The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 201 - A Brave Journalist Tells The Truth About The Media

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Wall Show, a truly courageous journalist speaks the truth about her profession.

00:00:05.560 Also, Democrats are trying desperately, along with the media, to distance themselves from

00:00:10.240 Jussie Smollett now, but we shouldn't let them do that. We need to hold them accountable. And

00:00:14.160 finally, headlines claim that a boy, a middle school boy, was arrested for refusing to stand

00:00:21.060 for the Pledge of Allegiance. But as always, the headlines are misleading, so we'll get to

00:00:25.200 the truth about this story today on The Matt Wall Show.

00:00:30.000 There are a lot of good reasons to not be very excited about the fact that Bernie Sanders

00:00:39.740 is running for president again. He just announced today, officially, that he's running for president.

00:00:45.760 He's going to make another run at it. And there are plenty of reasons to not support his run.

00:00:50.740 He's a nutty socialist, for one. That's probably the main thing. But his age also does matter, 0.94

00:00:56.620 okay? Age is not just a number. Age is a physiological reality, okay? It's no, it's not

00:01:03.540 just, oh, age is just a number. No, no, it's more than that. It represents the amount of time that

00:01:12.140 you've spent on Earth. And unfortunately, in a reality where only death and taxes are certain,

00:01:18.520 it means that as we embark on this inevitable unceasing march towards our own demise,

00:01:27.820 and as we get closer to it, we start to break down physically. It just, it happens to everyone.

00:01:34.520 It's happening to me right now. I'm only 32 and it's happening already. I'm already doing the thing

00:01:40.000 at 32 where you, you know, you, you walk into a room and then you, you can't remember why you walked

00:01:47.080 into the room or where you're looking for your phone. Um, and then you tell someone to call your

00:01:53.020 phone and then you look at your hand and realize, oh, I was holding it the whole time. So I'm already,

00:01:57.440 I'm already doing that at 32. Sanders is a 77. He'll be 79 in 2020. So if you were to win the

00:02:06.700 presidency, which of course he won't, but if he did, he would be 79 at that point, the average age

00:02:12.640 of death for Americans is 78, which is actually a lot lower than I thought. I thought we were in the,

00:02:18.960 I thought we were in the eighties, but apparently we're at 78. Um, so just putting that in perspective

00:02:24.120 that at 79, you're already on borrowed time. Statistically speaking at 79, you simply do not

00:02:31.740 have the mental or physical capacity to take on the most demanding and stressful job in the

00:02:36.620 world. Uh, and, and that's not, it's not a, it's not an insult. It's just, just, just a reality of

00:02:41.460 it. Look at, you know, I mean, look at a picture of Barack Obama when he first went into office as a

00:02:48.640 relatively young man verse when he came out eight years later, or, um, or George Bush, or, I mean,

00:02:55.120 you see what, what eight years in the white house does to a person. I mean, it's like when you're in

00:03:02.680 the white house, you're on dog years, basically every year is seven years of stress.

00:03:07.180 So if, you know, so, so George Bush went in, in his whatever fifties, he came out, he was like 80.

00:03:14.040 Um, and so when, if, if Bernie Sanders wins the presidency, which again, he won't, but if he did,

00:03:20.340 when he gets out, he'll be 275 years old. Really? So it's just, look, when you're 79,

00:03:28.140 how arrogant, this is my problem with it. How arrogant and how power hungry and just egotistical 0.94

00:03:35.680 and self-obsessed do you have to be to run for president when you're 79? I mean, just go home 0.98

00:03:42.360 and retire, go be with your family, go fishing or something. You're 79, but you're, you're so

00:03:50.120 desperate for power. You, you, you, you, you cannot imagine existence without, without power

00:03:57.840 and pursuing more power. And that's how desperate you are for it. That you, uh, that you will,

00:04:03.820 you will even keep younger and healthier people out of office just so that you can sit on the throne.

00:04:08.680 Even if you die on the throne, you just want to feel it. You just want to be on it. What kind of

00:04:14.240 arrogance is that? Really? Just step aside already. Let it go. Go home. The, the democratic, uh,

00:04:25.680 you know, presidential field is going to be filled with people like this. People in their,

00:04:29.420 in their, you know, older people in their set, Joe Biden, uh, Bernie Sanders, who knows,

00:04:33.980 maybe Hillary Clinton will run again. Just people who can't let it go already go home and enjoy the 1.00

00:04:41.040 rest of your life. That's my problem. It's, it's arrogant. Um, all right. So a bunch of things I

00:04:52.720 want to talk about today. Uh, I don't want to spend a lot of time on Bernie Sanders. We'll, we'll move on

00:04:56.040 from that already. The media, you know, likes to, to credit itself with having courage. Journalists

00:05:02.340 like to pretend that they have a lot of courage, but I think that courage, um, is, is actually the,

00:05:09.800 probably the most wrongly attributed and least often actually demonstrated virtue in modern

00:05:17.280 society. So in other words, it's a virtue that we're all, we're always attributing to people

00:05:21.980 and to actions, but very often we do so, um, wrongly. And it's kind of rare that we act,

00:05:30.820 that we see real actual courage. Um, so for instance, a journalist who stands up against

00:05:38.640 Trump, Jim Acosta doing one of his showy little things at a press conference, taking it to Donald

00:05:45.900 Trump. Now these, they might get credit for that from other people in the media for being courageous,

00:05:52.240 but that's not courageous because you're doing something that everybody else in your profession

00:05:57.300 will agree with and admire you for. So, and that, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't stand up

00:06:05.480 against politicians and powerful people. If you're, if you're a journalist, uh, you shouldn't do it the

00:06:09.700 way Jim Acosta does, but in general, in principle, that is a good thing to do. I'm just saying that

00:06:13.780 when the, when the politician is a Republican and you're in the media, well, right or wrong,

00:06:21.800 you know, that when you take him to task, all of your friends and, and all of your colleagues

00:06:27.060 are going to agree with you. So it doesn't take courage to do it, but a journalist standing up

00:06:33.660 against other journalists. Okay. Well now that takes courage, which brings us to Laura Logan,

00:06:39.320 who was, um, a reporter. She was on a podcast called, um, Mike drop with retired Navy seal,

00:06:46.820 Mike Ritlin this weekend. And she's a reporter, I believe for CBS during the course of that

00:06:53.560 discussion. Uh, she called her own profession to task and she's been getting a lot of attention for

00:06:57.920 this over the last day or two. I think rightly. So let me just, I'm going to read a couple of the,

00:07:03.160 a few of the lines here from her interview. Some of the things that she said, she said, um,

00:07:07.800 the media everywhere is mostly liberal, not just in the U S but in this country, 85% of journalists

00:07:13.120 are registered Democrats. That's just a fact. No one is registering Democrat when they're really

00:07:17.860 Republican. So the facts are on the side that you just stated. Most journalists are left or liberal

00:07:22.900 or Democrat, whatever words you want to give it. How do you know you're being lied to? How do you

00:07:27.580 know you're being manipulated? How do you know there's nothing, there's something not right with

00:07:31.160 the coverage when they simplify it all. And there's no gray, there's no gray. It's all one way.

00:07:36.440 Well, life isn't like that. If it doesn't match real life, it's probably not there. There's something

00:07:41.700 wrong. She's saying. So for example, all the coverage on Trump all the time is negative.

00:07:45.820 That's distortion of the way things go in real life. Because although the media has historically

00:07:50.600 always been left-leaning, we've abandoned our pretense or at least the effort to be objective.

00:07:57.140 Um, and she goes on to talk about how the media has become political activists and she, and you may

00:08:03.140 even use the word propagandist. She uses, she says now, none of that is news to anyone, right?

00:08:10.420 But I think it's worth paying attention to. Well, number one, because when somebody in the

00:08:17.060 profession is telling you this, um, then you know, it's true because she's got no reason to say this

00:08:22.900 if it wasn't true. And it also, it takes guts and integrity for someone in that world to say it.

00:08:30.740 See, when you actually risk something, when you put something on the line, when speaking truth will

00:08:37.280 cost you something, something real, something tangible, when you could actually be tangibly

00:08:44.520 palpably hurt in some way by, by speaking a truth. Well, then that's when it's courageous to do it.

00:08:51.600 So good for Laura Logan. On the other end of the spectrum. Um, so that's what courage looks like.

00:08:58.360 A unfortunately rare example of it, but let's look at some examples of cowardice,

00:09:05.100 which is something in far greater supply. Uh, we have a surplus of cowardice in our culture.

00:09:11.360 And so we have a very cowardly display from Democrats and a lot of people in the media

00:09:16.180 who are trying to play cleanup now and trying to save face after the Smollett thing blew up and,

00:09:22.360 and humiliated them, but they're not doing a very good job of it.

00:09:25.820 And for instance, both Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, um, you may remember when the news broke

00:09:32.620 about, about, um, about Jussie Smollett, what, what, when the fake news broke, when he came out

00:09:38.800 with his, with his whole made up story, uh, within hours, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker both came out

00:09:45.840 and they both use the exact same phrase. They said, it's a, it's a modern day lynching is the phrase

00:09:51.060 they use. They called it a lynching. And they went on to talk about, uh, how this is hatred and

00:09:55.460 bigotry and so on and so forth. But now suddenly, um, now that the story has shifted,

00:10:02.560 uh, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker that now they're become, now they're getting more cautious

00:10:07.780 and they want to be more thoughtful and they want to make, wait for the facts to come in. So

00:10:12.000 let me show you, this is a clip of, uh, Kamala Harris.

00:10:15.980 When, remember what she said, she originally called it a, a, a modern day lynching,

00:10:19.580 but then yesterday she was asked again about Smollett, kind of a follow-up like, Hey, what

00:10:25.260 do you think now? And this is what she said, which tweet, what tweet, uh, the, about, uh,

00:10:31.820 saying that it is a modern day lynching that, um, uh, sorry, Jesse Smollett. Um,

00:10:40.420 okay. So I will say this about that case. I think that the facts are still unfolding and, um, I'm very,

00:10:49.780 um, concerned about obviously. Okay. So she's very flustered there. And by the way, that shows you,

00:10:58.060 you see there, it shows you that, uh, Kamala Harris as a liberal Democrat, she is, she is not used to 1.00

00:11:05.720 being challenged at all by the media. And she is not at used to being asked difficult questions,

00:11:11.080 which this shouldn't even be a difficult question. This is just, Hey, you made this comment two weeks

00:11:17.340 ago. Um, more facts have come out. What do you think now? So it's not even, it's not even, it's

00:11:21.980 not like a gotcha question. It's a very fair, basic question that as a politician, she should absolutely

00:11:28.240 be prepared to answer, but she wasn't prepared to answer that question. She didn't think she'd be asked

00:11:33.100 it because this is the media, right? They're supposed to help her. Uh, you know, they're,

00:11:37.640 they're, they're, they're supposed to be friends with, uh, there's, they're supposed to be her

00:11:40.360 friends, her PR team. And she was asked that question. She was, she was flummoxed. Um,

00:11:49.600 Booker was not quite as flummoxed, but just as cowardly. Here's, here's Booker's answer when he was

00:11:53.780 asked, um, uh, to, to follow up on his modern day lynching, um, phrase. Well, the information is still

00:12:00.400 coming out and I'm going to withhold until all the information actually comes out from on the

00:12:04.380 record sources. Okay. So both of them now are saying, well, well, well, let's, let's, let's

00:12:09.680 wait, let's hold off. Let's wait for more facts to come in. I just want you to appreciate the irony

00:12:17.440 here. When no facts had been in there were, when there were no facts, when no facts had come in,

00:12:23.040 when we knew nothing and there was no evidence of anything either way, both Harris and Booker were

00:12:28.540 ready to call it a lynching and go into a whole spiel about hatred and bigotry. But now that there

00:12:33.340 are facts, now they don't want to say anything. So when no, when no facts were in, they didn't want

00:12:39.720 to wait for the facts. And now that we have a bunch of facts, now they want to wait for more facts

00:12:43.840 before they say anything else. Right. Okay. Meanwhile, uh, like we talked about yesterday,

00:12:48.640 the media is also trying to back away from this. And, uh, I played a couple of clips on the show

00:12:53.840 yesterday of the media, um, doing their own kind of Kamala Harris impression and sort of stammering

00:12:59.040 and yammering and trying to find a way around this, trying to explain that. No, really they were,

00:13:04.740 um, they reported this fairly all along, you know, they, they weren't do no Hollywood celebrities and

00:13:10.480 maybe politicians. Okay. They jumped on the bandwagon too early, but not the media. No, we, we didn't do

00:13:15.440 anything wrong. We were, we were, um, you know, we're the courageous truth seeking fact-finding

00:13:20.240 journalists and we could never be guilty of reporting fake news. No fake news. That's a,

00:13:25.860 that's an offensive slur that Donald Trump used. That's that that's, that's, it's not fair. We,

00:13:30.700 we don't engage in fake news. That's what they're claiming. But I thought it could be worthwhile

00:13:35.480 before they, uh, stuff their own reporting down the memory hole, which they're attempting to do right

00:13:40.100 now. It could be worthwhile to catalog some of the headlines from the days immediately following

00:13:47.400 the attack. So I want to give you a brief sampling just so we, so we remember, you know, how they,

00:13:52.960 how they really did handle this, despite what they're claiming now. And so I'm not going to read

00:13:58.380 you tweets from celebrities and politicians. These are reputable news outlets, and these are some of

00:14:04.380 the headlines. So from, from the first few days after the, um, supposed attack. So this is from CNN,

00:14:11.540 CNN's headline, empire star Jussie Smollett attacked impossible hate crime.

00:14:16.200 And there were identical headlines that could be found in the Hollywood reporter and deadline and

00:14:20.340 other places. Now notice something it's, it's, it's sort of not very subtle, but it's a little

00:14:25.360 subtle, uh, because the word possible is in there, but look at where they put that qualifier of

00:14:32.480 possible empire star, Jussie Smollett attacked, attacked impossible hate crime.

00:14:40.900 So there's only uncertainty around the motivation. It's a possible hate crime.

00:14:46.200 Um, but the attack itself is reported as fact, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a big

00:14:54.100 difference between empire star Jussie Smollett possibly attacked in hate crime and empire star

00:15:02.720 Jussie Smollett attacked impossible hate crime. There's a big difference between those two headlines

00:15:06.780 and the media knows that. Um, the New York times says Jussie Smollett star of empire attacked in

00:15:13.780 what police call a possible hate crime yet again. Now this is, this is totally intentional. Okay.

00:15:22.820 Uh, it's, it's, it is manipulative. It is completely intentional when they're making this

00:15:28.220 headline. They know that most people only read the headline, especially in this day and age of social

00:15:33.800 media and everything. People are just scrolling down social media. They're seeing the headlines

00:15:36.940 and they're getting their impression of what's going on. Um, so even if they use more cautious

00:15:43.780 wording in the text of the article, it's the headline that matters. And there's a conscious decision

00:15:50.260 here to not put a word like possible or alleged or reported or supposed or whatever in front of

00:15:59.100 attacked because they want you to think that that was an actual fact. Uh, the AP, this was their

00:16:05.180 headline. Jussie Smollett strikes emotional cord. Attackers won't win. Now this headline could

00:16:12.180 have been written by Smollett's, um, just hired defense attorneys. This is just pure propaganda,

00:16:17.700 pure PR for, uh, for Jussie Smollett. And the word alleged appears nowhere in the, in the, uh,

00:16:24.460 in the headline. It also appears nowhere in the text of that particular article, by the way,

00:16:28.140 uh, from, uh, from, uh, from variety Chicago PD seeking persons of interest in Jussie Smollett

00:16:34.860 attack manager was on phone during incident yet again, uh, no alleged, no indication of, of any

00:16:47.320 kind of skepticism just reported as fact Forbes headline empire actor, Jussie Smollett issues

00:16:56.540 statement after vicious attack. I'm okay. Now this one, I love because the folks over at Forbes,

00:17:05.260 they knew that they had to put some kind of qualifying word in front of attack, right?

00:17:09.780 They needed something there. They couldn't just say attack. So they were thinking, uh,

00:17:13.280 should we put alleged there or possible or reported or no, no, no. Let's put vicious in front of it.

00:17:19.960 So this is what, um, this is what the media does now consider, consider for a second,

00:17:26.280 how these headlines would look if a conservative, let's just take a very similar kind of incident,

00:17:34.500 but change the politics around a little bit and the racial dynamics.

00:17:39.420 So consider how the headlines would look if a, if a conservative Hollywood actor, like let's say

00:17:45.820 Dean Cain. Okay. What if he claimed that he was, um, jumped by two liberal black men in Elizabeth

00:17:53.780 Warren for president t-shirts who were shouting leftist slogans as they stomped him half to death.

00:17:59.720 And, uh, imagine that he, that he said that this, this supposed assault happened in Huntsville,

00:18:04.020 Alabama Warren country as the attacker supposedly shouted as they were stomping him. And there are

00:18:10.320 no witnesses of it. Um, there's no footage to confirm the story, but that's his story.

00:18:16.160 It is inconceivable that CNN or the New York times or the AP would publish headlines like this.

00:18:24.840 If they reported the claim at all, it would be conveyed with extreme, extreme and warranted skepticism.

00:18:34.020 Um, and we all know that of course. And so it gets redundant after a while to point it out, but,

00:18:39.460 um, I think we do have to point it out and we do have to keep pointing to the truth as the media

00:18:44.940 tries to bear it, bury it. All right. Um, enough about Smollett.

00:18:52.660 Here's a, an interesting story out of Lawton Child's middle Academy in Lakeland, Florida.

00:18:59.400 Um, the story that you may have seen yesterday, again, if you're just reading the headlines,

00:19:06.700 the story was that a middle school kid, a sixth grader was arrested for refusing to stand for

00:19:13.080 the pledge of allegiance before school. And that was what was going viral on social media and everything

00:19:18.860 that a kid was arrested for refusing to stand for the pledge. But, and, and, and, and by the way,

00:19:26.580 yet again, when I was on Twitter and I saw all kinds of people posting about this story

00:19:32.440 or, you know, just retweeting a headline, the headline and some, from some news outlet about

00:19:39.160 how a kid was arrested for refusing to stand for the pledge. And, uh, you know, people retweeting the,

00:19:45.020 the headline with a little caption saying how insane this is. And I thought this is America 0.56

00:19:48.900 and blah, blah, blah. It's like people never learn. Or I mean, how many times we just went

00:19:55.720 through this with the Smollett thing. How many times we have to go through this before people

00:20:00.180 learn you, you, you need to read the story for yourself. You cannot come to any conclusions

00:20:06.520 at all based on headlines. If all you've read is the headline, then you should not be saying

00:20:15.160 anything about the story publicly. You shouldn't be posting about it. You should be retweeting it.

00:20:19.620 You shouldn't be offering your opinion because you don't know anything about it. All you read is a

00:20:24.280 headline and the headlines can be, and often are, and are at this point, almost certain to be

00:20:30.840 misleading. How is it that people still don't understand this? Because with this story,

00:20:38.020 if you would just read, uh, actually click on the stupid little headline and read the article, 0.99

00:20:43.920 you'll find that there is more to the story. The kid was not arrested for refusing to stand for the 0.99

00:20:50.540 pledge. That is not the story. That is not true. Let me, um, read a bit from Emily's, uh,

00:20:59.280 Zanotti's story in the daily wire says a sixth grader in Florida was reportedly arrested after

00:21:04.720 he refused to participate in a class recitation, the pledge of allegiance, a move, a move, which

00:21:09.280 escalated into a confrontation with police and school officials, according to local news sources,

00:21:15.240 media in Lakeland, Florida reported that the 11 year old, uh, a student at, at a Lawton

00:21:20.660 Child's middle Academy called the flag racist and described the national anthem as offensive.

00:21:26.380 Though the national anthem was not being played at the time. Um, a substitute teacher who was

00:21:32.580 minding the student's class reportedly asked the student, why, if it was so bad here, he did not

00:21:38.060 go to another place to live. They brought me here. The boy replied, according to a statement taken by

00:21:42.640 the school's resource officers. Um, the teacher reportedly retorted, well, you can always go back

00:21:48.000 because I came here from Cuba and the day I feel I'm not welcome here anymore. I would find another 0.97

00:21:52.840 place to live. At that point, the substitute teacher called the, called the office noting that

00:21:57.400 she could no longer deal with the student. The school's Dean of students reportedly tried to calm

00:22:02.220 the student down, but after asking the student to leave the class 20 times to no avail, the Dean

00:22:07.960 called in the student's school resource officer. So this is a police officer that's on campus to deal

00:22:13.300 with these kinds of things. The school resource officer then intervened and asked the student to exit the

00:22:18.040 classroom and he refused. Um, and the student left the classroom eventually and created another

00:22:24.640 disturbance and made threats while he was escorted to the office. Um, according to the arrest

00:22:31.700 affidavit, the student was arrested by the school resource officer because he refused to follow

00:22:36.500 multiple commands. He repeatedly called school leaders racist and was disruptive. They said he

00:22:41.640 threatened to get the school resource officer and principal fired and to beat the teacher.

00:22:45.620 Eventually the student was placed under arrest. Okay. So that's the whole story. Now here you could

00:22:53.780 still disagree and say he shouldn't have been arrested. It shouldn't be dealt with that way.

00:22:57.120 That's fine. But he was not arrested. The thing on the arrest affidavit is not going to say

00:23:03.380 refuse to stand for the pledge. That's not the, that is not the, uh, the crime that was committed.

00:23:08.600 That's not a crime. Um, that's not what he was arrested for. He was arrested,

00:23:14.780 because he was basically begging for it. Now, of course the mother has come out and complaining

00:23:21.740 that her poor innocent, innocent son is a victim. Um, you know, come, come to his defense and

00:23:27.820 everything, which is very different from how my mom would have responded. When I see all of these

00:23:33.280 parents, you know, rushing to the defense of their, of their unruly disruptive kids. I, it always,

00:23:40.740 I always just have to scratch my head because that is not how I was raised at all. That is so foreign 1.00

00:23:46.160 to me. Um, as a parent now, and thinking back to my experience as a child, if I had, I mean,

00:23:54.160 if I had refused to listen to my teacher, which I did that plenty of times when I was a kid,

00:23:59.640 I must admit, but if I had refused to listen to my teacher, um, to the point where the school

00:24:05.620 resource officer had to be called in. And then I still refuse to follow the instructions that I was

00:24:11.580 given. And then as I was being led away forcefully, because I refused to leave the class, I threatened

00:24:17.860 to physically assault my teacher and I was arrested for it. Uh, I could tell you, my mom would not be

00:24:25.940 on camera crying crocodile tears of sympathy for me. I could tell you that right now. Uh, neither would

00:24:33.300 my dad, I would, I would be facing whatever the legal penalties are and the school penalties.

00:24:38.100 And then I would go home and I would face even worse penalties. That's what would have happened to

00:24:41.900 me. But this of course is what part of what makes the job of teachers so difficult today is that they

00:24:49.540 have to deal with these awful kids and their terrible parents who will defend their awful kids,

00:24:54.820 no matter what their awful kids do. And it's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's well awful. 0.71

00:25:02.560 And again, as a parent myself, I don't even understand that instinct.

00:25:08.460 Like, well, you know, my kids are younger, but, um, when we leave our kids with a babysitter or

00:25:13.720 something like that, because my wife and I are going to go out for a date night, go watch a movie or

00:25:17.880 something. And if we ever come home and we get a report from the babysitter that our kids were being

00:25:25.220 unruly, um, disobedient, disrespectful, that is going to make me very, very angry. And they are

00:25:32.460 going to face severe consequences. You know, on the few occasions when we've come home and the

00:25:38.860 babysitter has given us a bad report, my first instinct as a parent is not to say, Oh no, my little

00:25:45.680 baby never would do that. It must be your fault. You're being mean to my, to my precious little

00:25:50.560 babies. No, see, that's not my first instinct. My first instinct is to believe the adult.

00:25:57.140 Okay. Does that make me a bad parent? My first instinct is to side with the adult over my kid

00:26:01.640 because they're adults. And I know how kids are. I was a kid myself once.

00:26:07.440 So when I hear a story about my kid being disrespectful, I think, yeah, well, that's, that's,

00:26:11.880 I mean, I know they can act like that sometimes I've seen it myself.

00:26:15.680 And it's totally unacceptable. And so then what will happen is I will apologize

00:26:20.640 to the adult for having to deal with that. And then I will get my child and make them apologize.

00:26:33.520 Here's a, here's a newsflash for this precious little snowflakes mom.

00:26:39.500 Um, uh, if, if, if a kid is being told to leave the classroom, he needs to leave. Okay. If your son

00:26:50.280 is being told to leave the classroom, he needs to leave. He doesn't get to refuse. It's not up to him.

00:26:56.640 He's not the adult. He needs to respect his elders. See, at this point, it's not even about

00:27:01.520 the pledge. It's not about respecting the pledge or the flag or the country. It's got nothing to do with

00:27:05.680 that now. Now it is about listening to and respecting the adults. That's all it's about.

00:27:11.700 It doesn't matter how he feels about the pledge. Doesn't matter. That's fine. Doesn't want to stand

00:27:15.300 fine. But he was asked to leave that, that substitute teacher was put in charge of the

00:27:21.340 class for the day. Um, your, your son's not in charge of the class. Your sixth grade son's not

00:27:26.540 in charge. The teacher's in charge. That's the adult. And you as an adult should be,

00:27:31.680 should be backing up the other adult in the situation who you have entrusted your child to.

00:27:38.940 See, by sending your kid to school, you have put other adults in the position of watching your kid

00:27:45.560 and, and dealing with whatever outrageous behavior your kid decides to engage in. So the least you can

00:27:51.820 do as a parent is have the other adults backs. Don't send your awful kid to school. And then they act,

00:28:00.080 and then, and then, and then they behave terribly. And so not only are you, you know,

00:28:06.540 are you inflicting your awful kids, awful behavior on other adults, but then you're, 0.59

00:28:12.500 what, then you're on camera, you're on TV, uh, calling for them to be fired over it.

00:28:20.000 It's your fault that your kid's acting that way. Teach him some respect.

00:28:23.140 He doesn't get to do what he wants. He doesn't get to shut down the whole class,

00:28:30.800 bring everything to a grinding halt, force everyone to deal with his temper tantrum.

00:28:36.780 You know, I saw this plenty when I was in school, these, these kids that would, um,

00:28:40.980 they would get upset at the teacher for whatever reason. And whether they're right to be upset or

00:28:45.900 not, right. It doesn't make, it makes no difference, but then they're asked to leave the class

00:28:49.620 because they're causing a disruption and they refuse to leave and they just sit there and they

00:28:53.780 won't listen. And so now everybody has to stop what we're doing. We have to stop learning. We

00:29:00.200 have to stop everything we're doing to deal with your kid. Doesn't that embarrass you?

00:29:06.220 Shouldn't you be embarrassed by that as a parent? See, if I was the parent, I would be humiliated.

00:29:12.420 I would be so embarrassed. The last thing I would want to do is be on camera. If there was a camera,

00:29:17.300 I'd put a paper bag over my head and try to rush to the car so that I wasn't caught on camera.

00:29:21.400 I'd be so embarrassed that my kid was doing that. Um, and you know what, if he wants to get real

00:29:30.440 big, if you, if your kid wants to act big, act like a big boy and start threatening, start making

00:29:34.680 physical threats. Okay. You know, once you start making physical threats, uh, the cops not going

00:29:42.080 to mess around with that, especially these days. I don't know. Maybe you've watched the news and

00:29:46.640 you've seen the stories about school shootings and stuff like that. Violence in the schools.

00:29:50.360 Yeah. Guess what? If you make violent threats in a school to a teacher or to anybody else,

00:29:54.940 and there's a school resource officer there, um, your butt's going to get hauled away to jail. 1.00

00:29:59.900 That's what's going to happen because they're not going to mess around with that. They're not 0.95

00:30:03.000 going to take any chances and they shouldn't. Um, again, this has got nothing to do with the

00:30:10.160 Pledge of Allegiance. As far as the Pledge of Allegiance goes, uh, you know, I, I, it's,

00:30:18.220 it's a totally separate thing. And, you know, as it happens, I do kind of have an issue with the

00:30:25.960 pledge, but again, that's, that's totally, it's, it's, it's got nothing to do with it. It's a,

00:30:29.700 it's completely separate issue because this is about respecting elders and doing as you're told

00:30:33.640 as a kid, as a child. Um, but you know, there are aspects, here's the thing, even though it's

00:30:41.380 totally unrelated now that I'm on the subject, here's the thing I don't like about the Pledge.

00:30:44.860 Um, there's really just one line in the Pledge that I don't like. And I know these days, the

00:30:48.620 people that there are a lot of people who don't like the under God part. No, I like that part.

00:30:52.260 That part is good. There's one line in the Pledge I really don't like. And that is, um, indivisible

00:30:57.520 with liberty and justice for all. Now I like liberty and justice. That part I like, that's good.

00:31:03.640 But indivisible? See, I, I disagree with that. I don't think the country is indivisible. Uh,

00:31:10.040 I think that's incorrect because I believe in states' rights. So the state of Texas, for instance,

00:31:15.620 is not owned by the federal government. Um, it is not owned by the collective. It is not an

00:31:22.800 indivisible part of the United States. It has the right, or it should have the right, I believe 0.64

00:31:27.260 personally to leave if it wants to. Um, so at the very least, the idea of an indivisible

00:31:34.360 country is, is controversial. I mean, we fought a war over it for goodness sake. It is not

00:31:39.520 a universally accepted thing. Yeah. We have our kids stand up and say indivisible without

00:31:45.720 encouraging them to think about what that means and whether or not they even agree with

00:31:49.820 it. Because that's an, again, that's an opinion and not a, not a universally held opinion

00:31:54.700 that the country is an indivisible whole and it cannot be divided up.

00:32:01.100 So, um, at the very least, if we're going to have our kids stand up and say this every morning,

00:32:06.720 they, they should be encouraged to think about it and to be, um, and to be, you know, uh, to be

00:32:11.360 analytical. But anyway, that's, that's beside the point. The real point again is do as you're told

00:32:16.120 as, as a child in school. Finally, uh, before we get to emails, like I almost forgot this. I,

00:32:22.760 we got to talk about this. I need to show you something and I want you to prepare yourself

00:32:28.920 because this is very disturbing. All right. I was, I happened to swing by the grocery store

00:32:34.580 yesterday. Uh, I went to giant supermarket and as I was walking in, I was immediately greeted by this.

00:32:45.280 Look at this picture. Now I want to leave this picture up on the screen, um, for a bit, because

00:32:51.780 I want you to really soak this in. Okay. That is a robot that you're looking at right now.

00:32:56.900 That is a robot called Marty, the robot. I read this. I'm not kidding. I really, this was at the

00:33:01.360 grocery store and it moves around the store. It's, it's got, it's on wheels. You can't see the whole

00:33:07.060 thing in the picture I took, but it is, uh, it is, I was afraid to approach it on this. I didn't know

00:33:11.280 if it was going to, you know, zap me with a laser beam or something, but it is, uh, it's on wheels

00:33:17.620 and it, it just, it moves around the store. This robot, I was in the produce section. I was trying

00:33:23.840 to find avocados of course, because I'm a millennial and the thing was blocking the avocados and I'm

00:33:28.280 like, robot, please get Marty. Excuse me. Um, so it moves around the store looking for shoplifters.

00:33:35.700 And if it finds a shoplifter, it shoots anthrax in its face. Um, no, actually that's not technically

00:33:41.400 correct. It's, it says that there's a little sign on it says that it's looking for spills

00:33:44.960 to clean up, but I swear this thing followed me around the store with its huge, dead googly 0.99

00:33:51.880 eyes. Look at those eyes. You're staring at the apocalypse folks. All right. The end of

00:33:57.620 all things. This is how it ends. First, they're cleaning up broken jars of mayonnaise and aisle

00:34:02.860 12. And next thing you know, Marty and his robot compatriots are enslaving mankind.

00:34:15.720 So beware. All right. Um, let's get to some of your, some of your emails. You can email

00:34:20.980 the show, mattwallshowatgmail.com, mattwallshowatgmail.com. This is from cheerily cheerily. I think

00:34:28.580 it's how you pronounce the name. Great name, by the way. Uh, it says, I love your show.

00:34:33.400 I listened to all, all the episodes, yours, Andrew, Michael, and Ben in the morning on

00:34:37.280 my commute to work. I would, that must be a long commute by the way. Um, I would like

00:34:42.940 to thank you and the others for doing what you do and helping me get through my day from

00:34:46.620 dealing with healthcare being a right to the Mary Poppins books being racist because the

00:34:51.360 chimney sweep is doing blackface in some fashion. You guys keep me grounded in sanity. 0.96

00:34:55.680 Thank you. Seriously. Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful day. God bless. Thank you

00:34:59.540 cheerily for watching all the shows in your commute or listening to them. Anyway, I hope

00:35:05.100 you listen to them and not watch them if you're driving. Uh, this is from Jared. It says, it

00:35:09.380 seems that you are an effing idiot. Seems. See, I appreciate that little, see, you hedged your 1.00

00:35:15.820 bets a little bit there. Seems that I'm an effing idiot. Seems, but looks can be deceiving. 1.00

00:35:21.440 Jared. This is from Dustin. It says, hi, Matt, just listened to today's show. Uh, I like you

00:35:26.940 am on the fence about the death penalty. I would hate to be in a position where I had

00:35:31.120 to make such a decision either as a juror or a prosecutor. However, part of my concern

00:35:35.120 about the death penalty is that it actually costs more to execute someone than it does

00:35:38.780 to incarcerate them for life. Trials where the death penalty is sought also cost more.

00:35:43.340 A quick Google search will net you at least a few scholarly articles on the topic. Thanks

00:35:47.320 for all you do. Keep up the good work. Um, yeah, that's true. Dustin, the people, people,

00:35:52.660 um, death penalty opponents will trot out that fact quite often. Uh, but the thing is that

00:36:00.600 the, when we talk about the death penalty being more expensive, first of all, I don't, you

00:36:05.800 know, this doesn't really come down to cost per se. Um, but it also has an inflated artificial

00:36:12.340 cost because the cost comes from all the appeals and all the years on death row and everything,

00:36:19.060 uh, doesn't have to be that way. I mean, carrying out a death sentence can be a rather cheap

00:36:25.800 and simple process. And I think we make it a lot more complicated, um, than it needs to

00:36:32.840 be. So, you know, that is just something to keep in mind every time you hear about how expensive

00:36:37.760 it is. This is from Andy. It says, Hey Matt, I listened to a podcast about Munchausen syndrome

00:36:42.800 the other day. So it got me thinking with regards to a seeming increase in faked hate crimes,

00:36:47.840 sexual assault allegations, and racism claims over the last decade or so. I wonder if this

00:36:51.820 could be an unintended consequence of social media that leads to some sort of Munchausen type

00:36:56.420 problem in our inwardly focused society. I say this not as an expert by any stretch,

00:37:00.900 but because there seems to be similarities in these two phenomenon, uh, just as people with

00:37:05.040 Munchausen syndrome, make themselves sick or injure themselves mainly for attention or sympathy.

00:37:09.780 People make up these accusations because they know that the media and Twitter will rush to pay

00:37:14.020 attention to them and feel sorry for them without the need for evidence or a backstory about the

00:37:18.180 event. I may be, uh, just trying to connect the two unrelated dots of my dislike of social media

00:37:24.280 and these allegations that keep coming out, but I just want to share my two cents. I think you're

00:37:28.500 exactly right, Andy. And that's a very good, uh, point that I wish I had thought of myself.

00:37:35.160 Munchausen, it is kind of a Munchausen syndrome. I think it's sort of, sort of exact, it's, it's,

00:37:40.580 the motivations are exactly the same. Uh, my only problem is when you attach a word like syndrome

00:37:47.500 to something, you make it into a disease or disorder or whatever. Now it seems like you are,

00:37:53.680 which I know isn't your intention, but, um, part of the effect is removing, uh, the accountability

00:38:03.500 from the person who's doing it, which of course we can't do because it's still their fault. It's,

00:38:11.220 it's a choice that they've made to make up these stories and they should face the consequences for

00:38:15.980 that. All right. Finally, this is what I really wanted to get to, uh, from, this is from grace.

00:38:20.200 I mentioned this on the show yesterday that I was going to respond to this question. Here's the

00:38:24.220 question again. It says, hi, Matt. I've been wanting to know your opinion about something.

00:38:28.200 Sometimes I will hear Christian apologists argue the case for Christianity on the basis of near

00:38:32.540 death experiences. They point to all the stories of people being medically dead and then experiencing

00:38:37.940 a vision of Christ or heaven. Do you think this is an effective argument? What is your position on

00:38:43.040 NDEs? NDE, near death experience. Uh, hi, Grace. That's a great question. I thank you for it.

00:38:50.500 I, um, here's the thing. I, you know, I've thought a lot about this and I, I differ from a lot of my

00:38:56.700 fellow Christians on this point. I don't think that near death experiences are a great apologetic tool.

00:39:03.580 And more to the point, I am skeptical of every near death experience story I've ever heard about,

00:39:09.860 which isn't to say that I think people are lying. I think that they really did experience something.

00:39:15.140 It's just, they might be misinterpreting their experience. The question is whether or not

00:39:18.880 these experiences people have where they, uh, you know, are, are near death, or sometimes they'll

00:39:24.160 claim that they medically died or whatever on the operating table. And then they went to heaven or

00:39:28.740 they saw Jesus or they saw their dead relatives or what have you. And then they woke up again. Um,

00:39:34.200 I don't doubt that these people saw the things that they thought they saw, but the question is,

00:39:39.100 is it a psychological phenomenon or did it actually happen? Um, and I tend to think it's more

00:39:49.380 psychological and I'll tell you why. Number one, this to me is the main thing that I can't really

00:39:55.640 get around. Near death experiences are common among all types of people of all faiths all over the world.

00:40:03.800 Now, if only Christians had these experiences, or if Christians were much more likely to have them,

00:40:10.680 then maybe I'd say that there's something there, but that's not the case. There's no evidence of that.

00:40:16.280 So all kinds of people all over the world will have these. Well, what does that mean?

00:40:21.060 It means that, um, Muslims who have NDEs will have Islamic visions of the afterlife and Hindus will have 1.00

00:40:30.220 Hindu visions and Buddhists will have visions consistent with that philosophy, um, seeks the 0.81

00:40:36.060 same thing, et cetera. So if, if the experience that someone has in a near the near death experience

00:40:44.480 is actually real, as in they are really seeing the afterlife, then how do we explain the Hindu who 0.80

00:40:51.780 goes off and meets Vishnu? How do we explain the native American who, in a case that I read about

00:40:57.040 recently, um, went to the sky and convened with a council of elders in the, in the sky, in the

00:41:02.760 clouds? Um, it seems that as Christians, we must either assume that all non-Christian NDEs are false

00:41:11.460 or demonic, which I think would be a, a, a silly assumption and definitely a case of special pleading,

00:41:18.240 or we must say that all religions are right. So they really are all, you know, so, so all visions of

00:41:24.940 the afterlife in the end, they're all right. They're all exact, you know, they, they, they all, whatever

00:41:28.940 your vision is of the afterlife, that's where you go, which we know as Christians is not the case.

00:41:35.060 Um, or, well, you know, I'm not sure what else you do with this fact.

00:41:40.900 It, if you want to believe that NDEs are real things, you're experiencing something real and

00:41:47.920 really seeing the afterlife, then I'm not sure what you do with all of these conflicting

00:41:53.080 experiences of the afterlife that people have based on their religious faith, unless you

00:41:59.280 conclude that NDEs are a neurological phenomenon, um, essentially a hallucination, like a dream

00:42:05.340 that reflects whatever ideas and beliefs the person had, the person having the experience

00:42:10.940 already held. See, that's the only conclusion that I think sufficiently accounts for the prevalence

00:42:17.800 of these experiences among all religions. Second thing, um, people have claimed to be on the operating

00:42:27.520 table and like hovering above their body, or they've claimed to teleport to other places in the hospital

00:42:34.080 or, or what have you. But studies have been done, controlled studies to try and replicate, replicate and

00:42:40.380 test these stories, because they are very impressive stories, but they're just stories in the end,

00:42:45.680 right. And when there have been, when there have been attempts to actually in real time test these

00:42:50.400 stories, um, they, they, they never, they always fail. So for instance, I heard about a, I heard about

00:42:57.420 a study that was done at some point, um, where I think it was like a, a, a word was written on a sticky

00:43:05.020 note and it was put on a high filing cabinet in a, in an operating room, you know, put up really high

00:43:11.080 so that you couldn't see it unless you're on a ladder. And then when people came back from their

00:43:16.200 near-death experiences and they claimed that they were hovering above their bodies and hovering above

00:43:19.780 the room, they were asked, well, what's the word on the note? Did you see the word up there on the

00:43:25.000 note? You should have been able to see it. What, what did it say? And nobody could say, you know,

00:43:29.720 because in this controlled environment, all of a sudden these stories kind of aren't as impressive

00:43:34.700 anymore, which I think tells us something. And, you know, not to mention just metaphysically,

00:43:39.800 it just, it doesn't really make sense to me. Like you're on the operating table and what your soul

00:43:46.760 gets up and goes for a jog around the hospital. So your body for that period is soulless.

00:43:52.820 What does that, how does that even work? Why would that even happen? Like, why would your soul slip

00:43:57.640 away for a minute? Um, like you're falling out of your shoes or something, and then your soul just

00:44:03.300 wanders back. And it really kind of just doesn't make any sense to me. And the third thing is that

00:44:08.380 near death experiences are, they're just that, okay. They're near death. So the people who say,

00:44:15.420 oh, I died for 10 minutes on the operating table because their heart stopped or they stopped breathing.

00:44:21.100 Well, that's not actually true. They did not die. Um, they were still alive, although barely,

00:44:26.960 which again is a problem with them saying that their soul went away and flew around the hospital

00:44:30.460 because they're not actually dead. So how does that work? Did their soul split in two or when

00:44:37.480 they're, or were they living when they were living, they were just a soulless husk for that period of

00:44:41.620 time. And their soul was off somewhere else. That seems to raise all kinds of problems because no,

00:44:47.080 they did not die. When somebody says, oh, I died for five minutes. I came back. I went to heaven. I came

00:44:51.420 back. No, you didn't. You didn't die. I mean, I, you know, I'm not discounting the severity of your

00:44:57.500 medical emergency at all. I'm just saying that you did not die. You were not actually medically

00:45:02.240 dead because to be dead is when all brain activity ceases. There is no more brain activity.

00:45:08.060 There was nothing. You are just a husk, a corpse laying there. That's dead. You are dead when you 1.00

00:45:13.900 are a corpse. And the thing is, if you're a corpse and you go to heaven and you come back, 0.97

00:45:20.940 that's not a near death experience. You're claiming that you were resurrected. That is a resurrection.

00:45:26.180 You are claiming to have been resurrected from the dead, like Jesus. And I'm not saying that's

00:45:33.200 impossible. We know what happened to Jesus. And we know Jesus raised Lazarus, right? Lazarus from

00:45:37.360 the dead. But I'm just saying that is a, that is a very different kind of claim. And it's one that I

00:45:46.100 am skeptical of because according to these stories, it seems like people are being resurrected left and

00:45:52.120 right. Like it's not even a big deal to be resurrected. And then the fourth thing, and this,

00:45:58.260 this is kind of a more minor objection, but you know, I can't help, but notice that all of these

00:46:06.240 people who go to heaven and then come back, um, they never seem to have anything really urgent or

00:46:17.100 startling or insightful or surprising to say, right? I mean, it seems like if God, if God's going to send

00:46:24.440 you back from heaven, you're in eternal paradise and now you have to come back, that's not a, that's not

00:46:37.320 really a positive thing. So it seems like if God's going to send you back from heaven, um, there would

00:46:45.900 be a really good reason for it. Like you've got a really important message to share, but nobody ever

00:46:53.260 comes back from heaven with a cure for cancer. Uh, nobody ever even really comes back with any sort

00:46:58.660 of penetrating, profound insight. It's just, now they come back with a beautiful story and very

00:47:05.260 inspiring, but they come back and they write a book for, and they get three, you know, they, they sell

00:47:10.140 3 million copies and all of that. But is that why God sent them back? So they could write a bestselling

00:47:14.620 book, which will then enter into a whole genre now of, I went to heaven. There's a whole genre of books

00:47:21.140 now, the, I went to heaven genre. So it's what it's a routine occurrence. Now God is just sending

00:47:26.980 people back from heaven left and right, just so they can share some pretty cliched message about

00:47:35.580 make the most of life and all that. Love your family. I mean, I'm not, yeah, it's true. We should

00:47:41.880 make the most of life and we should love our families, but does God need to send anyone back

00:47:45.900 from heaven to say that? So I don't know if somebody came back from heaven, supposedly with

00:47:54.100 something to say that was really so incredible and surprising and inexplicable, um, that it can't be

00:48:08.520 explained any other way than, you know, they, they went to heaven and received a divine message.

00:48:13.020 If that were to ever happen, um, in modern day, then I would feel differently, but I'm not aware of any

00:48:20.400 cases like that. So the answer is, uh, as no, unfortunately I, you know, I know people, it's, it's a very

00:48:28.320 comforting to think about near-death experiences. I know people that have had these experiences.

00:48:31.720 There's nothing I can say to dissuade them. I'm not trying to dissuade them. Um, I'm just giving my own

00:48:37.300 personal opinion on, on the topic and, uh, that's what it is. Thank you for the question. Thanks

00:48:43.320 everybody for listening. Thank you for being here. Godspeed.

00:48:46.440 Hey everybody. It's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. Here's a chilling little piece

00:49:04.640 of information from the book Free to Choose by Milton Friedman. In 1928, the Socialist Party put

00:49:10.920 forward an extremist platform. They never got more votes for presidency than 6%. And yet, and yet within

00:49:18.140 50 years, every part of their platform had been enacted into law. Why? I'll explain why on The

00:49:24.320 Andrew Klavan Show. I'm Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 19, 2019

Ep. 201 - A Brave Journalist Tells The Truth About The Media

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