The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1612 - The LGBT Movement Is Collapsing, And Simone Biles’ Apology Proves It

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, Simone Biles issues a groveling apology after attacking Riley Gaines for her stance against men in women's sports. 0.64

00:00:06.760 This series of events would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. We'll talk about it.

00:00:10.080 Also, the media laments that there are now more American troops in L.A. than in Iraq or Syria.

00:00:16.820 Well, yeah, that's what we voted for.

00:00:18.620 Trump uncancels Robert E. Lee. I'll give you a quick history lesson to explain why that is a very good decision.

00:00:23.300 And Republican Senator Josh Hawley joins Democrats in a bill to impose a $15 minimum wage.

00:00:28.620 I'll explain why that is a very bad thing.

00:00:30.800 And all of that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.

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00:01:58.440 There are few institutions in this country that have disgraced themselves more thoroughly in recent days than the little-known Champlin Park High School in Champlin, Minnesota.

00:02:07.520 This is a school that just won the Class 4A Minnesota Girls State Softball Championship by fielding a male as their star pitcher in every single game.

00:02:16.760 And this male pitcher, a 17-year-old junior named Charlie Marissa Rothenberger, pitched all 21 innings across three games of the girls' championship tournament, because they do seven-inning games in softball.

00:02:29.060 And what do you know? Champlin Park won all three games.

00:02:32.320 Rothenberger capped off his performance by throwing a complete-game shutout, allowing only three hits in the process.

00:02:39.180 And that's just the championship route.

00:02:41.120 He also pitched a complete-game shutout in the quarterfinals, and overall, in the entire postseason, Rothenberger allowed only two runs in 35 innings.

00:02:49.740 Now, everybody involved in this farce, from the school district to the coaches to the parents to the athlete himself,

00:02:57.540 should be barred from any kind of competitive activity for the rest of their lives.

00:03:01.680 They should face more serious consequences, which may indeed be coming.

00:03:05.360 The school district has already been sued.

00:03:06.860 But at the moment, like most cheaters, these people seem to have convinced themselves that they did nothing wrong.

00:03:12.440 In interviews, Rothenberger and his coach have suggested that they're simply better competitors than their opponents.

00:03:17.540 They managed to vary their pitch types and pitch speeds, and their opponents just didn't measure up.

00:03:22.900 So here's an interview from last season to give you an idea.

00:03:26.800 Then in the seventh, it's Rothenberger shutting things down with their tenth strikeout of the game.

00:03:32.140 The Rebels get the win 2-1.

00:03:33.780 I think it was just spinning, like, my rise ball and pitches through the zone, mixing different speeds, and keeping them off balance.

00:03:40.960 It's been high energy all the time, having a strong defense and picking each other up after every hour, being able to string a couple hits together and getting runs.

00:03:50.400 We're great in the circle.

00:03:51.400 Our pitchers do a phenomenal job.

00:03:53.060 We have two young pitchers, Ava Abramson and Marissa Rothenberger.

00:03:57.340 And they've been doing a phenomenal job.

00:03:59.140 They keep us in every game.

00:04:00.420 And then we string hits together.

00:04:02.520 Chaska's a top-ten team.

00:04:04.080 I mean, they've been in it all year.

00:04:05.900 Now, watching this coach speak, any sane person has to fight to suppress their vomit reflex.

00:04:12.480 I mean, imagine celebrating your sports acumen and acting like you're some incredible coach with an incredible team when you have a boy pitching every single one of your games in a girls' softball league.

00:04:23.060 Like, the gall that's required to stand there with a straight face as you cheat in the most flagrant way imaginable while pretending everything is completely normal is hard to comprehend.

00:04:33.200 I mean, pathetic does not even begin to describe it.

00:04:34.980 And, of course, the parents who allow this man to coach their daughters as he teaches them how to cheat are just as culpable.

00:04:42.520 Everything about this story is revolting.

00:04:44.800 And the school district knows that.

00:04:46.640 So does the league.

00:04:47.420 And that's why they've locked down their social media posts so that no one can reply to them.

00:04:51.360 And here's what the Minnesota State High School League posted before locking the comments.

00:04:55.240 Quote, meet Champlin Park, the Class 4A softball state champion for 2025.

00:05:00.280 Then they attached a team picture, including the boy who dominated the competition.

00:05:04.180 Now, Riley Gaines noticed the league's decision, the censor replies.

00:05:07.340 And to point out the league's cowardice, she wrote, quote, comments off to be expected when your star player is a boy.

00:05:13.380 Now, as we discussed earlier this week, Gaines's post sent Simone Biles, the Olympic gymnast, into a frenzy. 1.00

00:05:21.160 She accused Gaines of bullying the trans-identified athlete.

00:05:25.260 Biles also wrote, quote,

00:05:26.180 And then for good measure, Biles followed up by writing, quote,

00:05:41.700 Now, the other day, we talked about all the reasons why this rant was highly ironic,

00:05:49.860 especially since Simone Biles isn't exactly known for her sportsmanship or for her feminine appearance, frankly. 1.00

00:05:55.740 We also discussed why her idea of a trans-only league is idiotic for like a million reasons.

00:06:01.360 For one thing, there wouldn't be enough players, nor would anyone want to watch them play.

00:06:05.740 Additionally, you'd have to decide how to classify the, you know, non-binaries and demisexuals and two-spirits and the 50,000 other genders.

00:06:14.040 Do they play with the trans men or the trans women?

00:06:15.820 Do we need a separate league for every variation?

00:06:19.360 Things can get pretty complicated, especially when the trans furries show up and refuse to wear the standard uniforms. 0.99

00:06:24.020 And of course, on top of all these problems, a trans-only league makes no sense 0.94

00:06:28.140 because the current system of dividing athletes based on biological reality and not fantasy works perfectly fine

00:06:35.020 and has worked for many generations.

00:06:37.980 So those are just a few problems with Simone Biles' tweets. 0.77

00:06:40.880 Additionally, a few people also pointed out that Simone Biles' position was also hypocritical 0.99

00:06:45.840 because back in 2017, she wrote on Twitter, quote,

00:06:49.060 Good thing guys don't compete against girls or he'd take all the gold medals, close quote.

00:06:54.420 Referring to a male gymnast at the time.

00:06:57.400 Now, presumably that post was written before Biles had lost her mind.

00:07:00.660 But in 2025, Biles, as with so many other prominent public figures, is completely subservient to leftist ideology.

00:07:07.840 And more than that, she's vindictive and openly hostile to anyone who expresses a contrary position,

00:07:14.220 even if it's the position that most Americans hold, the one that happens to correspond with reality.

00:07:19.300 But here's what elevates the story beyond a typical social media spat, and this is why it's worth revisiting,

00:07:27.260 is that five years ago, for these posts attacking Riley Gaines, Simone Biles would have received unrelenting praise from every organ of the left. 0.86

00:07:37.340 The media would be asking her how she managed to be so brave in the face of Riley Gaines' fascism.

00:07:42.940 Activist groups would be clamoring to invite her to speaking engagements.

00:07:45.820 Every podcast would be elevating her as a kind of trans messiah. 1.00

00:07:49.960 And then they would have had Riley Gaines banned from the Internet, of course.

00:07:52.920 I mean, that's how things used to work.

00:07:54.600 In 2020, just to give you one of many, many examples, the comedian Graham Linehan was permanently banned from Twitter for tweeting, quote,

00:08:02.560 Men aren't women, though. 0.99

00:08:04.820 That's all it took five years ago.

00:08:06.300 You'd get dogpiled and permanently censored for stating the truth about human biology.

00:08:11.600 But that's not what happens anymore.

00:08:13.460 Very few prominent people came out to defend Simone Biles after her post.

00:08:19.940 Instead, she was excoriated by almost everyone. 0.64

00:08:23.920 And the backlash was so significant that just a few days after this initial post, Simone Biles put out a lengthy statement apologizing to Riley Gaines.

00:08:32.980 Here's what she posted.

00:08:34.180 Quote,

00:08:34.320 This statement continues for a bit, and we'll read the rest of it in a moment.

00:08:55.480 But it's worth taking a second to think about the words competitive equity, because it's a real triumph of word salad.

00:09:04.040 What exactly is competitive equity?

00:09:07.160 Of course, when leftists say equity, we know what they mean.

00:09:09.600 They mean allowing certain demographics, like self-identifying trans people in this case, to gain advantages over others.

00:09:15.920 But that's fundamentally incompatible with the idea of competition.

00:09:20.440 The whole point of equity is to eliminate competition.

00:09:22.720 So, you know, that's the left's preferred, so that the left's preferred groups win.

00:09:28.340 And so the idea of competitive equity just makes no sense.

00:09:30.840 But if you could make it past the oxymoron, Simone Biles does get around to apologizing, which we just heard. 0.98

00:09:36.480 And then she writes this, quote,

00:09:38.260 These are sensitive, complicated issues that I truly don't have the answers or solutions to.

00:09:42.920 But I believe it starts with empathy and respect.

00:09:45.520 I was not advocating for policies that compromise fairness in women's sports.

00:09:49.440 My objection is to singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel personal and harmful.

00:09:55.360 Individual athletes, especially kids, should never be the focus of criticism of a flawed system that they have no control over.

00:10:00.440 I believe sports organizations have a responsibility to come up with rules supporting inclusion while maintaining fair competition.

00:10:07.560 We all want a future for sport that is fair, inclusive, and respectful.

00:10:13.340 XOXO Simone.

00:10:16.240 Now, as far as apologies go, this one obviously could have and should have gone much further.

00:10:23.480 She should have dropped the word salad and stated plainly that boys don't belong in girls' sports, period. 0.99

00:10:30.440 And many conservatives are pointing out that, pointing that out, they're pointing out that her statement sounds phony, like it was crafted by a PR agency or an AI program.

00:10:40.420 I mean, when you compare that statement to the original tweets, it's pretty clear it was not written by the same human or by a human at all.

00:10:48.600 So they don't believe that the apology is sincere.

00:10:51.140 And they're right about that, of course.

00:10:55.340 But I think the conservatives that are saying this are missing the point.

00:11:01.040 You know, the fact that a very famous and popular public figure felt the need to apologize and get a crisis PR firm involved and issue a PR statement after tweeting in support of the trans agenda is a clear sign of a very significant sea change in our culture.

00:11:18.280 It's not really important that the statement was insincere or incomplete.

00:11:22.620 In fact, that in some ways makes it more significant.

00:11:25.700 The fact that, like, we all know she doesn't believe what she's saying, but she felt the need to pretend.

00:11:30.880 See, this always used to go the other way around.

00:11:32.620 It always used to go the other way around, that it was people who are rational people and conservatives who were issuing these groveling apologies that were insincere, pretending they believe things they don't.

00:11:43.600 And now it's happening this way, where you've got someone.

00:11:47.080 So does she actually believe that?

00:11:48.340 No, of course she doesn't.

00:11:49.700 Is she actually sorry for what she said about Riley Gantz?

00:11:53.440 Of course she's not.

00:11:54.720 But she felt the need to pretend.

00:11:57.540 Okay, which really tells you something.

00:12:00.300 What's important is that this series of events, any kind of retreat by Simone Biles in this scenario, would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

00:12:09.600 But it's yet another sign of just how thoroughly the right has won on the issue of gender ideology.

00:12:15.520 If this had happened in, say, 2021, there would have been a whole army of public figures circling the wagons around Simone Biles. 1.00

00:12:22.120 And that didn't really happen this time.

00:12:24.160 And that's particularly notable because it's supposedly Pride Month.

00:12:27.820 You might remember Pride Month.

00:12:29.400 This is supposed to be the time of year when trans activists become even more unhinged and hostile than they normally are. 0.99

00:12:35.480 They're supposed to be emboldened.

00:12:37.220 And they're supposed to loudly shout down people like Riley Gantz. 0.99

00:12:40.880 They're supposed to dominate the conversation so that no one's allowed to point out that a male just won a girl's softball tournament. 0.98

00:12:47.340 But no one's talking about Pride Month anymore.

00:12:49.500 LGBT activists are too demoralized and discredited to celebrate at the moment.

00:12:54.320 That's the same reason they're not really defending Simone Biles.

00:12:56.980 I mean, a few voices here and there chimed in, but very few.

00:13:00.680 And it's why she was forced to apologize.

00:13:02.140 And it's why the Minnesota High School Softball League had to shut down its social media feeds.

00:13:07.520 Every single one of these liars is aware of the fact that they've lost most of their public support.

00:13:13.760 Now, yes, technically speaking, Champlin Park High School was named the winner of the State Girl Softball Championship.

00:13:19.720 But as you watch the players and the coaches gloat, it's hard not to be reminded of all the other frauds throughout history who simply took things too far too quickly.

00:13:28.640 Pathetic institutions like Champlin Park High School and the Minnesota State Softball League, along with cowardly mouthpieces like Simone Biles, 0.75

00:13:37.220 no longer have the cultural power that they had just a few years ago.

00:13:41.100 And with this latest apology, even if it was generated by a PR firm using ChatGPT,

00:13:47.240 it's evident that Simone Biles and the rest of the LGBT cult are slowly coming around to the reality of their own irrelevance. 1.00

00:13:57.080 Now let's get to our five headlines.

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00:14:59.260 So the movement against American sovereignty has now spread nationwide with riots and demonstrations spreading to cities like Dallas, Atlanta, Boston, New York.

00:15:10.180 And this is clearly a highly coordinated and well-funded campaign to undermine our national sovereignty and destroy the country.

00:15:16.740 None of this is organic.

00:15:17.740 None of this is happening naturally.

00:15:18.900 This reaction against mass deportations is completely contrived and staged.

00:15:24.340 And we know that for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that mass deportations haven't even happened yet.

00:15:32.520 I mean, I hope they do happen.

00:15:34.100 I want them to happen.

00:15:35.540 But they have not, in fact, happened at this point.

00:15:38.120 There have been deportations, but not at a higher rate than other presidents like Obama even deported people.

00:15:45.340 So the whole thing is clearly fake.

00:15:48.700 The violence is real.

00:15:51.320 The riots are real.

00:15:52.400 The chaos is real.

00:15:53.820 But it's obviously being funded and organized and staged very clearly.

00:15:59.560 And one of the most interesting and sometimes quite funny things about this whole episode has been the attempt to demonize Trump and his response to the riot.

00:16:08.840 Attempts that often end up making a point that is exactly the opposite of the one that they're trying to make.

00:16:17.400 And I want to highlight this headline from ABC News, for example.

00:16:20.820 Here it is.

00:16:21.240 The headline is, more U.S. troops are in L.A. than in Iraq and Syria.

00:16:26.400 There are now more U.S. troops deployed to Los Angeles than Iraq and Syria.

00:16:28.820 There are 4,800 activated guard and marine personnel in L.A.

00:16:32.960 compared to the 2,500 troops in Iraq and 1,500 in Syria.

00:16:39.840 Now, we're supposed to hear that, I guess, and find it shocking or appalling or upsetting in some way.

00:16:45.860 But, of course, most Americans hear that and they think instead, well, yeah, good.

00:16:51.800 I mean, that's what we want.

00:16:53.400 That's what we voted for.

00:16:54.200 So, what they're telling us is that U.S. troops are defending U.S. cities and trying to restore order in the U.S.

00:17:05.280 rather than defending cities in random Middle Eastern hellhole countries.

00:17:11.960 Okay.

00:17:12.720 Yeah.

00:17:13.000 Again, that's what we voted for.

00:17:14.560 That is a good thing.

00:17:16.040 We're happy about that.

00:17:17.280 We aren't happy that...

00:17:19.240 We're not happy that the troops are needed in Los Angeles.

00:17:21.860 We wish they weren't needed.

00:17:22.940 But if they are needed, we're happy that they're being used in this country and not somewhere else.

00:17:29.040 And why is that?

00:17:30.020 Well, because we don't care about defending cities in Iraq or Syria.

00:17:33.680 If Iraq and Syria are in a state of chaos, I don't care. 0.89

00:17:39.980 I couldn't care less.

00:17:41.920 They can worry about their own problems.

00:17:45.000 Let them take care of themselves.

00:17:46.300 What does that have to do with us?

00:17:48.320 But I do care about violence and chaos in American cities.

00:17:51.840 I care about it in my own country.

00:17:53.380 And I would rather spend my tax money protecting American cities than cities in the Middle East in countries that, you know, I've never even visited and never will and don't care about. 0.97

00:18:05.660 And this kind of thinking is, I mean, it's intuitive to most normal people, right?

00:18:12.500 But leftists can't wrap their minds around it.

00:18:14.340 They truly find it confusing.

00:18:16.260 They're confounded by it.

00:18:17.520 The idea that we would want to spend our resources on improving and defending our own country and our own community, the idea that we care more about the state of affairs in an American city than in a Middle Eastern city is truly bewildering to them.

00:18:33.320 They just can't.

00:18:34.120 They can't comprehend it.

00:18:36.020 This basic instinct, the order of loves, you know, that has been intuitive for everyone since the dawn of time somehow escapes them because their minds and souls are just that polluted.

00:18:47.520 And here's more evidence of that.

00:18:49.400 Here's another story that gives the game away related to this.

00:18:52.820 The Daily Wire reports, the GOP-led House passed on Tuesday a bill to prohibit non-citizens from voting in local Washington, D.C. elections, overcoming the majority of Democrats who voted against the measure.

00:19:03.840 A total of 210 Republicans and 56 Democrats supported the legislation, which bars foreign nationals from voting in local contests in the nation's capital and repeals a measure passed by the D.C. Council in 2022 that allowed it in the first place.

00:19:17.620 Another 148 Democrats voted against it.

00:19:22.040 So it isn't subtle.

00:19:23.280 Democrats want foreigners to vote in American elections.

00:19:26.320 Obviously, they want that.

00:19:27.460 They couldn't be more clear about it.

00:19:29.160 Now, granted, this this plan has drawbacks for Democrats.

00:19:31.860 It's not working as well as they hoped or as well as it used to.

00:19:35.760 Hispanics are increasingly voting Republican, especially Hispanic men.

00:19:38.760 But that really has not quelled the Democrats desire to flood our country with foreigners.

00:19:43.980 And partly because they're confident and there was there's a lot of talk after the election.

00:19:52.140 I think some of it half joking, some of it not that, you know, I've made similar comments that, oh, you know, Democrats now are going to now they're going to finally want to build the wall now that they've seen that Hispanics are beginning to vote against them.

00:20:06.220 But that hasn't actually happened.

00:20:09.960 And I think most of us knew that it wouldn't actually happen.

00:20:13.980 They still support illegal immigration.

00:20:16.480 They still want to flood our country with foreigners despite the election results. 1.00

00:20:20.740 And that's partly because they're confident in their ability to win the foreign vote by promising them access to the wallets and bank accounts of American citizens.

00:20:29.640 They're confident in their ability to bribe foreigners into supporting them, in other words. 0.86

00:20:36.740 So that's that's part of it.

00:20:38.960 But also, this isn't all about voting.

00:20:42.880 You know, we we like to say that Democrats want to import new voters.

00:20:47.860 And that's true.

00:20:48.940 They they do want to import new voters.

00:20:52.580 But this isn't just about winning elections.

00:20:54.940 After all, election victories are fleeting.

00:20:56.900 They're transitory.

00:20:58.300 Right.

00:20:58.740 You win some elections, you lose some elections.

00:21:01.120 The deeper goal is to reshape America demographically. 0.63

00:21:06.120 It is it is to make America less white, less European by descent. 0.97

00:21:11.060 It is ultimately about the destruction of Western civilization.

00:21:16.580 That that's the great villain for these people.

00:21:18.520 That's the great white whale, you know, literally white in this case that they wish to slay.

00:21:24.040 You're not going to destroy Western civilization just by winning the next midterms or whatever.

00:21:30.540 You just you destroy it by importing non-Western people. 1.00

00:21:34.500 You do it with demographic replacement.

00:21:35.960 It's like, you know, I made this point before.

00:21:38.040 A lot of people have made this kind of use this illustration, which I think I think kind of makes it should make it very clear for any reasonable person.

00:21:46.440 But if you were to, let's say, take everybody in Nigeria right now and pick them up and transport them into the United States. 1.00

00:22:00.120 And at the same time, you were to take everybody in the United States right now and transport them somewhere else.

00:22:05.640 Let's say to where the left would really want to transport them, let's say to the sun, just shoot them directly into the sun.

00:22:12.940 Well, if you were to do that, it would mean that the United States doesn't exist anymore.

00:22:19.360 It's it's the same land.

00:22:21.120 It's the same geography.

00:22:22.320 It may even have the same name for a while and it may even have the same political structure, at least for a while.

00:22:29.740 But it's not America anymore.

00:22:31.940 It's Nigeria. 0.67

00:22:33.280 You got rid of all the Americans. 1.00

00:22:34.960 You replaced all of them with Nigerians. 1.00

00:22:36.840 So this is now Nigeria. 0.50

00:22:38.560 That's what else would you call it?

00:22:42.040 And it's easy for people to see this in the reverse, because if we were to do the reverse of this and round up all the Nigerians and shoot them into the sun and then send 100 million Americans. 0.99

00:22:51.320 Or whatever the population is of Nigeria right now.

00:22:54.660 And and but, you know, round up 100 million Americans, particularly white Americans and plop them right into Nigeria. 0.84

00:23:02.940 Everyone would rightly see that we haven't just made some slight changes to Nigeria.

00:23:07.800 This isn't like some redecorating that took place.

00:23:11.160 We destroyed Nigeria. 0.99

00:23:12.760 Nigeria no longer exists.

00:23:14.340 It's not it's yeah, it's the same physical location, but it no longer exists.

00:23:21.320 Now Nigeria is essentially an American state, even if we don't call it that, because you cannot have Nigeria without Nigerians.

00:23:28.460 You get rid of all the Nigerians and it's not Nigeria anymore, just like you can't have America without Americans. 1.00

00:23:34.460 And so that so it's when we talk about elections and voting.

00:23:41.880 Yes, of course, they want to win elections.

00:23:43.800 Of course, they want power.

00:23:44.720 But.

00:23:46.640 They want power and control over American elections because they don't want America to exist anymore.

00:23:52.160 That's that's the ultimate goal is so that America doesn't exist.

00:23:56.180 And the more and when it comes to the current crisis.

00:24:03.320 You know, the more that America resembles Mexico, the less it is America, the more you can turn America into Mexico. 0.84

00:24:13.820 This is the that's the more Mexico you have and the less America. 0.97

00:24:17.540 And that's and that is the goal.

00:24:20.700 All right.

00:24:21.300 President Trump spoke at Fort Bragg yesterday and he made an announcement about some changes that will be made and have already already stated started making these changes.

00:24:31.400 They're going to continue to changes that I think are quite good.

00:24:35.000 But let's listen to the announcement.

00:24:37.300 For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee.

00:24:55.340 We won a lot of battles out of those forts.

00:25:02.720 It's no time to change.

00:25:05.300 And I'm superstitious.

00:25:06.800 You know, I like to keep it going, right?

00:25:08.980 I'm very superstitious.

00:25:10.640 We want to keep it going.

00:25:12.700 So they'll be restoring the names of a bunch of U.S. forts, forts that had been named after Civil War generals.

00:25:19.780 And that includes restoring the name of the fort named after Robert E. Lee.

00:25:23.680 According to Donald Trump.

00:25:28.100 And I think this is great news.

00:25:29.840 But, of course, it isn't really being treated like great news by everybody.

00:25:33.720 Naturally, the left is having a hissy fit about it.

00:25:36.960 I don't really care about that.

00:25:38.200 It's not even worth addressing.

00:25:39.400 Instead, I do want to try to talk about this a little bit and break this down for people on the right who generally opposed tearing down statues and renaming forts and buildings and all that kind of thing, but who supported it and still do for Confederate generals.

00:25:58.880 There are, from what I've seen, and I don't know what the percentage is, but I've certainly seen a fair number of conservatives who hold that position and who think it's a bad idea to put somebody like Robert E. Lee's name back on a fort or to resurrect his statues, which I think we should be doing that also.

00:26:15.660 I think we should put up a new Robert E. Lee statue to replace every single one that was taken down and make it five times larger, just to spite the mob that tore it down and to make it impossible for them to tear it down again.

00:26:29.040 But this is not a universally accepted position on the right.

00:26:33.400 Far from it, I would say.

00:26:34.400 So I wanted to talk about this a little bit because I believe that there's a lot of ignorance about the Civil War.

00:26:40.240 Of course, there's a lot of ignorance about it, and in particular about men like Robert E. Lee, and I'm going to focus on his case in particular.

00:26:50.280 And when I say ignorance, by the way, I don't even mean that as an insult because it's not entirely your fault.

00:26:55.240 If you're ignorant about the real history of the Civil War, what that tells me is that you went to public school, as I did, or even private school.

00:27:05.460 Most private schools, it's the same, where you are going to be hopelessly misinformed about the Civil War and every other historical subject, particularly subjects relating to American history.

00:27:18.120 And unless you specifically went and pursued a better education on the subject, which you would have had to pursue independently on your own time,

00:27:30.380 unless you did that, then you have never received anything approaching a real education on the Civil War.

00:27:36.600 If you relied on the school system to teach you about it, and that's kind of as far as your education on the subject goes, then you know nothing about it.

00:27:44.580 You really have zero understanding.

00:27:46.040 In fact, you're in the negative.

00:27:47.740 You have a – it's not just that you lack information.

00:27:50.980 The information you think you have is wrong.

00:27:54.620 So – but a lot of people, they – this is the problem with having a hopelessly corrupted school system is that you're getting a lot of misinformation.

00:28:08.360 You're getting a lot of left-wing propaganda.

00:28:10.060 Obviously, that's the entire – you're being brainwashed.

00:28:12.480 And then you have to go after the fact after you graduate and deliberately try to undo the brainwashing.

00:28:19.900 But you don't have time to, like, go and explore every single subject that they got wrong in school.

00:28:26.000 And so a lot of people are just like – Civil War doesn't interest them that much, so they don't spend the time to read about it.

00:28:30.600 And so they go through their lives harboring all these misperceptions that were instilled in them by the school system.

00:28:38.200 So with that said, here's the truth about Robert E. Lee, which is, to just summarize, he was not some sort of belligerent racist

00:28:53.360 who led troops into battle in the hope of overthrowing the U.S. government because he wanted to protect slavery.

00:29:00.720 That's not the case.

00:29:02.420 I think that's what most people today think.

00:29:06.640 That's the perception.

00:29:07.940 That is just not the reality.

00:29:09.280 That's not what happened.

00:29:11.360 Lee entered the war on the side of the South, yes, but not for the sake of defending slavery,

00:29:18.680 just as Lincoln didn't enter it for the sake of freeing the slaves.

00:29:21.980 In fact, Lincoln said that if he could save the Union without freeing a single slave, he would do that.

00:29:30.600 Lincoln said if he could save the Union without freeing any slaves, he'd do that.

00:29:34.140 If he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, he'd do that too.

00:29:37.020 If he could save the Union by keeping some people enslaved and some not, he would do that.

00:29:40.520 Those were his words.

00:29:41.560 I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that was very, very close to the direct quote.

00:29:47.260 And Lee, for his part, didn't want to go to war to defend slavery.

00:29:51.280 In fact, Lee said that slavery was a moral evil.

00:29:54.360 Now, you'll hear that Robert E. Lee owned slaves himself, which is true, but it needs context.

00:30:01.360 Just as if you're investigating something that happened in history, especially something that happened in another century,

00:30:08.760 something that happened in the mid-19th century or earlier than that, you always need to keep in mind context.

00:30:16.620 So, did he own slaves?

00:30:20.500 Yeah, just as some Union generals owned slaves.

00:30:22.980 Grant owned at least one slave for a period of time.

00:30:26.240 There were other Union generals who owned slaves.

00:30:28.380 Lee owned slaves because he inherited them from his father's estate.

00:30:31.120 And it's said in his father's will that he was to free the slaves after a period of time, which he did.

00:30:36.860 He was the executor of the estate, and he followed his father's wishes.

00:30:40.960 And the slaves were freed before the Emancipation Proclamation, even though the Emancipation Proclamation actually didn't free a single slave.

00:30:46.520 Because it was written specifically to free the slaves only in the states that were in rebellion,

00:30:51.420 which were the states that Lincoln did not have control over at the time,

00:30:54.360 and specifically did not free the slaves in the states that he did have control over.

00:30:58.940 But that's sort of a slightly different topic.

00:31:02.660 So, that's his actual history of slavery.

00:31:04.720 Now, if you're going to take the position that, okay, yeah, but he still technically owned slaves for a period of time,

00:31:10.020 and he inherited them, he didn't free them right away, he obviously didn't have an enlightened view on the topic.

00:31:13.940 Yeah, he didn't have an enlightened view on the topic by our standards today.

00:31:16.200 Nobody did at that time.

00:31:18.420 And if owning slaves means that somebody is not worthy of being respected or remembered or honored,

00:31:24.580 well, you know, I got news for you about, like, every person in history, if you go back 200 years or earlier.

00:31:34.160 Because all of them, if you go back far enough, either owned slaves or they didn't own them because they weren't rich enough,

00:31:40.740 but they were okay with the institution.

00:31:42.300 They believed in the institution.

00:31:43.320 They were fine with it.

00:31:44.040 And that describes every single person who lived on the planet up until, you know, around the 19th century is when that started to change.

00:31:54.500 The founding fathers owned slaves.

00:31:56.520 So if that, if, and this, by the way, is the logic that the left uses to tear down the founding fathers, take their names off of things, tear down their statues.

00:32:09.040 Right?

00:32:09.520 We're talking about, you know, about 90 years that separated America declaring independence from the Civil War.

00:32:17.760 So this is, you know, in our day, that's one lifetime, two lifetimes back then, not that long of a different, not that great of an expanse of time.

00:32:26.920 And yet, if you're a reasonable person, you can look at our founding fathers and say, yeah, these are men who should be honored and remembered.

00:32:36.280 And yes, they did also, many of them owned slaves.

00:32:39.180 But we can understand that in the context of the time.

00:32:42.920 And if we're not going to read history that way, then we're not reading history at all.

00:32:49.760 So, why did Lee fight for the Confederacy?

00:32:56.600 Well, because he was a Virginia man.

00:32:58.720 And back in those days, and this is hard for us to understand, but back in those days, especially in the South, your state was your country.

00:33:08.300 If you heard somebody refer to their country, they would often be talking about their state.

00:33:14.500 Lee was more loyal to his state and identified with it more than he did the federal government.

00:33:19.120 His state is where, which kind of makes sense, especially back in those days when people were not connected by modern technology.

00:33:29.420 And so, the only people you ever saw or heard from or heard about or interacted with were the people in your community.

00:33:37.120 If the people who lived in states 500 miles away, you would just never see them ever or hear about them or hear from them or talk to them.

00:33:44.500 And so, he identified with his community where he lived, and it's where his wife and children lived also.

00:33:51.680 So, when he was offered command of the Union Army, he declined.

00:33:54.420 He declined it because he could not go to war against his own home, against his own community, against his own children.

00:33:59.960 You know, he had sons that were fighting age.

00:34:01.560 He'd be fighting against his own kids.

00:34:03.400 And he gave this as a reason.

00:34:04.580 His direct quote was, I cannot raise my hand against my community, my home, and my children.

00:34:08.800 And that's the reason.

00:34:10.900 He saw it as a choice to fight against his birthplace and his home or to fight to defend it.

00:34:14.440 And he chose the latter.

00:34:15.320 And I think that's a choice that reasonable people should be able to understand.

00:34:20.060 You know, it can be hard for us to wrap our minds around the mindset of people back in those days.

00:34:23.780 But that's a poor reflection of our mindset today, not of theirs.

00:34:29.940 Because people back then, especially guys like Lee, had a very strong sense of honor and duty.

00:34:35.880 And in a way that almost nobody does today.

00:34:38.940 Almost nobody does.

00:34:40.900 But Lee did.

00:34:41.760 And so, for him, the idea that he would...

00:34:43.720 Because, you know, the other response that you'll often hear is, okay, well, he didn't have to fight at all.

00:34:49.780 Why didn't he just sit it out?

00:34:50.880 Well, the idea that he would sit it out and not fight at all was just unthinkable.

00:34:56.980 Like, that just simply was not an option.

00:34:59.160 Robert E. Lee is a military man, a man of honor and duty.

00:35:03.800 Fought with distinction in the Mexican-American War.

00:35:06.220 He was not going to sit at home while other men fought.

00:35:09.320 He wasn't going to sit at home while his sons went out and fought.

00:35:12.300 That just couldn't happen.

00:35:15.240 So, he had to take a side.

00:35:17.020 He didn't want to.

00:35:18.100 But he didn't choose the fight.

00:35:21.100 He didn't start the war.

00:35:22.140 In fact, he was opposed to secession.

00:35:24.420 That's another thing he probably didn't learn.

00:35:27.120 If you were relying on the school system to teach you about these things.

00:35:31.900 His take on secession was that he thought it was a huge mistake and it shouldn't happen.

00:35:35.540 And yet, at the same time, he also thought that it would be a huge mistake for the North to try to maintain the Union through force.

00:35:40.800 So, he didn't want the South to secede, but he also didn't want the North to try to prevent it by force.

00:35:47.720 He didn't want the South to secede.

00:35:49.000 He didn't want Virginia to secede.

00:35:50.300 But if they were going to do it, he'd be with them.

00:35:53.320 You know?

00:35:53.460 And that was his take.

00:35:56.380 I think it's a pretty reasonable take.

00:36:00.140 So, he was opposed to secession.

00:36:01.660 He thought slavery was a moral evil.

00:36:03.580 And yet, he fought for Virginia.

00:36:05.220 Why?

00:36:05.720 Well, because he felt duty-bound to do so.

00:36:07.600 He believed that duty transcends the desires of the individual.

00:36:11.080 Which means that he would march in defense of Virginia, even as Virginia did something that he didn't personally agree with.

00:36:16.620 And again, I know this mentality is just totally unthinkable for people today for whom the desires of the individual always reign supreme.

00:36:23.200 But that was just not the case for almost any of the men who fought in the Civil War on either side.

00:36:27.900 In fact, there were plenty of guys on the other side who didn't agree that it was a good idea to march down South and force them to stay in the Union at the point of a bayonet.

00:36:36.640 And yet, they did it anyway.

00:36:37.780 Not because they were moral cowards, but for precisely the opposite reason.

00:36:41.180 Because they had a strong sense of duty, which came before their personal desires.

00:36:44.760 They saw their personal desires as less important than their duties as men.

00:36:51.660 So, he marched in defense of his home.

00:36:53.840 And in the process, he showed incredible brilliance as a commander and military tactician.

00:36:57.940 He fought in battles where he was very often hugely outnumbered and outgunned.

00:37:02.340 He won battle after battle that way.

00:37:03.960 The Battle of Chancellorsville, in particular, is considered one of his finest moments.

00:37:09.000 60,000 men against 130,000, 140,000 men, something like that.

00:37:13.840 Pulled off these incredibly daring maneuvers.

00:37:16.780 Actually choosing to divide his very small force multiple times to pull off these extremely risky flanking maneuvers.

00:37:25.040 But they were smart risks.

00:37:26.460 And the only way to win against those odds is to take smart but bold risks.

00:37:29.980 And Lee was one of the greatest military minds, certainly in American history, when it came to that sort of thing.

00:37:37.480 And he ultimately lost the war, of course.

00:37:39.300 But he put up a much, much better fight than most people expected.

00:37:42.180 And then after they lost, he became a champion for reconciliation, for reunification.

00:37:48.820 And consistent with his sense of duty that he had.

00:37:53.780 And he also, because for men like that, back in those days, it was, okay, we're going to go fight.

00:37:59.220 We're going to fight in this war.

00:38:00.180 Even if I don't fully agree with it, it's my duty as a man.

00:38:02.280 I'm going to fight anyway.

00:38:04.100 Okay, now we've lost.

00:38:05.360 And that's it.

00:38:05.920 We lost fair and square.

00:38:07.360 And we're going to accept that.

00:38:09.600 And that's what, that's how a man like Robert E. Lee thought.

00:38:13.960 So, does he deserve to be remembered by history and honored for the positive qualities that I've already listed?

00:38:22.740 Yes.

00:38:24.120 So, in summary, yes, he does.

00:38:26.740 And the people who, you know, the people who talk, oh, he was just a traitor.

00:38:34.600 He was nothing.

00:38:35.120 But these people can't even conceive of the level of honor and dignity that guys like Robert E. Lee and men on both sides of the battle possessed.

00:38:48.640 They can't even, they don't even have in their pinky finger that level of honor and dignity.

00:38:55.680 They can't, they, it's, it's, it's like these were men.

00:38:58.860 These were, these were real men.

00:39:01.740 And, and I think that, yes, I think it's, I think it's a good thing for us to honor and remember them.

00:39:08.600 And we were able to do that in this country for a long time, for, for generations.

00:39:16.220 What I'm saying right now would have been, I wouldn't even need to be said.

00:39:19.980 It wouldn't, it wouldn't have been a revelation to anybody.

00:39:21.560 This is generally how people felt.

00:39:26.000 And only in the last few years are we suddenly acting as though the wounds of the Civil War are just too fresh, too raw for us to, you know, for us to have any kind of nuanced view of somebody like Robert E. Lee.

00:39:41.680 So it's, it's, it's, it's, the wounds are too raw and too fresh for us.

00:39:47.780 And somehow, uh, they're more raw and fresh for us than they were for, you know, people whose grandfathers actually fought in the war.

00:39:57.700 Makes no sense.

00:39:59.800 So there's your history lesson for the, for the day.

00:40:03.280 Let's, uh, let's get to the comment section.

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00:41:46.760 Matt is happy to keep unwanted immigrants away. Matt wants poor countries to get better by themselves. 1.00

00:41:51.900 That's great. Like Libya, that tries to create a new coin using the natural resources in Africa, but sadly the legal NATO army destroyed the country.

00:41:59.400 What else does Matt recommend poor countries to do?

00:42:02.660 I don't know. I don't have any recommendation.

00:42:05.520 I don't have a recommendation for Libya or any other country.

00:42:09.940 That's up to them to figure out. It's not my job to fix.

00:42:12.580 It's not any American's job to fix.

00:42:16.400 So we always hear this whenever someone says, whenever I say that America doesn't need to be involved in these countries, doesn't need to be taking on their problems.

00:42:27.020 Then the response is always, well, what do you want the countries to do?

00:42:30.080 How else are they? I don't know.

00:42:32.220 Why is that my problem?

00:42:33.720 Why is Libya my problem? 0.97

00:42:34.700 I don't care.

00:42:35.880 They'll have to figure that out.

00:42:38.080 I spend 0% of my time thinking about Libya and what Libya is going to do.

00:42:43.260 I'll leave that to the Libyans. 0.99

00:42:44.680 And if they can't figure it out, then again, that's totally their problem.

00:42:51.600 If California was part of Mexico, it would look like the rest of Mexico and the Mexicans would be desperate to get into the next U.S. state. 0.98

00:42:58.520 Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make, though you summarized it much more efficiently.

00:43:02.780 I mean, never mind who California rightly belongs to.

00:43:05.200 It belongs to the United States, fair and square, very clearly.

00:43:07.660 But more importantly, why is it even a desirable place to be?

00:43:12.860 It's less and less desirable because of the rampant foreign invasion and also because of failed Democratic leadership.

00:43:24.300 But to the extent that it was ever desirable or it is desirable now, why is that?

00:43:30.540 Well, it's because it's part of the United States.

00:43:33.900 And if Mexicans agree that they don't want to be in Mexico, then they also wouldn't want to be in California if it was part of Mexico. 0.61

00:43:41.520 It kind of stands to reason.

00:43:42.860 Matt, I must say your football analogies will always conquer Tim Walz's football analogies.

00:43:49.180 Well, thank you for saying that.

00:43:50.140 I am proud of my ability to work obscure football analogies that maybe don't always really work in context, but I'm going to use them anyway in any point that I'm trying to make.

00:44:03.540 Though I think that this skill goes mostly unappreciated.

00:44:06.920 So you're the first person who's ever expressed any appreciation for it.

00:44:10.600 So thank you for that.

00:44:13.640 California politicians blaming Trump is the most unbelievably stupid thing I've ever heard.

00:44:18.000 Well, this is the theme and it extends internationally.

00:44:22.640 You know, Democrats never take responsibility for the condition of their own states and cities.

00:44:27.960 It's always somebody else's fault.

00:44:30.780 And other countries also won't take responsibility for the state of their countries.

00:44:35.480 I mean, we just heard it in the first comment in this segment.

00:44:37.480 All these hellhole countries that people want to leave are, we're told, only hellholes because of the U.S. somehow.

00:44:46.700 So they have no responsibility, take no responsibility for the state of their own countries.

00:44:52.740 That's the common theme here somehow.

00:44:57.440 There's been some concerning research about the true safety of the abortion pill that's worth discussing.

00:45:02.420 A recent report suggests that serious adverse effects from the abortion pill may be more common than previously understood,

00:45:08.420 potentially affecting around 11% of patients according to their findings,

00:45:11.480 given that the abortion pill now accounts for about 60% of all abortions in the U.S.

00:45:15.600 And with roughly a million procedures annually, this could impact tens of thousands of women each year. 0.84

00:45:20.940 And of course, it impacts 100% of babies who are killed through the abortion pill.

00:45:26.320 This raises important questions about how we approach these issues.

00:45:29.800 Organizations like the Preborn Network are taking a different approach, though.

00:45:32.860 They reported helping over 67,000 women last year by providing comprehensive support that addresses both physical and emotional needs,

00:45:39.740 while also offering spiritual guidance through their faith-based perspective.

00:45:44.000 And what's interesting is what they find that when women have the opportunity, unsurprisingly, 1.00

00:45:48.200 to see an ultrasound and hear their baby's heartbeat, it significantly increases the likelihood that they will choose life.

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00:46:13.540 Again, that's preborn.com slash Walsh.

00:46:15.920 Your dad gave you common sense, grit, and the ability to spot nonsense when you hear it.

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00:46:41.040 Before this deal ends, now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:46:50.160 Today for our daily cancellation, we have Republican Senator Josh Hawley.

00:46:54.580 Now, I like and respect Josh Hawley.

00:46:57.120 He's one of the very few members of Congress who I can say that about.

00:46:59.860 But the daily cancellation believes in equal opportunity.

00:47:03.540 The daily cancellation does not discriminate.

00:47:05.620 Or maybe I should say it does discriminate.

00:47:07.100 It discriminates ruthlessly and mercilessly, but it does so equally.

00:47:10.420 And that is why Senator Hawley must be canceled today.

00:47:14.780 The Daily Wire reports this week, quote,

00:47:16.920 Senator Josh Hawley joined with a Democrat colleague on Tuesday to introduce a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15.

00:47:24.140 Quote, for decades, working Americans have seen their wages flatline.

00:47:27.020 One major culprit of this is the failure of the federal minimum wage to keep up with the economic reality facing hardworking Americans every day.

00:47:33.860 Along with Senator Peter Welch of Vermont, Hawley introduced the Higher Wages for American Workers Act,

00:47:41.460 which would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour where it's been since 2009.

00:47:45.360 The bill would also provide a tax credit for workers making under minimum wage.

00:47:50.520 We're in the midst of a severe affordability crisis with families in red and blue states alike struggling to afford necessities like housing and groceries.

00:47:57.480 Every hardworking American deserves a living wage that helps put a roof over their head and food on the table. 1.00

00:48:02.880 Well, $7.25 an hour doesn't even come close.

00:48:05.780 Okay, so Josh Hawley has joined the ranks of the Democrats claiming that the federal minimum wage should provide a living wage.

00:48:12.040 Now, granted, this point of view is it's slightly less crazy now than it was when the Fight for 15 movement first began like 10 years ago or so.

00:48:20.040 And also, granted, if you're going to have a federal minimum wage, then, yeah, it makes no sense for it to be the same today as it was in 2009.

00:48:26.720 There's obviously been inflation since then and not a small amount of it either.

00:48:30.940 Cumulative inflation since 2009 has been about 45 to 50 percent.

00:48:35.320 So if we all agree that there needs to be a federal minimum wage, then we should also agree that it needs to be raised.

00:48:42.600 But we don't all agree that there should be a federal minimum wage.

00:48:47.160 In fact, the idea itself is absurd.

00:48:49.760 The federal minimum wage means that the federal government has set a baseline for what all labor is worth everywhere in the country, in every region, for all types of workers and all types of businesses, regardless of local economic conditions or anything else.

00:49:05.640 Right now, the minimum wage in New York is slightly more than $15 an hour.

00:49:09.780 That's the state minimum wage.

00:49:11.900 Alabama, on the other hand, has no state-specific minimum wage.

00:49:15.700 So the minimum wage in that state is the federal minimum, which right now is $7.25.

00:49:21.220 Holly's bill pretends that the economic conditions in Alabama are the same as the conditions in New York.

00:49:30.160 And so Alabama will suddenly be required to have the same minimum wage. 0.68

00:49:34.480 Never mind the fact that the cost of living in Alabama is 12 percent lower than the national average.

00:49:39.260 In New York, it's 130 percent higher.

00:49:41.500 Now, given that the cost of living is drastically different, it makes a lot of sense that the wages are also drastically different.

00:49:49.760 But Holly's bill completely disregards that fact, which means that his bill will have no effect on New York, while proving potentially devastating for businesses, especially small businesses, in Alabama.

00:50:00.560 And it's not just Alabama.

00:50:02.600 The states that currently have a minimum wage under the $15 that Holly wants to impose are as follows.

00:50:09.600 Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

00:50:22.820 That's 25 states by my count.

00:50:24.760 Half the states in the country.

00:50:25.780 And I wanted to list them all because these are all very different states with very different economic climates and local market conditions.

00:50:33.620 North Dakota is on the list with a cost of living 8 percent lower than the national average.

00:50:37.800 Housing price is 30 percent lower than the national average.

00:50:41.000 Virginia is also on the list with a cost of living 8 percent higher than the national average.

00:50:45.320 And in some cases, like Arlington, in some cities, rather, in Virginia, like Arlington, the cost of living is 10 to 15 percent higher.

00:50:51.380 Now, Holly's bill makes no distinction between a worker in Arlington, Virginia, and one in Dickinson, North Dakota.

00:51:00.060 In Virginia, the current minimum wage is $12.41 an hour.

00:51:03.480 So the bill would only require that employers increase the minimum wage by a little less than $3 an hour, which is still a significant hit.

00:51:10.760 In North Dakota, the current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, which means that the employers with minimum wage employees would be required to double their wages,

00:51:19.580 which means that the state with the lower average income and the lower cost of living will be required to raise its wages by a much higher percentage.

00:51:29.060 None of this makes any sense economically, logistically, ethically.

00:51:32.600 This is why the federal government should not be in the business of declaring what the wages need to be in a country of 340 million people spread out across 50 states and 3 million square miles.

00:51:44.680 I mean, there are approximately 1 million workers currently earning the federal minimum wage.

00:51:49.640 There are another 30 million earning less than 15 an hour.

00:51:52.200 However, Josh Hawley wants to wave his wand and declare that all of them, regardless of where they live, how old they are, what job they're doing, how much experience they have, or anything else, all must get raises.

00:52:07.260 The 17-year-old fry cook in Montana and the 26-year-old cashier in South Carolina both must get a raise and get paid the same, no matter if their employers can afford it or not.

00:52:17.700 So decrees Josh Hawley and his Democrat cohorts in the Senate.

00:52:24.220 It's total nonsense.

00:52:26.400 And, you know, that's really all that needs to be said about this bill.

00:52:29.580 You can support the concept of the minimum wage in individual states and still understand why a federal minimum wage,

00:52:37.240 and especially a sudden doubling of the federal minimum nationwide, makes no sense.

00:52:42.240 But, you know me, I can never leave it at the more moderate position that most people can hopefully agree on.

00:52:49.500 So I will also say that any kind of minimum wage, including state minimum wages, also make no sense.

00:52:57.380 The problem with Hawley's federal minimum wage bill is first that it's federal, and second that it's minimum wage.

00:53:04.640 There should be no governmentally decreed minimum wage at any level.

00:53:10.480 But, I mean, leaving aside the question of whether the government properly has the right to even wield this kind of power to begin with,

00:53:17.460 the concept is still hopelessly flawed.

00:53:20.720 The claim that the minimum wage must be a living wage assumes that all minimum wage workers

00:53:27.240 and all hourly workers making less than $15 an hour are working to earn a living.

00:53:32.500 But that is plainly not the case.

00:53:34.700 Half of minimum wage workers are under the age of 25.

00:53:38.900 A sizable portion are under the age of 20.

00:53:41.880 70% don't have kids.

00:53:44.320 That's because a lot of them are kids.

00:53:46.960 These are teenagers living at home, many of them, and working to gain experience and some spending money.

00:53:54.520 Should employers be required by law to pay 16-year-olds as though they have a mortgage and two kids at home?

00:54:01.400 Of course not.

00:54:03.080 The idea is, again, absurd.

00:54:05.880 Now, yes, there's a minority of minimum wage workers who do have kids,

00:54:08.960 and some of them, an even smaller minority, are the primary breadwinner in the home.

00:54:14.080 Again, there's a very small number of people.

00:54:15.740 But the whole point here is that minimum wage laws do not distinguish between a high school sophomore working a summer job

00:54:23.340 and the very rare 35-year-old trying to raise two kids on minimum wage.

00:54:28.200 And that's the problem.

00:54:31.160 Overall, 25% of fast food workers in this country are teenagers, which is a significant portion.

00:54:39.280 Many of them are not making $15 an hour.

00:54:42.440 And that's because almost none of them are working to earn a living, least of all support a family.

00:54:49.940 They are kids working very easy, low-pressure, low-skill jobs.

00:54:56.860 Who's to say what the minimum value of their labor is?

00:55:00.460 How do we determine that?

00:55:01.840 What magic eight ball are we reading to find out the mystical minimum that the labor of a 17-year-old drive-thru employee is worth?

00:55:08.880 Well, I'll tell you the minimum that any labor can be worth.

00:55:16.020 Zero dollars.

00:55:17.320 That's the actual minimum that a thing can be worth.

00:55:21.080 And considering that slavery was abolished a long time ago,

00:55:24.220 and nobody is conscripted into working a job and forced to do it against their will,

00:55:27.960 it makes sense that there would be no minimum.

00:55:30.740 So if, for example, let's just say I decided to open a lemonade stand,

00:55:36.040 and I get all the permits and everything, so don't worry about that,

00:55:40.220 and I want to find someone to help run it,

00:55:43.340 but I can only afford to pay them $3 an hour to pour lemonade into cups,

00:55:47.520 and I find someone who would like to perform that menial task for that menial amount of money, 0.82

00:55:53.200 why shouldn't we be allowed as two individuals acting of our own free will and volition

00:55:57.240 to enter into that agreement with each other?

00:55:59.340 I mean, if I'm saying to someone,

00:56:02.440 I need this task done, I can only pay you $3 an hour,

00:56:05.760 you know, you'll work, you know, you'll work three hours,

00:56:10.560 I'll give you about $10, we'll round up.

00:56:13.320 If I say that, and they say,

00:56:15.080 okay, sure, yeah, I'll take that.

00:56:17.160 And then the government comes in and says,

00:56:18.240 sorry, no, it doesn't work for us.

00:56:19.640 No, sorry.

00:56:21.800 Well, yeah, but it works for us, though.

00:56:23.320 We're the ones entering into, yeah, but we don't like it.

00:56:25.280 Now, if I contractually promise to pay $20 an hour for the labor,

00:56:30.300 but the moment they start work, I tell them it's only going to be $3,

00:56:32.840 well, that would be different.

00:56:33.700 That's fraud.

00:56:34.800 But if I tell them what I can pay them ahead of time,

00:56:37.320 and they decide they want to work for that amount of money,

00:56:39.940 what exactly is the problem?

00:56:43.020 They could just say no, and they could get a job somewhere else.

00:56:47.000 Now, will they be able to support a family of five on their lemonade stand salary?

00:56:51.200 No.

00:56:52.380 Which is why I would recommend that anybody with a family of five to support,

00:56:55.280 doesn't look for work at a lemonade stand.

00:56:57.780 Here's the thing.

00:56:59.560 Not every job is meant to be a career.

00:57:05.100 Not every job is meant to support families.

00:57:09.800 There are other kinds of jobs that exist in an economy.

00:57:14.440 It's okay for those jobs to exist.

00:57:16.300 It's good that they exist.

00:57:17.420 We should want them to exist.

00:57:19.380 My first job when I was a kid, when I was, I don't know, 14 or 15 or something,

00:57:25.280 was at a snowball stand.

00:57:28.280 Now, there is no universe where a part-time job at a snowball stand could ever support a family.

00:57:37.660 So, should snowball stands just not exist then?

00:57:41.780 Because that's the only other option.

00:57:44.080 But what would, if I'm a 14-year-old kid, and I have zero financial obligations at all,

00:57:53.480 and there's a snowball stand that wants to open, you know, and, but they can't afford to pay more than five bucks an hour,

00:58:00.360 why shouldn't they be allowed to give that to a 15-year-old kid?

00:58:05.740 What are we talking about living wage for in a case like that?

00:58:09.240 That's insane.

00:58:11.880 Insisting that even these kinds of jobs provide a living wage will mean not that those jobs will provide a living wage,

00:58:18.560 but that they simply will not exist.

00:58:22.000 If you tell me that I have to pay my lemonade stand employee $15 an hour,

00:58:25.580 that will not mean that now my lemonade employee gets $15 an hour.

00:58:29.220 It will just mean that now my lemonade employee gets $0 an hour because I won't be able to hire him in the first place.

00:58:34.040 I'll have to either close up shop or pour lemonade myself,

00:58:36.960 or if I'm a big corporation with lots of lemonade franchises across the country,

00:58:40.500 I will solve my lemonade dispensing problem with automation, which won't be difficult to do.

00:58:44.580 Either way, because you insisted that I provide a living wage to someone who doesn't actually need it 0.97

00:58:49.680 for a job that does not warrant it, now all you've done is create fewer jobs.

00:58:55.400 Oh, and by the way, now my lemonade will be like five times more expensive. Congratulations.

00:58:59.140 All of this because you insist that a kid at a lemonade stand has to make enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

00:59:06.100 That's what the minimum wage gets you. 0.62

00:59:07.760 It's a bad idea with even worse downstream consequences.

00:59:11.060 It's precisely the kind of idea that Democrats specialize in,

00:59:14.880 and now that seems to have rubbed off on Republicans like Josh Hawley,

00:59:18.460 who is normally really solid on most issues, but not on this one,

00:59:22.140 which is why he is today, regardably, canceled.

00:59:26.220 That'll do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.

00:59:28.480 Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed.

00:59:30.980 Thank you.

00:59:35.160 Let's hear it.

00:59:46.500 Bye-bye.

00:59:48.460 Bye-bye.

00:59:48.540 So, thank you.

00:59:50.480 Bye-bye.

00:59:51.620 Bye-bye.

00:59:52.600 Bye-bye.

00:59:54.620 Bye-bye.

00:59:56.080 Bye-bye.

00:59:57.100 Bye-bye.

00:59:57.320 Bye-bye.

00:59:57.360 Bye-bye.

00:59:58.120 Bye-bye.

00:59:58.640 Bye-bye.

00:59:59.400 Bye-bye.

01:00:00.400 Bye-bye.

The Matt Walsh Show - June 11, 2025

Ep. 1612 - The LGBT Movement Is Collapsing, And Simone Biles’ Apology Proves It

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