The Michael Knowles Show - Daily Wire Backstage： Premiere of “What is a Woman？”

00:00:00.000 I don't know about you, but I am so happy that it's June 1st. Not because it's the first day

00:00:05.280 of Pride Month, but because just coincidentally, it happens to be the same day that Matt Walsh's

00:00:10.060 new Daily Wire original documentary, What is a Woman, will finally get its live premiere

00:00:14.900 tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern. It's only on backstage. If you're not a member yet,

00:00:18.940 head to whatisawoman.com and subscribe today because you will not want to miss this night.

00:00:24.520 I just watched the movie. I had not seen the whole thing. I'd seen bits and pieces.

00:00:28.580 I just watched it this morning. I just put off all the other work I had to do. I could not pry

00:00:34.020 myself away. This movie is so freaking good. I already had very high expectations and it exceeded

00:00:41.300 those expectations. So tune into backstage. You get to watch it. I'll be there. Ben will be there.

00:00:46.200 Drew, the man himself, Matt Walsh, and the God King, Jeremy Boring. It almost goes without saying,

00:00:52.580 you've never seen a backstage like this. This is probably the most important documentary of the

00:00:57.660 year. The commentary is sure to be saucy. Matt spent the better part of a year traveling the world

00:01:03.120 trying to find the obvious answer to this simple question. Tonight, you will see just how tough it

00:01:07.520 is for the left to give that answer. Take a listen.

00:01:09.940 Oh, me oh my. Hello and welcome to the Daily Wire backstage and the world premiere of What is a

00:01:39.120 Woman? The greatest investment that Ben Shapiro and I have ever made. This is an unbelievable

00:01:44.100 documentary. The greatest piece of content the Daily Wire has ever released. It pains me to have

00:01:49.080 to give so much praise and attention to our very own Matt Walsh. But you are in for an enormous treat

00:01:53.900 tonight. And it is just the beginning of what promises to be, what I promise you will be, the

00:01:58.260 greatest month of premium content in the history of the Daily Wire. It all starts tonight with the

00:02:03.980 premiere of What is a Woman? coming up in just one hour's time. We're also going to this month be

00:02:08.300 premiering Terror on the Prairie, uncancelling Gina Carano, making good on our promise that we made

00:02:13.900 last February when Disney unceremonially kicked her to the curb for absolutely nothing. This is

00:02:19.860 before it became very popular and in vogue for Disney stars to make selfie videos telling the fans

00:02:25.100 that they shouldn't be toxic toward people on the basis of skin color and beliefs and that sort of

00:02:29.820 thing. And it will culminate in the release of The Greatest Lie Ever Told, George Floyd and the

00:02:35.500 Rise of BLM from Candace Owens and Backstage Live at the Ryman Auditorium. That's right,

00:02:40.760 us gents are going to take to the stage of the most historic venue perhaps in the country

00:02:45.160 once again on June 29th to bring you a great live show and some of the biggest announcements that

00:02:51.060 we've ever made in the history of the country, of the company. June is going to be lit as the kids.

00:02:57.480 Do the kids say?

00:02:58.320 I think some of them are.

00:02:59.640 They're aging out.

00:03:00.440 They're aging out.

00:03:00.980 Yeah, it's good. The kids ain't as young as they used to be. I'm glad you're here. I have to tell

00:03:06.580 you that when you think about all the content that The Daily Wire is going to release in the month of

00:03:10.040 June, I'm proud. I find that June, the month of June, fills me with the most pride perhaps that I

00:03:17.360 have ever been filled with. And so you can imagine how happy I am.

00:03:21.500 And you're gay. You're gay.

00:03:22.660 Gay? I'm filled with frivolity.

00:03:26.020 I'm both gay and proud in the month of June. And I know you are too. And I'm glad to see that our

00:03:31.560 country is celebrating my sense of happiness, joy, and pride by doing things like waving beautiful

00:03:38.700 rainbow flags over the Vatican, by putting rainbow flags on the sides of like Abrams tanks going into

00:03:45.660 battle, the military saying that what we are as individuals is actually the source of our strength,

00:03:51.340 ignoring the fact that they've been cutting the hair off of teenage kids to make them all into

00:03:54.740 mindless automatons for basically the entire history of the nation. It's Pride Month. That's

00:03:59.920 what I'm trying to tell you. And it's good to be here with you gents, in whom I am also proud.

00:04:05.640 It is very exciting. I mean, I will say that obviously the timing of Matt's documentary,

00:04:11.300 the release of it, is not a coincidence.

00:04:12.640 What? No, hold on.

00:04:15.360 What?

00:04:16.940 So I've seen it. Jeremy's seen it. Have you seen it yet?

00:04:19.760 I've seen it.

00:04:20.080 You've seen it?

00:04:20.500 Oh, yeah.

00:04:21.220 It is. It's a masterpiece.

00:04:22.460 It really is. You're going to, you are going to love it. And you're going to love it because

00:04:26.640 not only is it really entertaining and really, really funny, like uproariously funny, it also

00:04:31.740 happens to be extremely hard hitting. And the points that the documentary makes, it's, these are

00:04:37.500 points that all of your mindless friends who seem to just parrot whatever comes out of the

00:04:41.920 as the mainstream media, they need to hear these points. It's an important, it's a really

00:04:44.920 important piece of work. Matt, you did a phenomenal job with this piece of work. Why don't you

00:04:48.620 talk about like what it was like to make this thing? Because this is a year long process.

00:04:52.100 Before, before though, let me just tell people right now is the time to go sign up at dailywire.com

00:04:56.520 or go to whatisawoman.com. Become a Daily Wire member right now because in 60 minutes,

00:05:03.380 you're going to want to watch the film. And the only place you can see it is at the Daily

00:05:07.140 Wire as a paid subscriber. So again, head to whatisawoman.com or dailywire.com. Get

00:05:12.240 your subscription right now. Not only will that allow you to see the film, but it allows

00:05:16.080 us to make the film. We absolutely cannot engage in this kind of content. Historically,

00:05:22.180 the Daily Wire, we make, market, monetize our content in a single day. That's great for

00:05:27.000 us from a business perspective. It allows us to be very efficient in the use of our capital

00:05:30.640 and grow the company. We're taking big risks now. We're making expensive content, content

00:05:35.140 that, I mean, Matt, you've been working on this for a year, traveled around the globe in

00:05:38.900 order to do it. The only way that happens is because of our dailywire.com members. And we

00:05:44.680 need you to be one of those members if you aren't already so that we continue on this

00:05:47.840 journey. When you see this film, you will thank us for begging you for your money because

00:05:54.740 it is so powerful, so funny. And now, Matt, tell us about the making of What is a Woman.

00:06:01.120 I was kind of enjoying listening to you guys. Talk about being proud. I'm actually proud

00:06:06.760 that, because originally we were going to release the documentary in May, and I think this is the

00:06:11.160 first film in history that the release has been delayed for trolling purposes.

00:06:16.120 I feel great about that. And the film itself, I think the thing that I'm proud of in the film

00:06:22.820 is that it actually, yeah, it's funny. There's some trolling elements of it. We go to the Women's

00:06:28.320 March and have a great time trolling them there, and that's pretty much all that's about.

00:06:31.440 But it's actually, it's a film. It's actually a really good film, credited a lot to our, of course,

00:06:36.100 our great director, Justin Polk. And going around, you know, on this kind of journey,

00:06:42.680 I think the theory is that, going into it, is that gender ideology basically collapses under the

00:06:50.860 weight of a question, which is, what is a woman? And what I discovered, and I kind of knew that

00:06:56.580 going in, I figured that is what would happen. What we discovered, though, is that actually gender

00:07:01.640 ideology collapses under the weight of any question at all. And going into some of these

00:07:08.620 interviews with, you know, some leading experts and medical authorities and professors and everything

00:07:14.480 else, there were kind of, I had some questions ahead of time that I was going to ask them, and

00:07:18.180 there were certain questions I had pinpointed where I thought, okay, once I ask this, it might get a

00:07:21.980 little bit tense. It's a little bit of a difficult question. But what we found is that once you ask

00:07:28.180 one real question, any kind of real question, that's actually a question where you're expressing

00:07:34.600 something out of skepticism in their worldview, the moment you do that, everything just falls to

00:07:39.620 pieces. Like, one interesting thing you'll see in the film is that a question like, what's the

00:07:46.620 difference between sex and gender? Now, in reality, there is no difference because gender is a

00:07:52.640 meaningless word. You know, it's like really talking about personality and temperament. But they're the

00:07:56.800 ones who invented this distinction. And yet, when you ask them, well, can you explain the

00:08:00.820 distinction? They can't do it. Everything starts to fall apart just based on that.

00:08:04.620 Yeah. Their own concept, and they can't even tell you.

00:08:07.960 Did you find yourself during the interviews, because I went in, I had very high expectations.

00:08:13.840 It exceeded my expectations. And I'm laughing. I mean, that first third of the movie, I am

00:08:19.040 bowled over laughing. And then I find myself in the middle of the movie, when you start really

00:08:23.320 digging into some of these questions with these people, I wanted to throw my computer across the

00:08:29.300 room because of the really evil things that they're describing doing to kids. Did you find

00:08:35.460 yourself having to kind of rein it in a little bit when you're talking to these people?

00:08:39.620 Yeah. A couple of interviews in particular, which I think will be obvious once you're watching the

00:08:43.480 film, who those interviews might be. But a couple in particular where I really had to kind of hold

00:08:48.500 myself back. I guess your instinct is you want to start yelling because you're hearing things and you

00:08:52.420 want to sort of yell at them about it. But that, as fun as that would be to do, that doesn't

00:08:58.320 accomplish what we wanted to do in the film. I mean, you can start yelling and then I'll

00:09:00.840 make you my point.

00:09:00.940 You want to expose it.

00:09:01.940 Right. I think what we wanted to do was just simply keep asking questions. Just let them,

00:09:08.180 let gender ideology basically hang itself under the weight of the questions.

00:09:12.820 It is amazing the difference, the way the people who are living a life based in reality speak

00:09:19.160 in the movie. Like guys like Jordan Peterson. Is that Carl Truman? Is that? Yeah. Yeah.

00:09:23.580 Yeah. Carl Truman. And the lady psychiatrist, I didn't catch her name. You know, the way they

00:09:28.160 just speak about facts and history and ideas and put them all together. Whereas everybody

00:09:33.560 else is always fighting back. They're always on the defensive. It's always you can't say this

00:09:37.940 because you're not a woman or you can't say this because you're something else. You're not

00:09:41.560 identified this way.

00:09:43.040 Or how dare you ask the question? Why are you asking me that?

00:09:44.460 How dare you ask the question? And then the one thing that made me furious is the misuse

00:09:49.300 of therapeutic language. So they say, why do you care so much? And what I thought you

00:09:54.440 did, I mean, I think the film is terrific, Matt. Actually, I don't even like you. So I

00:09:58.020 think you know I'm telling the truth. But what you did really was you had answers, you know,

00:10:03.840 because they come at you with things that might throw you off. Like, you know, why do you

00:10:08.000 care so much? Which is just an insidious, stupid, sleazy question.

00:10:12.040 There's one other thing you did. Yes, you were prepared. You asked questions. The other

00:10:16.460 thing that you brought to this is being a stone-cold sociopath.

00:10:20.340 He's a killer.

00:10:21.300 Which is what we love about you.

00:10:24.000 Like, I would never trust you with anything at any time. If your interests are ever set

00:10:30.460 against my interests, I know what will happen. Your ability to walk into these incredibly

00:10:36.980 tense, incredibly hostile, incredibly absurd environments and absorb it with a straight

00:10:44.300 face. Yes, that's amazing. Honestly, it's what makes the film. It's what made it possible

00:10:48.280 for you to get what you got. And I can say with absolute certainty that none of the rest

00:10:52.820 of us here could have done anything like it. It is a super...

00:10:57.100 Because you all have human emotions.

00:10:58.620 That's the first time anyone's accused of it. That's unusual. It shows you what level

00:11:05.080 we're talking about. My heart through three sizes that day. I think there's also a little

00:11:09.700 bit of a pride. I think I had to overcome some pride in some points, especially when we made

00:11:14.880 our trip to Africa. And I'm asking them questions and sort of presenting gender ideology to them.

00:11:22.840 And they assume that I'm an advocate of these ideas. And they think that I'm completely insane.

00:11:29.100 And so I kind of wanted to pull them aside and say, hey, by the way, I don't really believe

00:11:31.760 this stuff. But, you know, you figure you don't get kind of the authentic reaction if you set it up

00:11:37.460 that way. What you really get, I think, from the film is a sense that this entire ideology is

00:11:43.480 rooted in a hatred of the fundamental institutions of the society. Like the basic...

00:11:49.040 Fundamental facts of life.

00:11:50.060 Yes. Yes. But like truth, the differences between men and women, marriage, like the roles that

00:11:57.160 actually make life worth living. And this is the thing that... I don't know if you saw President

00:12:01.600 Biden's statement about LGBTQI+. We have to keep a running tab on this acronym because it's now

00:12:08.600 growing beyond actually English letters. We've gone to Sanskrit, ampersands and tildes and all sorts

00:12:13.600 of fun stuff. And the flag is getting uglier and uglier, I've noticed. Like it started off as like a

00:12:17.600 nice rainbow and now you have this bizarre... Well, yeah, because gay guys are fabulous and have

00:12:20.600 a great sense of fashion. But once you add everybody else into this mix...

00:12:23.700 Well, the gay guys are being pushed out, actually.

00:12:25.820 Well, so this is the point I was going to make. So one of the things that's so bizarre about the

00:12:30.680 idea that there is an LGBTQI plus movement is the fact that the basic premise behind the LG

00:12:36.760 movement is at just complete odds with the premise behind the transgender movement. The premise of the

00:12:42.760 LG movement is biological, born this way. Our behavior is unchanging. It cannot change. And

00:12:47.500 therefore, you should be tolerant of this sort of behavior in us. The premise of transgenderism is

00:12:52.000 there's no such thing as biological reality. Everything is free floating.

00:12:55.440 And also, if you're a gay man, you're attracted to other men to know what gender they are.

00:12:59.040 There's a biological essentialism to men and women that underlies lesbian and gay, but is a complete

00:13:03.520 opposite of the transgender movement, which is why you now have the bizarre spectacle of transgender women

00:13:09.000 who are raping women and claiming that they are women in the process using their very female

00:13:13.820 penises to do so. And the BBC going along with it by changing the pronouns in its stories to reflect

00:13:18.560 this sort of stuff. And so Joe Biden put out a statement on LGBTQI plus minus divided by sign

00:13:24.920 month. And in this statement, he had what I thought was a really telling line. And you hear it a lot.

00:13:30.920 And it was, we see you for who you are. And that is such the opposite of the truth.

00:13:35.680 Yeah, that's right. Because in order for me to see you as you are, there has to be some sort of

00:13:38.220 objectifiable metric of what you are. There has to be something verifiable and objective.

00:13:43.280 If you're walking down the street and you have an internal feeling, there's no way for me to see

00:13:46.240 you, quote unquote, as you are. What this means is that you must have your feelings about the world

00:13:51.080 validated by everyone, no matter how destructive they are, no matter how destructive to yourself they

00:13:55.660 are, no matter what they are. It all has to be validated. And no society can function under those

00:14:00.500 conditions because for me to then see you as you are means I have to now take on faith things that are

00:14:04.220 blatantly untrue and at direct odds with reality. And that's really what I think the documentary

00:14:08.500 shows more than anything else, is that these people are saying things that are at blatant,

00:14:11.880 direct odds with reality. And they are torturing children in order to address purpose.

00:14:16.000 The other thing that you notice, and you see this in documentary a lot, but this is just the LGBT,

00:14:20.320 you know, left, this is what they do. They all these kind of sleight of hand tricks. And you brought up

00:14:25.300 this question of, well, why do you care so much? Well, hold on a second. You're spending all this time

00:14:30.240 telling us that we're supposed to care. Yeah. They're literally throwing parades in the streets

00:14:34.320 like, hey, everybody, you should care about my sexuality. And then the moment that we actually

00:14:37.680 care and say, okay, let's talk about this. Well, why do you care so much? So it's a sleight of hand

00:14:41.280 where they kind of reel you in and then they change the subject. Well, they do this with all sorts of

00:14:45.440 culture. They say if you get involved with their culture, they say it's cultural appropriation.

00:14:49.520 If you ignore their culture, they say it's erasure. But there's this very visual element too

00:14:54.360 about the movie that strikes me that really only you could do. Because to your point, Ben,

00:14:59.600 in a way, it seems like the L and the G are opposed to the T, right? But in another sense,

00:15:06.980 there is a commonality here between the L and the G and the B and the T and all of them and

00:15:12.100 feminism and every other ism, which is all of these movements basically say men and women are

00:15:18.100 basically the same. So M plus M equals M plus W equals W plus W. And the M can be the W and the

00:15:26.440 W can be the M. And a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. And so that's the claim that

00:15:30.520 runs through all of them. And then there you are on screen, this giant looking lumberjack guy with

00:15:37.320 a big bushy beard. And you're talking to these little girls and you say, so what do you think

00:15:41.800 a woman is? Can you tell, am I a woman? You know, and you just think, no, you're not. Whatever a

00:15:46.680 woman is. You are not it. And it was, it was shocking to, you know, when you're talking to

00:15:51.720 the experts, you know, you're talking to frauds and scam, scammers. But when you're talking to

00:15:55.560 people on the street, you would think at least one of these girls would just say to you, I am.

00:16:00.700 But none of them does. And that's, and how pervasive it is. That's the one thing. And he's

00:16:05.140 kind of man in the street. Everywhere we went, we went out onto the street and talked to people.

00:16:08.680 And we had so many conversations, so much of it obviously can't make it into the film.

00:16:12.680 But the one thing that struck me, a couple of things. First of all, this is utterly pervasive.

00:16:16.340 It didn't matter. I tried to predict ahead of time based on how somebody looked, how old

00:16:19.920 they were, you know, would we get a normal sane answer? And it was impossible to predict. I mean,

00:16:24.260 you talk to someone who's in their 80s, someone who's 18, it doesn't make a difference. This

00:16:28.180 is just infected everyone. But the people on the street, what you pick up on is they don't

00:16:34.120 want to give you a straight answer, but they're, they're afraid. Like they're scared. And a lot

00:16:37.200 of times people would tell us they would, you know, we would, we would tell people, we would

00:16:40.380 try to stop them and say, we're doing this documentary. Would you talk to us? And they say, yes.

00:16:43.220 Like, and we even tell them it's about gender, but the moment they see where the questions are

00:16:46.540 going, they say, oh, I can't talk about this. And they just, and they walk away because they're

00:16:49.840 afraid. Whereas with the so-called experts, what you get is anger. You know, they're, they're,

00:16:54.160 they're angry that you're, that you would deign to ask them any questions at all because they

00:17:00.080 think the relationship is supposed to be, they tell you, and then you just said, I'm supposed to

00:17:04.120 sit there, especially me of all people. I was just kind of this, like, I didn't even, I didn't even go to

00:17:08.040 college. So I'm just, I'm supposed to just sit there and say, okay, Mr.

00:17:10.240 Matt, imagine. Well, the anger of the experts is the source of the fear of the everyday American.

00:17:14.820 That's right. And imagine too, you've dedicated your life from, let's say the end of high school

00:17:20.540 through college, through graduate school, through your PhD, you've tried to get tenure. You have

00:17:25.540 dedicated your life to a nonsense delusion that you, an uneducated podcast host, deflate with one

00:17:34.300 question. That I would be furious too. That wasted my life.

00:17:37.540 But it is amazing how quickly they throw you out. I mean, how quickly, the minute they see that

00:17:41.880 they're not in, one of the people says to you, and nobody disagrees with this except the dinosaurs,

00:17:47.520 which is, that's the ugliest thing they can say to you, that you might be old, you might be unheighted.

00:17:51.500 But that person actually says, no one disagrees.

00:17:54.260 No one disagrees.

00:17:54.680 And only, only when Matt pushes back, says no one, well, the dinosaurs.

00:17:58.560 The dinosaurs.

00:17:58.940 Like the initial statement is, no one, because you're not a person if you disagree.

00:18:03.940 Right. And also, remember the world that these people live in. I mean, they,

00:18:09.060 and that person knew that what was, that's obviously not true. But these people also live

00:18:13.220 in a world where, in their world anyway, nobody does disagree.

00:18:16.640 It demonstrates how, by creating a false consensus, you can convince an enormous number

00:18:20.780 of people that they must go along with the false consensus. And one of the things that's happening

00:18:23.680 here, there's a famous social experiment where if you go to a busy city and you stand on a street

00:18:27.680 corner, you look up into the sky and just stand there for a few minutes, then sooner rather than later,

00:18:32.260 there'll be 20, 30, 40 people who are standing there looking into the sky because they're assuming

00:18:35.260 there's a reason that you're looking into the sky. And so if you base, the emperor's new clothes is

00:18:39.600 real. If you, if you generate a feeling that all the experts, all the wisest people among us have

00:18:44.460 said that this thing is true, then you can get everybody to agree that this thing is true,

00:18:48.020 particularly when it becomes a sign not only of stupidity, but also of malice and evil for you

00:18:52.540 to disagree.

00:18:53.280 There's also, there's a, there's an opportunity. This is one thing I hope people take from the film is

00:18:56.800 that this creates an opportunity for those of us who are, I don't even say on the right,

00:19:01.840 just if you're a sane, decent person, because, because they live all the experts and everything,

00:19:06.480 the people that are, uh, promoting this agenda, they live in this sort of bubble. Um, they've

00:19:12.360 gotten their, their week. I mean, they haven't been, they haven't been tested. These ideas have

00:19:16.320 not been tested and they're not prepared to be tested. And so it doesn't take much. All we have

00:19:21.320 to do is have a little bit of a backbone and ask some basic questions. We could, we can win. This is a

00:19:25.700 gender ideology. This is a battle we can actually win. I, you know, I don't say that about very

00:19:30.100 many things because I'm the, I'm the pessimist, but, um, we can actually win this, I think.

00:19:34.360 And I think, I think it's the bottom, uh, stick of the Jenga tower, because this is,

00:19:39.500 this is the place where you can say, no, you're not telling the truth. And you know what? You're

00:19:43.820 not telling the truth about race either. And you're not telling the truth about all these things

00:19:46.960 that they're, you know, this is why, you know, when you pitch, I hate to be an ad man. I hate to be

00:19:52.160 a pitch man, but when you pitch subscriptions, you know, we've been doing this now for a long time.

00:19:57.340 And this is a, this is a big moment for us, I think, where we are moving into this kind

00:20:01.340 of content and we just can't do it. We're not doing this on our own. And, and the, I get so

00:20:06.000 many letters, conservatives, as you know, are naturally pessimistic. That's part of being

00:20:09.340 a conservative. And I get so many others. Oh, it's over, you know, forget it. It's done.

00:20:12.840 And I think, well, that makes it easy for you not to do anything. That's right. But, you know,

00:20:17.060 I mean, people can actually help. They can actually be part of this. And they, they think we don't,

00:20:21.360 we don't appreciate it. They think we don't know, you know, but we know, we know we're,

00:20:24.720 we're walking on their water, basically. If they don't, if they don't fill the tub,

00:20:28.140 we can't go anywhere. Matt, we're going to let you step off set for a moment to go do

00:20:31.420 another interview. And then Matt will be joining us again. In the meantime, we're going to have

00:20:35.600 the director of the film, Justin Folk, join us to talk a little bit about the making of the movie.

00:20:40.180 But I want to follow up on something on your point, Drew, which is when conservatives who are

00:20:45.800 naturally pessimistic start to lament that there's nothing that can be done. I actually think that,

00:20:52.340 you know, we're, in addition to being sort of preservers of tradition and institutions,

00:20:56.780 we're also supposed to carry the, the light of, of biblical religion forward. And from the first

00:21:03.940 pages of the Bible, God calls man to optimism. He says, be fruitful and multiply, which is

00:21:08.680 fundamentally about creating and looking to a future, looking to the unknown, the, the, the things

00:21:14.220 that are very frightening ahead of us, and nevertheless, planting seeds in hope, in hopes of a harvest.

00:21:19.820 So to throw up your hands and give up and give up is a fundamentally anti-Christian thing to do.

00:21:24.900 It's a fundamentally anti-American thing to do. Supporting the Daily Wire, becoming a member of

00:21:29.160 the Daily Wire, isn't the only thing that one can do, but one must do something. You know, to,

00:21:34.040 if you're, if you're throwing up your hands in surrender, you are literally no good to any of us.

00:21:40.200 If you're doing anything, you have my gratitude. If the thing that you're doing is becoming a member

00:21:45.060 at Daily Wire, we're going to be good stewards of that opportunity. That capitalizes our business.

00:21:50.020 It's not a donation. We're going to produce content and serve that content back to you,

00:21:54.540 but it, but it is an investment. You're, you're planting seeds and, and trusting us that we're

00:21:59.440 going to bring about a harvest. And I think tonight we're going to make good on that promise in a major

00:22:02.800 way. I think all through the month of June, we're going to make good on that promise in a major way.

00:22:07.420 There are other ways to capitalize businesses. You don't want us to capitalize this business that way.

00:22:11.880 That's the key. That's the key because you, you can get money, especially for a company this size.

00:22:16.660 There are really easy ways to get money that come with all sorts of strings. And there is an

00:22:22.980 ideological component, ESG, environmental, social, and governance policies that, that rip out the

00:22:27.380 diversity and inclusive policy. And whoever gives you the money, that's who you're indebted to. And we

00:22:31.280 want to be indebted to our audience. Right. That's exactly right. And I think one of the things

00:22:33.980 that, what Matt's documentary is going to show you tonight, and it really is, again, I can't praise it

00:22:37.880 highly enough, but I'm not going to have to sell it to you in about 38 minutes. You'll see it yourself.

00:22:41.880 If you subscribe, which you should. What Matt's documentary really shows more than anything

00:22:46.900 else is that the left-wing ideology is a balloon. And it's filled with hot air. And it feels really,

00:22:53.080 really big. I mean, it's looming there on the horizon. And it's just enormous. And it's

00:22:56.580 every corporation. And you log on to watch ESPN or CNBC, and you're seeing pride progress flags

00:23:04.960 dedicated to the notion that gender and sex are completely separate, but also the same. And they

00:23:08.920 don't exist. And they do exist. And it feels like you're being beaten over the head with this.

00:23:13.140 Matt is one guy with a beard, a camera, and some funding from us. And he went to the bastions of

00:23:20.680 this ideology. And with one question, he completely collapsed it. Because the thing about that balloon

00:23:25.100 is it's full of hot air. All it takes is a man, some tenacity, a beard, a million dollars from the

00:23:31.760 God King. And the directing talent of one Justin Folk. Before we bring Justin, I have to say,

00:23:36.940 personal note, Justin Folk did the first series of videos I ever did, the Klavan on the Culture

00:23:43.740 videos from PGTV. And I'm so happy to see he has redeemed himself.

00:23:50.740 I had to do all of this to get you to get racist again. So thank you so much. No, guys, thanks,

00:23:56.340 guys. Thanks for having me. And man, what a privilege, you know, to make a movie with you guys. It

00:24:00.780 really has been a privilege. I also want to thank you for ruining my Hollywood career.

00:24:05.440 You're welcome. Whatever we can do for you. I had some real ambitions of directing Glee

00:24:09.500 Part 4. So that's kind of out the window now. But no, it's been a privilege. And working

00:24:15.460 with Matt has been awesome. I've gotten to know Matt. And Matt's a guy that, like, has such

00:24:20.460 an interesting personality. He is so funny. But you have to kind of understand. You kind

00:24:24.400 of have to watch him. And he never shuts up. That guy is all yak, yak, yak all day.

00:24:30.780 But when Matt laughs, he goes, he basically, you know, you know he thinks something's funny

00:24:35.380 because he shows about like an eighth of an inch of teeth. He just does that. But no,

00:24:41.120 this was great. And what was your biggest takeaway in the making of the film? Well,

00:24:44.940 what moment sticks out to you the most? I think I had a lot of takeaways. I think the biggest

00:24:49.760 takeaway I had that came while we were making the film was how important this was. You know,

00:24:56.100 when we started out, and I kind of, Matt told me the idea of the film, I was kind of like,

00:25:00.740 I don't know. You know, this is an issue that people don't want to touch. They don't think

00:25:04.900 it affects them. They think that they can kind of live their lives with their kids and do their

00:25:08.540 thing. And this thing won't affect them in any sort of way. And I just felt like, okay,

00:25:13.580 how do we do this? You know, how do you do a movie on this issue, the gender ideology thing?

00:25:18.400 And when Matt told me sort of the method, and you guys have been talking about the method,

00:25:23.520 the sort of Socratic method that he was going to go about doing this, which was just simply ask

00:25:28.480 questions and then watch this thing unravel. I was like, wow, that could work. But it really

00:25:33.240 wasn't until we got into it when we started to ask these questions. And we really began to find out

00:25:38.080 how pervasive this is all throughout society, how it's coming everywhere, and how parents are having

00:25:44.780 their rights stripped away, how kids are having their lives and their bodies ruined.

00:25:50.880 That's when it really dawned on me, like, wow, we're really doing something important here,

00:25:54.300 which is kind of the important decision for me, too, because it's like, am I willing to throw

00:25:58.280 myself out there as a director on this topic and do this? And the importance helped that.

00:26:03.060 Our dailywire.com members are able to ask questions. And this question just came in for you.

00:26:07.920 Without giving anything away, what do you think is the most important interview in the film?

00:26:12.560 The most important interview?

00:26:13.980 Yeah.

00:26:14.780 I think the most important interview is probably we have a transgender person, a hero in our film,

00:26:23.040 Scott Nugent. Scott is a person that transitioned from female to male and tells the story. Of course,

00:26:30.240 Scott has endured some tremendous physical difficulties and health problems as a result of

00:26:36.320 the transition. But more importantly, Scott speaks so well about why we need to prevent this from

00:26:42.080 happening to kids specifically. And I think because it's such a human story, it's such a real story,

00:26:49.940 it's somebody who's lived it. I think that's why that's probably one of our most important

00:26:54.160 interviews that we did.

00:26:55.540 Yeah. The most interesting interviews in the movie to me actually are the people on the street.

00:27:00.820 And it's not that they have anything to offer. They don't. And that is what makes it so interesting.

00:27:05.180 They don't even offer the party line answer. Everyone just about that you speak to is terrified

00:27:12.280 and speechless. The ambiguity is part of the weapon that the left uses. I mean, Ben, you just hit on

00:27:18.360 this. The idea that sex doesn't matter except that it does. Gender isn't real except when it is.

00:27:23.080 All of the contradictions that are inherent in transhumanism, fundamentally, gender is a social

00:27:29.660 construct. Therefore, here are 58 genders that no one in your social order has ever heard of or

00:27:35.280 conceived. I mean, none of it makes any sense. And that's the feature, not the bug.

00:27:40.340 That's right. Because then it really comes down to the deconstructionist point of view,

00:27:43.760 which is that everything is power.

00:27:44.960 Yeah.

00:27:45.100 The postmodernist point of view, the sort of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida point of view,

00:27:48.060 is that all rhetoric, all logic, all this stuff, these are just systems of power that are finding

00:27:53.360 a way to express themselves. And they accuse, you know, capitalism being a system of power.

00:27:57.540 They accuse free speech of being a system of power. But the reality is the reason they say

00:28:00.600 this stuff is because for them, everything is a system of power. Because in the end,

00:28:04.200 they are petty tyrants. And the idea is that if we confuse you so much that you don't understand

00:28:08.280 what's going on, and if you wrong step, we destroy you, then the only safe path is to just

00:28:13.200 repeat everything I say. It's just say after me. And if you don't repeat it in exactly the words

00:28:16.660 that I'm using, then you must repent. And if you don't repent, then we'll destroy you. And if what

00:28:20.160 I'm saying tomorrow is different than what I'm saying today, again, that's a feature, not a bug,

00:28:23.360 because you're demonstrating your fealty to the ideology by what you're willing to give up.

00:28:27.020 If the idea in any sort of ideological system is that your loyalty to the system can be proved by

00:28:32.660 how much skin you have in the game, which is fairly true, right? If you're a Christian,

00:28:35.760 then you have to involve yourself in certain practices. You have to go to church every Sunday.

00:28:38.440 You have to bar yourself from certain behaviors. If you're an orthodox, you have a ton of stuff

00:28:41.460 that you can't do. There's just certain things that you have to do and not do. When it comes to

00:28:44.780 leftist ideology, the skin in the game is simply, you have to give up all rootedness in logic and

00:28:50.960 reason when it comes to gender ideology. And you have to just pretend along with us and you have

00:28:55.560 to mirror exactly what we say. So if I tell you right now that biology is a social construct,

00:29:01.760 but also that children are born transgender. If I tell you those two things simultaneously,

00:29:07.020 the male and female are categories that don't exist, but a male can become a female by doing

00:29:11.380 surgeries to his body to make him appear more like a biological female. Two things which are

00:29:15.620 in complete contradiction with one another. If you say those things and you say them and you

00:29:19.940 hold them in your head, that is not only demonstration that you are virtuous, it is

00:29:23.640 demonstration that you are willing to give up your own mental health, your own sense of intellectual

00:29:30.000 honesty. To give up logic. To give up everything in order to be one of us. And it's all one of us

00:29:35.100 kind of stuff. There was this really scary aspect to that Will Thomas interview. Will goes by

00:29:39.300 Leah, the swimmer on the UPenn team. And I felt conservatives were reacting to it in a spike

00:29:45.940 the football way. Like, ha ha, we got him. You know, he's admitting that transgenderism is false

00:29:50.040 because he couldn't answer the question. He just said, well, you know, I don't really care. I'm happy

00:29:54.800 now. And I don't care what the other girls think. I'm happy now. To me, that's not a spike the

00:29:59.140 football moment. What's so scary about that is he says, damn logic, damn truth. All that matters is my

00:30:05.180 will. All that matters is my desire. I mean, frankly, not to be hyperbolic, it's sort of like

00:30:10.520 the Marquis de Sade. Why does your pain matter any more than my desire? That's absolutely true.

00:30:15.360 It's also, Orwell, one of the scariest lines in all of literature is two and two is not five,

00:30:20.860 two and two is not four. It's what the party says it is. And that's exactly what you're talking about.

00:30:25.180 That's right. The Leah Thomas interview is astonishing, by the way. If you haven't actually seen it,

00:30:29.020 the number of unbelievably narcissistic things that are said in that interview, and again,

00:30:34.700 self-contradictory things. One of the things that Leah Thomas says in a voice significantly

00:30:37.500 deeper than my own, which is no great accomplishment except that Leah Thomas is supposed to be a woman,

00:30:42.800 is that Leah Thomas at one point is asked about the non-competitive nature of a biological man who

00:30:48.640 is enormous, racing against far smaller biological women who went through female puberty. And he says,

00:30:55.420 well, you know, I took estrogen, and estrogen has made me slower, and it has made me feel weaker.

00:31:01.860 And it's like, yes, that's the point. Isn't it? That's the point. So you had like a year of some

00:31:06.640 estrogen shots. How about you try all of puberty of bodily produced estrogen? Like, how about that?

00:31:13.260 But it's so awful because a woman is an actual kind of person.

00:31:18.120 How dare you?

00:31:18.620 Yeah. So these women who are women go out and become excellent in a sport, in women's sports,

00:31:26.220 and he strips it away from them.

00:31:28.080 Who was it who wrote this? Someone with a straight face actually said this week

00:31:31.900 that women's sports were created to protect men from having to lose to women.

00:31:37.900 From the humiliation of having to lose to women. Who was it, Ben?

00:31:40.660 I'm trying to remember who it was. It was a columnist, I think, for the New York Times, maybe?

00:31:43.580 They believe it.

00:31:44.360 Yeah.

00:31:44.680 The national crochet champion.

00:31:45.800 That's the scary thing. They do believe it.

00:31:47.900 Justin, here's another question.

00:31:48.900 From a person who hasn't watched one game in their life.

00:31:52.100 Here's another question from a DailyWire.com member.

00:31:55.060 Did any of the hostile interviewees recognize Matt when he sat down?

00:31:59.480 It's a good question. No, actually, not that I know of.

00:32:03.300 But we did have cameras rolling as soon as we got in the room, usually, for these interviews,

00:32:08.200 just in case they did and knocked over our cameras and stormed out.

00:32:12.760 But during the interview itself, it goes back to Matt's ability to carry on a conversation.

00:32:20.380 By the way, don't play poker with Matt Walt.

00:32:23.240 Don't do it.

00:32:24.540 That's a no-go.

00:32:25.140 You don't tug on Superman's cape.

00:32:27.580 Don't play poker with him.

00:32:28.660 That's what I learned in making this movie.

00:32:30.320 But they could not read him.

00:32:32.460 And that's what we...

00:32:34.760 It's a 90-minute film, but a lot of these conversations were about an hour long.

00:32:38.220 And these people were just...

00:32:40.720 And I had a good crew that wouldn't crack, and they were just professionals.

00:32:43.960 And so they couldn't read anybody.

00:32:44.940 And they're looking around.

00:32:45.660 You can see in the interviews themselves, they're kind of looking around, like,

00:32:47.660 what's going on here?

00:32:48.960 Is this for real?

00:32:50.200 And Matt would just kind of keep the conversation going.

00:32:53.240 And so, no, nobody recognized him.

00:32:56.220 He's hard to recognize without the steering wheel.

00:32:59.220 Will we get to see any of that extra footage?

00:33:01.560 Anything that didn't make the cut?

00:33:03.740 Absolutely.

00:33:04.380 Absolutely.

00:33:04.780 We have so much great moments that didn't make the cut.

00:33:08.020 And looking forward to getting that stuff out there.

00:33:10.500 Africa was incredible.

00:33:12.600 That's some of the best stuff.

00:33:13.600 I feel like we've glossed over the fact that you flew to Africa.

00:33:17.300 Yeah.

00:33:17.420 In fact, here's a question from one of our members.

00:33:19.340 How does one coordinate talking to a real African tribe?

00:33:23.360 It's a good question.

00:33:24.300 Yeah, no, that is a good question.

00:33:25.400 No, we went through the normal channels.

00:33:27.480 We reached out to some...

00:33:28.680 What are the normal channels?

00:33:29.600 It's a duolingo.

00:33:33.540 If you Google www.talktoafricansabouttransgenderism.com.

00:33:39.620 Oh, yeah.

00:33:40.300 Oh, yeah, that old site.

00:33:41.680 It'll lay it all out.

00:33:42.220 I hang out on that site all the time.

00:33:43.860 It's all right there.

00:33:45.380 But, no, we just said, hey, we're making a movie.

00:33:47.800 We have some questions.

00:33:48.740 We want to go and dig deep and reach one of the tribes in Africa.

00:33:52.180 There's some film fixers that helped us out.

00:33:54.400 They had producers on the ground.

00:33:55.740 And it all came together miraculously.

00:33:57.600 They all kind of just came together.

00:33:59.180 And next thing you know, we're out there and spent the whole day with this tribe.

00:34:02.760 One little note I'd like to say about the tribe, and this is something that didn't make the final cut that you can probably see in the extra footage,

00:34:10.340 is Matt actually asked the tribe just about if anybody in the tribe deals with depression or mental illness or anything like that.

00:34:19.080 And they just said no.

00:34:21.000 It's like an emphatic, like, no.

00:34:23.240 We don't deal with that here.

00:34:24.240 We're happy.

00:34:24.860 Now, they have other real concerns, like lions coming into the village and eating everybody.

00:34:30.820 But on the mental illness and the depression thing, it was like, no, everybody has their – they have an identity.

00:34:35.860 And their identity is wrapped up in their community and their role within the community and what they do for the community.

00:34:41.420 That's what their identity is.

00:34:42.540 And it was pretty striking when you asked that question.

00:34:45.940 There's an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning saying that democratic, wealthy societies have the most mental illness

00:34:53.160 because you become severed from the roles that you so often talk about that bring us into relation with one another and define you.

00:35:00.500 You know, this is what happens when you're defined.

00:35:02.560 And the early – I like to read – I think Walsh likes to read these too, the biographies and autobiographies of explorers in Africa.

00:35:11.860 And one thing that comes across all the time is they're walking into a system that works.

00:35:15.980 They're walking into a system where the women know exactly what they do and they talk about, well, they don't have power.

00:35:20.300 But they do have power.

00:35:21.280 They have enormous power.

00:35:22.200 Because they know exactly what their role is and it's essential to their community.

00:35:26.420 They may not have political power, but they have the power of creation and the power of homemaking and food making and all these things.

00:35:33.820 And all of that vanishes when you become part of a mechanistic society that is based wholly on the individual.

00:35:40.520 I have to say, you know, very shortly after I started working at the Daily Wire, I remember talking to my son Spencer, no relation, and saying,

00:35:48.060 you know, I've been an individualist all my life, and now that I hear it coming out of my mouth, I realize it's not enough.

00:35:53.140 You have to be in relationship.

00:35:54.560 It has to be about who we are together.

00:35:57.840 And that's what they've basically thrown a grenade into that entire system.

00:36:01.020 That's exactly right.

00:36:01.600 I mean, the complete destruction of societal institutions.

00:36:04.560 You have to understand that I think that that is the goal.

00:36:06.900 Because this is a way of people feeling about themselves.

00:36:10.080 One of the people you interview in the film is Carl Truman.

00:36:12.020 As I said before, Carl Truman's book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, is a deeply important book.

00:36:15.440 And the point that he makes, in essence, as I've said before, is that the way that people used to identify was in relation to their role in society.

00:36:24.300 You were born into a biological body.

00:36:26.700 You were born into a system that preexisted you.

00:36:28.700 The world didn't begin turning the moment that you arrived.

00:36:30.820 We have this conundrum in sort of liberal democracy.

00:36:33.020 Why am I bound by the Constitution?

00:36:34.720 It was born after the Constitution.

00:36:36.040 I didn't consent to being part of the social compact.

00:36:38.620 And the answer is because you didn't consent to being born either.

00:36:40.760 I mean, you were born into systems.

00:36:42.460 Those systems help define you.

00:36:43.600 And that's not a bad thing.

00:36:44.680 That's a very good thing.

00:36:45.840 That helps provide channels and boundaries.

00:36:47.940 It helps take the evolved wisdom of society over thousands of years and make that accessible to you in the way that people around you live and what is expected of you in terms of your duties.

00:36:56.260 And we used to understand that.

00:36:57.400 And now, the way that we define ourselves is our authentic sense of self-fulfillment.

00:37:01.240 And once you believe that what you are is your authentic sense of self-fulfillment, you are automatically oriented toward destroying all the institutions around you.

00:37:08.900 Because all those institutions are in position on the real you.

00:37:11.260 The real you is somebody who exists in the absence of any of these societal influences, in the absence of any of these important institutions.

00:37:16.840 So if you can just destroy—the more institutions you wreck, the more authentic you are.

00:37:20.820 This is like Calvinism and Arminianism to me, though.

00:37:23.540 I hate false binaries that ideology creates.

00:37:26.820 You know, it's free will.

00:37:27.700 No, it's predestination.

00:37:28.680 No, you have a cantaloupe-sized brain, and you can't actually conceive of two sides of the same coin.

00:37:33.560 And so you pick—it's like one guy's a night owl and one guy's a morning person, and they're arguing over which is the better time.

00:37:40.960 They're both time.

00:37:42.260 Like, they are both a real expression of time.

00:37:44.700 And this is true with rugged individualism versus, you know, sort of corporatism or communitarianism.

00:37:51.380 America's sense of rugged individualism is good.

00:37:54.940 It takes place in a society—

00:37:57.360 Right.

00:37:57.580 Which is structured around social order.

00:37:59.900 I would say ordered liberty.

00:38:00.920 It's called ordered liberty.

00:38:01.780 Not just liberty, ordered liberty.

00:38:02.900 And this is the other thing about this therapeutic language that they pull on, Matt, where they say, you know, why do you care?

00:38:09.300 The thing about therapy, what's interesting, is you're nonjudgmental about a person, but you're not nonjudgmental about a situation.

00:38:16.800 If somebody talks to you—and I've been in this situation because I've been on hotlines and things like that—and they call you up and they say, I'm cutting myself.

00:38:22.880 You don't say, oh, that's great.

00:38:24.640 Right.

00:38:25.160 Unless you're in New York City, by the way.

00:38:26.220 Did you see those heroin ads?

00:38:27.200 Oh, yeah.

00:38:27.900 New York City put out heroin ads.

00:38:29.900 They put out ads on subways.

00:38:30.260 Oh, yes, I did see that.

00:38:31.300 In which they said, don't be ashamed that you're using heroin.

00:38:34.340 Be proud that you're doing it safely.

00:38:35.800 So, I can't counter you.

00:38:37.240 Yeah.

00:38:37.540 So, no, but what you do say is you don't condemn the person for doing it.

00:38:41.080 You sort of explore why they're doing it.

00:38:43.120 You're nonjudgmental in that sense, but you're not nonjudgmental about the fact that what they're doing is bad.

00:38:47.960 As I've said on this program before, a healthy society has a—liberals, a healthy society has a healthy left.

00:38:57.700 It doesn't have an ascendant left.

00:38:59.740 That on the side of arguing for trad, community, communal living lies wisdom and great, great evil.

00:39:09.140 On the side of liberalism and individualism lies great truth and great beauty and great evil.

00:39:18.120 That the nature of being humans is that none of our ideas, taken to their fullest, most extreme version, are good.

00:39:26.860 Because we're not fundamentally good, right?

00:39:30.000 There's this—one of the things that religion does is it moderates us away from ideology.

00:39:34.480 Now, when you're an early convert, is the reason that Paul says not to put early converts in charge, by the way, in the New Testament.

00:39:41.020 Because early converts become incredibly ideological, incredibly zealous, incredibly dogmatic.

00:39:46.240 They become very dug in on their ideas.

00:39:48.220 Part of that's out of enthusiasm.

00:39:49.940 Part of it's out of fear.

00:39:51.080 They just grab something.

00:39:52.160 They don't want anybody to be able to—

00:39:52.820 They're also afraid of doing the wrong thing.

00:39:54.280 You don't know enough to know where the loopholes are.

00:39:55.980 But the reality, I think, of religious life, the reality, if you read religious thinkers of all stripes across history, real intellects,

00:40:04.480 is that everyone sort of understands that God can only relate to fallen man because those are the only men with whom he gets to relate, right?

00:40:12.640 So there is a beauty in the sort of humility that it takes to say, I have these ideas.

00:40:19.400 I see wisdom and beauty in these ideas.

00:40:21.720 And these ideas are not all.

00:40:23.640 I'm not capable of understanding all of the ideas.

00:40:25.280 And in terms of the relationship and the idea that man has identity in relationship, I mean, one, this is why modern people don't get Socrates.

00:40:33.880 There are lots of reasons not to get Socrates.

00:40:35.400 But, you know, the fact that he accedes to death rather than being exiled because his identity would mean nothing if he were outside the city.

00:40:42.080 But then even furthermore, God himself, right?

00:40:45.320 God in Judaism, God himself has a relationship with the people of Israel.

00:40:49.140 And in Christianity, God has a relationship with himself because he is three persons.

00:40:54.020 I mean, that is where identity lies, right?

00:40:56.720 It's not just some Adam floating out.

00:40:58.500 I actually believe, I believe, you know, I listen to you guys sometimes that the Protestants argue with the Catholics.

00:41:04.220 And I sometimes think this is how God is teaching us that institutionalism, the togetherness of it all, and the independence of it all are somehow going to have to be reconciled in ways that our cantaloupe-sized brain does not understand.

00:41:15.240 At the stake.

00:41:15.900 That's where it's going to be reconciled.

00:41:17.840 You had me right.

00:41:19.100 I think that the Catholic could possibly be right.

00:41:21.140 Here's a question.

00:41:22.560 It's obviously not working.

00:41:25.580 The worst thing that happened at Westphalia is we agreed to disagree.

00:41:30.460 It always comes back to Westphalia.

00:41:31.860 Literally every effort.

00:41:32.700 It always comes back.

00:41:33.220 Have we gone through a single episode of Backstage in, what, five years, six years, seven years without bringing it back to the peace of Westphalia?

00:41:39.220 We either get back to that or we get back to what came before.

00:41:42.820 It's my favorite band.

00:41:45.600 Question from a dailywire.com member.

00:41:47.300 Would this film work as a good educational tool for church audiences?

00:41:50.800 Context, I'm a newly ordained priest trying to convince my bishop of this cultural tidal wave hurtling toward the church.

00:41:57.840 Depends who your bishop is.

00:41:59.420 If you'll be allowed to do it.

00:42:00.900 You know, there's a bishop in San Francisco who just got a lot of publicity because he fulfilled his duty as a bishop and told Nancy Pelosi that she's in a state of grave mortals.

00:42:10.880 Whoopi Goldberg says that's not his job.

00:42:12.500 Oh, it's not his job.

00:42:13.340 Not his job.

00:42:13.980 Ah, well, Whoopi.

00:42:14.820 I mean, you know, literally his job.

00:42:17.220 But, you know, Whoopi, St. Whoopi knows.

00:42:19.020 Archbishop Whoopi knows.

00:42:19.840 But, you know, this guy had the courage to actually do his job and fulfill the faith.

00:42:26.040 His name is Cordy Leone.

00:42:27.900 It literally means heart of a lion, you know.

00:42:29.160 So this is a guy who's willing to stand up.

00:42:30.600 If you have a bishop who has courage, which is a virtue and the prerequisite of all the other virtues, I think this movie would be an incredible, timely, important, intellectually serious, very funny resource.

00:42:43.700 And if your bishop doesn't like it, maybe don't tell him about the viewing party.

00:42:48.560 Yeah, I mean, what I would say is for, you know, age restrictions, if your kid is old enough to understand that these issues exist, so probably 14, 15 and up, then it's totally worth the watch.

00:42:59.600 Like all content that we make at the Daily Wire, this is not content for sort of superficial religious sensibilities.

00:43:08.700 Yeah.

00:43:08.820 Right.

00:43:09.180 This isn't like, if you get the vapors, then this is not for you.

00:43:15.640 If you get the vapors, though, I don't think any single page of the Bible is for you, is the truth.

00:43:19.820 I also don't think, by the way, if you get the vapors, you're also going to lose this battle.

00:43:23.420 I'm just going to say it straight out.

00:43:24.420 Because what the left is counting on is for you to get the vapors and say, I don't ever want to talk about this, I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear about it.

00:43:29.740 And therefore, you just sit aside while you watch them march right through the institution.

00:43:32.840 So if you want to fight it, this is the only way to fight it.

00:43:34.240 And every piece of content that we're making at the Daily Wire, we're trying to contribute something to the actual conversation,

00:43:40.280 not the theoretical, hypothetical conversation that very buttoned up people are having in their minds.

00:43:47.560 Well, you put it very well, Jeremy.

00:43:48.760 You say, we make content that conservatives want to see, not content that they want to want to see.

00:43:55.300 Did you say that?

00:43:56.740 Good line.

00:43:57.460 That's pretty good.

00:43:58.260 Just one point in terms of the religious nature here.

00:44:00.440 And it's something that I discovered in making this thing was, you know, Judeo-Christian values were taught that we're made in the image of God.

00:44:09.400 That's what our society is pretty much built on.

00:44:12.460 And this ideology attacks that.

00:44:14.540 It says, no, you're not in the image of God.

00:44:17.280 In fact, you might be a mistake.

00:44:19.360 And in fact, you can correct that mistake.

00:44:21.020 In fact, you can play God and correct that mistake.

00:44:23.000 And so it really goes against this sort of this real, real down deep notion of we are made in the image of God.

00:44:32.260 And that's why I think it's so destructive.

00:44:34.360 It's funny.

00:44:34.960 It's funny.

00:44:35.260 Bill Maher, the big atheist, said almost exactly that.

00:44:38.520 He said, what happened?

00:44:39.520 Were all the babies put in the wrong bodies?

00:44:41.440 Was there a mistake at the factory?

00:44:43.180 Is this the version of Captain Crunch?

00:44:44.980 Oops, it's all berries, you know?

00:44:46.300 I mean, this is what Bill Maher is saying.

00:44:48.280 I was thinking, where do you think the factory is, Bill?

00:44:50.260 Because what they're ultimately rejecting is the first pages of the Bible.

00:44:54.620 They're rejecting the fundamental reality that God made man in his image with purpose, by design.

00:45:03.820 Male and female, he made them, it says.

00:45:05.980 Again, I go back to, and the reason they're denying this is, they're not denying it because they don't think it's true.

00:45:10.840 They're denying it because they think it's true.

00:45:12.140 That's correct.

00:45:13.040 For the same reason that, I was just talking, sometimes I speak ill of the zealots, of the dogmatic Christian zealots.

00:45:19.440 But it's the same reason.

00:45:20.700 Because it is their fear that makes them unable to actually engage with the idea that may challenge the thing to which they're holding on to.

00:45:30.080 Their fear of being wrong means that you can't speak at all.

00:45:33.680 That is a base human reaction.

00:45:38.280 Because if they're wrong, see, if we're wrong, we can change our minds.

00:45:41.180 But if they're wrong, their virtue is gone.

00:45:42.840 That's right.

00:45:43.700 It's also an attack on their identity.

00:45:45.260 Yeah.

00:45:45.620 Right?

00:45:45.800 So you hear this language all the time.

00:45:47.880 What you're saying is an attack on me.

00:45:49.280 It's a violent attack.

00:45:50.040 You're erasing me.

00:45:51.720 Well, if what you are saying is that who you are is not anything objective, not verifiable, not in coordinates with society,

00:46:00.960 there's literally nothing to you except what you feel at this very moment,

00:46:04.380 then of course anything I say that disagrees with you is an attack on you

00:46:06.460 because you've literally defined you as whatever you feel in this moment.

00:46:09.660 So if I say something that makes you feel bad about yourself or makes you feel that what you're saying is incorrect,

00:46:14.440 that is in fact an attack on your identity, which is why this is not your identity.

00:46:18.020 It is a lie.

00:46:18.880 Your identity is not whatever you happen to think at this specific moment.

00:46:22.400 It is how you orient yourself to the world and how you deal with the fact that you live in a biological body,

00:46:28.000 with the fact that there is a society around you that has rules,

00:46:30.920 and that those rules exist because they have been passed down from time immemorial

00:46:34.600 to help with the healthful transition of the species toward tomorrow and toward the creation of children.

00:46:40.540 The most perverse thing that I've seen the left do with this stuff is pretend that it's on behalf of kids.

00:46:44.280 It is not on behalf of kids.

00:46:45.520 It is an attack on children.

00:46:46.620 It is an attempt to pervert children in order to validate your own sense of self-worth.

00:46:51.100 That is why it is so important to have Drag Queen Story Hour for seven-year-olds.

00:46:54.240 It's why it's so important to teach radical gender ideology to first-graders.

00:46:57.440 Because it's not about, oh, there may be a transgender five-year-old.

00:47:00.400 There's no such thing as a transgender five-year-old.

00:47:02.380 There may be such a thing as a child with gender dysphoria, which may or may not alleviate naturally over time.

00:47:06.760 There is no such thing as a boy who thinks he is a girl and knows this in the deep, bare bones of it,

00:47:12.680 because that doesn't exist as a fact of life.

00:47:14.320 Well, there's no such thing as transgenderism in that we're saying that as an ontological category,

00:47:19.460 boys are not secretly girls on the inside.

00:47:21.760 Right, and so when they say this is about the mental health of children,

00:47:26.120 when you take a wide, vast swath of kids and you confuse them about gender,

00:47:30.080 at an age when they are the most impressionable, which is why we are supposed to take care of innocent children,

00:47:34.060 the reason that you are doing this is not to take care of the kids.

00:47:36.820 You're deliberately confusing hundreds of millions of children.

00:47:40.120 Deliberately, you're doing it to make yourself feel better about yourself.

00:47:42.640 And you see it in these TikTok videos of these first-grade teachers.

00:47:46.520 You know how good it makes me feel when I talk about my gender identity with third-graders?

00:47:51.100 You know how good it makes me feel when I announce my sexual orientation to a bunch of small children?

00:47:55.500 Who gives a flying, how it makes you feel when you talk to a small kid about sex?

00:48:00.080 But this points out why we feel we love this country and we feel it's basically benign.

00:48:05.160 Because for all its sins, which are human sins that are always going to be there,

00:48:09.200 it basically lets us find our way and form relationships.

00:48:12.860 Whereas for them, it's always an imposition on that personal joy that they're going to have

00:48:18.440 because they're never actually going to have it, so it must be somebody's fault.

00:48:21.500 Justin, thank you so much for making this movie.

00:48:24.220 Thanks for working with us on it.

00:48:25.140 We're going to get Matt back out here, but we'll see you at the after party.

00:48:27.880 I don't know why you talked about how great it was to work with him.

00:48:29.820 I've never heard you say that about me.

00:48:31.100 I don't know.

00:48:32.380 Have a good night.

00:48:34.920 For the rest of you, now's a good opportunity.

00:48:36.960 There are 12 minutes before we bring What is a Woman to its worldwide premiere.

00:48:41.020 Head over to whatisawoman.com and become a Daily Wire member right now.

00:48:45.600 You have 12 minutes left to catch the film in its debut.

00:48:48.960 You will not be sorry, and it will give us the power to continue making this terrific kind of content going forward.

00:48:54.140 Some people have asked us, you know, if the film is so powerful, if it's so important,

00:48:57.760 why are we locking it up behind a paywall?

00:49:00.600 And the answer is because a nonprofit could not make this movie.

00:49:05.660 Right.

00:49:05.960 I can prove it.

00:49:06.920 There are a billion dollars of conservative nonprofits out there, and none of them have made this movie.

00:49:11.820 This is the kind of content that only comes into existence through a profit mechanism.

00:49:18.680 It comes into existence because of our DailyWire.com members,

00:49:22.220 and therefore we have to monetize it to our DailyWire.com members.

00:49:27.060 How, therefore, can it ever expand its influence?

00:49:29.580 Well, first of all, we're talking about it very publicly, not behind a paywall.

00:49:33.920 There will be clips of it that are very public, not behind a paywall.

00:49:36.620 Well, we give away 95% of our content.

00:49:39.000 Our business model is terrible.

00:49:40.560 Our business model is we have a profit motive and a missional motive.

00:49:45.060 Here's 95% of everything for free.

00:49:47.020 We hope people will pay for the 5% that's behind.

00:49:49.640 But I'll go further than that.

00:49:50.660 If this were behind a paywall at Netflix, people wouldn't be asking us that question.

00:49:56.260 Because they would understand that the number of people behind the paywall at Netflix is sufficient,

00:50:03.200 that that would satisfy their need for the content to have cultural penetration.

00:50:08.580 Well, you only get there if you add the subscribers.

00:50:10.720 So, in a way, people are asking, they're saying, you don't have enough subscribers.

00:50:14.980 We think this content is so valuable that everyone should be able to see it,

00:50:18.440 but we shouldn't have to pay for it.

00:50:19.780 That's the first contradiction.

00:50:20.720 The second contradiction is we think that you don't have enough subscribers

00:50:25.960 for it to make sense for you to put the show behind your paywall.

00:50:29.640 Therefore, we will not add more subscribers to you by becoming a subscriber.

00:50:33.100 It only works if it works.

00:50:35.460 And the only way that it works is if you join us.

00:50:37.840 Dailywire.com.

00:50:39.120 Whatisawoman.com.

00:50:39.920 Become a member now.

00:50:41.080 Ten minutes to go until the world premiere.

00:50:42.740 And the other reason?

00:50:44.480 Yeah, it's a really simple concept, really.

00:50:46.760 It's support the content that you want and don't support the content that you don't want.

00:50:52.000 Which, I mean, by the way, there's this whole controversy now over the new Star Wars TV show

00:50:57.800 and the actresses complaining about the fact that Ewan McGregor's come out

00:51:01.900 and called his own fan base racist and everything.

00:51:05.900 And this is the game that Disney plays at Star Wars.

00:51:08.260 They put these characters out there who they know are unlikable

00:51:12.480 and the audience isn't going to like

00:51:13.740 so they can trap the audience into complaining about it

00:51:15.920 so they can call them racist and virtually single.

00:51:17.360 Right.

00:51:17.640 But then the problem is that conservatives keep supporting that content

00:51:21.060 even though we're tired of that game.

00:51:23.400 And then there's content elsewhere that's the kind of content you want.

00:51:28.320 But then you say, well, I shouldn't have to pay for that.

00:51:29.540 I shouldn't have to support it.

00:51:30.400 That's just not how it works.

00:51:32.140 If you want the content, then support it.

00:51:33.340 There's a lot of stuff that we do at the Daily Wire.

00:51:34.900 I think almost everything that we do that can only happen here.

00:51:38.960 I mean, this film, I'm well aware of the fact that I could not have gone anywhere else to do this film

00:51:43.820 for one thing because I'm under contract, but also because nowhere else could this film exist.

00:51:50.920 Well, that's because basically, I mean, not to pat ourselves on the back here,

00:51:54.580 but that's because of the producers.

00:51:55.760 And what I was going to say here is not just, you know, because Jeremy and I are wonderful,

00:51:59.280 though we clearly are, but really the major producer of the film is the subscribers.

00:52:03.460 When we talk about the subscribers, the subscribers are effectively executive producers on the film

00:52:07.600 because it is their money that is going into the film.

00:52:09.980 You guys have opted to give us your money so that we can make stuff like this.

00:52:13.680 And we think of you guys as the people who are collaborating in the creation of content

00:52:17.180 that is going to change hearts and that's going to change minds.

00:52:19.640 And again, our goal is to get not hundreds of thousands of people behind our paywall,

00:52:23.140 but millions of people behind our paywall so that every day you have millions of people

00:52:26.380 who are ingesting content that is healthy for them and that is good for them

00:52:30.200 and that helps change the discourse and that makes you into a weapon for truth

00:52:34.160 and for values that actually matter.

00:52:35.840 Because it's not just for, you know, movies like this aren't just for people who don't know better.

00:52:40.060 They're for people who know but don't have the words to speak.

00:52:42.640 And I think that's what this movie does.

00:52:44.480 And then Netflix has to compete with us, which changes the entire landscape.

00:52:47.580 It changes their behavior.

00:52:48.200 You're also not subscribing for What is a Woman.

00:52:50.780 You're getting What is a Woman tonight.

00:52:52.580 You're subscribing for the next What is a Woman.

00:52:54.380 And you're subscribing for the next one.

00:52:56.080 And, you know, this movie would not have existed without all the support from our members already.

00:53:01.340 The next one won't exist.

00:53:02.500 The slate for 2022 is insane.

00:53:04.900 It only happens with your support.

00:53:06.280 So if you like it, get excited for the next one.

00:53:08.780 Matt, I have a question for you from one of our existing DailyWire.com members.

00:53:12.540 I'm sure a lot of people will accuse you of editing to make these individuals look weak and pathetic in the film.

00:53:17.500 What is your response?

00:53:19.980 I don't think the kind of editing exists.

00:53:23.280 I mean, we would have to use so many special effects to create this.

00:53:28.340 No, there was, I assure you, there was no editing necessary whatsoever.

00:53:32.740 And you can see that.

00:53:33.780 If you actually watch the film, that's the kind of criticism that can only exist from people who haven't seen it.

00:53:38.700 And the left is already accusing us of that.

00:53:41.260 And the film doesn't even exist for them to see yet.

00:53:43.800 But if you watch it, you can see very clearly that this is just question, answer, usually a non-answer.

00:53:50.980 But that's all it is.

00:53:52.080 That was one of my favorite things, I think, about the film is the fact that you're asking all these people these questions and they so clearly have no answers.

00:54:01.380 And, you know, the simple fact that they, then a few months later, you saw these reports in the media where they're like, Matt Walsh, when he asked us for interviews.

00:54:11.680 There are all these, the Daily Beast did a whole piece of this.

00:54:13.860 Matt Walsh is going around and asking people who are transgender advocates for interviews.

00:54:18.140 And then he's filming these interviews.

00:54:20.400 And it's an act of cruel sabotage for him to ask these questions.

00:54:25.200 And they treat it like this, like, it's a big revelation.

00:54:27.320 He's pranking them.

00:54:28.180 Wait, I thought you were a transgender advocate who is literally paid to answer questions about this.

00:54:32.460 I thought that was your job.

00:54:33.340 Giving you a chance to answer basic questions.

00:54:34.920 Also, there's a moment in the film to watch out for where one of the interview subjects actually says, oh, I ask him a question.

00:54:43.060 And he says, oh, I saw that in your questions.

00:54:45.560 Because many of the questions we asked, we actually sent them ahead of them because they asked for them.

00:54:50.580 And it's like, okay, here are the basic questions we're going to ask.

00:54:53.940 Sure, go ahead.

00:54:54.660 Got nothing to hide.

00:54:55.780 But even those questions, they collapsed in answering.

00:54:59.460 They knew they were going to be asked them.

00:55:00.740 So that is how.

00:55:01.860 It's not Borat.

00:55:03.260 You're not trolling them in that sense.

00:55:05.020 You're very open about what you're doing.

00:55:06.720 And you ask them very serious questions.

00:55:08.820 And they can't ask them.

00:55:10.080 I mean, it's very.

00:55:10.820 The only Borat element of this is you didn't just say, I am a conservative.

00:55:15.160 And I'm a religious person.

00:55:16.000 Because if you had said that stuff, then they wouldn't have given you the interview in the first place.

00:55:19.020 But the questions themselves are not a prank.

00:55:21.540 The questions are just questions.

00:55:22.480 At the risk of sounding like a liberal, asks a DailyWire.com member, how was your mental health impacted during the making of the film?

00:55:29.440 It was not great for some of these interviews, I have to say.

00:55:32.600 I mean, there was a couple of times when we left.

00:55:36.240 And it was just kind of, in particular, one of the people we talked to is a sex change surgeon.

00:55:41.400 Put quotes around sex change because obviously you can't really do that.

00:55:43.900 And leaving that, it's just very sort of draining because you're talking to what is just evil.

00:55:50.480 I mean, you're confronting something that is really pure evil, what they're doing to people.

00:55:54.080 Also, shouldn't it be gender change surgery?

00:55:56.340 If they will actually grant that sex is a biological phenomenon.

00:56:00.760 Yeah, now it's actually, the term of art is gender affirmation surgery.

00:56:05.220 Which, of course, makes no sense.

00:56:06.320 The idea that you need surgery to affirm something that you already are.

00:56:10.180 There's an internal feeling.

00:56:11.180 Right, exactly.

00:56:11.780 It makes no sense.

00:56:12.180 So I want to divert for one second and just say, because it is the beginning of Pride Month,

00:56:17.840 just how much I hate the term Pride Month.

00:56:20.280 I actually do think it's relevant to the topic of what is a woman, obviously.

00:56:23.720 This idea that you would take pride, pride in things like your sexuality or your preferential gender or whatever it is.

00:56:34.780 You know, like, I think as a general rule, one should not take pride in anything other than, at most, accomplishments.

00:56:41.680 This is why, like, racial pride is such an anathema.

00:56:45.500 Like, what is there to be proud about?

00:56:47.500 If you were actually born some way, you didn't do it.

00:56:51.420 You didn't do it.

00:56:52.200 Yeah, what is there for you to take pride in?

00:56:53.960 The only phrase there is, at most, because I read this old book, you know, and it's a pride goes before destruction,

00:56:59.340 and a haughty spirit before a fall.

00:57:01.260 And I believe it's the queen of all vices is what Thomas Aquinas said.

00:57:06.040 And Andrew Klavan said it's the vice of all queens.

00:57:08.920 There is a distinct version of Pride, though, like civic pride.

00:57:13.060 National pride.

00:57:13.420 National pride.

00:57:13.960 Sort of like filial pride.

00:57:15.200 Love of country.

00:57:15.900 That's right.

00:57:16.500 That's a completely different idea.

00:57:17.540 But part of what you have here is people sort of boasting in things that they also claim are innate.

00:57:24.560 And to me, that seems like a complete.

00:57:26.600 You know, the only thing that I think is a little bit off about this is we do take pride when our children go off and have children.

00:57:33.480 But because you take pride out of a sense of accomplishment, in a way, part of what you're proud about when your child goes off and is married,

00:57:40.760 your child goes off and has children, you're proud that you raised them to be the sorts of people.

00:57:45.000 And created people who create people.

00:57:46.360 Yeah, of course.

00:57:47.180 That is a compliment.

00:57:47.940 I mean, you're not so proud if your child is Hunter Biden and he sires a child with somebody, you know.

00:57:54.720 But I think this idea, I mean, almost all things that involve the word pride are shameful.

00:58:00.340 People who feel ashamed.

00:58:01.580 You don't have a pride parade if you're not ashamed.

00:58:04.900 I mean.

00:58:05.680 There is also something a little strange, which is that there are three main things that June is called.

00:58:11.600 National Dairy Month.

00:58:12.800 It's been that since 1937.

00:58:14.080 I'm celebrating that.

00:58:14.920 Yeah, naturally.

00:58:15.740 You know, all Americans eat dairy.

00:58:18.180 The month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 23% of Americans are Catholic.

00:58:22.560 And Pride Month, at the highest number, according to Gallup, 7.1% of Americans are LGBT.

00:58:30.140 How come we picked the lowest one?

00:58:31.440 Why don't we celebrate National Dairy Month?

00:58:33.640 Matt, we're coming up to two minutes now before the world premiere of your film.

00:58:37.020 What is the one thing you want the audience to take with them into this experience as they sit down to watch this movie?

00:58:43.220 Well, I'll tell you the thing that I want, can I answer a different question?

00:58:48.320 What should they take out of it, like, after they watch it?

00:58:51.280 Because I've been thinking about this because one of the things that we're hearing from people is, well, are you preaching to the choir, especially if it's behind the paywall and all that?

00:58:58.280 And we've already kind of responded to that.

00:58:59.580 But this idea that the choir doesn't need to be preached to, I kind of reject.

00:59:04.520 I mean, the choir's in the church, too, right?

00:59:05.760 We're going to ignore them.

00:59:06.400 And I actually think that that's one of the most important things that we can do is sort of equip people who are nominally at least on our side with some basic tools to go out and engage with these things.

00:59:18.860 And also just kind of, like, presenting, okay, here's the issue, informing.

00:59:23.400 I mean, there's a lot that we can do even for people on our side, and I hope that that's one thing.

00:59:26.260 Equipping of the saints is an actual calling.

00:59:28.340 And I, you know, someone said this earlier, Ben, it may have been you, that most people have not actually had to come face-to-face yet with the reality of the trans movement.

00:59:37.780 It's something they're aware of it.

00:59:38.960 They know somebody who knows somebody who's dealing with it, especially if you don't live in the coastal cities.

00:59:43.180 I think that this film, for a lot of people, this will be their first time to see the real evil that's being foisted on our society.

00:59:50.360 We talk about the kids.

00:59:51.480 That's obviously the most egregious place that it's being foisted, but not the only place that these ideas are being foisted.

00:59:57.120 And they are meant to destroy society.

01:00:00.980 They are meant to destroy social cohesion.

01:00:03.880 They're meant to destroy the world as we know it because they believe that a better world lies on the other side of tearing down the world that we all love and defend.

01:00:11.740 So thank you for making the movie.

01:00:13.100 I can't wait for the audience to see it.

01:00:15.000 Whatisawoman.com.

01:00:15.760 If you're not a member yet, hurry on over there.

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01:00:30.440 Head over to whatisawoman.com and become a member to see it.

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01:00:38.240 DailyWire Backstage is produced by Mathis Glover.

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The Michael Knowles Show - June 02, 2022

Daily Wire Backstage： Premiere of “What is a Woman？”

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