The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 302 - The Media Wants Us To Forget About The Discredited Erica Thomas Race Hoax

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, as we all suffer through another Robert Mueller news cycle,

00:00:04.440 I'd like to turn our attention back to the story of Erica Thomas. She claimed that she was

00:00:09.000 verbally assaulted by a racist white man at a grocery store. Now the police report is out

00:00:13.040 and it's very bad for her. And when a race hoax is exposed, I think we should talk about it rather

00:00:17.900 than simply move on as the media wants us to do. Also, an actress comes out as pansexual, 0.88

00:00:23.360 even though the term pansexual has no meaning. And finally, Forever 21 comes up with the most

00:00:28.900 unintentionally hilarious marketing gimmick of all time. Talk about all that today on the Matt

00:00:33.780 Walsh Show. All right. Another day of Mueller mania. Another day to talk about Mueller and his report.

00:00:49.220 I am so excited. I'm so excited to talk about this. This issue is so interesting. I could just talk

00:00:56.780 about it all day. It's the only thing I want to talk about. I have so, so much fascinating analysis

00:01:03.200 to offer. Look, honestly, a part of me would rather jump in front of a 16-wheeler than talk about this

00:01:11.740 damned issue for one more second. I, in fact, I went outside looking for a 16-wheeler, but I couldn't 0.95

00:01:19.340 find one. So unfortunately for you. So we will talk about Mueller and the hearing and everything a little

00:01:25.340 bit today because news cycle is king. You got to follow the news cycle. So we'll talk about that.

00:01:30.680 Then we're going to move on to more interesting things, in my opinion. But first, you know,

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00:02:52.240 you'll love the club. All right, Mueller. Robert Mueller was dragged, and I do think literally dragged

00:02:59.500 from the looks of it, up to Capitol Hill for hearings today. It really seemed like he didn't want to be

00:03:05.920 there, and I can see why. Democrats, of course, were expecting fireworks. I mean, they're always expecting

00:03:13.360 fireworks, especially where Mueller is concerned. And he has let them down so many times in the

00:03:19.300 firework department, but yet they keep expecting it. They just keep coming back. All of his fireworks

00:03:26.280 end up just being the little sparklers that burn for a second and then end up burning your hand and

00:03:30.500 you throw them out. And that's what it was again today, shockingly. In fact, as the hearing was

00:03:36.720 beginning and Mueller gave his opening statement, he made it very clear that he isn't going to say

00:03:40.680 anything that wasn't already in the report. Everything that he says, it's going to be back.

00:03:44.760 It's going to be in the report. If you ask him a question that has to do with something outside of

00:03:48.500 the report, he's not going to answer it. Everything's going to go back to the report, which raises the

00:03:53.780 question, what's the point of the hearing? It's already in it. He wrote 400 pages. Well, somebody wrote

00:04:00.680 400 pages. We don't know if it's him. We'll go back to that in a second. But it's 400 pages. That's

00:04:06.480 all he's got to say. And it's right there. You can read it for yourself. Yet we had the hearing.

00:04:12.900 And why is that? Well, because of course the real point is for grandstanding. But here's the great

00:04:18.360 thing. And this is what I appreciate. This is the one thing I enjoyed as I was suffering through

00:04:24.480 watching these hearings. One thing I enjoyed is that these politicians were there hoping to

00:04:29.940 grandstand, but their grandstanding was undermined at every turn by the fact that Mueller apparently

00:04:36.780 didn't bring his hearing aid or he forgot to turn it on. So we didn't hear anything that they said.

00:04:41.860 So they, they, they were, they were trying to just go over everything that was already in there.

00:04:47.820 In fact, Nadler, Jerry Nadler was the first person to ask questions. And his whole line of

00:04:54.820 questioning was just going over what was already in the report, but Mueller couldn't hear what he was

00:04:59.460 saying. So it was, it was like a Jerry Nadler was like, uh, Mr. Mueller, uh, the, the report states

00:05:05.500 X, does it not? I'm sorry. What was that? Um, well, it's in my reading of the report, it states X.

00:05:13.360 Um, can you repeat that one last time? X is in the report. Does it not say X? And so that was just

00:05:18.420 like that back and forth, back and forth, uh, which was pretty funny. But at the same time, it was kind

00:05:24.380 of concerning because Robert Mueller really came across like frankly, a befuddled and confused old

00:05:33.400 man, which I'm not going to make fun of him for that. He's 74, 75 years old, something like that.

00:05:37.860 And he looked every bit his age and was acting it too. Um, and that is no surprise. I mean,

00:05:44.420 you're 74, 75, you've been given this high pressure job. It seemed like it really wore him down. I imagine

00:05:49.920 that's part of the reason why he didn't want to do this hearing because he knew he wouldn't perform

00:05:53.780 well. Um, and he didn't perform well, but it, it, it is, as I said, concerning because it makes you

00:06:00.020 think, well, um, who, this was the guy that was doing this whole investigation for two years.

00:06:09.680 Um, is this, is this person even capable of doing an investigation like this? Was he the one

00:06:17.520 actually running the investigation? Is this his report and you know, not somebody else?

00:06:23.340 What we end up with then in the end, um, is a report that was already written and published a

00:06:28.640 long time ago. Um, we have a hearing about a report with the guy who ostensibly wrote it,

00:06:34.620 but has already said he won't provide extra details about it. And we have a guy who wrote

00:06:38.200 the report ostensibly who can't hear and doesn't understand what's going on apparently. And, uh,

00:06:43.500 doesn't even know what's in his own report. And that all adds up to, uh, it did add up to

00:06:49.020 maybe a few humorous moments, but other than that, as far as I can tell, nothing of consequence,

00:06:54.160 you know, the, the talking heads and the pundits are going to parse it and come up with things that

00:06:58.620 are significant and it's on both sides of it. But really when it comes down to it, this Mueller thing,

00:07:02.980 um, it's all, it's all baked in as far as the voters are concerned. If you hate Trump,

00:07:08.140 then you believe that he's a Russian spy and a traitor and nothing Mueller says is going to 0.99

00:07:13.240 change your mind. It doesn't matter. And if you support Trump again, it doesn't matter what 0.92

00:07:17.720 Mueller says you support him. And I think if you're in the middle, um, you probably are bored with this

00:07:23.600 by now and are sick of it. And you're going to make your decision about who you vote for

00:07:27.340 based on something other than Robert Mueller. That's, that's my feeling anyway. So none of this

00:07:33.420 matters. That's my analysis and I will move on. Let's move to something that I think does matter.

00:07:40.380 Um, this week. And I want to, I want to go check in with this story again, because the media wants

00:07:49.100 to move on. The media has moved on. Uh, the left has moved on, but I don't think we should move on

00:07:54.740 just yet. Erica Thomas, you may remember her. Uh, if you can think back all the way back to the distant

00:08:00.400 past of this past weekend, you'll remember that Erica Thomas is the Georgia Democrat who claimed

00:08:06.760 that she was verbally assaulted by a racist white man at the grocery store. Uh, she claimed that she 0.92

00:08:12.100 was in the express lane with too many items, which in my view already puts her in the wrong,

00:08:17.420 no matter what happens next, she's in the wrong because she's in the, she's abusing the express 1.00

00:08:21.320 lane, which is one of the worst things a human being can do. Um, but she claims she was in the express

00:08:26.920 lane, racist white guy comes in raving lunatic, apparently starts screaming at her, go back 0.99

00:08:31.620 where you came from. Even though that doesn't make sense in the context of this dispute. Um, 1.00

00:08:36.740 she records the tearful, uh, Facebook video and is so upset about it, traumatized. Well,

00:08:43.640 the story begins to fall apart immediately. We talked about it on Monday. Um, because first

00:08:47.740 of all, it was just patently unbelievable from the very start. Second, when the supposed racist

00:08:53.320 who it turns out is a Cuban Democrat shows up on camera to confront her and dispute her version of

00:09:00.680 events, she, she, she starts backtracking and hedging immediately and says, ah, well, maybe he

00:09:06.080 didn't say go back where you came from, but he said something that's in that general vicinity of

00:09:10.800 statements. Um, now though it's gotten worse because witnesses are coming forward and their security

00:09:19.260 camera footage, which police have looked at because, oh yeah, the police got involved. The police

00:09:25.140 actually did an investigation for some reason. I mean, even if Erica Thomas was not a God forsaken

00:09:31.500 liar, which she is, but even if she was telling the truth and this really did happen exactly as she

00:09:36.920 says, why would the police be involved? What's the crime, you know, to say, go back where you came from. 0.96

00:09:42.520 Um, it may be a jerky thing to say, but it's not illegal. It's not an illegal statement yet. The

00:09:49.480 police did get involved and, um, uh, they announced yesterday that no charges are going to be filed

00:09:56.500 unsurprisingly, but they also have now a police report, which includes, um, their interviews of

00:10:04.640 witnesses. And those interviews do not at all back up what Erica Thomas said.

00:10:11.180 Which shows again, just how stupid these race hoaxers tend to be. I mean, Jussie Smollett, 1.00

00:10:20.980 so many things about that story. It was bound. He was bound to be exposed as a, as a hoaxer.

00:10:27.320 He went about it in the dumbest possible way. And what I said about that is, look, 0.99

00:10:31.660 if you're Jussie Smollett and you want to do a race hoax, um, and you want to pretend that you were

00:10:37.540 beat up by a white guy shouting, this is MAGA country, then your best bet. Now I would recommend

00:10:44.360 not making up the story to begin with, but if you're going to make up the story,

00:10:48.340 then just make up the story. Don't get into, don't be too specific. Don't hire two of your

00:10:54.560 friends to pretend to be white guys. Don't involve other people, potential witnesses, just say, Hey,

00:11:00.300 this happened. And if you're not specific about it and you don't involve the police,

00:11:04.300 then nobody's ever going to be able to prove it didn't happen. It's the same thing here.

00:11:09.940 You, you, you're basing your lie on an incident that actually did happen, which means there are

00:11:16.080 witnesses. And then you get the police involved and it's just, it's, it's, you're bound to be

00:11:21.320 exposed as a liar. So Erica Thomas, what she could have done is just, she could have done her tearful

00:11:26.380 video, um, that it was, and, and completely invented the story. You know, don't specify what grocery

00:11:33.520 store. Um, it, it occurred in don't involve the police. Uh, and nobody will ever be able to prove

00:11:40.280 it didn't happen because there are no witnesses to interview. There's no security camera footage to

00:11:45.560 look at. And, um, at least you could always pretend that it really did happen and no one can prove

00:11:51.100 otherwise. But, um, she is on top of a liar, uh, apparently a very stupid person. So, uh, the, 1.00

00:11:58.380 the, uh, Atlanta journal constitution has a report based on the police report and listen,

00:12:06.800 I'll read the first two paragraphs from that article. This is interesting. It says a witness

00:12:10.900 to a heated grocery store encounter between state representative Erica Thomas and a man

00:12:14.640 she accused of uttering racist comments, told authorities, she didn't hear him make any,

00:12:18.300 make those remarks. According to a Cobb County police report, a public's employee told a Cobb County

00:12:23.220 officer that she witnessed part of the conversation and heard Thomas continuously tell Eric Sparks to

00:12:31.480 go back where you came from, but did not hear Sparks utter those words to Thomas. So not only did

00:12:38.940 she make that she was according to this witness, she was the one who said, go back where you came

00:12:43.820 from. Uh, that is, that is incredible. Now that's a twist I didn't expect. I knew she made up that,

00:12:50.080 you know, the fact that he said it was made up, like I could tell that immediately,

00:12:53.220 but I didn't expect that she was actually the one who said it. Um, the police report says that,

00:13:00.380 um, they, you know, the police looked at the security camera footage. Uh, it, there's no audio

00:13:05.400 to it, but in the footage, um, it's Thomas who's the aggressor. She's going up to Sparks,

00:13:12.480 wagging her finger in his face. He's backing away. And then another witness said that he started

00:13:17.180 leaving and she kept coming at him and was yelling at him. Um, so there you go. Uh, no witnesses

00:13:24.500 back up Thomas's account. One witness says that Thomas is the one who said the racist stuff.

00:13:29.760 So then it appears that Thomas was the aggressor. Thomas then, uh, allegedly would be the racist.

00:13:36.160 Thomas is a lying fraud. Shocker of shockers. But what's happened to the story then over the weekend, 1.00

00:13:44.940 when she first recorded her tearful video with some very bad acting, I might add, uh, it was all over

00:13:51.860 the place. Media was on top of it. Uh, Democrats were talking about it. It's Trump's fault. Trump's

00:13:56.460 America. It's an epidemic. It's terrible. Uh, hashtag I stand with Erica Thomas trending on Twitter.

00:14:02.580 And then it starts to fall apart and the, and the, and the story just, just disappears.

00:14:07.380 Even though, because you, you could try to say, well, uh, okay, well it didn't happen. So it's not a

00:14:12.940 story then it didn't happen. So what are we talking about? Well, no, actually it's a bigger story now

00:14:19.960 that it didn't happen. If it did happen, as Erica Thomas said, then it's not a story. The fact that

00:14:26.480 it didn't happen is a story. That is the story because think about it. If it actually happened

00:14:32.700 as Erica Thomas said, well then what, what's the story? The story is some nobody, some stranger,

00:14:38.880 some jerk, uh, yelled at somebody in line at a grocery store that, that happens every day. 0.99

00:14:45.120 It's not a story. It doesn't matter. Um, but an elected official making up a story, 0.99

00:14:53.040 slandering a constituent, trying to stoke racial tensions for her own gain. That's a story. Okay.

00:14:59.120 That's important. That's relevant. That's something that is of public interest.

00:15:02.820 Yet the media only cares about the irrelevant version of the story, the false version. Now

00:15:09.740 that the truth has come out, they flee. And that's what happens, you know, with reporters

00:15:13.060 is that the minute the truth is there, they, they're there. The truth is here. Let's get

00:15:16.600 out of here. And they run away. And you know what the really sad thing is? Here's the really

00:15:21.880 sad thing is that Thomas is going to suffer no consequences for this. There will be no consequences

00:15:27.780 for her. Um, because I think a lot of people on the left, they're going to continue believing her

00:15:35.980 version, even though it's been pretty much conclusively debunked. Now they're going to

00:15:39.840 believe her version just like there are, uh, there are liberals who still go around talking about hands

00:15:44.800 up, don't shoot. Even though that narrative has been absolutely conclusively debunked, they still

00:15:50.940 stick with it all these years later. So I think that there are going to be some, uh, people on the

00:15:56.440 left, some Democrat voters who just decide to believe it, even though it's obviously not true.

00:16:00.600 And then they're going to be even more who, who maybe know that it's not true and acknowledge it,

00:16:05.120 but don't care because on the left, what we have to understand is that the truth doesn't matter to

00:16:10.900 these people. They, they don't care about that. They really don't. What they care about is the

00:16:15.060 narrative. They care about, you know, uh, winning politically and winning ideologically. That's

00:16:21.120 what they care about. And they believe that the truth is sort of an irrelevant detail.

00:16:26.440 And that, um, ends justify the means. And so if, if, if you need to, um, bend the truth or, or lie

00:16:34.500 for your, you know, for, for the greater cause, then that's okay to do. They're, they're perfectly

00:16:41.980 fine with that because what they believe is America is a racist country where these kinds of things

00:16:50.640 happen all the time. So even if this specific thing didn't happen, these kinds of things happen.

00:16:56.020 And so it's still legitimate and she's calling attention to the sort of thing that happens,

00:17:01.520 even if it's not this particular thing, that's the way they're going to rationalize it, which means

00:17:05.920 that, um, if anything, this probably helped her. I think that it got her name out there. It, uh, it,

00:17:10.920 uh, increased her profile and it increased her street cred among, uh, among Democrat voters,

00:17:16.880 uh, whether they believe it or not. And so I say that Erica Thomas is very stupid. 1.00

00:17:24.000 Maybe she's not, you know, maybe she knew that, yeah, this is a, this is an unbelievable story and 1.00

00:17:28.480 it, and the truth is going to come out and it will be debunked, but, uh, it's still going to help me 0.82

00:17:33.100 with, uh, with the suckers who make up my voting base. It's going to help me.

00:17:37.300 All right. So here's, this is fun. Bella Thorne is, uh, I guess an actress or something. Bella 0.99

00:17:46.180 Thorne is a, she's a, I think an actress, singer, something, or I don't know. Anyway, she's, she,

00:17:52.100 I guess she's famous and she was interviewed by ABC news for reasons that after watching the

00:17:59.200 interview still escape me. But during the course of the interview, she made a huge announcement,

00:18:04.580 uh, that I think is, is, you want to talk about newsworthy. This is newsworthy stuff. Watch this.

00:18:09.660 In the past, she's used Twitter to casually come out as bisexual, but today she's expanded her

00:18:15.320 sexual orientation. I'm actually a pansexual. I didn't know that. Okay. Somebody, somebody explained

00:18:20.700 to me really thoroughly what that is. Explain that to me. You like beings. You like what you like.

00:18:26.880 Doesn't have to be a girl or a guy or, you know, he, she, they, or this or that. It's literally,

00:18:34.500 you like personality. Like you just like a being. First of all, I have to say that I love that every

00:18:41.560 other show of this type is going to be playing clips from the, from the Mueller hearing today,

00:18:47.420 uh, for their show. But I'm playing clips of Bella Thorne talking about her pansexuality. 0.92

00:18:52.460 You know, that's, that's the difference between me and the rest of them. Um, second, I love that,

00:18:58.060 that she said this and the woman interviewing her had to pretend to take it seriously. It was,

00:19:04.200 it was so awkward where she said, actually I'm pansexual. Oh, okay. Well, that, that, that,

00:19:10.600 that's nice. It reminds me of the time when, uh, when I first told my parents, I was going to become

00:19:15.460 a professional blogger. It was a, Oh, a blogger like for a job. Is that, is it? Okay. Well,

00:19:22.300 well that, that, that, that, that'll be interesting. Um, so Bella Thorne is pansexual. Uh, she says, 0.97

00:19:30.280 which she says that means she's attracted to beings, beings, she's attracted to beings. Now,

00:19:37.180 if pansexual means anything other than bisexual, which she says that it does, she says, I, well,

00:19:42.220 I thought it was bisexual, but I'm actually pansexual. I'm, I'm attracted to beings in

00:19:46.020 general. But if that's the case, then, um, then it would have to mean, you know, you're attracted

00:19:54.880 to beings. Well, beings include literally any living entity at all. A moose, a cricket, a lobster,

00:20:04.520 three-toed sloth, a fox, an aardvark. I mean, Noah's arc, basically Noah's entire arc. That's,

00:20:12.220 you'd be attracted to everything. Bella Thorne would go crazy in Noah's arc. She'd be attracted 0.60

00:20:17.260 to everything, man, woman, child, animal, any, because that's, if you're telling me you're

00:20:22.820 pansexual, your sexuality knows no boundaries whatsoever. Any being is potentially an object 1.00

00:20:29.760 of your sexual attraction. That's what you're saying. I mean, that's, that is the, that's the,

00:20:35.200 the implication. But if Bella is not in fact attracted to insects and reptiles and mammalian

00:20:42.400 forest creatures, um, and her attraction is in fact limited to adult males and females,

00:20:49.480 well, then we're back to bisexual. So it is a, it is a, it's a pansexual then is a category that

00:20:56.720 doesn't need to exist and doesn't exist. And I'm just going to spoiler alert here. Um, no,

00:21:02.140 Bella Thorne, and I know this is going to sound very presumptuous. I mean, Bella Thorne, you say

00:21:06.360 you're pansexual. You're not actually, you actually are not. I, I know, I, I know I am now

00:21:12.180 mansplaining your own sexuality to you. I am doing that. You are not pansexual because I, I, I'm pretty

00:21:18.340 sure you are not potentially attracted to any being in existence. Like, I'm pretty sure there are limits.

00:21:25.440 Okay. If you go to the zoo, okay, that I'm pretty sure that for you is not a sexual expedition. I

00:21:32.820 mean, you are, you're looking at the polar bear cage. You, you, I, right. You're going to rule out

00:21:37.320 polar bears as object. Then you're not pansexual. You're that's bisexual. That's already a thing. 1.00

00:21:42.540 We don't need a term of this term over here. It doesn't mean anything. You're not that nobody is

00:21:46.940 that, that doesn't exist, which is good. You know, it, that's good. I mean, cause that would be,

00:21:53.120 it would be impossible to function as a human. If you could potentially be sexually attracted to

00:21:59.160 any being, the only way to make it broader. And I mean, if you really want to be, uh, uh,

00:22:06.420 progressive, then rather than being attracted to beings, because here's the thing, when you're

00:22:12.920 attracted to beings, you are still discriminating because then you're saying that, well, you are

00:22:19.620 limiting it at least to living creatures. Now, if you really want to be progressive, you'll say

00:22:25.480 that I'm attracted to any entity of any kind, uh, could be a, could be a dog, could be a woman,

00:22:32.640 could be a man, could be a door, you know, could be a lamp, any, uh, this desk right here. Who knows?

00:22:41.840 That's, that's progressive. Right. You want to be really uber pansexual. You should be attracted

00:22:47.260 to anything, anything, literally anything, the color blue. I mean, anything. Um, I guess the color

00:22:54.760 blue isn't a, an entity though. All right. I have to talk about this for a minute also before we get

00:22:59.320 the emails. Um, because this is hilarious. This got a literal LOL out of me last night when I read it.

00:23:05.500 Uh, this story last night, um, well, as the story went last night before the full story came out,

00:23:14.300 as it tends to do, the story was that forever 21, the women's clothing store was sending Atkins diet

00:23:23.360 bars with all of its plus sized clothing orders. If you ordered a plus size, if you order plus size

00:23:32.780 clothes online, as the story went, um, forever 21 would send you a diet bar with the package,

00:23:39.020 which is great. I mean, that is, that is just hysterical. That's even funnier than Bella

00:23:43.880 Thorne being attracted to grasshoppers. I mean, you know, you, you, we are doomed as a society.

00:23:49.780 If we cannot all agree that that is hilarious. I, you know, I don't care if you're, if you're

00:23:54.660 overweight yourself, you have to admit, you know, if you order, like if I ordered, um,

00:24:03.640 size 52 jeans from, from, uh, somewhere and they said, and there was a diet bar in,

00:24:09.600 I would crack up laughing. It would be great. But of course in our humorless society, this is a source

00:24:15.760 of outrage, uh, hurt feelings, trauma. Oh my gosh. It's fat shaming. It's the Macy's plates all over

00:24:23.380 again. I'm having nightmares. I'm having flashbacks, which even if it is fat shaming, first of all,

00:24:30.300 it's free food, which why are you, why would anyone complain about that? Especially someone

00:24:36.200 who's plus size? No, I'm kidding. That was, I'm sorry. That was a, that was a joke. I didn't mean

00:24:39.500 it. Don't, it was not a fat joke. It wasn't. I, my point is simply that if you're, you know,

00:24:45.080 why would you complain about free food? Right? I mean, we all like food,

00:24:47.820 especially you. No, I'm kidding. That's not what I meant. I don't mean that. It's not,

00:24:51.720 it's, I'm not, I'm not trying to make light of this. Um, I mean, I couldn't make light of,

00:24:55.940 of that. Anyway, no, that's not second. Here's the point. Just scratch all that. It's just,

00:25:01.360 it's funny. It's the only point I'm making. Okay. I'm not making, as it turns out though,

00:25:05.060 of course, um, this is all, this, this is all taken out of context. It turns out that Forever 21

00:25:11.220 was sending Atkins bar, Atkins bars with every order, uh, of any size, any product. 0.98

00:25:17.820 And so this is just now as a marketing strategy, that is pretty stupid, uh, because you, you have 0.77

00:25:26.340 to figure you're putting diet bars in with like people are going to order plus size clothing 0.98

00:25:31.700 and you're putting diet bars in there and you must know how our society is. Like, how did you not know?

00:25:38.040 And this is what doesn't offend me in the least. Like I said, I think it's hilarious, but

00:25:42.920 probably Forever 21, they weren't going for hilarious. And it always shocks me when you

00:25:50.500 discover that people who work in marketing departments for these big companies, nationwide

00:25:56.820 successful companies, um, it shocks me when they have no understanding of how our culture works.

00:26:03.580 How did you get that job in a, in a marketing department? Your whole job is to know how our

00:26:09.120 culture works and, and how to appeal to people. And how did you not any, how is it that they,

00:26:14.900 they had to sit down and have this conversation and say, uh, Hey, you know, we should send, uh,

00:26:20.080 something free with all the orders. And you know, what should we send? And someone had to suggest,

00:26:25.140 Hey, we could send a diet bars. Yeah, that'd be a good idea. How did no one else in the room say,

00:26:29.760 Hey, hold on a second. Uh, you know, overweight people are going to be ordering clothes. 1.00

00:26:34.080 They're going to get the diet bar. They're going to take it the wrong way. It's going to end up on

00:26:36.940 Twitter. I'm telling you guys, how did nobody say that? All right. Um, anyway, funny stuff,

00:26:45.640 good stuff there. Let's, uh, let's go to emails. A couple of interesting emails. Um,

00:26:50.960 this is from Kristen, uh, Matt wall show at gmail.com. Matt wall show, gmail.com is the email

00:26:57.120 address. This is from Kristen says, hi Matt. I recently have been going through a mini crisis

00:27:01.260 of faith. I won't call it a full blown crisis as I'm not questioning, say the infallibility of the

00:27:06.500 Bible or the basic tenants of the Christian faith. But I've started to question certain doctrines I

00:27:11.060 grew up with that I always accepted as biblical, but now I'm not so sure. For instance, when I was a

00:27:16.000 child, I've been taught that once saved, always saved, or that you can't lose your salvation.

00:27:20.140 But now I'm coming across passages that seem to contradict that idea, such as Hebrews six,

00:27:24.360 four through six and first Timothy four, uh, chapter four, four, verse one. More recently,

00:27:29.520 my husband and I attended a so-called reformed church that basically held a Calvinist doctrine.

00:27:33.640 The ideas of limited atonement and unconditional election sounded in, sounded consistent on their

00:27:38.560 faith face, but when taken to their logical conclusions, I found them abhorrent. I would ask

00:27:44.180 seemingly reasonable questions like why would a loving God predestine some people for

00:27:50.120 eternal salvation and others for eternal damnation before the dawn of time, only to be directed to

00:27:56.060 Romans nine and to be told that I couldn't ask those questions. And I'll stop you right there.

00:28:01.900 Anyone who tells you that you shouldn't, or you can't ask, uh, theological questions, uh, that's

00:28:08.300 someone that you should just disregard. I've just utterly disregard them. People who say that are,

00:28:12.720 are, are, I really detest that actually. I mean, you absolutely should be asking questions.

00:28:17.380 We're not a cult for goodness sakes, right? We're not a cult. That's what cults do.

00:28:21.000 Culture would say, no, don't ask questions. Just accept it. That we're not that. And if you go to

00:28:27.080 a church where that's the attitude, then that is a cult church and you should find another one.

00:28:31.480 That's my opinion. Um, she continues in my soul. I felt Calvinism was inconsistent with what I knew

00:28:36.660 to be true about the loving nature of God and the Bible only to be shamed for feeling that way in

00:28:41.560 the first place. In the past few weeks, I've found some non-Calvinist interpretations of scripture,

00:28:45.840 which have only brought up more questions. So I will continue to seek answers potentially for the

00:28:50.100 rest of my life life. But, um, my question to you is you obviously reject Calvinism and I would

00:28:56.920 assume the entire tulip system. How did you come to that conclusion? Not only philosophically,

00:29:02.440 but according to scripture, how do you, or rather, how does the Catholic church contend with

00:29:06.380 seemingly Calvinistic passages such as Roman nine? Um, all right. Well, you know, uh, Kirsten,

00:29:13.940 I think I called you Kristen before. Sorry. For me, it's not about one passage or another. Um,

00:29:20.160 you can always quote mine. You can always cherry pick. Um, you can always proof text,

00:29:26.700 meaning you can go into scripture with a conclusion already in mind and find passages that will support

00:29:33.640 that conclusion. You can always do that. Um, and you can do that with any, I mean, you can prove

00:29:41.020 quote unquote, prove any conclusion you want about anything. If that's how you're approaching the

00:29:47.960 Bible, because the Bible is a very big book with a lot, with a lot of books inside it. And a lot of

00:29:52.740 words, a lot of sentences, a lot of verses, a lot of chapters. Um, and if you don't care about context

00:29:58.860 and you're just looking to support the doctrine you already had in mind before you approach

00:30:03.300 scripture, then you'll be able to do it. Uh, if you want to prove that, uh, Jesus was a created

00:30:09.140 being and not God, um, you can do that by proof texting. And in fact, heretical sex have done that

00:30:16.440 since the very early days of Christianity. And, and, and I think in fact, um, they have more out of

00:30:22.520 context verses than that they can quote to support their, uh, conclusions than do a lot of, um,

00:30:29.280 a lot of other Christians with, with their own erroneous conclusions. So, well, I mean, like for

00:30:36.120 instance, you know, I mean, there's so many, but you, Jesus says, uh, uh, uh, talks frequently about

00:30:42.100 at various points about how God is greater than he says. He says, uh, when he is called good, he says,

00:30:47.480 why do you call me good? There's only, uh, you know, there's only God, the father is good. Um,

00:30:52.780 paraphrasing a little bit, that verse among several others was one that, uh, that the, um,

00:31:00.640 Arians and others pointed to, to, to say that, well, clearly God is, is, is not equal to the father.

00:31:07.380 Clearly Jesus is not equal to the father. Um, which if you're just looking at that passage alone by

00:31:14.240 itself with nothing else, then sure, maybe it does indicate that. But once you take a, a total view

00:31:21.440 of scripture, you start to see how erroneous that conclusion would be. Uh, here's what I'll say

00:31:27.660 then taking a total view of scripture. If everything is predetermined, if we are consigned to hell or

00:31:39.080 granted heaven, regardless of our choices is some of, if some of us are literally created to be damned

00:31:45.300 and we have no choice, we have no will, we have no say in it, then that would render the entire Bible

00:31:53.280 moot. The entire Bible is pointless. I don't even need to point to one verse. The entire thing hasn't

00:31:58.140 serves no purpose in that case. If God is just pulling the strings and it's, and we have no say,

00:32:04.780 it doesn't matter what we do, what we believe. It just, it just, it's, it's all determined from birth.

00:32:08.540 There are those of us who are created from the very moment of conception and we are on the path

00:32:15.220 to hell. There's nothing we can do to change it. Well, then what's what the Bible serves no function.

00:32:20.900 There's no reason for it to exist. What does the Bible contain after all? Well, it contains the story

00:32:27.200 of God's relationship to man, the story of salvation. Yes, but it's not just that. Uh, it's not just a,

00:32:34.320 a story book. Um, it's not just a kind of, Hey, check out what happened. Isn't this interesting

00:32:39.360 kind of thing? There are also hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages worth of instruction,

00:32:45.020 old and new Testament. Do this. Don't do this. Live this way. Don't live that way.

00:32:50.260 Uh, I don't need to quote one particular verse. If I, if, if, you know, if, if I need to get into

00:32:54.820 specifics, let's start with the sermon on the Mount or the old or the 10 commandments start with just

00:33:00.360 those two for a minute, all of that stuff. Uh, it only has meaning. It only has a point.

00:33:09.120 There's only a reason to read it. If we can actually choose to follow it. And if our choosing

00:33:16.300 to follow it will potentially have some positive impact on our own lives and on the world,

00:33:20.980 if we can't choose to follow it, or if choosing to follow it won't end, um, won't matter in the end

00:33:28.420 and won't amount to anything because it's all predestined anyway, then there's no point.

00:33:34.880 I mean, why read it? Why encourage anyone else to read it? Why would you go to someone and say,

00:33:39.780 yeah, you should really read the Bible when their ultimate destination has already been determined,

00:33:44.180 whether they read it or not, it doesn't matter. Um, so that, that's what I would say. I would say

00:33:50.580 that, uh, it's not just that, uh, that these doctrines of predetermination, predestination,

00:33:55.680 it's not just that they undermine one verse or another. It's that they undermine the entire

00:34:01.840 thing. And that's the problem. All right. This is from Mark. Dear Matt, I am a self.

00:34:10.740 How do I know that other people are selves? How do I know that I'm not the only person on earth

00:34:15.660 and everyone else is a robot or a hologram? Thank you. This is actually a really interesting

00:34:21.760 question. I love this question. I wish I had left more time for it. Um, uh, and you could kind of

00:34:27.200 tell if you're someone who's interested in philosophy, depending on your reaction to a

00:34:30.960 question like that. If you hear that question, you just roll your eyes and are bored already,

00:34:34.340 just by the question itself, then you're probably in philosophy isn't for you. Uh, me, I find that

00:34:40.760 question to be fascinating because it touches on an elemental truth of human experience of human

00:34:47.000 existence. And that is this, that we can only experience our own lives. We only know what

00:34:53.340 it's like to be ourselves. We cannot be anyone else yet. Every other person is a person. Every

00:34:59.600 other person is a self, their own self. And this fact is actually fascinating when you think about

00:35:04.300 it. Now to answer your question briefly from a rigorous and technical philosophical perspective,

00:35:08.340 I guess we have to say that, um, you don't technically know that anyone else exists. You know,

00:35:16.440 I mean, it's from a philosophically you, I guess we have to leave open the possibility that everyone

00:35:24.820 else is a robot or a mirage or something, but for all intents and purposes, measuring plausibilities

00:35:31.440 here, you can operate with very strong confidence that other people exist. Um, the chance that other

00:35:37.480 people exist is far greater than the chance that you're the only person and we are all figments.

00:35:44.260 Um, but so that, that's, I think how you answer that question. Um, but I think there's more to be

00:35:52.620 said because the fact that we are all people, that we are all selves is still mysterious, right? Um,

00:36:02.240 it's still a truth that you can only acknowledge, but, but, but you don't really tap into,

00:36:07.260 or, or, or experience for yourself. I mean, the fact, I mean, I'm talking to you right now

00:36:11.460 and I am a person, I have my own internal life, my own perspective, and I don't even know who you

00:36:17.640 are. Like you aren't even a part of it aside from the fact that you wrote this email. Isn't that

00:36:22.420 interesting? Have you ever been, um, I assume that this happens to other people, uh, but have you ever

00:36:28.760 been driving down the road and you've got cars passing you by on the other side of the road

00:36:33.560 and suddenly this thought occurs to you? It occurs to you that, that each of those cars contains

00:36:39.260 people and those people, each of them are, are just as unique and complex and interesting as you

00:36:44.820 that they have an internal life. That's as real and as vivid and as deep and as complicated as your

00:36:52.420 own. Um, each person in each of those cars, they have their own story, their own saga, um,

00:36:59.140 their own history, their own secrets, their own memories, their own desires, their own goals, their

00:37:03.180 own flaws and virtues. They're all stars of their own story and you are irrelevant to their story.

00:37:09.920 You know, they are all the most interesting people in their own plot lines and you play no role at all.

00:37:15.440 They don't even know you exist. You are nothing to them. I mean, you could die tomorrow and they

00:37:21.840 would never know or care or realize to them. You're just a car passing on the highway, just like

00:37:27.200 they are to you. Isn't it, isn't it crazy to think that, that, that, that, that you, to someone else,

00:37:34.680 to, to, to, to so many other people on earth, that is all you've ever been to them. You're just

00:37:39.140 the guy in the car and you're gone. And that's it. Um, now I think this thought, when it occurs to you,

00:37:47.460 this realization about the complexity of other human beings, especially about the existence of

00:37:53.320 their own internal life, their own internal monologue, their own consciousness, uh, this

00:37:57.940 realization, I think can be disturbing, disturbing because when you think about it, you kind of feel

00:38:04.780 your own existence start to sort of dissolve into irrelevance. When you realize that almost everyone

00:38:09.860 on earth, almost everyone who's ever existed on earth has never heard of you, will never meet you,

00:38:14.940 never care about you. Um, almost everything you've ever thought or felt or experienced will die with

00:38:20.960 you, decay into the ground. Nobody will ever know about it. Um, if you have something that you're

00:38:26.440 really worried about, some anxiety that's eating you up, it's taking up all your mental energy.

00:38:31.120 Well, when you die, that anxiety just evaporates. That thing that was so important to you,

00:38:37.120 so central to the universe as you experience it is nothing to everybody else. Absolutely nothing.

00:38:46.660 I think that's the disturbing part of it. But if you, if, if you think about it a different way,

00:38:50.020 it's also comforting because you realize that you're actually not alone in the world. Uh, you

00:38:54.600 aren't in fact, the only vividly drawn portrait in a world full of stick stick figures. You aren't

00:39:00.280 the only person in a world full of robots or, or holograms. Um, you're not alone. You've got 7

00:39:05.420 billion other people sharing the burden of existence with you. And, uh, and those anxieties that you care

00:39:11.220 so much about, well, maybe the fact that, that to everybody else, they're nothing or, or, you know,

00:39:16.160 maybe that's a good thing to know that everything you're worried about really isn't that big of a

00:39:21.520 deal in the grand scheme. A billion other people have worried about those same things. Probably it's

00:39:25.480 old hat, it's routine, whatever it is. Um, maybe that's comforting. And I think the main thing is just

00:39:32.740 to know that, that you're not alone. I honestly think that every problem in our society could be

00:39:39.740 solved every single problem, at least all of our interpersonal problems, conflicts and strife

00:39:45.780 and all of that. All of it could be solved. If you could just that moment, assuming you have those

00:39:51.620 moments too on the highway, if you could just capture that moment and, and live in that moment

00:39:58.000 and live with that mindset, if we could all do that all the time, all, all of our problems go away.

00:40:04.940 We really would live in a utopia in that case, because I think all of our conflict in the end

00:40:11.060 stems from our inability or our unwillingness to recognize the selfhood of others. I mean,

00:40:17.300 it's easy to recognize that other people are people, although a lot of people in our society

00:40:21.200 struggle even with that, especially as it pertains to the unborn. But, um, even if you recognize

00:40:27.740 intellectually that people are people, that's not the same as, as recognizing that they are selves,

00:40:34.380 that, that they, that they are a self like you. I think if you could keep that at the forefront of

00:40:40.260 your mind, if we all could all the time, we would live at peace and harmony, but, um, we can't, and,

00:40:48.160 um, we can't live that way. Nobody ever, nobody, no one lives that way all the time. Certainly there's

00:40:53.040 never going to be a time when everybody lives that way all the time. So I think the best we could hope

00:40:57.100 to do is just, um, is just be intentional in our thinking and as much as possible, bring our minds

00:41:07.440 back to that reality that every other person is a self, just like the us, they have their own

00:41:13.440 existence, their own perspective, um, their own, uh, internal monologue, their own life. Right.

00:41:21.400 Doesn't make, doesn't mean that, you know, everyone is, it doesn't mean that they're right about

00:41:25.980 everything as it's, that's not the point. It's just that they, they had, that they are far more

00:41:30.280 complex than you probably think. Um, especially I think if we could just bring this thought to our

00:41:37.220 minds in, in, in situations where we're going back to the car, like you're in the car, you're sitting

00:41:43.320 in traffic. Um, you're, you know, you're, you're angry. There's a thousand other cars on the road.

00:41:50.780 They're all in your way. You're angry. I mean, think about being angry in traffic and we all

00:41:56.260 have, but I know I am all the time. Think about how absurdly selfish and stupid that is. The reason 1.00

00:42:02.740 why there's traffic is that there's a bunch of other people on the road trying to go the same

00:42:06.520 direction as you. And they have just as much a right to go that way as you do. And if you could

00:42:10.880 just stop for a minute and, and look at your own thought, which is, okay, I'm, I am being angry

00:42:17.500 about traffic. And then if you could just try to put that thought to the side and then realize

00:42:22.260 that all these other cars have people in them and, and, and, and to those people, you are just

00:42:28.020 a car in their way. If you could just, and not only that, but as far as traffic goes, there's a

00:42:33.360 good chance that the traffic jam is happening because somebody got into an accident. And so for

00:42:37.880 you, the worst that happens is you're 25 minute late minutes late to dinner. Meanwhile, somebody

00:42:41.660 might've just died or their whole life might've been turned upside down by a serious injury.

00:42:45.700 I mean, and here you are in your self-obsessed little, little tiny world. And all you care

00:42:52.940 about is that you're going to be late to this thing that doesn't even matter. So, um, if we could

00:42:58.120 just, yeah, that's my, that's my, uh, that's my little self-help sermon for the day. Uh, but I do

00:43:04.920 think that, I don't know, there's something there. I mean, the, the moment you can start thinking,

00:43:09.020 even if it's just for a moment, but I, I, what I've found is that if I can force myself to think

00:43:14.420 this way in moments, um, I, it immediately makes me less, less angry, less stressed out.

00:43:22.900 And I, in that moment, at least I'm, I'm just a happier person. So if we could recall that more

00:43:29.200 and more, I think that would be to our benefit. All right. Um, we will leave it there. Thanks

00:43:36.300 everybody for watching. Thank you for listening. Godspeed.

00:43:38.940 Hey everyone. It's Andrew Klavan, host of the Andrew Klavan show. Robert Mueller is testifying

00:43:56.620 before the house judiciary committee today. And earlier this morning, a Volkswagen pulled into

00:44:01.380 the Capitol rotunda and onlookers watched with delight and wonder as all 235 congressional Democrats

00:44:07.560 poured out of the car until committee chairman Jerry Nadler finally emerged wearing a baggy polka dot

00:44:13.060 outfit, gigantic shoes, white makeup, and a fright wig and announced to reporters that he did not want

00:44:18.360 the hearing to turn into some kind of circus. We'll talk about it on the Andrew Klavan show. I'm Andrew

00:44:23.660 Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - July 24, 2019

Ep. 302 - The Media Wants Us To Forget About The Discredited Erica Thomas Race Hoax

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