The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1543 - Incompetent Federal Employees PANIC When Asked What They Do All Day

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, federal workers are in a state of panic after being subjected to the

00:00:03.760 smallest amount of accountability and transparency. I already had a pretty low opinion of many federal

00:00:07.920 workers. Now I'm realizing that my opinion was, I guess, still too high. Also, Joy Reid weeps on

00:00:12.660 camera over her firing. Democrats in Maryland want to put condoms in elementary school vending

00:00:17.200 machines. And one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time is in line to win a bunch of Oscars

00:00:21.660 in a couple of weeks. We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.

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00:01:42.660 off your first month subscription. There's an old line from one of Ronald Reagan's press conferences

00:01:47.540 that you've probably heard before. He's talking about trade embargoes and inflation and how farmers

00:01:51.820 in Illinois are being impacted by government policy. And he begins with one of his trademark

00:01:56.180 quotes by saying, the nine most terrifying words in English language are, I'm from the government

00:02:00.480 and I'm here to help. And the line obviously resonated and it's quite, quite well known and

00:02:04.640 famous now. And not just with the farmers who were watching that press conference in Chicago,

00:02:08.880 anyone who's ever interacted with the government understood immediately what Reagan was getting

00:02:13.080 at. Most of the time when the government gets more involved in your life, for whatever reason,

00:02:17.600 it's a good indicator that things are about to get worse. And normal people are frightened of

00:02:23.660 that possibility for good reason. At the same time, Reagan's one liner raised a question that until now

00:02:28.380 has gone unanswered. And that question is this, if everyday people are mortally terrified of government

00:02:34.060 intervention in their lives, then what exactly do government bureaucrats fear above all else?

00:02:39.920 What short, unassuming sentence could possibly terrorize the entire federal workforce in the same way

00:02:46.200 that the government is capable of terrorizing everyday people and people in the private sector?

00:02:50.840 Well, a couple of days, days ago, courtesy of Elon Musk and Doge, we learned the answer to those

00:02:55.840 questions. We finally learned how to usher in a state of total panic in the federal government in

00:03:01.380 just a few short words. It turns out that all you need to do if you want federal bureaucrats to melt

00:03:06.500 down in a very public and humiliating fashion is ask them what they did last week. That's it.

00:03:13.100 To bring the entire federal bureaucracy to its knees, you just need to pose a question that every

00:03:18.700 single private sector worker on the planet is able to answer and knows they must be able to answer

00:03:23.920 or they will be fired. As you may have seen by now, here's the email that I'm talking about.

00:03:29.240 It was sent by the Office of Personnel Management, which is essentially the HR department of the federal

00:03:33.360 government. And it was clearly drafted by Elon Musk, who famously asked this same question to the old CEO

00:03:39.200 of Twitter before Musk took over and fired him. But here's what the email looked like. Very, very

00:03:45.600 simple. As you can see, it reads, please reply to this email with approximately five bullets of what

00:03:51.520 you accomplished last week and CC your manager. Now, you will not find a less threatening, more

00:03:58.560 straightforward question that an employer could possibly ask an employee. I struggle to think of

00:04:04.240 any remotely productive worker in any context who would have any difficulty answering this

00:04:09.940 question. You know, a janitor could say he mopped five floors. A plumber could say he fixed five

00:04:15.520 toilets. A restaurant worker could say he served a certain number of tables and so on. A lawyer or

00:04:20.220 consultant or anyone else with an hourly rate could produce a timesheet that outlines everything he did at

00:04:25.260 every single moment of the day. Okay, well, maybe a consultant couldn't do that. But most workers in the

00:04:30.720 private sector, both white collar and blue collar can and often must answer questions like this. But for many

00:04:38.220 federal workers, this email is an existential threat. That's because unlike the overwhelming majority of

00:04:43.620 workers in this country in the private sector, they in many, though not all cases, don't do anything. And to

00:04:50.360 this point have not been expected to do anything. They just shuffle papers around and wait until their

00:04:55.860 pensions vest. This is something that's considered impolite to say out loud, I guess, but everybody

00:05:00.620 knows it's true. In many cases, these federal jobs function like a kind of welfare that's designed

00:05:06.320 specifically to provide fake jobs to certain demographics. That's not some right wing conspiracy

00:05:12.320 theory, by the way. Spend five minutes reading left wing media and you'll find this statement

00:05:16.440 isn't even controversial. I mean, they come out and admit it. For example, here's a report this week

00:05:20.880 from NBCBLK, which is NBC News division that produces reports for black people, which is something that

00:05:27.520 exists for some reason, I guess. And we'll put it on screen. The headline reads, quote,

00:05:33.200 much of the black middle class was built by federal jobs. That may change. For the last several decades,

00:05:39.080 federal jobs help black workers find stable work with guardrails to prevent bias. But mass cuts are

00:05:44.840 threatening decades of upward mobility. In other words, yes, these federal jobs don't really benefit the

00:05:52.120 taxpayers who are funding the salaries. Instead, they benefit certain demographics that without these

00:05:57.800 fake jobs would not make anywhere near as much money. In their panic over Elon Musk, Democrats in

00:06:03.620 the corporate press are finally just coming out and admitting that. And as you expect, they're going to

00:06:08.140 fight like hell to keep that gravy train going. Some federal workers have just filed a lawsuit against

00:06:13.520 the government because of the email asking them what they do all day. Yes, rather than answer an extremely

00:06:18.800 basic question that demands a bare minimum of accountability, federal workers would rather go to

00:06:24.580 court. As Axios reports, quote, federal workers sue over what did you do last week email. Only federal agencies

00:06:30.900 have the ability to hire and fire their workers. The lawsuit says the Office of Personnel Management, the

00:06:35.000 federal government's HR office, which sent out the email over the weekend, does not have that authority. The suit

00:06:39.760 alleges. They're specifically objecting to Elon Musk's statement that if workers don't answer the email, it'll be

00:06:46.040 taken as a resignation. They're arguing, in essence, that federal workers are entitled to ignore emails

00:06:50.400 from their bosses asking them what they do all day. That is the extent of entitlement that we're

00:06:55.060 dealing with here. And by the way, these workers are getting a second chance to answer the email. Now

00:06:59.460 Musk has clarified that, quote, subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another

00:07:03.960 chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination. So they get another chance. And it looks

00:07:10.740 like if they want to keep their jobs, these workers should just take it. Already, several federal

00:07:16.180 departments have told their employees that they need to reply to this email. The Department of

00:07:19.800 Transportation has instructed workers to reply. So has the Department of Health and Human Services,

00:07:24.880 the Social Security Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and many others. But

00:07:29.920 there are signs that throughout the federal government, many workers will simply be incapable of answering

00:07:36.080 this email. They legitimately cannot think of a single thing they did in the past week that was

00:07:42.860 productive, apparently. And that's probably terrible news for their careers. But it's good news for us,

00:07:48.920 because if nothing else, their televised meltdowns have been pretty entertaining. So we'll start with

00:07:54.020 this indignant woman on CNN who works at some unnamed federal agency. And she's very upset about this.

00:08:00.220 Watch. First, just tell us about this email and what it was like receiving it and what you all have

00:08:08.800 talked about after getting it. Sure. I got this email Saturday afternoon about 3 p.m. And I felt

00:08:18.660 absolutely infuriated getting this email with a demand within 48 hours to provide a response and what I did

00:08:27.040 within the last week or face termination. This is clearly an attempt from Elon Musk to harass and bully and

00:08:37.040 intimidate the federal workforce, which is part of his broader plan to gut the federal workforce and privatize

00:08:45.440 public sector services to ensure that corporations like his own can get more profit. And that makes me really

00:08:53.320 angry. My co-workers as well. These spoiled brats. I mean, it's amazing. They just can't help

00:08:59.640 themselves. Yeah, the plan is to gut the federal workforce. And this is it. You are why, lady. You're

00:09:05.260 the reason why we want to gut the federal workforce is exactly because of you and people like you.

00:09:12.680 Infuriated. Infuriated that she's being asked to simply, what did you do last week? With the

00:09:19.180 taxpayer money, we are paying you. It's our money out of our pockets to do a job. What did you do the job? What is the

00:09:26.240 job? What did you do? That's the question. Now, evidently, this woman has a lot of time to appear on CNN and

00:09:33.040 claim that she's being bullied and harassed and she's she's absolutely infuriated. But even after talking through

00:09:40.320 this whole segment, she still never explains what she does all day. Instead, she attacks her

00:09:46.500 supervisors. Which is, again, it can't be emphasized enough, in the private sector, you would not get

00:09:54.100 away with this. If your boss comes up to you at your job and says, well, hey, what did you do last

00:09:58.540 week? And you said, well, I'm infuriated that you even asked me that question. How dare you? How dare

00:10:06.720 you? Expect me to explain what I'm doing with the money you're paying me to do the job that I'm,

00:10:12.360 how dare you? If you responded that way, you would just be fired. And of course, this woman is just

00:10:19.720 one of many examples. On Reddit, federal workers are posting various plans for noncompliance and

00:10:24.820 retaliation. They're talking about ways to spam the federal email system, for example. One viral post,

00:10:30.360 which was picked up by CNN, reports that some federal workers may be considering leaking top secret

00:10:34.760 information to foreign adversaries. That's how committed they are to public service.

00:10:40.580 Okay? Rather than explain what they've done last week, they would rather commit treason.

00:10:46.480 That's what they would prefer. And what's especially funny about this whole meltdown is

00:10:51.980 that a few years ago, documents obtained by the investigative reporter Patrick Howe found that 25%

00:10:57.180 of federal workers went a full month without even attempting to check their emails during the

00:11:01.700 COVID lockdowns. So they just went dark. A full month. So really, you can make the case, as Musk has,

00:11:09.440 that these emails are necessary just to make sure these workers are still alive. This is like proof

00:11:14.900 of life. We just want to make, you know, just, are you alive and opening your laptops at least every

00:11:19.980 once in a while? But apparently, that's too much for these workers to deal with. They're worried that if

00:11:25.440 they have to answer the email honestly, they might lose their jobs. Thousands of probationary federal

00:11:31.160 workers have already met that fate. In particular, terminated workers at the IRS are having some of

00:11:36.680 the better meltdowns. Here's one of them, which was posted by NBC Philadelphia. Watch.

00:11:43.160 I mean, it wasn't a legal firing. My performance was good. I was, you know, I was doing everything I was

00:11:53.200 supposed to be doing. I was even one of those government employees that went every day of the week.

00:11:58.840 Um, I had to report every Monday through Friday, uh, uh, you know, um, seven to three 30. Um, that was

00:12:07.600 my tour of duty and that's what I served. Um, and here I am. Did you, did you get, I was one of those

00:12:18.700 government employees who went to work every day. One of those. Yeah, no, but that's exactly the

00:12:25.100 problem. Oh, you know, I was, I was, I was even one of those federal workers who went to work every

00:12:30.080 day. No, but that's that, that shouldn't be one of those. That should just be all of them. That's,

00:12:36.200 that's not, that shouldn't be like a type of federal worker. That shouldn't be a special category.

00:12:41.260 I was one of those special ones who actually went to work every day, Monday through Friday.

00:12:47.940 Yes. This IRS worker stated that he was shocked to be fired because he actually showed up to work

00:12:52.380 five days a week. That was his tour of duty. As he put it, these are people who legitimately think

00:12:59.340 they're storming the beaches of Normandy just by going into an office building on a regular schedule.

00:13:04.820 They cannot imagine a scenario in which normal people don't see them as war heroes because they

00:13:11.000 leave home and commute to their job and occasionally conduct audits that make people's lives a living

00:13:15.360 hell and then punch out at three 30 in the afternoon. Okay. They have a schedule about

00:13:21.080 as grueling as a third grader. That's, that's, that's when elementary schoolers get home is three

00:13:26.680 30. So this seems to be something of a trend at the IRS. Here's another recently terminated IRS

00:13:32.940 worker with his sob story. I was just in training. I was just in training. I waited four months to go to

00:13:41.140 training just to be fired. He's one of 6,000 plus federal employees who work for the Internal Revenue

00:13:46.620 Service fired this week as part of mass layoffs happening under the Trump administration. The

00:13:51.900 majority of those workers like Charles were probationary workers employed for less than a

00:13:56.100 year. Charles told us more than two dozen employees were laid off from his office here off Gessner.

00:14:01.040 He says it took over a year to get his dream job as a tax exempt officer dealing with non-profit

00:14:06.700 organizations and compliance. His pride and passion taken away. Excited. I was so excited

00:14:13.140 to learn the job. I was telling my management I was going to be the best. They can count on me.

00:14:25.560 And it's not like I have, I have no say so. Like they just toss you away. Not that corporate America.

00:14:36.240 It was like this, not the government. I thought the government takes care of their people.

00:14:43.980 So as you catch his dream job, he was a tax exempt officer dealing with non-profit organizations and

00:14:49.460 compliance. That's what he's crying about on national television. You know, this was his dream that has

00:14:55.640 been shattered. This was his, you know, his pursuit of happiness, you know, kind of story. And, you know,

00:15:04.680 growing up, some people want to be astronauts. Some kids want to be race car drivers. They want to be,

00:15:08.820 you know, they, they, they want to be heroes. They want to be, but not this guy. Uh, he dreamt of

00:15:13.580 becoming a tax exempt officer dealing with non-profit organizations and compliance. That's how he

00:15:19.500 thought he would serve the American people as he sits there in sweatpants with his smoke detector

00:15:25.940 beeping, which is so on the nose that I thought that that was a job. I had to look up to see if that

00:15:32.600 beep was in the original video. It is that it's, it's, it, I don't, you know, some stereotypes just, um,

00:15:40.020 are stereotypes for a reason. In fact, they almost all are. And then of course, there's the, the part where

00:15:44.180 he explains that in his understanding, the federal government took care of its people, unlike corporate

00:15:48.940 America. In other words, he thought he'd score a permanent job with no accountability whatsoever. That, that

00:15:53.600 was actually his dream, right? He wasn't actually dreaming of enforcing compliance on non-profits or

00:15:59.660 whatever. He was dreaming about having a job where there was no accountability. Um, none of these

00:16:04.860 people can hear themselves speaking. None of them understand what they're acknowledging. And in, in,

00:16:09.300 uh, you know, in reality, they're making the case for their terminations better than Elon or Donald

00:16:14.240 Trump possibly could. They're more or less stating that they don't do anything, but to be fair to the

00:16:20.320 federal government, there are some exceptions. There are some employees, particularly employees in the

00:16:23.860 federal intelligence agencies who have been very busy in recent years. And, um, I'm talking

00:16:29.880 specifically about the national security agency or NSA. And we know they've been busy at the NSA

00:16:34.460 because the city journal just obtained chat logs from the agency's top secret internal messaging

00:16:39.180 system. As the city journal has just reported, quote, these logs dating back two years are lurid

00:16:44.600 featuring wide ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory, and castration. One popular chat topic

00:16:50.600 was male to female transgender surgery, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning

00:16:54.300 it into an artificial vagina. Mine is everything, said one male who claimed to have had gender

00:16:58.960 reconstruction surgery. Another intelligence official boasted that genital surgery allowed him to

00:17:03.480 wear leggings or bikinis without having to wear a gaff under it. These employees discussed hair,

00:17:08.880 discussed hair removal, estrogen injections, and the experience of sexual pleasure post-castration.

00:17:15.240 It goes on from there. So at least we know what the NSA has been up to. Um, so if they,

00:17:20.060 if you ask them what they did, you know, what their five things were last week, it's, it's a list that

00:17:24.260 none of us would want to read, but they would be able to, uh, list it. And if we're being honest,

00:17:28.940 we all know that this kind of thing was going on at many other federal agencies. If it was happening

00:17:33.040 at the NSA, supposedly one of the more serious federal agencies, then it was happening all over.

00:17:37.600 None of these federal workers ever thought they'd be held accountable for what they do all day.

00:17:41.420 And that's because for more than a century, thanks in part to various Supreme court decisions,

00:17:45.420 the idea of an ever expanding vast federal bureaucracy has been taken as a given in this

00:17:49.960 country. Nobody thought it could ever be reined in the federal government assumed just more and more

00:17:55.320 powers and quote, civil service protections and so on. And you know, no one ever did anything about it,

00:18:01.300 but despite what you may have been told, the constitution does not require any of this.

00:18:09.540 Instead, the constitution empowers the executive to run the executive branch,

00:18:14.360 which employs every single one of these perverts, narcissists and incompetents,

00:18:18.820 no judge, no lawsuit, no act of Congress, certainly no CNN appearance can circumvent the

00:18:25.260 constitutional separation of powers that gives the executive branch that control. What we're seeing

00:18:31.540 now, which is something that we should have seen a long time ago is an executive branch that's

00:18:36.020 finally willing to exercise that control. Now let's get to our five headlines.

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00:19:50.240 Yesterday we talked about the tragic passing of Joy Reid's show on MSNBC, and I explained why I'm

00:19:55.560 personally heartbroken by the news, mainly because we now lose all the content that her show provided to

00:20:01.640 lazy right-wing podcasters like myself. But we now have Joy's reaction to this news,

00:20:08.860 which we didn't have yesterday when we talked about it. And it is everything that you would expect

00:20:13.520 and hope for, minus the smoke detector beeping. Here it is.

00:20:19.740 My show had value. And that, I'm sorry, that what I was doing had value, had value. And in the end,

00:20:36.020 I'm sorry, I'm not, I try not to cry on TV. And I say, this is kind of like being on TV,

00:20:39.360 so I apologize. And that, and that it kind of, and then it mattered. I see Karen is there and she's

00:20:46.160 been texting me as well. And so what I will just say is that in the end, thank you, where I land is

00:20:55.160 that the moment that I, of guilt that I felt that I went hard on so many issues, whether it was

00:21:02.140 the Black Lives Matter issues of a young baby or a mom or a dad that was killed, or when we opened up

00:21:11.200 people's eyes to the fact that Asian Americans were being targeted and not just Black folks, that

00:21:16.100 or went hard for immigrants who've done nothing but come to this country like my parents did

00:21:21.540 and try to make a life and defended them. Or whether we've talked about what the president is

00:21:28.960 doing that is subversive to the Constitution, that is injurious to our liberty, you know, defending

00:21:36.280 books that people find inconvenient, you know, that Nicole Hannah-Jones put into our spirit that

00:21:42.360 we need to understand 1619 as the real founding of this country, whether it's talking about any of

00:21:49.740 these issues, and yes, whether it's talking about God. That's enough. You know, she says, well, I talked

00:21:55.080 about Black Lives Matter, the Black Lives Matter issue of a young baby, or no, then she kind of,

00:22:01.800 then she quickly moves on to, or, you know, a mother, because that's actually the one,

00:22:08.360 you specifically don't talk about the fact that the life of a baby matters. That's, that's the one,

00:22:15.640 that's actually the one category of person, Joy, that you leave out, is, is that. So, but anyway,

00:22:23.040 she's devastated. She's crying on camera, no dignity, no sense of decorum or self-respect. And

00:22:27.860 in case anyone out there would make the mistake of feeling any pity for this woman, remember that

00:22:32.100 she mocked many times what she calls white tears. You know, she has total contempt for

00:22:39.520 white people, in particular white women who cry. She talks about white tears. So I guess these are,

00:22:46.980 I mean, using her sort of phrasing, her terminology, these are Joy Reid's black tears. Is that,

00:22:52.920 is that how we, can I say that I'm tired of Joy Reid's black tears? Can I, am I, am I allowed to say

00:22:57.280 that? Is that, is that, that only goes one way, of course, right? But even aside from Joy's racism

00:23:02.500 and hypocrisy and the double standards and all that, it is, it, again, it's just, it's just gross

00:23:06.700 and pathetic to cry like this. I mean, it's one thing to cry publicly over some tragedy, some national

00:23:14.120 tragedy that's befallen the nation, but to cry over your show getting canceled is disgusting. It's

00:23:19.200 grotesque. And, and speaking of grotesque and pathetic people, Rachel, Rachel Maddow took to

00:23:25.200 the air on Monday night on her own show to call out her network for racism, for firing Joy Reid.

00:23:33.740 Listen.

00:23:35.300 An even bigger programming change is at 7 p.m., 7 p.m. Eastern, where Joy Reid's show,

00:23:42.800 The Readout, ended tonight. And Joy is not taking a different job in the network. She is leaving the

00:23:49.100 network altogether. And that is very, very, very hard to take. I am 51 years old. I have been

00:23:56.680 gainfully employed since I was 12. And I have had so many different kinds of jobs. You wouldn't

00:24:02.900 believe me if I told you, but in all of the jobs I have had in all of the years I have been alive,

00:24:08.960 there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid. I love

00:24:15.820 everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her. I do

00:24:21.340 not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC. And personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let

00:24:27.040 her walk out the door. It is not my call, and I understand that, but that's what I think.

00:24:32.840 I will tell you, it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we've got two, count them,

00:24:39.160 two non-white hosts in primetime. Both of our non-white hosts in primetime are losing their

00:24:45.700 shows, as is Katie Fang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them.

00:24:52.780 That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.

00:24:58.320 Well, it's unnerving, she says, unnerving. It's unnerving and indefensible to fire a non-white

00:25:03.620 host. I guess if you have a non-white host, you just are obligated to keep them on the air

00:25:08.280 indefinitely, no matter how far their ratings sink, which of course is, so all you're doing

00:25:14.620 is hurting the cause of non-white TV hosts. Because then the lesson you learn from that

00:25:20.900 if your TV network is like, well, we better not hire any non-white people to host any shows

00:25:24.380 because we're not allowed to fire them ever. And when it comes to ratings, by the way,

00:25:30.360 Joy's ratings were really bad. I mean, like just in the key demographic, which is all that really

00:25:39.660 matters to the cable news shows, 25 to 54, the key demo. Guess how many people in like the last week

00:25:48.000 of her show, how many people on average tuned in, in that demo? 60,000. 60,000 people in a key demo.

00:25:55.860 Okay. That is a, that's like nobody. I mean, if we put up just a YouTube video and it gets 60,000

00:26:05.060 views, we're like, well, that didn't really work. And that's just for a YouTube video. This is a,

00:26:10.920 a prime time cable show, 60,000. Um, and that you want to talk about indefensible. That is

00:26:18.720 indefensible. That's an, those are indefensible ratings if you want to keep your job. But Maddow

00:26:25.080 says that they're morally compelled to keep the show on the air, I guess, even if it gets zero

00:26:29.980 viewers, it should still stay on as a, as again, a kind of like welfare system, I guess. Um,

00:26:38.300 nevermind the fact that, you know, the thing that makes, of course, making this about race is so

00:26:42.920 absurd for every imaginable reason, but the show is being replaced apparently by another show that

00:26:51.020 is hosted by three people. Two of them are black. So Joy Rhee is being replaced, not just with one

00:26:59.500 black person, but two. And yet it's still somehow racist to fire her. Um, and that's, and also when

00:27:08.220 Maddow says that, well, we, we had, we only had two count them, just two non-white hosts in prime

00:27:14.860 time. Well, prime time is four hours. So that's 50% of the slots go to nine white people. That means

00:27:22.000 that non-white hosts are overrepresented on MSNBC, you know, by per capita, by if you're judging by

00:27:29.840 population metrics, there are too many non-white hosts on MSNBC, not too few. Um, not that I'm looking

00:27:38.200 to defend MSNBC. Of course, I'm perfectly happy to see the network get eaten alive from within.

00:27:42.780 It's, it's a lot of fun to see that as always, but it just goes to show that the left is not free

00:27:47.980 of, and will never be free of this kind of racial insanity that has defined it for so long. Um,

00:27:55.800 I know we talked about wokeness being dead and, uh, it is certainly, uh, on the run. It's, it's

00:28:02.920 backed into a corner. It has been losing battle after battle, but it's not actually dead because look,

00:28:08.200 if joy read could be fired for having abysmal ratings and nobody on the left, nobody prominent

00:28:13.820 on the left made it about race, then that would be a pretty clear sign that wokeness is basically

00:28:20.720 dead. That didn't happen. Instead, they all did exactly what you knew they would do, which is

00:28:27.160 make it about race right away. No hesitation. So this is who they are. It's how their minds work.

00:28:33.360 It'll, it'll never change. Uh, okay. Well, well, we've, uh, we've lost joy read for now and all

00:28:39.000 the content she brings, but fortunately we still have the view. So we still have them and here they

00:28:44.160 are yesterday claiming that it is unchristian to criticize wokeness. Listen, I thought about,

00:28:51.660 uh, the conversations you and I have had would be so many times about the co-opting of the word woke.

00:28:57.420 Um, and the fact that the right somehow has made it a dirty word to be woke is, is, is, is a word that

00:29:05.260 came out of the African-American community. And it was about being, acknowledging social justice

00:29:11.980 inequities, acknowledging people's suffering. It is not a bad thing to be, to care about other people,

00:29:20.080 to care about the sufferings of others and to act upon it. And so whoopie will often tell me,

00:29:25.540 well, I've never been asleep. And that's how I feel. My parents, you know, they, they, they grew

00:29:30.460 up in the civil rights movement. I grew up in the late sixties, seventies. I was always a part of it.

00:29:36.500 And so I've never been asleep. And so it, it angers me when people are like, this woke stuff,

00:29:42.540 it's gotta go. That's telling me that you don't care about my lived experience. You don't care about

00:29:48.000 the oppression of the LGBTQ community. You don't care about the oppression of the disabled. You don't

00:29:53.060 care about the oppression of immigrants. You don't care about your fellow neighbor. And that is

00:29:58.580 ungodly. That is not Christian. Well, that's true. Uh, I don't care about the oppression of LGBT

00:30:05.120 people or disabled people or minorities in this country because, because it's not happening.

00:30:08.860 So it's hard to care about something that isn't actually occurring. Um, you know, it's hard for me

00:30:13.220 to care about a thing that is, uh, fictional unless it's, you know, you in a movie or something,

00:30:19.340 uh, you know, the word oppression has a meaning and the meaning of oppression is that this is cruel

00:30:26.660 or unjust treatment being inflicted on a person or a group by somebody in power. Um, it's an unjust,

00:30:33.680 cruel use of power against a person or group. That's what oppression is.

00:30:39.200 So in what way are LGBT people or black people or even disabled people since they got wrapped

00:30:46.740 into this somehow, in what way are they being unjustly and cruelly treated and abused by people

00:30:52.460 in power? And I know when you say that people on the left are like, what do you mean? There

00:30:56.060 are a million ways. Are you kids the easiest question? Okay, well go ahead. Easy question,

00:30:59.820 right? Good. Give me one example. Just want one clear example. You can't do it. So

00:31:06.800 that's our, that's our problem with wokeness. Uh, one of the problems anyway, as a, as a woke person,

00:31:12.640 you expect us to have sympathy for the entirely invented plight of people who are not only not

00:31:18.120 being persecuted, but are often the recipients of unfairly advantageous treatment. And that's

00:31:24.120 because in your woke mind, oppression and persecution are not, uh, words with any objective

00:31:29.740 meaning. These, these are, these are not things that actually happen, or at least it doesn't matter

00:31:34.800 if they happen or not. What matters is that you feel like they're happening. So to be woke is to

00:31:38.860 believe that your lived experience, a phrase that only a woke person would ever be vapid enough to

00:31:44.000 actually say out loud your lived experience, quote unquote, uh, which is to say your own personal

00:31:49.440 perception, your feelings about your experiences more than the experiences themselves outweigh,

00:31:55.600 uh, the facts on the ground. And that, by the way, so many people, I mean, I've always complained

00:32:01.280 about this phrase lived experience because it's, um, it's, it, it appears to be, uh, you know,

00:32:08.480 redundant. I mean, of course it's, if you had an experience, of course you lived it. You can't have

00:32:13.440 an unlived experience, can you? Um, and it is redundant when taken literally, but you can't take

00:32:19.460 anything that woke people say literally, because again, nothing has any objective literal meaning

00:32:23.920 in their minds. So what they actually mean when they say lived experience, what they mean is felt

00:32:28.340 experience to live and to feel to them are the same thing. It's the, they, these are words that

00:32:34.480 are interchangeable. And so what they're saying is felt experience. Um, and they do, there is a

00:32:40.400 distinction between your felt experience and an actual experience. Like there's what's actually

00:32:46.240 happening and then there's how you feel about what's happening. And so when they say, well, my lived

00:32:53.240 experiences that I've been oppressed, what they mean is I feel like it, my experiences that I feel

00:32:59.660 like I'm being oppressed. And then when a rational person responds and says, well, yeah, but you weren't

00:33:04.880 actually oppressed. Like that didn't happen. Well, but I feel like it did. So I feel like it did. So

00:33:10.280 then it basically did. Um, that's what it means to be woke. And, uh, and so yes, we, our lack of

00:33:19.760 compassion and concern and empathy is, is for that you, your feeling like we don't, if, if, if you

00:33:31.460 feel a certain way and the way you feel totally contradicts the reality on the ground, then yeah,

00:33:39.420 we don't care about your feeling. There's not, we can't do anything about that. That, that is your

00:33:43.940 problem. I mean, that's like the very definition of a you thing. There's nothing we can do about that.

00:33:49.760 Um, and, uh, so that's, that's how you, that's the difference. The post-millennial reports this,

00:33:56.880 the Maryland house of delegates passed legislation on Friday that would repeal a prohibition on selling

00:34:01.480 condoms and vending machines within public schools. House bill 380 sponsored by Democrat delegate

00:34:07.760 Nicole Williams would allow contraceptives to be sold in vending machines in nursery schools,

00:34:12.540 preschools, elementary schools, and high schools, according to the Baltimore sun. The bill also

00:34:16.700 eliminates the current misdemeanor criminal penalty, which carries a $1,000 fine. Uh, Williams

00:34:22.660 explained, quote, it's a really simple bill. All it does is remove a criminal penalty. It's not

00:34:26.620 setting policy. It's not dictating to anyone what they should or should not do. All we're doing is

00:34:30.720 removing a misdemeanor from our criminal law article. The bill, however, has drawn criticism from

00:34:36.040 Republican lawmakers. Republican delegate Kathy Zaliga referred to it as condoms for kitties,

00:34:41.240 saying the bill goes too far. Hartford County Republican delegate Lauren, uh, uh, Eric, uh,

00:34:47.200 Eric and, uh, also opposed the measure questioning the necessity of condom sales in places for

00:34:52.260 education. Well, I actually agree that they should remove the misdemeanor penalty for giving condoms to

00:34:58.720 elementary school students. Uh, they should get rid of the misdemeanor penalty and make it a felony.

00:35:03.800 That's, uh, get rid of the misdemeanor and replace it with a federal felony. It should not be a

00:35:08.780 misdemeanor with a thousand dollar fine to give condoms to elementary school students. It should

00:35:12.720 be a felony with prison time. So that's, if you're going to make a change to that law, that's what the

00:35:17.300 change should be. Um, and this is obviously perverse and totally insane. Uh, anyone who supports putting

00:35:24.620 condoms in a public school vending machine is a dangerous pervert who should not be allowed around

00:35:29.360 children, much less teaching them or setting public policy that affects them. But you know,

00:35:35.860 when I read these kinds of articles, what I want to focus on is the statement from the lawmaker who

00:35:42.700 opposes this measure. So we're told that this Republican delegate says she's against it and it's

00:35:48.880 good that she's against it. You should be against it. But then she says the phrase that I hate the most

00:35:54.260 from Republicans. I hate this phrase from Republicans. I want all Republicans and conservatives

00:35:58.920 to take this phrase, uh, just out of there, remove the, this phrase from their vocabulary entirely.

00:36:06.180 Um, this, this is a phrase that will be on the tombstone of the Democrat party or rather the

00:36:12.160 Republican party. This is the tombstone of the Republican party is this phrase. This goes too far.

00:36:18.460 This is like the mantra of the Republican party. As the Democrat party has run roughshod over American

00:36:26.420 culture, ransacking and pillaging and taking whatever they want. Republicans have stood by

00:36:31.220 for decades and impotently shouted, this goes too far. Now, granted in recent times, and by that,

00:36:38.060 I mean like the last month or so, um, Republicans under Trump have actually been effectively for the,

00:36:46.460 you know, have been operating effectively and enacting an agenda for the first time,

00:36:51.700 like in my lifetime. But historically, usually this is what we get. We get these shouts of

00:36:58.200 that goes too far. And I don't want to give Kathy a hard time. I don't know anything about her. Maybe

00:37:03.920 she's a very solid right-wing conservative. I truly don't know. It's possible that she is. I just don't

00:37:08.200 know. I'm only saying that it goes too far is the wrong response to this kind of thing.

00:37:14.860 Um, putting condoms in public school vending machines doesn't go too far. It is an outrageous

00:37:25.000 and depraved act of sexual predation against children. It's, it's a thing that like no degree

00:37:33.080 of this thing should be happening. It's not that we went too far in the direction of giving birth

00:37:39.140 control to kids in school. It just, it's a thing that should not, we should not have gone one inch

00:37:44.400 in that direction. So goat goes too far means or implies that there's a form of giving birth control

00:37:52.760 to kids in public school that would be acceptable, but that putting them in vending machines or maybe

00:37:58.860 putting them in elementary school goes too far. So goes too far is what Republicans have historically

00:38:06.000 said when the left tries to enact some crazy far left policy, but Republicans would prefer a slightly

00:38:13.140 less crazy far left policy. Um, it's like if, you know, if somebody robbed you and stole $300 out of

00:38:22.220 your wallet and then you shouted, well, this is ridiculous. You've taken too much. You stole too much from

00:38:31.000 me. Cause when you, you wouldn't say that because obviously you're implying that there's a certain

00:38:36.560 amount of money that you would be okay with them stealing. And your issue is not that you got robbed

00:38:42.640 per se. It's that they, they took more money than you would have preferred for them to take when they

00:38:47.800 did rob you. Um, no, in reality, 10 cents is too much when you're getting robbed. There's no amount

00:38:55.080 that is the inappropriate amount. And it's the same thing here. So I'm not trying to be pedantic,

00:39:01.140 but I I've been following politics for long enough to know what these phrases mean.

00:39:04.780 And the point here is important. We should not merely object to public schools going too far

00:39:11.480 in their efforts to sexualize children. We should object, uh, wholly to the sexualization of children

00:39:20.160 in every form and to any degree whatsoever. Another way of putting it is that we need to

00:39:28.060 object in principle to these kinds of things, not just to the kind of, uh, crazier manifestations of

00:39:38.360 it, but, but to the thing itself is what we should object to. All right, let's get to the comment section.

00:39:44.260 If you're a man, it's required that you grow a bit. Hey, we're the sweet baby gang.

00:39:53.980 Tax season's here again, and the IRS isn't messing around at 2025. Look, I get it. Tax problems are

00:39:58.940 about as fun as a root canal. Maybe you've got some unfiled returns collecting dust, or you're

00:40:03.420 sitting on a pile of back taxes that's giving you night sweats. And with April 15th breathing down your

00:40:07.920 neck, it's tempting to just walk into the woods alone, never look back and hope it all goes away.

00:40:11.660 But here's the thing. Trying to ghost the IRS, well, that's like trying to outrun a bear. Spoiler

00:40:15.620 alert, it does not end well. And that's why you should let Tax Network USA deal with this headache

00:40:21.200 for you. These, uh, folks aren't your average tax people. They've got a direct line to the IRS.

00:40:26.540 Apparently that's a thing, so they know exactly which agents to talk to. Whether you're in the

00:40:30.260 hole for 10K or 10 mil, they've got tricks up their sleeves that actually work. They've already

00:40:34.680 sorted out over a billion dollars in tax debt, so they must be doing something right. Talk with one of

00:40:38.540 their strategists today. It's free. Stop the threatening letters, stop looking over your

00:40:42.200 shoulder, and protect yourself from property seizures and bank levies. Don't let the IRS

00:40:46.060 control your future. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com slash Walsh. April 15th is just around

00:40:52.140 the corner, so act now before the IRS acts first. Okay, a lot of comments on the beard subject,

00:40:58.100 so these are all beard comments we're going to do today. Matt, during the beard segment, you said

00:41:02.840 beards are one of three things you agree with the Taliban on. Can you please list this, the other

00:41:08.620 two for historical record? That feels like a trap. It feels like you're trying, you know, you're,

00:41:13.580 you're, you're, you're trying to trap me. You're not going to trick me into singing the praises of

00:41:19.580 the Taliban again. Not again. Not for two shows in a row. Only one. That's a, that's a once a week

00:41:26.740 thing. That's not, we don't do that every day. So check back next week and maybe we'll, we'll,

00:41:31.620 we'll revisit the topic. Uh, worse with a beard, David Letterman. No, that, you know, a lot of

00:41:40.120 people have tried. I, I, I said, I defy anyone to come up with an example of a man who looked worse

00:41:44.800 after growing a beard. And there have been many attempts, all of them unsuccessful. David Letterman

00:41:51.100 is not, is also a failed attempt to come up with an example. And by the way, you know, I said,

00:41:59.220 every man looks better with a beard. I didn't say that every man necessarily looks better with a

00:42:04.300 beard grown down to his ankles. Uh, that's, I mean, I respect those kinds of beards. I respect

00:42:09.980 the effort, but I, I, I, you can't have too much beard. I will say that. I mean, it's, it's possible

00:42:16.180 like it could get to a point. It's like, it's like, um, it's like if I said, every man looks better if he

00:42:20.760 builds muscle. That's definitely true. Every man would look better if he built muscle. It could go too

00:42:27.040 far. I mean, you could be just a roided up lunatic, uh, you know, one of these, uh, over the top

00:42:32.400 bodybuilder types where you've got biceps five times bigger than your head kind of thing, where

00:42:37.020 you don't, it doesn't even look like your body matches anymore. You look like, uh, you took the

00:42:41.200 head from another person and put it on your body. Um, then it starts and it's the muscles aren't even

00:42:45.680 functional anymore. Like you wouldn't even, you can't, it's, it's, it's, there's, there's no function.

00:42:49.760 It's all just there for show. Uh, so it can get to that level where it's like, it's too much.

00:42:53.920 Okay. You've gone too far. Uh, but that doesn't disprove the statement that every man looks better

00:43:00.720 if he builds muscle and, uh, same for beards. Every man looks better if he grows a beard. Um,

00:43:08.360 Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, both need, need beards, LOL.

00:43:13.280 Well, they do. And, you know, and I've talked to both of them about this, uh, privately and publicly.

00:43:18.040 I've called them both out for their, uh, I think outrageous refusal to grow beard. And the crazy

00:43:27.420 thing is that Ben for a short period of time looked like he was threatening to grow a beard

00:43:32.540 and, and it was a good look. I, I, I tried to encourage him when he was good. He kind of had

00:43:38.820 the beard thing going slightly as this was, you know, as in the last year or two. And I can remember

00:43:44.620 even privately giving some encouragement, like keep it going. This is, and then he just gave up.

00:43:50.060 And this is the thing that's a lot of guys will do this. They'll, they'll start to grow the beard

00:43:53.740 and then they get to a point where they become frightened and they turn back. And often I'll hear

00:43:58.500 the guys will say to me, well, yeah, I tried to grow it and then it got itchy. Okay. Well,

00:44:03.960 that's, you got to push through that. It's not going to be itchy forever. Again, I'm not sitting

00:44:08.020 here every second of the day, just feeling like I have poison Ivy rash all over my face. Cause I have a

00:44:12.560 beard, but you have to get through it. You have to push through it. Okay. It takes a certain

00:44:16.240 commitment. Um, so you're getting, if you get to the itchy phase, you're getting right to the precipice

00:44:22.140 of being a legitimate bearded man, of being a beardsman. Being a real beardsman is on the other

00:44:30.520 side of the itchiness, but you, you have to push through it. Um, this is literally what separates

00:44:37.200 the men from the boys. Did Matt just declare that Michael, Ben and Andrew are all shriveled,

00:44:44.100 leprous little weaklings. I didn't, I didn't, I did not declare that. That's not a, that's not

00:44:48.620 me saying that that's science. This is basic biology that makes these determinations.

00:44:56.100 Uh, Matt, I'm one quarter native American Indian. If I try to grow a beard, it comes in patchy and

00:45:00.840 uneven. I would grow on if it didn't make me look like a homeless psychopath. You know,

00:45:04.900 there were a lot of comments like this. A lot of, um, people claiming their ethnicity

00:45:08.740 gives them an excuse to not grow a beard. I heard a lot of, Oh, I'm native American. Oh,

00:45:12.760 I'm Asian. Uh, you know, that's not an excuse. Okay. You're the one who decided to be native

00:45:21.360 American. So that's don't start coming. Don't come to me with that excuse that don't use that

00:45:27.520 as an excuse. Now, whatever the be any, I mean, everyone is capable of growing some kind of beard,

00:45:33.620 whatever it is. That's your beard. Um, let's see. Says the guy who can grow a nice beard. My

00:45:43.420 patchy as hell. Well, again, and here we go with the patchy beard thing again, patchy beards are

00:45:49.980 also, those are, look, this might be controversial. Those are a fine look. I think, uh, I think those

00:45:54.800 are fine. That's like, uh, that's a, uh, they call it hobo chic. I think is what they call it.

00:45:59.240 That's so you got, it's a little, the hobo look is a look that's fine too. So I would rather look

00:46:05.640 like a hobo than look like a baby faced freak. Okay. That's so those are your two options. I'm

00:46:12.940 afraid that those are the two options that you have. And I take the hobo look in that case.

00:46:21.000 You look like a hobo doesn't mean you actually have to beat one. Okay. I didn't say you have to

00:46:24.000 actually go get a box and lay on a street corner. Um, Matt, uh, Matt, why don't you have

00:46:33.540 a beard? Are you stupid? Matt, half a second later by these Jeremy's razor blades. That's

00:46:40.000 a, that's fair. That's fair. Actually, that's not fair because you know what? This is another

00:46:47.080 misconception. I hear this a lot. Well, what are you, what are you, uh, selling Jeremy's

00:46:52.040 razors? If you, if you're such a fan of beards, well, first of all, I'm not, I don't sell them.

00:46:57.160 Like this is not the, this is, it wouldn't be my choice. So this is, this is not a product

00:47:00.820 that I would choose to sell. It's not my product, but second, just cause you have a beard doesn't

00:47:05.140 mean you don't use a razor. Like if I didn't use any kind of razor at all, I would have,

00:47:09.620 I would, my, I would be like a werewolf. So you do, you know, it's a little bit of maintenance.

00:47:14.120 That's what the razor's for. Uh, these two things are not, do not contradict. Don't. Um,

00:47:19.260 so nice try. This is one you don't want to miss on Tuesday, March 4th. President Donald Trump is

00:47:25.040 addressing a joint session of Congress at 9 PM Eastern, laying out his America first vision,

00:47:29.520 tackling immigration reform, economic revival, and national security. And you know, we're not

00:47:34.240 sitting this one out. Join us for backstage live at 8 30 PM Eastern, our pre-show, a breakdown with

00:47:39.420 me, Ben, Michael, Andrew, and Jeremy, and then we'll watch the entire speech together live on

00:47:43.240 Daily Wire Plus. And Trump's done. We're back with unfiltered, no BS reactions. You won't get

00:47:47.780 anywhere else. This is the event shaping America's future. So make sure you're there. Watch it all

00:47:52.100 live on Daily Wire Plus this Tuesday night. Subscribe now at dailywire.com. Now let's get to our daily

00:47:57.920 cancellation. This cancellation segment today exists mainly so that I can justify three and a half hours

00:48:09.980 that I wasted this weekend. But, uh, it also, I hope serves as a warning that will save many of you

00:48:16.300 from suffering the same fate. There's also a lesson to be learned here, I think, or relearned

00:48:20.180 about Hollywood and movie critics and the kinds of films that earn all the praise and accolades

00:48:25.040 these days. So my wife and I just watched a critically acclaimed new film called The Brutalist.

00:48:30.580 And this is a movie that when the Oscars roll around in a couple of weeks is likely to, uh, likely

00:48:35.480 set to take home several awards. It has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

00:48:40.520 It already took home the Golden Globes for Best Drama, Best Director, and Best Actor,

00:48:44.300 along with a slate of other smaller awards throughout this, uh, award season. Critics have

00:48:48.900 hailed the film as a work of genius, a masterpiece. Its critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at 93%.

00:48:55.400 And if you scroll down the, uh, pull quotes on the Rotten Tomatoes website, you'll find

00:48:59.420 critics saying stuff like, uh, quote, it is quite easily one of the greatest films of the 21st century.

00:49:05.520 End quote, a monumental work of cinema. End quote, it's not a film to devour, but to be devoured by.

00:49:12.160 There's such a weight to it that it creates its own field of gravity.

00:49:16.780 Now, these are ringing endorsements. Well, the first two quotes are, I'm not exactly sure what

00:49:20.580 the hell the third one is even supposed to be trying to say, but this is what happens when

00:49:25.440 film critics are really taken by a film. They get so caught up in the experience that they start

00:49:29.820 babbling incoherently. All told, suffice it to say, this film is a critical darling. And it's not just

00:49:34.820 the critics singing its praises. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a very respectable 80%.

00:49:39.180 And, um, I have personally heard from multiple people that it's a good film, even a great film.

00:49:45.520 And it was this last piece, the endorsements of actual humans, as opposed to movie critics,

00:49:50.200 that convinced me to sit down with my wife and watch this thing. And that is a decision that I

00:49:55.760 very much regret. I am sad to report that The Brutalist is not good. Uh, it is very bad. In fact,

00:50:04.460 it is, all told, one of the most unpleasant film experiences I have ever had. Indeed, I find it very

00:50:11.640 hard to believe that most of the people who claim to like this film actually did like it. When someone

00:50:17.740 tells me, oh, I like the film, I think you're lying. I think you're a liar. I'm calling you a liar. I don't

00:50:21.940 believe you liked it. Because every year it seems there is one especially artsy and self-indulgent film

00:50:27.440 that everybody pretends to like because they think they're supposed to. You know, they're convinced that

00:50:32.420 the film is some sort of IQ test and the score is pass, fail, or in the way to pass it, they think

00:50:37.540 is to, is to think the movie is a masterpiece. Even if in reality, they spend at least half the

00:50:43.160 runtime praying for the damn thing to be over. You know, the movie becomes a kind of psyop that

00:50:48.400 critics run on the public and then the public runs on itself. Everyone goes around speaking in hushed

00:50:54.080 and reverent tones about the monumental artistic achievement of a film that almost all of them

00:50:59.260 actually hated. Every year gives us at least one of those kinds of movies. And The Brutalist is this

00:51:06.440 year's addition to that pantheon of films that people hate but pretend to like. And I'm here to

00:51:11.280 tell you, do not fall for the psyop. Do not waste your time on this movie. And if you don't believe me,

00:51:18.100 I will describe the film to you and there will be spoilers. This is, this is, this is your warning.

00:51:23.800 If you don't want the plot spoiled, don't listen to this review. Although the good news is that the plot

00:51:28.620 really can't be spoiled because there isn't much of a plot to spoil. The Brutalist is a slow,

00:51:34.300 meandering slog to nowhere. It is a long, dreary, monotonous journey into the void. And when I say

00:51:41.080 long, I mean long. I mean three and a half hours long. You could watch two and a half other movies

00:51:48.480 in the time it takes to watch this one movie. There is no valid excuse for a movie to be three and a

00:51:55.620 half hours long. Anyone who's ever made a film knows that editing is a crucial process of the

00:52:02.000 filmmaking process. Okay. You also know that if you're not getting rid of scenes you like

00:52:08.060 when you're editing, not just scenes you don't like, but even some of the moments you do like,

00:52:12.900 then you're not editing it enough. Editing and cutting down a film should hurt. It should be painful.

00:52:19.460 And if it doesn't hurt, you have not cut nearly enough from the film. And it's clear that the

00:52:25.080 director, Brady Corbett, took apparently very much the opposite approach. So he put the film

00:52:31.220 together, came up with his V1, looked at it, and said, this is absolutely perfect. We will cut not

00:52:40.560 one single thing. In fact, let's add some more random stuff. The movie's only three hours long.

00:52:46.800 Let's add about 15 more shots of people staring forlorn into the distance. Oh, and we already

00:52:52.560 have nine scenes of the protagonist shooting heroin. Let's add five or six more. Because,

00:52:57.120 you know, you can never have too much heroin in a movie, I say. That was apparently the

00:53:01.220 conversation that happened in the editing bay while this film was being put together.

00:53:04.620 And the end product is an endurance test that the vast majority of the audience will probably fail.

00:53:09.620 So what is the movie about? Well, The Brutalist is a story of a fictional Hungarian-Jewish

00:53:15.240 architect named Laszlo Toth, played by Adrian Brody, who flees war-torn Europe and immigrates

00:53:20.980 to the United States, where he is eventually reunited with his now-disabled wife and niece.

00:53:27.580 They're initially split up, and then they reunite a little bit later in the film.

00:53:32.340 And he faces a lot of hardship. He befriends a homeless black man, one of the only virtuous

00:53:37.200 characters in the whole film, of course. Develops a heroin addiction and is eventually taken

00:53:41.240 in by a wealthy American business magnate played by Guy Pearce. And Pearce's character, Harrison

00:53:46.040 Van Buren, enlists Toth to build a giant community center in Pennsylvania. Which, if you can call

00:53:53.520 that a plot, that's basically the plot of the film. Now, the theme of this movie is that immigrants

00:53:59.620 have a hard time in America and are underappreciated and often abused.

00:54:04.860 And this theme, which is not exactly a unique or revolutionary theme, but it's a theme that

00:54:14.020 approximately 90% of all Oscar bait movies explore. And the theme is explored in relatively subtle ways

00:54:21.580 for the first about half of the film. In fact, if the movie had only consisted of its first half,

00:54:28.020 if it had ended around its midpoint, it might have been a decent, though not great film.

00:54:33.080 But unfortunately, it continues. And then it continues, and it continues, and it continues.

00:54:37.880 And finally, just in case the audience has not quite gotten the message that Americans are cruel

00:54:43.600 to immigrants, there's a scene towards the end where, again, spoiler, Van Buren finds an intoxicated

00:54:52.680 Toth laying in a back alley and proceeds to rape him while telling him how disgusting and useless he is.

00:55:00.120 Yes, the white Christian American businessman makes anti-immigrant comments while raping the Jewish

00:55:08.360 immigrant in a back alley. And that's an actual scene in this movie. All right. And Toth, for some

00:55:15.500 reason, goes back to work for Van Buren even after this episode. But now he's an even more morose

00:55:20.900 character, understandably. And this leads to the climactic moment in the third act where Toth's

00:55:25.640 disabled wife wakes up screaming from pain in the middle of the night because she's disabled.

00:55:30.560 She has osteoporosis. And so we also, this is also a scene, by the way, that we see like 10 times

00:55:34.580 of her waking in the middle of the night, you know, screaming in pain. Because we got to get the

00:55:38.540 point. She's disabled and in pain. They say that's, we can't have one scene that tells you that. We need

00:55:44.260 15 scenes so that you understand that this woman is disabled and in pain.

00:55:49.760 And finally, there's this scene. And Toth decides, because he's such a good husband,

00:55:55.000 that the way to make his wife feel better is to give her intravenous heroin, which he does,

00:56:03.280 and then has sex with his overdosing wife, who almost dies. And when she wakes up in the hospital,

00:56:09.220 she tells her husband that she wants to move back to Israel or move to Israel because America is

00:56:15.260 rotten. Quote, the whole country is rotten, she says. And then she leaves. She goes home.

00:56:23.520 Well, before going back to Israel, she then goes to the home of Van Buren to confront him for raping

00:56:29.400 her husband. And Van Buren runs away and kills himself. At least that's implied. They never

00:56:34.040 actually show it. But he goes and kills himself. And the end, like that's the end of the movie.

00:56:41.140 There's a totally unnecessary epilogue scene because unnecessary scenes could be the actual

00:56:46.100 name of this movie. But the movie essentially ends with the homosexual Christian rapist millionaire

00:56:51.580 committing suicide after he's confronted by the strong feminist wife of the Jewish heroine

00:56:56.140 addict immigrant that he violated. So that's probably all you need to know about this movie.

00:57:02.580 There are enough problems in what I've just described that I would think would convince you

00:57:06.940 not to watch it. But there are plenty of other problems too. For one thing, and this is not a small

00:57:10.900 issue, Toth is supposed to be a brilliant architect in the film. The whole point is that he was a

00:57:19.720 brilliant architect. He came here. He can't get a job. He's shoveling coal. And then Van Buren discovers

00:57:26.520 him and says, oh my gosh, look at your buildings. It's beautiful. Except that his buildings are

00:57:31.660 monstrously hideous. They are these clunky, behemoth, unartful masses of concrete. And in a way,

00:57:40.140 they're a good metaphor for the movie itself. And meanwhile, the main character, Toth, has essentially

00:57:45.300 no redeeming qualities. He's a junkie and an adulterer who designs ugly buildings. Even worse,

00:57:53.200 he gets raped by a man and still goes back to work for him. Doesn't have to, by the way. He's like,

00:57:59.380 he's at this point, he actually, at this point in the film, he had gotten a job in New York,

00:58:04.460 like a, you know, just a steady, stable office job in New York. He could go back to that.

00:58:11.380 He's not desperate and impoverished. He decides to go back and work for the guy who just raped him.

00:58:17.520 And then he leaves it to his disabled wife to go confront the guy. Now, I'm not saying that movies

00:58:23.120 have to have happy endings or that they have to always tell stories about saints and heroes. I have

00:58:27.460 nothing against sad movies. I have nothing in principle, at least against movies that focus on

00:58:31.800 flawed people or even bad people. The Godfather is one of the greatest films of all time, after all.

00:58:35.560 But if you want me to spend three hours, three and a half hours with a character,

00:58:40.560 if you want me to stay invested through something like 30 years of this character's lifespan,

00:58:45.660 you have to give me some reason to care about him. And there is no reason to care about this

00:58:51.120 character. Now, there's a principle in screenwriting called Save the Cat. It's a phrase coined by Blake

00:58:56.020 Snyder. And the idea is that in a film, you want your protagonist to do something generous or heroic

00:59:03.160 in the first 10 or 15 minutes of the film in order to get the audience on his side and to make us care

00:59:08.160 about what happens afterwards. And I think this is probably an overly simplistic rule. It's a formula

00:59:14.100 that doesn't always hold up. But there's a general point, which is true, that as the filmmaker,

00:59:18.980 you need to give us as an audience a reason to care about this character. And The Brutalist does

00:59:27.180 the opposite. It takes a kind of anti-save-the-cat approach. And in this film, the protagonist in the

00:59:33.680 very beginning makes it to America without his wife. His wife is, as far as we know, still in a

00:59:38.560 concentration camp. And the first thing he does is visit a prostitute. His wife is in a concentration

00:59:45.800 camp. And his first move, his very first move is to have sex with a hooker. A scene that, like many

00:59:52.160 other sex scenes in this movie, they show in long and gratuitous detail. And I have no idea why. I

01:00:00.160 mean, this is, I don't know who gratuitous sex scenes in movies are for. Every time I see it in a movie

01:00:08.520 and there's like five or six of them in this movie, who is this for? Why is this here? Anyone who wants

01:00:15.080 to watch porn can find it anywhere else on the internet. Like they don't need to sit through a

01:00:19.500 three and a half hour movie about a Holocaust survivor to see porn. They could, they could

01:00:24.100 unfortunately find it anywhere else. The rest of us would prefer not to have it interjected into the

01:00:29.320 middle of a film for no reason. Okay. Like you want to have the guy visit a hooker. I don't,

01:00:35.060 story-wise, I don't think you should do that. I think all it accomplishes is it makes me hate this

01:00:39.600 character. And then you're going to put this character through the ringer for the next three and a half

01:00:42.820 hours. I don't care about what happens to him after that. Cause like, he's a bad guy. So I just

01:00:46.660 don't care that much. But if you want to do that, you can show the guy walk into the brothel

01:00:52.420 and then walk out buttoning his pants up and we get it. We can fill in the rest. We don't need to

01:01:00.640 actually see the stuff that happens in between. No adult watching the movie is going to go, well,

01:01:05.160 what happened in there? What was the meaning of that? What was that all about? Anyway, the bigger

01:01:10.760 problem is that the character doesn't really grow or change in any way from this point.

01:01:15.360 Another basic principle of filmmaking is that the main character has to undergo some kind of

01:01:19.820 transformation. Some sort of change should happen. That's what a story is. Like a character goes through

01:01:27.020 a change, both an internal emotional change and there should be some kind of, so there should be the

01:01:33.440 internal journey and the physical journey. Both of those things should happen in a story. It's not a

01:01:39.440 real story if we don't see that. And instead, Brody's character goes from sad to a lot sadder by

01:01:47.380 the end. He's a pitiful figure in the beginning and by the end, he's even more pitiful. Why do we

01:01:53.440 need to see that? Why should we want to see that? Why does this movie exist? Why did the filmmaker

01:01:59.720 feel the need to tell this story? None of that is clear by the end of the movie. I will say the

01:02:05.300 performances in the film are quite impressive. They're good performances. It is a beautifully

01:02:11.100 shot film, but the movie underneath is quite ugly. It is ugly and pointless and depressing and

01:02:19.140 demoralizing just for the sake of it, for no reason other than just to be that way.

01:02:25.580 And I just asked why the film exists and I think I answered the question. It exists in order to be

01:02:30.900 ugly and pointless and depressing and demoralizing. And that's why a lot of films exist these days.

01:02:36.120 And they usually win a bunch of awards and people pretend to like them, but that doesn't change the

01:02:40.740 fact that they are at their core simply bad films. And this is simply a bad film. And it is also today

01:02:48.860 canceled. That'll do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you

01:02:52.480 tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 25, 2025

Ep. 1543 - Incompetent Federal Employees PANIC When Asked What They Do All Day

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