The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 451 - Destroying The Economy Is Not A Good Way To Save Lives

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, many of us are worried that our current lockdown strategy

00:00:04.340 is leading us quickly into an economic collapse, unlike anything this country has ever seen before.

00:00:09.480 But the left-wing media says that if you're worried about the economy in a time like this,

00:00:14.260 then you are a heartless Scrooge putting money above people, which of course is nonsense.

00:00:19.240 And we're going to talk about that today. Also, five headlines, including for a change of pace.

00:00:23.360 You know, we're used to seeing the confrontations in the grocery store over toilet paper.

00:00:29.240 Well, we have one over Mountain Dew. So I figure that's a nice change of pace.

00:00:33.180 I'll play that video for you. And a listener writes to explain why I'm wrong in advocating

00:00:38.380 that we open up the economy to avoid a depression. All of that on the way.

00:00:42.940 But let's start with this. And I have to tell you, I am I'm pretty mad, pretty ticked off,

00:00:47.740 which I which I know. Speaking of change of pace, that's that's quite a change of pace for me.

00:00:52.240 But listen, I think a person can take any number of positions on this crisis and what the path

00:00:58.700 what the best path forward is. And any idea, any path we choose has the potential to result in

00:01:08.040 suffering and death. In fact, that's going to be part of the package no matter what we do. That's

00:01:13.280 the situation that we're in. That's the reality of it. We have to face that. We can't we can't hide

00:01:18.560 from it. So I'm not going to get angry at anyone who has really grappled with this and come to a

00:01:25.460 conclusion, however tentative it might be, even if that conclusion is different from mine, because

00:01:30.300 we can all as honest and compassionate people. There are there are many different ways of looking

00:01:36.080 at this thing. But what I'm seeing, especially from people in the media, is a is a bad faith,

00:01:44.360 dishonest, disgusting effort to shut down, shout down those of us who suggest that perhaps it's not

00:01:52.180 a good idea to deliberately crash the economy, to deliberately cause a Great Depression in order 0.97

00:01:56.840 to stop a virus. What I'm seeing from from these people, again, many in the media is an attempt to

00:02:03.400 make a caricature of our position, which is a reasonable position and a serious position.

00:02:10.280 But they have painted it as putting money over people or even as eugenics. I've seen that quite a

00:02:17.940 bit, which is pretty rich coming from the pro-abortion fanatics that they are. 0.89

00:02:23.880 What they want to do is portray us as greedy, uncaring, unfeeling scrooges who would rather 0.78

00:02:29.180 have millions die than see our portfolios damaged. Now, this is, as I said, nonsense. It's worse than 0.97

00:02:36.160 nonsense, actually. And it makes me strongly suspect that those employing this strategy in the media

00:02:41.880 actually want the economy to collapse. That's actually what they want to see happen.

00:02:47.940 And I don't say that lightly, but I can't figure out why else they would be doing this.

00:02:55.440 Why else they would be so flippant about the potential collapse of our economy?

00:03:01.220 Why else they would pretend that to worry about the collapse of the economy is somehow to worry

00:03:07.520 only about money, as if you could actually separate the economy from the people who comprise it?

00:03:14.500 Now, we'll circle back to this in a second. But first, let's just review again where we are,

00:03:21.780 because I think it's very important. We're now being warned, as I reported yesterday,

00:03:25.740 that 30% unemployment is on the horizon, very, very close on the horizon. The collapse of the

00:03:31.780 commercial mortgage market could be close behind after that. And these are just the relatively

00:03:37.700 immediate consequences of closing thousands of businesses for an indefinite period of time.

00:03:43.620 Keep in mind that the worst employment rate, as I said yesterday, the worst employment rate

00:03:47.400 ever in American history was 25% during the Great Depression. The worst my generation has ever seen,

00:03:55.200 10%. And we had that about 10 years ago, I think back in 2009. This would be then three times worse

00:04:02.240 than anyone in my generation has ever seen. And if you remember the 10% unemployment,

00:04:08.000 people were freaking out over that. This is three times worse than that.

00:04:12.120 To emphasize this point, this process is already underway. 140,000 unemployment claims were filed in

00:04:19.640 Ohio, just in Ohio, just last week. In the first week of the shutdown, 140,000 unemployment claims.

00:04:27.420 So many unemployment claims were filed that it shut down and crashed the website,

00:04:31.460 the unemployment website in Ohio. In Arizona, their unemployment website also crashed when they

00:04:36.700 received 30,000 people filing in a single week. In New York, last Thursday, in one day,

00:04:42.540 they received over half a million visits to the unemployment site, also crashed the site.

00:04:47.440 The next day, they got a half a million calls inquiring about unemployment. So you've got

00:04:52.640 unemployment websites across the country crashing from the amount of traffic they're getting from

00:04:59.540 people who are suddenly out of a job. Millions and millions of people out of work, no income,

00:05:06.780 no way to provide for themselves. After one week, one week, okay? And it wasn't even a full week for a

00:05:16.440 lot of people. It was just a few days of a company being shut down and already they're laying people off

00:05:20.560 and they're firing people. And not because they're greedy, not because these companies are run by

00:05:25.140 greedy fat cats who don't care about the little man. No, most companies in America are small

00:05:32.420 businesses. And the reason why they're getting rid of people firing, laying off, they have no choice.

00:05:39.360 They can't operate with zero revenue. They have to, they have no choice.

00:05:43.720 Now, the hope, I suppose, is that the jobs will be there to return to once the government lets people

00:05:50.480 go back to work. And this is what I've heard. This is the argument I've heard. I've heard things like,

00:05:55.800 well, the economy can be resurrected. In fact, that's what somebody, some media person, some journalist

00:06:00.540 said to me on Twitter yesterday. You can resurrect the economy. Just resurrect it. Like Jesus on Easter

00:06:06.960 morning. Just a miracle. Resurrected. Look at that. No, that hope is, as CNN might say, unsubstantiated.

00:06:17.780 Most small businesses cannot survive on zero revenue for very long, let alone months. When they go down,

00:06:24.560 they're done. They're not going to be resurrected. They don't magically come back to life. That's not

00:06:29.620 what happens with a business. Even the significantly larger companies are going to have to downsize. And

00:06:38.260 when the government says, okay, you can go back to work, it's not like the past however many weeks

00:06:46.420 and months disappear like they never happened. And what will happen in the meantime to people? A large

00:06:53.140 majority of Americans are already living paycheck to paycheck. A large majority. Now, paycheck to

00:07:01.040 paycheck means if you miss one paycheck, you're in trouble, especially if you have kids. What happens

00:07:06.800 when you miss two paychecks? Three, four, five? What happens to you? How do you feed yourself? How do you

00:07:12.400 feed your kids? How will you pay the rent or the mortgage? Government stimulus checks only go so far. Yes,

00:07:18.960 send the checks. And we'll talk about those checks during the headlines, but that can't be a new way

00:07:24.880 of life. We can't sustain the entire country that way, no matter what the socialists might say.

00:07:29.380 People need to work to care for themselves and their families. What happens when millions of people

00:07:33.780 are prevented from doing so for a long stretch of time? Well, nobody knows the answer to that

00:07:37.720 question, really, because nothing like this has ever happened before. No government, as far as I'm

00:07:42.440 aware, has ever, ever, ever willfully plunged itself into a depression, obliterating its own economy on

00:07:49.920 purpose in order to prevent some other potential calamity. If we go that route, we will be the

00:07:58.000 first to ever try it, along with the other countries that are, some other countries in the world right

00:08:04.000 now that are currently trying it too. That's a whole other aspect of this thing that we're not even

00:08:09.600 talking about. We're just talking about America crashing its economy. What happens when a bunch 0.91

00:08:14.440 of other economies crash also at the same time across the globe? Well, we don't know exactly,

00:08:21.820 but I think there are many very good reasons to predict rather horrifying results from such an

00:08:30.020 experiment. Destitution, poverty on a massive scale, looting, rioting, millions homeless, that's just the

00:08:37.860 beginning. We have seen looting and rioting in major American cities in recent history for almost

00:08:46.620 no reason. In Baltimore, they said it was about Freddie Gray, the guy that was allegedly a victim

00:08:55.660 of police brutality. Well, of course, most of the looters didn't really care about Freddie Gray or even

00:09:02.860 know about that situation or know much about it. They were just looking for an excuse.

00:09:08.760 What happens when you give them a legitimate excuse? What happens when you make people desperate?

00:09:13.680 What happens when you make even decent people who could never have even imagined themselves looting?

00:09:19.620 What happens when you make them considerate?

00:09:21.860 Because they need a loaf of bread for their kids and they have no way of buying it.

00:09:30.220 Now, this 15-day period is one thing, but if it goes exponentially longer than that, it's just

00:09:37.760 that is an option that cannot be on the table. We cannot open our arms and embrace exactly the kind

00:09:45.420 of catastrophe that the shutdowns are supposed to be preventing. Many lives will be ruined. Lives,

00:09:51.240 human lives. Now, I'm not sure that it will be entirely safe to go back to work after 15 days. I

00:09:58.920 think the 15-day period probably, I suspect, was sort of arbitrary, but we have no other choice if

00:10:03.900 we want to preserve our civilization. Does that mean that we fling open our doors and run outside and

00:10:08.680 start infecting each other with abandon? No, of course not. Here's the plan that I outlined yesterday.

00:10:14.260 I'll say it again and expand it a little bit. Tell me where I'm wrong here. Let's go over this one

00:10:19.240 more time. Step one, open the economy. Let young and healthy people feed their families. Step two,

00:10:25.260 encourage masks. Produce lots of masks. Get them out there and encourage them. Maybe even require

00:10:33.400 them for certain industries and certain situations where transmission might be especially likely

00:10:38.320 in areas where there might be large gatherings of people in a confined space. Maybe you say,

00:10:44.020 for a time, you have to wear a mask. Okay? Step three, keep nursing homes quarantined. Step four,

00:10:51.060 tell other at-risk people to remain in their homes from now. Step five, test aggressively. Quarantine

00:10:56.540 the infected. Step six, provide financial relief to at-risk people who cannot work.

00:11:02.140 We do all of those things. Now, I'm not saying that's going to solve the problem. I don't think

00:11:08.240 this is a problem that can be solved so much as managed at this point. But why wouldn't that manage

00:11:14.160 the problem? Okay? That's not doing nothing. I'm not saying that we do nothing. I certainly don't

00:11:19.460 think we should do nothing. I'm not someone saying that this is no big deal. We shouldn't even have to

00:11:23.900 worry about it. It's nothing but the flu, yada, yada. That's not my position. I think it is serious.

00:11:29.920 But crashing the economy and destroying millions of lives just cannot be a solution.

00:11:36.980 It's a form of collective suicide. It's killing the patient to stop the disease. You can't do that.

00:11:44.680 It can't be a solution. So what's another solution? What about this? This is not choosing

00:11:50.000 the economy or people. The economy is people. So if you hear that the economy is destroyed,

00:11:56.600 that means millions of people's lives are destroyed. That's what it means on the ground.

00:12:02.300 The economy is not some kind of separate entity that hovers above us, detached, uninvolved,

00:12:07.800 just up there. You say, hey, look at the economy. Hi, economy. The economy is not doing so well today.

00:12:12.480 Well, that's all right. We all comprise the economy. We're part of the economy.

00:12:20.000 So when I say I don't want the economy to crash, I mean that I don't want people's lives to crash.

00:12:27.960 Now, I've already said I would love it if in the long term, and by that I mean generations,

00:12:33.640 like probably many generations, but in the long term, I think we should work towards a society

00:12:39.620 and an economy that could actually withstand something like this, where people could

00:12:44.800 go a few weeks or several weeks or even a few months without buying a lot of stuff and we could

00:12:50.240 survive it. I think that that's, we should be working towards an economy like that over the long

00:12:56.660 term, an economy that is not so consumer based, an economy where people are more self-sufficient,

00:13:02.440 where there's a, where it's more focused on the home life and supporting the nuclear family than it is

00:13:07.940 on supporting retail shops and everything else. But that's, that's the long term. That's we,

00:13:13.260 you can't do that overnight, which is what we're trying to do now. You do it overnight

00:13:18.140 and you're going to have massive, massive suffering and death. But what we're hearing from the media,

00:13:24.800 especially left-wing media, is that anybody who expresses these concerns hates people, hates the

00:13:32.140 elderly, is cruel, is heartless. This is the rhetoric all over MSNBC, all over CNN. But let me give you

00:13:40.420 a, just a little taste of, of, of things that some people in the media and, and other blue checks

00:13:46.600 on Twitter, journalists and so on, have been saying to me, as I've been making these arguments on social

00:13:52.740 media, these are the kinds of responses I've been getting from, from these people. Just, just a few

00:13:58.940 examples. Says, uh, Matt can work from home, but all you expendable peasants get back to the front

00:14:04.860 line so the stock market doesn't crash anymore. F me, our society is terrible. Uh, another one,

00:14:11.340 another capitalist, well, I can't even read that. Uh, the, the, the implication is I'm a, I'm a capitalist

00:14:17.260 and, uh, I have a, a fetish for mass murder. That's what it's, it's said. This is, this is mass murder

00:14:22.540 that I'm advocating. Another one, we're going to hear this slimeball take a lot soon, but there's

00:14:28.920 too much money at stake to not let people get infected and die. Someone else. So throw the

00:14:34.420 bodies of service and industrial workers at the virus while people like Matt Walsh continue to

00:14:38.500 work from home because they can. Sorry, expendable young people, but capitalism would like to carry 1.00

00:14:44.560 on. So shut the F up and go back to work. Um, I care about people not dying. You're a fool. 0.99

00:14:53.400 So on and so on. You get the idea. If you, if you say that we don't want to, we have to take steps to 1.00

00:15:01.140 make sure there's not a depression. Uh, you don't, you, you don't care about people dying. You in fact

00:15:05.640 are in favor of mass murder. Uh, you're throwing young people and the elderly off a cliff, essentially

00:15:12.840 sacrificing them for your own bottom line, your 401k, your portfolio, your stock options and everything

00:15:19.100 else. Um, now I, I, I am saying not just me, lots of people are saying if the economy crashes,

00:15:27.980 if we become the first country ever in history that chooses to crash its own economy, the result

00:15:32.920 will be catastrophic for people, for working families, for parents who won't be able to feed

00:15:39.080 and clothe their children, not just for the stock market, not for portfolios, for people, actual people,

00:15:45.460 not just 401ks. Although by the way, uh, you know, 401ks are pretty important.

00:15:54.540 If all of our 401ks plummet, that's, that's, that's going to cause a lot of suffering to people,

00:15:59.820 not rich people, people who are relying on that. So that's, that's not a small thing.

00:16:05.260 This is what I'm talking about. People are dismissive. Ah, just, just a 401k. What are you

00:16:09.700 talking about? That's somebody's savings. They're relying on that to live on.

00:16:15.460 These are people. And, and whether you agree or not with the plan to end the shutdowns,

00:16:21.960 I don't believe that any rational person, any sane person could actually interpret this argument as an

00:16:28.680 argument for letting people die just for the sake of money. I don't believe that any person who claims

00:16:33.840 to hear it that way really does because you would have to be a lunatic to interpret it that way.

00:16:41.240 I think they're pretending. I think these people in media that are saying, oh, it's money over

00:16:48.300 people. I think they're pretending to see it that way. Why? Well, keep in mind, every person,

00:16:54.260 every, everyone who left one of those comments I just read, all of them and the pundits on,

00:16:59.380 on cable news, uh, they were, they're fine. They still have jobs. Either they work from home or they

00:17:07.540 can still go to their, uh, TV studio and do their job. They have an income stream. It's not shut off.

00:17:14.000 Like mine is not shut off. They're doing okay. Like me will be okay. Media is a booming business right

00:17:20.400 now. Now, sure. Eventually, if there's a great depression, it will probably destroy my life too.

00:17:26.680 So it's not like I have no skin in this game. Uh, you know, media depends on advertiser,

00:17:33.360 advertisers. And if you can't afford to advertise, if a bunch of companies all go down, can't advertise

00:17:37.500 anymore, then, uh, then that, then we're finished also. Now we have subscribers also, but if subscribers

00:17:44.200 have to choose between paying their subscriptions and paying for the rent, we know which one they're

00:17:49.620 going to choose and should choose. So I'm not immune. If this whole ship goes down, I'm in the water

00:17:54.880 with everybody else or nearly everybody else, but for now I'm okay. And so are all these people

00:18:02.320 pretending to care so much about people and yet completely ignoring the people, the millions of

00:18:08.220 people whose lives are being ruined right now. As we speak, not just ruined people will die. If the

00:18:16.100 economy collapses, people won't be able to afford to live and there will be suicide. A lot of it

00:18:25.260 studies show not surprisingly that suicide rates increase, uh, along with, uh, recessions as, as the

00:18:33.880 economy recedes, suicide rates increase. What will happen during a, a historic crash? Unlike anything

00:18:41.460 we've ever seen before, 40,000 people, according to an article I was just reading in the Atlantic,

00:18:46.540 40,000 people killed themselves in America in the years, 1937 and 1938, a few years after the

00:18:51.780 depression. Uh, and you would expect actually to see the suicide rate, maybe lagging behind a little

00:18:57.240 bit because people are hanging on for a while and then their whole lives go to hell. And that's when

00:19:02.840 you really see the suicide rate kick up. So the rate per a hundred thousand citizens back in 1937 and

00:19:07.960 1938, how that works out on that basis is the highest ever recorded suicide, homelessness, civil

00:19:15.520 unrest, looting. That's what we're looking at. And all of that equates to human beings suffering and

00:19:26.120 dying. The point here is so obvious. I don't mean that it's obvious that you should agree with me,

00:19:33.920 but just that the economic collapse obviously means suffering and death. And therefore people who

00:19:41.100 are saying we need to do everything we can to avoid that are trying to avoid suffering and death.

00:19:46.120 That is so obvious that those who are mischaracterizing this as money over people. Well,

00:19:51.860 as I said, I have no choice, but to assume they have some other motive and I can't figure out what

00:19:56.980 their motive would be. Either they're lunatics and they really just don't understand the really 0.68

00:20:02.560 simple concepts that are being put before, before them. You know, they're, they're, they're lunatics 1.00

00:20:07.780 or, or they have the IQ, they have, you know, room temperature IQs. And so they hear about another 0.99

00:20:14.400 great depression and they think, ah, that's nothing. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. You could,

00:20:19.300 we could shake that one off and keep going, rub some dirt on it. We'll be all right.

00:20:23.660 So either it's that they're extremely, extremely stupid or crazy, 1.00

00:20:27.460 or there's something else going on here. 1.00

00:20:34.100 And you begin to suspect that some of these people actually want the economy to collapse.

00:20:41.900 Not just because of how we'll hurt Trump. I mean, that's, that's certainly part of it.

00:20:47.680 But you even read, you heard some of those comments I read about capitalism.

00:20:51.580 There's a disturbing amount of that of, well, you'll see, this is what capitalism does. This

00:21:00.040 is capitalism's problem. I think there are some far left radicals who are thinking, okay,

00:21:06.200 let's crash the economy. Let's destroy capitalism. And then we can rebuild it, rebuild it into our

00:21:12.460 socialist utopia. I think there's some of that going on too.

00:21:16.500 Let's, let's move on to headlines. Five headlines. Number one, Nancy Pelosi last night introduced her 1.00

00:21:29.560 own stimulus package and people on the right are very upset because she put a lot of left-wing

00:21:34.580 pork into the bill, tried to use this crisis as a, as an opportunity to ram her ideological agenda 1.00

00:21:41.580 through. And people are upset. Yeah, it's bad. Honestly, though, it's so utterly expected and

00:21:48.660 predictable that I can't even muster the energy to be upset about it. I, I assume that's what

00:21:53.340 they're going to do. It's like getting upset at a fly for buzzing around your garbage. It's what a 0.98

00:21:58.660 fly does. How can you even, yeah, it's annoying, but to get angry, it's, it's hard to even get angry

00:22:04.020 about it. Here's the part that for me is, is most upsetting. Forget about the pork, her actual ideas for

00:22:10.380 stimulus itself. That's the bad part. So here's what she wants to do. Quick rundown. $1,500 checks

00:22:18.620 for individuals, $3,000 for joint filers, $1,500 per kid, up to three kids, max of $7,500 per family.

00:22:31.360 Every taxpayer gets a check. Okay. So far, so good. That part I think is actually better than what the

00:22:35.840 Republicans came up with. Here's, here's where we go off the rails. Individuals making 75k in 2020

00:22:42.500 will pay some or all of it back. Now, wait a second, pay it back. First of all, pay it back

00:22:50.180 at 75,000. 75,000 is not wealthy, especially depending on where you live. Like we talked

00:22:57.080 about with the Republican package. This is one of the problems with trying to do this kind of means

00:23:02.220 testing thing. It really depends on where you live. $75,000 around New York is not wealthy.

00:23:08.180 Okay. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're not living a luxurious life. And if you have kids and

00:23:13.260 you have a family, forget about it. So first of all, you set the limit at 75,000, but even the idea

00:23:19.500 that you got to pay it back. So this is not stimulus. This is not relief. This is debt.

00:23:26.280 You're, you're giving debt to American families. So to American family, you're giving them $7,000

00:23:32.680 of debt saying here's, here it is. We're going to need that back from you. And that becomes even

00:23:38.300 more absurd when you consider this is our own money. We're getting back. That's the way we

00:23:42.860 should think of this. It's the government preventing people from working. We're the ones who fund the

00:23:48.000 government. And so the government is saying, or should be saying, this is the way it is. It should

00:23:52.000 be framed. This is the reality. We're going to give you some of your own money back.

00:23:57.340 But now what they're saying is we're going to loan you back your own money that you gave us,

00:24:02.200 but you're going to have to repay your own money back to us that we gave you.

00:24:06.300 So you have to repay the repayment. I find that ridiculous. Number two, well, you've heard about 0.59

00:24:17.580 people panic buying toilet paper. What about panic buying Mountain Dew? I don't know if this video

00:24:23.380 will spark a run on the soda aisle. We'll see. But video has surfaced of a man in Kentucky yelling at

00:24:29.020 cashiers at a Kroger because they won't let him buy 500 and well, over 500 cans. I think it's 552 cans

00:24:36.240 of Mountain Dew that he wants to buy. They won't let him buy it. Apparently when the video picks up,

00:24:40.500 he'd already bought a whole bunch of boxes of Mountain Dew, put them in his car, had come back for

00:24:45.600 another round. And that's when he was told, okay, we're cutting you off. And now before I play this

00:24:52.760 clip, so we've got a guy trying to buy 552 cans of Mountain Dew. I want you to imagine in your head

00:25:00.680 what you think this guy will look like. This is always a fun game. A guy who tries to buy 552 cans

00:25:07.980 of Mountain Dew during a pandemic. That's what he's hoarding is Mountain Dew. Imagine that, just put his

00:25:14.000 image all in your mind. Sketch, sketch, sketch the, you know, do the little kind of police sketch in

00:25:20.860 your, in your mind of what this person looks like. Hold that image in your head. And here's the clip.

00:25:25.340 Straight up lie. What a liar. He's supposed to lose his mind over some. You're such a liar. 1.00

00:25:31.600 I was a Mountain Dew. I can't even have a time. I will. I'm telling you, you're such a liar. You just told me just now that I could go outside and come back in and get the drink. That's what you just said. But that's what you just told me. 0.99

00:25:45.200 You nailed it, didn't you? You had that guy pegged, especially the hairstyle. That is the hairstyle of a Mountain Dew drinker. And I, no disrespect. Okay. This is not any, because listen,

00:26:09.640 if you heard about a guy breaking down in tears at the liquor store because he wasn't allowed to buy 500 bottles of Goose Island IPA, you would expect him to look like this. This is what you would, in fact, you would expect him to be me. That's what you would expect.

00:26:23.180 So we all, we all look like what we drink, I suppose. And, uh, and so that's, that's, that's what that is. Um, all I can say though, is that this, the cashier saved that man's life because that much Mountain Dew would kill a whole herd of elephants, let alone a human being.

00:26:39.640 And I'm not even kidding. This one can of Mountain Dew has 46 grams of sugar and half the caffeine, uh, content of a, of a can of Red Bull. So you throw four or five of those back in a day.

00:26:53.720 Think about the amount of sugar and caffeine you have just put into your body. Also, there's the problem that Mountain Dew tastes like somebody mixed club soda and goat urine with half a pound of Splenda.

00:27:06.880 And that's the other problem. It's just, it's not my, not my favorite thing in the world. Number three, and the latest cancellation due to the China virus or, uh, postponement at any rate is the Olympics.

00:27:17.080 Reading from Fox News says the global spread of the coronavirus has forced the Tokyo Olympics to be postponed until next summer at the latest.

00:27:24.540 Uh, Japan's prime minister announced, he said that he and the international Olympic committee, president Thomas Bach came to an agreement to postpone the games.

00:27:32.840 The latest, the event can take place is the summer of 2021. Um, number four, people on social media are beginning to panic over another virus in China, the Hanta virus.

00:27:45.160 There was reports of a man dying on a bus. Now I mentioned this here and it was what I saw on social media. It was the number one trending thing, Hanta virus.

00:27:55.000 So I mentioned here only to tell you that if you did hear about it, there's no reason to freak out or worry. It is not spread from person to person says the CDC. It is not a pandemic kind of disease in that way.

00:28:05.360 So here's how you get it. You get it from interacting with the, the feces or urine of rats interacting with.

00:28:15.120 So don't do that. And that's a good, even without the Hanta virus, good general principle.

00:28:21.800 If you see the feces or urine of a rat, don't interact with it. I really wouldn't do anything with respect to it.

00:28:29.460 I don't interact. Don't have a conversation. Just, just keep on moving and you have to ask how, how did this guy get it?

00:28:38.400 Well, in fairness, you could get it from inhaling. So if you had a rat feces, if you had a feet, rat feces all over your floor, you were sweeping it up.

00:28:45.560 You could inhale it, get it that way, but they do also eat mice and rats over in that part of the world.

00:28:50.500 So who knows? And that's why China is sort of becoming a bit of a pandemic factory. 0.99

00:28:58.080 Number five, finally, this perhaps is less of a global news story and more, more of a, perhaps more sort of a, of a regional news story.

00:29:06.180 But I do have to report because I know you want to hear that the score is now two to zero against my wife in our quarantine board game duel. 0.91

00:29:15.480 A report suggests that we played Scrabble two nights ago, a game in which I surged back in a heroic come from behind victory.

00:29:23.520 Thanks in part to playing the word jeet on a triple word score.

00:29:28.160 The word jeet is a legitimate Scrabble word, G-I-T-E. 1.00

00:29:32.960 And as you know, it is a small furnished home in France. That's what everybody knows. That's what that means.

00:29:38.060 And I put that on a triple word. That's kind of how I sealed the deal at the end of the day.

00:29:41.460 I had to really dig deep into the Scrabble dictionary like that. And I did win the game.

00:29:46.600 And then last night we played Stratego, a game which I dominated from the very first, from the whistle, assassinating my wife's general, killing her spy, decimating all of her high ranking officers before dramatically capturing her flag in a show of strategic brilliance that I think will be studied by military schools for centuries to come.

00:30:06.900 Now, I know a lot of people are playing board games during quarantine and just be glad that you are not quarantined with me because I am widely regarded as the greatest board game champion, certainly in the country.

00:30:20.680 And when I say widely regarded that way, I mean that I regard myself that way. And I tell people this all the time.

00:30:26.220 And when they hear me say that, the first thing they probably think is, what a sad life this pitiful man must lead.

00:30:35.600 And that's probably true. But in any case, that's the headline. The news you were waiting to hear.

00:30:40.520 Now let's go on to our daily cancellation. Today we're canceling all of the media outlets that tried to blame President Trump for the fact that a couple in Arizona decided to drink parasite treatment for fish in order to prevent the coronavirus.

00:30:52.120 Now, the man unfortunately died. The woman, last I heard, is in critical care in the hospital. So it's very sad.

00:30:58.440 But they drank parasitic treatment for fish. And that's what happens.

00:31:04.460 Now, and this is very sad. As I said, it's not really newsworthy.

00:31:09.020 And it certainly has nothing to do with Trump.

00:31:11.620 But the media reported this story breathlessly last night because they thought they could pin it on Trump.

00:31:16.000 And here's the NBC report on it. And I'll show you this. You'll understand how they're trying to connect it to Trump.

00:31:22.060 I want you to also pay attention. How long does it take the reporter to mention that they didn't take the medicinal form of this drug they were looking for,

00:31:33.560 but they took it in the form of something that you would buy at PetSmart?

00:31:37.420 How long does it take him to actually mention that? Here's the clip.

00:31:39.980 One other development this morning. An Arizona man has died after he took chloroquine phosphate

00:31:45.980 because he believed that it would protect him from the coronavirus.

00:31:49.520 You may recall the president has been talking about chloroquine in a tablet form, which is a malaria drug,

00:31:55.560 which he believes could, in fact, help people who are struggling with the coronavirus.

00:32:00.800 We talked to this man's wife, who is now also in the ICU, about how and why he took this particular chloroquine phosphate.

00:32:08.260 Did you see the president's press conference? Where did you hear about?

00:32:13.800 Yeah. Yeah. We saw his press conference. It was on a lot, actually.

00:32:21.140 And then what? And then what? Did you seek out chloroquine?

00:32:27.080 I had it in my house because I used to have koi fish.

00:32:30.440 So this particular form of it that he took was used to kill parasites and fish, apparently.

00:32:37.920 As you know, the FDA is looking at whether chloroquine could be used.

00:32:42.200 It's a malaria drug, could be used to help people with coronavirus, but not in a raw form,

00:32:46.920 certainly not in the form that you would use to kill fish parasites.

00:32:50.080 Okay. Trump mentioned chloroquine. They were looking for that and they took some.

00:32:58.540 And then when we're well into the news report, we're about a minute in.

00:33:02.900 That's when the reporter says, oh, yeah, by the way, it was a fish treatment.

00:33:06.820 It was parasite treatment fish. That's that's what they took. 0.99

00:33:09.200 It wasn't a medicine.

00:33:10.300 So this would be like if I said that drinking an alcoholic beverage at night can reduce stress.

00:33:20.660 And then you went home and drank a gallon of nail polish remover and died and everybody blamed me.

00:33:27.580 Or if I said that petroleum jelly is a good way to treat.

00:33:33.040 If you have dry skin, use some petroleum jelly.

00:33:35.820 And then you went home and or you went to the gas station and smeared gasoline all over your face and went blind.

00:33:42.120 And everybody blamed me. 0.99

00:33:43.800 It's just it's completely ridiculous and cynical and exploitative. 0.83

00:33:48.720 That reporter, NBC, the rest of the media that was doing this, they're exploiting the suffering of these people. 0.87

00:33:53.680 And not only that, but they're they're taking these people, this this woman who just lost her husband,

00:33:59.540 exploiting her and they're traipsing her out in front of the world to be laughed at, which is what happened.

00:34:06.100 Now you get all these people on social media laughing at them, mocking them, which is inevitable with something like this. 0.70

00:34:13.400 And of course, it is an enormously foolish thing to do, obviously.

00:34:17.080 But at the same time, somebody died.

00:34:18.560 So it's a very sad thing.

00:34:21.180 I can see this being a news story locally in Arizona.

00:34:24.620 Maybe the local Arizona affiliate will pick it up.

00:34:26.920 But it's this is not national news.

00:34:29.120 The media doesn't care, though.

00:34:33.520 We're going to take these people, use them as pawns, use their suffering as pawns, put them out in front of the world to be laughed at and mocked.

00:34:41.080 All for the sake of landing a blow on Trump. 0.98

00:34:44.300 It's despicable. 0.97

00:34:46.380 Evil.

00:34:47.660 Let's go on to emails.

00:34:49.980 And if you become a Daily Wire member, you can always send an email to the mailbag.

00:34:53.560 So I would encourage you to do that.

00:34:55.140 This is an email from Stan says, hi, Matt.

00:34:56.900 I need to address the nearly hairless elephant in the room.

00:35:00.140 What happened to your beard, man?

00:35:02.100 You do the show on Monday with your luscious beard almost completely gone and don't even offer an explanation.

00:35:06.580 I feel betrayed.

00:35:07.700 You are no longer a fellow beardsman.

00:35:09.940 I do not know you.

00:35:12.520 First of all, Stan, can I say, I don't mean to deflect, but please do not ever describe something on my body as luscious.

00:35:19.680 It is simply not a word that men should ever be using in reference to each other.

00:35:24.180 But you're right, of course, it is a luscious beard.

00:35:26.320 Or it was.

00:35:27.720 Honestly, I have no defense.

00:35:29.320 I can only throw myself at the feet of the beardsman council and beg for your indulgence, which is a thing, by the way, as we all know, for your indulgence and forgiveness.

00:35:37.480 All I can say is it was a moment of quarantine-induced mania, or QIM, as it's called now in the psychiatric community.

00:35:47.860 And here's all that happened.

00:35:49.120 I was getting ready for the day.

00:35:50.280 I'm going a little stir-crazy like everybody else is, getting ready for the day.

00:35:52.700 I'm in the bathroom.

00:35:54.280 On a whim, I grabbed the clippers and I sheared my beard right off.

00:36:00.200 I don't know why.

00:36:01.600 I really don't know why I did it.

00:36:03.080 And then when I realized what I had done, I dropped the clippers.

00:36:08.680 It was a very dramatic moment.

00:36:09.660 I dropped them.

00:36:10.800 I stared in the mirror in shock.

00:36:13.860 I said, oh, God, what have I done?

00:36:16.860 I broke down on the floor, weeping hysterically.

00:36:21.380 Then my wife came in. 1.00

00:36:22.460 She found me sobbing in the fetal position on the floor and said, again? 0.85

00:36:27.940 It was just a bad time all around.

00:36:29.360 It was a really bad time.

00:36:30.220 But all I can do is try to grow the beard back.

00:36:33.540 And I'm also afraid that, because we hear about how beards spread disease during the coronavirus,

00:36:37.760 I'm afraid that I have contributed to the stigma of beards by trimming mine during a pandemic.

00:36:43.720 I didn't intend to do that.

00:36:45.020 I want to make that very clear.

00:36:47.020 This is from Owen.

00:36:47.840 Says, hello, Matt.

00:36:48.480 Longtime listener.

00:36:49.180 This is our why you're wrong email for the day.

00:36:51.880 This is from Owen.

00:36:52.500 Says, hello, Matt.

00:36:53.260 Longtime listener and fan of your show.

00:36:54.440 I disagree with your takes often, but very much enjoy listening to the logical presentations

00:36:57.740 of the arguments you make, which forces me and your other listeners to think critically

00:37:01.800 about our own arguments with regards to our core beliefs, which I think too many people

00:37:04.780 engage in.

00:37:05.900 Too few people engage in, we should say.

00:37:08.520 My question is in regards to what you said on your show today.

00:37:11.600 You said that the mitigation of the loss of a single life is not worth the economic hardship

00:37:15.160 that would befall everybody, given the alternative that the government is currently implementing.

00:37:18.960 On a microeconomic level, how exactly is this different than an individual who has fallen

00:37:22.720 on economically hard times deciding to get an abortion simply for the sake of the economic

00:37:26.420 gain received by doing so?

00:37:28.220 You said that there's obviously a line, a number of human lives lost in which the argument

00:37:31.700 would tip to one side or the other.

00:37:33.980 But this kind of cold utilitarianism seems generally out of line with the moral arguments

00:37:38.860 that you yourself often make regarding the inherent value and preciousness of human life.

00:37:43.860 To put simply, are there any conditions in terms of an individual's economics under which

00:37:50.400 you would condone an abortion?

00:37:52.720 And if not, how is this any different than a larger scale version, albeit much larger,

00:37:57.860 of a similar scenario playing out right now in which you say that a certain number of deaths

00:38:02.100 are acceptable if it keeps millions out of poverty?

00:38:05.260 The death of a single individual is unacceptable for the economic gain of the individual, but

00:38:09.440 the death of thousands is acceptable for the economic gain of millions?

00:38:14.360 Is it just the scale alone?

00:38:16.520 What if a thousand abortions happen for the economic gain of millions? 1.00

00:38:19.200 I don't know exactly how that would be the case, but you see my point, obviously.

00:38:25.140 Well, so there are a few things there.

00:38:26.900 Good question.

00:38:28.400 Good point.

00:38:29.140 I think there are a few things to consider.

00:38:32.280 And so we've got kind of a ends justify the means versus principle of double effect thing

00:38:39.840 here, which we've talked about on the show before, because it seems to come up a lot,

00:38:43.320 these ethical disputes and quandaries.

00:38:45.920 There's a big difference, okay?

00:38:49.540 A number of differences, but let's focus on one.

00:38:52.660 An abortion is the direct intentional killing of a human life. 0.62

00:38:56.940 You are directly taking human life.

00:38:58.980 You're killing somebody.

00:39:00.960 What I would say is that it is never okay.

00:39:03.560 It is never ethical.

00:39:04.500 It is never moral to directly kill an innocent human life.

00:39:09.080 Never okay.

00:39:12.100 There could never be any benefit that would make it okay, because it's inherently wrong.

00:39:19.520 And I don't care if killing one person will make everybody else in the world millionaires.

00:39:23.720 Doesn't matter.

00:39:24.820 That couldn't even begin to make it okay.

00:39:26.880 But what we're talking about here, with the plan that I'm proposing, others are proposing,

00:39:35.040 if we start to open the economy up, we take steps, we take precautions to try to stave off

00:39:38.820 a mass outbreak that kills a lot of people, we're not talking about directly killing people.

00:39:44.140 I'm not saying that we... 0.89

00:39:45.660 See, the analogy would be if I was suggesting that we go and just kill everybody who has the disease 0.99

00:39:50.780 in order to stop others from getting it. 0.99

00:39:52.360 That obvious...

00:39:53.760 Now, even if I could prove to you and I could show that doing that would be economically beneficial

00:40:00.300 and would be beneficial to public health, which maybe it would be, that obviously would

00:40:06.940 be gravely immoral and psychotic. 0.62

00:40:10.440 But we're not talking about that.

00:40:12.940 We're talking about doing our best in a difficult situation to preserve as many lives as we can.

00:40:22.360 while also staving off suffering and the collapse of human civilization, of American civilization,

00:40:30.440 as much as we can.

00:40:31.320 So those are the two things we're trying to balance.

00:40:35.380 We're not directly killing anybody.

00:40:38.940 So directly killing someone, an innocent person, because you think it's going to benefit you

00:40:43.140 or benefit others, that is an ends justify the means approach, which is wrong.

00:40:48.140 What we're talking about here is more a double effect situation, where I'm saying we do a good thing.

00:40:55.200 The good thing is allowing people to work and feed their families.

00:40:58.680 Good thing.

00:41:00.400 Which may possibly have a negative, even a potentially very negative side effect.

00:41:06.960 But we're not doing the negative thing in order for the good thing to happen.

00:41:12.940 We're doing the good thing, knowing that a negative thing may come from it.

00:41:18.320 Which is the same calculation.

00:41:19.780 Now, those who are saying, let's keep it locked down, they're making the exact same calculation.

00:41:24.580 They're saying, okay, we're going to keep it locked down to try to save lives,

00:41:27.380 even though it's going to crash our economy and many millions of people will suffer and die because of that.

00:41:34.360 So either way, you're stuck with that kind of calculation.

00:41:39.840 And I don't think that whichever way you go, either way is necessarily inherently immoral.

00:41:44.400 I just think that it's certainly a lot more prudent and will probably be more effective

00:41:50.020 and will preserve more lives and stave off more suffering if we go the route of opening things up again

00:41:59.380 and taking the precautions that I just mentioned.

00:42:02.740 So hopefully that explains it.

00:42:04.360 And that's why I keep wanting to emphasize that I don't think we have to choose between

00:42:11.220 opening the economy and trying to prevent an outbreak.

00:42:16.060 I think that's a false choice.

00:42:19.220 I think we can do both.

00:42:20.800 I think there is a way to do both.

00:42:24.500 And if we begin from the premise of ruling out any strategy that would essentially,

00:42:32.280 would almost certainly result in the destruction of our economy,

00:42:36.560 if we rule that out to begin with, which I think we should,

00:42:38.740 because the cost there is just far too great,

00:42:42.100 then we could start thinking about other ways.

00:42:45.200 And I think there are other ways.

00:42:46.380 I've suggested one.

00:42:48.520 There are other ways of doing it too.

00:42:51.400 There are even other rather strict and arguably draconian laws that could be put in place

00:42:58.000 while still allowing people to work and feed their families.

00:43:00.840 I mentioned the thing about the mask.

00:43:02.020 There are some people suggesting there should be a nationwide mask law

00:43:06.980 that everybody has to wear masks when they go outside.

00:43:09.540 Now, I'm not suggesting that.

00:43:11.480 I don't know how that would be enforced.

00:43:12.660 I also don't think we have enough masks to even do that.

00:43:15.520 And I would worry about depriving the hospitals of masks where they really need it.

00:43:18.980 But I would certainly take that over causing a Great Depression.

00:43:25.520 That would obviously, to me, be exponentially better.

00:43:32.140 So even that, if you're inclined to support the more draconian governmental measures,

00:43:38.680 why don't you start thinking in that direction?

00:43:42.460 All right.

00:43:43.000 But thanks for the email.

00:43:43.720 Thanks, everybody, for watching and listening.

00:43:45.120 We'll leave it there.

00:43:46.200 Godspeed.

00:43:55.520 Friends to subscribe as well.

00:43:56.680 We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, we're there.

00:44:01.000 Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro Show,

00:44:04.580 Michael Knowles Show, and the Andrew Klavan Show.

00:44:06.980 Thanks for listening.

00:44:07.580 The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring,

00:44:12.560 supervising producer Mathis Glover, supervising producer Robert Sterling,

00:44:16.640 technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Danny D'Amico, audio mixer Robin Fenderson.

00:44:21.880 The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:44:26.780 House and Senate Democrats torpedo a bipartisan coronavirus relief bill, raising an important

00:44:31.560 question.

00:44:32.540 If elected Democrats aren't taking the pandemic seriously, why should we?

00:44:36.620 We will examine the political shenanigans and the light at the end of the economic tunnel.

00:44:40.940 Then the mainstream media spread a story of a man dying from the drug touted by President

00:44:44.960 Trump as a possible cure for coronavirus.

00:44:47.620 The only problem with their story is it's completely false.

00:44:50.740 We'll take a look at what really happened.

00:44:53.100 Check it out on The Michael Knowles Show.

The Matt Walsh Show - March 24, 2020

Ep. 451 - Destroying The Economy Is Not A Good Way To Save Lives

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