The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 750 - Won't Someone Please Think Of The Ivy League Grad Students？

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, as the student debt crisis continues to spiral out of control,

00:00:04.760 the Wall Street Journal publishes an article asking us to feel sympathy for Ivy League grad

00:00:09.200 students who are drowning in six-figure debt after discovering that their master's degrees

00:00:14.160 aren't leading to lucrative jobs. Who would have thought? For some reason, I struggle to feel any

00:00:18.660 sympathy for these people. We'll talk about that. Also, five headlines, including former media

00:00:22.320 darling Michael Avenatti gets his prison sentence. Rand Paul looks to revoke the federal mask mandate

00:00:27.960 on airplanes, and we'll discuss the latest alleged racism controversy over at ESPN.

00:00:33.480 In our daily cancellation, we'll cancel Scarlett Johansson for complaining in a recent interview

00:00:37.100 that she is underappreciated and also underpaid. She makes like $50 million a year, though. 1.00

00:00:42.380 We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.

00:00:44.520 You know, everybody wants privacy when they go online, and I think most people think, well,

00:00:59.220 you just put your browser in incognito mode, and that's all you need to do, and you get all the

00:01:03.800 privacy that way. But it doesn't always mean what you think. You know, we all take little risks every

00:01:08.700 day when we go online, whether we think about it or not. We think our connection probably won't be

00:01:12.640 interrupted by hackers. Our data probably won't be used against us, but using the internet without

00:01:17.640 ExpressVPN, that just doesn't make sense. It's like driving a car without insurance. You're taking a risk

00:01:22.920 that you simply don't need to take. Why take that risk? Every time you connect to an unencrypted

00:01:28.660 network, cafes, hotels, airports, any hacker on the same network can gain access to your personal data,

00:01:33.780 whether it's your passwords, your financial data, your financial details, whatever it is.

00:01:37.500 That's the kind of risk you're taking. It doesn't take much technical knowledge either to do it,

00:01:40.980 just some cheap hardware. A smart 12-year-old could do it. I couldn't do it,

00:01:44.840 but I'm not as smart as a smart 12-year-old. And your data is valuable. Hackers can make up to

00:01:49.500 $1,000 per person selling personal info on the dark web. So what do you do about this? You get

00:01:54.240 ExpressVPN. You can secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash Walsh. That's

00:02:00.200 E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash Walsh. And you get an extra three months free at expressvpn.com

00:02:06.620 slash Walsh. There are a lot of villains in the story of the student debt crisis. It takes

00:02:12.080 more than one bad guy to get us to a point where there is now at last count $1.7 trillion in total

00:02:19.000 outstanding student loan debt. $1.7 trillion, by the way, is more money than currently exists

00:02:24.300 in circulation in the United States. Now, most people aren't paying off their student debt in

00:02:29.260 cash, obviously, but this is just a way of gaining perspective. There is more student debt than there

00:02:34.540 is physical currency in the entire country collectively. How did we get here? Who are

00:02:41.020 the villains exactly? Well, the universities would have to be at the top of the list. They're the

00:02:45.020 ones charging exorbitant tuition fees for an education that is rarely worth the cost. And

00:02:50.040 even when it is worth the cost, there is still no reason why it should cost that much, much.

00:02:56.300 Also, we should blame in equal terms the government, the banks, the public school system for pushing

00:03:01.040 kids into the university system to begin with. Many parents, too, must take their share of the blame

00:03:05.800 for pushing their own kids into this. And what about the employers who fuel this madness by requiring

00:03:11.960 degrees from entry-level applicants who will be performing jobs that do not actually necessitate

00:03:18.240 having a degree? We talk about all the jobs that need degrees, and most of the time, the need is

00:03:24.580 artificial. There's no reason, there's no real reason why a person without a degree can't do the 1.00

00:03:30.340 job. It's just that the employers have put that requirement there artificially. The vast majority of

00:03:37.380 jobs are learned by doing. So most jobs are learned, in other words, on the job. There's no reason why that

00:03:45.700 expensive piece of paper should be necessary, and yet employers often require it out of pure laziness, because

00:03:51.360 it's an easy way to whittle down the applicant pool without having to put in much effort. So all of

00:03:56.680 these parties deserve blame. Then what about the students themselves who take out these loans?

00:04:03.140 Personally, I would much prefer to blame the powerful and corrupt institutions I already listed,

00:04:08.920 and the adults who should know better, instead of kids just out of high school who are too dumb and

00:04:13.860 naive to understand what they're getting themselves into. I mean, everybody is stupid at 18. I certainly was.

00:04:19.660 And that's a good reason why 18-year-olds shouldn't be granted six-figure loans in the first place.

00:04:25.360 It's also a good reason why they shouldn't have the right to vote, by the way.

00:04:29.120 So I'm sympathetic to the idea that many of the people saddled with this debt are victims.

00:04:35.600 They were exploited. I don't know what else you can say about saddling kids fresh out of high school

00:04:41.760 with this kind of crippling debt. Does that mean that I think the taxpayer should have to pick up the

00:04:46.200 tab and foot the bill for student debt forgiveness? Absolutely not. You cannot undo the exploitation

00:04:52.940 of one group through the exploitation of another. If you want to grant some kind of student debt

00:04:59.440 forgiveness for some people by seizing the endowments from these universities, then maybe

00:05:04.080 we can talk. But the only thing more unfair and immoral than handing out massive loans to ignorant

00:05:09.120 18-year-olds is forcing taxpayers who didn't take out the loans to pay them back. And the college

00:05:15.140 graduates who demand that such a system be put in place for their sake immediately lose all sympathy

00:05:21.440 from me. You have all this debt. I'm sympathetic. But the moment you point to me and say to the

00:05:29.680 government, no, force him to pay it back. No more sympathy. You're no longer a victim.

00:05:35.780 The moment you try to right the wrong done to you by committing a wrong against someone else.

00:05:41.460 Someone steals your car. I feel bad for you. You steal my car in exchange. And now you're just a

00:05:47.840 thief like the guy who took yours. That's how that works. But there are some supposed victims of the

00:05:55.020 debt crisis who ought to engender no sympathy at all from anyone in the first place. The Wall Street

00:06:00.020 Journal just published a piece yesterday which highlights this group. The headline, alongside a

00:06:06.000 photograph of a man in his 30s looking sad and dejected, reads, quote, financially hobbled for

00:06:11.760 life, the elite master's degrees that don't pay off. Columbia and other top universities push

00:06:17.060 master's programs that fail to generate enough income for graduates to keep up with the six-figure

00:06:21.860 federal loans. This is an article all about the pathetic saps who took out massive loans to pay for 0.97

00:06:28.140 graduate school, Ivy League graduate school, and now are, as the headline suggests, financially hobbled

00:06:33.180 for life. Now something to keep in mind as I read some of this to you, and this is very important.

00:06:39.520 The average age of a grad student is 33. And that means that a great many of the people currently in

00:06:46.420 grad school are my age or older. So these are not kids. These are grown adults. So here's what the

00:06:53.440 article says, quote, recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student

00:06:58.720 loans had a median debt of $181,000. Yet two years after earning their master's degrees, half of the

00:07:06.140 borrowers were making less than $30,000 a year. I'm sorry, it's not funny, but it kind of is.

00:07:11.460 $30,000 a year, that's minimum wage. And you took out $181,000 in debt to go to an Ivy League,

00:07:18.600 you get a master's degree, and you're making a minimum wage. Anyway, continuing, the Columbia

00:07:24.400 program offers the most extreme example of how elite universities in recent years have awarded

00:07:29.320 thousands of master's degrees that don't provide graduates enough early career earnings to begin

00:07:34.560 paying down their federal student loans. Recent Columbia film alumni had the highest debt compared

00:07:40.260 with earnings among graduates of any major university master's program in the U.S., the journal found.

00:07:45.380 The New York City University is among the world's most prestigious schools, and its $11.3 billion

00:07:50.800 endowment ranks it the nation's eighth wealthiest private school. Okay, pausing for a moment.

00:08:01.020 A master's degree in film, for what purpose? You're going to get out of grad school at the age of 36,

00:08:10.060 36, or whatever, 35, broke, paralyzed by debt, and then yada yada, you're a famous film director.

00:08:19.300 Is that the plan? You can't yada yada through that. What exactly? Fill in the blanks there.

00:08:25.680 The problem is that nobody is going to see a film simply because the director has a master's degree.

00:08:31.920 Here's a conversation that has never occurred on planet Earth one time. Okay, this has never been,

00:08:35.940 I'll be the first person to say this. Hey, man, let me tell you about this movie I saw. It's really

00:08:40.420 worth watching. It's great. You should see it. First of all, the director has a master's degree

00:08:44.640 in film studies. Nobody cares about that. Nobody cares about most master's degrees.

00:08:51.260 There are a few useful ones, but for the most part, grad school is essentially a glorified Ponzi scheme.

00:08:57.260 So back to the article. It says, at New York University, graduates with a master's degree

00:09:02.700 in publishing borrowed a median $116,000 and had an annual median income of $42,000 two years after

00:09:10.200 the program, the data on recent borrowers show. At Northwestern University, half of those who

00:09:14.660 earned degrees in speech language pathology borrowed $148,000 or more, and the graduates had

00:09:20.560 a median income of $60,000 two years later. Graduates of the University of Southern California's

00:09:25.460 marriage and family counseling program borrowed a median $124,000 and half earned $50,000 or less

00:09:32.820 over the same period. Then the article starts getting into the specific sob stories of some

00:09:38.180 of these pathetic rubes who mortgage their financial future just so they could brag about 1.00

00:09:42.760 having a master's degree. I'm not going to subject you to very much of this portion, but here's a

00:09:47.020 taste. Quote, there's always those 2 a.m. panic attacks where you're thinking, how the hell am I ever

00:09:53.680 going to pay this off? Said 29-year-old Zach Morrison of New Jersey, who earned a master's

00:09:58.040 of fine art in film from Columbia in 2018 and praised the quality of the program. His graduate

00:10:03.540 school loan balance now stands at nearly $300,000, including accrued interest. He has been earning

00:10:09.440 between $30,000 and $50,000 a year from work as a Hollywood assistant and such side gigs as

00:10:14.660 commercial video production and photography. Matt Black graduated from Columbia in 2015 with an MFA

00:10:20.080 in film and $233,000 in federal loans. He signed up for an income-based repayment plan that in leaner

00:10:28.300 years requires no remittance from him. With interest, his balance stands at $331,000.

00:10:34.040 Mr. Black, a 36-year-old writer and producer in Los Angeles, said he grew up in a lower middle-class

00:10:38.500 family in Oklahoma. He earned $60,000 in a good year and less than half of that in dry stretches.

00:10:44.460 The faculty at Columbia was stellar, he said, but he blamed the school for his calamitous financial

00:10:50.900 situation. He said, quote, we were told by the establishment our whole lives this was the way to

00:10:56.120 jump social classes. Instead, he feels such goals as marriage, children, and owning a home are now out

00:11:02.300 of reach. Okay. Certainly, Columbia is partly to blame for his calamitous financial situation.

00:11:08.620 They're the ones offering this utterly worthless product. A master's of fine arts in film. Worthless.

00:11:17.600 No value. And they offer it and they make enormous profits off of it. If they were in any other

00:11:24.720 industry running a scheme like this, they'd be sent to prison. What these colleges are doing is criminal.

00:11:32.140 They are selling things for enormous amounts of money, knowing that they are plunging their

00:11:41.820 students into a lifetime of debt. And they also know that what they're selling has no value.

00:11:48.620 Any other industry, you go to jail for that, but not for universities. So yeah, I blame them all day

00:11:59.200 long. But do you know who else is to blame for Matt Black's calamitous financial situation? Matt Black.

00:12:05.820 I mean, he said it himself as an adult, a grown adult. He took out $233,000 in loans

00:12:12.540 simply because he'd been told that it's a good way to, quote, jump social classes.

00:12:20.680 He did it because he wanted to feel smarter and better than you. And now he's broker than you.

00:12:25.280 And I bet he feels dumber too. This is vanity, materialism, greed, not just on the part of the

00:12:32.880 university, but on the part of these adults who are buying what they can't afford, hoping it'll be

00:12:37.280 a shortcut to elite status. The whole thing is a mess from the undergrad level to the grad student

00:12:45.060 working towards his PhD and finger painting. It is all to borrow a term calamitous. And it's only

00:12:51.560 going to get worse. You see, there is no real remedy. As long as we keep pretending that the best path

00:12:59.400 for everyone is to spend the first 35 years of their lives sitting in classrooms and accumulating

00:13:05.360 pieces of paper and letters that they can put next to their names. The answer is, everyone's talking

00:13:12.840 about, well, how do we make it cheaper? How do we make it more affordable? How do we make it so more

00:13:16.740 people? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not the answer. The answer isn't to make sure more people

00:13:22.920 can do this really stupid, calamitous thing. The answer is to abandon this path, or at least to let

00:13:32.720 people know that there are many other paths aside from this one. You may have been told that you need

00:13:39.560 to whittle away the first third of your life in classrooms, but the people who told you that were

00:13:45.640 lying. They were literally selling you something. You don't need to. And most likely, you shouldn't.

00:13:56.960 There are some exceptions, but for most people, you should. Figure out what you want to do with your life,

00:14:01.460 and then go and simply do it. You want to be in the film industry, then just go and try to do it.

00:14:10.420 There's a really good chance you'll fail, but there's also a really good chance you'll fail

00:14:14.860 with a master's degree. You shall have more debt at the end of that failure.

00:14:19.680 Failure is part of life. You want to do anything worth doing, there's a really good chance of failure.

00:14:25.980 So just go and do it. You might need some college, depending on what you want to do,

00:14:28.960 or some kind of formal education outside of high school in order to fully achieve your goals,

00:14:32.980 whatever they are. But there is a very good chance you don't. There's a good chance you don't need

00:14:36.420 any of that. And it's almost certain that you don't need any kind of grad school.

00:14:42.100 That's the truth. And if we really want to solve this problem, we need to start telling it.

00:14:48.300 Now let's get to our five headlines.

00:14:49.540 Now I want to tell you about one of our newer sponsors on the show, Carnivore Trading. And I was

00:14:59.840 happy when Carnivore Trading reached out because I'm kind of a perfect customer for them. I'm interested

00:15:04.820 in getting involved in the market and stocks and investment. I just, I don't know very much about

00:15:09.100 it at all. And that's why Carnivore Trading is great. Listen, Wall Street has been lying for years

00:15:14.020 saying a measly few percent is a good return on our stocks. It's not. And also that trading is so

00:15:20.140 complex. You need a financial advisor to do it. You don't. All you need is Carnivore Trading.

00:15:24.360 Carnivore Trading is an anonymous team of elite strategists. They're legends among Wall Street

00:15:28.180 heavy hitters, and they've gone a bit rogue. For the first time, they're inviting everyday folks

00:15:32.460 like us, like me, to see and mirror their explosive trades. And that's how you learn. You learn for the

00:15:38.760 people that not only know about it, but are doing it. And you can see that they know how to do it.

00:15:43.580 And that's the key here. If it sounds too good to be true, it's not. Carnivore will let you see the

00:15:48.260 trades they're making right now for two weeks free. So go to GetOurTrades.com and use promo code

00:15:54.240 Walsh for two free weeks. And if you join, you'll get Carnivore's industry-leading promise that you'll

00:15:58.620 generate three times your fees after your annual paid subscription, or you'll get a 100% refund.

00:16:04.000 You're not going to get that kind of guarantee anywhere else or this service anywhere else. So go to

00:16:08.100 GetOurTrades.com, promo code Walsh, GetOurTrades.com, promo code Walsh. See website for

00:16:13.420 guaranteed terms and conditions, past performance, not a guarantee of future earnings.

00:16:17.540 All right. Well, not a headline, but I just, I think it's, we should acknowledge it was a

00:16:21.380 reporter's birthday yesterday in the White House press pool. Some reporter's birthday.

00:16:27.180 And Jen Psaki made sure to acknowledge it. Now you, I'll play this for you and just ask yourself,

00:16:35.520 is this the kind of relationship that you want the media to have with those in power?

00:16:44.680 If democracy dies in darkness, as the Washington Post says, well, then what's happening here

00:16:50.580 exactly? Let's, uh, let's, let's watch.

00:16:54.620 Hi everyone. Hello. Happy Thursday.

00:16:58.680 Is it Thursday? Happy birthday?

00:17:00.500 I said happy Thursday. Well, I was going to say, I did hear it was Steve Holland's 29th birthday.

00:17:06.280 So happy 29th birthday. I'm a terrible singer, but I am willing to lead a song here if you are all game.

00:17:13.420 Is this a good day to ask for an interview with the press?

00:17:17.580 It may be. It may be. Who's with me? Someone here has a good voice.

00:17:22.720 Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Steve. Happy birthday to you.

00:17:37.660 All right. I will also note Brian Karam, excellent voice. I don't know what you do with that, but

00:17:45.740 that's, that's one thing I learned today.

00:17:48.920 One bit. Isn't that sweet? One big happy family. Isn't that nice and cute to see that

00:17:53.840 media and government getting along so well, not disturbing at all. How do you go from that

00:17:59.040 to, she's, she's giving the, the press briefing. How do you go from that to holding your feet to

00:18:07.220 the fire and trying to get to the truth? Well, you don't. There's no way to transition that, but

00:18:13.400 they have no plans in doing that in the first place. Also, the other thing that comes to mind

00:18:18.320 when I listen to that is first of all, she, she really does have a terrible, she makes me sound like

00:18:21.940 Pavarotti with my singing voice, but also the happy birthday song is just a terrible song. It really is.

00:18:28.100 We need a, we need a different, can we, as a, as a people come together and come up with a better

00:18:32.420 song? It's a bad song. Then again, I'm anti-birthdays. I will say, speaking of birthdays,

00:18:38.160 and usually I'm a curmudgeon about birthdays and I don't like the birthday song or anything,

00:18:43.360 but I was recently, just a couple of weeks ago. I, there are times when I think celebrating a

00:18:48.360 birthday is okay. And there, there are a few occasions when even I can appreciate the birthday

00:18:53.160 song. So we were at a, I was at a restaurant with my wife like two weeks ago. And this guy

00:18:57.720 starts, you know, starts clanging on his, his glass to get everyone's attention. And then

00:19:04.460 he lets us know that his, his mom was sitting right next to him is, was celebrating her 100th

00:19:08.360 birthday that day. And then she, he led the entire restaurant in, uh, uh, in singing happy

00:19:14.640 birthday for his mom. And I, I thought I even sang, can you believe it? I didn't really sing,

00:19:18.900 but I, I, I lip synced, which is more than I'll usually do. Cause I thought, you know what?

00:19:24.320 100 years. Yeah. You earned yourself that. And then we looked over in the, uh, the booth couple

00:19:31.680 down from there. We noticed there was a, an old couple had to be in their eighties and they were

00:19:39.100 sitting there and they were, they were holding hands and looking deeply into each other's eyes

00:19:42.880 in their eighties. My wife's looking at that and we've got the 100 year birthday.

00:19:48.220 And, uh, my wife is saying how cute everything is and how nice. And then, and then, and then I,

00:19:53.580 and I appreciate it. And I said to her, and these were my exact words. I said, uh, there's a lot of

00:19:58.520 wholesome happening here tonight, which just to prove that I have a romantic side too.

00:20:04.080 I can appreciate these moments. All right. Uh, I can appreciate this moment too, from the Daily

00:20:09.400 Wire reports, quote, a New York judge sentenced disgraced lawyer, Michael Avenatti to 30 months in

00:20:15.280 prison for attempting to extort Nike of up to $25 million. The case is one of several Avenatti is

00:20:22.700 currently involved in while he was addressing the court prior to the judge's sentence. Avenatti

00:20:26.460 reportedly cried, um, judge, judge Paul Gardefi of the Southern district of New York ripped the lawyer

00:20:32.720 during his sentencing saying that his conduct was outrageous. He, uh, so on and so forth. And now

00:20:39.340 he's looking at 30 months in prison. Um, personally, he committed a crime. He's going to jail. He deserves

00:20:47.860 it. That's fine. Um, the fact that he tried to extort Nike, I don't really care about that. Nike is

00:20:53.160 probably the least sympathetic company on earth. Uh, and the great thing is whether you're on the right

00:20:59.940 or the left, you've got plenty of reasons to hate Nike. So I don't really care that he did that.

00:21:04.500 What I do care about though, are he's, he's actually got, he's, he's facing criminal charges.

00:21:10.860 He's got two or three other cases where he's facing criminal charges and the more serious

00:21:15.840 things he still has not gone to trial for, including, I think in California, he's accused of

00:21:22.020 defrauding many of his clients. And these are just normal people. This isn't Nike. And he's accused

00:21:30.220 of stealing money from him. You could read the details of that. Um, if you want to know what a,

00:21:36.340 what a scumbag this guy is trying to extort Nike, that just makes you really, really stupid, makes

00:21:41.720 you dishonest, but also incredibly stupid. You're not going to get away with that. Defrauding his

00:21:46.720 clients the way that he has, um, that makes you stupid also, but an incredible scumbag. And now he's

00:21:53.200 going to prison. And, uh, so it's a, I think a good time to go back a little trip down memory lane

00:21:59.140 and see how the media treated this guy. Not all that long ago. We're not going back 15 years.

00:22:05.960 It's a couple of years ago. This is, uh, put together, I believe by the Washington examiner,

00:22:12.380 a nice little montage of the media and their treatment of, uh, of Michael Avenatti, who now

00:22:18.460 is going to prison for extortion and is going to be getting more prison time for fraud and everything

00:22:22.980 else. But here's what the media was saying about him just a couple of years ago. He's Donald Trump's

00:22:27.460 worst nightmare. Michael Avenatti. Joining us once again is Michael Avenatti. Let's bring

00:22:31.700 in Michael Avenatti. Michael Avenatti. Michael Avenatti. Michael Avenatti. Thank you very

00:22:35.280 much. He's out there saving the country. Don Meacham says he may be the savior of the

00:22:39.000 republic. You are something of a folk hero now. I owe Michael Avenatti an apology. I've been

00:22:44.140 saying enough for writing, Michael. I've seen you everywhere. What do you have left to say?

00:22:48.120 I was wrong, brother. You have a lot to say. I, uh, am just dying to hear what you think.

00:22:53.940 These people all like you. I'm the only person right here Donald Trump fears more than Robert

00:22:58.840 Miller. We think you guys are the tip of the spear that's going to take down Donald Trump.

00:23:03.840 Michael Avenatti's a beast. Okay, that's true. And he's a beast. He's a beast. I hand it

00:23:08.740 to her and I hand it to Michael Avenatti. But he has a great bigger calling here that being

00:23:13.480 a lawyer is minimal compared to what he's doing. No one has talked tougher directly to Donald

00:23:19.520 Trump on TV than Michael Avenatti. And Donald Trump is afraid to mention his name.

00:23:25.440 Okay, so you get the idea. And it goes on for like another minute. That was the Washington

00:23:28.620 Free Beacon, by the way, put that together. Uh, I mean, if they were capable of shame,

00:23:33.880 they would feel it, but they, they aren't. So it almost feels pointless to even bring this

00:23:37.740 up. They don't care. And it's not like, it's not like anyone was blindsided by this.

00:23:46.320 No intelligent person is shocked when you find out that Michael Avenatti is committed

00:23:52.680 extortion, is accused of fraud. No, no one, no one is going, Michael Avenatti did that.

00:23:59.780 I can't believe it. Of course, it was clear from day one. The first time I laid eyes on

00:24:05.660 the guy and heard him speak is like, okay, this guy's a scumbag. This guy's a rat. That's,

00:24:10.800 that's very clear. Then we have the worst one. I do, I do want to play this. This is the worst one,

00:24:17.160 um, of all from the view. And, uh, this gets, so what you just heard there is hero worship of

00:24:26.960 Michael Avenatti. And now we get into full on deification. Listen to this.

00:24:32.680 Lately to me, you're like the Holy Spirit. You are all places at all times, right? I mean,

00:24:39.920 you, I do, I see you all over cable news. I see you, you know, there is a, a, a seat available.

00:24:45.660 If you want to be a co-host at the view, you might, you know, there's people here you can pitch.

00:24:49.480 There's Anna Navarro, like the Holy Spirit. That is, uh, that is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. 1.00

00:24:54.120 That is literally the unforgivable sin that she committed. But again, doesn't care. No shame,

00:24:58.940 no embarrassment. Um, and, uh, Michael Avenatti going to prison. Okay. Number two, also from the

00:25:06.160 Daily Wire, it says Senator Rand Paul is planning to introduce legislation to revoke a federal mask

00:25:10.620 mandate for travelers on airplanes. The, uh, TSA has continued to mandate that all travelers wear

00:25:16.180 masks on airplanes with limited exceptions, as many state governments have rolled back COVID-19

00:25:20.540 restrictions. Uh, the current TSA mandate is in place until at least September 13th.

00:25:25.460 And Paul tweeted on Thursday, when the Senate returns to session,

00:25:28.560 I'll be introducing an immediate repeal of the mask mandate on planes. Enough time to stop this

00:25:32.560 farce and let people travel in peace. There is, there's no reason. There's never been a good

00:25:41.380 reason for it, in my opinion, especially now. I mean, that's the absurdity of this, but living here

00:25:48.400 in Nashville, and I've done a lot of flying recently in particular, and you walk around all day,

00:25:54.220 no one's wearing a mask anywhere, but then you go into an airport and magically we're all, now we all

00:26:00.100 need to wear a mask. There's no reason to do it whatsoever. It's, they may as well, to anyone who

00:26:09.000 says, yeah, well, there might be no reason, but it's, it's, it's not a big deal. It's not, it's not,

00:26:13.520 and it doesn't cause any real problems. Well, first of all, it does. We, I talked a few weeks ago

00:26:20.740 about the incredible skyrocketing rise in violent incidents on airplanes.

00:26:30.020 I don't remember the exact number, but usually it's something like there's a hundred or something

00:26:33.860 a year across the entire country where there's some sort of unruly incident among passengers,

00:26:39.520 people get kicked off. We're at like over a thousand incidents and we're not even

00:26:44.340 close to through the year yet. And almost all of that is being driven by the mask thing.

00:26:52.760 So it is causing problems. It's making people unsafe when you have these incidents happening.

00:26:59.440 But also imagine if, uh, they, they may as well decree that when you're in an airport,

00:27:05.200 you have to hop on one leg. That's what you have to do. When you're in the airport, hop on one leg

00:27:10.480 just because, and if you don't, you get kicked out.

00:27:16.900 Would you go along with that and say, well, it's not, all you're doing is hopping on one leg. It's

00:27:21.420 not a big deal. It's utterly arbitrary. That's why it's a big deal. There's no reason for us to be

00:27:29.920 doing this yet. We're told to do it. And there are significant consequences if we don't, uh, so

00:27:38.380 at least Rand Paul's on top of that. And I'll be, I'll be interested to hear what the arguments are

00:27:44.200 from all the people, especially the Democrats who will oppose this move because you know,

00:27:49.080 they're going to, uh, next from the Hill, it says job openings held at a record high of 9.2 million

00:27:57.200 in May while resignations dropped slightly from historic peak. The number of open jobs on the

00:28:02.200 final business day of May changed little from the peak set in April. Um, quits fell to 3.6 million

00:28:10.140 from a record high of 3.9 million in April, but remained well above level seen earlier in the year.

00:28:14.980 And so this is the same story that we've, that we've seen. And it's, it continues record numbers of,

00:28:20.860 uh, of open jobs. We've got companies that are begging people to come work for them. 0.50

00:28:25.800 Um, I'm sure you've seen the same thing. I see these signs all the time now, even in fast food

00:28:29.920 places, begging for employees, uh, offering signing bonuses. I don't remember ever seeing that at a

00:28:37.180 McDonald's before, but now I see it all the time. And with all the traveling I've been doing, I've,

00:28:42.600 I've been in way too many McDonald's I have to say. And, uh, many of them have that offering a

00:28:47.120 signing bonus, like it's the NFL or something to McDonald's employees, but they can't find employees

00:28:52.040 because the government has made it profitable to just stay home.

00:28:59.860 And you can't, you can't have a functioning society that way where doing nothing is an option,

00:29:07.160 doing nothing at all. When you make that an option for people, you just cannot function as there is,

00:29:14.420 there is no society that has worked that way. We're going to have millions of people choosing to do

00:29:20.580 nothing. It's not like they're dropping out of the business world because they're working on the

00:29:26.360 farm. You go back 200 years ago, most people didn't have quote unquote jobs, but they were,

00:29:33.040 they were still working every day to live. Now try having a society where people aren't in a job,

00:29:41.600 but they also, they aren't doing any other kind of work and they're just sitting at home.

00:29:47.020 Next, uh, speaking of businesses, here's a tweet from Matt Jones, who is according to his bio and

00:29:53.300 award-winning entrepreneur. And, um, this is not an award-winning idea in my mind. He says,

00:30:00.320 he tweeted, now everyone's coming back to the office. We've upgraded our lanyards. So we all know

00:30:04.640 where we're comfortable. And then you see, there are three lanyards that I guess the employees,

00:30:09.600 I don't know what kind of company this is, but the employees of this company, they could choose

00:30:12.920 between three different lanyards. There's a green, uh, an orange and a red. And the green signifies

00:30:19.880 that you're okay with hugs and high fives. Orange signifies okay with talking, but not touching.

00:30:27.820 And, uh, the red says, hi, I'm keeping my distance. And all the employees are supposed to wear one of

00:30:33.100 those to signal to each other where their comfort level is in this post COVID world. Is there a

00:30:38.880 lanyard for adults who don't need to communicate through lanyards? Cause that's the one I would

00:30:43.180 choose. Also another question. What about colorblind people? Some people can't tell the difference

00:30:49.040 between red and green if you're colorblind. Um, so they're going to be charging in there trying to

00:30:52.960 bear hug the red lanyard people, which actually is pretty great. Come to think of it. Although I mean,

00:30:59.600 who is hugging at work anyway? Sounds like a, it's a literal invitation for sexual harassment

00:31:05.960 complaints. Hug. Okay. With hugs at work. Maybe there should be another lanyard, a dark green,

00:31:13.880 which says, um, I want to hold my coworkers in an erotic embrace and whisper my sensual fantasies

00:31:20.640 into their ears. I mean, if we're hugging, we might as well go all the way around the bases, I guess.

00:31:24.660 Uh, but you know, the thing is if I had to choose one of these, really, if I had to choose one,

00:31:29.400 I would go with red. I would go with the stay the hell away from me. You freaks 0.99

00:31:33.840 lanyard, but not because of COVID just because I'm an antisocial hermit.

00:31:41.000 And frankly, as an antisocial hermit, I'm, this is one of the things that has really bothered me

00:31:44.940 over the last year is to see my culture and my way of life being appropriated by the COVID people. 0.98

00:31:51.380 And so when I, when I just operate the way that I always have keeping my distance from people,

00:31:56.660 now it's assumed that I'm worried about COVID when that's not it at all.

00:32:02.060 I had this experience on an, on an elevator a couple of weeks ago. I was, I was on the elevator

00:32:06.020 and, um, then someone comes running down the hall, this guy, and he's like, Oh, hold that,

00:32:10.140 hold that. And of course I'm not holding the elevator for you. I just stood there and it closed.

00:32:14.140 You can catch the next one. It'll take 20 seconds for the next one to come.

00:32:18.900 And, uh, and then I felt bad, not because I didn't hold the elevator for him, but because I realized

00:32:23.220 he probably thought I was afraid of COVID and that's why I didn't want him on the elevator.

00:32:29.080 No, it's not that at all. I just don't like human interaction. That's it.

00:32:34.640 Not COVID related. All right. Finally, uh, so I've been meaning to talk about this for a few days,

00:32:41.440 Rachel Nichols over at ESPN. Um, she's a ESPN personality and she was accidentally,

00:32:50.000 I'm still not sure exactly how this is supposed to have happened, but she was having a private

00:32:54.600 conversation with someone and she was accidentally quote unquote recorded on, on someone's cell phone

00:33:00.260 in this private conversation, complaining that ESPN had given her NBA hosting gig to a black

00:33:06.280 female personality at the channel. And she was saying that she'd been given that job for diversity

00:33:11.480 reasons. And then this recording was circulated around ESPN. And it was like, this happened a year

00:33:16.660 ago. And it was, people knew about it at ESPN. It kind of made the rounds. It never went public.

00:33:23.180 Um, and, uh, and now suddenly it is public. And first of all, here is the, this is from the New

00:33:27.900 York times. They released it. Here's Rachel Nichols talking about this issue. Here it is.

00:33:32.300 So they said to me, Hey, instead of hosting the NBA finals, like why don't you do Doris's silent

00:33:37.720 reporter job for the NBA finals? Cause guess what that would clear the way for?

00:33:44.720 Uh, for Maria to do the hosting for them. 1.00

00:33:49.720 For Maria to do the hosting for them. 0.99

00:33:51.820 Yeah.

00:33:52.320 So I have declined. I don't know what their next move is, but they are feeling pressure because

00:34:00.240 of all of that. And, um, I'm trying to figure out like how to just, you know, my thing is like,

00:34:08.460 I, you know, I wish Maria to do all the success in the world. She covers football. She covers

00:34:12.880 basketball. If you need to give her more things to do because you're feeling pressure about your

00:34:19.120 like crappy long time record on diversity, which by the way, I myself like know personally from the

00:34:24.320 female side of it, like go for it. Just, you know, find it somewhere else. Like you're not 1.00

00:34:29.540 going to find it with me and taking my thing away. So that's Rachel Nichols. She's the white woman 0.99

00:34:36.220 and she was replaced by, that was a conversation from last July. And, uh, Maria Taylor is the woman

00:34:43.680 that she was replaced by for hosting the NBA finals. Um, and as it happens, another big coincidence

00:34:50.340 here that Maria Taylor who got the hosting gig and remember this, so this, this audio has been

00:34:57.500 circulating around the company internally. Everyone knew about it. Um, Maria Taylor's contract was,

00:35:04.020 she, she was up for a contract extension. She was negotiating contract and that's going to be 0.97

00:35:08.300 happening in the next week or two. And so right when this contract negotiation is happening, that's

00:35:13.620 when this, uh, audio goes public. What a big coincidence. And now, uh, Rachel Nichols had,

00:35:21.240 so she had been taken off of the hosting gig and it had been given to Maria Taylor. That's what she 0.71

00:35:25.240 was complaining about. Now that this has gone public, she was removed also as a sideline reporter,

00:35:30.780 which is what she had been demoted to. And she was replaced by a woman by the name of Malika Andrews, 0.99

00:35:36.240 who is also a black woman. So she was, she was complaining, you know, that she had been

00:35:43.940 replaced by a black woman for diversity purposes. And because of that complaint, 1.00

00:35:49.100 rather because the complaint went public, ESPN punished her by replacing her again. 1.00

00:35:55.420 Maria Taylor though, by the way, she finally spoke out about this issue. She had been kind of quiet

00:35:59.700 about it. And, uh, she finally tweeted yesterday. She said, during the dark times, I always remember

00:36:04.700 that I am in this position to open doors and light the path that others walk down. I've taken some

00:36:10.540 punches, but that just means I'm still in the fight. Remember to lift as you climb and always keep

00:36:16.160 rising. Okay. So she's the, you know, she's the hero and also the victim in this situation. Clear from

00:36:24.200 her tweet here. It doesn't even make, why I don't watch ESPN and I also don't watch the NBA.

00:36:34.700 And I don't care who hosts it, but it certainly seems very plausible that Rachel Nichols is correct

00:36:42.160 in her original assessment. If she had had this job and she was good at it, if that's the case,

00:36:48.080 and then she was suddenly taken off of the job, right? When the, when the BLM stuff was, uh,

00:36:53.660 was happening last summer, replaced by a black woman, really good chance that it was done for 1.00

00:36:58.200 political and quote, diversity reasons. But why would ESPN shy away from that?

00:37:05.380 Are they supposed to be open about that? They're trying to give an opportunity to, uh,

00:37:09.000 you know, trying to diversify and give an opportunity to an underrepresented person.

00:37:16.420 Meanwhile, Rachel Nichols is woke and leftist herself. At this point, you couldn't possibly

00:37:22.060 work at ESPN if you're not. And, uh, you know, she supports BLM and all that kind of stuff.

00:37:29.660 And this is what she gets for her trouble. That's the way it always goes, but these people

00:37:35.440 will never learn. Um, I said that was the final thing, but I, I, I can't forget about this. There

00:37:41.580 is one thing more important than anything else we've talked about so far today. Um, you know,

00:37:46.500 the, we we've heard a lot of, uh, there's been a lot of effort to get people vaccinated, all the

00:37:52.160 holdouts. Joe Biden is going to be going door to door, but a big part of the effort has been all

00:37:56.980 these songs that we've heard. And, uh, the rapper juvenile back from the nineties, you may, you may

00:38:02.380 remember him if you're a nineties kid, he did a remix of his, uh, back that ass up or rather back that

00:38:07.960 thing up the radio edit. And, uh, only now it's vax that thing up. And I just thought we should play

00:38:14.380 that for you because it's pretty great. Here it is.

00:38:44.380 Thank you.

00:39:14.380 I think we got the point here. I think we basically hit the idea. Use a handsome young

00:39:25.020 brother. Why don't you vax that thing up? That's not creepy at all. I'm just wondering,

00:39:31.180 is there anyone who wasn't convinced so far about vaccinations and, and, but will be convinced

00:39:40.500 by this? Who are we even trying to, to, to convince at this point with these sorts of things?

00:39:49.740 Who is the person at this point? The vaccine's been out for months, readily available for months.

00:39:57.720 Everyone knows that it's there. They know where they can get it. They know all, they know the whole

00:40:01.380 spiel. And yet there are plenty of people who for one reason or another said, I don't, I don't want it.

00:40:07.720 Not interested. Thank you. Thanks, but no thanks. So is there anyone who has held that position for

00:40:15.080 months now and is now going to say, well, after seeing that, they're going to say, well, you know,

00:40:21.620 your raise is a good point. Perhaps I should indeed vax that thing up. I don't know who that person,

00:40:29.520 maybe they call calls his wife up. Hey honey, I know we said we weren't doing the vaccine, but, uh,

00:40:34.020 listen, I just heard this song and he, and he, and he was bringing up the point that we need to vax that

00:40:38.060 thing up. And I'm starting to think maybe we really should. Somehow I doubt that that conversation

00:40:44.880 is happening, but I could be wrong. Let's go down to reading the YouTube comments. Um, Dylan says,

00:40:51.240 Matt, do you know what kind of car Ben drives? I've always imagined him in something classy like a BMW.

00:40:56.380 Oh, and please spare me. I already know that you drive a minivan, AKA the dad wagon. I don't know what

00:41:00.880 kind of car Ben drives, but, um, please don't stereotype me. I don't drive a minivan. In fact,

00:41:06.340 I have nothing against minivans there. This is the struggle that everyone goes through when they

00:41:11.800 get into like middle age and they're, they're having kids, you know, and once you get to like

00:41:17.220 three or four kids, um, you, you start to realize that you got to make the minivan move.

00:41:24.680 And, but, but a lot of people don't want to do that. They have some prejudice against minivans that I

00:41:29.860 don't understand. My wife is in that category. She absolutely refused. We have four kids

00:41:33.440 and we cram them into SUVs. She refuses to get a minivan. I don't understand why they're practical.

00:41:43.060 They're handsome vehicles. What's the problem? Um, Ashley says pre-K is unnecessary and kindergarten

00:41:51.280 probably is as well. Then if you homeschool, you could move through the grades quicker and get your

00:41:55.900 GED at a younger age. Honestly, 12 years is too much. Yeah. We were expanding public education to

00:42:01.120 14 years, 16 years. Uh, we got to get the kids in younger and younger. Really it should be less.

00:42:05.400 And that's true. And this, this is something that people, when they start homeschooling,

00:42:08.560 I hear this all the time from homeschool parents, that they're shocked by, by, especially if they

00:42:15.200 went to public school themselves, or if they had their kids in public school and they pulled them out,

00:42:18.960 they're shocked when they realized just how much time is wasted in public school.

00:42:23.240 Because you have your curriculum and especially when your kids are younger, you know, they're in

00:42:30.520 first, second grade in that elementary school age, you can, you can give them a full days of,

00:42:36.140 full day of education in a couple of hours. You give, you can give them the same amount of education

00:42:42.340 that they will get if they were in, in a public school building or more, only you could do it in

00:42:47.800 two hours or less as opposed to seven. And why is that? Because there's just so much time

00:42:55.000 wasted in these classrooms on subjects that are irrelevant. They're watching movies. They're,

00:43:02.280 you know, they got to go from classroom to classroom in the hallways. They got lunch,

00:43:04.960 they got gym, they got this and that. Um, just a lot, a lot of busy work. You cut all that out

00:43:13.200 and you realize that, that, that right now there's kids are in school for longer than they need to be

00:43:21.220 a lot longer. And yeah, pre-K is just daycare. A three or four year old kid, there's, there's no

00:43:29.620 kind of formal sit down education that you're going to give to a four year old. Um, at that age,

00:43:38.900 at that age, you know how kids learn, they learn through playing. You, you learn education is

00:43:44.840 through, through just being kids and playing games. That's how they learn. And no, you don't

00:43:50.820 need to be in a, in a classroom setting in order to do that. Um, T Loco says, Matt, got to say,

00:43:58.400 I lost a ton of respect for you with your comments on the peacock story. Killing a bird because it's

00:44:03.180 doing what it naturally does. There's no reason to kill it. Would you want to live next to neighbors

00:44:06.940 like that? Hope they hang the bastards who killed it and paid for the contract? Really? Really?

00:44:12.500 T Loco? The person who killed a peacock, you want to hang them. You think they should be killed?

00:44:19.140 But eye for eye here, blood for blood, a peacock for a human life. That's what you think? 0.69

00:44:25.740 Yeah. I got a lot of backlash for my position on the peacock story. There was a peacock that had

00:44:31.040 been terrorized. You didn't watch the show. You'll say there's a peacock that had been terrorizing

00:44:33.840 this neighborhood. Um, and peacocks, yeah, they have pretty beautiful flat feathers, but they also

00:44:38.340 make a really loud, annoying sound and they don't shut up. And so this peacock had been visiting this

00:44:43.120 neighborhood for six years, tormenting people at all hours of the day. And finally, someone put an

00:44:47.800 ad out on Craigslist and said, Hey, you know, I'm looking for someone who could just kill this peacock,

00:44:52.040 hired a peacock assassin. And next thing you know, the peacock was taken care of. And I fully support that. 0.96

00:44:57.520 I, I support your right to kill annoying peacocks. I do. And listen, T Loco, you, like I said yesterday, 0.71

00:45:06.480 I know damn well. And so do you that if this was a vulture or a crow, you know, if there was some

00:45:15.440 crow that had been going through people's garbage or, or, or even a wild Turkey, some ugly animal that

00:45:24.060 doesn't have the pretty feathers, you wouldn't care that anyone shot it. You would say, Oh, that's a

00:45:29.020 pest. We have some animals that are pests and some animals that are not. And if you kill the pest,

00:45:36.180 it's okay. But if you kill the animals that aren't pests, it's bad. How do we determine the pest from

00:45:40.480 the non-pest? Mostly it's just whichever one we think is cute. So a lot of backlash for that. I, I'm,

00:45:47.840 I am unwavering though, in my, my stance on this and my support for, um, for murdering peacocks,

00:45:53.800 only the annoying ones. I'm not saying if someone has a peacock farm, I'm not saying you just, 0.63

00:45:57.860 you can go there and just start, start firing away. I'm just saying

00:46:01.640 the ones who are pests, I support that. And then, um, in fact, uh, our producers, McKenna and Sean put a,

00:46:11.620 so I thought that I was in the minority, but they put a poll up under the comments there.

00:46:15.440 And I guess, what was it? Was it a 25 to 21 in favor of killing the peacock? That's what I was

00:46:20.120 told. Okay. 25 to 21. So I'm not fully in the minority like I thought I was. Um, and then finally,

00:46:28.560 Aaron says, my siblings have used peacock calls to get each other's attention for years. Very distinct

00:46:33.600 sound. Wait, my siblings have used peacock calls to get each other's attention. Are your siblings

00:46:42.440 peacocks? Are they humans? Why not just use each other's names? What? How do you put that in the

00:46:48.820 comments? Like it's a normal thing with, with no explanation, no context. Oh yeah. My, my siblings

00:46:54.820 always use peacock calls. What are they adults? So you're at Thanksgiving dinner and you're, and you're

00:47:01.440 using peacock calls to each other across the table. Do you have names? What kind of bizarre thing is that?

00:47:10.480 All right. Well, thanks for watching anyway, Aaron. Oh, one other thing. Um, I also wanted

00:47:16.400 to mention this, this is pretty exciting. So this was presented to me yesterday. You know, that, uh,

00:47:21.540 that we recently decided if you're a fan of this show, you are a member of the sweet baby gang.

00:47:26.600 That's the name, whether you like it or not, if you're, if you're in the audience, you're part of

00:47:30.840 the sweet baby gang. Uh, how did we come up with that name? It's it's, you have to be there. It's an

00:47:35.200 inside joke. I'm not going to get into it. I don't even remember where this came from,

00:47:38.440 but it's a sweet baby gang. That's what we are. And, uh, there have been people in the comments

00:47:42.240 for, for weeks now, uh, begging for sweet baby gang merchandise. And this was presented to me

00:47:49.620 yesterday and we finally have it sort of, um, I guess I'll show that here's the bicep cam and I

00:47:54.820 think maybe you could probably see better. So that's a sweet baby gang shirt. It says sweet baby

00:48:00.020 gang. And then I was shown this shirt and, uh, I, it's a beautiful shirt and it's also viscerally

00:48:05.420 deeply disturbing at the same time because there is me with a diaper on crawling on the

00:48:12.220 ground. So I, I, I'm disturbed by it. I'm horrified. Um, but I also like it at the same

00:48:17.820 time. So now this is not for sale though. This is just for me. We haven't actually put

00:48:24.340 these on sale. So this is merchandise just for me. If, but if you want sweet baby gang,

00:48:28.820 if you want that shirt, then you have to just, you have to let us know, cry out for it in the

00:48:35.780 comments. And, uh, maybe I can convince them to actually put this. I don't know if the, if the

00:48:39.620 company would be too embarrassed to sell this or it's just too weird. I'm not sure, but we'll, uh,

00:48:45.100 we'll see. You know, if you're the do it yourself or type, especially when it comes to cars,

00:48:49.100 then, uh, then, you know, you, you might find yourself needing auto parts. Where do you get them?

00:48:54.300 Other than what most people do is they just get in the car and they go to an auto parts store.

00:48:57.300 But the problem, as I'm always telling you, is that you go there, you're wasting time,

00:49:00.980 you're wasting money because the stuff's going to be more expensive than it otherwise should be.

00:49:04.740 And they're also probably not going to have what you need in stock. They're not going to have the

00:49:07.240 kind of selection that they do at rockauto.com, which you can access anytime, um, just on your

00:49:13.200 phone, on your laptop. It's as easy as that. Just go to rockauto.com. They always offer the lowest

00:49:17.620 prices possible. If you find it at rockauto.com, you don't need to keep a window shopping because you

00:49:22.940 know that you found the best price possible. They're also a family business. They've been

00:49:26.980 serving auto parts customers online for 20 years. You can go to rockauto.com to shop for auto and

00:49:31.880 body parts from hundreds of manufacturers. The catalog is unique. It's very easy for anyone to

00:49:37.140 navigate and you can quickly see everything you could be looking for, all the parts available,

00:49:41.580 and you can specify based on the brand, the specifications, the prices you prefer. You can

00:49:45.680 narrow it down that way. So it's very easy to do. So go to rockauto.com right now, see all the parts

00:49:50.460 available for your car or truck, right? Walsh in there. How did you hear about us box? So they know

00:49:54.900 that we sent you. Here's something else you could do after you go to rockauto.com.

00:49:59.400 Pick up Michael Knowles' new book, which you may have heard him mentioned a time or two. It's now

00:50:03.260 out, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds. And this is all about, you know, we hear

00:50:08.240 about political correctness. Most people say that they're against it, but with Speechless,

00:50:14.560 Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, if you haven't picked up a copy, now's the time to do it. The book

00:50:17.860 takes you through the origins of political correctness and why it's absolutely essential that we

00:50:22.440 stand up and fight its insidious spread into every public institution in America. Because if we don't,

00:50:28.360 the consequences are waiting for us and our children in the not too distant future. If you

00:50:33.080 don't know where to start, don't worry, because in the book, Michael Knowles gives you the tools you

00:50:37.660 need to understand and spot political correctness in order to stop it. It's a great book, a lot of great

00:50:42.740 insight. And so pick up a copy now, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, available

00:50:47.780 everywhere right now. If you don't want to make a trip to the bookstore, you can always pick it up

00:50:50.700 on Amazon in hardcover and Kindle edition right now. Now let's get to our daily cancellation.

00:50:59.560 Today we cancel Scarlett Johansson. She's doing the media rounds to promote her new superhero movie,

00:51:05.240 which is, I believe, the 94th film in the Marvel Extended Universe. Interestingly enough, even though

00:51:10.480 it has produced so many movies, it turns out that this universe is quite small because all of the

00:51:14.980 movies are exactly the same. They all have the same basic plot and action sequences and message.

00:51:21.040 Not to spoil anything, but the message for all of these movies to summarize is, bad guy is bad.

00:51:28.300 Punch bad guy. Kick bad guy. Good guy win. The end. Now buy the merchandise. That's basically the

00:51:35.600 message and the point of all these movies. Now, I may be selling Marvel a little short here because

00:51:39.940 sometimes the movies do have a deeper message, which brings us to Scarlett Johansson and her

00:51:44.160 interview with Glamour Magazine. She was asked about the deeper themes and messages of her new film,

00:51:48.880 Black Widow, which is a movie about an attractive woman in a leather jumpsuit kicking people.

00:51:54.500 At least that's what it's about on the surface. But what is the film really saying? What is it truly

00:52:00.420 trying to convey about the nature of kicking and jumpsuits and hot blonde chicks? Here's Johansson 0.98

00:52:07.760 trying to explain.

00:52:08.720 Well, I do think the film is inherently female, partly because of Kate Shortland directing it. It

00:52:18.180 definitely has, you know, it sheds light on, it sheds light on a, you know, on an imbalance,

00:52:32.420 I think, that women feel like inherently because of how our society is, has been forever, thousands 1.00

00:52:42.180 and thousands of years. And, you know, the movie is about the subjugation of women and, you know,

00:52:51.260 the trauma that we have to help one another out of.

00:52:57.420 Oh, okay. Now, to be fair to Scarlett here, the actual question she was asked verbatim,

00:53:03.600 this was a question. How important is it to push the conversation around gendered superheroes? 1.00

00:53:08.280 That question doesn't mean anything. She was apparently being interviewed by a random

00:53:13.020 progressive buzzword generator. So she did her best to take the discussion to someplace that was

00:53:17.940 moderately intelligible. But she was hobbled again by the fact that the movie she's promoting is

00:53:22.700 incredibly bad and stupid and exists almost entirely as a vehicle to sell toys and promote

00:53:28.000 the brand. That's all Marvel. Marvel movies are made by algorithms, not people. I would respect her

00:53:34.220 if she just said that, but she can't. So instead, she reaches for some kind of socially

00:53:37.860 conscious message. And she kept reaching in response to the next question, which was again,

00:53:43.060 verbatim, what have you been your own? When have you been your own ally the most?

00:53:49.200 That was the question. When have you been your own ally the most? So once again, the question makes

00:53:55.320 no sense, but here's what she said. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I think you have to be all that as a woman, 1.00

00:54:02.000 you have to be all the time. You know, because we are undermined and underserved and underappreciated

00:54:12.540 and underpaid. And you have to be your own ally. You know, my mom instilled that in me from when I was

00:54:18.980 really, really young. Um, because of course she'd experienced it even more severely than I,

00:54:25.680 than I did. And, you know, equal pay is a huge part of, of that fight. Um, when I, even when I was

00:54:33.700 a teenager in the industry or a young woman, I should say, my mom, you know, would have those

00:54:40.540 conversations. Like what, why is she not getting, you know, it had never had anything to do.

00:54:46.040 There was always these, these, like these little key terms, like, um, you know, bankability and,

00:54:55.180 you know, box office draw. And those are all, uh, way, those are all terms that are basically

00:55:01.260 masquerading as sexism. Okay. Um, undermined, underserved, underappreciated, underpaid.

00:55:11.540 This poor woman, I might have to start another GoFundMe, I'm thinking. She can barely make ends 1.00

00:55:18.360 meet. She's on the verge of starvation. Nobody appreciates her or serves her or pays her. 1.00

00:55:23.400 This is a real problem. I saw Scarlett Johansson out on a street corner just the other day,

00:55:26.840 huddled under a blanket with a jar full of coins. Uh, you know, it, it, it, or I think it was Scarlett

00:55:31.920 Johansson. Might've been, might've been just a drunk guy. I don't know, but consider this and get ready

00:55:37.420 to burst into tears when you hear this. Scarlett Johansson only makes about $50 million a year. 1.00

00:55:45.420 At least that's what she earned in 2019. Only $50 million. This is a real life handmaid's tale.

00:55:52.860 This is the patriarchy plain as day. We are living in a country where a woman can only make $50 million 1.00

00:55:59.040 in a calendar year. Now you might say that $50 million is quite a lot of money. You might say

00:56:04.280 that Scarlett Johansson, rich, beautiful, famous, beloved, not beloved by me, especially, but by

00:56:09.360 other people. Um, you might say that she should simply be happy and grateful because life has

00:56:14.060 granted her all of the material blessings a person can ever hope to be given. But the problem for

00:56:20.120 Johansson is that although she has so much, still other people have more. Yes, she makes a ton of money

00:56:26.860 off of her Marvel films, but male action heroes, male action stars make two tons of money. They make 1.00

00:56:33.920 even more. And it must be because of sexism, she says. Yes, it must. Or maybe women in Hollywood 1.00

00:56:41.440 generally get paid less, still a lot, but less because the movies that make all the money are

00:56:48.920 action movies, especially superhero movies. And those kinds of movies are more successful. That is more

00:56:54.940 people watch them. They sell more tickets. They get more downloads on streaming when they star men.

00:57:00.700 In other words, male stars get paid more because they're worth more in terms of pure dollars and

00:57:05.100 cents. The Daily Wire article reporting on this story gives the example of the two most recent films

00:57:10.280 starring new superheroes in the Marvel cinematic universe, Black Panther and Captain Marvel.

00:57:15.580 Um, the former earned $700 million domestically while the latter earned $427 million.

00:57:20.340 The former was led by a man, the latter by a woman. And these are, that's generally how these things 0.96

00:57:25.920 go. Why? Well, I think it's because audiences in general mostly prefer to see men in these kinds

00:57:35.900 of roles. Most members of the audience would never say that because they can't say that, but the box

00:57:43.280 office speaks for itself. Um, generally that's what the audience wants. The studios and Hollywood,

00:57:52.260 that's not what they want. That's not what they want us to want as an audience, but it is what the

00:57:57.520 audience wants. Part of that is because the studios, why are the female action movies and superhero 1.00

00:58:03.980 movies less popular? Part of that is because the studios can't help but inject a bunch of cringy girl 1.00

00:58:08.740 power stuff into the female action movies. And so audiences are turned off by that while the male 0.94

00:58:14.540 action movies will just be action movies. But also part of it is that men most of the time from the

00:58:21.280 audience's perspective, make more compelling and convincing action heroes. Perhaps it's mentally

00:58:28.880 exhausting for the audience to watch a 112 pound blonde woman in this kind of role because you have 1.00

00:58:33.940 to strain a bit to take the movie seriously when she's beating up like 14 armed thugs at once. 1.00

00:58:39.960 You don't have to strain quite as much watching like The Rock do the same, even though it's fiction

00:58:45.240 in both cases. I'm just speculating here. Whatever the reason, the fact is that these sorts of movies,

00:58:51.780 when there is a man in the starring role, tend to perform better. Audiences tend to be more interested.

00:58:57.120 So those stars get paid a little more. It's not sexism, it's economics.

00:59:01.120 And that's why I must say to Scarlett Johansson, not because she's a woman, 0.52

00:59:06.460 but just because she's a whiny, entitled narcissist, you are canceled. 1.00

00:59:13.540 Scarlett Johansson is canceled. Grad students are canceled. But you know who is not canceled?

00:59:21.120 The sweet baby gang. Thanks for watching as always. Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Godspeed.

00:59:31.120 Well, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word,

00:59:36.380 please give us a five-star review. Also, tell your friends to subscribe as well. We're available on

00:59:40.960 Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. We're there. Also, be sure to check out

00:59:45.400 the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, Michael Knowles Show,

00:59:48.700 The Andrew Klavan Show. Thanks for listening.

00:59:51.160 The Matt Walsh Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring. Our supervising

00:59:56.000 producers are Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling. Our technical director is Austin Stevens. Production

01:00:01.080 manager, Pavel Vadosky. The show is edited by Sasha Tolmachov. Our audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

01:00:07.240 Hair and makeup is done by Mika Geneva. And our production coordinator is McKenna Waters.

01:00:11.860 The Matt Walsh Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2021.

01:00:15.180 Hey, everybody. This is Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. You know,

01:00:19.520 some people are depressed because the republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching,

01:00:23.840 and the moon's turned to blood. But on The Andrew Klavan Show, that's where the fun just gets started.

01:00:28.760 So come on over to The Andrew Klavan Show and laugh your way through the fall of the republic with me,

01:00:33.320 Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - July 09, 2021

Ep. 750 - Won't Someone Please Think Of The Ivy League Grad Students？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript