The Matt Walsh Show - July 23, 2024


Ep. 1407 - Secret Service Director Resigns But The Cover-Up Continues


Episode Stats

Length

59 minutes

Words per Minute

176.19698

Word Count

10,531

Sentence Count

655

Misogynist Sentences

35

Hate Speech Sentences

14


Summary

The Director of the Secret Service has finally resigned a week after her incompetence, or worse, nearly got Donald Trump killed. But the manner and timing of her resignation only makes the cover-up even more obvious. Also, Joe Biden has been completely out of the public eye for a week. He ghosted the nation and dropped out the race on Twitter. Finally seen for the first time briefly today. What exactly is going on?


Transcript

00:00:00.240 Today on the Matt Wall Show, the director of the Secret Service has finally resigned a week after
00:00:04.460 her incompetence, or worse, nearly got Donald Trump killed. But the manner and timing of her
00:00:08.500 resignation only makes the cover-up even more obvious. I'll explain. Also, Joe Biden has been
00:00:13.100 completely out of the public eye for a week. He ghosted the nation and dropped out of the race on
00:00:17.020 Twitter. Finally seen for the first time briefly today. What exactly is going on? We'll talk about
00:00:21.220 that. It only took a day for Kamala Harris to essentially lock up the nomination. Whatever
00:00:25.460 happened to her going out and earning and winning the nomination? And a new documentary claims that
00:00:29.880 Abraham Lincoln was gay. Is there any evidence to support that wild assertion? We'll talk about
00:00:34.020 that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.
00:00:59.880 Biden has finally called it quits, but the left's assault on America is far from over. The election
00:01:05.700 is pivotal, and you need the truth now more than ever. That's where we come in. Daily Wire gives
00:01:10.820 you the uncensored truth every day. We can't do it without you. Go to dailywire.com right now and
00:01:15.860 use code FIGHT for 47% off your annual membership. Join us as we fight the left and build the future.
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00:02:02.880 of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code Walsh. Even by the non-existent standards
00:02:10.340 of America's bloated and now leaderless federal bureaucracy, it's hard to believe that former
00:02:15.340 Pepsi executive Kimberly Cheadle held onto her job for as long as she did. Cheadle is the director of the
00:02:20.980 Secret Service, or was, the agency that allowed a 20-year-old assassin to shoot the leading
00:02:26.240 presidential candidate in the head just 10 days ago. Or again, she was the director. It was just
00:02:31.320 announced this morning that she is resigning from her position, finally. It took a while,
00:02:35.400 despite the fact that both parties and Cheadle herself readily admit that the best case scenario
00:02:40.360 here is that the Secret Service displayed stratospheric levels of incompetence, an aptitude so
00:02:45.520 profound that it very nearly changed the course of world history. And yet Cheadle remained in office
00:02:50.800 even after that. In fact, Cheadle's boss at DHS said that he has 100% confidence in her.
00:02:57.700 And on top of that, Cheadle hasn't fired or even disciplined a single employee of the Secret Service.
00:03:02.740 At a minimum, we are witnessing a staggering level of bureaucratic dysfunction. And after Cheadle's
00:03:08.420 testimony yesterday at the House Oversight Committee, there's reason to think that we're seeing
00:03:12.180 something even more sinister than that. Cheadle should have resigned the day after Trump was
00:03:18.240 nearly killed, but the way that she resigned a week later and the timing really only lends more
00:03:25.520 credence to the idea that there's a cover-up going on. I mean, it's now happening really in plain as
00:03:31.020 day in plain sight, and I'll explain why. Let's begin with what happened on Capitol Hill yesterday.
00:03:35.760 Throughout several hours of testimony, Cheadle acted more like a criminal with something to hide
00:03:39.420 than the head of a government agency who has a legal duty to comply with a congressional subpoena.
00:03:44.380 Cheadle refused to answer even basic questions about the attempt on Donald Trump's life in
00:03:48.220 Butler, Pennsylvania. These are questions that any competent investigator would have been able to
00:03:52.320 answer within 24 hours of the shooting. These are questions that in some cases, Cheadle said she
00:03:56.920 knew the answer to, but she still refused to provide an answer to the committee. Again and again,
00:04:02.980 Cheadle stonewalled. It was almost as if she wanted to avoid providing any information that could
00:04:07.800 possibly be contradicted later if the official narrative should happen to change. Sort of,
00:04:14.060 you know, sort of outright admitting that the assassination attempt was an inside job,
00:04:17.760 Kimberly Cheadle could not possibly have done more to validate the so-called conspiracy theories
00:04:21.920 surrounding what happened in Butler. If the DOJ cared even slightly about the appearance of fairness
00:04:27.200 and impartial justice, they would immediately charge Kimberly Cheadle with evading her subpoena.
00:04:32.740 I mean, Steve Bannon's in jail for supposedly failing to comply with the subpoena after all,
00:04:36.520 and that's precisely what Kimberly Cheadle did yesterday. And we know that because she admitted
00:04:41.320 it. So listen to this exchange between Cheadle and Congresswoman Lisa McClain of Michigan.
00:04:46.520 First, McClain gets Cheadle to acknowledge that she's spoken to the FBI about their investigation
00:04:51.320 into the assassination. And then the Congresswoman asked Cheadle whether the FBI has determined how
00:04:56.900 many shell casings were found on the roof next to the shooter's dead body. I want you to watch this
00:05:01.780 exchange. Here it is. Did they share with you how many shell casings were on the roof?
00:05:07.460 They have shared with me the... Did they share with you how many shell casings
00:05:13.180 were on the roof? Yes. Okay. How many were there?
00:05:19.360 I would refer to the FBI for their investigation. How many were there? And their information that they
00:05:24.480 need to share in their investigation. So they've shared the information with you.
00:05:29.100 You just don't want to share the information with us. Correct?
00:05:34.040 We have concurrent investigations that are going on. So they have shared this information with you.
00:05:38.960 You know the answer to the question. You just refuse to answer the question from the member of
00:05:47.180 Congress who has subpoenaed you to be here. Is there a different answer to that question?
00:05:52.020 I was always willing to come here and testify before this oversight hearing.
00:05:57.840 Beautiful. Then let's do that. Let's for once have your actions match your words. So you've been in
00:06:04.380 communication with the FBI. You know the answers and you refuse to tell us the answers. So I will ask
00:06:12.940 you again. You know how many shell casings were on that roof. What is the answer to that question?
00:06:18.520 I think it's pertinent to talk to you about the information that the Secret Service has
00:06:28.420 and that the Secret Service knows related to the events on that day.
00:06:30.480 I'm asking you an answer to the question. If you're supposed to be in charge, if the buck stops with
00:06:37.580 you, how come you can't share the answers? What are you covering up? What are you hiding, my friend?
00:06:44.220 So this is one of the most basic questions of the entire investigation. It should have been
00:06:49.700 disclosed to the public in a press conference within a day of the shooting. How many shell
00:06:54.040 casings were on the roof with the shooter? There's just no conceivable legitimate reason
00:06:59.080 why the government would want to hide this information. I mean, again, no legitimate reason
00:07:03.780 why they would want to hide it. But here we are nine days later and the head of the Secret Service
00:07:07.720 won't tell us. And she admits that she knows the truth, but she's defying Aggressional Sabina and
00:07:13.400 refusing to talk about it anyway. And I think it's obvious that the number of shell casings on the
00:07:18.960 roof is a critical piece of information because it would clearly give us insight into how many times
00:07:24.140 the shooter fired from that particular rooftop. And if the number of shell casings doesn't match the
00:07:29.600 number of shots that we can hear from footage of the rally, then there's a major problem with the
00:07:35.060 official narrative. It could mean that the crime scene was tampered with, or it could mean that
00:07:40.900 there was more than one shooter beyond the one who's already been identified. And if those
00:07:45.340 possibilities sound outlandish, we'll take a look at Sheetal's response to this question from
00:07:50.020 Congressman Andy Biggs. He asked her point blank whether the shooter was acting alone. Watch.
00:07:56.400 Your agency has a no-fail mission, and on Saturday, July 13th, your agency spectacularly failed.
00:08:02.060 The failure resulted in the death of Corey Comprator and serious injury to two other rally attendees,
00:08:08.140 David Dutch and James Copenhaver, besides the injuries to President Trump. It is unfathomable
00:08:15.320 that a 20-year-old on the radar of Secret Service and local law enforcement before President Trump
00:08:19.900 went on stage was able to climb onto the roof of a building with a rifle and fire off multiple
00:08:25.020 rounds before he was neutralized. Was Mr. Crooks acting alone?
00:08:29.040 Again, I would have to refer you to the FBI's investigation.
00:08:35.140 Was he just a lone gunman?
00:08:38.560 I would have to refer you to the FBI's investigation for motive.
00:08:42.540 So again, this should not be a difficult question to answer. And she could say,
00:08:48.260 yes, it seems he was acting alone. She could just say that. I mean, if he was alone, as far as they
00:08:53.920 know, she could say, yeah, as far as we know, he was alone. Or she could say, we think he had help.
00:09:01.300 Or she could say she's genuinely not sure at this point, which would be hard to believe,
00:09:05.880 but she could say that. Instead, she refuses to provide any kind of answer whatsoever.
00:09:11.420 She says she has no information she can provide and that the congressman should talk to the FBI.
00:09:15.700 And of course, the FBI won't answer the question either.
00:09:17.960 This is the kind of bureaucratic runaround you'd expect to get when you try to cancel your phone
00:09:22.960 plan. And it's how the federal government is handling the investigation into the most serious
00:09:27.300 attempt on the life of the presidential candidate and former president in decades. Again, it's hard
00:09:32.860 to conceive of any innocent reason why she would decline to answer these questions if the answers
00:09:38.420 line up with the official narrative. I mean, it shouldn't take anywhere near this long to have
00:09:43.920 some answers to these questions, even if those answers are tentative. Think about how quickly,
00:09:49.320 just for comparison's sake, think about how quickly the police charged Jennifer and James Crumbly
00:09:54.260 with involuntary manslaughter. Those are the parents who allowed their son to access their handgun,
00:09:59.520 which he then used to commit a school shooting. And they were charged with a crime in less than a
00:10:04.540 week. Why haven't police charged the parents of the Trump assassin, would-be assassin with a crime?
00:10:13.920 Have the authorities been looking at anyone else to charge who might've helped him? Why don't we
00:10:19.140 have any answers to these questions? Even if they think someone might've helped him, but they don't
00:10:24.220 know who, they could say that. Right now, we're learning more from investigators on social media than
00:10:31.240 we are from the Secret Service. Yesterday, for example, the Oversight Project, part of the Heritage
00:10:34.980 Foundation, took a look at databases of mobile advertising data, and they found that, quote,
00:10:40.420 quote, somebody who regularly visited the shooter's home and work also visited a building in Washington,
00:10:46.220 D.C. located in gallery plays. This is in the same vicinity of an FBI office on June 6th, 2023.
00:10:53.860 Who is that person who links the shooter's home to an area in Washington, D.C. near a mall
00:10:57.920 and an FBI field office? We have no idea. Could be nothing. Could be significant. But the more the
00:11:04.580 Secret Service stonewalls on basic questions, the more people are entitled to come up with their own
00:11:08.720 theories and conduct their own investigation. That piece of reporting from the Heritage Foundation,
00:11:13.820 whether it pans out or not, is more believable than anything Kimberly Cheadle said yesterday.
00:11:19.480 She spent 95% of the time dodging every question she was asked. In fact, at several points,
00:11:24.040 Cheadle simply lied under oath. She didn't just filibuster or give the typical bureaucratic runaround.
00:11:29.440 She actually lied. For example, listen to her answer when she was asked about the Secret
00:11:34.900 Service's DEI hiring policies. Watch. One of your goals in the strategic plan is to champion diversity,
00:11:43.460 equity, inclusion, and accessibility. You've accomplished the accessibility part.
00:11:50.080 What standards, do you keep the same standards for all applicants and all,
00:11:56.600 does every Secret Service agent meet the same qualifications or do you have different standards
00:12:00.860 for different people? Yes, sir. Everyone who moves through the application process has to meet
00:12:05.780 the same standards to become a special agent. So she says, everyone who moves through the application
00:12:10.700 process has to meet the same standards to become a special agent. That's what the Secret Service
00:12:15.520 director, former director, said under oath. And it is not remotely true. It's verifiably false.
00:12:24.380 Anybody with Google can verify that it's not true. Female trainees in the Secret Service have
00:12:30.100 drastically lower fitness standards than male trainees. For example, the Secret Service considers it
00:12:34.900 excellent if a 29-year-old male applicant can complete 55 or more push-ups. They'll get maximum
00:12:40.800 points on their fitness test, which is critical for getting the job. But a 29-year-old female applicant
00:12:46.840 receives the same excellence score if she can complete just 40 push-ups. Now, 40 and 55, I think,
00:12:55.400 are not the same numbers. So this is not the same standard. The cutoff for a good score for a 29-year-old
00:13:02.240 male is 46 push-ups, while a woman can achieve a good score with just 26 push-ups. We could have
00:13:09.520 another conversation about the fact that 46 push-ups for a man is considered good. I mean, that's enough
00:13:16.000 of a problem, but the fact is that it's not the same standard. In other words, the director of the
00:13:20.800 Secret Service lied under oath. There's just no way that she's not aware of her agency's hiring
00:13:27.060 standards. To the extent Kimberly Cheadle has done anything during her tenure, she's been pushing DEI
00:13:32.380 hiring. She stated publicly that she wants 30% of the agency to be female, and she understands that
00:13:37.960 one way to achieve that result is to have lower standards for women. But when she's asked about
00:13:43.100 this under oath, she just denies it outright, because she knows that no one's going to come after
00:13:47.660 her for perjury, but that's exactly what she just did there. Now, I can go through the rest of Cheadle's
00:13:52.020 testimony, which isn't any better than what I've already shown you. At one point, Cheadle admits
00:13:56.060 that she still hasn't even visited the shooting in Butler, the site of the shooting. That's how little
00:14:01.460 she cares. She also refused to explain why nobody was guarding the roof where the shooter was positioned,
00:14:07.320 saying only that there was some kind of overwatch on the roof, which clearly didn't work.
00:14:13.080 Cheadle also admitted that somehow she doesn't have a timeline of events from that day.
00:14:16.720 This was one of the moments during her testimony when people in the room burst out laughing at how
00:14:21.280 absurd it was, which is never a good sign if you're testifying in front of Congress and people
00:14:25.800 start laughing at you. It means things are not going well. Watch.
00:14:31.240 Why was Crooks able to fly a drone over the entire area the day of the rally and the day of his
00:14:38.960 assassination attempt? To my knowledge, he did not fly the drone over the entire area.
00:14:44.460 How did he fly a drone over the area, period? Any part of the area?
00:14:48.540 Again, I would have to go back and check the timeline of when that took place and when the
00:14:52.780 event... Why didn't you bring the timeline with you today to answer our questions?
00:14:56.440 I don't have all of the answers on the timelines based on the criminal investigation.
00:15:00.960 Were you not prepared today to answer our questions?
00:15:05.180 I am prepared to answer the questions based on the information and wanted to be able to provide.
00:15:10.120 Do you have a timeline that you... Do you have a timeline at all from any of the day?
00:15:16.460 I have a timeline that does not have specifics.
00:15:21.940 That's shocking. That is absolutely unacceptable. That means you are a failure at your job.
00:15:30.000 I have a timeline that does not have specifics. Isn't the whole point of a timeline to have
00:15:37.280 specifics? What does a timeline with no specifics look like? It's like saying you have a math book
00:15:44.700 without numbers. What is in it then in that case? Whatever is the case, she just showed up and
00:15:51.580 winged it basically, according to her. It's like watching an actor who was told to play the head of
00:15:56.200 the Secret Service for a day. If you found some random woman off the street and told her to
00:16:00.260 stonewall Congress about the assassination attempt, how would the results be any different than this?
00:16:05.500 Separately, Cheadle said that she didn't sign off on the security plan for the event because she
00:16:09.180 doesn't sign off for the security plans at any events. When asked for the name of the person who
00:16:14.720 did sign off on the security plan for the Butler rally, she wouldn't say. In fact, she implied that
00:16:19.460 many people sign off on those plans, so no one single person can be blamed. It's just a classic
00:16:25.480 bureaucratic cover-up. A lot of people were involved, and therefore, no person can be blamed
00:16:31.060 for this. Cheadle also refused to talk about all the times that the Secret Service turned down the
00:16:36.220 Trump campaign's request for additional security, and on and on and on. But there's one more clip that's
00:16:41.880 very important to show. It's AOC going after Kimberly Cheadle. Online, a lot of people on the right are
00:16:47.740 praising AOC for this performance, but along with Mike Cernovich, I think it reveals something a lot
00:16:52.600 more troubling than it actually maybe first appears. Watch. So the notion of a report coming out in 60
00:17:00.700 days when the threat environment is so high in the United States, irrespective of party, is not
00:17:07.620 acceptable. And I think it's very important to understand that. This is not theater. This is not
00:17:13.240 about jockeying. This is about the safety of some of the most highly targeted and valued targets
00:17:21.960 internationally and domestically in the United States of America. So the idea that a report will
00:17:28.520 be finalized in 60 days, let alone prior to any actionable decisions that would be made, is simply
00:17:36.480 not acceptable. It has been 10 days since an assassination attempt on a former President
00:17:43.160 of the United States, regardless of party. Now, AOC was not the only Democrat to rip into
00:17:49.140 Cheadle like this. Several Democrats did the same thing. And there's a couple possible interpretations
00:17:53.840 for that. One is that the security failures were so bad that Democrats are putting aside politics for
00:17:59.400 the first time in modern history. They're, you know, they're just as outraged as Trump supporters
00:18:03.360 about it. But the other interpretation is that whenever AOC agrees with the entire Republican
00:18:08.860 caucus, we should take a step back and think about what's going on. Maybe Kimberly Cheadle was sent out
00:18:15.200 there to testify in order to serve as a sacrificial lamb. Maybe the point of this hearing was for both
00:18:20.760 Republicans and Democrats to beat her up like a piñata. And then when she inevitably resigns, which she
00:18:26.280 has, members of both parties will feel like justice has been done. And more importantly, the public will
00:18:32.380 think that justice has been done when the problem has been solved. A replaceable cog in the bureaucratic
00:18:37.940 machine has been removed. And the implication would be no need to look higher. No need to
00:18:43.380 investigate any other connections the shooter may have had with the government. Problems taken care of.
00:18:47.620 It's all good. And that seems to be exactly what happened here. So they knew they were going to force
00:18:53.820 her to resign. Like that was already, that was already a done deal. But they had her testify to
00:18:59.700 Congress first. I mean, she resigned hours after testifying to Congress. And how do you explain
00:19:07.500 the timing there? And why did they just have her testify in front of Congress if they know that she's
00:19:12.940 not going to be leading the agency anymore? And also, if supposedly she didn't even sign off on
00:19:19.780 the plans, but somebody else did, then why is she the only one testifying? Well, the answer is pretty
00:19:28.660 clear. Because they wanted her to stonewall, absorb all the blame. That's why she was there. It was just
00:19:35.500 to be yelled at and then leave. And now they can put somebody else in charge of the agency who will not
00:19:41.460 have to answer any of those questions. But that can't be the end of it. For a lack of a better
00:19:48.660 word, these are very strange times right now in this country. It's not even clear who's running the
00:19:54.000 federal government at this moment. We don't know who has the authority to fire Kimberly Cheadle.
00:20:00.840 President of the United States is technically her boss, but he hasn't been seen in public for several
00:20:04.680 days. He allegedly just phoned into a rally for Kamala Harris, but no one could see his face. And
00:20:09.800 after weeks of insisting he's not dropping out of the race, now he's suddenly issuing full-throated
00:20:14.220 endorsements for his running mates. Meanwhile, the president's brother is suggesting Biden doesn't
00:20:18.880 have long to live. The press is pretending this is all completely normal, but none of this is normal.
00:20:25.660 We still don't understand what just happened to Joe Biden. And from Kimberly Cheadle's testimony,
00:20:29.800 it looks like we may never know what happened in Butler either. At the very least, the government
00:20:35.300 won't tell us. It's hard to think of a stronger argument for completely dismantling the federal
00:20:41.100 government bureaucracy if and when Donald Trump gets back into office. Even assuming they're not
00:20:46.520 actively trying to sabotage this country, which is quite an assumption at this point, then at the
00:20:51.320 very least, these bureaucrats are so incompetent that they're destroying any faith that Americans have
00:20:57.140 in the proper functioning of their government. Mediocre men and women like Kimberly Cheadle are leading
00:21:02.360 pretty much every federal agency in this country. And just like Joe Biden, these bureaucrats cannot be
00:21:07.580 reasoned with. They cannot be shamed. They won't go anywhere unless they're forced to. Now let's get to
00:21:15.200 our five headlines.
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00:22:20.460 we still have not heard from Joe Biden. Well, we heard from him. We heard him, allegedly, when he
00:22:25.980 called into his campaign headquarters or Kamala's campaign headquarters now. We haven't seen him on
00:22:32.280 camera, speaking to camera. He hasn't addressed the nation. And the fact that he called and was heard
00:22:37.740 on camera but not seen just makes the whole thing more bizarre and gives more fuel to the fire of what
00:22:43.620 the media describes as conspiracy theories. But are really just logical attempts for people to make
00:22:49.100 sense of this utterly strange situation. And it just makes it all the more strange, especially
00:22:54.400 given that Harris, during that conversation with allegedly Biden on the phone, we'll play this
00:23:02.320 clip here, but it sounds like she almost refers to the call as a recording. Listen.
00:23:09.160 It is so good to hear our president's voice. Joe, I know you're still on the call and we've been
00:23:16.160 talking every day. You probably, you guys heard it from Doug's voice. We love Joe and Jill.
00:23:21.700 We really do. They truly are like family to us.
00:23:24.600 I'm sure you love him so much.
00:23:27.420 You love him so much that you shivved him in the back and tossed him out of the moving train.
00:23:32.760 But it sounds like she says, it sounds like she's about to say recording and then she says,
00:23:36.800 just says call. So that doesn't really allay any concerns and still doesn't explain why we haven't
00:23:46.200 seen him. Now, the latest is that Joe Biden was just recently, just moments ago, seen on camera for
00:23:55.700 the first time since Wednesday. He didn't address the cameras. He didn't talk, but he was seen boarding
00:24:01.960 Air Force One, I believe. And supposedly he's going to address the nation tomorrow. A week since
00:24:11.260 we last saw him. Because we last saw him after he'd been diagnosed with COVID. The last image of him
00:24:18.580 till today was him slowly descending the stairs of Air Force One. And the last time that we heard and
00:24:25.300 saw him was when he was strongly denying repeatedly that he would drop out of the race. And then he
00:24:31.800 drops out of public eye, steps down from the race through a tweet, and that's it. Now, a lot of
00:24:39.860 people have been claiming or conjecturing that Biden is in dire straits health-wise, that he's in the
00:24:46.480 middle of some kind of serious medical crisis. There have been theories that he's dying or that he's
00:24:52.000 even already dead. Reports are circulating on social media claiming to cite insider sources who say that
00:24:59.680 they're confirming that Biden has is either in the middle of a medical crisis or had one very
00:25:05.540 recently. So there's all kinds of things swirling out there. Now, I don't know what's true or what
00:25:13.440 isn't. I have no information one way or another. I have no insider info. Nobody talks to me.
00:25:20.980 Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why it's always funny to me when, I mean, this is a side
00:25:26.520 note, but when I'm sometimes accused of being a media elitist or whatever, you know, and when people
00:25:35.220 say that about me, I'm always like, are you, I have no contact with anyone in power. I have no friends
00:25:42.200 in high places at all. I spend all of my free time at home with my kids. I don't talk to anyone at all.
00:25:47.660 So anytime there's something like this going on and you get all these people in media on both sides
00:25:51.520 that are citing their sources and they're talking to people inside supposedly that I I'm not, I don't
00:25:57.540 know. No one, no one is reaching out to me to tell me anything ever. Um, so the point is, I don't know
00:26:04.220 what's going on, but, but I am highly skeptical of the theory that Biden is on death's door or that
00:26:11.100 he's having any kind of real serious health crisis. And I'll tell you why. Actually, it's very simple.
00:26:17.660 And I, and I, and I have a theory about why we haven't seen him in a week or haven't heard from
00:26:23.780 him, haven't seen and heard him in a week, but it's different. But the reason why I don't think
00:26:30.400 that there's something medical going on is that if Biden is really in the middle of a medical crisis,
00:26:37.300 it would benefit the Democrats greatly to tell us that they don't gain anything by covering this up.
00:26:45.520 That's the, that's the big problem with the coverup theories about Biden having a medical problem is
00:26:51.300 it's like, well, why would they cover that up? I mean, what would they gain from that?
00:26:57.140 In fact, if Biden were to have a heart attack, I mean, you know, just to not that we want that to
00:27:02.400 happen, but let's say Biden were to have a heart attack and drop dead today. That's, I mean,
00:27:09.860 from a, from a purely political perspective that bails the Democrats out in a lot of ways. So
00:27:16.200 there'd be no reason for them to do anything, but tell us immediately.
00:27:21.160 Um, so, you know, if he's having a medical crisis, it gives the Democrats a legitimate reason to push
00:27:30.720 him to the side. It legitimizes the coup. It mitigates any claim that they're subverting the will of the
00:27:38.520 voters, because if they can say, look, he's medically incapacitated, we have to move on to
00:27:43.180 somebody else. Then who could, yeah, I mean, who could have an issue with that? Um, it engenders
00:27:49.080 sympathy for Biden in a way that I, that, that would take some of the wind out of Trump sales
00:27:53.980 and with, with his, uh, recent harrowing crisis that he was in. And most importantly, it allows
00:28:02.340 them to install Kamala Harris as the president for a few months, which would help her significantly
00:28:09.780 and maybe decisively because of Harris becomes president. First of all, it automatically makes
00:28:15.800 her an historic figure, right? Quote unquote, historic figure as the first female president.
00:28:20.420 It ought, it, it just by default, it does that. Um, it allows the media to spin up a narrative about
00:28:28.240 the heroic woman who stepped up when her male boss was down for the count. You know, it's a great
00:28:33.760 story for them. They would love that story. And it really reinforces the guilt trip that the media
00:28:39.860 will put on the voters anyway. But now there's gonna be a guilt trip regardless. If you were to dare to
00:28:45.640 not vote for, uh, Kamala Harris, they're going to call you racist and sexist. But if she's already
00:28:50.960 president, you know, and then you don't vote for it, well, that's even more of a guilt trip because
00:28:56.940 then they're going to say, Hey, are you really going to fire the first female president after
00:29:01.720 only five months on the job? Are you really going to do that? I mean, shouldn't you give the first
00:29:07.100 female president at least one term before you kick her to the curb? Really? You're not going to give
00:29:12.180 her all the male presidents. They got a whole term to figure it out. But, but this first female
00:29:17.940 president, you're going to kick her out in five months. Really? Now maybe to you and I, that would
00:29:25.200 not be very persuasive argument, but, uh, it would be powerful, emotional blackmail for a lot of
00:29:31.460 people. It just would be. And, uh, so the whole thing, if there's a medical crisis, it would be a
00:29:36.880 major, major benefit for the Dems. And that's why I just don't buy into the theory that they're
00:29:43.120 covering up a medical crisis because they have no incentive to do that. They benefit from letting us
00:29:48.580 know about it, not from covering it up. So here's what I think is really happening. Here's my theory.
00:29:55.940 I think what is happening is this, um, Biden is in relatively fine physical shape. Okay. He's,
00:30:05.480 he's not incapacitated physically. Now mentally he's not in good shape, but physically he's, he's fine.
00:30:10.600 He's basically healthy. They pushed him out of the race against his will. It was a coup.
00:30:18.200 And now they're not allowing him to address the public because they don't trust him to stay on
00:30:22.940 script. That's it. Okay. Here's the bind that they're in. If Biden goes in front of news cameras
00:30:29.680 and gives even the slightest hint that he was coerced into doing this, if he, if he shows the faintest
00:30:37.720 glimmer of bitterness, everything falls apart for the Dems because now they have been exposed as
00:30:44.800 liars and manipulators and, and they've chased a sitting president out of his reelection campaign.
00:30:50.980 Uh, Harris suddenly goes from the girl boss hero to the conniving who schemed against the man who gave
00:30:57.340 her a chance and elevated her. Um, uh, it would be a disaster. I mean, it would just be a total,
00:31:04.400 it's the end. It's just, everything falls apart at that point. And, um, that's why Biden hasn't
00:31:11.680 been seen. It's why he wasn't on camera. He could have been on camera on Sunday when he, uh, when he
00:31:16.300 stepped down, he could have done that. That's what, what should have happened. Obviously he should
00:31:20.340 have addressed the nation, explain what was going on, explain why he wasn't running for reelection.
00:31:24.980 Um, he could have done that. He could have physically done it, but they wouldn't let him
00:31:31.400 because especially on Sunday, after they just completed this coup, this takeover, they were not
00:31:38.460 going to take the guy who they just kicked out and put them on live camp, live television,
00:31:43.540 especially a guy who's already known for, for wandering off script. Um, and who can't be trusted
00:31:49.640 in general to stay on script, but you're going to take him when he's angry and bitter and resentful
00:31:55.820 and he hates everybody, he feels betrayed and you're going to put them on camera. They're not going to do
00:32:00.420 that. So I think what happened is that they basically quarantined him, not because of COVID,
00:32:08.600 but because of, uh, because of, of, of this kept him away from everybody and, uh, trying to give
00:32:18.760 them some time to calm down. And in the meantime, they're working out their bribe. You know, this is,
00:32:24.420 this has been the discussion behind the scenes, I guarantee you for the last several days.
00:32:27.500 And it hasn't even really been with Joe. It's been with, uh, Jill and Hunter mainly
00:32:32.560 because what they're saying is, okay, what are you guys going to give us?
00:32:37.320 Because you need us to keep our mouths shut. You need us to play ball on this thing. And if we don't
00:32:42.080 publicly, then we could take this whole thing down. Okay. If we want to go kamikaze on this, we can.
00:32:46.920 And so they're figuring out their bribes for Jill and, and, uh, Hunter, and they're going to throw
00:32:54.220 whatever bone they, they have to, to Joe. And, uh, and they're going to cross their fingers and put
00:33:00.280 them on camera tomorrow because they know they have to eventually, but that's what's been happening.
00:33:05.040 I mean, if you want a more interesting, uh, conspiracy theory, if, if any, like not only
00:33:10.960 was he not deathly ill with COVID, but if you want a more interesting conspiracy theory, if anything,
00:33:18.420 you might theorize that he never had COVID, but was told that he did. I mean, there's,
00:33:24.540 I have no evidence for that, but I mean, that to me, it's more credible to believe rather than to
00:33:30.440 believe that he was deathly ill with COVID or with anything else. It's more credible that he never
00:33:33.600 even had COVID. And his doctors told him that he did so that they could shuffle him off to Rehoboth,
00:33:40.320 put him in quarantine, give him a reason why, oh no, you can't go out in front of cameras. You know,
00:33:44.720 you can't do that. And then while he's off in quarantine, they drop the news that he's, uh,
00:33:50.420 that he's going to step down because that's the other thing is that
00:33:52.720 this was a decision that was made for him really abruptly. Um, you know, the reason why right before
00:34:00.920 going into quarantine, the reason he was out saying that he's going to keep running. And the reason
00:34:05.960 why there was this abrupt change is because, you know, on Wednesday of last week, he thought he was
00:34:10.260 still running and they brought the hammer down over the weekend and they had them, you know,
00:34:16.720 uh, they, they had them stashed somewhere while they did it.
00:34:20.680 Um, so this will be a very interesting address to the nation tomorrow. It's going to have to be live.
00:34:26.960 I mean, I don't think they, they can't get away with a pre-recorded address at this point.
00:34:31.720 So they're going to have to put them on camera and, uh, I, uh, you know, probably he'll just go
00:34:37.060 with the program, but, um, that is what they're worried about. All right. Staying on politics here.
00:34:45.180 A majority of pledged democratic convention delegates have endorsed vice president Kamala
00:34:50.740 Harris, who said Monday in her first campaign remarks as a presidential candidate that she
00:34:54.740 knows how to take on Republican Donald Trump. She, uh, Harris has been quickly consolidating
00:34:59.100 support around her day old bid for the democratic nomination for president with seemingly all of her
00:35:03.780 major potential rivals rallying around her less than 24 hours after Joe Biden announced he was bowing
00:35:08.000 out. Okay. So Harris has locked up a majority of the delegates. She has all the donors. She has all
00:35:13.680 the endorsements. Um, all of her potential challengers have kissed the ring. So she's the
00:35:19.140 nominee, you know, barring some unforeseen events, which you certainly can't bar as we, as we have
00:35:24.760 learned, but barring that she's the nominee. Um, you may remember all the way back to yesterday when
00:35:30.940 Harris was claiming that she would do everything she could to earn the nomination. Well, it turns out
00:35:36.040 that process took about 12 hours. You know, when, when, when she said that she'd fight for the
00:35:41.380 nomination, she meant that she would wait 12 hours and then announce herself the presumptive nominee,
00:35:46.380 which is what happened. And now after a long campaign of half a day, uh, she's, she has it
00:35:52.620 all sewed up. The whole thing's a farce. Of course, it was a coronation from the very beginning.
00:35:57.820 Uh, nobody of any note on Democrat side had the balls to say anything about it or challenge it or
00:36:03.580 in any way, you know, no one was going to throw their hat in the ring. Wasn't going to happen.
00:36:07.700 Um, but I suppose the good news now is that Republicans know that it's going to be Harris.
00:36:12.100 They can play the game. They can game plan now accordingly. And, um, I think it's going to take
00:36:19.100 a smart game plan to beat her. Like I said, the overconfidence on the right right now is,
00:36:24.360 is very concerning because we can make all the jokes about Harris that we want. And I've made plenty
00:36:31.200 of them. I'll continue to make them because it's fun to mock her. She deserves it, but it is going to be a
00:36:37.020 challenge. And if you think that Trump is just going to stroll easily into the white house now,
00:36:40.780 then I think you're delusional. Um, it's going to be, it's going to be a fight no matter what.
00:36:46.400 And it could be a very difficult fight if the Democrats are smart enough to play this right,
00:36:51.660 because they have a chance to rebrand Harris as she moves into the spotlight.
00:36:57.760 Um, this is, and there's been moments like this now on both sides where you have this,
00:37:04.500 uh, historic thing that happens. And if you play it right, you can use it as a reset button.
00:37:14.320 And Kamala Harris, more than anyone in politics needs a reset button.
00:37:18.720 Um, so this is a time to set the narrative for both Republicans and Democrats. There's a, it's,
00:37:25.380 it's the whole race has changed. And so there's going to be a new narrative. Um, and, and one side
00:37:32.480 or the other is going to decide what the narrative is. That's the way it goes. And whoever sets it
00:37:37.660 successfully will probably win. There are some concerning indications that the Democrats are
00:37:44.720 concocting what might be, uh, an effective strategy. So I'll play this one moment from
00:37:50.780 Harris's address to her campaign staff yesterday. Here's a line and you're going to hear this line
00:37:55.320 70,000 times. So, you know, get used to it. But, uh, between now and November, you're going to hear
00:38:01.380 it over and over and over again, especially because we know one thing we know about Kamala Harris is
00:38:05.380 that, is that when she stumbles on a line that she likes, she will, even if nobody else likes it,
00:38:11.980 but if she likes it, we're going to hear it every time she speaks. And this is going to be one of
00:38:17.300 those. Um, but it's also potentially an effective line and I'll explain why, but here it is. Watch.
00:38:25.200 So in the days and weeks ahead, I together with you will do everything in my power to unite our
00:38:32.480 democratic party, to unite our nation and to win this election. You know, as many of you know,
00:38:39.860 before I was elected as vice president, before I was elected as United States Senator,
00:38:45.300 I was the elected attorney general, as I've mentioned, of California. And before that,
00:38:49.060 I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds.
00:38:54.100 Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for
00:39:17.520 their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type.
00:39:27.120 Okay. I know Donald Trump's type. You're going to, you're going to hear that. As I said a million
00:39:31.020 times, she's going to say it in the debate, call it right now. That line is going to be said at the
00:39:35.340 debate. And conservatives are scoffing at this line, but scoffing is not going to be enough.
00:39:47.960 And I think conservatives are scoffing at it because they're saying, oh yeah, like this is
00:39:51.640 what you guys have been trying to do. You've been trying to paint Trump as a criminal and it hasn't
00:39:55.720 landed. Not only has it not landed, but it has backfired fantastically against you. And so I think
00:40:03.700 that's why many on the right are seeing that and it's like, okay, yeah, go, go run with that.
00:40:12.180 And yes, it's absurd to compare Trump to any of those types of criminals. It's absurd to claim
00:40:16.320 that Trump is a criminal at all. He was convicted, yes, but in a political show trial, he's not really
00:40:21.600 a criminal. He didn't actually break the law. And that's the truth. But of course, the truth doesn't
00:40:27.460 matter in politics. All that matters is what people believe the truth to be.
00:40:31.060 And, but, but I think that this kind of angle presents a challenge and I'll, I'll explain what
00:40:40.000 it is. And it's, it's not even really about bringing up the fact that Trump's been convicted,
00:40:45.660 you know, convicted of a quote unquote crime. That's not even like when I hear that,
00:40:49.680 there's a part of me that says, oh, and it's not because she's bringing up the Trump stuff.
00:40:55.900 That's got nothing to do with it. Here's, here's what it is. There are two versions of Kamala Harris.
00:41:03.980 The first version is the courtroom prosecutor who was attacked for being too zealous in prosecuting
00:41:12.680 supposed nonviolent drug offenses. You know, the, the, the, uh, uh, tough as nails prosecutor who's
00:41:19.420 going after the bad guys. Again, is that the reality? Is that really who she was? No, but that's
00:41:26.180 the version. Like that's the, that's one brand that they could try to go with. The second version,
00:41:33.940 and the second brand is the bleeding heart liberal who bailed out BLM protesters, rioters rather rioters.
00:41:41.160 Um, but now the, the best case is that she runs as the second version, right? Running as the defender
00:41:50.260 of rioters and criminals and looters. Um, that's, uh, that's best case. That's what we want. Go ahead
00:41:57.320 and run that campaign. But if she runs as the first and that line you just heard is, is, is the first
00:42:06.500 version talking, then it's a challenge because then what will happen is that Democrats rat rather than
00:42:17.500 in the midst of, of this crime infested society we live in and people are fed, fed up, just sick to
00:42:23.060 death of living in communities that are unsafe and they can't bring their kids out in public and all
00:42:27.940 that kind of stuff. Rather than Democrats doing what they've done for so long, which is to like,
00:42:32.380 tell us that we should like that or deny that it's happening or tell us that we should feel more
00:42:38.860 sorry for the criminals. Rather than doing that, what you just heard there, it's just one little
00:42:44.940 snippet, but that would represent the Democrats trying to go the other way and trying to outflank the
00:42:51.880 Republicans on crime to the right, right? So if, if Harris pretends to be the toughest nails
00:42:58.120 prosecutor who fought for justice and locked up bad guys, that would be her running to the right
00:43:04.180 on crime, which is where the American public is because people are sick of the crime epidemic. They
00:43:11.160 are, as I said, they're tired of living in communities that are unsafe. Um, now if Harris did
00:43:17.820 try to, to move right on crime or right, I don't know, I'm all, I don't even know what my right and
00:43:23.880 left anymore. Um, if she did try to move to the right on crime, it shouldn't be a major problem
00:43:29.740 because it can be countered really easily. Right? So when I say it's kind of a, if they're thinking
00:43:36.700 this and you think, Oh, you know, this might be a problem. It's not because there's anything about
00:43:41.240 that move that's really difficult to counter. You should be able to counter it easily because
00:43:47.360 first of all, point out the fact that she took the side of violent rioters. You could point that out,
00:43:52.120 bailed them out, funded them. Um, you could also argue that her version of law and order is to,
00:43:57.200 is, is a lawfare against her political opponents, which is true. Um, so basically your response to
00:44:04.480 that when she, when she tries to present herself as this, uh, prosecutorial gladiator, you know,
00:44:11.180 taking on the bad guys, your response is that's not true. You're full of it. And you know, the people
00:44:16.180 that you were really taken on were your political opponents who you try to lock in jail for your own
00:44:21.520 political gain. Um, so that could be the response, but what, here's my fear, my fear. And I hope that
00:44:33.240 I'm wrong about this. My fear is that Republicans will respond to this challenge of Harris going to
00:44:41.520 the right on crime by going to the left. That's my fear. Republicans will see Kamala Harris suddenly
00:44:50.740 doing the law and order thing. And they will respond by thinking, Oh, well that gives us an
00:44:57.060 opportunity to outflank you on the left. And that would be a fatal error. I mean, it would,
00:45:04.680 it would be one of the worst unforced errors that I've ever seen in politics. And I hope it doesn't
00:45:10.640 happen, but I've seen rumblings of it. Like I've seen the, you know, there are people, uh, and nobody
00:45:19.800 really of note that I've seen yet, although maybe they haven't, I haven't seen it, but I've seen
00:45:24.340 conservative accounts on Twitter, for example, tweeting that, uh, Oh, well, uh, Kamala Harris,
00:45:31.720 she, she, what about all those nonviolent young black men that you locked in prison?
00:45:37.140 Like that kind of thing. This is my great fear is that the Republicans decide that that is the good
00:45:43.880 response that, that, uh, okay. So you're not going to be the bleeding heart liberal on crime. Then we
00:45:50.120 will. And now we're going to be the ones saying that, that, that's actually the, the justice system
00:45:55.860 is rigged against black people. It is racist. And now we're the ones standing up for you.
00:46:03.460 Again, I hope I'm wrong. I hope that's not the move. It would be disastrous. Absolutely disastrous.
00:46:10.580 Uh, because the Republic, the Democrats, no matter what they try to do,
00:46:14.360 they are very vulnerable on the crime issue. It is an easy issue, uh, for Republicans. It is an easy
00:46:23.080 win and they can do whatever they want. They can go left. They can go right. Uh, what they can't
00:46:30.380 escape is their own history, their own very recent history, what they have said and more importantly
00:46:35.260 done. They can't escape that unless you, unless you let them escape it.
00:46:39.140 So let's, uh, please not do that. And the last thing I'll say about this is, um,
00:46:48.160 Tulsi Gabbard had a moment in the Republican and rather Democrat primaries where she hit, uh,
00:46:55.480 Kamala Harris on this, on the, on the, um, you know, locking up nonviolent drug offenders and that
00:47:00.460 sort of thing. And that's another one. I've seen that. I've seen Republicans sharing that clip and
00:47:07.060 saying, oh, remember when, remember when Harris got totally owned by Tulsi Gabbard on this issue?
00:47:13.160 Yeah, that worked as an attack by Tulsi Gabbard against Kamala Harris. It worked at the time.
00:47:22.260 Okay. That was before a summer of race riots. And more importantly, it was in a Democrat primary.
00:47:30.760 Okay. So if you are taking, if you're taking a tax that worked in a Democrat primary and trying them
00:47:39.380 as a Republican in a general election, then you don't know the first thing about politics.
00:47:47.000 So might've worked then in that context for that person to be attacking that other person in that
00:47:53.440 way, in that specific context, it will not work here and you shouldn't even try and you shouldn't
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00:49:16.780 with Tax Network USA. Sleepy Joe's thrown in the towel on the left is scrambling, but while they're in
00:49:23.200 panic mode, we're bringing together the most trusted voices in conservative media to break
00:49:27.220 it all down for you. Tonight at 7 p.m., The Daily Wire's Backstage is live. Join me along with Ben
00:49:32.720 Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan, and Jeremy Boring as we discuss who the left is going to prop up
00:49:37.380 next, what dirty tricks they have up their sleeves, and how we're going to keep America from falling off
00:49:42.060 the cliff. Don't miss Backstage Live tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern on Daily Wire Plus. It's free,
00:49:46.440 it's live, and it's going to be legendary. Now let's get to our Daily Cancellation.
00:49:56.580 Today for our Daily Cancellation, we are canceling everybody involved in this. Page 6 reports,
00:50:01.880 quote, was Abraham Lincoln the original log cabin Republican? We hear tell that a new documentary of
00:50:06.520 Honest Abe posits that the 16th president was gay. Promo copy for the new project, Lover of Men,
00:50:12.560 The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln reads, quote, as told by preeminent Lincoln scholars and never
00:50:16.880 before seen photographs and letters, the film details Lincoln's romantic relationships with
00:50:20.460 men. The movie delves into the history of human sexual fluidity and focuses on the profound
00:50:25.380 differences between sexual mores of the 19th century and those we hold today. The film fills
00:50:29.440 in an important missing piece of American history and challenges the audience to consider why we hold
00:50:34.700 such a limited view of human sexuality. Directed by Sean Peterson, the film explores Lincoln's deep ties
00:50:40.420 with daring, dashing guys, and includes interviews with historians from Harvard, Columbia, Brown,
00:50:45.880 Wesley, and Rutgers. One expert sums it up.
00:50:51.300 Lincoln probably slept in the same bed with more men than he did with women.
00:50:56.100 Okay, so we're back to the favorite pastime of modern historians, that is going back in time
00:51:00.400 and recruiting dead people into the LGBT ranks. It's like the practice of posthumous baptism,
00:51:06.300 baptism, except in this case, the baptism is meant to make the dead person gay rather than Mormon.
00:51:11.760 It was inevitable that this obsession with making everyone living and dead gay would eventually
00:51:16.000 include U.S. presidents. Of course, we might ask, if you want to argue that a president was a closeted
00:51:22.120 homosexual, why would you start with Lincoln when Barack Obama is sitting right there?
00:51:27.920 I guess I'll have to wait another 150 years before they get around to that one. For now,
00:51:32.640 they're focused on old, honest Abe, who they say was not so honest about his sexual orientation.
00:51:38.660 Here's a clip of the trailer. Watch.
00:51:43.120 He is considered a sacred figure by both Republicans and Democrats.
00:51:47.200 He led the nation through its greatest crisis.
00:51:49.900 He's on our currency. We build monuments to him.
00:51:52.740 He's the greatest president the United States has ever had.
00:51:55.580 Today, the big question that people are asking is,
00:51:59.480 was Abraham Lincoln gay?
00:52:03.500 In the 19th century, for many men, their closest relationships were other men, and same for women.
00:52:08.360 Men could live with another man when they're single and often did in shared beds.
00:52:12.740 Lincoln probably slept in the same bed with men more than he did with women.
00:52:16.720 One of the things that fascinates scholars is his bedding down with Joshua Speed for four years.
00:52:23.960 There is love between those two men.
00:52:26.620 When you put together all of the evidence, it's really startling.
00:52:31.780 Lincoln has a type. Dashing. Daring.
00:52:34.660 We have this notion that if you have an attraction like that, boom.
00:52:38.080 That's enough.
00:52:39.680 Just to get this out of the way, there is, of course, no evidence that Abraham Lincoln was gay.
00:52:44.600 He could have been.
00:52:45.560 I mean, we can't say for sure that he wasn't.
00:52:47.160 And he's been dead for a century and a half.
00:52:49.720 It's very hard to prove a negative about a historical figure or even a currently living figure.
00:52:55.180 So we cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't gay.
00:52:59.580 Just as we can't prove that he wasn't, as some historians have argued, a vampire slayer.
00:53:03.600 I mean, he could have been that.
00:53:05.400 But it's not up to us to prove that he wasn't something.
00:53:08.060 It's up to those claiming that he was something to prove that he was that thing.
00:53:12.180 They must produce the evidence, and yet they have no evidence.
00:53:18.580 Now, interestingly enough, an article in the Daily Beast, of all places, the Daily Beast,
00:53:22.640 debunks this Lincoln was gay narrative.
00:53:24.720 This is from a few years ago, because modern historians have been trying to wrap a rainbow
00:53:29.340 flag around Lincoln for a while now.
00:53:32.240 The Daily Beast interviewed the historian whose study of Lincoln in 1982 inadvertently started
00:53:36.640 the rumors that Lincoln was gay.
00:53:37.960 But the guy behind that study, Charles Strozier, says that his work is being misinterpreted,
00:53:43.460 reading now, quote,
00:53:44.620 According to Charles Strozier, the psychoanalyst, history professor, and author, Lincoln was
00:53:48.640 straight.
00:53:49.480 But Lincoln was by no means a hyper-straight lady killer, as some scholars suggest in reaction
00:53:54.040 to the fact that Lincoln shared a bed with his best friend Joshua Speed for nearly four
00:53:58.560 years.
00:53:59.760 Whoever said that Lincoln was a lady killer?
00:54:02.440 Have we ever heard a ladies' man?
00:54:04.000 I mean, we could see the guy.
00:54:05.140 That probably wasn't that.
00:54:06.500 Anyway, Strozier's 1982 study of Honest Abe, Lincoln's Quest for Union, contained a chapter
00:54:13.140 on the Lincoln Speed friendship that started not the whispers, but the shouts that Lincoln
00:54:18.160 was gay.
00:54:19.040 The loudest voice belonged to Larry Kramer, author, AIDS activist, and founder of ACT UP.
00:54:24.380 In his massive novel, The American People, Volume 1, Kramer channels his version of Speed's
00:54:29.100 voice, recalling Speed's nights with Lincoln this way.
00:54:32.320 And then we then get a quote from Kramer's novel, which is graphic and gross.
00:54:37.500 This guy apparently wrote pornographic fan fiction imagining Lincoln as a gay man.
00:54:41.540 We don't need to read the totally imagined details.
00:54:45.440 But the Daily Beast article continues, quote,
00:54:47.360 This was a time, Strozier writes, when young men could be, indeed were assumed to be, close,
00:54:53.440 bonded, and intimate, even sleeping together without being sexual partners.
00:54:57.360 Still, it was Speed's therapeutic and redemptive friendship that got Lincoln through one of
00:55:01.080 the life-threatening depressions that plagued his early adulthood.
00:55:03.740 Joshua Speed was an intelligent, sensitive, and business-savvy son of a wealthy Kentucky
00:55:07.220 slave-owning family.
00:55:08.580 In 1837, Speed was running a dry goods store in Springfield when Lincoln, then 28 years
00:55:13.560 old and a member of the state assembly, walked into Speed's shop.
00:55:16.080 Lincoln had come to town to set up law office, but he was heavily in debt and needed a place
00:55:20.000 to flop.
00:55:21.120 Speed's offer to Lincoln was, no pun intended, straightforward, quote,
00:55:24.540 I have a very large room and a very large double bed in it, which you are perfectly welcome
00:55:28.520 to share with me if you choose.
00:55:33.040 Needless to say, Speed's proposition meant something different in 1837 than it would today.
00:55:37.000 So, this is what the whole case is based on, the fact that Lincoln shared a bed with a
00:55:42.000 man who was also his close friend.
00:55:44.480 But, as Strozier goes on to explain, and as any real historian familiar with the customs
00:55:48.700 of the time will tell you, there was nothing strange or sexual about any of this back in
00:55:53.360 those days.
00:55:54.860 Men slept in beds together, family members slept in beds together.
00:55:58.100 In fact, even today, we in wealthy Western society are rather unique, and I would say pretty
00:56:03.260 fortunate that we all get our own beds, okay?
00:56:06.420 That was not always the case.
00:56:08.360 It's not the case even today in many parts of the world.
00:56:10.440 In fact, back in the 19th century, even stopping for the night at an inn might mean sharing a
00:56:15.900 bed with another member of the same sex.
00:56:18.400 That would seem very strange today, but it wasn't at the time.
00:56:21.700 Like, I admit that I would be quite upset if I checked into my room at the Hilton and found
00:56:26.260 some dude already occupying my bed, but this is not the 1800s.
00:56:30.320 Expectations are very different.
00:56:31.280 But the case for Lincoln's gayness isn't just that he shared beds with other men, which
00:56:36.740 was incredibly common back in those days.
00:56:39.340 The other piece of evidence is that Lincoln was very close friends with other men, in
00:56:43.560 particular this guy Joshua Speed, as we heard mentioned.
00:56:47.420 But Lincoln's friendship with men is evidence of nothing but the fact that Lincoln had friends.
00:56:52.220 To interpret his close male relationships in a sexual light is, among other things, anachronistic.
00:56:57.640 You are once again foisting modern attitudes onto people who lived generations ago.
00:57:03.760 It was not unusual at the time for men to have close, intimate, non-sexual relationships
00:57:09.220 with each other.
00:57:10.300 It was not unusual for a man to, as Lincoln did, write a letter to another man expressing
00:57:15.180 his platonic affection for him.
00:57:17.700 Now, again, it is different now.
00:57:20.920 I confess that if a buddy of mine wrote me a lengthy email pouring out his heart and telling
00:57:27.000 me that he loves me and stuff, I would find it quite weird and unsettling.
00:57:31.320 Like, dude, take it easy.
00:57:33.160 I mean, if a friend came over for a beer and sat down next to me on the couch and said,
00:57:36.660 hey man, I just want you to know that I love you and your relationship is really important
00:57:40.140 to me, I would find it extremely awkward.
00:57:43.020 I would not have an eloquent response.
00:57:44.700 It would be something like, uh, cool.
00:57:48.780 Thanks, man.
00:57:50.300 So anyway, did you watch the game last night?
00:57:52.580 It wouldn't even matter what game.
00:57:53.680 Any game, I just want to be, change the subject, basically, would be the goal there.
00:57:58.340 But this is only because actual intimacy, non-sexual intimacy, right, between men no longer exists
00:58:05.360 in Western culture.
00:58:06.440 Male friendship in general is dying, and the kinds of friendships that men had in Lincoln's
00:58:11.320 time are completely dead, which on balance, we would have to say, is not a good thing,
00:58:18.020 the fact that male friendships are dying.
00:58:19.680 And there are many reasons for it.
00:58:21.260 Partly, it's the fact that all of the spaces where men used to gather and meet have been
00:58:27.320 abolished or invaded by women, which is the same as abolishing them.
00:58:31.640 And partly, it's the fault of the kinds of people who made this ridiculous documentary.
00:58:36.840 The effort to sexualize male friendships and to interpret all intimacy between members of
00:58:43.760 the same sex as automatically sexual has had a very destructive effect.
00:58:48.240 It's not the right-wing purveyors of so-called toxic masculinity, quote-unquote, who've decided
00:58:54.380 that it's gay for men to be friends.
00:58:57.000 I mean, all of Western society used to be run according to what we now consider conservative
00:59:02.100 principles.
00:59:02.720 We used to live in a culture with traditional ideas about masculinity, femininity, gender roles.
00:59:07.420 And back then, in that context, in Lincoln's time, with a culture rooted in those ideas,
00:59:15.020 men were able to form close bonds with each other.
00:59:18.420 It's only when the leftists took over that suddenly male friendships became gay.
00:59:23.060 Like, that's their doing.
00:59:25.100 And it's entirely deliberate.
00:59:27.360 Like, they made it weird.
00:59:28.840 They made everything weird, quite intentionally.
00:59:34.520 And that is why the people trying to gayify Abraham Lincoln are today canceled.
00:59:41.260 That'll do it for the show today.
00:59:42.220 Thanks for watching.
00:59:42.740 Thanks for listening.
00:59:43.720 Have a great day.
00:59:44.520 Talk to you tomorrow.
00:59:45.720 Godspeed.
00:59:46.040 Godspeed.