The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1515 - Nagging Democrats Shriek At Pete Hegseth During Confirmation Hearing

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00:00:16.040 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, Pete Hegseth endured a barrage of nagging and screeching

00:00:20.500 during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

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.

00:00:28.660 They are. We'll talk about it.

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00:00:50.020 Talk about all that and more today for the Matt Walsh Show.

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00:02:24.100 It now appears to be all but certain that Pete Hegseth will be confirmed as the next

00:02:27.800 Secretary of Defense.

00:02:28.780 Republican leaders in the Senate have said as much, and it's not hard to see why that's the

00:02:33.140 case.

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.

00:02:50.300 He was also able to put all that into context.

00:02:53.540 Under the leadership of former Raytheon board member Lloyd Austin, the Pentagon carried out

00:02:57.520 political purges in the military.

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

00:03:19.200 people who ran the old regime.

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

00:03:31.060 gotcha moments and non sequiturs.

00:03:33.240 And the optics could not have been worse, as particular women in the hearing kept screaming 0.62

00:03:40.660 at Hegseth, all while trying to make the argument that women are just as capable of serving in

00:03:46.160 combat roles as men.

00:03:48.080 Now, if there was a way to weaponize nagging so that you could literally nag your enemies 0.98

00:03:52.940 to death, they may have a point.

00:03:55.020 I mean, these women could create a weapon of mass nagging destruction and kill thousands 1.00

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

00:04:13.780 to here.

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

00:04:25.280 innovation in any organization in his life.

00:04:27.820 And here's how that went.

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?

00:04:42.800 We need innovation.

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

00:05:03.280 organizations fought ferociously against.

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

00:05:17.140 on the record.

00:05:17.460 OK, I have limited time.

00:05:18.500 Thank you for that.

00:05:19.540 Give me an example of where you've driven down cost.

00:05:22.900 I've heard examples of...

00:05:27.060 Thank you.

00:05:29.020 I know you're answering.

00:05:30.600 That's...

00:05:31.000 No, we don't need answers here.

00:05:32.640 You misunderstand, Mr. Hegseth.

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.

00:05:48.260 That's the first mistake.

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

00:05:54.680 already know the answer to.

00:05:56.680 And then he made it clear that he didn't really care about the answer to the question either.

00:06:00.720 And so just total humiliation was the result.

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.

00:06:23.940 So that is what box checking looks like.

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.

00:06:48.160 Watch.

00:06:48.460 But the other factor, too, is you've already disparaged in writing the Geneva Convention,

00:06:55.100 the rules of law, all of these things.

00:06:58.440 How will you be able to effectively lead a military in which one of the principal elements

00:07:06.160 is discipline, respectful, lawful authority?

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?

00:07:20.160 I don't think I need to, sir.

00:07:22.320 Why not?

00:07:23.080 Because the men and women watching understand.

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

00:07:40.120 tough calls on the front lines.

00:07:41.840 Thank you, Senator.

00:07:42.820 Interesting.

00:07:43.740 Thank you, Senator.

00:07:44.280 Thank you very much.

00:07:46.560 Now, the implication is that Pete Hegseth is a terrible guy because he used the word

00:07:50.120 JAG-off in the past.

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. 0.68

00:08:10.140 By the way, I will say that, and look, I didn't serve in the military.

00:08:16.040 I know a lot of people who did serve.

00:08:17.480 And so one thing I know is that, you know, guys who served in the military, they don't

00:08:25.480 take kindly to coarse language.

00:08:27.320 You don't, that's one thing about the military.

00:08:30.540 You're not going to hear any coarse language.

00:08:32.520 I mean, JAG-off, you go around guys in the military, you use a term like JAG-off, they're

00:08:38.640 going to be very offended by that.

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

00:08:53.880 Hegseth's drinking habits.

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

00:09:09.700 the military, no, sir, no, sir.

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 0.66

00:09:41.000 to serve in combat roles.

00:09:42.040 Now, you're not going to say it as directly as that in a hearing like this, because the

00:09:46.140 whole point is that you need to be confirmed.

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.

00:09:56.800 So you don't want to give that to them.

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

00:10:14.420 military are already the same.

00:10:17.040 Uh, watch.

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. 1.00

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. 0.99

00:10:51.720 They have not been reduced in any way.

00:10:54.220 And our combat units, our infantry is lethal.

00:11:00.560 Uh, okay.

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.

00:11:26.800 You know, that's the claim.

00:11:28.180 Now, before we play Hegseth's response to this line of question, it's important to point

00:11:31.800 out that, um, this claim is just not true.

00:11:37.080 The standards of physical fitness across every branch of the armed forces are much lower for

00:11:42.660 women than they are for men. 0.99

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

00:11:56.240 yard swim.

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

00:12:05.240 they don't have to.

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.

00:12:20.960 That's not satisfactory.

00:12:22.240 Okay.

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

00:12:31.860 time is 14 minutes and 45 seconds.

00:12:34.080 So they get a full two minutes and 30 seconds extra to complete the run, which for a one and

00:12:39.220 a half mile race is an eternity.

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.

00:12:52.440 The difference is even more stark.

00:12:53.720 Men aged 17 and 19 have to hit 46 pushups for a satisfactory rank.

00:12:58.180 Women only need to hit 20. 1.00

00:13:00.220 Meanwhile, the minimum outstanding score for men for pushups is 86 while it's only 47 pushups

00:13:06.640 for women.

00:13:07.460 If you go to the army's website, you'll find similar numbers across their physical fitness

00:13:10.800 tests.

00:13:11.760 Uh, this is the sprint drag carry test.

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.

00:13:25.040 And as you can see, men get max points.

00:13:27.340 If they finish the test in one minute, 29 seconds, women get max points. 1.00

00:13:31.480 If they finish it in one minute, 55 seconds.

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

00:13:56.300 platoon continued the raid.

00:13:58.920 Dragging him through the streets of Iraq that night felt like I'd never worked out in my 0.71

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.

00:14:10.140 Women shouldn't do these jobs ever. 1.00

00:14:12.440 They can't without endangering the mission and the men around them.

00:14:16.060 But the military appears to be fine with that.

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

00:14:28.080 men on top and women on the bottom. 0.87

00:14:29.620 As you can see, men need to do 29 push-ups if they're under 30 years old.

00:14:33.860 Women only need to do 15. 1.00

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. 1.00

00:14:45.900 And I'd go on, but you get the point.

00:14:46.940 I mean, there is nothing gender-neutral about the fitness standards for any branch of the armed

00:14:52.780 services.

00:14:53.940 This is not up for debate.

00:14:55.640 It can't be disputed.

00:14:56.940 It's simply a fact that standards are lower for women. 1.00

00:15:00.580 And that's been the case for decades.

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 0.98

00:15:14.620 military.

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

00:15:24.400 to join the military.

00:15:25.060 For the Coast Guard, what was the number, 29?

00:15:28.260 29 push-ups?

00:15:30.060 Which is downright pathetic.

00:15:31.940 I mean, we should expect a lot more of the people who are tasked with defending the country

00:15:35.260 from its enemies.

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

00:15:47.540 requirements.

00:15:48.100 But that has not been going well either.

00:15:52.980 As the Army Times reported in 2022, quote,

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

00:16:03.020 physical fitness standard.

00:16:05.040 The leg tuck is no longer an event.

00:16:06.740 A two-and-a-half-mile walk has been added as an alternate aerobic event for troops whose

00:16:11.460 medical profiles prevent them from running.

00:16:13.340 I mean, if their medical profiles prevent them from running, how are they even allowed to be

00:16:20.180 in the military is a question you might ask.

00:16:23.600 But, you know, a lot of, a total of 48% of active-duty enlisted women and 28% of active-duty 0.57

00:16:30.620 female officers could not pass the test. 1.00

00:16:33.620 In other words, they tried to make the test gender-neutral and women kept failing it. 0.96

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.

00:16:59.760 Watch.

00:16:59.840 My critiques, Senator, recently and in the past, and from personal experience, have been

00:17:05.900 instances where I've seen standards lowered.

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

00:17:46.660 Give me one example.

00:17:47.620 Please give me an example.

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 0.99

00:17:56.220 that disparages those women who are incredibly capable of meeting that standard. 1.00

00:18:01.440 Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry.

00:18:04.780 That does not exist.

00:18:06.720 So this was the theme of the hearing.

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. 1.00

00:18:24.940 The way that we know that the standards are not the same for women in the military is that

00:18:31.500 there are women in the military. 1.00

00:18:33.480 That's how we know.

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 1.00

00:18:47.700 the military?

00:18:49.000 Yes.

00:18:49.700 Well, then the standards are lower, because otherwise they wouldn't be in there.

00:18:54.260 All right?

00:18:54.780 Now, Pete Exeth may not want to say that out loud at a confirmation hearing, which makes

00:18:59.380 sense.

00:19:00.000 He shouldn't, because the point, again, is to be confirmed.

00:19:03.200 But it's the truth.

00:19:04.420 You know, including women in the military necessitates, by definition, lowering the standard. 0.99

00:19:10.960 Women cannot measure up to the same physical standard as men. 1.00

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? 0.95

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.

00:19:44.940 You know, but pick a number for push-ups.

00:19:49.740 29 is not enough.

00:19:52.440 I don't know.

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.

00:19:57.660 How many push-ups should you be able to do?

00:20:00.360 I mean, 60 at least?

00:20:04.080 So let's say you set it there.

00:20:06.400 All right.

00:20:06.820 How many women could do 60 push-ups? 1.00

00:20:08.700 I mean, in the entire country, in the whole country, there's how many adult women are in 1.00

00:20:13.580 the country?

00:20:13.940 100 plus million.

00:20:15.140 How many of them could do 60 push-ups? 0.98

00:20:16.720 Almost zero.

00:20:19.840 Almost zero.

00:20:21.460 And so that alone, and then before you even get into any of the other physical fitness

00:20:24.300 tests.

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. 1.00

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 1.00

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. 0.71

00:20:51.800 They're not equipped for it, physically or psychologically.

00:20:54.340 It's not what women are meant to do. 1.00

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

00:21:08.700 into combat.

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

00:21:13.580 progress.

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

00:21:19.380 turn back from this madness.

00:21:20.780 And after yesterday's confirmation hearing, finally, it seems like we'll have a defense

00:21:25.620 secretary who understands that.

00:21:28.440 Now let's get to our five headlines.

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00:22:51.560 That's F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash Walsh.

00:22:55.200 You know, you like to think that when tragedy happens, people band together to help each other

00:22:59.220 out.

00:22:59.700 And indeed, a lot of that kind of thing has been happening in the wake of the L.A. fires.

00:23:04.080 There's also the darker side.

00:23:05.540 There are the lowlifes, the opportunists, the thugs, criminals who exploit tragedy for their 1.00

00:23:10.860 own benefit, which is why there's been a lot of looting in L.A. as people leave their homes

00:23:15.680 and flee the inferno.

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.

00:23:41.320 And, you know, that's the number arrested.

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.

00:23:52.700 And so we'll show you that.

00:23:54.020 Let's put that up on the screen.

00:23:56.580 Yeah, right there.

00:23:57.460 I'm, you know, they want a name and shame.

00:23:59.180 I'm all about shaming scumbags.

00:24:01.000 So I'll do my part here.

00:24:02.060 And we can see them there.

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

00:24:11.280 look at and go, really?

00:24:14.960 They don't seem like the type.

00:24:17.000 Maybe grandma down at the, you know, grandma down at the bottom, bottom center. 1.00

00:24:22.760 Maybe that one you're a little bit.

00:24:24.920 But even, you know, she has kind of the aura of a looter. 0.97

00:24:29.180 And, uh, actually, this would be a fun game show now that I'm just thinking about it.

00:24:33.380 It would be a fun game show.

00:24:34.540 You're, you're shown a mugshot and you have to guess what crime the person was arrested for.

00:24:40.380 That would be fun.

00:24:41.180 I think I would, I'd be great at that.

00:24:42.840 I would nail that game.

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

00:24:51.880 it.

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,

00:25:08.260 looting.

00:25:08.540 That's, that was their thing.

00:25:10.100 Top center.

00:25:10.660 I think if you showed me that and I had no context, I would say, oh, serial killer for

00:25:14.160 sure.

00:25:14.580 That that's a serial killer.

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

00:25:36.060 I would have made.

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.

00:25:45.760 So here's the Daily Mail.

00:25:47.960 Julia Roberts delivered a spicy comment to the criminals who are preying on the vulnerable 0.97

00:25:52.480 during the LA fires.

00:25:53.840 On Monday, the, uh, Pretty Woman star took to Instagram with a rare remark. 1.00

00:25:59.580 F you looters wrote the mother of three.

00:26:02.540 Uh, so that, and that was it.

00:26:05.380 I mean, that was kind of the whole message in terms of addressing the looting.

00:26:09.420 F you looters.

00:26:11.320 Well, but wait a second, Julia, you're, what do you mean F you looters?

00:26:15.020 You're a liberal, you're a Democrat.

00:26:16.820 You supported Kamala.

00:26:17.620 I mean, you did ads for her.

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

00:26:36.620 unheard.

00:26:37.160 They're trying to communicate.

00:26:38.940 They're trying to communicate with you.

00:26:42.500 They're just looking for bread.

00:26:44.000 Remember, isn't that what AOC said?

00:26:45.460 They're starving.

00:26:47.000 They're desperate.

00:26:48.020 They need something to eat.

00:26:49.940 Now, sure, they're not stealing food.

00:26:51.340 They're, they're taking valuables.

00:26:52.660 They're taking jewelry and electronics and so forth.

00:26:55.720 That just shows you how hungry they are.

00:26:57.540 I mean, they're so hungry.

00:26:58.440 They're trying to eat your jewelry.

00:27:00.000 That's how hungry these people are.

00:27:01.180 That's what they've been reduced to.

00:27:02.680 It's, it's, it's the poor things.

00:27:04.280 It's tragic.

00:27:07.040 Now, of course, I'm being facetious.

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.

00:27:24.680 He doesn't even get close to the mansion.

00:27:26.600 And so I get that.

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

00:27:39.060 and commit violent crimes.

00:27:40.420 Now you can see that those criminals are, are not misguided children.

00:27:44.560 They're actually evil.

00:27:45.840 Like they're bad human beings.

00:27:47.520 They, they are the bad guys.

00:27:48.920 And so you're angry at them.

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.

00:28:17.380 So I'm not saying it.

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.

00:28:45.820 Okay.

00:28:46.460 Love for justice, love for law and order.

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,

00:29:08.100 and otherwise you tend to side with them,

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.

00:29:25.520 That is a desire.

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.

00:29:43.020 Good news here.

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

00:30:06.760 that coincide with their gender at birth.

00:30:09.220 And there were a couple of Democrats who voted for the bill as well.

00:30:15.720 So another victory.

00:30:18.220 And you know my take on this.

00:30:19.920 The Dems have lost on this issue and it's just over.

00:30:27.800 Men and women's sports is all but over.

00:30:30.900 It's not officially 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.

00:30:40.040 And that's, I don't see that changing.

00:30:42.780 So they've just lost.

00:30:44.220 They've lost the argument.

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.

00:31:15.540 What would it be right now?

00:31:17.240 I mean, the winds have shifted even more in the direction of sanity just in the past six months,

00:31:23.500 especially in the wake of Trump's wins.

00:31:25.160 So what would it be now?

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 0.99

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.

00:31:59.320 So then what's the real number?

00:32:01.560 It's more than 70.

00:32:03.160 70 is like baseline.

00:32:05.340 Is it 80%?

00:32:07.060 90%?

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.

00:32:30.120 All right, I haven't really talked about this.

00:32:31.500 I haven't talked about this at all, but you've probably seen some of the clips.

00:32:34.540 Mel Gibson was on Joe Rogan.

00:32:37.920 Excellent conversation between Rogan and one of my favorite filmmakers of all time.

00:32:44.220 Mel Gibson, obviously, the artistic genius.

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.

00:32:54.700 Just a perfect film.

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.

00:33:52.660 I think it's a perfect movie.

00:33:53.460 I think it just perfectly does what it sets out to do.

00:33:56.160 I wouldn't change a single part of it.

00:33:58.540 Perfect film.

00:34:00.060 Apocalypto is in that category.

00:34:01.400 It's actually in both categories.

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.

00:34:17.140 This was interesting.

00:34:18.880 Watch this.

00:34:20.120 And I still have that faith.

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.

00:34:36.320 Have you seen that?

00:34:36.920 I've been reading about it, and I know that there's some contention.

00:34:41.720 There's some discussion and debate about it.

00:34:44.280 But they used to think that it was only a couple hundred years old.

00:34:47.480 Yeah.

00:34:47.700 And now they've changed that.

00:34:50.360 Yeah, they've said, no, it's back then.

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.

00:35:14.700 Yeah.

00:35:15.560 And it's wild.

00:35:17.120 Pull that up.

00:35:17.900 Pull the Shroud of Turin up.

00:35:19.080 Oh, yeah.

00:35:19.340 It's wild to look at because it's so interesting.

00:35:22.280 Yeah, yeah.

00:35:22.840 Scourged, beaten.

00:35:24.520 Yeah.

00:35:24.860 A crap.

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.

00:35:48.180 That's what's so wonderful about it.

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.

00:39:23.920 That's, that's going to happen.

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.

00:39:31.400 So it's bad.

00:39:32.520 It's bad.

00:39:33.160 It's, it's bland.

00:39:34.240 Nothing is new.

00:39:35.120 Nobody outside of Tesla and SpaceX seems to be innovating.

00:39:38.880 Until now, until now.

00:39:40.260 Walmart has grabbed headlines this week.

00:39:42.660 A lot of headlines about this, because they rolled out the biggest brand update in 20 years.

00:39:49.380 Pretty big news.

00:39:50.360 In the marketing world, this is big stuff.

00:39:52.500 They completely revamped their logo.

00:39:54.860 A total makeover.

00:39:56.400 Just a glow-up, as the kids would say.

00:39:59.780 So, get ready for this.

00:40:01.980 Let's check it out.

00:40:02.580 This is the, there it is.

00:40:07.280 That's the Revent logo.

00:40:09.040 So you see on the left is before, and then on the right is now a complete transformation.

00:40:14.620 It's so much, it's so much bluer.

00:40:21.080 It's very blue.

00:40:23.020 It was blue before, don't get me wrong.

00:40:25.060 But now it's even more blue.

00:40:26.820 You know, which is incredible.

00:40:28.520 So you know that some marketing whiz was paid millions of dollars to come up with this.

00:40:33.240 They brought in the top marketing guru.

00:40:34.940 This is Walmart, okay?

00:40:36.080 This is Walmart.

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.

00:40:57.380 And then he unveiled it.

00:40:58.520 And people were stunned, stunned by its beauty.

00:41:01.340 Or maybe it was different.

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,

00:41:20.020 bluer, make it bluer.

00:41:21.720 And everyone was stunned.

00:41:26.680 That's all, bluer.

00:41:28.420 Not just bluer, by the way.

00:41:30.140 Also yellower, too.

00:41:32.100 It's bluer and yellower.

00:41:33.480 There's more yellow and there's more blue.

00:41:36.160 I mean, that is, there it is.

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.

00:41:48.940 And I appreciate that.

00:41:50.880 So let's get to the comment section.

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00:43:18.500 Is anyone else wondering why Matt opened his computer and it sounded like a wind tunnel blaring?

00:43:24.500 Yeah, on the show yesterday.

00:43:25.760 Well, that was my white noise.

00:43:28.640 I'm a white noise addict.

00:43:31.080 And it is bizarre.

00:43:33.360 I should be on some TLC special about my strange addiction.

00:43:36.900 Isn't that a TLC show?

00:43:38.060 I'm addicted to white noise.

00:43:40.040 I can't sleep without it.

00:43:42.140 I need to have the fan to sleep.

00:43:45.260 I run it when I'm on my computer, when I'm writing in my office.

00:43:49.400 I don't know.

00:43:49.760 Is this a thing?

00:43:50.460 Am I the only person on the planet who's like, I always have white noise running?

00:43:55.160 I don't know why it is.

00:43:56.240 It's one of my many weird hangups.

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.

00:44:16.860 You know, that's very common.

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.

00:44:34.280 Jerry Seinfeld put it well.

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

00:44:46.540 that he can talk to everybody all at once.

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

00:45:02.760 type conversations.

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,

00:45:55.740 so I do admit that.

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.

00:46:10.020 I totally admit that.

00:46:10.980 It's not all day, though.

00:46:12.200 It's like an hour or two.

00:46:14.260 It is an hour or two.

00:46:15.100 It's an hour or two of actually being upset.

00:46:18.760 I mean, really upset about this.

00:46:22.420 But here's the difference.

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

00:46:53.020 they win a game or not.

00:46:54.280 Fully aware of that.

00:46:55.280 And yet, and yet, emotionally, I'm still invested.

00:47:03.080 I can't, I don't know.

00:47:04.260 I can't, it's one of those things, if you think about it too literally, it does start

00:47:07.820 to ruin it.

00:47:08.340 But, you know, it doesn't, I mean, you could, look, you could say the same thing about a

00:47:12.740 movie, right?

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

00:47:24.760 aware that this isn't really happening.

00:47:26.840 These people are just reciting words on a script, right?

00:47:29.920 They're doing cuts in between takes.

00:47:31.860 They're going to grab a snack.

00:47:33.220 They're, I mean, why are you sad?

00:47:35.300 This isn't actually happening.

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

00:47:50.100 our lives.

00:47:51.560 Um, I don't know.

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

00:48:04.140 Midwest goodbye.

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 1.00

00:48:14.080 goodbye because the Irish goodbye is that you don't say goodbye.

00:48:18.680 The Irish goodbye. 0.94

00:48:19.680 That's another one.

00:48:20.440 I'm, I'm big on the Irish goodbye. 0.99

00:48:22.240 The Irish goodbye is you're at a function.

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

00:48:32.540 go?

00:48:32.800 Is he still here?

00:48:33.680 No, I'm just gone.

00:48:34.560 I didn't say goodbye to anyone.

00:48:36.040 I'm gone mysteriously gone with the wind.

00:48:40.300 And, uh, that's the Irish move. 0.72

00:48:41.920 You just want, you're there one moment.

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.

00:48:54.120 You know why?

00:48:54.760 Cause saying goodbye is painful to me.

00:48:56.500 Cause I, you know why it is?

00:48:57.600 Cause I enjoy it so much.

00:48:59.060 I enjoy being around people so much.

00:49:00.780 I'm, I'm so invested in it that to say goodbye is it's too difficult.

00:49:04.580 I can't do it.

00:49:05.340 I can't do it.

00:49:06.080 So I can only, I can only leave like a bandaid.

00:49:09.900 Just rip it off.

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.

00:49:21.420 What is her show?

00:49:22.440 I don't even know.

00:49:23.920 Crazier thing is that they raised over 200,000 bucks.

00:49:26.380 These celebrities really have some nerve.

00:49:28.520 There are many regular people that became homeless that won't get that help.

00:49:31.920 Can't believe the admission.

00:49:33.460 The administration is only offering one-time payments of $700 to victims if they qualify.

00:49:39.240 Yeah, I saw that story about Mandy Moore. 0.91

00:49:41.000 It is obscene.

00:49:41.640 I agree for a famous celebrity to put out a GoFundMe, um, for their own family members

00:49:48.080 rather than just paying for it themselves.

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.

00:50:06.640 So you watch the Oscars red carpet.

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.

00:50:19.700 Most of that stuff is rented, all right?

00:50:22.020 They, they can't afford it either.

00:50:23.640 So they portray themselves as uber wealthy.

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

00:50:39.220 wealthy.

00:50:39.600 They're just regular wealthy.

00:50:40.820 The poor things.

00:50:43.140 Are we tired of winning yet?

00:50:45.240 Because look, it's just begun.

00:50:47.200 The Daily Wire will be live from DC for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as he's sworn

00:50:51.820 in as the 47th president of the United States.

00:50:53.860 And we're not just going to watch history.

00:50:55.940 We're bringing it to you live and uncensored.

00:50:58.600 To celebrate the 47th president, we're giving you 47% off at Daily Wire Plus annual memberships

00:51:02.900 right now.

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

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00:51:20.280 Use code 47 at dailywire.com slash subscribe for 47% off your membership today.

00:51:26.380 Now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:51:33.800 All right, today for our daily cancellation, we have a brief update to a story we discussed

00:51:37.840 yesterday.

00:51:38.620 The update is, in summary, that I'm right.

00:51:42.640 Not to spoil the ending, but this whole segment really has one point, which is just to say

00:51:46.820 that I'm right.

00:51:47.900 And as you know, I hate, I hate having to point that out, that I'm right about something.

00:51:53.780 Man, I hate it.

00:51:55.240 Darn.

00:51:56.240 Darn that I have to do this.

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

00:52:11.420 the fact is that I'm right.

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

00:52:23.920 his fiance.

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.

00:52:41.040 They're close.

00:52:42.160 Yeah, but they're not, they're not in.

00:52:43.540 It's not a touchdown.

00:52:46.300 Okay, well, don't, don't call her.

00:52:50.440 She's a lovely dog.

00:52:51.980 Cool.

00:52:52.780 Cool.

00:52:53.060 As we discussed yesterday, this short clip of the Eagles fan cussing out Alex and his

00:53:11.820 fiancee went very, very viral.

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

00:53:30.660 job.

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.

00:53:46.120 So, this guy's life is effectively destroyed.

00:53:50.140 Granted, it's hard to have sympathy for him.

00:53:52.460 His behavior was reprehensible, not to mention he worked for a DEI firm.

00:53:56.780 And he's an Eagles fan, worst of all.

00:53:58.880 So this is not exactly the sort of guy that I am predisposed to sympathize with, and I don't.

00:54:04.220 But even so, justice is proportional.

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

00:54:20.760 stadium.

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

00:55:04.240 this sort of thing happens.

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.

00:55:22.180 Always.

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.

00:55:44.400 We're not seeing that part of the story.

00:55:47.460 We're getting, like, Act 3 here.

00:55:49.540 We're not getting Act 1 and 2.

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.

00:56:21.780 That's fine, too.

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.

00:56:42.440 You just say nothing.

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,

00:57:31.200 even more overblown than it already appears.

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,

00:57:40.960 because that would be the story.

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.

00:57:48.040 Who cares?

00:57:49.440 Why should there be any outrage at all about this?

00:57:52.760 Because there'd be no clear bad guy.

00:57:55.360 They're all jackasses in that case, and there's nothing else that needs to be said about it.

00:57:58.780 So, is that what happened?

00:58:00.360 Well, yesterday it was revealed that this guy, Alex Basara, unsurprisingly, first of all, is a YouTube content creator.

00:58:08.800 Okay?

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.

00:58:40.580 I've got no problem with that.

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.

00:58:55.500 He said,

00:58:56.060 Okay.

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.

01:00:03.080 Okay.

01:00:03.460 Not just what I thought this was a video taken by a phone.

01:00:06.000 He's wearing a bike.

01:00:06.660 He's got a GoPro on.

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.

01:00:50.420 Okay.

01:00:50.700 And we can all say he deserved it.

01:00:52.940 But fine.

01:00:53.300 Like, that's a real thing you did.

01:00:55.740 Like, this is not just a game.

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.

01:01:09.860 You have an obligation to do that.

01:01:12.240 But he hasn't done that.

01:01:13.360 Instead, he's just moving on.

01:01:14.520 Well, okay.

01:01:15.540 Got the clicks there.

01:01:16.480 That guy's life is over.

01:01:17.840 I'm moving on to the next thing.

01:01:19.180 And the outrage mob goes with it.

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.

01:01:28.960 But we don't care anymore.

01:01:30.020 Who cares what actually happened?

01:01:32.360 We cared yesterday for 30 seconds.

01:01:33.900 We don't care anymore.

01:01:34.740 I mean, that's the attitude.

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.

01:02:21.360 This is obviously not the first such case.

01:02:24.900 It's not even close to the most egregious case.

01:02:28.140 That's my point.

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.

01:02:53.240 There is no discernment.

01:02:55.680 There's not even a slight curiosity.

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.

01:03:32.300 That'll do it for the show today.

01:03:32.960 Thanks for watching.

01:03:33.420 Thanks for listening.

01:03:33.980 Have a great day.

01:03:34.760 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 15, 2025

Ep. 1515 - Nagging Democrats Shriek At Pete Hegseth During Confirmation Hearing

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript