Ep. 1515 - Nagging Democrats Shriek At Pete Hegseth During Confirmation Hearing
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
167.73088
Summary
Pete Hegseth endured a barrage of nagging and screeching during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Much of the discussion centered around whether women in the military are held to a lower standard than men. We ll talk about it. Plus, Mel Gibson has a fascinating conversation with Joe Rogan. And it turns out that I was right about the latest viral outrage. This one centering around a dispute between fans of opposing teams at a football game.
Transcript
00:00:00.280
Inauguration Day, January 20th. Watch it with us.
00:00:03.900
Vin Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan, and Jeremy Boring.
00:00:07.840
Live from D.C. Donald Trump's historic second term officially begins.
00:00:11.860
Coverage starts at 8.30 a.m. Eastern. Watch live on Daily Wire+.
00:00:16.040
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, Pete Hegseth endured a barrage of nagging and screeching
00:00:22.400
Much of the discussion centered around the question of whether women in the military
00:00:25.180
are held to a lower standard, but there isn't actually any question about it.
00:00:30.540
Also, looters are descending on the opulent estates of Hollywood celebrities
00:00:35.960
And now those celebrities have suddenly come to the revelation that looting is bad.
00:00:39.960
Plus, Mel Gibson has a fascinating conversation with Joe Rogan.
00:00:42.880
And it turns out that I was right about the latest viral outrage,
00:00:46.200
this one centering around a dispute between fans of opposing teams at a football game.
00:00:50.020
Talk about all that and more today for the Matt Walsh Show.
00:00:58.660
All right. History is happening, and you can watch it with us live.
00:01:21.400
The Daily Wire will be live in D.C. for Donald Trump's inauguration as the 47th president.
00:01:25.200
Don't miss a second of it. Plus, celebrate with 47% off your Daily Wire Plus annual membership.
00:01:31.040
Join us at dailywire.com slash subscribe using code 47.
00:01:35.800
Do you wish you could have invested in the stock market last year
00:01:38.620
when investors scored the highest profits in decades?
00:01:41.280
But between your mountain of bills and credit card debt, you had nothing left over?
00:01:44.700
Well, it's time to stop letting debt hold you back.
00:01:49.900
They have a brilliant new strategy designed to tackle your debt and put cash back in your pocket
00:01:54.540
so you can save, invest, and build the life you've been wanting.
00:01:58.000
Done With Debt negotiates directly with credit card and loan companies.
00:02:01.160
Their team of negotiators and legal experts work to significantly reduce your bills,
00:02:06.860
This frees up cash to invest while the stock market is strong.
00:02:09.640
Done With Debt helps transform financial burden into opportunity.
00:02:13.140
But since these strategies are time-sensitive, don't delay.
00:02:17.100
Visit donewithdebt.com, talk with one of the strategists.
00:02:24.100
It now appears to be all but certain that Pete Hegseth will be confirmed as the next
00:02:28.780
Republican leaders in the Senate have said as much, and it's not hard to see why that's the
00:02:33.400
After weeks of telling us that Hegseth is unqualified for the job, Democrats spent several
00:02:37.340
hours trying and utterly failing to land a single meaningful blow against his nomination.
00:02:43.660
Instead, Hegseth came across as a Christian who's very aware of his own personal past failings.
00:02:53.540
Under the leadership of former Raytheon board member Lloyd Austin, the Pentagon carried out
00:02:59.020
It oversaw a catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
00:03:02.620
It terminated thousands of soldiers who didn't want to take the experimental COVID shot.
00:03:07.420
Those are colossal failings that no one in the Pentagon has ever atoned for.
00:03:12.580
So Pete Hegseth is not a perfect man who is, but he is basically a saint compared to the
00:03:21.280
And after yesterday's hearing, no reasonable person can really deny that.
00:03:26.100
So throughout the hearing, Democrats discredited themselves one after another with botched
00:03:33.240
And the optics could not have been worse, as particular women in the hearing kept screaming
00:03:40.660
at Hegseth, all while trying to make the argument that women are just as capable of serving in
00:03:48.080
Now, if there was a way to weaponize nagging so that you could literally nag your enemies
00:03:55.020
I mean, these women could create a weapon of mass nagging destruction and kill thousands
00:03:59.860
of enemy combatants all at once if that was possible.
00:04:02.060
Now, before we get into that particular part of the hearing, the discussion of women in
00:04:08.400
combat, it's important to set the stage with some of the many blunders that I'm referring
00:04:14.640
So here, for example, is Senator Gary Peters of Michigan attempting to make the point that
00:04:20.240
Hegseth has no business running the Defense Department because he has never, quote, driven
00:04:30.320
I don't know of any corporate board of directors that would hire a CEO for a major company if
00:04:36.860
they came and said, you know, I supervised 100 people before.
00:04:41.040
They'd ask you, well, what kind of experiences you had?
00:04:43.860
Can you give me an experience or your actual experience of driving innovation in an organization?
00:04:49.600
Give me an example of where you have done that.
00:04:51.540
My goodness, Senator, absolutely a concern Veterans for America.
00:04:54.200
We created the Fixing Veterans Health Care Task Force, a bipartisan task force that had
00:04:58.280
never been done before to create policy, to drive policy change on Capitol Hill that
00:05:05.800
We got the VA Accountability Act passed and the Mission Act passed in a way that a nonprofit
00:05:10.740
of our size, a veterans organization, has never done.
00:05:14.060
And it's testified in all the letters that we put forward to the committee, which are
00:05:19.540
Give me an example of where you've driven down cost.
00:05:35.420
We don't want you to actually answer the questions that I'm asking.
00:05:38.600
These questions are not meant to be answered because they're really just statements.
00:05:42.640
And obviously, in this case, he asked a question he didn't know the answer to.
00:05:50.140
It's like if you're in court and you're questioning a witness, you never ask a question you don't
00:05:56.680
And then he made it clear that he didn't really care about the answer to the question either.
00:06:03.280
But even aside from that, what's extraordinary about his question is that Lloyd Austin had exactly
00:06:09.660
the kind of experience that Gary Peters is talking about.
00:06:11.900
Austin was in charge of the war effort in both Iraq and Afghanistan for many years.
00:06:16.680
According to Democrats in Congress, that made Austin qualify to be Secretary of Defense,
00:06:20.380
even though both of those wars ended in complete disaster.
00:06:26.920
These people cannot comprehend the idea of hiring someone who hasn't made money in the
00:06:31.880
defense industry and who has not overseen two failed wars.
00:06:35.240
They see that as a mark against Hegseth instead of the primary reason to confirm him.
00:06:41.020
Not to be outdone, there was Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island coming in hot with this takedown.
00:06:48.460
But the other factor, too, is you've already disparaged in writing the Geneva Convention,
00:06:58.440
How will you be able to effectively lead a military in which one of the principal elements
00:07:10.120
You have made statements to your platoon after being briefed by a JAG officer.
00:07:15.540
Well, by the way, would you explain what a JAG-off is?
00:07:26.800
Well, perhaps some of my colleagues don't understand.
00:07:30.160
It would be a JAG officer who puts his or her own priorities in front of the warfighters.
00:07:36.180
Their promotions, their medals in front of having the backs of those who are making the
00:07:46.560
Now, the implication is that Pete Hegseth is a terrible guy because he used the word
00:07:51.640
Now, I think that Hegseth throwing around insults like that does open him up to the charge
00:07:57.640
of, you know, being a bit of a boomer, but I'm not sure it says anything more than that.
00:08:02.940
And then when Hegseth answers the question, Jack Reed looks stunned.
00:08:06.800
One might even say that he looked a bit like a JAG-off.
00:08:10.140
By the way, I will say that, and look, I didn't serve in the military.
00:08:17.480
And so one thing I know is that, you know, guys who served in the military, they don't
00:08:27.320
You don't, that's one thing about the military.
00:08:32.520
I mean, JAG-off, you go around guys in the military, you use a term like JAG-off, they're
00:08:40.060
They're going to say, sir, we don't use a language like that around, this is inappropriate.
00:08:45.600
Um, so, and, you know, there's also a lot of, uh, questioning revolving around, uh, Pete
00:08:56.540
And that's another one that, you know, guys in the military, um, certainly they don't touch
00:09:02.280
the stuff, um, you know, cursing, uh, throwing down a beer or two, not something you find in
00:09:13.080
But I do want to highlight, um, one moment of substantive discussion to the extent that
00:09:18.040
anything in this hearing could be described as substantive.
00:09:19.980
Several senators took turns berating Hegseth over his stance on women in the military.
00:09:25.340
In particular, Hegseth says that he's, uh, generally fine with women in combat roles,
00:09:30.520
but at a minimum, he wants to, he wants the fitness standards to be equal across genders.
00:09:36.160
Now, effectively, as I'll explain in a moment, that actually means that he doesn't want women
00:09:42.040
Now, you're not going to say it as directly as that in a hearing like this, because the
00:09:48.580
And if Hegseth had just come out and said plainly that he doesn't want any women in combat,
00:09:52.820
that would have given squishy Republicans the excuse they need to not confirm him.
00:09:58.580
So instead he focused on the fitness requirements, which was strategically smart.
00:10:03.240
Now, in response to his position on fitness requirements, uh, various senators, uh, adopted
00:10:08.840
the bizarre and clearly false position that the standards between men and women in the
00:10:19.180
As secretary, would you take any action to re-institute the combat arms exclusion for female
00:10:25.280
service members, knowing full well, you have hundreds of women doing that job right now.
00:10:29.740
And the standards, your, your two mile run, Tom, is about the army combat fitness test.
00:10:37.260
It is not the requirements to have an MOS 11 Bravo, which is the infantry.
00:10:42.700
These are the requirements today for people serving in industry, men and women, they are
00:10:48.100
gender neutral and they are very difficult to meet.
00:11:01.240
And there was a lot of, uh, just using one example, but this question of whether of the
00:11:06.140
fitness standards was, was, was brought up by, uh, repeatedly, you know, during, during
00:11:12.560
this hearing and the, the, the, the fundamental claim of the people on the other side of this
00:11:18.400
is that, you know, the fitness standards are the same.
00:11:21.180
Um, so if Hegseth is worried about lowering standards for women, it's not happening.
00:11:28.180
Now, before we play Hegseth's response to this line of question, it's important to point
00:11:37.080
The standards of physical fitness across every branch of the armed forces are much lower for
00:11:44.100
So let's start with the fitness requirements at the Navy.
00:11:46.460
And, uh, we've put it up on the screen, as you can see, their physical readiness test
00:11:50.700
consists of some variation of pushups, forearm planks, a one and a half mile run, and a 500
00:11:57.160
So let's take the run as an example, which by the way, the Navy refers to as a run walk
00:12:01.580
section because they expect applicants won't be able to run the full distance, or at least
00:12:06.660
Um, for men aged 17 and 19, a satisfactory time on the one and a half mile run is, uh, 12 minutes
00:12:14.560
and 15 seconds, uh, which, which by the way is already way too slow.
00:12:22.640
My, my 10 year old son can crush that time for a one and a half mile.
00:12:26.720
Um, so, but, and we'll get to that in a second for women in the same age group, a satisfactory
00:12:34.080
So they get a full two minutes and 30 seconds extra to complete the run, which for a one and
00:12:41.480
And by the way, you can technically get even worse times than this and still pass because
00:12:47.420
there's a whole, a whole probationary level below satisfactory for pushups.
00:12:53.720
Men aged 17 and 19 have to hit 46 pushups for a satisfactory rank.
00:13:00.220
Meanwhile, the minimum outstanding score for men for pushups is 86 while it's only 47 pushups
00:13:07.460
If you go to the army's website, you'll find similar numbers across their physical fitness
00:13:14.120
For example, it's a test that obviously has a lot of relevance to people who want to serve
00:13:17.260
in the army in case they need to carry a wounded soldier and not blame them for being wounded
00:13:22.260
as they do in the Los Angeles fire department, as we've seen.
00:13:27.340
If they finish the test in one minute, 29 seconds, women get max points.
00:13:33.400
So they get an additional 26 seconds to sprint, drag, and carry someone.
00:13:36.840
Uh, just to underscore the real world consequences of this kind of gender-based testing, here's
00:13:42.880
a post from someone named Nathan Spearing, quote, in 2005, I was 22 and had one of the
00:13:47.100
top PT scorers in my platoon in Ranger Battalion.
00:13:49.780
One night, one of my mates was shot and completely immobilized.
00:13:52.560
I worked with a small group of men to get him to the casualty evacuation point while our
00:13:58.920
Dragging him through the streets of Iraq that night felt like I'd never worked out in my
00:14:02.220
life, it's one of the most physically fit men in an elite light infantry unit, and this
00:14:06.440
combat-related task took me well beyond my physical capacities.
00:14:12.440
They can't without endangering the mission and the men around them.
00:14:18.480
The Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, even the Space Force have similar arrangements.
00:14:23.660
Here, for example, is the Coast Guard's breakdown of fitness standards, explicitly aligned with
00:14:29.620
As you can see, men need to do 29 push-ups if they're under 30 years old.
00:14:35.940
Meanwhile, over in the Marines, men need to do three pull-ups or 34 push-ups in two minutes,
00:14:40.440
while women only have to do one pull-up or 15 push-ups in the same time period.
00:14:46.940
I mean, there is nothing gender-neutral about the fitness standards for any branch of the armed
00:14:56.940
It's simply a fact that standards are lower for women.
00:15:04.220
It's also a fact that the standards for men, too, have also been lowered.
00:15:08.820
There's been an effort to get more women into the military and also less fit men into the
00:15:15.660
And those two goals are obviously related to each other.
00:15:17.900
Because in truth, you know, 46 push-ups should not be satisfactory for a grown man who wants
00:15:31.940
I mean, we should expect a lot more of the people who are tasked with defending the country
00:15:36.120
But what Gillibrand was saying is that at the urging of Congress, certain specialties like
00:15:42.040
the infantry have adopted their own independent gender-neutral standards on top of the basic
00:15:55.080
The Army is moving forward with its long-awaited Army combat fitness test this year.
00:15:59.060
But the service has officially dropped the test attempt to set a gender and age-neutral
00:16:06.740
A two-and-a-half-mile walk has been added as an alternate aerobic event for troops whose
00:16:13.340
I mean, if their medical profiles prevent them from running, how are they even allowed to be
00:16:23.600
But, you know, a lot of, a total of 48% of active-duty enlisted women and 28% of active-duty
00:16:33.620
In other words, they tried to make the test gender-neutral and women kept failing it.
00:16:38.040
So they responded by gutting the test and making it a lot easier.
00:16:42.340
And after all that, it's still not gender-neutral.
00:16:46.080
In his answer to Kirsten Gillibrand, Pete Hegseth attempted to make these points.
00:16:51.240
He also outlined his own firsthand observation of lowered standards in the military.
00:16:56.740
And Gillibrand responded by, of course, shrieking at him.
00:16:59.840
My critiques, Senator, recently and in the past, and from personal experience, have been
00:17:09.140
And you mentioned 11 Alpha, 11 Bravo, MOS, places in units.
00:17:14.240
And the book that has been referenced multiple times here, The War on Warriors, I spent months
00:17:20.160
talking to active-duty service members, men and women, low ranks, high ranks, combat arms
00:17:26.460
and not combat arms, and what each and every one of them told me, and which personal instances
00:17:31.020
have shown me, is that in ways direct, indirect, overt, and subtle, standards have been changed
00:17:39.520
inside infantry training units, ranger school, infantry battalions, to ensure that commanders
00:17:48.760
I get you're making these generalized statements.
00:17:50.780
...quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted, and
00:17:56.220
that disparages those women who are incredibly capable of meeting that standard.
00:18:01.440
Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry.
00:18:08.380
Democrats demand an answer, then they get one that they don't like, so they start screaming.
00:18:12.860
And look, the truth, obviously, is that if men and women were held to the same standard
00:18:19.240
in the military, there would not be any women in the military.
00:18:24.940
The way that we know that the standards are not the same for women in the military is that
00:18:34.800
We don't need to know anything else about the fit.
00:18:36.140
But just show me the, you know, if we're talking about the military and the question is, are
00:18:43.440
standards lower for women, the only question I need to ask is, well, are there women in
00:18:49.700
Well, then the standards are lower, because otherwise they wouldn't be in there.
00:18:54.780
Now, Pete Exeth may not want to say that out loud at a confirmation hearing, which makes
00:19:00.000
He shouldn't, because the point, again, is to be confirmed.
00:19:04.420
You know, including women in the military necessitates, by definition, lowering the standard.
00:19:10.960
Women cannot measure up to the same physical standard as men.
00:19:14.380
So if you set the physical standard for men to something reasonably challenging, there would
00:19:21.780
be almost zero women in the country who could make it, okay?
00:19:28.140
And that's exactly why I say we should raise the standard for everyone, make it the same for
00:19:34.160
everyone, and then let the chips fall where they may, okay?
00:19:39.900
I mean, it's not just about, like, push-ups, but let's start with that.
00:19:53.040
You should be able to do, like, what's a good starting point?
00:19:55.300
It's satisfactory for a man who wants to join the military.
00:20:08.700
I mean, in the entire country, in the whole country, there's how many adult women are in
00:20:21.460
And so that alone, and then before you even get into any of the other physical fitness
00:20:24.620
So set it to a reasonably challenging standard and let the chips fall where they may.
00:20:29.960
And they're going to fall on an all-male fighting force, which is how it should be anyway.
00:20:35.200
Of course, even aside from the fact that women can't do the job as well as men can when it
00:20:42.320
comes to combat, they also just shouldn't be serving in combat anyway.
00:20:47.520
A functional society does not send women out to die on the battlefield.
00:20:51.800
They're not equipped for it, physically or psychologically.
00:20:56.460
But our government has been denying this basic fact for years.
00:20:59.380
A decade ago, when the defense secretary at the time opened up all combat roles to women,
00:21:04.340
he said, quote, they'll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars, and lead infantry soldiers
00:21:09.520
And it made that sound like it was a sign of great progress, but it's a sign of decay, not
00:21:15.200
It's also a sign that we're going to lose the next major war we're a part of unless we
00:21:20.780
And after yesterday's confirmation hearing, finally, it seems like we'll have a defense
00:21:29.780
Many fitness enthusiasts face plateaus in their strength training routines, but that's where
00:21:42.140
Look, there are plenty of fitness influencers trying to sell you generic workout plans for
00:21:49.220
It's like having a personal trainer in your pocket minus the hefty price tag.
00:21:52.480
The app adapts as you get stronger, ensuring every workout pushes you just enough to make
00:22:00.100
FitBod stands out through its intelligent approach to workout planning.
00:22:04.080
The app creates fully personalized routines based on specific goals and available equipment,
00:22:08.820
quickly adapts workouts for any time constraint while maintaining optimal intensity levels.
00:22:13.420
My producer has been using FitBod and has noticed significant improvements in both strength
00:22:17.780
The app's recovery tracking prevents overtraining of muscle groups, helps maintain consistent
00:22:24.860
He loves that it introduces new exercises progressively, teaching proper form for various movements
00:22:31.620
Each workout is designed to be challenging yet achievable, taking into account previous sessions.
00:22:36.040
The app efficiently factors in available equipment and time constraints, making it suitable
00:22:39.720
for both fully equipped gyms and home workouts.
00:22:43.640
Join FitBod today to get your personalized workout plan.
00:22:46.020
Get 25% off your subscription or try the app free for seven days at FitBod.me slash Walsh.
00:22:55.200
You know, you like to think that when tragedy happens, people band together to help each other
00:22:59.700
And indeed, a lot of that kind of thing has been happening in the wake of the L.A. fires.
00:23:05.540
There are the lowlifes, the opportunists, the thugs, criminals who exploit tragedy for their
00:23:10.860
own benefit, which is why there's been a lot of looting in L.A. as people leave their homes
00:23:17.400
New York Post reports, dozens of out-of-town vultures have been busted for sneaking into
00:23:21.860
ritzy neighborhoods in the Los Angeles wildfire evacuation zone to loot abandoned homes.
00:23:27.300
And local police are naming and shaming them as a warning to the rest.
00:23:30.200
More than 40 people have been bagged by the Santa Monica police for allegedly preying
00:23:34.520
on the thousands of homes left abandoned there and in the neighboring Pacific Palisades.
00:23:43.120
Of course, there's many more people participating in it.
00:23:47.240
And so the article has this little selection of mugshots that the police have provided.
00:24:03.340
And, you know, of course, they say don't judge a book by its cover.
00:24:06.880
But you look at those mugshots, there's not a single person on the screen who you would
00:24:17.000
Maybe grandma down at the, you know, grandma down at the bottom, bottom center.
00:24:24.920
But even, you know, she has kind of the aura of a looter.
00:24:29.180
And, uh, actually, this would be a fun game show now that I'm just thinking about it.
00:24:34.540
You're, you're shown a mugshot and you have to guess what crime the person was arrested for.
00:24:43.880
I, I'm, I'd be even better at that than I am at a wheel of fortune.
00:24:47.140
And I'm a wheel of fortune master, just so you know, um, guess the crime we could call
00:24:52.240
And it, you know, it may get a bit racist, granted.
00:24:57.900
Um, and sometimes looks can be deceiving, you know, for instance, like the guy, the top,
00:25:02.820
the top center, a lot of these guys, if, if you show me the mugshot, I'd say, oh yeah,
00:25:10.660
I think if you showed me that and I had no context, I would say, oh, serial killer for
00:25:15.960
Uh, I, I'd be certain, I'd be absolutely certain that that guy was arrested because
00:25:19.780
they found, you know, uh, severed limbs in a freezer in his basement.
00:25:25.180
Uh, so sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, uh, you can be surprised.
00:25:29.760
And just to be clear, I'm not saying that that guy is a serial killer.
00:25:32.020
I'm not saying that I'm just saying that that that's the assumption, the wrong assumption
00:25:37.700
Um, so anyway, there's a lot of looting going on and what's really been interesting is the
00:25:43.080
reaction of the celebrities who are being targeted.
00:25:47.960
Julia Roberts delivered a spicy comment to the criminals who are preying on the vulnerable
00:25:53.840
On Monday, the, uh, Pretty Woman star took to Instagram with a rare remark.
00:26:05.380
I mean, that was kind of the whole message in terms of addressing the looting.
00:26:11.320
Well, but wait a second, Julia, you're, what do you mean F you looters?
00:26:20.040
The woman who bailed out the looters and rioters during the BLM riots.
00:26:25.280
So I thought, according to you guys, isn't looting the language of the unheard?
00:26:30.600
So these people that are looting your homes and your fancy neighborhoods, they're just
00:26:52.660
They're taking jewelry and electronics and so forth.
00:27:09.900
I realized that none of this, none of that applies anymore.
00:27:12.760
Your compassion, your magnanimous nature, your tolerance for lawlessness stops right outside
00:27:19.920
the gate of your mansion or, or really outside the gate of your gated community.
00:27:28.320
And now that it's in your neighborhood, now that you're being targeted, now you can see
00:27:32.800
that criminals who take, take what doesn't belong for them, to them and steal and rob
00:27:40.420
Now you can see that those criminals are, are not misguided children.
00:27:51.680
But this is really, this is why I say this is the test of compassion.
00:27:56.280
As I've said forever, if a person is truly compassionate, if you're truly empathetic, you
00:28:03.100
will, if anything, err on the side of being too angry at criminals.
00:28:09.640
You know, when someone says, and I'm not saying this to be clear, I, I cannot say this on YouTube.
00:28:18.760
I'm saying if someone said, when someone says something like looters should be shot on site,
00:28:24.600
when someone makes a statement like that, hypothetically, people have said that.
00:28:28.160
And when it is said, that statement is, is, even if you say that's, that goes too far,
00:28:37.280
it's one that comes from a place of a deep love, love for the victims of the predators.
00:28:48.580
If your instinctive reaction is to sympathize with the criminals,
00:28:54.180
it's not because you're a sensitive, bleeding heart liberal.
00:28:59.140
It's because you are callous and uncaring and indifferent.
00:29:04.480
If you only hate criminals when they commit crimes against you,
00:29:10.900
that again just makes you a selfish, uncaring, unfeeling, cruel, indifferent person.
00:29:17.500
The desire to see criminals get what's coming to them,
00:29:20.940
the desire to see them punished severely for their crimes.
00:29:26.300
And in particular, if you have that desire to see criminals treated that way,
00:29:30.940
even when they're committing crimes that are, that don't affect you.
00:29:34.860
Well, that is because you love the victims of these crimes and you sympathize with them,
00:29:39.840
with the innocent people who are having these things done to them.
00:29:50.140
Two House Democrats have voted alongside Republican lawmakers to ban athletes born male
00:29:55.140
from participating on girls' school sports teams.
00:29:58.380
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act would amend federal law
00:30:02.880
to specify that student athletes must participate in school sport teams
00:30:09.220
And there were a couple of Democrats who voted for the bill as well.
00:30:19.920
The Dems have lost on this issue and it's just over.
00:30:32.520
We still have to root out every instance of it for sure.
00:30:35.620
But the political momentum, public opinion are against the left here.
00:30:45.580
Most recent polls I've seen show that around 70% of Americans are opposed to males and women's sports,
00:30:51.880
which is already striking consensus by today's standards.
00:30:56.280
You know, to get 70% of people to agree on anything is impossible, it seems like.
00:31:00.860
But keep in mind that the most recent polls, I mean, the 70% one I saw was in, I think, with 2020, like summer of 2023.
00:31:07.940
And I think the following summer there was another poll that showed basically the same kind of result.
00:31:17.240
I mean, the winds have shifted even more in the direction of sanity just in the past six months,
00:31:26.740
Now, 70%, what I'm saying is 70% is an undercount.
00:31:32.520
When you take into account the changes that have happened culturally, even just recently.
00:31:38.220
And then especially when you consider that you're going to have people who pretend to be tolerant and accepting of transgenderism
00:31:46.000
when they're asked a question by a pollster because they want to seem progressive and tolerant to the pollster.
00:31:55.120
So, but nobody is lying in the other direction.
00:32:07.700
90%, whatever it is, it is an overwhelming majority of Americans are on one side of this issue.
00:32:18.260
And there's also no will, there's no political will on the other side to even really have this argument.
00:32:28.200
And that kind of tells you what you need to know.
00:32:31.500
I haven't talked about this at all, but you've probably seen some of the clips.
00:32:37.920
Excellent conversation between Rogan and one of my favorite filmmakers of all time.
00:32:49.000
I was, I think I mentioned I watched Apocalypto recently.
00:32:52.220
Again, it's probably, I don't know, the fourth or fifth time I've watched it.
00:32:55.900
I mean, and he's made a number of movies that are classics.
00:33:00.240
But Apocalypto, I think, if you were to make a list of perfect movies, which would not necessarily be the same as a list of the greatest films of all time.
00:33:13.340
Now, I think Apocalypto is one of the greatest films of all time.
00:33:16.760
But when you talk about a perfect film, you know, a film can be essentially a perfect film and not necessarily be one of the greatest of all time.
00:33:22.960
And perfect just means it perfectly accomplished what it set out to accomplish.
00:33:30.680
And there's not any change that you would make to it that would, you know, help it to better accomplish what it was trying to accomplish.
00:33:42.980
That's one of the reasons I say that, you know, movie like, I think The Princess Bride is a perfect movie.
00:33:51.120
I don't think it's one of the top ten movies of all time.
00:33:53.460
I think it just perfectly does what it sets out to do.
00:34:02.520
Perfect film and one of the greatest of all time.
00:34:04.700
Anyway, so listening to the podcast with much interest was not disappointed.
00:34:10.900
I especially appreciated when Mel started telling Joe about the Shroud of Turin.
00:34:21.780
But as I got older, I came to it through intellect and through reading and putting things together and accounts and then occurrences like in my own life.
00:34:33.120
I mean, just recently, they verified the Shroud of Turin.
00:34:36.920
I've been reading about it, and I know that there's some contention.
00:34:44.280
But they used to think that it was only a couple hundred years old.
00:34:52.060
They also don't understand how it was made, which to me is very fascinating because it's not paint.
00:34:57.320
But they don't know what caused the image itself and how that technology would have even been available a couple thousand years ago.
00:35:06.940
An intense light, I mean, atomic, to leave almost like a photographic imprint on a piece of cloth.
00:35:19.340
It's wild to look at because it's so interesting.
00:35:25.120
The wounds on the thorns, the hands, the feet, and the scourging.
00:35:31.300
Longer conversation about the Shroud of Turin and faith, and they got into, of course, filmmaking and all these different things.
00:35:38.240
But I was particularly happy that Mel Gibson brought up the Shroud of Turin because the Shroud of Turin presents a real dilemma for skeptics.
00:35:51.080
And because the problem is that there is no ordinary explanation available for the Shroud of Turin.
00:35:58.020
It's one of those things that no matter what, you're left with an extraordinary explanation no matter what.
00:36:11.500
Because all the ordinary ones have been ruled out.
00:36:14.420
So there's the supernatural explanation, which is that this was the burial shroud of Jesus Christ.
00:36:18.880
Because the image was imprinted miraculously on the cloth, which is what I believe.
00:36:25.660
And if you don't like that, if you've ruled that out because of your, and there's really only one reason why you would rule out that explanation ahead of time.
00:36:34.580
Which is that you have a preconceived bias against supernatural events.
00:36:39.480
And if you're in that camp, then you're left with an equally sort of inconceivable, extraordinary scenario, which is that some forger would have to be, I mean, again, if you're a skeptic, you would say the Middle Ages.
00:37:01.340
You would probably try to claim that it doesn't go all the way back to the first century, even though there's evidence, as Mel Gibson talks about, there's evidence that it did.
00:37:10.100
But at a minimum, you can't claim that the Shroud of Turin was actually forged by someone 50 years ago, obviously.
00:37:16.920
I mean, there is a written record of the Shroud going back, you know, to the Middle Ages, at least.
00:37:25.960
So, if you're in that camp, then you're going to say, okay, well, we know that the Shroud of Turin has, it's been known, there's records of it going back to whatever, the 12th, 11th or 12th century.
00:37:41.360
And so, someone, some forger, all the way back then, you know, someone almost a thousand years ago, figured out a way to imprint this image on a piece of cloth.
00:37:59.000
And they were able to do it in such a manner that nobody, no scientist for the next 1,000 years would be able to explain how they put it on there.
00:38:13.080
So, this is someone with, obviously, who had no access to anything approaching modern technology, and yet they were able to somehow get this image on a cloth in a way that would stump scientists who have access to technology so advanced that this alleged forger couldn't even conceive of it.
00:38:37.500
That's, that's still, you know, an extraordinary explanation.
00:38:45.100
So, again, there is no ordinary explanation here.
00:38:49.680
Speaking of extraordinary, one other quick thing, something I wanted to mention.
00:38:53.940
You know, I know corporate America gets a bad rap, and for good reason, most of the time.
00:38:59.080
But sometimes, you know, you got to give even a big corporation some credit for being innovative, because you might think that innovation is dead.
00:39:06.160
Apple putting out the same phone, right, for 20 years, claiming it's new, but it's just the same thing.
00:39:12.260
Disney doing live-action remakes now of cartoons that they put out eight years ago.
00:39:17.400
Soon they'll be doing, I'll tell you what, soon they're going to be doing animated remakes of live-action remakes of animated films.
00:39:24.860
I'm telling you right now, by the year 2060, there will be 52 versions of the same Lion King movie.
00:39:35.120
Nobody outside of Tesla and SpaceX seems to be innovating.
00:39:42.660
A lot of headlines about this, because they rolled out the biggest brand update in 20 years.
00:40:09.040
So you see on the left is before, and then on the right is now a complete transformation.
00:40:28.520
So you know that some marketing whiz was paid millions of dollars to come up with this.
00:40:36.540
They had access to the top marketing guru on the planet.
00:40:40.600
And that guy was in the lab for years, years, working on the new Walmart logo, slaving away.
00:40:46.440
It was like, it was like Beethoven writing Symphony No. 9 or something.
00:40:49.660
This genius, this eccentric genius in his office for years at a time coming up with this.
00:40:58.520
And people were stunned, stunned by its beauty.
00:41:01.940
Maybe this was a flash, you know, kind of a light bulb moment.
00:41:06.700
Maybe this was some savant, some wisecracking new kid on the block type, some rebel without a cause,
00:41:12.500
just kind of sauntered into that marketing meeting at Walmart HQ, took a drag of his cigarette and said,
00:41:38.700
Anyway, so who's to say, who's to say that innovation is dead?
00:41:43.760
It's, at least there are some, there are some real risk takers out there in the world.
00:41:57.960
Did you know that 80% of resolutions fail by February?
00:42:05.380
Well, this year can be different because I've discovered something that's transformed my approach to health.
00:42:09.960
It's called Lumen, the world's first handheld metabolic coach.
00:42:14.920
It measures your metabolism through your breath, showing you whether you're burning fat or carbs.
00:42:19.820
Every morning I take a quick breath into my Lumen, and it gives me personalized nutrition recommendations for the day.
00:42:25.720
I can even check before and after workouts to optimize my fitness routine, make sure I'm staying on track for my 2025 goals.
00:42:32.420
You see, your metabolism is like your body's engine.
00:42:34.540
It's central to everything from energy levels to sleep quality.
00:42:37.440
What I love about Lumen is how it adapts to your body's needs.
00:42:40.740
Because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits, including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, etc.
00:42:56.080
Lumen provides clear insights and guidance to help you make informed decisions about your health.
00:43:01.860
It's about understanding your body, making sustainable changes over time.
00:43:07.980
Go to lumen.me slash Walsh to get 20% off your Lumen.
00:43:11.400
That's L-U-M-E-N dot me slash Walsh for 20% off your purchase.
00:43:18.500
Is anyone else wondering why Matt opened his computer and it sounded like a wind tunnel blaring?
00:43:33.360
I should be on some TLC special about my strange addiction.
00:43:45.260
I run it when I'm on my computer, when I'm writing in my office.
00:43:50.460
Am I the only person on the planet who's like, I always have white noise running?
00:44:02.680
The irony of a talk show host claiming he's not a talker.
00:44:06.220
You know, it's actually not as ironic as it seems.
00:44:08.140
A lot of the people who talk or perform for a living are introverts.
00:44:19.240
If a person is good at standing on a stage in front of people, whether it's a physical
00:44:25.060
stage or virtual, especially physical, or both, you know, there's a very good chance
00:44:30.120
that the person is not talkative or extroverted.
00:44:36.820
During some stand-up special, he said that when he's on stage, he said, I can talk to
00:44:42.560
all of you, but I can't talk to any of you, which was a funny way of putting it, meaning
00:44:49.220
He's very good at doing that, but he would have trouble talking to people individually.
00:44:54.640
Whereas you'll find a lot of the people who are the social butterfly types, and they can
00:44:58.800
kind of work their way through a room and have all these individual one-on-one, small talky
00:45:04.300
Those same people, if you put them in front of a microphone and you said, okay, now have
00:45:09.660
a conversation with all of these people, you know, at once, you know, talk for 30 minutes.
00:45:16.760
I saw those same talkative extroverted types would oftentimes have a lot of trouble with
00:45:24.460
that, and, you know, these are just different muscles that you're flexing, I suppose.
00:45:37.960
Other than management coaches and players, no one should care more than 15 minutes after
00:45:42.200
the conclusion of a game, that's true, objectively speaking.
00:45:49.680
You know, I admit I'm emotionally impacted by a big Ravens loss for more than 15 minutes,
00:45:57.480
At least if it's the playoffs and the season's over, Ravens are playing the Bills on Sunday
00:46:02.860
night, and if they lose, I am going to be impacted by it for more than 15 minutes.
00:46:23.440
I'm totally conscious of the fact that it's completely unreasonable.
00:46:27.960
I'm completely conscious of the fact that it makes no sense.
00:46:30.840
There's no reason for me to be actually sad about this.
00:46:35.340
Because whether the Ravens lose this weekend or they play for a few more weeks and win
00:46:40.580
a Super Bowl trophy, it has zero impact on my life.
00:46:43.680
It does not mean anything to me, to my life, positive or negative.
00:46:48.860
Everything in my life is exactly the same, no matter what happens with them and whether
00:46:55.280
And yet, and yet, emotionally, I'm still invested.
00:47:04.260
I can't, it's one of those things, if you think about it too literally, it does start
00:47:08.340
But, you know, it doesn't, I mean, you could, look, you could say the same thing about a
00:47:14.020
I mean, when you watch a movie and something sad is happening on screen and you are sad in
00:47:18.960
response to the sad thing, you could argue that that is irrational, like, because you're
00:47:26.840
These people are just reciting words on a script, right?
00:47:36.480
Um, so I would say that it's, it's part of what makes us human is that we're able to,
00:47:44.060
to become emotionally invested, uh, in these sorts of things that maybe don't directly impact
00:47:54.720
I got to work on my rationalization here a little bit, but I'll, I'll figure it out.
00:47:58.580
Um, the whelp and then starting a whole new conversation sounds like a good old fashioned
00:48:05.080
Yeah, well, I'm, I'm, uh, you know, Irish by descent.
00:48:08.920
And, uh, so we have the Irish goodbye, which is the, I guess the opposite of the Midwest
00:48:14.080
goodbye because the Irish goodbye is that you don't say goodbye.
00:48:23.800
You're at a party, some kind of social function.
00:48:26.160
And you're, you're there, you're talking to people.
00:48:29.300
And then all of a sudden people look around and say, Oh, what happened to, where'd Matt
00:48:45.280
The next moment people are looking around and you're gone and that's it.
00:48:48.700
Um, and I, I kind of, I, I, I prefer that strategy.
00:49:00.780
I'm, I'm so invested in it that to say goodbye is it's too difficult.
00:49:06.080
So I can only, I can only leave like a bandaid.
00:49:12.460
Um, Mandy Moore asked her fans to donate to her in-laws because they lost everything in
00:49:16.940
the fire, even though she's getting paid like $250,000 an episode for her show.
00:49:23.920
Crazier thing is that they raised over 200,000 bucks.
00:49:28.520
There are many regular people that became homeless that won't get that help.
00:49:33.460
The administration is only offering one-time payments of $700 to victims if they qualify.
00:49:41.640
I agree for a famous celebrity to put out a GoFundMe, um, for their own family members
00:49:49.700
I think another lesson of, uh, maybe of, of that story and also the tragic tale of our
00:49:55.100
poor friend, uh, Digimon Han Solo or whatever his name was, is that a lot of those, a lot
00:50:01.020
of the people in Hollywood are not as rich as we think, or as they portray themselves.
00:50:09.080
I don't watch it, but if you do, you're going to see these kind of ostentatious displays of
00:50:14.460
wealth with these people walking around with designer outfits that cost more than your house.
00:50:27.020
Um, and some of them are, but, but not that many of them.
00:50:30.300
The rest of them are, um, are just regular wealthy.
00:50:34.080
And so then they want to turn around and cry and want sympathy because they're not uber
00:50:47.200
The Daily Wire will be live from DC for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as he's sworn
00:50:58.600
To celebrate the 47th president, we're giving you 47% off at Daily Wire Plus annual memberships
00:51:03.780
Plus we're including a free $20 gift as a thank you for joining the fight.
00:51:08.380
And remember, Daily Wire Plus is the only place where you get our daily shows ad-free
00:51:14.060
Plus unlimited access to premium entertainment, hit movies, groundbreaking documentaries, and
00:51:20.280
Use code 47 at dailywire.com slash subscribe for 47% off your membership today.
00:51:33.800
All right, today for our daily cancellation, we have a brief update to a story we discussed
00:51:42.640
Not to spoil the ending, but this whole segment really has one point, which is just to say
00:51:47.900
And as you know, I hate, I hate having to point that out, that I'm right about something.
00:51:58.100
Because due to my overriding humility, I don't like saying I told you so.
00:52:01.680
But I feel that I must say it because the fact is that I did tell you so.
00:52:05.800
And so I'm duty bound by my code of journalistic ethics to give you the facts, especially when
00:52:13.300
So yesterday we talked about the viral story of that, the Packer fan, a man named Alex
00:52:18.660
Passara, who posted a video of an Eagles fan at Eagles Stadium on Sunday verbally accosting
00:52:24.460
And I'll say, here's that video one more time in case, in case you missed it.
00:52:29.280
After reviewing the play, the runner was short of the goal line.
00:52:38.440
They got one more, they got one more yard though.
00:52:53.060
As we discussed yesterday, this short clip of the Eagles fan cussing out Alex and his
00:53:15.020
The video racked up tens of millions of views on Twitter alone.
00:53:18.620
The outrage mob got to work and within a very short time, the name of the Eagles fan and
00:53:22.400
his place of employment had been published all over social media.
00:53:26.520
And now the fan has not only been banned from the stadium, but has also been fired from his
00:53:31.380
His, his now former company, a DEI focused management consulting firm, which is admittedly pretty
00:53:38.260
funny, put out a statement condemning his conduct, calling it vile, disgusting, unacceptable,
00:53:43.240
and horrific, and saying that he'd been terminated.
00:53:52.460
His behavior was reprehensible, not to mention he worked for a DEI firm.
00:53:58.880
So this is not exactly the sort of guy that I am predisposed to sympathize with, and I don't.
00:54:09.460
And so we have to wonder whether being doxed and villainized on the national stage and then
00:54:14.160
fired from your job is a proportional response to the offense of using bad language at a football
00:54:21.780
Now, I've always said that in most cases where there's some kind of random dispute or altercation
00:54:27.940
between private citizens, assuming nobody was killed or seriously hurt, in most of those
00:54:34.360
cases, there's no reason for the dispute to become national news.
00:54:38.420
The entire country doesn't have to get involved.
00:54:41.720
And I would say that even if the incident was fully and accurately captured in the clip,
00:54:49.080
and there was no need for additional context, still, I would say, like, probably there's no
00:54:53.780
reason for anyone outside of the people who are directly there to care about this.
00:54:59.000
Like, people say rude things to each other all the time, like, millions of times a day
00:55:06.720
But, and here's the part where I sadly have to say that I told you so.
00:55:11.180
The other problem with these viral videos of random altercations between random people is
00:55:15.840
that, as I said yesterday, they are always out of context.
00:55:22.500
100% of the time, they're out of context because they always pick up in the middle.
00:55:30.780
There's a reason that somebody started filming, which means that there's a whole part of the
00:55:35.800
story prior to when the camera was turned on, or at least prior to when the video that's
00:55:40.580
being presented to us begins, that we're not seeing.
00:55:50.680
So the person who posted the viral video wants us to see just the part they're showing us,
00:55:57.920
which is why, if you spent more than 30 seconds on the internet in your life, you should know by now that
00:56:03.020
anytime a viral video is used to gin up outrage, it is always lacking at least some important context.
00:56:10.780
So you should always ask what happened before the video started.
00:56:16.740
Or, now, you could just say, oh, I don't care about this, so I'm not going to ask, which is fine.
00:56:22.480
That's a perfectly fine response, is to say, I just don't care one way or another.
00:56:25.000
But, if you're sharing the video and expressing your outrage about it, then you clearly do care.
00:56:33.400
And so if you do care, then you should care about what actually happened.
00:56:38.800
If you don't care about what actually happened, then you shouldn't care at all.
00:56:43.220
Now, there's nothing that could justify the language the Eagles fan used,
00:56:49.740
but it is very possible, even likely, that the two sides were being mutually obnoxious to each other
00:56:54.860
throughout the course of the game, but we were only given a glimpse of the obnoxious behavior of one side.
00:57:03.060
Which, by the way, this is like a classic passive-aggressive manipulation move that people do,
00:57:07.160
where they say the things that set somebody else off so that people will only see the reaction
00:57:14.820
and not see what the other person did, the classic, classic move.
00:57:20.940
And, look, if that was the case, it would mean that the victims here are not really victims.
00:57:26.220
It would also mean that the two-day outrage cycle is massively overblown,
00:57:33.220
There would be no reason for anyone to care about some people being jerks to each other at a football game,
00:57:42.140
The story then is just, oh, well, you've got three people at a football game who are just being to each other.
00:57:49.440
Why should there be any outrage at all about this?
00:57:55.360
They're all jackasses in that case, and there's nothing else that needs to be said about it.
00:58:00.360
Well, yesterday it was revealed that this guy, Alex Basara, unsurprisingly, first of all, is a YouTube content creator.
00:58:10.240
Apparently, he posted a GoFundMe last week to raise money to go to the game with his fiancée.
00:58:16.280
Now, it's already rather pathetic that a grown man is begging strangers for money so that he can watch a football game.
00:58:22.340
That's not really the point, but I do just want to say that I've got no problem with people raising money when it's needed,
00:58:31.440
when you've got someone who's in a place of need.
00:58:35.560
And I have given to those kinds of fundraising campaigns many times.
00:58:41.500
But begging for money from strangers as a grown man because you want to go watch a football game is pathetic.
00:58:50.660
Well, let's go to the description that Basara wrote on this GoFundMe page.
00:59:26.060
Leaving aside that he is panhandling for money to go to a football game.
00:59:31.180
The point is that this is a content creator who has stated ahead of time that he wants to go to the belly of the beast,
00:59:38.340
where he has already, according to him, been verbally and physically accosted on multiple occasions.
00:59:44.400
Now he's going back with his fiancée in full Packers regalia.
00:59:49.120
He knowingly brought his fiancée into that environment, fully aware of what would happen and seemingly hoping that it would happen.
00:59:57.240
Here's the selfie that he took on the way into the stadium.
00:59:59.800
And as you can see, he's wearing a body camera.
01:00:03.460
Not just what I thought this was a video taken by a phone.
01:00:07.600
So we have a YouTube content creator with a body cam going into a place where he fully and consciously and explicitly expects to be harassed and bringing his fiancée along for the experience, hoping to get some content for his YouTube channel.
01:00:25.360
And then when his fiancée is cussed out, he doesn't defend her or even switch seats with her.
01:00:31.080
Instead, he just uses it for clips, clicks, which was clearly the entire point all along.
01:00:36.860
So we still don't know what happened in the moments leading up to the clip that we've all seen.
01:00:43.300
Basara could post the whole video in full context, which, by the way, you just destroyed a guy's life.
01:00:57.340
And whether the guy deserved it or not, you just destroyed this man's life.
01:01:02.420
So you now have a moral obligation at a minimum to give, like, let everyone see the whole thing.
01:01:20.920
The outrage mob says, oh, yeah, I didn't care about that anymore.
01:01:23.300
We cared about that a lot for 30 seconds, enough to, like, pass judgment on this.
01:01:35.680
And there's a reason why this guy has not provided the whole video.
01:01:40.500
Because it seems now highly, highly, highly likely that Basara and his fiancee were engaging and antagonizing the Eagles fan just as much as he was antagonizing them.
01:01:53.180
Again, they raised money through GoFundMe so that they could go there and capture precisely this kind of interaction.
01:02:01.560
The likelihood that the Packers fans are at least equally at fault here and also said obnoxious things that they just happen to not show us the video of seems to me to be extremely high.
01:02:12.720
And yet, only one side of the dispute gets his life destroyed.
01:02:16.980
The other guy gets YouTube followers and social media clout.
01:02:24.900
It's not even close to the most egregious case.
01:02:29.240
We see this same story play out time and time again.
01:02:32.220
Again, the masses react to a 15-second video of an interaction between people where the interaction obviously lasted for a lot longer than 15 seconds.
01:02:42.820
And they don't even ask what happened before it or what happened after.
01:02:48.280
They don't ask who filmed it or why or what their motives were.
01:02:57.740
They'll dig into the life story of the assigned villain and find out where he works and lives and who his relatives are
01:03:05.740
before they ask even one single question about the people on the other side of the dispute.
01:03:13.820
To put it simply, people are very easy to manipulate, which is certainly not breaking news, I understand.
01:03:20.740
But it is why the outrage mob that barks on command in response to out-of-context viral videos is today canceled.