The Matt Walsh Show - March 16, 2020


Ep. 445 - On The Coronavirus, Don't Listen To Pundits Like Me


Episode Stats

Length

47 minutes

Words per Minute

185.19383

Word Count

8,728

Sentence Count

573

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

As the Coronavirus pandemic grows, and the government response to it becomes more severe and extreme, there s another crisis happening that s fueling some of the panic and division that people are feeling. That is a crisis of trust. People don t know which sources of information to trust, which is a big problem in a time like this. Meanwhile, pundits and commentators like myself feel perfectly entitled to issue proclamations and opinions and analysis, even though none of us have any idea, actually what's going on. And very few of us even have any expertise on the subject of viral pandemics. Yet we're still talking about it and telling you what you should think and how you should feel about it. It's a mess. And so today we're going to try to sort through it, on our way to attempting to answer the question: Who should we trust about this issue? Where should we be going for information?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Wall Show, as the coronavirus pandemic grows and the government response to it
00:00:04.700 becomes even more severe and extreme, there's another crisis happening that's fueling some of
00:00:10.020 the panic and division that people are feeling. That is a crisis of trust, I think. People don't
00:00:14.420 know which sources of information to trust, which is a big problem in a time like this.
00:00:19.240 And meanwhile, pundits and commentators and media personalities like myself feel perfectly
00:00:23.460 entitled to issue proclamations and opinions and analysis, even though none of us have any idea,
00:00:29.180 actually what's going on. And very few of us have any expertise on the subject of viral pandemics.
00:00:34.940 We don't understand the science or the medicine behind it. Yet we're still talking about it and
00:00:40.320 telling you what you should think and how you should feel about it. It's a mess. And so today,
00:00:44.220 we're going to try to sort through it on our way to attempting to answer the question of
00:00:49.020 who should we trust about this issue? Where should we be going for information? What should our sources
00:00:55.960 of information be? It's a very important question that we will try to answer today. Also, five
00:01:00.760 headlines, including the grumpy old men debate last night that happened. And a former Democratic
00:01:06.120 gubernatorial candidate was caught in Florida in a hotel room with drugs and a male escort. And lots
00:01:12.480 of people think this is the end of his political career, but he is a Democrat. So is it possible that
00:01:17.600 this would help his political chances going forward? We'll discuss that. And a couple of emails from
00:01:24.240 listeners, including one from Grant, who is very upset about some of the things I said on my show
00:01:28.780 on Friday, wants to tell me why I'm wrong about them. And we'll get to that as well.
00:01:33.860 All of that coming up. But first, here's possibly the best news you'll hear all day. And there's a
00:01:38.700 lot of bad news. So it's not a very high hurdle to get over. But still, right now, using promo code
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00:02:09.340 our new all-access tier gets you into exclusive live online Q&A discussions with me and Ben Shapiro and
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00:02:38.180 DailyWire.com, DailyWire.com, and become a member today. Okay. Coronavirus.
00:02:44.620 So this is tough. I'm trying to figure out exactly what I... This is kind of a tough job
00:02:56.040 to do right now. And I mean, not nearly as tough as the job done by almost anybody else on earth
00:03:05.100 right now. And I work from home. I do this show. I write. The only time my job takes me out of the
00:03:10.480 house really is if I'm doing a speech, but those have all been canceled, as you might expect,
00:03:14.700 through April and possibly beyond. So I have it really easy. And I'm very fortunate.
00:03:21.700 We also homeschool our kids. So it's easy for us to lock down and stay in the house and do the sort of
00:03:26.720 self-quarantine deal. So don't let me get all melodramatic and weepy about the plight of a
00:03:32.600 podcaster during a pandemic. Podcasting in a pandemic. Maybe I'll write... Maybe that'll be
00:03:37.880 a book I write one day. But in my own little sheltered world, within that rather shallow
00:03:45.120 context, there is the difficulty of the coronavirus being obviously on everybody's mind, the thing that
00:03:51.540 everybody is talking about, the thing everyone's thinking about, and something that, whether we like
00:03:57.040 it or not, and none of us do, has begun to take over our lives. Both the thing itself, the disease,
00:04:04.740 and also, even more so at this point, the reaction to it. The governmental response and things being
00:04:12.180 shut down and all that. So I'm not going to ignore it. I have no problem ignoring big news stories and
00:04:19.500 talking about other things usually. But with this one, at least for now, at this point, I feel compelled
00:04:24.600 to discuss it. And yet, like almost any other pundit or commentator, I'm basically clueless
00:04:32.700 about all of this. I don't know anything about viruses, except for the very basic information
00:04:40.620 that everybody knows. But if you ask me, you know, if you even ask me, what is a virus? You know,
00:04:46.840 I'm always asking people, what's a woman? When they talk about women, I'm always throwing the left
00:04:50.300 curveball. Well, when I'm talking about pandemics and giving my opinions, you could throw me a
00:04:57.320 curveball and say, what's a virus? What is a virus exactly? Can you explain it? I could give you maybe
00:05:01.960 three sentences, maybe, talking about viruses. And of course, it's a bit of a trick question because
00:05:07.880 scientists don't even know exactly what a virus is. Is it alive? Is it a living organism or not?
00:05:13.740 There's some debate about that. But that only goes to show how complex this subject is. It's very
00:05:21.060 complex. People spend their whole lives studying it and working with it. And they still don't have
00:05:26.080 it figured out. So somebody like me, who's never studied it, never worked in the field, never really
00:05:32.020 thought about it, what the hell could I possibly have to offer on the subject? As for pandemics, again,
00:05:39.640 I'm not an expert. Most pundits and show hosts and commentators are not experts. Not even just not
00:05:45.500 experts, but we've never really even thought about it. Maybe we've read some books about it, maybe. But
00:05:50.220 what are we, historians of pandemics? We could sit here and compare, well, this pandemic compares to
00:05:56.220 the Spanish flu in the following ways. No, we never really, we never thought about it until now.
00:06:02.560 None of us thought that this would be the issue at the start of 2020. This would be the thing we
00:06:07.700 would be talking about. We all, we thought it would be, you know, one of Trump's tweets or something
00:06:11.700 would be the news of the day. So what real insight can we offer on this? What, what are our opinions?
00:06:21.780 What are they based on exactly? I've already admitted I was wrong about this issue in the early
00:06:27.880 going. I thought it would be no big deal for the rest of the world. When this first started in China
00:06:32.740 and you started hearing about it, I thought it would remain a far away thing. I thought the
00:06:38.360 threat of a global pandemic was media hype. And I said, so that's what I thought. And I was very
00:06:43.840 confident in that. When we first started hearing about the coronavirus in the news, I was not worried
00:06:48.680 about it at all. I didn't for a second believe that it would lead to this. I didn't see this coming
00:06:55.580 at all. And I was wrong. Lots of other pundits and, and, and, uh, commentators and hosts and cable
00:07:01.820 news personalities were also wrong. I'm not trying to deflect by saying they were wrong too, but they
00:07:07.600 were. A lot of people were very wrong about this. See, the thing is though, most of them won't admit
00:07:14.340 it. I'm not going to say any names, but they're just continue, continuing along issue, issuing their, uh,
00:07:21.840 prognostications, delivering their opinions with feigned authority, even though they've been
00:07:28.640 completely wrong every step of the way, everything they've said has been wrong, but they keep
00:07:33.860 adjusting, keep pivoting. It goes from, you know, Oh, this is nothing but hype. It's nothing at all.
00:07:38.660 Don't worry. Okay. Well, it is something, but it's, it's, it's not any worse than the flu. Okay. Well,
00:07:43.080 it is worse than the flu, but the, but the, but the panic is the real problem. The panic is the real
00:07:47.160 threat on and on no acknowledgement, no accountability, not taking a second to say,
00:07:53.260 Hey, you know what? I I'm, I've been wrong on this. So take a grain of salt with everything
00:07:57.040 I'm about to say, but here, here's my opinion. Just continuing to spew these half-baked theories,
00:08:02.520 continuing to provide analysis that's based on a near total lack of underlying knowledge on the
00:08:08.100 subject. Whatever you think about what's happening, whether you think it's overblown or not,
00:08:17.160 whatever you think, there's no denying that we are in the middle of something very serious,
00:08:21.300 something that is not, not something that is certainly not unprecedented in the life of mankind
00:08:26.900 collectively, but it is unprecedented in the experience of modern Americans,
00:08:32.220 mostly because we have lived a sheltered, comfortable life. And we have collectively experienced
00:08:38.820 very little hardship with a few exceptions, of course, notable exceptions, 9-11 being one of them.
00:08:45.380 Um, and, uh, and I, and, you know, when I say unprecedented, I refer both to the disease
00:08:51.740 and the reaction to it, you know, the whole thing. This is not just an issue to be argued about. This
00:08:58.640 is not something that lends itself to talking points. It's much bigger than that. We're dealing
00:09:03.700 with something much bigger. The problem is that we have so many streams of information, so many people
00:09:10.300 screaming at us, so many sources of fact and opinion and opinion masquerading as fact,
00:09:14.800 that, uh, it's difficult to know who to believe, who to trust, who to turn to. And you're tempted
00:09:20.860 to turn it all off and say, I'm going to tune it all out. I don't want to, I don't want to hear any of
00:09:25.720 this stuff, which maybe ultimately is not a bad idea. But if you're like me, you don't want to do
00:09:31.640 that because you want to know what's happening. You want to be prepared. You have a family. You feel
00:09:35.960 like you have a responsibility to know, to be prepared. But that brings you back to the question
00:09:41.340 of who do you listen to? Now, we in the media, many of us, uh, are really arrogant, profoundly
00:09:50.900 arrogant. Again, myself included. I'm not going to keep saying myself included, but just insert
00:09:56.380 that into everything I say. We think we're experts on everything. We've taken the fact that people
00:10:04.100 listen to us about everything as evidence that people should listen to us about everything.
00:10:10.020 So without any real thought to the consequences, without much reflection, really, we start spouting
00:10:15.120 off as if with expertise about the virus, about the severity of the threat, about the government
00:10:22.020 response, the reasonableness or unreasonableness of it. Government started shutting down businesses
00:10:27.720 in mass yesterday, uh, New York, California schools shutting down across the country. Well,
00:10:33.440 that happened last week, but, but, uh, yesterday we heard about New York and California, Los Angeles
00:10:38.700 shutting down restaurants, bars. And, um, and this happened and the commentators and pundits and media
00:10:46.660 people, they all chimed in immediately, quite confident that this was either the wrong move or the right
00:10:52.800 move. They had it figured out immediately. They heard about it two seconds later. I know if this is right
00:10:58.180 or wrong. Meanwhile, this is an incredibly morally complex issue. We're weighing the risk of economic
00:11:05.460 collapse, which is a very real risk when you start shutting down businesses across entire cities and
00:11:12.740 states for weeks at a time, if not longer. So we're weighing that, um, against the need to save lives, which
00:11:21.260 is a very real need. And the threat to human life is also very real. So if these drastic measures have a good
00:11:27.120 chance of saving a hundred thousand lives or more, and there are experts who say that that's the
00:11:34.760 case, then is it worth it? I mean, even if it leaves the economy in shambles, you saved all those
00:11:40.240 lives. Aren't, aren't human, isn't human life more important than the economy? Then again, economic
00:11:45.200 collapse could, could threaten human life. People aren't going to be able to support themselves.
00:11:48.920 Um, but what if, uh, what if it only saves 10,000 lives potentially a thousand? I mean, how do you
00:11:58.260 balance these things? What's the right call? That's a very difficult question. I don't have the answer
00:12:03.520 for it. I don't know. I really don't. Lots of people in the media, they think they do know they've
00:12:10.960 got it figured out. Like I said, right away, they thought about it for two seconds. Boom. They know
00:12:16.120 and they'll tell you all about it. Right? Now think about that for a second. Think about this.
00:12:22.560 Something big happens. Uh, New York city shuts down schools, restaurants, bars in response to
00:12:28.620 a viral disease threat. And within seconds, the pundit class, the media members know exactly
00:12:36.640 if it was wrong or right. And they issue that opinion with total confidence.
00:12:41.580 A decision that a group of people in high levels of state government agonized over,
00:12:48.100 presumably debated a decision that presumably was informed by intelligence on the spread and nature
00:12:53.540 of the, of the disease, probably some of which we are not privy to, um, a decision that experts in
00:12:59.420 the field were, were involved in that decision within 12 seconds of being announced was immediately
00:13:05.640 categorized as simply right or simply wrong. The people who made it agonized over it, but the,
00:13:13.620 but the peanut gallery had it all figured out right away. Well, good for them. They're, they're
00:13:18.280 geniuses. I'm not saying it was the right decision, by the way. I, I don't know. I also don't know
00:13:24.960 exactly what went into it. I'm sort of assuming that they're, that all of those things went into
00:13:28.440 these decisions. It's possible that that isn't the, I don't know. I just don't know. I don't think
00:13:35.580 you know. I don't think most of the people talking into microphones and talking in cameras today. I
00:13:40.720 don't think most of them know. I don't know if we'll ever know. The thing is, if these measures
00:13:47.280 do prevent a catastrophe on a scale of millions infected and many thousands dying, uh, it, it, it,
00:13:54.520 it would seem that, well, then it was worth it. Right. But how will we know what could have been?
00:14:00.640 We don't, we won't know. Lots of people, especially the media will, will pretend that they know what
00:14:06.560 could have been or what can be or what will be, but, but, but they don't, they won't, they can't,
00:14:10.940 they never will. And so if, uh, if, uh, if the worst is avoided and, uh, it, it doesn't become
00:14:20.220 what a lot of people worry it will become the disease that is, you're going to have folks in
00:14:25.360 the media saying, see, I was right all along. Yeah. Yeah. See, I told you yet. How the hell
00:14:31.760 do they know it? What if these measures weren't taken? What would happen? They don't know.
00:14:36.020 Just pretending they do. They're playing a game.
00:14:40.520 Here's my point. In a time like this, you know, it's difficult to know who to trust.
00:14:45.760 It's also really important to figure that out though, because the information is important.
00:14:49.620 And you need to know where to get it. What I'm, what I'm saying to you, what I'm telling you is,
00:14:55.960 is don't listen to me. Don't listen to any media personality, any cable news host or talk show host,
00:15:02.140 any internet celebrity, any opinion giver on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere else. And not
00:15:07.940 just media people either. I mean, I'm, I'm putting it on the media, but these days we're all pundits to
00:15:12.260 some, we all have an audience, might be a small one, but we're all on social media, giving our opinions.
00:15:17.440 It's not just people who are paid to do it. And if you browse through Twitter or Facebook or
00:15:22.880 wherever, whatever social media site you're on, you're going to see a lot of very ignorant opinions
00:15:27.840 issued with confidence by people who have no idea what they're talking about, have, haven't the
00:15:32.920 slightest clue. People who have never thought about this ever in their life. They've never thought
00:15:37.840 about what's the right response to a pandemic. Uh, you know, how do these things spread? Issues like
00:15:43.540 exponential growth and, and, uh, and all these, they never thought about it ever in their life,
00:15:48.300 not once. And now it happens and I know exactly what's going on here. I'll tell you.
00:15:54.800 And so it's not just from the media, it's, it's everybody just talking at each other.
00:15:58.580 And then we all end up in this haze of, of, of contradictory conflicting opinions. And we feel
00:16:04.400 like we have to choose a side and we're looking around and thinking, well, I gotta, I gotta be on
00:16:07.960 someone's side. Am I on the side of this isn't a big deal? Or am I, am I on the, this is a big deal
00:16:11.980 side? Or am I, it's, it's, it, meanwhile, we're, we're, we're dealing with something that, I mean,
00:16:18.980 this is one of mankind's oldest enemies, a virus. You know, I mean, if something like this isn't
00:16:26.080 enough to make us kind of put all this BS to the side and see how petty and ridiculous it is
00:16:31.340 and just try to be reasonable adults about it. I mean, if this can't do it, then what can?
00:16:37.960 So, um, I think when you see, uh, an opinion or hear one from a media member, uh, like myself
00:16:49.700 or really any, any Joe Schmo on, on Twitter or Facebook, you, you should, you should, in your
00:16:56.140 head, you should preface whatever they just said with an individual with no related expertise
00:17:01.940 and no base of knowledge on the subject. And who couldn't even tell you exactly what a virus
00:17:05.420 is, has the following opinion. I'm not saying that we have to have a PhD or a degree in a
00:17:13.200 related field to have an opinion about anything. In fact, many times I have railed against that
00:17:20.080 mentality. Uh, the, the, the idea that, uh, you know, in order to have an opinion on any subject,
00:17:25.600 you need to be able to present your resume to prove that you have a right to an opinion on it.
00:17:29.720 I don't, I don't think that, but when it comes to analyzing a specific medical and scientific issue
00:17:36.320 that has lots of complexities and everything else wrapped into it, like the spread of a virus,
00:17:41.360 the threat level it poses, its growth rate, et cetera, when it comes to predicting what will happen
00:17:46.080 next, what could happen with this specific thing, the virus, when it comes to that, I think you really
00:17:52.800 do need to have some kind of base of knowledge, some expertise, or else why should anyone listen
00:17:57.480 to you? Why should anyone care what you have to say? The trouble is that the media is a one-way
00:18:03.620 forum, right? So we, we talk and you listen. If you could respond in real time and ask follow-up
00:18:09.400 questions, when you, when you see a talking head on cable news, I mean, just turn on cable news
00:18:14.120 sometimes, sometime and, and, and see that the talking heads, the analysts that are brought in
00:18:18.240 to discuss the, uh, the, the coronavirus. They bring in some real experts, but they also bring
00:18:25.440 in the same kinds of people they would bring in to analyze a Trump tweet. Just, just their, their,
00:18:30.620 their, their roster of talking heads they bring into talk. These people have no idea what they're
00:18:35.380 talking about. Why are they, uh, why do you have this, why do you have this political operative
00:18:40.420 giving opinions on a virus? Um, now if you could respond in real time, you might ask the pundit
00:18:52.540 who's giving his opinion, you might say, uh, if the pundit is saying, oh, this virus isn't as bad
00:18:57.060 as everyone thinks, or, or this virus will wipe out mankind or whatever it is, you could say, oh,
00:19:02.200 really? Why do you think that? What's your source? What's your reason for thinking this? And if you
00:19:08.280 could ask that, you would quickly discover that they have no very compelling reason to think it
00:19:12.500 or else they're echoing and probably mangling what they heard from a scientist or a doctor.
00:19:18.360 And if that's the case, your next follow-up should be, okay, if you got this from a scientist or a
00:19:23.100 doctor, somebody who knows what they're talking about, why don't you just point us in their direction
00:19:27.120 rather than giving us your mangled, tortured, politically flavored version of what they said?
00:19:32.860 Why don't you just shut up and, and point us to wherever you got this from so we can read
00:19:38.260 that instead. And that brings me to my, my conclusion.
00:19:45.580 I, for the remainder of this event, for lack of a better word, I'm not going to give you my
00:19:52.640 opinions on the nature of the virus itself, the threat it poses, what will happen with it next
00:19:58.060 or anything like that, because I don't know. I really don't. I'm as clueless as you. Um,
00:20:03.220 I just don't know. I, I, you know, in my mind, I could, I hear all the stuff about how bad it could
00:20:10.800 get. Thousands dead could be, could go that way. There's also another part of me that says,
00:20:18.860 you know, maybe this is all, maybe, maybe three weeks from now, we'll be looking back on this as
00:20:22.740 ancient history and say, you know, well, we really lost our minds over that. Didn't we?
00:20:28.040 I don't know. So instead, what I will endeavor to do is point you in the direction of sources
00:20:33.940 that are more worthy of trust than me, because they're backed by knowledge and expertise and
00:20:39.400 experience, which I lack. Doesn't mean you should trust any source implicitly. Um,
00:20:45.700 but, uh, you, you do have to at least partially trust someone, some source, or else there's no
00:20:53.660 point in pursuing information. There's no point of being online. There's no point of turning on
00:20:57.360 the news. There's no point of listening to this show or any other. I mean, if you're doing that at
00:21:02.180 all, it must mean that you think you can trust at least partially someone. So, you know, Dr. Fauci
00:21:09.420 from the NIH has been a great source of information. It seems like the CDC, the World Health
00:21:14.500 Organization, other health organizations have plenty of information. ER doctors who have
00:21:19.780 worked with this disease have seen it up close and personal. You know, I'm not talking about
00:21:24.900 somebody's pediatrician who hasn't seen it yet and hasn't dealt with it, but there are plenty of ER
00:21:30.360 doctors, people, nurses, um, who have been in, in this, whether in Italy or in California or, or
00:21:36.660 elsewhere, they're great sources of information might take a little bit of digging to find what they
00:21:41.340 have to say, but they've written letters and emails that have been published and they've,
00:21:44.500 uh, articles and op-eds and everything. And you, you can go and find that. I've, I've shared a few
00:21:49.440 of them on this show, virologists, epidemiologists, doctors with specialties and related fields.
00:21:55.420 I mean, this is where I'm going to get my information. And, uh, if I, if I pass it along
00:21:59.440 to you on this show, I'm just going to quote them verbatim. I'm not going to give you my dumb
00:22:03.420 analysis of what they said. I'm not going to tell you, well, this epidemiologist says this,
00:22:07.560 and here's what I think about that. Who gives a damn what I think about it,
00:22:11.380 but you can, uh, pursue these avenues of information yourself, of course, just like,
00:22:18.040 just like I can. And I very much urge you to do that. And I also urge you to tune out as much as
00:22:23.080 possible, the analysis and opinions and prophecies of, of people who don't understand this issue,
00:22:27.800 have no experience with it and who spend most of their time thinking about and talking about
00:22:32.000 political and cultural issues. That's their, that's their lane. That's our lane.
00:22:38.240 This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop talking about issues related to the pandemic.
00:22:42.100 This is something happening in the world right now. It's on everyone's mind. Uh, it matters. Of
00:22:46.600 course, I'm going to talk about it, but I'll try as best I can to steer clear of offering opinions
00:22:50.780 or analysis of the disease itself and its trajectory and, and, and, uh, and, and that sort of thing.
00:22:57.060 Um, um, an opinion like this is overblown is an opinion that can only have value or meaning if
00:23:07.720 it's informed by a deep understanding of viral pandemics and the science behind them and exponential
00:23:12.900 growth rates and all of that. If you lack that knowledge, your, this is overblown opinion is
00:23:19.080 itself overblown ignorance and opinions on the other side are the same. So I'm going to try,
00:23:27.060 try, try emphasis on try to avoid doing that and instead talk about issues surrounding it issues
00:23:33.540 that I may have something to offer on things like the cultural implications and you know,
00:23:37.960 those sorts of things trying to stay in my lane while still providing content that's relevant to
00:23:44.600 your experience. As we all go through this together, that's my goal. Uh, I'm just putting
00:23:48.960 it out there right now. And, uh, I, I, I really think that, um, uh, this is something we all need
00:23:58.040 to consider because you want to talk about panic and hysteria. It's only going to get worse
00:24:02.940 if we keep listening to every dumb ass sharing his ignorant, ill-informed, or rather totally
00:24:13.700 uninformed opinion about a subject. He doesn't understand. All right. Now we'll move on. Let's
00:24:19.400 go to, uh, emails or no, actually I'm, I'm all screwed up here. Let's go to, uh, see, I don't
00:24:25.600 even understand my own show. I can't even do my own show. So what, what, what can I tell you about
00:24:29.020 a pandemic? Five headlines is what we're going to do instead. Number one, there was a democratic
00:24:32.920 debate last night. I don't have much to say about that either, but it was, it was mostly two old men
00:24:37.540 yelling at each other. They held it in a studio, no audience. So it was just because of the,
00:24:42.300 they were trying to practice social distancing. I will say, I like that format, having two people
00:24:47.480 talk to each other and, and without the, without the brain damaged hyenas in the audience making
00:24:53.600 all the noise and without the moderator cutting in every 12 seconds, but just having them in a room,
00:24:59.840 no audience, just talking and arguing and debating, actually debating. That was the crazy thing about
00:25:05.720 the debate last night. There was actually a little bit of real debating, which we very rarely see in a
00:25:11.380 debate. So I liked that as far as the substance of it, it was what you would expect. Um, I guess the,
00:25:18.300 uh, the pundits are saying that Biden won because he escaped without injury. Uh, he escaped without
00:25:23.920 injury because he only made about five embarrassing mistakes rather than his normal 27. And so because
00:25:30.060 of that, it's essentially a huge victory for him. Uh, one of the mistakes was when he and Bernie did this
00:25:37.180 also, they both kept forgetting which disease is in the news. So they went through SARS, swine flu,
00:25:43.500 Ebola, couldn't remember. I mean, if you've been living in a cave for the past few weeks and you
00:25:49.380 turned on this debate, you would be, you would be really freaking out right now because you would
00:25:54.300 think that there's a SARS, swine flu, coronavirus, and Ebola epidemic happening all at the same time.
00:25:59.040 Uh, I was kind of expecting by the end of it, they would be promising to make sure that we finally
00:26:04.420 come up with a vaccine to defeat this polio, this polio epidemic once and for all. I thought this was,
00:26:09.140 that's where this was going, but didn't quite get there. Bernie was Bernie. He had a few, um,
00:26:13.760 a few great lines such as when he said, um, I've got Ebola in my head. That was a direct quote from
00:26:20.980 Bernie Sanders. I've got Ebola in my head. At another point, he starts bragging about all the soap he
00:26:25.660 uses. He says, I use lots of soap. Uh, both are real quotes that he uttered, but I think his best
00:26:32.000 was this. Have you been on the floor of the Senate? You were in the Senate for a few years. Yeah.
00:26:37.580 Time and time again, talking about the necessity with pride about cutting social security,
00:26:44.420 cutting Medicare, cutting veterans programs. No, you never said that. No. All right. America,
00:26:51.140 go to the website right now, go to the YouTube right now. This guy, I'm telling you, I can,
00:26:57.040 I can tell why the youths love him. He very in touch with the youth of today. He just understands
00:27:05.160 later on the debate. He said that he, um, he stays in touch with America's youth by listening to his
00:27:11.940 Christina Aguilera CD on his Walkman while he's rollerblading. Super relevant stuff. Um,
00:27:19.840 and, uh, that's it. I have nothing else to say about the debate. I hope you enjoyed,
00:27:23.080 hope you enjoyed that analysis. Number two, interesting story here about a guy who earlier
00:27:26.620 in the month went to stores all over Tennessee and, and bought up all the hand sanitizer because
00:27:31.700 he saw what was coming. Uh, bought up nearly 18,000 bottles of hand sanitizer. And then he planned
00:27:38.300 to resell it on Amazon, which he did. Uh, Matt Colvin is his name. He did manage to sell a few
00:27:45.020 hundred bottles at prices between $8 and $70 for the hand sanitizer. But Amazon quickly shut him
00:27:51.740 down saying that price gouging, especially during a pandemic violates their terms of service. Okay.
00:27:57.340 When this all came to the attention of the media, he was profiled in the New York times and he was
00:28:02.800 completely originally anyway, he's changed his tune, but he was originally unrepentant about
00:28:09.240 price gouging during a pandemic. He never anticipated the struggle other families would go through because
00:28:14.640 of a shortage. Would you say you're sorry? Sorry for purchasing, sorry for buying all of this.
00:28:32.800 No, I don't think that I would. I just like how he's, he's asked if he's sorry.
00:28:38.160 And then he pauses for a while and you think he's going to get emotional and start
00:28:43.240 apologizing, spill his guts out. But instead he says, Nope, not sorry. Not sorry. Well,
00:28:50.180 after quite a bit of a, let's say social pressure, including death threats, he did apologize and he
00:28:56.600 decided to donate most of his hand sanitizer. And then the state attorney's general, attorney general
00:29:02.680 office, attorney attorney general's office, uh, came in from, from Tennessee. They came in and
00:29:07.180 they started confiscating the rest of it. So I think he donated about 60% of it. And then the,
00:29:11.780 the remaining 40%, the state government came in and just took it saying that it's against the law
00:29:18.420 to price gouge in a price gouge during a state of emergency. But the thing is he did this before
00:29:24.620 there was a state of emergency declared. So, uh, there's a question here about, I think a rather
00:29:30.800 fascinating debate about what can the state do? Do they have the authority to just come in? I mean,
00:29:36.520 yeah, the guy's a jerk. No question about it. Nobody's, nobody would argue that, but, uh, and that's
00:29:42.440 putting it mildly, but does that mean the state can just come in and take what you bought? I don't know.
00:29:49.220 Number three, Stephen King sent out a tweet over the weekend, focusing on the important stuff as always.
00:29:53.160 He said, uh, note that Trump's coronavirus team is all male, all old and all white.
00:30:00.620 I just, what is it with old, old white male liberals always complaining about old white males?
00:30:08.200 Now they better get used to old white males because that's who their nominee is in case they forgot.
00:30:13.860 I mean, either way, whichever one of them it is, and it's going to be Biden, but either way,
00:30:17.660 it's an old white male. And I'll never quite get over the irony that the people who complain,
00:30:23.160 incessantly about old white males had a chance to nominate a young white male, black woman,
00:30:30.700 a black man, an old native American woman. I think they had any of those choices and they decided,
00:30:36.640 let's go with the old white male. In fact, let's, we got, we got two really old white males here,
00:30:41.480 here. Let's, let's narrow it down to one of those two. Let's make those our only options,
00:30:46.320 but don't worry because the old white males, they both said yesterday during the debate
00:30:51.560 that they would make a female their vice president. So these, these guys who worked
00:30:58.260 doggedly to kick all the females out of the race, ensuring that none of them would be president.
00:31:03.980 Now they're going to make a female. They're number two. They feel very strongly that a female right
00:31:08.960 now shouldn't be president because they should, but a female should definitely get second place.
00:31:15.400 Hashtag feminist heroes. Number four, Andrew Gillum, a former candidate for governor in Florida,
00:31:21.280 also former mayor of Tallahassee, considered the rising democratic star,
00:31:26.420 was caught in a hotel room a few days ago with drugs and an overdosed male escort lying naked on his bed.
00:31:36.120 Gillum is married with three kids, by the way. So, you know, it's, it's being said that this is
00:31:42.020 going to destroy his political career, but I don't see that it does. If anything, I think it might help
00:31:46.640 him. And I'm, I'm not, I'm not actually kidding. I think we're at the point now with Democrats where
00:31:52.680 I don't know if he's ever going to win governor, but at least in terms of, of his future as a, as an
00:31:59.500 influencer on the democratic side, I think this probably helps him. Number five, here's some great news,
00:32:05.220 at least for me. A new study finds that people who are stubborn and argumentative are less likely to
00:32:10.260 get Alzheimer's. Does that sound like anyone, you know, stubborn argumentative. I mean, if stubbornness
00:32:17.260 and being argumentative protects your health, then I'm, I'm basically immortal. And it gets better
00:32:21.740 though, because researchers are also saying that being stubborn argumentative and combining that with
00:32:27.240 an aversion to conformity is the best combo. So stubborn, argumentative, contrarian, don't get
00:32:37.000 along well with others. Check, check, check, check. Now they just need to tell me that having a bad
00:32:42.520 temper is the, is the, is the final trait you need. And that's going to really tell me that I'm
00:32:46.720 impervious to illness. I will never die. All right, let's go to your daily cancellation. And today
00:32:52.960 we'll be, we'll be canceling. And this is for the sake of, of humanity, really for our own,
00:32:57.880 for everybody. This is for everyone. I figure this is a treat I'll give to everybody at a time when I
00:33:02.200 think we all really need it. We will be canceling all mathematical statistics, especially those
00:33:07.740 involving the number 500 million. So you remember last week, the famous incident involving the 500
00:33:13.540 million statistic on, on MSNBC with Brian Williams and the woman who we later discovered was a victim
00:33:18.720 of racism because people made fun of her that she can't do math. We won't get into that again. Well,
00:33:23.680 there was another one, another incident like that involving a different leftist. We're really on the
00:33:29.020 verge of an epidemic here. And, and the only way to stop it is to act quickly and take precautions,
00:33:33.980 which is why I'm canceling statistics involving the number 500 million. In fact, I think I'm going to
00:33:39.060 cancel statistics. I'm going to cancel mathematics in general. I think it's the only safe way. So here is
00:33:43.540 Brianna Joy Gray works for the Sanders campaign. And she tweeted the other day, she says, it's great
00:33:50.120 that everybody is coming together around this crisis, but people are in crisis every day. 500
00:33:54.680 million Americans go bankrupt from medical debt every year. 68 million are un or underinsured.
00:34:01.660 We've been in a state of emergency. We need a president who acts like it. 500 million Americans go
00:34:08.340 bankrupt every year. 500 million Americans. Okay. That would mean either that there's 500 million
00:34:15.020 people in America and every single one of them goes bankrupt every year annually,
00:34:18.900 or there are billions of Americans, possibly trillions and 500 million of them go bankrupt every
00:34:25.600 year. In either case, there's a bit of a problem with accuracy here. Accuracy here. There are in fact,
00:34:31.920 327 million Americans, 500,000 of them go bankrupt every year. So she was only off by about what? 499.5
00:34:42.820 million. It's a slight, slight, slight error. That's all. But I don't blame her. Blame her really,
00:34:50.060 because clearly there is a problem. And the problem is with math itself. Math, we must remember,
00:34:56.760 according to scripture, was invented by the devil. It took us many years to free ourselves from the
00:35:02.800 chains of mathematics. But we did with the invention of calculators. And then the final blow to math
00:35:08.900 came when we invented cell phones so that we could carry calculators around in our pockets all the time
00:35:16.860 without looking like dorks. It was just kind of a way of really the cell phone originally, I don't know
00:35:21.400 if you're familiar with the history, but originally it was invented just as a way, as a, as a cover,
00:35:25.520 basically a cover story for an alibi for the calculator that we all carry right out of our
00:35:30.220 pockets. So that any, and now anytime there's a math question, we come across any sort of math
00:35:35.800 difficulty, just pull out your phone and that's it. That's all you need to do. Use your calculator.
00:35:42.660 And if it's a more complicated question, like, you know, if somebody were to ask me to find the
00:35:48.040 hypotenuse of a prime number of a trigonometry, then I could just Google it. And if, if the
00:35:56.240 calculator and Google don't work, then I can cry and tell you to stop harassing. That's the last
00:36:01.340 resort. Either way, math is not needed and is therefore canceled. Now let's go to emails. Remember
00:36:08.480 you can become a daily wire member and you get access to the mailbag. And I would encourage everyone
00:36:13.120 to do that. We're going to go right to a couple of interesting emails. I'll save a few of them for
00:36:18.860 later in the week, but we'll go right to Grant with our why I'm wrong segment. Grant says, hi, Matt,
00:36:23.660 I have to tell you, I was really angry about what you said about the president on your show. I know
00:36:28.020 that you're going for those clicks by jumping on the blame Trump bandwagon, but I really thought
00:36:31.880 better of you. I didn't start listening to your show to hear someone go along with the media
00:36:35.680 narrative and say the popular things like any other grifter, extremely disappointed. Okay, Grant.
00:36:42.620 So I guess it's time for the bi-monthly tradition where I explain how grifting and click hunting
00:36:47.680 works in the age of Trump, because a lot of people don't seem to understand. And since
00:36:51.760 we're, you know, that's been the theme of the show, I'm talking about the media and how
00:36:55.160 useless we all are. Well, maybe I'll, this is a good way to cap it off. So here's another
00:37:00.580 explanation of how things work in media. I, yeah, I did, I did criticize Trump on my show
00:37:06.040 on Friday. I criticized his, his response to the crisis, at least his response up until Friday
00:37:11.220 when I did the show because I thought it was worthy of criticism. He's been better since
00:37:15.720 then, but up until that point, it was bad in my opinion. So I gave my opinion. I gave
00:37:21.320 my reasons, agree or disagree with them, but I'm being honest about it. And I'm telling you
00:37:27.740 my point of view. That's all. I'm just telling you what I think. Same as I would do for any
00:37:33.220 president or politician. See, to me, Trump is not a special case. Trump isn't, isn't special.
00:37:38.800 He's just a man. He's a politician. He's not the devil. He's not Hitler. It's not like everything
00:37:44.100 he does is wrong. He's, he's not plotting to destroy America. Okay. He's not a fascist dictator,
00:37:49.640 but he's also not God. So I'm not going to sit here and sing his praises at all, at all hours of
00:37:55.360 the day. Right. He's, he's not a, he's not all knowing and all wise and all loving. He can,
00:38:00.260 he can be wrong. That's the way I look at him. That's the way I look at every human being on earth.
00:38:05.220 That's especially the way I look at politicians. And so why would he be any different? That's the
00:38:10.640 way I approach it. Now that's not to say that my praise or criticism is always right. Maybe it isn't.
00:38:17.140 Maybe it's wrong. Sometimes maybe it's always wrong. Maybe I'm a total idiot and I'm, and I'm
00:38:20.700 always wrong about Trump. That could be the case, but that's not, that's not really the case you made.
00:38:25.560 You weren't, you weren't explaining why I'm wrong. Uh, instead you went to my motivations
00:38:30.520 and you were trying to diagnose my motivations. And this is what people often seem to do in your
00:38:38.300 criticism. You claim that for me as a conservative with a mostly conservative audience, criticizing
00:38:43.120 Trump occasionally is something I do for clicks and to, uh, make people happy and to get applause
00:38:50.820 and adulation. Now that is so hilariously wrong and off base and detached from reality that, uh, I can't
00:38:58.440 believe you believe it. But then again, like I said, a lot of people say this kind of thing.
00:39:02.220 Anytime I do criticize Trump, I get similar emails to this. It seems like a lot of people do think
00:39:05.440 this. And so I will address it. Um, and I'll try to break this down for you. I've explained it before.
00:39:10.920 I'll explain it again. Um, and this is an area where I have some expertise because I'm in
00:39:15.820 conservative media. And so I think I can speak to it ever since Trump came on the scene, there have
00:39:21.320 been two approaches to Trump that will get you clicks and make lots of people like you.
00:39:28.320 No approach is going to make everybody like you. That's impossible. So that's off the table. But in
00:39:32.660 terms of growing an audience, building your own little amen chorus, getting clicks, making money,
00:39:38.780 there are two approaches. Now, obviously if you're on the left, there's one approach and that is to
00:39:42.560 criticize Trump at all hours at all, in all occasions over everything, give him no credit for
00:39:47.500 anything ever. If you're on the left, that's what it is. And very simple. That's, that's your approach.
00:39:51.580 Okay. For conservatives though, you can take, uh, the Jennifer Rubin approach and that is to become
00:39:58.160 for all intents and purposes, a full-on Democrat, criticize Trump always in every situation, make him
00:40:04.240 out to be Hitler, uh, try to get Democrats elected, start supporting Democrats openly and basically
00:40:09.540 campaigning for them. And, uh, the result of this, which is what some conservatives have done,
00:40:14.960 some, some so-called conservatives. Uh, the result is that, uh, is, is you're going to be despised by
00:40:20.840 people on the right, but you might get a CNN contributorship. Uh, you're going to grow a nice
00:40:25.800 little audience for yourself. You're going to be, you could be the token cable news conservative
00:40:30.180 who criticizes Trump. You can write a book, a book will probably do pretty well. And it's going to
00:40:35.680 get, you know, you'll get a lot of cable news hits to sell the book and, and all that kind of,
00:40:39.920 you'll get good reviews. Okay. So that's, that's one approach. Have I done that?
00:40:44.960 Do you think CNN is knocking on my door? Am I on here spewing Democrat talking points every day?
00:40:52.200 No, obviously not. So then there's the other option and this is the less, less risky option.
00:41:00.040 Um, and it's the one that many, many more conservative media figures have, have taken.
00:41:05.940 This, this has been their approach and that is to become full on Trump groupies, stopping
00:41:11.660 very short of deification. And in some cases, not even stopping that short. Trump is never wrong,
00:41:17.380 never worthy of criticism. Everything he does is brilliant. Everything he does is wonderful.
00:41:21.960 He's the best president ever. Um, he's, he's, he's, he's a hero and a pioneer, the savior of America.
00:41:27.740 Uh, America is great now because of him and it will be less great when he's gone.
00:41:31.740 Literally no compliment is too elevated. No action or statement by Trump is too absurd or wrong to be
00:41:38.080 defended. And, um, if you go this way, which a lot of conservatives have, you'll, you'll gain a huge
00:41:44.100 audience. You can write a book about how Trump saved America and it's guaranteed to be a bestseller.
00:41:50.300 And Trump will also himself retweet it and you'll get some credit from that. And so you'll sell books
00:41:55.000 that way. You'll get the cable news gigs. You'll speak at CPAC. You'll be loved and adored by the,
00:42:01.660 by Trump's white house. And, uh, and because they, they pay very close attention to Twitter and to
00:42:06.580 their supporters in the media. And so it's going to get you close to power that way. It's guaranteed
00:42:12.100 to make you money. And it's a very easy approach. Now I'm not naming any names, but there are people
00:42:18.200 who are celebrities on the right now who make a lot of money and have a huge audience.
00:42:24.240 And they do sold out speaking events and they sell books when the only thing they have to offer
00:42:30.940 is effusive praise for Trump. That's all they have. That's it. They've got nothing else. They
00:42:37.020 have no other insights into anything. They have no analysis to offer on anything. They've never said
00:42:42.280 anything interesting ever, ever. All they ever do is just say Trump is wonderful. That's their answer.
00:42:47.900 And they go around saying Trump was wonderful and they become celebrities. They made a lot of money.
00:42:51.540 There, there are people like this. Like I said, not going to name names. I don't think I need to.
00:42:57.840 Um, no, I could have done that, you know, and, and, uh, and, uh, I could have gone that route.
00:43:04.740 And if I did, my podcast would be 10 times more popular than it is. I'd be on TV way more than I
00:43:09.880 am. Uh, I could charge a lot more for speaking gigs and I'd be making a lot more money and I'd get a lot
00:43:15.220 more hits on my articles and everything else. Now the approach of treating Trump, not like the devil
00:43:21.700 or like God, not as always praiseworthy or always blameworthy, the approach of criticizing him
00:43:29.400 sometimes harshly when you think it's warranted, whether you're right or wrong, but when you think
00:43:33.780 it's warranted and defending him sometimes passionately, when you think that's warranted,
00:43:38.420 that is the very last approach that someone who is just in it for clicks and praise would take.
00:43:46.740 If there's a grifter going down that road, he is the dumbest grifter of all time. He has taken the
00:43:52.620 most difficult path to grifting. There were, there were much easier things he could have done.
00:43:57.760 Now I'm not saying that those of us who take this approach. And I think here in the daily wire,
00:44:02.800 this is the approach that we take. I mean, I'm not gonna speak for anyone else. I'm speaking for
00:44:06.360 myself, but I also think that that's a general approach as well. I'm not saying that we're like
00:44:12.760 heroes or something or martyrs. We still do well for ourselves and we enjoy our jobs. And we, in fact,
00:44:16.980 we don't really have jobs. And so we live comfortable lives that way. So I'm not saying
00:44:20.580 that you should build statues to us and honor us for our heroism. I'm just saying that if you think
00:44:26.380 that, you know, on a conservative media person who on occasion issues a harsh criticism of Trump,
00:44:33.000 if you think he's doing that because he wants clicks, you just have, you really, you honestly
00:44:38.140 have no idea how this works. When I said what I said about Trump on Friday, I knew I was going to
00:44:43.660 get killed over it. I knew it. I knew I was going to get all kinds of angry messages, people saying,
00:44:47.380 I'm done with you. I'm not following. I'm not listening anymore. There's going to be a lot of
00:44:50.300 very angry comments in the YouTube section about how I'm the worst host in the daily wire. I'm so
00:44:54.720 terrible. I'm the worst. I'm awful. I knew all that stuff would happen. I would lose subscribers.
00:44:59.340 I would lose listeners. And, uh, and, uh, that's so, you know, it'd be much easier to just not say
00:45:04.820 it. And sometimes I think maybe that's the path I should take because it's maybe it's more prudent
00:45:09.320 to just leave it alone and say nothing, but I can't help myself because I'm a loud mouth. And so
00:45:13.820 I'm just going to say what I think again, not heroic. I mean, I'm still here doing this very easy job,
00:45:20.620 but, uh, I, I also just think you should understand how grifting and click hunting works.
00:45:26.840 And if I was interested in doing that, if I ever go that route, you'll know it.
00:45:33.900 Okay. Because that, that, if I go that route, it's going to be every single show is going to
00:45:38.920 become about how wonderful Trump is, or every show will be how evil he is. If that's what this show
00:45:44.360 turns into, then you'll know that I've been, I've sold my soul and now I'm a, I'm, I've gone full on
00:45:51.100 grifting. Uh, and if I do that, just, you know, if you see me in public, just slap me in the face,
00:45:57.940 please do me a favor, slap some sensitive. Don't really do that though, please. That would be
00:46:01.660 assault. And I would call the police. All right, we'll leave it there. Uh, thanks everybody for
00:46:05.260 watching. Thanks for listening. It's been a very, uh, hopefully honest show and we've accomplished
00:46:11.540 that at least stay safe out there. Godspeed. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe.
00:46:20.280 And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review. Tell your friends to
00:46:24.580 subscribe as well. We're available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts,
00:46:29.340 we're there. Also be sure to check out the other daily wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro show,
00:46:33.320 Michael Knowles show, and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Walsh show is
00:46:37.580 produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer, Jeremy Boring, supervising producer, Mathis Glover,
00:46:43.280 supervising producer, Robert Sterling, technical producer, Austin Stevens, editor, Danny D'Amico,
00:46:49.100 audio mixer, Robin Fenderson. The Matt Walsh show is a daily wire production copyright daily wire 2020.
00:46:55.740 If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth, and you can still laugh at the
00:47:00.060 insanity filling our national news cycle. Well, tune in to the Ben Shapiro show. We'll get a
00:47:04.280 whole lot of that and much more. See you there.
00:47:07.580 Hmm.