Ep. 483 - If You're Still Scared, Stay Home. The Rest Of Us Will Get Back To Our Lives
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, the media claims that many Americans still don’t want to leave their homes and get back to their lives. If that’s true, fine. That’s why I propose that everyone who wants to go back to work and their lives should be allowed to. If you want to stay home, you can. What’s the problem? Also Five Headlines including the arrest of the two men who shot Ahmaud Arbery. And in our Daily Cancellation, I cancel a news channel that shamed a man for the crime of operating his ice cream truck.
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, the media claims that many Americans still don't want to leave their homes and get back to their lives.
They want to stay barricaded in their homes.
They're not ready to be done with the lockdown yet.
If that's true, fine.
And that's why I propose that everybody who wants to get back to work and back to their lives can do so.
And if you want to stay home, you can.
I think that's the path forward.
It's an easy solution.
What's the problem?
We'll talk about that.
There's also five headlines including the arrest of the two men who shot Ahmaud Arbery,
and we'll talk more about that case today, especially in the emails.
Got a lot of email about it.
And in our daily cancellation, I cancel a news channel that shamed a guy for the crime
of operating his ice cream truck.
And you have to see this video just to see how proud of itself these quote unquote journalists
are for shaming this guy.
So we'll talk about all that coming up.
But first, as mentioned, a new poll done by ABC says that 65% of Americans don't want the economy to reopen.
Now I have trouble believing these polls because they don't at all reflect what I hear when I talk to people.
And I often think, even though it's unscientific, I do think sometimes your own anecdotal experience of just the vibe you get from people when you talk to them, I have found that to be more reliable than these media polls much of the time in many circumstances.
But let's say for a minute, okay, these things are accurate.
These are accurate polls.
Well, fine.
We still know, despite what supposedly 65% of Americans want, we know that there's no good reason for the lockdown to continue.
There wasn't a good reason for the lockdown to begin in the first place.
But almost everything we have learned in the last two months has made that truth inescapably clear.
Okay, so to be in favor of the lockdown two months ago is one thing.
To be in favor of it now is quite another, because we have a lot of data under our belt now, a lot of experience.
And it all points to the fact that there is no justification for this.
Over 33 million people have been put out of work.
Many businesses on the brink of or over the edge of bankruptcy.
Our economy teeters near total collapse.
And all of this, not to prevent deaths or to stop the virus, but merely to delay the inevitable moment when we have to figure out how to live in spite of it.
This is all a delaying tactic.
There are still people, I think a lot of people in this poll, Don't understand.
I think part of the reason why they're in favor of the lockdown is they still don't, and probably because they're getting their news from places like CNN, they don't understand what the lockdown is actually supposed to accomplish.
It's not supposed to save any lives, really.
It's just supposed to delay.
It's a delaying tactic.
For most of us, the risk of returning to our jobs and our lives is very low.
The virus primarily victimizes the old and the infirm, which is why it has had a hugely disproportionate impact on nursing homes.
As I argued a few days ago, I laid out the numbers, we talked about this.
In many states and many countries, nursing home fatalities account for more than half.
I mean, sometimes we're talking 70, 80, 90% of all COVID-19 fatalities.
When you add the elderly who are not in nursing homes, okay, so that's just specifically people in nursing homes.
Then what about the 75 and over crowd who are not in nursing homes?
And then you also add in people with pre-existing conditions, it becomes evident that young and healthy people are very unlikely to die from this disease or to be hospitalized because of it.
In fact, young and healthy people, I mean, the threat of death from COVID-19 for a young and healthy person isn't that much more than the threat from the flu.
That's just, that's what the numbers tell us.
I know we're not supposed to make these comparisons.
I don't care.
That's what the numbers tell us.
Now, that doesn't mean that we should cavalierly throw aside all precautions and safety measures and just throw it all to the wind and everything.
No, that's not what it means.
And that's another problem with these polls is that I think the way it is presented Is, do we have a lockdown or do we do nothing whatsoever and just pretend like everything is normal?
Like, those are the two options that are presented.
But that's not actually, the people who want to end the lockdown, most of them, that is not what they, what we are proposing.
You could still have plenty of safety measures, plenty of social distancing measures.
You can take plenty of reasonable precautions while sort of going about your life.
And if you do that, the threat level as a healthy person to you will be quite low.
And we should be, and this is the point, we should be allowed to take that risk if we wish.
For people who, for a culture that supposedly values autonomy and being pro-choice so much, I think this position should be appreciated.
We should be able to choose to take that risk if we wish.
But this brings up an important point.
The argument, the retort, is that, well, even if the young and healthy go back to their jobs, if we allow that to happen, and we allow them to reclaim their lives, well, the problem is that they might spread it to people who are not in that category.
So remember Governor Cuomo.
He said a few weeks ago that for all the people who want to, for the people who have the audacity to want to get back to their jobs and feed their family, he said, it's not about you.
It's not about you.
It's not about you.
It's about me.
I mean, that's basically exactly what he said.
And that's, that's, that's the argument.
That's, that's the retort is, well, what about all the people?
So you want to take the risk, but because you could become a carrier, are you not now forcing other people to take a risk?
And also, what about even healthy people who don't want to take the risk?
What about them?
Is it fair that all these people should have the risk foisted on them against their will?
And that's where I say, no, it is not fair.
But that's not what we're talking about here.
There is another way, and I'll explain that in just a second.
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Okay.
So, is it fair?
Some of us want to go back to our lives, but are we not putting other people in harm's way?
Is that fair?
Well, it wouldn't be fair.
It wouldn't be fair to put people in harm's way against their will.
Which is why I would be against forcing anyone to leave their homes.
And the really good thing is that nobody, to my knowledge, has advocated such a policy.
So, I am not the only anti-lockdown person who would be against forcing people to leave lockdown.
I think everyone... I'm not aware of any anti-lockdown person who wants to force this on anyone.
That's not what this is about.
In fact, this is the anti-force.
It's the other side that's all about forcing people to do this and that.
We're saying no.
This is not about force.
Now, the way it is portrayed by the pro-lockdown crowd, you would think That those who oppose the lockdown want to mandate that everybody leave their home.
But we are in favor of no such mandate.
And have not proposed one.
This, to me, seems rather simple.
If you want to remain in your home, that's fine.
Stay there as long as you like.
You need not worry about anyone spreading it to you if you're still hiding behind locked doors.
I don't even understand the concern.
If you want to stay in lockdown and you're saying, you can't leave your home because you're going to spread it to me, how am I going to spread it to you?
You're in your home.
I'm not, I'm not breaking in.
So you're fine.
What's the issue?
You should be just as safe after the lockdown ends as you were before it ended because you're still personally staying in your home.
No problem.
But if you don't want to stay in your home, then you can leave.
Only those who choose to take the risk should take it.
And there's no reason why I should be prevented from taking the risk just because you don't want to take a risk.
You and I are different people.
We live in different homes.
We don't have to make the same decision.
That's the great thing about being autonomous beings.
Whatever happened to that?
Let me make my choices and you make yours.
Now a common counter-argument to this plan, so a counter-argument to my counter-argument, to their counter-arguments, we're a lot of counters now, but they'll say, well, if many people get back to work and business is open again, then some of the people who want to stay locked out might be compelled by their employers to come back to their jobs.
So maybe there are people who are working from home right now.
But if we start opening up again, maybe the employer says, you got to come to work or we're going to fire you.
Or, uh, you know, maybe, maybe their, their job has allowed them to, uh, maybe they're furloughed or, or whatever the case is.
The concern is if we open up the economy and I don't want to leave my home, um, whereas before my employer was accommodating it, they might not accommodate it anymore.
And then I'm out of a job.
Um, Now, this strikes me as an ironic and hypocritical concern, considering the source.
After all, if you're pro-lockdown, if you're in favor of continuing the lockdown, then you believe that 33 million lost jobs is a price worth paying.
You're afraid you're going to lose your job if the lockdowns end.
Well, the lockdowns themselves resulted in 33 million people losing their jobs.
You were okay with that.
In fact, you've probably scolded the people worried about losing their jobs for, quote, putting money over human life.
So, now what?
You're doing the same?
Now that you stand to lose your own job, suddenly job loss is a problem?
33 million unemployed people isn't enough to justify opening the economy, but one lost job, yours, is enough to justify keeping it closed?
I mean, do you see why this line of reasoning is not particularly endearing or persuasive?
People who have pre-existing conditions that put them at high risk of COVID-19 should be accommodated, I think, and provided for so that they can remain home.
I don't think that we should be You know, I think if someone is in a high-risk category, either because of their health or their age, they should remain home and they should be accommodated.
Which is a lot easier to do than accommodating everybody.
I mean, the government sending stimulus checks to everybody, or at least everybody under a certain income bracket, that's not sustainable.
Sending stimulus checks to a much smaller group of people, a targeted smaller group of people who have to stay home because of their health condition, that I think is much more sustainable and that's something we could do.
The elderly, you know, most of them aren't working anyway, so they should remain quarantined.
But the young and healthy ought to be given the option to return to work.
If any young and healthy person wants to stay home indefinitely because they're afraid, they're free to make that choice.
I don't think we should subsidize that choice.
Yes, that's correct.
If you're young and healthy, you're not sick, you're not elderly, I don't think you should be forced out of your home, but I do think the lockdowns should end, and I don't think we should subsidize you.
I don't think you should get any checks from the government.
If you want to stay home indefinitely because you're afraid of germs and viruses, you're free to do that, but you've got to figure out how to make that work for yourself.
I don't think that it's society's job to make that work for you.
We're going to get the economy going.
We're going to get society rolling again.
If you don't want to be a part of that, fine, but we're not going to pay you.
We're not going to pay you to do nothing.
But, again, these are the people who like to preach about the superfluousness of financial concerns during a time like this.
These are the very people who've been saying, how dare you be concerned about finances?
All right, well, now I'm saying to you, how dare you be concerned about it?
You didn't care about the finances of 33 million people who lost their jobs.
Am I supposed to care about yours?
I mean, you'll forgive me if I treat your financial situation as superfluous, considering you've done that to everybody else in the country.
And now it's a problem!
Now, if your financial concerns are not superfluous, then you might decide that it's worth it to get back out into the world and take the risk.
And that's a decision you should have the power to make.
We should all have the power to make.
Let everybody figure out their own priorities, their own needs, their own acceptable level of risk.
Let them choose which door they're going to walk through, and then walk through the door.
That's what it means to live in a free country.
Let's move on to headlines.
Number one, we talked yesterday at length about the case of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot dead in the street by Gregory and Travis McMichael.
The McMichaels' father and son duo claimed they were just making a citizen's arrest, but for reasons that I went into detail explaining yesterday, that excuse just really doesn't wash at all.
Now the McMichaels have been arrested.
A day after the video went public, arrests were made.
But the shooting happened back in February.
And prosecutors have had this video in their possession for a while now.
So, why did it take public outcry to spur arrests?
That alone is an enormous outrage.
It would seem that local law enforcement intended to cover this up and let the killers go without facing any kind of trial.
And if that video doesn't come out, these guys are still on the street.
That seems obvious.
Remember the first two prosecutors in this case recused themselves because of their connection to the elder McMichael.
It's obvious that the people, the powers that be down there making these decisions in Georgia really didn't want to prosecute these guys.
Really didn't want to.
Well, and why is that?
Many people say it's because of racism.
I think Another potential explanation is that the elder McMichael is a former cop.
And to me, this all reeks of cops trying to cover for their own, you know.
Cops looking out for their own kind of thing.
That's what it seems to me to be.
And it certainly wouldn't be the first time that happens.
Number two, the unemployment rate is 14.7%.
Or in fact, Numbers just came out today.
The unemployment rate was 14.7% in April, which is officially the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression.
And I think the highest unemployment rate since they started officially tracking these numbers in the 40s.
When you factor in the people who are underemployed and that they went from full-time to part-time, that number is 23%.
Remember, that's just April.
And remember, this does not count the millions of people who haven't filed or couldn't file or don't qualify for unemployment.
So the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression is actually an understatement.
That's actually a very conservative way of putting it.
And we did all this.
We locked 33 million workers in their homes because of a virus that mostly kills people in nursing homes.
And then we kept sending infected people into the nursing homes.
Amazing.
I really believe historians of the future will spend their whole careers trying to figure out what happened here and why we did what we did, and they won't be able to understand it, and I don't understand it either.
Three, speaking of nursing homes, reading now from the Daily Wire, it says, unbelievably, despite the fact that elderly people in senior care centers have been the hardest hit demographic in the coronavirus crisis, the state of California, where Governor Gavin Newsom has instituted harsh lockdown measures, is asking assisted living facilities to house elderly patients infected with the coronavirus in exchange for money.
So we know in New York, there was a mandate passed back in March forcing Nursing homes to take infected people.
And there was one we talked about a few days ago.
There was one nurse come in particular had that had no coronavirus cases or deaths.
They were forced to take in two coronavirus cases and then shortly after they had 30 people die.
And that is a direct result of the mandate of the policy in New York, which means it's a direct result of the actions of Governor Cuomo.
I mean, he has that blood on his hands.
I don't see any way around that.
And now you've got similar things going on in other parts of the country.
California, they're going to bribe you to take in coronavirus patients.
It's incredible.
I mean, to have this level of incompetence, and it's still happening.
Even now.
I also don't want to hear, when I talked about this a few days ago, the excuse some people offered is, what else are you going to do?
If you have an elderly person who has coronavirus, where else are you going to put them?
They need around-the-clock care.
Where else are you going to put them?
Here's my answer to that.
Literally anywhere else, okay?
Anywhere else would be a better place than a nursing home.
And besides, what about all these extra facilities that were set up, especially in New York?
They set up all these extra facilities that, I mean, they brought in ships and everything.
Most of that stuff ended up going empty.
What about putting the elderly coronavirus patients there and giving them round-the-clock care?
Instead of setting them right back into a nursing home.
And nursing homes, which by the way, were not given time to set up and be prepared to handle this.
And so, the virus spread like wildfire.
And yet, these governors who are doing this, Cuomo, Newsom, you know, the governors who have the worst outbreaks and have handled it most incompetently, they're the ones hailed by the media.
The media is constantly falling to their knees, polishing Andrew Cuomo's shoes, talking about what a great job he's doing, how they should replace Biden with him.
And yeah, I mean, anybody would be better than Biden for the Democrats probably at this point, but even Andrew Cuomo.
But here's the way the media is presented.
You want to talk about living in an upside down world.
The governors who've had the worst outbreak and have had the worst response to the outbreak,
they're the ones who are hailed as heroes, while the governors who have best controlled
their outbreaks, like in Florida, are somehow the villains of coronavirus.
The way the media talks about the governor of Florida, who not coincidentally is a Republican,
They're trying to make him out into the great villain of this story.
They don't have a serious outbreak in Florida.
We've been told over and over again that there would be a serious outbreak.
Remember the Spring Breakers?
Everyone was freaking out about the Spring Breakers.
Oh my gosh, the Spring Breakers are gonna kill us all!
What ended up happening with that?
They went home and they were fine.
We were told that five or six of them had coronavirus.
Did they die?
No.
Apparently, it was okay.
It really worked out fine, actually.
Four.
Andrew Cuomo, on top of sending coronavirus patients into nursing homes, he also decided to clean the subway system for the first time this week.
This thing's been going on for two months and this is the first time that he's shut down services overnight to actually do a thorough cleaning of the subway system.
Yeah, but what a brilliant leader!
Brilliant leader!
What great brilliance!
I mean, give me one good... Can anyone... I keep hearing how brilliant of a leader he is, but why?
What has he actually done that's good?
Point to the success!
He sounds great in press conferences.
Yeah, his press conferences are great.
Great press conferences.
Really comes off great.
And he has those cute little...
Interviews with his brother on CNN.
Aren't they so cute together?
That's what matters.
Which, even that, can you imagine if Fox News had employed a member of the Trump family?
Imagine if Don Jr.
had his own show on Fox News, and he did, every night, did interviews with his dad.
Where he was just telling his dad how great he is.
Do you think the left and the media, do you think they would be gushing about how cute and wonderful and lovely these moments are between father and son, the way they do with the brother-brother thing on CNN?
No, they would say this is outrageously inappropriate.
This is bad journalism.
We're in the middle of a pandemic, okay?
If you've got someone on, an elected official who's Who's heading up the response to this, whether in New York or nationwide.
You need to actually ask him some good questions.
Don't bring in a family member to question him.
Four, and here's an odd way to pay tribute.
Here's a tweet from the NYPD that says, JetBlue Aircrafts will conduct a flyover over Manhattan.
Over in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx, to salute frontline first responders and healthcare workers, the aircrafts will fly at approximately 2,000 feet.
Please follow social distancing guidelines if viewing in public.
Oh my gosh.
What are we doing?
First of all, it's New York.
Why would you think That people are going to be excited to see commercial aircraft flying low to the ground through the city.
Like, of all the ways to pay tribute in New York, how is that your go-to?
And meanwhile, the NYPD is constantly arresting people for not social distancing, and now you're staging a spectacle for people to come outside and see?
Number five, okay, there's too much anger.
I gotta calm down.
I need to find something positive.
Okay, so here we go.
You know, I play a lot of TikTok videos on this show, for good reason, because that's always news, relevant news.
Usually it's TikTok videos that have gone viral, and usually in a negative way.
But I want to inject a little positivity, so here's a viral TikTok video that I personally found both informative and inspiring.
Watch this.
Hey guys!
So I get a lot of questions about hot tea.
So today I wanted to show you what this American girl likes as hot tea.
So I mix a lot of ingredients together.
So first is one cup of instant tea.
Two cups of tang.
Country time lemonade.
One cup of sugar.
Another cup of sugar.
A little bit of cinnamon.
A little bit of cloves.
Mix it all together.
Put some water in a cup.
Heat your water in the microwave.
Add a few teaspoons to your hot water.
Give it a little stir.
And that's what I like for hot tea.
That looks delicious.
You see, true culinary geniuses are never appreciated in their own time.
So people are making fun of this woman for that recipe, but she will be remembered by history and revered.
And in fact, this snack kind of reminds me of a snack that I came up with.
If you're looking for a meal to eat with that delicious tea, Here's one.
You could try this.
Lightly fry some bacon.
You wrap it around a Snickers bar.
Cover with shredded cheese.
Pop it in the microwave for five seconds.
Just enough to get the cheese a little bit melty.
And then you top it with gravy.
Eat it with a fork and knife.
I'm telling you.
You won't regret it.
You might regret it, but it's good anyway.
Especially if you happen to be, say, on death row and you're looking for a last meal, you've given up all hope of living, then I would recommend that one too.
All right, now for your daily cancellation.
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Okay, now for your daily cancellation, I am canceling everybody who had anything to do with this segment from CNN.
That iconic music screams summer.
And we all scream for ice cream.
But during a pandemic, social distance the rule.
Getting close to the ice cream man could mean getting something else.
Fact of life.
Yet here's Mr. Freeze, not his name, in his truck of treats, unmasked, ungloved, taking cash for cones in the northwest berg.
That's when CBS2 assignment editor Greg Kelly, father of two, dad on a bike, said, wait a minute.
You think it's a good idea to be doing this with the stay-at-home order?
It's COVID-19.
Eventually, our Greg got a bit closer, tried to get an answer from Mr. Freeze.
Again, not his name.
Why aren't you wearing a mask, sir?
Why are you trying to take the ice cream out of the hands of children?
Why are you selling ice cream to children without wearing a mask?
Are you sick?
Am I sick?
No, and I want to say that.
I'm not sick either.
Why are they quarantining healthy people?
This is not a law.
At this time, face coverings are required in public situations where social distance cannot be maintained.
I have a permit.
I get permits.
Right.
You got the permit before the stay-at-home order.
I can't understand what you're saying.
Back up and remove the mask.
I'm not removing the mask.
He drove off after the questioning by our assignment desk editor,
dad, biker and journalist Greg Kelly.
But this all happened in Hoffman Estates, and tonight we'd learn ice cream trucks there are banned, have been for years.
The village manager tells us if you see that ice cream man, call 911.
I just... Honestly, if you told me that segment was done as a parody of the lockdown and of all the paranoid neighborhood snitches, If you told me that was a parody, a satire of the coronavirus busybodies, I'd believe you.
I would believe that that was some kind of Babylon B skit.
100% I would believe it.
It is hard to believe that that is real, but it is real.
And I'll tell you what makes it hard to believe, even though it is, again, indeed, definitely real.
But, see, I can always understand.
I'm never perplexed when a person does something very stupid.
That never confuses me.
I get it.
There are dumb people out there who do dumb things.
But when that very dumb thing has to go through an approval process, and a bunch of other people have to be involved in it, and so now you've got this whole chain of dumbness, and throughout that entire chain, nobody apparently even once spoke up and said, wait a second guys, I think this might be very dumb.
That's when it perplexes me.
And they're so proud of themselves.
The tool bag on the bike, the reporter, everyone.
They post this on social media, they're so proud.
CBS, they're so proud of it.
They thought, now this is great work, guys.
It's not just that they didn't think it was dumb.
They thought they had a hit on their hands.
They thought they had a Pulitzer Prize winner, which, who knows, maybe they actually will win a Pulitzer Prize, considering who they give Pulitzers to these days.
But they thought they had something, and they'd be getting applause from everybody for this.
That's what they thought.
Here they are harassing and shaming a man who's trying to make a living.
Here they are bullying a working class guy in an ice cream truck.
And they feel totally vindicated, totally righteous, like they're fighters for truth and justice in the American way.
It's amazing.
What absolute idiots.
And that's the most charitable thing I could possibly say about them.
I have an idea.
Here's a better idea, okay?
Mind your own damned business.
Leave this guy alone.
Let him earn a living.
You earn a living if you're in the media.
You still have a job.
God forbid this guy try to make some money too.
What, you're the only guy, you're the only person that's allowed to make some money?
That a-hole on the bike?
What he's basically saying is, excuse me sir, are you trying to earn money?
No, no, no, only I can earn money.
I can earn money, you can't.
How dare you, sir, try to earn money?
Like me.
I need to earn money, I'm important, but you're just an ice cream truck driver.
I mean, even if it was necessary to shame this guy, which it isn't at all, not even a little bit, at all, no, it's not, at all, but even if it was, why would you think that you, as a person in the media, someone who has a job and is well compensated, why would you think that you, of all people, should be the person to do it?
Just really disgusting.
Meanwhile, this guy is outside.
He's serving children outside.
The virus doesn't really spread outside.
Kids don't really contract it or spread it.
This is one of the safest jobs in the world to do.
There is no reason.
And if anyone's being put at risk, it would be him as the ice cream truck driver.
He's not really at any real risk either.
But if anybody's at risk, it's him.
So he's making a decision.
Because he wants to earn a living and he wants to sell some ice cream.
There is no reason why ice cream trucks shouldn't operate during this.
In fact, I think we could all use some ice cream right now.
I think we could use the sound of an ice cream truck driving down the street.
There should be more of them, not less.
We should be sending out fleets of ice cream trucks.
How about injecting a little bit of joy and normalcy into all of this bleak madness?
Especially kids.
Kids have been locked in their homes.
They can't see their friends.
I got four of them.
It's tough on the kids and they don't understand why they can't leave that.
I don't understand it either.
They especially don't understand it.
So, I think it's great.
Not only is it great this guy's earning a living, I think it's great that he's, you know, something a little bit normal and something fun for kids so they can enjoy themselves.
Through all of this.
We've taken everything away from them.
We've taken their friends from them.
We've taken away the playgrounds.
We've taken away birthday parties and everything.
You know, Easter took that away from everybody, not just the kids.
That's just... Cancellation is... Should only be the beginning of our response to that.
Okay, let's move on to Emails.
You can always email the show if you become a Daily Wire member.
You can email.
Even if you're not one of the elite Insider Plus members, you can still email the show.
But, you know, I might not respond to the email because, frankly, I only respond to the most elite people because I am an elitist myself.
This is from Marshall, says, Hi Matt, love the show.
Question, have you seen Plandemic?
What did you think?
Yeah, Plandemic is this video that's going around.
I haven't seen it yet.
I've been asked about it a million times.
I've heard a lot about it.
I admit I have not seen it, so I can't say a lot about it.
A couple things I will say.
Usually, whenever I say I can't say much about something, that's a prelude to me saying a lot about it.
Number one, I know that they've been taking this thing down.
I guess they took it down from YouTube, took it down from Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo.
I think they've taken it down.
I'm absolutely against that.
I don't think they should be removing the video.
They should let people watch it and form their own opinions.
But, first of all, if you're a skeptic about the government's narrative with respect to coronavirus, I think that's good.
You should be skeptical.
I'm skeptical too.
But if you're a skeptic, then you shouldn't go and watch some internet documentary And implicitly trust everything it says.
Because then you're not a skeptic.
Then you're just sort of a cultist too, but you're looking for a different cult to join.
And so it always makes me uncomfortable.
Every time there's some big news event, there's always one of these conspiracy videos making its way online, and there are people who become devotees of this video, and they say, you gotta watch it.
It's like with 9-11, there was a zeitgeist, that thing.
And, yeah.
So I don't know, I haven't seen it.
But what I would say is, you should definitely watch it with a very healthy dose of skepticism.
And I can say that without seeing it, because you should have skepticism about everything,
which is just another way of saying being a critical thinker.
And then beyond that, I would also say, I don't know how much this thing gets into the conspiracy arena, because I haven't seen it.
Just the name of it, Plandemic, makes it sound like conspiracy.
It was planned, right?
It seems to be implied.
I think we should remember that Most of the time with the government, you don't need to get into conspiracy theories to understand what they're doing and why they did it.
Usually things like just really simple but sort of more boring explanations are available and are far more plausible most of the time, like moral cowardice, incompetence, selfishness, political posturing, those sorts of things.
That explains most of what the government does.
You don't need to get into smoky rooms, Plans being hatched.
If that's what this thing does, I don't know if it does or not, but there's no need for that.
Because we can explain.
So most of what has happened with the coronavirus response, I keep saying I don't understand it while I'm being facetious.
I do understand it.
I know why they're doing it.
Most of them.
For the reasons I just gave.
It's cowardice.
OK, there were a lot of governors who jumped on this bandwagon because they didn't want to be one of the ones to stay open and, you know, and then they were afraid that even if it's the right thing to do, they were afraid that the body count would be blamed on them and they didn't want that.
So they were just covering their own asses.
A lot of incompetence, they just don't know what they're doing.
A lot of selfishness, they're only worried about themselves and their own image.
A lot of political posturing, they're just trying to figure out what's the best political move here, not what's actually the best thing to do, what's the best political move.
And so, I think there's been a whole lot of that.
And that, unfortunately, is enough to explain why we plunged ourselves into a Great Depression.
And put 33 million people out of work to address a virus that mainly kills people who are 85 years old or over.
Okay.
Let's go to... Thomas says, Matt, I think you're too hard on some of our elected officials when it comes to the coronavirus response.
There was a lot we didn't know early on.
They acted on the best information we had.
Some of that information was bad.
Blame China.
I think that's where your anger should be.
No, I disagree with you.
Yeah, I mean, blame China.
We should be angry at China.
But I think that in our anger at China, we should not lose sight of the fact that our own government deserves quite a lot of anger as well.
In fact, the Great Depression that we're now heading into and 33 million people unemployed, that is not the fault of China, actually.
That's because China isn't the one who set our policy.
Yeah, they may have sent The virus here, sent in the sense of, it emanated from them and perhaps from one of their laboratories.
So, it may be their fault that the virus came here.
But they didn't set the policy.
They didn't decide how to respond to it.
They responded how they responded.
But they didn't make that decision for us.
We made that decision.
And by we, I mean government, people in government, bureaucrats and elected officials.
So they should get a hell of a lot of our anger.
You say we didn't have all the information early on?
Well, sure we didn't, but there was a lot of stuff we did know early on.
The fact that it mainly affects the elderly, we knew that early on.
The fact that it doesn't seem to be affecting children that much, we knew that early on.
I mean, there was a lot of basic stuff we did know early on.
And there were epidemiological experts and so on who, from the very beginning, were saying this is not the right approach.
It's just that the powers that be decided to listen to different quote-unquote experts.
And I think they made that decision for all the reasons I just outlined.
And also, even if we didn't know everything, no, you don't shut down your economy and destroy your society just in case.
Let's just shut it all down and figure it out as we go along.
No, that's not the right response.
That's not what you do.
You don't put 33 million people out of work just in case, right?
Just as a precautionary measure while we kind of figure out what's happening.
I would argue that that is not the right response.
I would argue that if you don't have all the information and you don't know exactly what's going on, that's all the more reason not to do exactly what they did.
Okay, this is from Paul, finally says, your analysis of the Georgia shooting was terrible in many ways.
You always say you want citizens to step up and not rely on the government.
Well, that's what a citizen's arrest is all about.
They were doing exactly what you say people should do in handling a situation to protect their neighborhood.
I think you're just trying to appease the left by buying into the racism narrative.
Okay, Paul.
And I've heard this about appeasing the left many times in the last couple of days.
And first of all, Do you really think I'm trying to appease the left?
You think that's what I'm worried about doing?
Did you watch the show yesterday where I spent the first 20 minutes basically insulting feminists about the birth control issue?
If I'm trying to appease the left, do I do that?
Is that a segment I decide to do?
Look at my whole body of work.
You think appeasing the left is my goal?
Because if it is, I am really bad at it.
If it is, I am the worst appeaser that has ever walked the earth.
No, consider the possibility that I'm not trying to appease anyone, I'm just telling you how I feel about it.
Consider the possibility that I'm a human being with a brain and I'm trying to evaluate a situation and come to my own conclusion.
This idea that every time you happen to agree with the left on a particular issue, you're appeasing them is so dumb and so boring.
Just stop it with that.
Do you really, is that what you think?
Do you think every, what do you, how do you evaluate an issue?
Because it seems to me, Paul, that you and a lot of other people, what you do is a situation occurs and you look at whatever the left is saying and you just say the opposite.
Okay, that's no better than just following the crowd.
That's the same thing as being a bandwagon jumper.
That means you're not thinking for yourself.
Rather than judging every issue by looking at what some other group is saying and unthinkingly taking the opposite position.
Rather than doing that, why not use your head, look at the evidence, read the police reports, watch the video, Listen to the 911 calls and come to your own conclusion.
If you do that, I do not see how you could possibly really believe, based on what we know, that this was a legitimate citizen's arrest.
Come on.
In fact, we know that it's not, and I'm not even basing this on anything other than what the Michaels themselves said.
So based on their own version of events, this was not a legitimate citizen's arrest.
Because what do we know from them?
What do we know?
We know two things.
Number one, they did not see a crime occur.
Number two, they thought he looked like someone who had committed a crime.
Not that they saw a crime.
We know that.
Number two, we also know that they grabbed their guns and went after him and told him they just want to talk.
That's not a citizen's arrest.
Brandishing a gun, and they were brandishing a gun, when you're holding a gun, that's brandishing a gun.
Um, it's not like they had the gun holstered.
Uh, I mean, the one guy was holding a shotgun.
So, but, but he, he, so they were brandishing.
Brandishing a gun.
Chasing after somebody, brandishing a gun, and telling them you want to talk to them.
That is not a citizen's arrest.
That is not how a citizen's arrest works.
Is not.
No.
You do not have the authority to do that.
As a, as just a random dude.
And if you're another random dude and some random dudes roll up on you with guns and say, come here, we want to talk to you.
You don't have any responsibility to listen to them.
You have every right and every reason in that scenario to think they mean you harm.
Because you don't grab a gun and go up to a guy in a hostile way unless you're willing to use it.
And so if you're the one being pursued, you have every reason, every right to think that they mean you harm and to respond accordingly, which is what this man did.
No, they were not defending themselves.
He was defending himself against people came after him with a gun.
Not a citizen's arrest.
You gotta drop that.
That's not what it was.
In fact, like I said, listen to the 9-1-1 calls.
Someone did a 9-1-1 call.
You know, I saw this 9-1-1 call because defenders of the McMichaels were spreading it around online as if it's some kind of, pardon the expression, some kind of smoking gun evidence in favor of the McMichaels.
So I listened to the 9-1-1 call, and it makes them look even worse!
The 9-1-1 call wasn't one of the McMichaels.
It was some other guy.
Call the police to report that there was a guy on a construction site in a half-built home.
A home that's open.
And that was the report.
And the 911 operator asks him, is he breaking in?
Did he break in?
And the guy on the call says, no, it's open.
And then he's asked, and then the 911 operator asks, what is he doing wrong?
We'll send the cops, tell me what he's doing wrong.
The guy can't explain it!
The guy doesn't give any reason of what he's doing wrong, just that he looks kind of weird that he's on a construction site.
And then he leaves and he runs off.
That's it.
So the 911 call is that a guy was on a construction site in the middle of the day and was in a half-built home briefly and then left.
And you think that's reason for three armed men to chase him down?
Are you kidding me?
Come on.
What do you think?
Do you think if I'm, what if I'm in, I'm in Walmart and I see a guy, looks like he might
have shoplifted, but I'm not sure.
He looks, he looks sort of like a guy who would shoplift, you know?
Would I be justified, and let's say I'm carrying a gun, you know, would I be justified in pulling my gun out, following him into the parking lot, and saying, holding my gun, saying, come here, I want to talk to you?
And then if he gets scared because he thinks I'm trying to abduct him or kill him, which would be a reasonable conclusion, and a struggle ensues and I shoot him dead in the parking lot, but you think I did nothing wrong?
All good?
Just being a attentive, good citizen?
No.
I'm gonna go to jail for that.
That is, at best, vigilantism.
That's the best spin you could put on that.
You don't have to be very creative to see.
If we allow this kind of thing?
Armed citizens to just grab guns and chase down people who look like they may have possibly committed crimes and question them at gunpoint?
Do you really think that's what we should allow?
That's what the law should be?
I don't think you do think that, Paul.
I mean, the people who are reflexively defending the McMichaels on this...
It's one thing if you want to take a position of, we don't know all the facts, let's, uh, you know, let's, let's let the process play out.
Okay, fine.
But the people who are offering full-throated defenses like you are of these two guys, even after the video that you saw, I, I, I don't, I just, I just flat out don't believe that you really think objectively they were justified.
I flat out don't believe it.
I don't believe you.
What is your motivation?
I don't know, but I don't believe it.
Because this is, any rational person should at a minimum say, there is cause for concern here.
It's good they were arrested.
We need to look into this.
All right.
We'll wrap up.
In fact, one other example.
Okay, I gotta finish up.
In fact, I mean, if you think about it, we've all, maybe a lot of us have been in a situation not unlike this.
Didn't go this way, but what I mean is, think about a time when you have seen someone in public acting in a suspicious way.
A lot of us have been.
So, example for me, a little while ago, I was on the road, there was a car in front of me, driving very erratically, okay?
Clearly, somebody on drugs or drunk.
You know, it's one of those things, very obvious from the way the car was driving.
And so I called the police because this is someone who could kill himself or someone else.
You know, I'm not going to just let him drive off, feel like I have a moral responsibility.
So I called the police and, um, I followed the car at a safe distance just so I could tell the cops where he was going.
And pretty soon the cops got there and I left, my part was done.
Okay.
Would I have been justified in running the guy off the road and grabbing a gun and telling him to come out and talk to me?
Or in fact, forget about the gun.
What if I had just run him off the road, and in the process, he veered off into a ditch, hit a tree, and died?
Would I be at least partially responsible for that?
I am the one who ran him off the road.
I think you would say, yeah, I mean, I killed the guy.
You might say, well, he was in danger already, but I killed him, and my actions directly killed him, and so I would go to jail for that.
So the analogy here is clear.
They could have followed the guy.
He was on foot.
They were in cars.
They had two cars.
It was actually three guys in two cars with guns for an unarmed dude in the road in the middle of the daylight.
They could have just followed him and waited for the cops to show up.
They weren't out in a desert six hours from the nearest police station.
No, instead, they wanted to be the hero.
They wanted to play tough guy.
They wanted to play action hero.
They were acting like they were in a movie.
Someone died.
They killed him.
They need to go to jail.
I'm glad they were arrested.
Very glad for it.
Okay, we'll leave it there.
Thanks for watching, everybody.
Have a great weekend.
Godspeed.
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