washington, they still are not allowed to be naked around children. 0.78

00:50:13.900 So you put the playground there, then it would shut down the nude beach. 0.99

00:50:16.560 And so they rallied, they said, don't build a playground, it's more important that we can be naked at this beach.

00:50:20.760 And of course the city relented and said, yeah, you're right, never mind.

00:50:24.680 Who needs, who cares about the kids? 0.96

00:50:27.600 What matters are these adults who want to get naked in public?

00:50:32.980 As you can imagine, I'm, I was opposed to that decision by the city.

00:50:36.460 And, uh, but there are some people who disagree with me over to some of those comments is Matt under the impression that there are thousands of nude beaches in Washington.

00:50:43.360 There aren't even in Seattle, nude beaches are thin on the ground without agreeing with the gay lifestyle. 1.00

00:50:49.840 I'm on their side on this.

00:50:51.480 They were there first.

00:50:53.740 Okay.

00:50:54.160 First of all, I've never been to a nude beach, but I don't think that thin is ever the right description for the people who tend to go to places like that.

00:51:06.100 Uh, second, as I said yesterday, you can be naked in public all over the city and the state.

00:51:15.860 Uh, public nudity is unfortunately legal.

00:51:19.860 And so there's thousands of other places you can go.

00:51:25.860 But third, that doesn't matter anyway, because this is a matter of priorities and you claim that you don't agree.

00:51:33.900 You, I find that hard to believe.

00:51:35.920 You don't agree with the gay lifestyle, but you think it was the right decision for the city to prioritize a gay nude beach over a playground for children in the community. 0.91

00:51:47.960 And you don't agree with the lifestyle.

00:51:50.040 I find there's something there that's not quite adding up.

00:51:51.840 This is a matter of priority, priorities.

00:51:57.920 Yeah, you have, you have two things that are in conflict.

00:52:01.600 Like we just talked about a few minutes ago, you have competing rights claims, sort of.

00:52:07.100 Um, and you get this a lot.

00:52:09.060 You have, you have two different groups that are laying claim to something.

00:52:12.600 And, and, and this is why we need our public officials to come in and have the right set of priorities and figure out whose claim should prevail. 0.79

00:52:22.520 In this case, you had gay activists saying, we really want to get naked here and take off our pants.

00:52:27.040 The other hand, you had families saying, this is a great, this would be a good, good place that we could bring our kids.

00:52:35.540 Well, if you have your priorities straight, then obviously the latter will win out.

00:52:39.940 But in Seattle, they don't have the priorities straight.

00:52:43.280 Um, another comment says, I don't know, Matt, it's pretty obvious that the anonymous donor was trying to put a playground there to shut down the nude beach.

00:52:51.880 Why else would you build a playground next to a nude beach?

00:52:56.020 Uh, I find it hard to believe that somebody was donating half a million dollars to build a playground.

00:53:02.820 All is some sort of, you know, um, conspiracy to shut down a nude, but, but it doesn't matter.

00:53:09.940 The motivations don't matter.

00:53:14.800 What matters, again, is priorities.

00:53:18.340 And who should take precedent?

00:53:20.540 In general, from a cultural perspective, who should take precedent? 0.62

00:53:25.520 Kids or gay nudist activists? 0.62

00:53:30.340 And not just in Washington, but, but, you know, culturally we've decided that we've taken the wrong side. 0.95

00:53:35.880 Uh, and finally, Matt cannot hide his contempt for LGBT people. 0.97

00:53:39.880 He openly calls them weird and degenerate. 0.99

00:53:42.800 Shameful.

00:53:45.040 Well, I did use those words to talk about these people, but if you remember, I was quoting them directly.

00:53:51.540 It was actually the gay activists themselves who described themselves that way.

00:53:56.780 And, uh, if the shoe fits, wear it, wear it, I guess.

00:54:03.460 Even if you're not wearing anything else.

00:54:05.660 Start 2024 off right.

00:54:07.160 The fight to reshape our culture has never been more crucial.

00:54:09.860 And to Daily Wire, we are leading the charge.

00:54:11.840 We've got some incredible things lined up for you this year.

00:54:13.920 With new series like the hilarious Mr. Burcham coming early 2024.

00:54:17.980 It's the Daily Wire's first ever animated series featuring an all-star cast, including Adam Carolla, Roseanne Barr, Megyn Kelly, and more.

00:54:24.740 Plus, brace yourselves for the Daily Wire's highly anticipated series, The Pendragon Cycle.

00:54:28.840 We're breathing new life into the authorian legend, inspired by the works of acclaimed Christian novelist Stephen R. Lawhead.

00:54:35.420 Filming just wrapped, and right now you can catch a sneak peek of what's to come with our incredible Pendragon Cycle production diaries at dailywire.com.

00:54:43.260 And the 2024 election will be one of the most pivotal in our country's history.

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00:55:28.440 Now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:55:29.720 Well, I think we can say now in retrospect that 2023 wasn't much to write home about.

00:55:41.360 It was a 12-month period so dull and unimpressive that Taylor Swift won Person of the Year by default.

00:55:48.540 But as we tracked and discussed throughout the year, for a company like Disney, 2023 was something beyond nearly unimpressive.

00:55:56.380 It was downright catastrophic.

00:55:58.460 In fact, Disney's self-immolation was, for the rest of us, one of the year's only major bright spots.

00:56:05.960 If nothing else, at least we all got to watch Disney lose a bunch of money.

00:56:10.480 And so the year was not a total waste in hindsight.

00:56:13.860 The New York Post details this week just how bad things got for the once-great movie studio, reading, quote,

00:56:19.960 So, 2023 marked Disney's 100th anniversary of making movie magic.

00:56:24.040 It also marked a disastrous year at the box office.

00:56:26.460 Out of eight major theatrical releases from Disney this year, seven of them significantly underperformed with audiences, not just in the U.S., but overseas as well.

00:56:34.820 The first was in February with Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania.

00:56:39.040 Despite an all-star cast, including Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Bill Murray,

00:56:43.580 the $200 million priced film earned only $250 million domestically and $476 million worldwide, far short of the $600 million it needed to break even on its theatrical run.

00:56:57.780 Now, presumably, $600 million represents its production and marketing budget because Disney spent well over half a billion dollars making and promoting a film about a man in an ant costume who runs around punching bad guys.

00:57:17.100 And as I understand it, communicating with ants, from what I'm told, that's one of the superpowers of this superhero is that he can communicate with ants, which, how does that even help you when you're fighting bad guys?

00:57:31.760 It's like a very specific kind of bad guy that you would need, that that would help you with.

00:57:37.540 I mean, like a bad guy who's the size of an ant.

00:57:40.140 And in that case, why do you need to communicate with it? You just step on him.

00:57:42.620 So I don't know. But, you know, in fact, this film actually was a sequel.

00:57:47.480 So in total, Disney has spent over a billion dollars on the guy in the ant costume franchise.

00:57:55.120 They could have provided food for like 50 African villages for a thousand years, but instead they spent the money on Ant-Man. 0.96

00:58:03.500 Now, I'm not one to complain about inequities, okay, but this is a bit much.

00:58:07.740 And that was only the first of their flops, as The Post highlights another superhero movie, The Marvels, had a $274 million budget.

00:58:15.640 It still hasn't cracked $100 million to the box office, and the flops continued from there.

00:58:19.460 Quote,

00:58:19.700 Moviegoers showed signs of being tired of recycled material from Hollywood.

00:58:24.860 Disney had a lot riding on its live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey, released in May.

00:58:30.920 It earned a respectable $297 million domestically, but greatly fell below expectations internationally, earning just $267 million overseas.

00:58:40.040 The film had a $250 million budget.

00:58:42.040 The next month, Disney released Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, starting 81-year-old Harrison Ford.

00:58:46.840 It grossed just $174 million domestically, less than $400 million worldwide, making it impossible for the studio to recoup its budget of nearly $300 million, which does not include marketing costs.

00:58:57.200 Disney closed out the summer with its reboot of Haunted Mansion, making a dismal $68 million domestically and $117 million worldwide.

00:59:05.540 The $150 million budgeted remake, starring Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Tiffany Haddish, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jared Leto.

00:59:15.180 Disney's 2003 predecessor, starring Eddie Murphy, which was also considered a major disappointment, still grossed $182 million worldwide with a $90 million budget.

00:59:23.820 So in case you missed that, just to review, they spent $150 million remaking a movie from 2003 that was a flop the first time around.

00:59:40.260 No one wanted to see it the first time, and then they did it again.

00:59:44.800 And no one wanted to see it the second time.

00:59:47.000 So of course we have to try a third time.

00:59:48.380 Maybe it's, I mean, if Haunted Mansion didn't work out, and the remake of Haunted Mansion didn't work out, well then I've got an idea.

00:59:56.140 The remake of the remake of the Haunted Mansion, that's what's going to get butts in the seats. 1.00

01:00:01.680 So they're just layering flops on top of flops, dud after dud.

01:00:05.840 And then they remake the dud, and that's a dud too.

01:00:09.060 And it's not hard to see why Disney is failing so consistently.

01:00:12.940 You don't need to consult any marketing analysts or PR gurus.

01:00:18.620 Just ask any average moviegoer, and they will tell you.

01:00:23.080 I mean, literally walk up to anybody on the street and to ask them how they feel about Disney right now.

01:00:28.700 And when they tell you they don't really, that they don't like Disney, ask them why.

01:00:34.360 And there'll be two reasons.

01:00:36.400 They'll give you two reasons why people aren't watching Disney movies.

01:00:38.920 The first is that the films are almost always rehashed, stale, overdone, played out.

01:00:44.360 They aren't producing anything original or interesting.

01:00:47.540 I mean, Disney films are so unoriginal and derivative that you would think the scripts are being written by Claudine Gay.

01:00:53.880 Which, in fact, they sort of are, or by people like her.

01:00:57.360 Which brings us to the second reason, that audiences, of course, are tired of the left-wing propaganda in these films.

01:01:03.200 Disney movies, just like the movies from any other big studio, are preachy and derivative.

01:01:10.880 You know, and that's it.

01:01:11.740 That's the problem.

01:01:13.040 That's what almost any moviegoer, no matter how they identify politically, will tell you.

01:01:18.420 And that means that the solution for Disney, as we mentioned at the top, is pretty simple.

01:01:23.920 Just make movies that are original, or at least somewhat original, and also not political.

01:01:33.580 Another way of putting it, focus on telling stories again.

01:01:37.220 Just tell, Disney for so many years was, it was a storytelling company.

01:01:43.600 They told stories.

01:01:45.380 And get back to that.

01:01:47.260 That's all you have to do.

01:01:48.340 But, that does not appear to be in the plans for Disney in 2024.

01:01:54.180 Instead, they're going to double down on everything that audiences hate.

01:01:58.720 And that's why the company announced a few days ago that they will be producing a new Star Wars movie this year.

01:02:03.600 So, you know, we're rehashing again.

01:02:06.820 We're going back to the Star Wars, well.

01:02:08.700 And, it will be directed by a feminist journalist.

01:02:12.780 So, they are giving the Star Wars franchise, not just to a feminist, but to a feminist journalist.

01:02:20.080 The Independent reports,

01:02:21.620 Charmaine Obeyed Chinoy, who is set to become the first woman and the first person of color to direct a Star Wars feature film,

01:02:27.900 has said it's about time.

01:02:29.440 The 45-year-old Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker made her name as an Oscar-winning documentarian 0.93

01:02:34.680 before going on to direct two episodes of the Marvel series, Ms. Marvel.

01:02:38.180 Her Star Wars movie, which has been written by Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight,

01:02:42.440 and is rumored to be titled either Star Wars A New Beginning or Star Wars New Jedi Order,

01:02:47.320 is set to begin filming this year.

01:02:50.620 Quote,

01:02:51.020 I'm very thrilled about the project because I feel what we're about to create is something very special,

01:02:55.620 Obeyed Chinoy told CNN during their coverage of New Year celebrations around the world.

01:02:59.980 We're in 2024 now,

01:03:02.020 and it's about time that we had a woman come forward to shape a story in a galaxy far, far away.

01:03:08.180 Yes, it's about time.

01:03:11.340 It's about time that a woman shapes a Star Wars story. 0.95

01:03:15.300 Now, of course,

01:03:16.020 every Star Wars film and TV show for the last decade has already been shaped by a woman.

01:03:22.300 Kathleen Kennedy is the president of Lucasfilm.

01:03:24.660 And the last Star Wars trilogy was about a woman.

01:03:27.720 It was about a female superhuman Jedi person.

01:03:32.000 But even so, this is an historic moment because they're adding yet another woman.

01:03:37.200 And this woman is the most feminist of them all. 1.00

01:03:40.900 And just to show you that, here she is a few years ago,

01:03:44.660 before she was selected to be in the Star Wars franchise.

01:03:49.060 Here she is explaining what her goal is when she makes a film.

01:03:53.400 And you might, if you don't know any better, you might think,

01:03:55.740 oh, her goal when she makes a film,

01:03:57.520 it must be to tell a great story that people want to see.

01:03:59.900 Oh, no, it's not that.

01:04:02.680 Here it is. Watch.

01:04:04.860 What is the balance of activating a force for change,

01:04:09.900 but also trying to permeate that patriarchy, that power structure?

01:04:18.660 And is that a part of the calculation of your art as well?

01:04:22.520 And what's been the reaction to that?

01:04:24.520 Oh, absolutely.

01:04:26.900 I like to make men uncomfortable.

01:04:30.680 I enjoy making men uncomfortable.

01:04:36.440 Not you.

01:04:37.780 Just, just...

01:04:38.400 Not you.

01:04:39.160 Not you.

01:04:39.560 Point taken.

01:04:40.340 Point taken.

01:04:42.220 But, you know, it is important to be able to look into the eyes of a man

01:04:48.540 and say, I am here and recognize that and recognize that I am working

01:04:54.640 to bring something that makes you uncomfortable and it should make you uncomfortable

01:04:58.840 because you need to change your attitude.

01:05:02.100 And it's only when you're uncomfortable, when you're shifty,

01:05:04.800 when you have to have difficult conversations,

01:05:07.260 that you will perhaps look at yourself in the mirror and not like the reflection

01:05:11.500 and then say, maybe there is something wrong with the way I think

01:05:15.480 or maybe there is something wrong with the way I am addressing this issue.

01:05:21.940 There's your next Star Wars director.

01:05:24.480 Now, I mean, needless to say,

01:05:26.180 if a man ever openly confessed that he enjoyed making women uncomfortable,

01:05:32.420 he would be fired from whatever job he has,

01:05:35.420 probably, like, sent to jail.

01:05:38.480 He certainly wouldn't be hired to make the next Star Wars film, nor should he.

01:05:41.380 Because, by the way, enjoying making people uncomfortable,

01:05:46.380 that's not a normal thing for a human being.

01:05:49.260 That's not healthy.

01:05:51.520 You should not enjoy.

01:05:52.860 Now, there are times when it's necessary to cause discomfort in other people,

01:05:58.360 but you should not enjoy other people's discomfort.

01:06:04.200 That makes you, that's the definition of being, like, a sadist.

01:06:10.940 That's the definition of sadistic.

01:06:13.860 Now, all that to say, it's like, no one, we're not uncomfortable.

01:06:19.220 Okay, nothing that you can say is making,

01:06:21.800 when you talk about the patriarchy and men here,

01:06:24.200 we're not, oh, man, this is uncomfortable.

01:06:26.420 This is really, I feel like she's, we're not uncomfortable.

01:06:29.380 Um, we're bored.

01:06:34.400 So, that's the effect that you have on, on men.

01:06:38.420 You can make us bored, and, like, irritated,

01:06:43.660 and we find you tedious, and dull,

01:06:48.020 and we don't want to be around you,

01:06:50.140 but it's not, discomfort is not really the word I would use.

01:06:52.560 Whatever word you use, though,

01:06:56.400 this is the kind of contempt that Disney has for its audience.

01:07:00.540 That even after a year of failure,

01:07:02.880 brought on by politicized and unoriginal films,

01:07:05.620 they are now gearing up to make what is sure to be

01:07:07.840 their most politicized and also most unoriginal film to date.

01:07:13.240 It's become kind of a war of attrition with the audience.

01:07:16.480 And they assume that you'll eventually come back,

01:07:19.020 and you'll start giving them your money again,

01:07:20.580 especially if it's Star Wars,

01:07:23.300 because it's Star Wars,

01:07:24.320 and you'll just sort of dutifully show, 0.92

01:07:25.860 even if you know the movie's gonna suck, 0.51

01:07:27.960 you'll show up anyway and give me your money

01:07:29.540 because it's Star Wars, and this is what I do.

01:07:32.480 That's what they're assuming.

01:07:34.620 But now you need to prove them wrong

01:07:36.040 and make this the year that Disney is,

01:07:40.300 once and for all, finally, canceled.

01:07:44.220 That'll do it for the show today.

01:07:45.380 Thanks for watching.

01:07:45.920 Thanks for listening.

01:07:47.040 Talk to you tomorrow.

01:07:47.680 Have a great day.

01:07:48.480 Godspeed.

01:07:50.580 Godspeed.

01:07:52.580 Godspeed.

01:07:53.680 Godspeed.

01:07:54.580 Godspeed.

01:07:55.580 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 03, 2024

Ep. 1285 - Harvard's Diversity Hire President Finally Resigns. Is This The Beginning Of The End For DEI？

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