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

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 0.99

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 1.00

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 1.00

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. 0.80

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 0.93

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 0.99

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. 0.99

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.99

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 0.99

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 0.73

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 1.00

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 0.60

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 1.00

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 0.95

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. 1.00

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 0.94

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 0.97

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. 0.96

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:29:12.180 her all the male presidents. They got a whole term to figure it out. But, but this first female 1.00

00:29:17.940 president, you're going to kick her out in five months. Really? Now maybe to you and I, that would 0.98

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 0.86

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 0.98

00:34:54.740 knows how to take on Republican Donald Trump. She, uh, Harris has been quickly consolidating 0.77

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 0.99

00:35:13.680 the endorsements. Um, all of her potential challengers have kissed the ring. So she's the 0.96

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, 1.00

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 0.61

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. 0.78

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. 1.00

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. 1.00

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 0.98

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 0.99

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. 0.98

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, 1.00

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. 0.86

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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00:49:09.380 or visit tnusa.com slash walsh today. Don't let the IRS take advantage of you. Get the help you need

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, 0.98

00:51:06.300 baptism, except in this case, the baptism is meant to make the dead person gay rather than Mormon. 0.53

00:51:11.760 It was inevitable that this obsession with making everyone living and dead gay would eventually 1.00

00:51:16.000 include U.S. presidents. Of course, we might ask, if you want to argue that a president was a closeted 0.97

00:51:22.120 homosexual, why would you start with Lincoln when Barack Obama is sitting right there? 0.89

00:51:27.920 I guess I'll have to wait another 150 years before they get around to that one. For now, 0.89

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. 1.00

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 0.99

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? 0.99

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 0.83

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. 0.97

00:54:37.500 This guy apparently wrote pornographic fan fiction imagining Lincoln as a gay man. 0.93

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. 0.60

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. 0.99

00:58:31.640 And partly, it's the fault of the kinds of people who made this ridiculous documentary. 0.97

00:58:36.840 The effort to sexualize male friendships and to interpret all intimacy between members of 0.90

00:58:43.760 the same sex as automatically sexual has had a very destructive effect. 0.68

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. 0.73

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.

The Matt Walsh Show - July 23, 2024

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

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