The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 455 - Wannabe Tyrants Take Advantage Of The Crisis

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, governments at every level are seizing essentially unlimited power for

00:00:05.480 themselves during this crisis. Should we be cooperating with this? That's the question we'll

00:00:09.680 tackle. Also, five headlines, including another 30 days tacked on to the shutdowns, at least

00:00:16.260 another 30 days. Can the economy actually survive that long? Plus our daily cancellation and much

00:00:21.720 more all coming up. All right. So first of all, by the way, what are you guys doing about? I was

00:00:27.620 thinking about this this morning. What are you doing about hair, haircuts and everything?

00:00:32.320 Because I'm on the verge of letting my wife cut my hair for me because I don't know how much longer

00:00:37.480 this is going to go on. And I was thinking, and I really have no commentary to offer on this,

00:00:41.400 except to say that when you consider hair barbershops and salons shut down for as long as

00:00:47.020 they've been shut down on top of men growing quarantine beards on top of people just not

00:00:52.940 grooming themselves in general because they feel like they're not going to be around anybody other

00:00:57.260 than their own family. And who cares if you're a disgusting mess around your family? I would say 0.99

00:01:01.620 we are certainly at the perhaps the hairiest point in our history. This may be our hairiest moment,

00:01:08.060 at least in modern history. So that's an interesting fact just to enter into the record books.

00:01:13.480 But I would be I would like to know what everyone is doing about the haircutting situation. That's

00:01:19.100 I do believe we should try to be self-sufficient. That's one thing, though, that's difficult to be

00:01:24.120 self-sufficient with that. All right. Now, I have argued extensively that shutting down the economy,

00:01:29.240 locking people in their homes, causing record setting unemployment, etc. These are not the

00:01:34.140 right measures to take to slow the spread of the virus. We're ruining the lives and livelihoods of

00:01:38.640 many millions. People were plunging into an economic crash, unlike anything we've ever seen before,

00:01:42.900 all to accomplish something that seems to me could be accomplished, perhaps arguably in less

00:01:49.220 costly ways. But there's another aspect to these shutdowns, one that I haven't been focused on

00:01:54.740 quite as much because to me, the economic fallout is the most seems to be the most urgent problem.

00:02:00.860 But this is very significant as well, of course, that the government, both at the federal and local

00:02:05.420 level, is claiming for itself more and more power each day that in many cases, it does not actually

00:02:13.800 legally possess. It doesn't have this power. It's just claimed it for itself. So let me give you a few

00:02:19.160 examples of this, and we'll go from least serious to most, because something that is happening in

00:02:25.980 New York City or might happen in New York City is just way beyond any kind of bounds. We'll get to

00:02:35.100 that in a second. But a few examples from the past 24 to 48 hours. Someone posted this picture to

00:02:41.240 Twitter. We're not told where this is exactly, but it says, has it come to this? Businesses being told

00:02:47.200 to block off non-essential items they're not allowed to sell. Do we realize how dangerous this

00:02:51.960 is to allow the government to dictate what's essential and what isn't? We've seen what they

00:02:56.560 consider healthy. Slippery slopes here. And we see in the picture, yellow tape blocking off some of

00:03:04.340 the aisles. One of the aisles appears to be selling blankets and pillows, from what I can tell. The other

00:03:10.720 has toys. We can't tell what else is being blocked off. Now, like I said, we don't know where this is,

00:03:16.780 but I do know one place where this is happening. I'm not sure if this picture is from there or not.

00:03:21.420 But according to Fox 59, officials in Howard County, Indiana, have ordered essential stores,

00:03:27.720 stores that are deemed essential because they sell essential items, to stop selling items that are not

00:03:32.740 essential. So they can be open. They can sell the essential items. They can't sell the not-essential

00:03:36.460 items. The Howard County Board of Commissioners has decreed that the following items are not

00:03:41.560 essential. Jewelry, furniture, home and lawn decor, toys or games, carpets, rugs, flooring,

00:03:50.600 non-emergency appliances, music, books, magazines, crafted art supplies, paint, entertainment electronics.

00:03:57.840 All of those are not essential. Okay, now, the first problem that immediately springs to mind here

00:04:04.380 is that if you're trapped inside, especially if you have kids, toys and games and craft supplies

00:04:12.240 are pretty damned essential, it seems to me. They're essential to the psychological health of

00:04:18.200 your children and your own psychological health as a parent, most importantly. I mean, the kids are

00:04:23.240 trapped inside. They're not allowed. In many places, you can't even take them to a park. You can't take

00:04:28.600 them to a playground. And especially if you live in a suburban area. Now, fortunately, we live more

00:04:34.640 out in the country, so there's plenty of places for them to go outside and run around. But if you don't

00:04:38.520 have that, then what the hell are your kids going to do? You can park them in front of the TV, I guess,

00:04:42.500 for hours at a time, days on end. But it's good to have things like games and toys and that sort of

00:04:48.080 thing, so the kids have something to do. I would consider that pretty essential. I mean, at least

00:04:52.180 it's not as essential as like water, but it's more essential than, say, a lot of the snack foods that

00:04:58.680 a grocery store would sell. I assume like ice cream and cookies and that sort of thing. I assume those

00:05:04.800 are still being sold, right? So what's more essential for a kid during a quarantine? Cookies and ice cream

00:05:10.440 or, you know, arts and craft supplies? I know what he would say is more essential to him, what the young

00:05:18.000 child would say, but as a parent, what would you consider to be the more essential resources

00:05:22.060 to have at your disposal for your kids? So what? We've decided that all food items,

00:05:28.880 or we haven't decided this, in this case, this board of commissioners has decided that all food

00:05:33.160 items are essential, but most everything aside from that is not. Based on what logic? How have

00:05:40.560 they come to this conclusion? And the other question, of course, is how does it significantly

00:05:46.280 increase the danger of infection or of spread? If I'm already in the store and I've been walking

00:05:53.820 around the food aisles and then I stop by on the way to the, on the way to the cash register, I stop

00:05:58.620 by in the game aisle really quick and grab Monopoly. If I've managed to navigate the food aisles without

00:06:04.600 getting sick or without spreading a sickness to other people, then isn't it safe to assume I can repeat

00:06:10.180 that feat for another minute or two as I go to a different aisle of the store? The thing is, all

00:06:16.260 those questions are sort of irrelevant. The real question is this, how does the board of commissioners

00:06:21.720 in a county have the authority to decide what, which individual items are essential and which are not,

00:06:29.680 and then to prohibit the items that they have deemed inessential? Yes, local governments have the

00:06:35.740 authority to issue quarantines under certain circumstances, but how do they have the authority

00:06:39.960 to impose these kinds of very specific, subjective, arbitrary preferences on the public? So according

00:06:48.600 to them, they're going to say, no, the snack food is more essential than the board game.

00:06:53.580 That's what, okay, you say that. Is that, is there any science behind that? Is there any kind of,

00:06:59.480 that's just, you've just decided that. You as a person in government, in very local government,

00:07:05.240 have decided that. Why should that matter? Why should you be able to decide these kinds of

00:07:11.600 things just because there's a virus? Could, could they actually start whittling down the food aisle

00:07:18.040 too? Could they say, okay, uh, no, even, you know, you can't just go in there and buy food with that,

00:07:24.360 that's too much freedom. So here are the approved food items that you're allowed to buy. And we're

00:07:29.880 going to post a police officers outside the grocery store. And when you come out, we're going to check

00:07:34.580 your bags, make sure you only have approved food items. If you have an unapproved item, it's going

00:07:37.940 to be confiscated. Could they do that? It seems like, yes, they can. Now, I mean, legally, I would

00:07:44.400 say they can't, but that is a power that we apparently are willing to give them lawfully or not.

00:07:52.360 Um, and then it raises other questions too. Like, uh, if, if, uh, if, if they can do this because of a

00:08:03.600 health crisis, like a virus, well then what about in normal times? Couldn't they say we have a health

00:08:10.540 crisis of obesity and heart disease, and therefore you're prohibited from selling, if you're a grocery

00:08:16.180 store, you're prohibited from selling, you know, such and such food items that contribute to that

00:08:20.980 crisis? Couldn't they say that? Again, I would say legally, I don't see how they could, but this

00:08:27.680 apparently is a power that we're giving them or that we're going to allow them to take.

00:08:33.740 Where does it go from there? Before we move on, um, I want to tell you about Noom. And I think this is a

00:08:40.820 very important thing as we're talking about food and everything, and especially as people are locked down

00:08:44.160 and you're not, uh, getting as much exercise and everything that you normally would be getting,

00:08:49.160 it's even more important to be healthy, you know, and that's what Noom is all about. It's all about

00:08:54.860 making healthy decisions about, about helping you adjust your lifestyle, get into healthy habits.

00:08:59.760 That's what I've found to be so important about, about Noom is the, is the way that it helps me form

00:09:04.780 good habits because I know I get stuck in really bad habits and I'm struggling with that now,

00:09:09.600 especially I'm snacking a lot, you know, because you're bored. A lot of it is boredom snacking or,

00:09:13.400 you know, just the stuff is there. You're, you've got extra food in the house. You're trying

00:09:17.640 to stay, keep, keep supplied. And so you have to kind of ration it. Um, and, uh, Noom can help with

00:09:23.380 that as well. It helps, it helps you understand the psychology behind better decision-making to

00:09:28.020 make you smarter and put you in charge with moderation over restriction. You know, it's not

00:09:32.260 like there's good food or bad food or off limits food. It's just about, it's just about that. It's about

00:09:36.900 moderating and about having a strategy and how you eat, you know, not just jumping in, diving in head

00:09:42.500 first as I can tend to do. Um, now you could join the Noom community, uh, pair up with a virtual coach

00:09:47.800 to plan your strategy, to reach your goals. Your personal coach and the Noom community are there to

00:09:51.880 keep you in check and inspire you along the way. If you crave more knowledge and Noom's blogs and

00:09:57.040 supplementary materials are there to satisfy your curiosity and make your health goals even more

00:10:01.260 attainable. So shut off all the noise and sign up for your trial today at Noom.com slash Walsh.

00:10:06.580 That's N-O-O-M.com slash Walsh. Get personalized guidance at Noom.com slash Walsh. That's Noom.com

00:10:14.000 slash Walsh. N-O-O-M.com slash Walsh. Okay. So meanwhile, over in the UK, this is in the UK,

00:10:21.040 but it's still relevant if you're in the United States, a tweet from the Warrington Police Department.

00:10:25.600 It says, overnight, six people have been summonsed for offenses relating to the new coronavirus

00:10:30.500 legislation to protect the public. These included out for a drive due to boredom,

00:10:34.740 returning from parties, multiple people from the same household going to the shops for non-essential

00:10:41.780 items. These are people that have broken the new laws, that very important law of not driving out

00:10:50.160 of boredom. Now, how do they know that people are out driving because of boredom or because they're

00:10:58.420 returning from a party? How do they know that? Well, I would assume it's because they're pulling

00:11:02.020 people over at random and asking them where they're going and why. I don't know how else they

00:11:06.980 could possibly know it. And then ticketing them if the reason is not approved by the government.

00:11:14.520 Again, there's a million problems here. Just one that I'll point to briefly is,

00:11:20.000 how does this not increase the risk of spread?

00:11:24.140 You know, you've got someone just going out for a drive, assuming they're obeying all the traffic

00:11:29.860 laws. Now, if they're not obeying the laws, if they're speeding or being reckless,

00:11:33.420 then give them a ticket for that. But assuming they're obeying the laws and not putting anybody

00:11:37.760 in jeopardy, they're in their car, how are they going to spread the virus? Is it going to be like

00:11:44.060 a drive-by spread? Are you afraid they're going to roll the window down and start coughing on random

00:11:48.180 pedestrians as they drive by? Now, even if they did that, the chances that they would actually 1.00

00:11:54.140 spread it that way seem to be slim to none. But again, if they do that somehow, if this is a crazed

00:11:59.680 biological terrorist trying to spread the disease, then, you know, arrest them for that. 0.73

00:12:05.900 But if they're in the car and they're going for a drive out of boredom, I just don't see how

00:12:10.100 they're putting anybody at risk. Now, you could say, well, they could get into an accident,

00:12:13.800 even if they're obeying all the traffic laws, there's a possibility of getting into an accident.

00:12:18.980 Okay, yeah, there's a possibility. And then there's a risk of spread there.

00:12:22.980 But where does that possibility come from? It comes because you got into an accident

00:12:27.220 and now you have to have an interaction with the police, probably if it's a fender bender or even

00:12:32.000 with the, you know, maybe you end up in the hospital. But so your way of mitigating that

00:12:37.020 is to guarantee that every time someone gets in a car, now they're going to have an interaction

00:12:41.520 with police because you're pulling them over. So the police have to interact. And the reason the

00:12:47.180 police are doing that is because if they don't do it, then there may be more interactions with police

00:12:53.180 and then it doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense whatsoever. There's no reason to do this

00:12:59.780 other than we have the power to do it. Now, back to the U.S. And I think the worst example of government

00:13:05.960 overreach that we've seen here yet. This is, well, I'll let him speak for himself. This is Mayor

00:13:12.380 Bill de Blasio in New York. Listen.

00:13:14.900 Everyone has been instructed that if they see worship services going on, they will go to the

00:13:23.140 officials of that congregation. They'll inform them they need to stop the services and disperse.

00:13:28.540 If that does not happen, they will take additional action up to the point of fines and potentially

00:13:35.340 closing the building permanently. Okay. So there you go. There's Bill de Blasio.

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00:15:29.840 so that they know that we sent you? All right. So Bill de Blasio says that if you have a worship

00:15:37.820 center open, it'll be closed, perhaps permanently. He might close it permanently, as in you can never

00:15:46.140 open it again. Bill de Blasio thinks he has the authority to close churches and synagogues permanently

00:15:52.400 if they don't comply with his demands. By the way, notice how he singles out churches and synagogues.

00:15:57.960 You didn't hear it in that clip. You can kind of tell based on the context that that's what he's

00:16:01.920 talking about. But you didn't hear in that clip. But he also said, quote, if you go to your synagogue,

00:16:10.060 if you go to your church and attempt to hold services after being told so often not to,

00:16:14.760 our enforcement agents will have no choice but to shut down those services. I don't say that with

00:16:19.140 any joy. It's the last thing I'd like to do because I understand how important people's faiths are.

00:16:23.200 That's the old, this hurts me more than it hurts you thing, right? That you hear from abusive

00:16:28.200 spouses or parents. Church or synagogue, he says. Church or synagogue. What's missing here?

00:16:35.580 What type of worship building did he not mention specifically? Isn't there another one that you

00:16:41.360 might find in New York? Oh, yeah. Mosques. So what? Are mosques allowed to continue operating? 1.00

00:16:47.140 Now, de Blasio, whether we're including mosques or not, at least with churches and synagogues,

00:16:55.960 he says we can close them permanently. Does he have the constitutional authority to do that?

00:17:01.680 Can he completely override the First Amendment in the name of keeping us safe? Can he just toss it

00:17:06.880 out like it doesn't exist? No, he can't. And if he were to try to do this, if he were to actually

00:17:13.120 try to close down places of worship permanently because they're not complying with his demands,

00:17:19.900 well, all I'll say about that is that the founding fathers would recommend armed revolt

00:17:24.360 in a case such as that. And I would not be one to argue with those recommendations.

00:17:31.620 That's all I'll say.

00:17:34.980 Now, we have to ask ourselves, what do we think this is about?

00:17:38.040 The government officials, who are threatening to close down churches forever,

00:17:43.800 trying to decide what items a store can sell, having drivers pulled over and questioned,

00:17:49.740 telling their citizens they can't go for long walks outside, giving them a time limit

00:17:53.620 on the amount of time they're allowed to spend outside, as the mayor of Chicago has done,

00:17:57.260 and other places as well that's happening. Do we think this is all about their undying passion

00:18:02.640 to protect the public? Is this about them being public servants that are really into safety and

00:18:09.280 just have a great compassion and a passion for protecting people? Or is this a power trip by

00:18:17.100 out-of-control narcissists? Just look at the facial expression of Bill de Blasio as he's talking about

00:18:22.680 this. You can even see this kind of smirk on his face because he loves this. He loves being able to say

00:18:27.680 this. Especially someone like de Blasio, that he's able to get up there and threaten to shut down

00:18:33.520 churches. He loves every minute of that. He's enjoying that. What we find, yet again, as we have

00:18:41.620 been warned, as the cliche goes about power and how it corrupts, when you hand people basically unlimited

00:18:49.340 power, as we've done during this pandemic, it will be abused. It will be used for purposes that have

00:18:55.460 nothing to do with public safety or anything like that. And the other problem is we're not going to

00:19:03.880 be able to get everything back that we gave up. That's another thing that we have learned. The

00:19:11.100 government never temporarily seizes power. That never happens. It will always retain at least

00:19:17.200 a piece of the power that it took for a, quote, temporary measure, and usually the most important piece.

00:19:24.140 And before long, people just get used to it and don't really ask questions anymore.

00:19:31.500 Or after a while, if you do question it, you're seen as sort of a radical, sort of a,

00:19:36.520 I mean, just think about 9-11, all the different ways that happened. Just one example would be

00:19:42.860 the government decided it had the authority to set up these government agents in every airport.

00:19:52.400 And if you want to get on an airplane, now you have to submit to whatever amount of searching

00:19:58.020 they decide they want to do. Up to and including groping you in your genital region if they decide 0.98

00:20:06.200 that's what they're going to do. Now, when the government first started doing this, people 0.52

00:20:11.720 protested and reacted the way you would expect people to react. When the government just declares

00:20:17.200 that, you know what, we can do this now. If you want to get on a plane, you're essentially a

00:20:21.360 suspected terrorist, and the Bill of Rights is, at least for the time you're going through TSA,

00:20:29.400 is suspended, and we can search you, and that's it. Even though you're not specifically suspected

00:20:34.540 of a crime, there's no reasonable suspicion. The fact that you want to get on a plane is reason

00:20:39.860 enough. At first, people protested it. But now, everyone's kind of gotten used to it,

00:20:46.080 and they complain a little bit. But if you actually suggest, if you actually get up there,

00:20:50.800 as I have, and really propose that we should get rid of TSA and go back to allowing the airports to do

00:20:58.700 their own security, because by the way, 9-11 was not really a failure of airport security. It was a

00:21:04.660 failure of government. Government had many opportunities to catch these guys before they

00:21:10.340 did what they did. The government failed. And because of the government's failures, the government

00:21:15.000 gets to take more power. Only in government does it work that way. You fail, and you get more power.

00:21:20.380 Your punishment is you get more power. But now, people protested at first, didn't like it.

00:21:26.260 Gradually, they got used to it. And now we're at a point where, if you actually suggest we

00:21:31.920 shouldn't have this, which is what, you know, like half the country or more, back when TSA was

00:21:38.380 first proposed and first initiated, the majority of people would have said, no, no, no, we can't do it.

00:21:43.260 But now, if you really propose that we shouldn't have TSA, most people are going to look at you

00:21:47.140 like you're some kind of crazy libertarian, because they get used to it. How many things that are

00:21:54.000 happening right now are we going to just get used to as a part of life? How many of the things that we

00:22:01.600 all recognize as dramatic seizures of power now? Will we, 10 years from now, accept as normal?

00:22:10.400 And so that if someone complains about it 10 years from now, they're seen as crazy, radical,

00:22:14.360 libertarian, basically anarchists. That's a very serious question we need to ask ourselves.

00:22:24.420 All right, before we go to headlines, if you haven't had a chance to see some of our new content called

00:22:27.840 All Access Live, you should head over to dailywire.com, check it out. We unveiled it a few weeks

00:22:32.740 ago, and it's a more normal, it's a kind of more relaxed programming style, and we're sitting there

00:22:38.760 having a conversation, kind of a Q&A, but I don't really like to call it a Q&A, because that makes

00:22:43.080 it sound even more formal than it is, and I really enjoy doing it. I'll be doing it again on Wednesday,

00:22:47.600 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific. And all you do is you come by, and like I said, we're all sort of

00:22:55.480 isolated and quarantined, and this is a time for us to have a conversation. The show was originally

00:22:59.760 intended for our All Access members, but during this national emergency and time of isolation,

00:23:03.740 we've opened it up to all of our members, and in doing so, accelerated the launch. So please

00:23:08.440 join us, let us know what you think about it, we'd love to get your feedback, and if you're around at

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00:23:18.480 Now, to headlines. Number one, to get the economy, the idea of getting the economy up and going again

00:23:26.780 by Easter is now officially out the window, it seems. Trump yesterday said that social distancing

00:23:32.000 guidelines will be extended in another 30 days, but Trump also says that that's okay because we've

00:23:39.920 saved 2 million lives already through these measures. Now, I'm not sure if Trump is aware of

00:23:46.020 this or not, but the model that he's using to come to that number has been significantly modified.

00:23:52.080 So it's not, I don't think anyone now really seriously says or proposes that millions of lives

00:23:58.060 are at jeopardy. But either way, another 30 days. The problem, of course, is that the economy

00:24:05.420 is not going to survive another 30 days. So you could say 30 days, you can keep everything shut down

00:24:11.140 over 30 days. But the economy is going to be in ruins by the end of it. Millions of small businesses

00:24:16.960 are already on a knife's edge. Many of them have already gone under. They don't have the ability,

00:24:23.180 the financial ability to continue on for another month without revenue. It's just, it's not an option

00:24:28.400 for millions of small businesses. And we say small businesses, we're not just talking about

00:24:33.020 really small mom and pop type shops that have one employee, you know, that's a family member.

00:24:40.500 Yeah, we're talking about those too, but not just those. We're talking also about companies that

00:24:45.900 employ dozens of people. You know, there aren't many businesses in America that have the ability

00:24:52.840 to go to zero revenue for 30 days or more. Really, by the end of 30, it'll be what almost be over 40

00:24:59.800 days if it even ends at that point. The majority of business, the vast majority of businesses in America

00:25:05.560 do not have that ability. They don't have those kinds of cash reserves laying around.

00:25:12.760 Remember, 3 million people were officially put on the unemployment rolls the first week of

00:25:18.360 the shutdowns. The second week, this past week, we don't have the official numbers yet. But if you look

00:25:23.580 at the state numbers, you can already tell it's probably going to be more than 3 million. And so

00:25:27.600 we're entering a point where every successive week, the unemployment numbers will break the record set

00:25:34.500 by the week before it. And those are just the official unemployment numbers. We're not even

00:25:39.480 talking. Those are just the people who can apply for unemployment and do because and are actually

00:25:45.800 able to get through because unemployment websites across the country are crashing and shutting down.

00:25:50.220 The phone lines are jammed. So the people who actually successfully apply for unemployment,

00:25:56.500 they're going to be a small fraction of the total number of people who are actually unemployed.

00:26:01.620 So what will the actual unemployment number be on April 30th?

00:26:09.600 60 million people? 70, 80 million? I don't know.

00:26:14.420 We are charging headfirst into a catastrophe. And it's become clear to me that as we do this,

00:26:21.300 a lot of people don't realize two things. Number one, they don't realize that the government

00:26:26.740 does not have a magic wand. And so the government can't magically just freeze the economy in place

00:26:32.300 and then come back 40 days or three months later or however long and zap it again with the magic

00:26:39.080 wand and everything goes back to normal. The government can't do that. The government also

00:26:44.320 does not have the godlike power to resurrect something that is dead. And if the economy dies,

00:26:50.160 the government can't perform a belated Easter miracle and resurrect it. It's not going to happen.

00:26:57.220 Because those businesses that have gone under, they're gone.

00:27:01.880 They don't magically come back to life. The people that have lost jobs,

00:27:06.300 at the end of the shutdown, they don't magically have a job now.

00:27:10.600 Many of them.

00:27:11.320 Now, many of them will be able to find other jobs. Not all of them, though.

00:27:17.640 And also, we have to think about what other jobs. We have all these small businesses shutting down.

00:27:24.300 And a lot of people are going to be out of a job for a long time because they're not going to be

00:27:26.940 able to find another one. But what are the companies that are still hiring? Walmart, Amazon,

00:27:34.380 those kinds of companies. And so what we're seeing is these big corporate chains that are,

00:27:39.040 and this has been happening for a while, of course, for a long time, for decades, slowly.

00:27:44.020 But now, in the course of a few weeks, we've seen a dramatic shift. And it's almost like the

00:27:50.020 transformation is complete, where these big chains are cannibalizing permanently a lot of these

00:27:56.120 small businesses. And so when you see these numbers of how many people Amazon is hiring and Walmart,

00:28:02.160 and people celebrate, oh, there are still people being hired, that is, it's good that folks are getting

00:28:06.820 a job. But what it represents is a new reality for us, where you've got a handful of these big

00:28:13.560 corporate chains, and they control everything. And you might say it's already been that way. Well,

00:28:16.980 no, not really. Because there were still tens of millions of small businesses in America. Soon,

00:28:23.120 that's not going to be the case anymore. And the second thing to keep in mind here is that just,

00:28:29.560 you know, a depression is a very bleak affair. It's not, I think a lot of us, we're sort of

00:28:40.940 whistling past the graveyard. And we don't realize what this is going to mean for us.

00:28:47.300 I also think there are many people who assume that they're somehow going to be insulated

00:28:53.840 from the reality of an economic crash. And that's probably not the case. I think there are probably

00:28:58.800 a few people, very rich people, who not only will be insulated from an economic crash, but will profit

00:29:04.560 off of it. That's always going to happen. You're probably not going to be one of those people,

00:29:08.480 and neither will I. Okay, going on to the second headline, here's perhaps a preview of one of the,

00:29:14.680 one of the, one of the widespread ramifications of a economic depression. In Knox County, Tennessee,

00:29:20.400 in the span of just 48 hours, according to the mayor, there was nine suicides. In Portland,

00:29:26.560 the police say that suicide-related calls skyrocketed by almost 25% in just the first

00:29:31.620 week of quarantine. And these are only two local anecdotes. I think, sadly, we're going to see a

00:29:37.100 lot more of this. Now, we already know, as studies have shown, that suicide rates go up during economic

00:29:43.380 downturns. And that's to be expected. But what happens when you have not just a downturn, but a full-scale

00:29:49.640 crash? And what happens when that crash occurs while people are isolated? How much more is that

00:29:57.260 going to amplify the tragic results? Number three, lighten things up a little bit here. Headline from

00:30:04.500 the Daily Beast, Joe Biden launches podcast, here's the deal to provide a voice of clarity during

00:30:09.800 uncertain times. Just what we need. I know I was, this is what I've been waiting for, to get me through

00:30:15.400 this, is a Joe Biden podcast. Now, the only caveat here, of course, this is a Joe Biden podcast, so it's

00:30:20.920 only going to be available on record. You can play it on your record player. Though the Biden camp says,

00:30:26.520 because they're on the cutting edge here, they say that they're planning within five to six weeks to

00:30:30.340 roll out a cassette version of it. So that way, you could sit around with the record player with your

00:30:34.600 family, listen to a podcast, or you could pop it in the Walkman rollerblade around town, listening to it

00:30:40.920 before you get stopped and ticketed by police. Number four, I'm probably going to want to expand

00:30:46.080 on this and talk more about it in depth, maybe tomorrow. But for now, here's the headline from

00:30:50.260 the Washington Post. It says, perspective, homeschooling during the coronavirus will set

00:30:54.220 back a generation of children. Now, it will not surprise you to learn that I, shall we say, do not

00:31:02.680 agree with this perspective, to put it very, very mildly. In fact, I would say that freeing our kids

00:31:09.700 from the grasp of the government school system is maybe the only positive thing to come of all

00:31:15.240 this. But just imagine, imagine the mentality of someone who is worried that kids will be set

00:31:25.260 back because they're around their own families too much. They're going to be set back because

00:31:31.380 their parents are educating them. In other words, they're going to be set back as children because

00:31:36.220 their parents are doing what parents are supposed to do, which is teach and educate their children.

00:31:42.480 Number five, reading from Yahoo Finance, it says, it doesn't matter that the United States surpassed

00:31:46.720 China this week and reported COVID-19 cases because those numbers don't tell us how many people

00:31:51.440 actually became infected in either country, nor do they tell us how fast the disease is spreading

00:31:55.320 since only a tiny portion of the population in the United States has been tested. The numbers are

00:31:59.540 almost meaningless, says Stephen Goodman, a professor of epidemiology at Stanford University.

00:32:04.020 There's a huge reservoir of people who have mild cases and would not likely seek testing. He says,

00:32:08.640 the rate of increase in positive results reflects a mixed up combination of increased testing rates

00:32:14.140 and spread of the virus. I just wanted to read that because it's an important point we have to keep

00:32:19.760 going back to and the media would like to ignore on the rare occasion that it actually reports something

00:32:24.520 like that as Yahoo did to their credit. But we need to remember that, that the, yes,

00:32:32.020 the disease is spreading. That's certainly the case, but we don't know how many people had it

00:32:38.400 and got over it. We don't know how many people have it just mild with mild cases and they're

00:32:42.020 staying shut up in their house as they're being told to do and not getting tested, so on and so

00:32:47.160 forth. All right, let's move on to our daily cancellation. We'll be canceling Gwyneth Paltrow.

00:32:52.300 Now, this is from a few days ago, but it just crossed my radar. Actually, my wife told me about it.

00:32:56.960 My wife told me about this Gwyneth Paltrow thing, and then I told my wife because she had never heard

00:33:00.640 about the infamous Paltrow candles. Somehow my wife hadn't heard about that, so we swapped Gwyneth

00:33:06.180 Paltrow stories, which is reason perhaps to cancel us, I suppose. Anyway, Gwyneth Paltrow

00:33:12.680 is reading now from, I think this is from page six. Gwyneth Paltrow is offering her Instagram

00:33:19.020 followers some advice while they self-quarantined. Paltrow 47 shared a photo of herself wearing gloves

00:33:25.000 and a mask after a trip to the farmer's market, assuring fans that her and hubby Glee co-creator

00:33:30.540 Brad Falchuk only removed their masks and gloves once they neared their home and with no other

00:33:35.560 pedestrians around. Earlier this month, the Oscar-winning actress was criticized for a 0.99

00:33:39.480 controversial selfie posted to her Goop Instagram account featuring the star donning a pricey outfit.

00:33:45.900 Many viewed the post as being tone-deaf. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, here's the part that gets her

00:33:50.080 canceled. I don't care about that. The Goop founder recommends that everyone transform and forced

00:33:55.320 isolation into an opportunity to, quote, write a book, learn an instrument or language, or learn to

00:34:01.480 code online, or draw or paint. Okay. She's canceled for that because it's advice that ignores the existence 0.89

00:34:12.540 of children. And now if you're quarantined by yourself or just with a spouse or even with older

00:34:20.240 kids, I could see maybe, yeah, try to do watercolor and learn French or whatever. Fine. Not a bad idea.

00:34:27.520 But I happen to be locked down with four kids under the age of seven. And so the only language skills

00:34:33.500 I'm learning are just new and inventive ways of saying things like, be quiet, go play outside,

00:34:39.560 stop hitting your brother. That's a big one. I guess I could learn how to say that stuff in French.

00:34:45.680 Maybe that's the problem. Maybe my kids speak French and that's why they don't listen. Maybe 1.00

00:34:49.900 that's the issue all along. I could try it. It's been good too. Don't get me wrong. We've had a lot

00:34:55.940 of family time, a lot of family time, a lot of family time. And my wife's had the kids doing arts

00:35:04.600 and crafts. And I've taught my son how to play baseball. That's been a good real baseball,

00:35:08.920 not T-ball. He had been doing T-ball before. So I taught him how to hit the ball like a real

00:35:13.440 baseball player. And we've played board games. And my daughter has discovered a passion for doing

00:35:21.280 the dishes, which is great, very nice. So she knows how to do the dishes now and also enjoys doing it. 0.94

00:35:28.160 She can also change the baby's diaper, which means that I'm basically tapped out on those fronts because

00:35:32.500 anytime it's my turn to do it, I just say to my daughter, hey, you know, and she loves it. She

00:35:36.520 loves doing it. So there's been a lot of positive stuff happening, but you can only stay locked in

00:35:42.780 a house with four kids for so long before chaos ensues. And that's the point. And in fact, we've

00:35:51.740 had the added complication of the fact that we have a toy room in our house in the basement,

00:35:57.720 strategically placed so that we could just tell the kids, go play down in the basement.

00:36:00.880 And, um, and a place for them to destroy if they want to, like the mayor of Baltimore said during

00:36:07.760 the riots a few years ago, give them, give the rioters space to destroy. Well, I have a similar

00:36:11.860 strategy with my kids. We put them in a basement, go destroy that if you want. The problem is they 0.94

00:36:16.540 took us a little bit too literally on destroying it. And someone, one of my kids left the faucet on in

00:36:21.020 the upstairs bathroom. This happened on Friday, um, left the faucet on. It stayed on for two hours.

00:36:26.060 The drain was clogged because one of them clogged it too. Before that, it was kind of a team effort.

00:36:29.460 And, uh, and it's, it spilled over and flooded the whole bathroom. The water dripped down into

00:36:33.560 the basement. It's into the ceiling. The ceiling is like caving in now and, and, and, uh, it went

00:36:38.720 into the HVAC system. And so now we've got to have bring people out, do a whole demo, which is really

00:36:43.440 interfering with this, with the self-isolation part of it. So it's a whole thing. Um, none of my kids

00:36:48.280 will admit, uh, will, will admit that, that they were responsible for this. Although my, my son tried to

00:36:55.120 recruit my driver, try to recruit his younger brother into taking the fall for it because his

00:37:00.600 younger brother's three years old. And my son tried to convince my younger brother to, to, uh, to admit

00:37:06.560 that he did it. And I only know that because I walked into the room while my older son was saying

00:37:11.580 to his younger brother, so you did it, right, buddy? You did it. You said you did it. You left

00:37:15.360 the faucet on. Didn't you do it? Are you going to tell daddy that you did it? Now I know you might

00:37:19.820 think, well, I heard my older son saying that to my younger son, which means that my older son is

00:37:24.640 the one responsible and maybe he is, but I wouldn't put it past his twin sister, the older brother's

00:37:31.060 twin sister to convince her brother, to try to convince the younger brother to take the fall 0.52

00:37:37.480 because the sister would know that I would hear the brother trying to convince the other brother

00:37:42.060 and then think that it's his fault. You know, it's, it's like that level of, of manipulation is

00:37:49.180 something that my daughter's capable of at the age of six. Anyway, um, all that is just to say,

00:37:53.680 this is why Gwyneth Paltrow is canceled. My bathroom flooded. And so Gwyneth Paltrow is canceled.

00:38:00.940 That sums it up. That's the logic. Now we'll go to emails, uh, uh, just one, one email why I'm wrong.

00:38:07.080 And in fact, this represents probably about five or six emails I got just like this, uh, from people on

00:38:12.980 the other side of the, of the pond. Remember you can become a daily wire member and, and that way send

00:38:18.240 emails to the Matt Walsh show. This is from Stephanie says, dear Matt, thank you for your

00:38:22.920 cancellation of the Derbyshire police for its totalitarian heavy handedness towards walkers

00:38:28.020 richly deserved to add the correct sinister, sinister touch and not distract us with the comical

00:38:34.680 pronunciation Derbyshire. Uh, please note that the name of this County is pronounced Derbyshire

00:38:41.280 with the emphasis on the first syllable. Derbyshire. Many thanks for your good company,

00:38:49.880 especially in these difficult times. Derbyshire. Is that Derbyshire? Derbyshire? Derbyshire.

00:38:57.460 Here's the thing, Stephanie. Like I said, I got five or six emails correcting me on how I pronounce

00:39:01.380 Derbyshire. Derbyshire. And you're all telling me different things about how to pronounce it.

00:39:06.940 Unless I just don't understand your pronunciation guides, which is possible, but either way, this

00:39:12.180 is America. Okay. And in this country, there are no rules of pronunciation. We just pronounce stuff

00:39:19.260 however we want. And everything is pronounced 50 different ways, depending on where you live.

00:39:23.640 And that's the way things work here in America. So don't you try to tell me how to pronounce the

00:39:29.560 names of your towns. I'll pronounce it how I please Derbyshire over there in Derbyshire. Um,

00:39:38.660 that's the pronunciation. Okay. That's the way we do things in our culture.

00:39:43.900 Also don't try to impose your truth on me about how to pronounce things because that's the other

00:39:51.420 thing we've learned in recent times that, uh, you know, we all have our own rules of language,

00:39:57.740 pronouns, everything. And so this is, this is my rule. This is my truth.

00:40:03.620 Don't try to impose on me, you bigot, but thank you for the email and we'll leave it there. Thanks

00:40:08.540 everybody for watching. Thanks for listening. Stay safe out there. God bless. Godspeed.

00:40:15.320 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

00:40:19.080 word, please give us a five-star review. Tell your friends to subscribe as well. We're available on

00:40:23.180 Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, we're there. Also be sure to check

00:40:27.680 out the other daily wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Knowles show,

00:40:31.240 and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for listening. The Matt Walsh show is produced by Sean Hampton,

00:40:36.480 executive producer, Jeremy Boring, supervising producer, Mathis Glover, supervising producer,

00:40:41.360 Robert Sterling, technical producer, Austin Stevens, editor, Danny D'Amico, audio mixer,

00:40:47.100 Robin Fenderson. The Matt Walsh show is a daily wire production copyright daily wire, 2020.

00:40:52.180 Five days after president Trump said he hopes the country will reopen again by Easter, the president

00:40:58.120 changed course and announced an extension of federal lockdown guidelines through the end of April.

00:41:03.160 We will examine the catch 22 of COVID-19. Then the world health organization continues to bungle

00:41:08.840 coronavirus, but never fails to parrot Chinese communist party propaganda. We will take a look at 0.98

00:41:15.040 the WHO and why it needs to go. And finally, New York mayor Bill de Blasio threatens to shut down

00:41:20.460 churches and synagogues permanently if they have the audacity to hold religious services during the

00:41:25.260 pandemic. All that and more, check it out on the Michael Knowles show.

The Matt Walsh Show - March 30, 2020

Ep. 455 - Wannabe Tyrants Take Advantage Of The Crisis

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