Ep. 1682 - The EBT Scam Just Went From Bad To Worse
Episode Stats
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Summary
As we ve talked about it this week, as we ve done a deeper dive into the EBT program, turns out this scam is even worse than I thought, and much worse than most people realize. You don t want to miss this. Also, a popular liberal podcaster says that Democrat politicians need to get on board with wishing death on their opponents. An MSNBC anchor claims that no Democrat has ever compared Trump to Hitler. And a single childless millennial woman has a moment of realization in a video that has gone massively viral. All that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, as we've talked about it this week, I've done a deeper dive into the EBT program.
00:00:04.980
Turns out this scam is even worse than I thought, and much worse than most people realize.
00:00:10.160
I'll give you the facts today. You don't want to miss this.
00:00:12.220
Also, a popular liberal podcaster says that Democrat politicians need to get on board with wishing death on their opponents.
00:00:19.180
An MSNBC anchor claims that no Democrat has ever compared Trump to Hitler.
00:00:23.020
Of all the fake news ever reported by the fake news, this has to be the fakest.
00:00:27.100
And a single childless millennial woman has a moment of realization in a video that has gone massively viral.
00:00:32.760
All of that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.
00:00:57.100
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00:02:05.240
I have to admit that I've genuinely become interested in seeing how Democrats plan to defend the food stamp program, which is about to run out of money because of the government shutdown.
00:02:25.420
We did the whole opening segment yesterday on how taxpayers are being forced to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on subsidizing other people's groceries, which substantially raises the price of groceries for everybody.
00:02:36.660
And we talked about how the massive number of people who receive these subsidies, 45 million people, or one in eight Americans, clearly don't need them for the most part.
00:02:46.500
According to the Wall Street Journal, and I promise I'm not making this statistic up, this is real, roughly three-quarters of adult food stamp beneficiaries are overweight or obese.
00:03:04.520
And these are not particularly sympathetic people either.
00:03:10.440
BMI north of 40, smoke detector ringing off the hook, sass off the charts.
00:03:15.400
And they're threatening to rob their local grocery store the moment food stamps are cut off.
00:03:19.800
So, if you're the Democrat Party, how do you defend any of this?
00:03:24.460
How do you argue with a straight face that Americans should be forced to continue paying for other people's food stamps?
00:03:30.840
Well, it took a few weeks, but we finally have our answer, straight from Tim Walls himself.
00:03:34.600
And here's what Tim wrote on social media the other day.
00:03:38.300
Every $1 invested in SNAP generates $1.80 in economic activity.
00:03:53.320
So, let's give Tim Walls the benefit of the doubt.
00:03:55.740
Let's really, really think about this for a moment.
00:04:05.680
Every $1 invested in SNAP generates $1.80 in economic activity.
00:04:19.320
How can you turn $1 into $1.80 just by taking it from one person and giving it to someone else?
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Is that, I'm no economics major, but, so, is that how it works?
00:04:32.120
And if this trick actually works, then why don't we invest 100% of the U.S. budget into food stamps?
00:04:41.740
Well, the trick, of course, is that you have to parse what Tim Walls is saying.
00:04:45.880
He's not saying that he can turn $1 into $1.80 with the SNAP program.
00:04:49.340
Instead, he's saying that every dollar in SNAP generates $1.80 in economic activity.
00:04:59.660
Well, here's one way to explain what this term means.
00:05:01.960
I saw this analogy making the rounds on social media, and it describes the sleight of hand very well.
00:05:06.980
I saw it posted by a guy named Lee, though I think it's been circulating around on the Internet for a while.
00:05:12.440
So, I don't know where it originally comes from, but here's how it goes.
00:05:16.100
So, let's say you have two economists walking in the woods, and the first economist says to the second,
00:05:26.700
And the second economist says, sure, and he eats the poop, and he takes $100.
00:05:33.300
A few minutes later, the second economist makes the same offer.
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He says they come across another pile of poop, and he says to the first economist,
00:05:40.820
well, I'll give you $100 back if you eat this new pile of poop over here.
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And the first economist accepts, and he gets his $100 back.
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Well, in this scenario, of course, the economists have not created any new value.
00:05:56.520
Each of them has eaten manure in exchange for nothing.
00:06:00.620
They've completely wasted their time in addition to contracting E. coli.
00:06:04.880
And yet, these two economists have also increased the GDP by $200.
00:06:09.620
They have engaged in $200 worth of economic activity, because economic activity is simply a measure of how often money changes hands.
00:06:22.060
It's just that it means that money has changed hands.
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Well, Democrats are pushing this absurd talking point about how SNAP creates economic activity,
00:06:29.520
because they want to confuse people about the reality of what's actually happening,
00:06:33.160
which is that we are being defrauded on a massive, incomprehensible scale.
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And it doesn't require any kind of deep investigative reporting to realize this.
00:06:43.620
You can just go on Amazon.com and look for the items that are SNAP or EBT eligible.
00:06:51.020
You can see, you can get Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies using your EBT card.
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You can get giant bags of M&Ms and Snickers and Twix with your EBT.
00:07:02.200
You can pick up a family-sized pack of Gushers.
00:07:05.640
You can get double-stuffed Oreos, various other cookies, Chips Ahoy.
00:07:11.280
You can even get a massive $80 vat of double-chocolate whey protein powder on SNAP,
00:07:23.600
I mean, without your Grey Poupon, you might as well starve to death.
00:07:29.300
Maybe you never heard this, but this is a real story.
00:07:31.500
He was stranded in the desert, and he starved to death in agony.
00:07:36.420
But the real tragedy is that he had a whole cooler of food with him the whole time,
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You can also get a $110 California Ultimate Meat and Cheese Gift Crate with your SNAP benefits.
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And here's the product description on that one.
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Send a crate fully loaded with delicious flavors for a charcuterie night experience.
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Summer sausage and salami complement the savory variety of cheeses and mustard,
00:08:11.800
along with the crunch of two types of crackers and nuts.
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A drizzle of vinegar and olive oil help create a variety of delicious flavor combinations.
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They'll finish on a sweet note with dried fruits.
00:08:21.800
Now, just to put this in perspective, I would not, with my current income, ever spend $110 on a crate of meat and cheese.
00:08:37.980
And you would think that my budget would be larger than the budget of somebody on EBT.
00:08:46.380
Now, it doesn't need to be said, but none of this should be legal.
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A lot of it probably is not legal, if we're being honest.
00:08:53.960
To the extent that it should exist at all, SNAP should cover the basics.
00:08:59.500
And it'd be really easy to have this requirement and enforce it.
00:09:09.180
You can just set it up so that the card doesn't work if you try to buy something like a meat and cheese crate for $110.
00:09:21.980
It'd be the easiest thing in the world to enforce.
00:09:27.200
You know, the cheap staples, if we're going to have this program at all,
00:09:30.480
it should be for people who really need it, and it's only for the staples.
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You know, each person needs something like $50 a month.
00:09:49.060
Like, if you really need it, that will keep you alive.
00:09:51.400
And if you want, now, you might say, well, people want to live.
00:10:04.320
We'll give you enough so that you don't actually starve to death,
00:10:06.820
if that's actually even a risk, which it isn't for almost all these people.
00:10:10.120
But if it is, then we'll cover the absolute basic essentials.
00:10:21.840
Snap should not be covering bodybuilding supplements.
00:10:25.000
It should not be covering candy or coffee, even.
00:10:29.000
That's exactly how many Snap recipients are spending your money.
00:10:37.700
It's one of the few pieces of data we have from the government as it relates to food stamp spending.
00:10:41.720
This is not the kind of thing they really want to tell us much about.
00:10:44.640
But the chart shows how Snap recipients spend their money in yellow and how normal households spend their food budget, which is in blue, as a percentage of their overall food budget.
00:10:55.020
Now, there are entire categories on this chart that should not exist for Snap recipients.
00:11:02.360
Most of the categories should be N.A., not applicable.
00:11:04.820
But, for example, 9.25% of food expenditures in Snap households go to sweetened beverages, like Coke and Pepsi, compared to only 7% in normal households.
00:11:19.000
Meanwhile, 6.9% of the budget in Snap households goes to prepared desserts, compared to 6.41% in normal households.
00:11:27.180
So, in other words, Snap households are spending, when measured against their total budget, more money on non-essential food purchases as compared to households that actually pay for their own groceries.
00:11:43.400
EBT recipients are spending more money on non-essential food purchases than households that pay for their own groceries.
00:11:53.320
The people who are funding the food stamp program are living more modestly when it comes to groceries than the people who are on the food stamp program.
00:12:04.100
This is completely inverted and upside down and insane.
00:12:14.200
And because of that, these results are exactly what we should expect.
00:12:18.720
When people are spending someone else's money and they don't need it, they tend to spring for unnecessary purchases.
00:12:25.720
When you give somebody a card and say, yeah, buy any food you want, basically, this is human nature.
00:12:33.540
Most people are not going to say, well, let me be, you know, let me, yeah, you know, I know I could buy junk food with it, but that would be unethical.
00:12:40.560
And I'm not going to force my fellow citizen to pay for that.
00:12:43.880
And so I'm going to stick only with the essentials and I'm going to be an honest person.
00:12:52.180
In fact, they apparently tend to spring for purchases that are actively harmful to their health, like prepared desserts.
00:13:00.140
And by the way, it's not a remotely compelling argument to say that we need to spend a lot of money on SNAP for the benefit of children.
00:13:08.960
Because if anything, SNAP benefits are hurting children.
00:13:11.500
Take a look at this chart, which you can see here.
00:13:13.620
It shows child obesity rates in the U.S. by family income level.
00:13:18.440
The demographic that receives the most food stamps just so happens to have the highest child obesity rate by a significant margin.
00:13:27.600
We're not actually improving the lives of children.
00:13:29.660
Instead, we're putting money into the very large pockets of women like this.
00:13:46.800
So, obviously, I'm going to get the full benefit amount.
00:13:55.960
Does it make you mad that the government is helping me feed my children?
00:14:02.200
Does that make you want to punch me in my face?
00:14:26.580
So, she's making $3,000 a month, $36,000 a year for doing nothing.
00:14:31.740
And she's mocking people for noticing how absurd this is.
00:14:35.180
There are millions of people in this country who make $36,000 a year for a full-time job.
00:14:40.360
And those people are being taxed on every paycheck.
00:14:42.940
And their money is then going to obese welfare queens like this one.
00:14:47.600
Now, she's obviously able to afford a smartphone, a car, so she can shoot videos complaining about how oppressed she is.
00:14:55.400
And, of course, she's obviously eating quite well.
00:14:57.240
So, or at least if she's not eating well, she's eating a lot.
00:15:05.160
So, why exactly are we allowing people like this to collect thousands of dollars a month?
00:15:09.220
I mean, why don't we have regular weigh-ins to make sure that food stamp recipients actually need food?
00:15:13.980
Why don't we drug test these people and check their social media feeds to see if they're gloating about their EBT balances?
00:15:20.800
If you declare bankruptcy and then you post a video where you're on a yacht or something, they're going to ask you to explain yourself.
00:15:27.820
And it should happen to every single one of these people.
00:15:32.160
And there's a very simple reason why it has not happened.
00:15:36.500
It's true the Democrat Party wants to buy their votes by stealing your money and handing it to them.
00:15:40.060
But the food stamp program isn't simply a creation of the Democrat Party.
00:15:42.900
Many Republican administrations have supported it as well.
00:15:46.120
In fact, they all have to one extent or another for as long as it's existed.
00:15:49.600
So, there's bipartisan support for wasting your money like this.
00:15:54.960
And that's because, and even now, by the way, they're messaging from the Republicans about the government.
00:16:01.080
They're not saying that, well, look how wasteful EBT is.
00:16:05.700
Instead, they're saying, oh, no, EBT is running out.
00:16:12.640
So, very few Republicans are actually being honest about the food stamp program.
00:16:20.840
Even though they all know, every politician in America, every single one, right and left,
00:16:24.220
they all know that everything I'm saying is correct.
00:16:36.200
Well, one, they're afraid of offending this constituency.
00:16:42.760
But the other one is that some of the biggest business interests in this country, as well as
00:16:46.680
several foreign governments, are essentially dependent on the food stamp program, too.
00:16:51.080
Something like 25% of all food stamp spending, talking about billions of dollars every month,
00:16:56.740
Obviously, Amazon takes a large chunk, too, which is why they have SNAP-eligible items
00:17:02.940
As I mentioned earlier, roughly 10% of food stamp spending goes to sweetened beverages
00:17:06.680
like Coke, which has launched a very aggressive lobbying campaign to keep this money.
00:17:10.740
You might remember that last year, big soda companies were linked to a campaign to pay
00:17:15.300
conservative influencers on X in exchange for posts that said soda purchases should remain
00:17:21.100
So, in other words, SNAP isn't just a form of welfare that's mainly intended for Democrat
00:17:25.480
It's that, but it's also a form of corporate welfare.
00:17:28.180
If you pay taxes, you're contributing to the profits of Walmart, Amazon, and Coke, whether
00:17:35.920
You're also contributing to the GDP of several foreign nations through remittances.
00:17:44.040
42 million people in this country that need food stamps on a weekly basis.
00:17:50.780
And we're saying people deliberately instead of Americans, because most of the people that
00:17:55.880
are on food stamps aren't even from this country.
00:17:59.400
45% of Afghanistan immigrants are on food stamps.
00:18:11.600
59% of all illegal aliens are collecting food stamps, meaning that most of the people getting
00:18:19.980
food stamps from the U.S. government and the U.S. taxpayer are not even Americans.
00:18:27.260
And we didn't know about any of this before the government shutdown started.
00:18:30.160
But thanks to Democrats, we can confirm tonight that millions of Joe Biden illegal aliens, people
00:18:36.500
who crossed the border when Joe was president, are now collecting food stamps from a program
00:18:45.980
So well over half of illegal aliens are receiving food stamps, as well as cash for low-income
00:18:51.000
As we just established, they don't really need this money.
00:18:53.240
And even if they did, they still shouldn't receive it, because they don't belong in the
00:18:57.460
But regardless, if they don't need the money, what are they doing with it?
00:19:01.340
Well, they're buying food to ship back home, either to family members or to sell in the
00:19:05.360
This is from the New York Post, quote, food stamp fraud in New York has turned into foreign
00:19:09.400
aid to black market profit years in the Dominican Republic.
00:19:13.340
Last week, the Post found two people hawking barrels of American products for a profit on
00:19:20.200
It's a really easy way to make money, and it doesn't cost me anything.
00:19:22.620
A seller named Maria Teresa said Friday, the 47-year-old Bronx native told the Post she
00:19:27.100
scalps barrels of frosted flakes, a baby formula bought with welfare money in the U.S.
00:19:32.080
She even takes her customers' requests for hot ticket items.
00:19:34.540
Her bestsellers include a 19-ounce box of frosted flakes, which goes for $6.50 at Dominican
00:19:40.720
She sells it for $2 less after her sister buys it on sale for $2.99.
00:19:45.040
But because the sister uses her EBD card, she actually pays nothing.
00:19:56.500
You know, this is a wide range, including baby formula, Kellogg's cornflakes.
00:20:00.700
It actually gets worse as you continue reading, if you can believe it.
00:20:04.200
The food stamp fraud, reading now again, quote, the food stamp fraud doesn't stop there.
00:20:07.780
The woman said her sister has Bronx grocery stores ring up bogus $250 transactions with her
00:20:13.660
But in exchange, the store hands her $200 cash and pockets the rest.
00:20:19.920
Instead, Maria Teresa's sister sends the money to Santiago when she's not spending it on liquor
00:20:26.300
We do it all the time, and a lot of people do this.
00:20:28.120
Maria Teresa said it's a way of laundering money, but it's easier because it's free.
00:20:31.800
Now, as anyone who works in a grocery store, and, you know, if you ask anyone who works
00:20:36.680
in a grocery store, you'll hear dozens of stories like this.
00:20:39.240
I saw a post from somebody in Hawaii who says that on the first day of the month, EBT recipients
00:20:43.480
buy caseloads of spam, and then they sell the spam to street vendors at a 50% discount,
00:20:49.060
and they use the proceeds for drugs and alcohol.
00:20:52.360
So if you're an actual customer and you're looking for spam on the shelves, you got to look
00:20:55.940
because you've paid for criminals to clear out the shelves and buy drugs with it.
00:21:00.060
Now, a system this easy to defraud, which was designed to be defrauded, should be scaled
00:21:11.180
I mean, really, it should just be abolished, but at a minimum, it should be scaled back.
00:21:14.980
But the Biden administration did not scale back.
00:21:17.840
In fact, as you can see, food stamp spending has doubled since 2019, and this is not just
00:21:25.160
The numbers have remained high long after the lockdowns ended.
00:21:27.760
And that's because in this same period, the Biden administration imported millions of
00:21:34.420
And it simply does not matter that technically these people shouldn't receive food stamps
00:21:39.080
They're not even supposed to be inside the country under the law, yet they are.
00:21:42.300
And once they get here, states like California give them food stamps.
00:21:51.360
They even get a nice little EBT card so they don't seem remotely conspicuous or shameful as
00:22:09.160
You are taxed more and your groceries become more expensive.
00:22:18.500
The ongoing government shutdown has finally drawn attention to the scale of this fraud.
00:22:27.060
It has exposed a vast network of criminal activity that needs to be shut down.
00:22:31.740
Just for starters, as the attorney Mike Davis has pointed out, it's illegal under federal
00:22:35.280
law to provide financial assistance to illegal aliens.
00:22:39.160
It's also illegal to rob stores and then brag about it on TikTok.
00:22:46.940
Prosecute the state officials who are paying out benefits to illegal aliens.
00:22:50.360
Who, by the way, typically receive Medicaid funding as well.
00:22:55.880
And then, once we're done with that, we need drug testing and weight testing for anyone
00:23:00.760
We need a system that does not subsidize the grocery bills of 45 million people for the
00:23:04.780
indefinite future with no time limit or restriction.
00:23:07.380
And beyond that point, if the food stamp program is going to continue to exist at all, which
00:23:12.180
I'm not convinced it should, it needs to have standards.
00:23:18.980
Someone needs to be able to explain in a coherent fashion why the spending is necessary.
00:23:24.280
Democrats have had several days to give us an explanation, and they've failed to do it.
00:23:27.860
In fact, they've essentially admitted it's a shell game, and it's rife with fraud.
00:23:31.900
They've admitted that they're just redistributing money or creating economic activity, as Tim
00:23:36.020
Walls put it, and for the benefit of every taxpayer and the millions of obese, profoundly
00:23:41.460
ungrateful people they're feeding, we should end this particular economic activity.
00:23:46.580
And in its place, we should encourage food stamp recipients to engage in some actual activity,
00:23:51.700
like, you know, getting a job or going for a walk around the block.
00:23:59.060
That'll be a big adjustment, no doubt, but one TikTok video and Tim Walls tweet at a time,
00:24:05.780
Democrats, of all people, are making a very compelling case that it's a change we need
00:24:20.060
When it comes to health care, people are really frustrated with how much it costs and how to pay
00:24:26.520
The usual ways that we've been doing this have only gotten more expensive, more complicated,
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More than a million Americans are now doing this, and MediShare has been a great option
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So really, you could save thousands of dollars a year on your health care and be happy.
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00:26:10.100
All right, Jennifer Welsh is a left-wing podcaster.
00:26:13.860
She's been popping up on my feed more and more, which is unfortunate because she's very
00:26:20.620
She has a face that only a mother could love, although I suspect her mother did not love
00:26:26.520
it, which is how she ended up the way that she did.
00:26:29.280
And here she is reacting to a clip of a leftist protester.
00:26:32.000
It's a clip of another leftist, a protester, saying that she, the protester, is glad that
00:26:39.140
Charlie Kirk is dead and she wants more conservatives to also die.
00:26:42.880
And Jennifer Welsh, who again is a somehow popular left-wing podcaster, is really thrilled
00:26:54.180
Finally, if you think this Zoran thing is happening just in New York, and you think
00:27:01.080
people are waking up only in New York City, you're mistaken.
00:27:05.920
Look at this clip of a wine mom at the No Kings March.
00:27:22.900
He was horrible on the campuses, the college campuses.
00:27:36.660
Your friend just said she'd be happy if I died.
00:27:46.580
You can either jump on board with this, or we're coming after you in the same way that
00:28:03.240
I mean, her entire face is made of plastic, so I can't really be sure.
00:28:06.220
Her face is just paralyzed, paralyzed from Botox, like some kind of stroke victim.
00:28:18.800
It looks like her face was erased and then redrawn by a child.
00:28:27.900
And I don't feel bad saying that because I believe her hideousness is a reflection of
00:28:32.980
I mean, it's also a reflection of the botulism she's injecting into her head every day.
00:28:39.960
But the fact that she's injecting the botulism is also a reflection of the evil in her soul.
00:28:45.220
So this is an evil, terrible person, and it seeps out of her pores.
00:28:49.980
And she's explicitly saying here that Democrat Party needs to get on board with wishing death
00:28:55.680
Which, of course, I think if you're in the Democrat Party and you hear that, you're going,
00:29:03.040
Haven't we already made it clear we're on board with that?
00:29:10.460
Keep in mind, this woman is not some kind of fringe figure.
00:29:22.900
She may look like Count Chocula's fraternal twin sister, but still, this is a normal person
00:29:30.480
And the other woman in that clip, the wine mom, is also what counts as normal.
00:29:35.980
Which is why I've been saying these people truly want us dead.
00:29:44.840
I had one other thought about this Jennifer Welsh creature as I was watching that.
00:29:50.040
It occurred to me as I was watching the clip that truly everything I do as a father of daughters,
00:29:57.540
as a father of a 12-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, everything I do is specifically intended
00:30:05.060
to ensure that my girls do not turn into a woman like that.
00:30:09.960
She is the picture, she is the symbol of everything I don't want my girls to be.
00:30:18.600
I look at that, everything about her, and I say, yeah, that's exactly it.
00:30:25.220
I want, it's like, take that, and I want my daughters to become that, but the opposite.
00:30:32.860
If I could look into the future and see that my precious daughter had become Jennifer Welsh,
00:30:50.440
I would rather be dead than have my daughters end up like that.
00:30:54.920
I looked this woman up, and the first thing I see in her bio, the least surprising news
00:31:02.000
of all time is that in her bio, it says that she is happily divorced.
00:31:16.400
Not only did you know that she was divorced, but you knew that she'd be the kind of person
00:31:19.200
who would describe herself as happily divorced.
00:31:21.960
She's the kind of person who would describe the dissolution of her marriage, the destruction
00:31:36.360
You can only imagine how awful she is to them, what agony it must be to have this person as
00:31:41.100
your mother, how much they must loathe her, and it's hard to even imagine.
00:31:47.880
And so the whole picture, the whole thing is just everything, it's everything wrong, everything
00:31:57.940
that can kind of go wrong with a woman is found right there.
00:32:03.220
Um, divorced, selfish, ugly, inside and out, ruined, face ruined from, uh, from plastic
00:32:18.540
surgery, crass, uh, nasty, mean, just like unpleasant, everything you don't want your daughter to
00:32:36.040
I think that's the lesson we can all take away from it.
00:32:39.260
Here's a video that I think lives of Tik TOK put together.
00:32:42.280
I believe I found it on this, that's where I found it was on her, um, on her X page.
00:32:47.940
Uh, so JB Pritzker went on Nicole Wallace's podcast and denied having ever called Trump
00:32:55.840
And then Wallace says that, well, no, yeah, no Democrat, no Democrat has ever done that.
00:33:03.040
And lives of Tik TOK put together this little, uh, video sort of fact checking that claim.
00:33:08.660
I haven't suggested that, that Donald Trump is Hitler.
00:33:16.860
It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler,
00:33:23.680
the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews.
00:33:29.940
How, how can you possibly compare what happened in Germany in World War II, uh, to what's going
00:33:36.220
Well, we're talking about the death of a constitutional republic.
00:33:43.580
Uh, and we're seeing today that you've got an administration in Washington that's ignoring
00:33:49.580
And this rogue department of justice going out to do the bidding of, um, this Timu Hitler.
00:33:58.980
I've called him so many things, but, uh, this wannabe Hitler for sure.
00:34:02.520
Trump actually, uh, reenacting, uh, the Madison square garden rally in 1939 that neo-Nazis.
00:34:13.980
So anyway, this could go on for 37 hours, of course.
00:34:21.240
Although, although in a way watching that clip back, I guess he was, he was technically
00:34:29.220
correct in what, in Jamie Prisker, his original claim was actually true because he said, well,
00:34:36.620
And then Nicole Wallace said, well, no Democrat has, and that's correct in that.
00:34:43.780
So maybe that's, maybe that's how you would parse that.
00:34:51.300
They're just outright saying that Trump is Hitler and Democrats have been calling Trump,
00:34:56.080
uh, and all their political opponents, Hitler for a long time, obviously.
00:34:58.840
Which is maybe the single worst political miscalculation in modern political history in this country.
00:35:06.800
Anyway, forget about the fact that it's a lie, uh, that it's false.
00:35:13.200
Trump is not Hitler, but just on a pure political level, it was a catastrophically stupid mistake.
00:35:18.440
And they keep making it because they don't know what else to do.
00:35:24.240
I mean, they've thrown the, the worst possible accusation they could fabricate at their opponents.
00:35:29.240
They went all the way to the most extreme denunciations.
00:35:44.100
When you go all the way there and, and you come out and say, you know what?
00:35:53.660
When you go for the most extreme denunciation where there's nowhere else to go.
00:35:59.240
After that one's been used up, uh, there's nowhere else to go.
00:36:08.940
I mean, this is, this is what, I think this is what people don't fully appreciate.
00:36:12.220
Um, when Democrats go around calling everybody, they hate Hitler, it's not really a political tactic.
00:36:21.880
I think it's more a product of their limited vocabulary and their lack of imagination and
00:36:28.540
their historical literacy, which is not to make an excuse for them.
00:36:32.260
I'm just saying it's impossible to overstate just how dumb and witless and clueless, um,
00:36:37.100
these, uh, these people are, they don't read books.
00:36:39.880
They don't think they don't engage in any level of reflection about anything ever.
00:36:43.660
And so they go around shouting Hitler because he's one of the like three historical figures
00:36:51.140
They, they know of three historical figures and he's one of them.
00:36:58.880
The historical figures they can name would be like Hitler, Martin Luther King Jr.
00:37:13.200
And on the left, that's the case, but really this is, this is a, it's also a function of the,
00:37:21.620
So that's one of the reasons why they compare everyone to Hitler, because they're thinking
00:37:24.620
like, okay, well, only three people have existed in history before this moment, Abraham Lincoln,
00:37:31.880
And they're thinking, well, we can't compare them to the other two.
00:37:41.620
They have, um, a vocabulary range, not much more extensive than that of the average
00:37:49.420
And they have historical knowledge that is, um, less than a third grader who's been well
00:37:56.560
educated anyway, historical knowledge, less than a homeschooled third grader.
00:38:03.500
It's kind of like that old, there's that old Louis C.K.
00:38:10.340
It was also called hilarious and how people use the word hilarious to describe things that
00:38:16.980
Something mildly amusing happens and people say, oh, it's hilarious.
00:38:20.420
And the problem is that, that, okay, well, what do you do when something actually hilarious
00:38:24.900
You just used hilarious on something that barely elicits, elicits a smirk.
00:38:28.960
And now this really hilarious thing is happening.
00:38:34.760
So you've cheapened the hilarious event by using that word to describe anything that's
00:38:42.020
That was kind of, I mean, that was not the funny way at all of me doing the bit, but that
00:38:49.620
So, um, Democrats have a kind of political version of this problem.
00:39:01.920
I mean, they've said everything they possibly can about him.
00:39:05.080
They've, they've every, every, the worst accusations they've tried to arrest him.
00:39:11.460
They've tried to kill him and there's nothing left to be said.
00:39:16.120
And that's why they're, they're totally ineffectual at this point in, um, in opposing him.
00:39:21.900
All right, let's get to the daily cancellation.
00:39:29.680
We're living in a time when lies are easy and truth is costly.
00:39:33.540
And nowhere is that more devastating than in the battle for life.
00:39:39.000
When she first learned of her pregnancy, Natalia considered abortion.
00:39:41.960
Uh, and she was influenced of course, by messaging.
00:39:43.660
She'd been exposed to all the time in the culture, but everything changed when she heard her baby's heartbeat.
00:39:48.520
And in that moment, she felt a divine calling to continue her pregnancy, trusting that God would make a way forward.
00:39:54.120
Natalia chose life, found herself surrounded by the love, support, and resources she needed.
00:39:58.620
At pre-born network clinics, this happens on average 200 times a day because of the support from people like you.
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So moms who are overwhelmed and pressured suddenly see their child, hear the truth, and realize they're not alone.
00:40:13.740
And to sponsor an ultrasound, an ultrasound doubles a baby's chance at life.
00:40:19.440
It is a time for courage, a time for truth, a time for life.
00:40:23.420
Give now, dial pound 250, say the keyword baby.
00:40:33.020
Tonight, Friendly Fire returns for episode two.
00:40:35.380
Join me, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan, and a special appearance from our newest Daily Wire host live at 7 p.m. Eastern on Daily Wire+.
00:40:43.680
Love to tell you exactly what's going to happen, but here's the truth.
00:40:46.420
There's no script, no moderator, absolutely no plan.
00:40:49.460
It's four of the most trusted voices in conservative media debating, discussing, and disagreeing while the entire internet watches and comments in real time.
00:40:56.760
Watch Friendly Fire tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern exclusively on Daily Wire+, along with literally the entire internet, the whole thing that's going to be watching.
00:41:07.760
If you're not a member yet, join for as little as $7 a month with our Deal of the Decade at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:41:14.640
Remember to watch Friendly Fire live tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern on Daily Wire+.
00:41:19.500
You know, on this show through the years, we've played and discussed many videos of single millennial women on TikTok talking about their experience of being single and millennial.
00:41:28.980
And the one thing these videos almost always lack, which is what makes them sad and sometimes also funny, is any semblance of self-awareness or wisdom.
00:41:41.240
Well, today we have another in this genre, except this does have a healthy portion of the ingredients that the others lack.
00:41:46.760
This is a woman named Layla, who's gone very viral.
00:41:52.820
This had like 500,000 likes or something, so millions and millions of views.
00:41:57.080
And so she's gone viral with her very, her honest, and at least to a point, I think, insightful reflection on her experience as a woman in her 30s with no husband and no children.
00:42:10.400
I just realized that I'm not anybody's priority in life.
00:42:13.520
I mean, I've known this, but it came like, it just like kind of really hit me today.
00:42:18.400
Like, wow, I'm not, there's no one that prioritizes me in their life.
00:42:24.640
And I feel like I prioritize a lot of people, but that is just like the nature of being a single girl with friends or a single adult with friends,
00:42:32.600
is that I prioritize my friendships because I have to, because I don't have anybody else, right?
00:42:40.080
But like realizing that I'm not anybody's priority is just like such a freaking bummer, such a bummer.
00:42:49.380
Um, and it hurts and it kind of feels like really bad.
00:42:53.020
Like, did I make every wrong choice in life ever to end up in this place where like, I'm no one's priority.
00:42:59.080
But then like on the flip side of that is like, I am, I have to be my priority and I just have to like live in that more.
00:43:09.080
So things take a turn towards the end there, as we'll discuss, but she's touching on something true.
00:43:16.160
And for someone in her position, uh, quite painful, which is why it's certainly not my intention to make fun of her, deliver any lecture or anything like that.
00:43:23.780
I just want to talk about the point that she's making and, and, and also try to explain why the solution that she offers the, the answer to the riddle, um, doesn't work, unfortunately.
00:43:37.700
If you're single and childless as an adult, there probably isn't not anyone in your life who considers you their top priority.
00:43:46.820
Hopefully you have friends, you have family members, but you aren't going to be anyone's most important person.
00:43:54.100
You're, you're not the first or last thought in anybody's head as they go to bed at night or get out of bed in the morning.
00:44:01.200
And it's one that women in Layla's position, at least the ones who post TikTok videos,
00:44:06.320
And I give her credit for being honest with herself about it.
00:44:08.920
This is one of the reasons why I have always so aggressively opposed the lie that life is easier and happier if you forego marriage and children.
00:44:19.140
The culture has been pushing this falsehood for generations.
00:44:21.740
Now, as we know, millions of people have found themselves, uh, have, have, have, have listened to it.
00:44:26.600
And they've found themselves desperately lonely and in a state of near total despair,
00:44:31.200
because they allowed themselves to be ushered down a path that they were told would lead to happiness and fulfillment.
00:44:36.320
And instead they end up in exactly the opposite place.
00:44:38.880
They end up with the realization that although they've freed themselves from the responsibility of being a spouse and a parent,
00:44:44.220
they've also deprived themselves of the love that they might've otherwise found.
00:44:53.420
And giving someone freedom by depriving them of love is like, it's like giving them freedom by depriving them of food.
00:44:58.440
You know, it's not freedom at all, except the freedom to die.
00:45:01.440
And in the case of food, you will physically die without it.
00:45:04.120
In the case of love, you'll die in every other sense that matters.
00:45:07.620
And this is not to say that you can't be loved or experience love if you're single.
00:45:11.180
It's to say that to choose that lifestyle is to choose lesser things over the greater thing, which is love.
00:45:18.820
And when somebody like Layla talks about this feeling of emptiness, this feeling of lacking,
00:45:29.020
Maybe not missing completely in her life, but missing in a significant and meaningful way.
00:45:36.080
But it's not just about being prioritized by somebody else.
00:45:38.820
The greater problem is that without a family, there is no one for you to prioritize.
00:45:47.020
No one for you to serve and give to and sacrifice for.
00:45:51.540
There's no one who you know, not think, not hope, but you know you would take a bullet for,
00:45:59.920
you would lay down your life for, because it's the kind of love and devotion you have for that person.
00:46:09.820
You know, she says that, well, she needs to work on prioritizing herself.
00:46:13.100
In an article for Newsweek, she expounded, saying, quote,
00:46:15.940
In many ways, this realization feels freeing, Layla told Newsweek, but it was also quite demoralizing.
00:46:21.340
Most people would say their partner or children come first.
00:46:23.740
Layla said, I have wonderful friends and family who value and appreciate me,
00:46:27.260
but I don't think I'm anyone's first call or first thought.
00:46:33.380
No one depends on me and choosing myself doesn't mean letting anyone down.
00:46:36.160
But there are moments when I wish I'd had someone to share certain experiences with.
00:46:39.600
Realizing that she's no one's priority and going viral as a result,
00:46:42.720
has a courage, Layla, to start a self-prioritization challenge.
00:46:46.700
She hopes to be more intentional about showing up for herself and to feel fulfilled through her own merit.
00:46:53.540
So this is a solution that most people in Layla's position land on.
00:46:56.160
It's a solution suggested by the culture, which is that if you're feeling lonely, if you're feeling unfulfilled,
00:47:01.800
if you're feeling like maybe you should pursue a traditional family life, well, fear not.
00:47:07.220
You could just prioritize yourself and start a self-prioritization challenge
00:47:11.840
and be more intentional about showing up for yourself, whatever that means.
00:47:17.200
Well, the problem with this approach, again, is that it simply doesn't work,
00:47:20.480
which is why people who are in Layla's position tend to have to spend a lot of time convincing themselves
00:47:30.760
This is where a lot of the self-help stuff comes from,
00:47:32.900
repeating these mantras to yourself about how happy you are to convince yourself,
00:47:41.180
But it doesn't work because you cannot, you're feeling a hole inside yourself, inside your soul.
00:47:49.020
You cannot fill the hole inside yourself with yourself.
00:47:52.360
You cannot fill the desire for companionship by staring at your reflection in the mirror.
00:47:58.360
The self-help book tells you that you're enough.
00:48:07.200
You are not enough, in and of yourself, to live a fulfilling and meaningful and happy life.
00:48:22.100
And I'm not saying that you shouldn't be happy living for yourself.
00:48:26.620
I'm saying that we don't even need to talk about should or shouldn't.
00:48:37.840
What if you lived in a big, majestic old house with eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, beautiful wood floors, you know, nice crown molding and all the little details?
00:48:53.920
Could you fully appreciate it if you live there alone?
00:49:07.280
You may even enjoy living in it for a short period.
00:49:13.280
You certainly cannot find all of the happiness that would otherwise be available to you if you're living there alone.
00:49:19.060
Because what is a big house with eight bedrooms for?
00:49:31.780
They're not meant to just be there for decoration.
00:49:33.680
They were built to be occupied, to be lived in.
00:49:40.140
And you cannot be happy with a thing, at least not fully happy, not as happy as you could be, unless you know what it's for and you use it accordingly.
00:49:50.580
And by the way, this is also one of the reasons why, because I know people will say, well, why can't you enjoy something by yourself?
00:49:56.240
Well, you can enjoy it up to a point by yourself, sure.
00:49:59.520
But, and as an introvert myself, I enjoy alone time.
00:50:11.800
And it also tells you something that even when people say, well, I can enjoy this alone.
00:50:17.920
What does it tell you that, what do those people do all the time?
00:50:23.840
They're constantly taking pictures of things and posting them online.
00:50:27.480
I mean, what, if somebody was alone in that big house, what would they actually do to try to enjoy it?
00:50:32.160
They would take pictures of it and they'd post it online.
00:50:37.620
It's because we all have this recognition that in order to be really happy, it has to be shared.
00:50:42.840
We can't really be happy with this thing, with anything, unless we share it.
00:50:47.080
We have this need to share it with somebody else.
00:50:51.180
And if you have no one in your life to share it with and you settle on, well, I'll just share it with anybody on the internet.
00:51:01.840
But it all goes back to this question of what is a thing for?
00:51:04.360
And so you have to ask yourself, what are you for?
00:51:11.180
That's really the existential question that Layla is asking herself.
00:51:14.980
And it's a good question to ask, but we should all ask ourselves that.
00:51:19.880
If I'm not happy in my life at all, then the first question I should ask myself is, what am I for?
00:51:34.520
But before you can answer that, you have to know, what am I for?
00:51:41.580
And the answer is that, first of all, our purpose is to love and serve God.
00:51:49.140
And none of us are called to live only for ourselves.
00:51:54.080
And again, it is simply not possible for anyone to be happy that way, which is why no one ever has been.
00:52:01.440
All of us are called to a paternal or maternal vocation.
00:52:04.920
For most of us, that calling will be fulfilled through motherhood or fatherhood.
00:52:07.880
A small minority might become fathers or mothers in a different way, in a spiritual way, in a spiritual sense, through a different kind of life of service, the religious life, mission work, or something similar.
00:52:18.220
But nobody is called to prioritize themselves and just live that way until they die.
00:52:28.580
Which is good, because what a pointless point that would be.
00:52:31.920
Now, the good news for Layla and anybody else in her boat is that there is still time to go and live your true purpose.
00:52:43.060
So put aside all the self-actualization mumbo-jumbo and go do what you're made to do.
00:52:52.120
Or else, if not, if not, then you will be, in that case, and only in that case, today, canceled.
00:53:13.100
Understand what the news means on The Michael Knowles Show.
00:53:15.980
I will take you beneath the surface of daily political events to see their historical, philosophical, even religious roots.
00:53:25.080
Catch it Monday through Friday at 9.30 a.m. Eastern on The Daily Wire.