The Matt Walsh Show - July 24, 2019


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


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

180.06892

Word Count

7,995

Sentence Count

534

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

Erica Thomas claims she was verbally assaulted by a racist white man in a grocery store. When a race hoax is exposed, I think we should talk about it, rather than simply move on as the media wants us to do. Also, an actress comes out as pansexual even though the term pansexual has no meaning. And finally, Forever 21 comes up with the most unintentionally hilarious marketing gimmick of all time. Talk about all that today on the Matt Walsh Show.


Transcript

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,
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
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
00:07:13.240 change your mind. It doesn't matter. And if you support Trump again, it doesn't matter what
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
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
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
00:08:31.620 where you came from. Even though that doesn't make sense in the context of this dispute. Um,
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.
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,
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,
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,
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,
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.
00:14:45.120 It's not a story. It doesn't matter. Um, but an elected official making up a story,
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.
00:17:24.000 Maybe she's not, you know, maybe she knew that, yeah, this is a, this is an unbelievable story and
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
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
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.
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,
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
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
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.
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.
00:25:17.820 And so this is just now as a marketing strategy, that is pretty stupid, uh, because you, you have
00:25:26.340 to figure you're putting diet bars in with like people are going to order plus size clothing
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.
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
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.