Ep. 788 - Leftists Weep And Wail Because Fewer Babies Will Die In Texas
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, our good friend Kristi Noem wrote an op-ed explaining what she thinks conservatism means, and what conservatives should stand for. Her ideas in this regard are pretty standard for Republicans. They’re also wrong. I’ll explain. Also, Five Headlines including the Texas abortion bill effectively banning most abortions in the state went into effect this morning. It’s is a wonderful moment and significant progress in the right direction. But Leftists, as you can imagine, are quite upset that fewer babies will be dying. Plus, Joe Biden gives another address to the nation to defend his catastrophic failures in Afghanistan. Every time he tries to defend himself, he just looks worse. And the LA Unified School district sent out its COVID guidelines for the school year, and they’re as deranged as you might expect. Maybe even a little more than you expected.
Subscribe to Morning Wire, Daily Wire’s new morning news podcast, and get the facts first on the news you need to know: https://utm.io/udyIF
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today on the Matt Wall Show, our good friend Kristi Noem wrote an op-ed explaining what she thinks conservatism means and what conservatives should stand for.
Her ideas in this regard are pretty standard for Republicans.
They're also wrong.
I'll explain why in five headlines, including the Texas abortion bill effectively banning most abortions in the state went into effect this morning.
It's a wonderful moment and significant progress in the right direction.
But leftists, as you can imagine, are quite upset that fewer babies will be dying.
We'll talk about that.
Joe Biden gives another address to the nation to defend his catastrophic failures in Afghanistan.
Every time he tries to defend himself, he only looks worse.
And the L.A.
Unified School District sent out its COVID guidelines for the school year, and they're as deranged as you might expect.
In fact, they might be a little bit more deranged than you even expect.
We'll talk about all that and much more today on the Matt Wohl Show.
I really missed my Helix mattress last night as I was sleeping on a bale of hay with mice nibbling at my toes.
Helix mattress.
That's something that just makes sleeping so much easier.
Helix Sleep, they have a quiz that takes just two minutes to complete and matches your body type and sleep preference to the perfect mattress for you.
I mean, why would you buy a mattress made for someone else?
You go to a store, these are mattresses made not with you specifically in mind.
Everybody's unique and Helix knows that.
They have several different mattress models to choose from.
They have soft, medium, and firm mattresses, mattresses great for cooling down if you sleep hot, whatever the case may be, and even a Helix Plus mattress for plus-size sleepers.
just go to helixsleep.com/walsh, take their two-minute sleep quiz,
and they'll match you to a customized mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life.
They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for 100 nights, risk-free.
And if you don't like it, then there's no risk, you can send it back, but you will love it, trust me.
You're not gonna ever wanna sleep in anything ever again.
Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners
at helixsleep.com/walsh.
That's helixsleep.com/walsh for up to $200 off and two free pillows.
There are two questions that nearly every conservative I've ever spoken to has.
And the first is what exactly he should do about the fact that he lives in a collapsing civilization that is run on every level by people who hate his guts and stand opposed to everything he believes in and who wish that he was dead.
The second question every conservative has is, what exactly is a conservative anyway?
And it's always seemed apparent to me, now more than ever, that we're not going to be able to come up with a satisfactory answer to the first question until we've answered the second.
Because any conservative response to our cultural decline, any plan of action, any battle strategy, must begin with figuring out who's on your side, what your side is, And crucially, what exactly you're fighting for.
Because following the culture war today feels a little bit like you're watching a fight scene in a movie, you know, a bad modern action movie.
The camera is shaking and moving around quickly, the lighting and the outfits tend to blend everything together, and it's impossible to tell who is fighting who and who the good guys are, and you leave the film with a headache and little idea about what you just watched or why.
Disorienting is the word, and it certainly applies to our culture as well.
So, my dear friend Governor Kristi Noem just wrote a piece for the Washington Times, which I think puts this problem in sharp relief, which is why it's worth talking about.
She represents one form of conservatism, a common form.
Though in a sort of obscure and misshapen form, the wrong form in my view, and the form that has presided over the cultural and civilizational decline that I just mentioned.
It's the form which has achieved nothing, has no victories to its name at all, has suffered one defeat after another for decades on end, and she's taken it upon herself to become a champion for this form of conservatism.
And her op-ed in the Times is, I think, Almost laughably absurd on a number of levels, but it's worth responding to in some detail.
So she obviously wrote this partially to defend herself from recent criticisms from people like myself, but also to promote her vision, her tired, failed vision, for the future of conservatism.
So let's check it out.
She writes, quote, you can't be a constitutional conservative only when it suits you.
We are now seeing a battle in the Republican Party between the populist wing and the traditional limited government conservatism.
Some so-called conservatives want to regulate businesses to prevent them from acquiring a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment.
Still, my beliefs do not allow me to waive the Constitution because I disagree with the private business.
It is human nature to want to wield power, and a crisis adds to that impulse.
As an emergency unfolds, many will insist that somebody should do something, and governments eager to pass laws and hire people with weapons to enforce them step in.
It's up to pro-liberty conservatives to stand on principle and to stand up to government mandates.
Now, she's correct that somebody do something, that attitude is dangerous.
And I've talked about that many times.
There are lots of people who, when a crisis hits, they just cling on to the nearest government official and they say, save us, do something, dear God, just do something, anything.
This is a bad instinct.
And she's right to criticize it.
So that part is good.
But we already detect some warning signs that things are about to go off the rails here, intellectually speaking, because she says that it's human nature to want to wield power.
And maybe she's right about that.
But then again, if you're the governor of a state, or if you're a legislator, or if you've been elected to the government, wielding power is exactly what you should be doing.
Now, don't wield power for power's sake.
Don't wield it for the wrong reasons, or in the wrong way, or to the wrong ends.
But you should be wielding power.
That's why you're there.
That's why you've been put in that position.
The problem with Republicans is that it's not that they're discerning and restrained and thoughtful in the way that they wield power.
It's that they don't want to wield it at all.
So we'll keep reading to see where this goes.
She says, "To be clear, I don't think businesses should require a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition
of employment. I also believe that government is too big and mandates are not a conservative
tool in forcing the behavior of its citizens. Since when did the Republican Party become the
party of big government and social engineering, using government power to force behavior?
Once we as a people open the door to increased government power to put mandates on businesses,
expect a Pandora's box of liberal mandates to hit in the future that touch on faith,
the right to keep and bear arms, and the expanding list of genders the left has invented.
William F. Buckley once referred to the growth of government as creeping socialism.
We're seeing a version today with both Republicans and Democrats calling on the government to mandate behavior they find acceptable.
Even if I agree with a new mandate, the mandate limits freedom and sets a precedent for even more mandates, taxes, spending, and expansion of government into the daily lives of average Americans who just want to be left alone.
I'm reminded of a famous Reagan quote.
The most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Conservatives see that liberals are trying to use this crisis to expand the size and scope of government at every level.
On everything from mandates to spending, the left wants more government.
Conservatives must stand on principle and oppose big government in all its forms.
Now, all of these are pretty standard Republican talking points.
Nothing shocking or egregious here.
And we're used to hearing Republicans say stuff like this.
We've heard this for years and years and years.
Kind of your basic stump speech.
But that's precisely the problem, right?
More specifically, I think I see three problems here.
So let's go through them.
Number one, she says that if Republicans use power to mandate behavior, then we can expect a Pandora's box of liberal mandates that deal with gun rights and gender and all that stuff to happen in the future.
But this is not a prediction of what will happen in the future.
This is a description of what is happening right now.
Liberals are already doing all of those things.
They're doing them even though the Republican Party has hardly wielded any power at all, even when it owned both houses of Congress and the presidency.
They didn't do anything.
They passed a few mild tax cuts.
That's all they did.
We're constantly warned that if Republicans start playing hardball and actually, you know, making laws and trying to put their agenda into action, then Democrats might start doing the same, as if Democrats are waiting on permission from Republicans to advance their own cause.
And yet Democrats are already doing that and have been doing it.
While Republicans sit on their hands and say, oh, you know, we can't cross that line because if we do, Democrats will do the thing they're currently doing right now and have always been doing.
Doesn't really make any sense.
Second, she says that conservatives must oppose big government in all its forms.
Now, it sounds almost like heresy for me as a conservative to disagree with that or criticize that notion.
But I think we should stop and think about this.
What does this even mean?
We're so used to hearing Republicans rail against big government that we don't stop to ask what they mean anymore, but we should.
So what do they mean?
No Republican administration in living memory has made any serious effort to actually shrink the size of government.
None of them have.
I mean, Trump certainly didn't.
George Bush obviously didn't.
I mean, you'd have to go back many decades to find a Republican who arguably put a plan like that into action, or at least tried.
Most of them have actively expanded it.
So Republicans pay lip service to this idea, but we never know exactly what they mean because none of them try to put it into action.
None of them.
Which is a common theme here.
And maybe part of the problem and part of the reason why they don't abide by the small government motto is that the motto itself is vague and sort of, you know, arbitrary.
Is the problem with government That it is simply too big.
Is there just too much of it to go around?
Is it as simple as that?
Or is the problem that our government points its power in the wrong direction and does the wrong things and has the wrong priorities?
I mean, ask yourself this.
If Democrats get their way and manage to push through a law that provides federal civil rights protections on the basis of gender identity, the equal rights or the equality law, Is what they're trying to push through, and it's in the Senate right now.
Meaning that all bathrooms and sports teams and female facilities across the country must be open to men.
Will this be an example of a government that is merely too big?
Or will it be an example of a government that, no matter how big or small it is, is fundamentally corrupt and run by radical left-wing ideologues?
I mean, the answer could be both, of course.
But the big government thing distracts from the real problem, and it turns what could be a pointed criticism and a useful criticism into something vague and ill-defined.
The effect of all this generalized sort of big government talk?
Talk from people who, again, have never done a single thing, ever, to actually shrink the size of government.
The effect is that now, if you advocate for the government to do anything, if you push for any law or any policy of any kind, you're accused of advancing big government.
There are even some so-called conservatives, and we'll talk more about this in a minute, who will accuse you of big government if you say that we should restrict or ban abortion.
That's expanding government.
We can't do that.
Third point, finally, Noam says that mandates are not a conservative tool, and that we must not put mandates on businesses.
On Twitter, when sharing this article, she actually said that we should not be in the business of forcing behavior of any kind onto people.
We should not be in the business of forcing behavior of any kind onto people.
Wait, what?
We shouldn't force any behavior?
No mandates at all?
Is that why we oppose mask mandates?
Simply because they are a mandate?
That's not my problem with them.
I take issue with the substance of the mask mandate.
And many other mandates.
Not with the simple fact that it is a mandate.
So this is all quite incoherent, I think.
The fact is that any law of any kind, good law or bad law, must necessarily force behavior onto people.
Now, I know that I'll be told that, well, the good laws are the ones that prohibit behavior rather than mandating behavior.
Now, I'm not sure why prohibiting is automatically better or more valid than mandating.
We're expected to sort of just agree with that underlying assumption, but I'm not sure that I do.
And anyway, the bigger issue is that every prohibition, every single one, is also a mandate.
For example, if you're prohibited from driving over 75 on the highway, then you're mandated to drive 75 or lower.
If you're prohibited from neglecting your children, then you're mandated to care for them.
If you're prohibited from murder, you're mandated to not murder.
If you're prohibited from driving drunk, then you're mandated to drive sober.
If, as conservatives, we want to prohibit abortion, which we do, then we want to mandate that mothers give birth to their children, unless the child dies tragically through miscarriage, obviously.
These are not semantics.
I mean, this is a fundamental and essential point about the nature of law and its purpose.
So many establishment Republican types advocate for, in the way that they speak about these issues, it's like they're advocating for this kind of anarcho-libertarianism.
Well, we can't force any behavior.
We shouldn't mandate anything.
Even though they're not really anarchists or libertarians.
But that's the language that they use.
It's just lazy.
And it confuses conservatives.
And it adds to this environment where conservatives don't even know what we are or what we stand for.
The argument that we shouldn't force any behavior of any kind is silly, if not completely insane.
And it's obvious that nobody who says such a thing really believes it.
But they make the argument anyway because it allows them to sidestep the discussion that they're afraid to have.
Yes, of course government should both prohibit and mandate certain behavior.
What kind of behavior?
And why?
Well, this is a simple question.
It's also the central question in this debate.
And it's time that we start actually thinking and talking about it.
And speaking of mandating and prohibiting behavior, we'll have more to talk about with that when we discuss the Texas
abortion law that just went into effect, which will be next in our five headlines.
Now, a quick word from our very good friends over at rockauto.com.
You know, I've been saying all summer, why do you want to waste time at an auto parts store when it's nice out and you can go outside?
Well, actually, the summer has proven, at least in Nashville, to be rather oppressive, and so you'd rather just stay inside your house.
Now, as we get into fall, though, That's when it really makes a difference and who wants to you know you could be hiking in the woods or something rather than going to an auto parts store especially because you're just wasting your time wandering around the auto parts store with this very limited selection because they only got so much space inside the store you could much more easily just go to rockauto.com pick up your phone go on your computer go to rockauto.com you're going to find the lowest price as possible and you're also going to find the best selection anywhere you're not going to find a better selection
In any auto parts store, guaranteed.
They're a family business.
They've been serving auto parts customers online for 20 years.
You can go to rockauto.com to shop for auto and body parts from hundreds of manufacturers.
The catalog is unique and very easy to navigate and you quickly find everything you're looking for.
So go to rockauto.com right now, see all the parts available for your car or truck and write Walsh in there.
How did you hear about us, Bach?
So they know that we sent you.
All right, well, we're on the road this week, as you can see, and as you have also seen, we've been staying in some very interesting places.
I don't know how this room comes across on camera.
This room is actually a lot better than the one I'm staying in.
This is my producer, Sean.
This is his room.
I'm staying in basically like a dungeon.
And it's like the kind of roadside motel looking things.
It looks like the kind of place where serial killers murder people.
Maybe they just come by like three times a week and murder people kind of on a schedule.
Just like cockroaches.
There's a bat flying around in the bathroom.
All that kind of thing.
Ominous scratches on the door.
No AC in the room at all.
The thing is, I'm so naive that we walked in here last night and I was saying, well, I hope they have room service because I'm really hungry.
They kind of laughed when I asked about it.
And then I was told that if you want to get food, you got to go down to the gas station.
It's the only place around here that has any food.
So we went to the gas station and had a delicious dinner.
And you compare that like if Ben Shapiro is on the road, he's broadcasting from like a five-star resort where they have a concierge that comes and fluffs the pillows.
Meanwhile, I'm sleeping on like a mattress on the floor covered in bed bugs.
It's great.
It is.
It is.
It is really wonderful.
OK, so some good news, some more good news to start from the New York Post.
It says a strict new measure that essentially bans abortion in Texas went into effect at midnight despite protests and lawsuits against the harsh mandate.
This is the New York Post's language anyway.
The harsh mandate.
The law prohibits women from getting an abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected and gives citizens the right to take legal action against doctors or anyone else who helps a woman terminate a pregnancy.
Most women who get an abortion in a Lone Star State are at least six weeks pregnant and will now be unable to receive the procedure, according to Planned Parenthood and Whole Woman's Health.
The Texas bill differs from other similar heartbeat laws nationwide because it bars authorities from enforcing the ban.
and allows anyone else to take legal action.
Under the measure, anyone who successfully sues a doctor or accomplice would be entitled to at least $10,000 which critics claim will flood the courts with opportunistic legal cases.
And yes, people who are opportunistically trying to stop babies from being killed.
Very opportunistic of them.
The wide-ranging provision allows suits against patients, nurses, counselors, or even someone who drove a patient to an appointment.
So that's the law that went into effect.
There was a mad dash by the pro-abortion, pro-death, pro-baby-killing side to stop it, and they weren't able to.
And now the left is absolutely panicking over this.
As you can imagine, the ACLU Which is supposed to be the Civil Liberties Institute.
They're supposed to stand for liberty.
And you would think the most fundamental and basic liberty is that to live, the right to life.
Because if you don't have the right to life, the ability to live, then all of your other rights would seem to be sort of null and void.
But they're very pro baby killing.
And so they sent out a whole series of tweets.
They said, the Supreme Court has not responded to our emergency request to block Texas's radical new six-week abortion ban.
The law now takes effect.
Access to almost all abortion has just been cut off for millions of people.
The impact will be immediate and devastating.
And these are the words I've seen the left using in response to this bill, which is expected.
Devastating.
Tragic.
Unjust.
Infuriating.
Nancy Pelosi called the law a catastrophe.
A catastrophe.
Catastrophic.
Because fewer babies will be killed.
That's what they're upset about.
It's catastrophic that now we're going to allow more children to live.
Sent out this tweet.
She says, I'm thinking about the black, brown, low-income, queer, and young folks in Texas, the folks this abortion health care bill, health care ban will disproportionately harm.
Wealthy white folks will have the means to access abortion.
Our communities won't.
Now, I'm not sure how an abortion ban will disproportionately affect quote-unquote queer folks.
I don't know how that works exactly.
But this is the only tune that Cori Bush knows, and so she just hums it every single time.
No matter what the issue is, it's always going to be, well, this disproportionately impacts these people.
Now, does it disproportionately impact the black community?
In a sense, yeah.
But what is the disproportionate impact?
Because a disproportionate number of black children are aborted.
That's true.
And so now, the disproportionate impact is that more black people will be allowed to live.
Okay?
There will be more black people in Texas now than there would be without this bill.
This bill will have the direct and immediate effect Of ensuring, among other things, along with saving so many other babies, but since she brings up these protected classes, it will also have the immediate effect of ensuring that more black people will live in Texas.
And Cori Bush, as a black woman, is opposed to that.
Which, if you're opposed to it, then come out and say it.
Just come out and say it.
I want these black children who are going to live now, I think they should be dead.
I think that they should not be allowed to continue existing.
Come out and say it if that's your opinion, because that is your opinion.
Now, is this law in Texas?
Is it in keeping with Roe v. Wade?
Supreme Court's gonna weigh in on that.
And I don't have a whole lot of confidence in what their decision's gonna be.
I have confidence in maybe two of the justices on the Supreme Court, Thomas and Alito, when it comes to this issue.
On the rest, I don't know.
But does it violate Roe v. Wade?
My answer is, who cares?
I don't care if it does.
Roe is imaginary, okay?
They located the right to abortion in invisible ink in the Constitution.
Or they may as well have.
The Roe v. Wade decision may as well have said, well, a fairy came into our chambers and sprinkled pixie dust on the Constitution, and invisible words suddenly were made apparent that said, you have a right to an abortion.
That may as well have been the decision.
Because it is that absurd.
Has no basis in reality whatsoever.
Again, they located the right to abortion constitutionally within the constitutional right to privacy, which is not a constitutional right.
So there's nothing in the Constitution that says right to privacy.
And that's what they based the right to abortion in.
And even that's not in there.
So the right to abortion is two degrees removed from the Constitution.
It's grounded in constitutional language that does not exist itself.
So it's a horrible decision that even if you're an honest pro-abortion person, which is a category of people that I'm not sure actually exists, just as the right to abortion doesn't exist, but if you were, then even you should say, yeah, I think that abortion is good or whatever, I'm in favor of it, but there's no right to it in the constitution.
A couple of the points here, as we see the left panicking over this bill in Texas, now that more children will be allowed to live.
I've got to make this point again for the millionth time, but it's so important.
Because what we're hearing over and over again, and what you'll continue to hear, is that this bill is an attack, it's an assault on reproductive rights.
I have to continue to emphasize that it's not an assault on reproductive rights because this has nothing to do with reproduction.
Abortion has absolutely nothing to do with reproduction.
Reproduction is a separate issue.
Do I think that women have reproductive rights?
Of course!
I will say this right now without any hesitation at all.
No woman, anywhere on earth, should be forced to reproduce.
Absolutely not.
I mean, the thought is atrocious.
It's horrifying.
The idea that any woman would be forced to reproduce.
The good news is that that's not happening in America.
Anywhere.
Okay?
Now, with abortion, what happens is you are killing a human being who has already been produced.
Reproduction.
Birth is not reproduction.
When a woman gives birth to a child, this is basic biology that I know is lost on a lot of people these days, especially on the left.
Basic biology.
Birth is not the reproductive act.
Okay?
Reproduction is conception.
That is when a separate and distinct entity with its own DNA Comes into existence.
That is reproduction.
This being, this entity, has been produced in that moment.
Now you can call this being anything.
The correct thing would be human.
Baby works also.
Person.
All those work.
But you can even use a euphemism like fetus.
Fetus just means offspring in Latin.
So sure, it's offspring.
Whatever label you want to put.
Whatever word you want to use.
That being exists and has been produced in that moment.
Nobody should be forced to conceive.
But once conception has happened, the being now exists.
Anything you do after that is after reproduction.
It is too late to prevent the reproduction of that person.
If you are preventing an already produced human from being born, You are not preventing that human being from being reproduced.
Any more than if I shoot you in the head before you walk out your front door in the morning, I haven't stopped you from being reproduced.
I have just stopped you from changing locations.
I have stopped you from emerging from one location into another location.
I have maybe stopped you from becoming visible to people outside.
But I can't shoot you in the head and then say, hey man, this is my reproductive rights.
One other point, again, really basic.
If the government does not have the authority or the right to pass a law like this, if the state government in Texas doesn't have the authority or the right to pass a law saying that you cannot kill human beings that have heartbeats, then government should not exist.
There's no argument that I can think of or that I've ever heard that would explain why we should have a government at all, and yet not one that will protect the most innocent and vulnerable among us.
If government has any role, then that would be their most fundamental and basic and primary role.
To protect the most innocent and vulnerable, people cannot protect themselves.
People who, if the government does not step in and pass laws protecting them, then that's it, then they'll be killed.
If the government is not in the business of doing that, then it shouldn't be in the business of doing anything.
If it doesn't have authority and power in that realm, then I don't see how or why it should have authority or power in any realm.
So, God bless Texas, and thank God for all the babies that will now be granted the... I won't even say will be granted the gift of life, because they're already living before the abortion happens, as we discussed.
But will be granted the gift of continuing life, and the ability to fully, you know, explore their own potential as human beings.
Until a judge comes in and blocks the bill, anyway.
Okay, so, Joe Biden again addressed the nation Yesterday about I was gonna I was about to say last night about Afghanistan, but he never speaks at night, you know Which is a little bit suspicious as a not really suspicious at all In fact as a man struggling with dementia very publicly and very obviously He's not he can't speak past about six o'clock In the evening, so he was supposed to speak I think around three or four.
He was late again He's always late for a guy who likes to check his watch.
He sure is late quite a lot But here he is starting with this talking about How this evacuation was actually an enormous success.
Let's watch.
Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history.
We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety.
That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible.
No nation, No nation has ever done anything like it in all of history.
Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today.
The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravely, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.
For weeks, they risked their lives to get American citizens Afghans who helped us.
Citizens of our allies and partners and others on board planes and out of the country.
And they did it facing a crush of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country.
The guy can't even speak.
It's always hard to listen to him.
But Joe Biden, he did it in that speech.
That part right there, that 60 second segment, was him bragging about how it was a huge success because they were able to get all these people out.
He doesn't want to dwell on the fact that, yeah, we got 100,000 Afghans out, Afghan citizens.
There are still Americans being left behind.
He talks about The bravery and skill of the people on the ground, our troops on the ground who were doing all of this.
And yeah, they had immense bravery.
They're not the problem.
You don't need to defend their bravery and skill.
We all acknowledge that.
The issue is you.
Okay?
And the brass of the Pentagon.
And military leaders.
Okay, the guys who before all this were happening, they were talking about how white privilege is the greatest threat that the globe faces and so on.
That's who we're criticizing, not the people on the ground.
But he shifts constantly between saying that this was a great success, it was an enormous success, this is like Dunkirk, this was just an incredible feat of human engineering and technical brilliance and so on.
And also, this is all my predecessor's fault.
So he blames Trump and then also brags that it's a great success.
So his point is, his argument is, this great, enormous, huge success is all the fault of Donald Trump.
Doesn't get any more coherent than that, because next he starts talking about or addressing the criticism from lots of people, myself included.
I think everyone has had this criticism, which is, why didn't you evacuate the Americans first?
And here he tries to explain why.
I take responsibility for the decision.
Now, some say we should have started mass evacuation sooner.
And couldn't this have been done in a more orderly manner?
I respectfully disagree.
Imagine if we had begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war.
There still would have been a rush to the airport.
A breakdown in confidence and control of the government.
And it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission.
The bottom line is, there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, threats we faced.
None.
Yeah, man, there's no easy way to do this evacuation.
You know, it's a hard thing to do these evacuations, he says.
That's really his answer.
This is a written speech, okay?
This is not him off the cuff.
We know that that goes off the rails very easily.
But this is a written speech.
He's still reading from the teleprompter.
And he was late showing up there.
They were working on the speech at the last minute, trying to get it exactly right.
Coming up with some kind of response to the criticism that, hey, you could have gotten the Americans out first.
And his answer to that is, hey, man, I disagree.
I mean, if we did it that way, it still could have gone bad.
That was his answer.
Yeah, this went terribly, even though it was a great success.
But if we had done it the way that seems like it would have made a lot more sense, it still could have not been great.
That's really his answer, which is to say he has no answer at all.
That should put to rest if you had any, you know, if somehow you had any notion in your head.
Maybe there are some things you don't know about and there's like a reason why they had to do it this way.
They're a good reason.
Well, he would have told us what the good reason is and there wasn't one as it's clear now.
Okay, a couple of things.
Also, a couple of things from the Biden administration.
I thought this was kind of interesting.
This is a warning from the State Department.
It says, Afghanistan Travel Advisory Level 4.
Do not travel to Afghanistan due to civil unrest, armed conflict, crime, terrorism, kidnapping, and COVID-19.
Travel to all areas of Afghanistan is unsafe.
You can get your head cut off, you could be enslaved, sold into sex slavery, tortured, thrown into prison for the rest of your life, down in a cave somewhere, and also you could get COVID.
So this is like if it was a travel advisory, level four, do not launch yourself directly into the sun due to a certain fiery death and a gigantic flaming ball of lethal gas.
Also the UV rays will make your skin wrinkly.
Travel to all areas of the sun is unsafe.
Um, there's also this from the, uh, from the CDC.
Okay.
Now I don't want to seem like I'm just Getting ticky tacky here with my criticisms of the CDC, but this is a tweet from the CDC talking to people who have lost power because of the hurricane.
It says, have you lost power?
When in doubt, throw it out.
Throw away perishable refrigerated foods like meat, seafood, milk, and eggs if the power is out for more than four hours.
Learn more food safety tips for power outages, and then there's a link to it.
Now, I just read that because it just shows how the CDC, these idiots really cannot do anything right.
They really can't.
Even something basic like food safety tips, which I guess I can see why the CDC would chime in on that.
There are illnesses you can get from unsafe food.
Okay.
So this is sort of within their purview.
Fine.
They can't even get that right.
Throw away your food after four hours?
All of your food in your refrigerator?
No, please.
I beg you.
If you lost power, you're probably not listening to this right now if you did, but do not throw away all the food in your refrigerator.
Just keep the door shut and the food will last for many, many more hours than that.
Even days, potentially, if you keep the door shut.
Your refrigerator is a cooler.
Even without power, it keeps the cool air in.
You could even do other things, like if you still have ice in your freezer, or if you got some ice before the power went out, you could put bags of ice in the refrigerator.
Functions as a cooler, keeps things cold.
So please do not do that.
The CDC would have people, after a couple hours, you know, got to throw away all the food, And now I'm going to starve, I guess, because I just threw all my food away for no reason.
These absolute morons.
Speaking of morons, I got to mention this briefly as well.
The L.A.
County Unified School District put their COVID guidelines into place now that the school year started.
And this is, I want to read to you some of an email from an L.A.
school district union representative to teachers.
There's an email that somebody sent to me from an L.A.
teachers union rep explaining the guidelines and what they're supposed to do.
So let me read some of this.
Okay.
It says, this is why it is so critical to continue safety practices like properly wearing a mask.
Please make sure that the mask covers your mouth and nose.
I've observed a number of our colleagues ignoring this and walking around with gator masks or face masks that barely cover their mouths, let alone their nose.
Even if you're vaccinated, breakthrough cases and the Delta variant are still a risk.
While vaccinated individuals reportedly experience very mild symptoms, they may still act as a carrier for the infection.
Wearing masks improperly puts colleagues and students at risk.
Further, it indicates to students that they don't have to wear the mask properly either.
Now, this is not the really crazy part, but it's still crazy.
I mean, the claim that a vaccinated person who's wearing a mask but just has their nose sticking out is a threat to other people?
So if you're vaccinated and you're wearing a mask and only your nose is out, and there's another person who's wearing a mask also, and let's say they're also vaccinated, or even if they're not, the risk is what?
That you, just through breathing normally through your nostrils, that the nostril air from the vaccinated person is going to infect someone else who's wearing a mask?
Is there any evidence that that has happened?
Even once?
Any evidence that that has ever happened?
I'd like to know.
The email goes on further.
Since the mask mandate is a state and district directive, you may be subject to disciplinary action if you are not wearing the mask appropriately.
And since mask wearing is part of the negotiated side letter, you will get no relief from the union.
So this is the one thing.
I mean, these teachers' unions, they'll defend teachers to the hilt on anything.
You could have rapist teachers, teachers who are sexually abusing their students, and the teachers' union will come to their defense.
But if you're not wearing your mask appropriately, that's where they're not going to defend you.
Hey, you're on your own, sucker.
Sorry.
This is when it really gets crazy.
Speaking of students, please insist that students always wear masks and step outside if they need to drink water.
Be sure to wash hands often for 20 seconds and sanitize your hands when you can't wash.
Finally, maintain as much distance from students and colleagues as possible and avoid unnecessary gatherings like eating lunch together.
Also, keep your HVAC system running all day in order to filter the air and leave doors and windows open when possible.
Even if there's construction noise outside.
First of all, so I guess we're not worried about climate change anymore.
You need to crank the HVAC system with all the doors and windows open.
So you're really taxing that system, churning a lot of CO2 in the air, so we're not worried about that anymore.
You got doors open with construction noise and jackhammers outside.
Who cares if the kids can even hear what you're saying?
And if a kid needs to just take a drink of water, they gotta go outside of the classroom to do it.
Because a child who is already at a very low risk to contract or spread COVID, if they just take their mask down for 10 seconds to take a swig of water, in those 10 seconds, while they're swigging water, they could infect the people around them?
Again, is there any evidence that that has ever happened?
Or could reasonably, theoretically happen?
Any evidence of that?
No, none at all.
And they're still going with the wash your hands all the time, which, yeah, I mean, washing your hands is just good practice in general.
But we're still, you know, wash your hands constantly, sanitize all the surface.
Even though we know that COVID is airborne, it is not really spread primarily through surface contact.
It's very rarely spread that way, as far as we know.
But that doesn't matter.
We're just going to pretend that's not the case.
Have you noticed the COVID safety guidelines?
They haven't changed in 18 months.
No matter what else we learn about the virus, the safety guidelines stay exactly the same.
They do not respond to the science at all.
But these are the pro-science people, of course.
All right.
I'll go now to reading the YouTube comments.
This says, it's a shame Matt's show doesn't last longer because he's a perfect white noise machine for my weak old baby Mabel.
She goes right to sleep when Matt starts talking.
Newest member of SBG and probably the sweetest.
Well, she's not paying attention to my show, so she's banned from the show.
So are you.
Well, congratulations on the birth of your child.
C. Warvold says, Matt, every time I watch a video of yours, I realize how wonderful and gifted an orator you are.
Every video so far without fail leads me to feeling like I've experienced an hour's worth of content before you even get to your five headlines.
Thank you for sharing your talents with the wider world.
Is that a compliment or was that a passive aggressive insult?
You're saying every show after 10 minutes feels like it's been an hour.
The show drags on is what you're trying to tell me.
You, sir, are banned from the show.
How dare you?
Yo Mama's Boo says, I don't give a damn if you're in a crappy hotel room.
I'd much rather be able to see my sweet Daddy Walsh rather than just be able to hear him.
Don't ever leave us again.
Oh, you thought the hotel room yesterday was crappy?
You ain't seen nothing yet.
We're just getting worse and worse.
And by like Friday, I will be in a cave.
I'll be in a cave in Afghanistan doing the show.
The other one says, Day five of asking for Matt's thoughts on pineapple on pizza.
Well, I really don't have, I know this is one of those controversies.
I don't have strong feelings on it.
Part of this just goes to my, my gluttonous instincts.
I'll like eat anything.
So I'm not crazy about the pineapple on the pizza, but it's pizza.
So you put pizza in front of me, I'll eat it.
I don't even really care what's on it.
It's pizza as far as I'm concerned.
And finally, Paul says, the irony of people-first syntax is that it employs relative clause construction, the function of which is to establish a defining statement by declaring a general category term, superordinate, which is then restricted by excluding everything that falls outside of the subordinate predicate phrase.
In short, it's exclusive and restrictive.
Yeah, I was going to say that myself.
Thank you, Paul.
That's exactly my point.
Whatever the hell you just said.
You know, once a month, hosts of The Daily Wire come together for a backstage for some lighthearted debate, and sometimes not so lighthearted debate as you saw at the last debate, but the last backstage.
But it was certainly really interesting and a lot of fun for everybody involved.
And I'm extremely excited to tell you that our backstage in October is going to be staged a little bit differently.
Instead of just Tuning in from your home, you'll be able to see us live and on stage at the Ryman Auditorium right here in Nashville, doing what we do best, making sense.
So join myself, Jeremy Boring, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klaven, and Candace Owens for a backstage like never before.
We have a very special offer for members.
If you're a Daily Wire member, you have a special 12-hour window to buy your tickets ahead of general admission starting tomorrow, Thursday, September 2nd at 10 a.m.
Central.
Check your email for a special code that you can use to pre-order your tickets.
If you're not, then you're just going to have to wait until tickets go on sale this Friday, September 3rd.
So mark your calendar and make sure you don't miss out.
Now let's get to our daily cancellation.
So we've talked rather extensively on this show about the supposed eviction crisis that we've been promised for some time.
And it's because of this supposed crisis that Democrats, of course, according to Democrats anyway, the CDC must be allowed to continue forbidding landlords from evicting tenants who don't pay their rent.
Never mind that the CDC doesn't have that authority.
Never mind that the policy deeply infringes on the basic human rights of property owners.
We must, they say, allow these people to remain in homes and apartments they aren't paying for, and we must allow this indefinitely, no matter what.
Now, I confess that I haven't been persuaded by these arguments up until now, because all of that changed with a report just published in The Hill, which I read yesterday.
Here's the headline.
Nearly half of LGBT renters behind on rent fear eviction in next two months.
And this is credited to research, by the way.
It says, Well, who could dispute that if research has declared it?
The research has spoken.
But in any case, I, for one, will completely abandon my views on this issue now that I know that some gay people are impacted.
I had no idea.
Now, here I was, opposing a destructive and insane and oppressive government policy, and then The Hill comes in and says, well, yeah, but the policy will help some gay people.
Well, okay then, never mind.
I stand corrected.
If gay people will be helped, please take all of my private property rights.
Take away the gun rights, too.
And free speech.
Take away my very life, if it will help.
If that would be beneficial to some gay people.
I submit to the desires of our LGBT masters.
Do what you will, my lords.
I'm sorry for having defied you.
This, anyway, is the reaction that we're expected to have, I guess.
Here's the article.
It says, about half of LGBT U.S.
renters who are behind on their payments fear eviction in the next two months, according to research released by the University of California, Los Angeles' Williams Institute.
The Williams Institute compiled a brief examining housing stability during the coronavirus pandemic using data from the U.S.
Census Bureau's Pulse survey.
The research found that 19% of LGBT respondents said that they are behind on rent.
Of those, 47% said that they fear eviction in the next two months.
The findings from the survey come after the Supreme Court last week blocked an eviction freeze put in place by the Biden administration to shield financially vulnerable Americans during the pandemic.
Well, did anybody explain this to the Supreme Court?
Did anyone present this powerful legal argument that the eviction freeze is good because some gay people might be evicted without it?
Was this legal case laid out to the justices?
It should be, if it hasn't been.
Some more from the article says William Institute researchers also found that 41% of LGBT respondents rent their homes compared to 25% of their straight cisgender counterparts.
About 39% of LGBT people owned a house with a mortgage or a loan compared to almost 48% of non-LGBT people.
In addition, more LGBT people of color, 47%, rent their homes compared to 37% of white LGBT respondents.
51% of LGBT people of color said that they feared eviction in the next two months compared to 38% of white LGBT people, 47% of non-LGBT people of color, and 46% of white non-LGBT people.
The Williams Institute's brief concluded that a key component of a person's housing stability is whether they own or rent.
LGBT people, and specifically those of color, are more likely to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A study released by the Williams Institute in February found that LGBT people of color were two times more likely to contract COVID-19 compared to their straight, white counterparts.
Well, geez.
Now I'm against COVID, too.
On second thought.
I mean, now that you've told me that, I'm opposed to COVID.
I had no idea that my race and sexual orientation afforded me immunity from the virus.
And now, frankly, I feel the ethical responsibility to go out and get infected on purpose, and to infect many other straight white people as well, just to kind of even out the score a little bit.
Since we're keeping score, apparently.
Now, if it seems like I'm just heaping sarcastic scorn here and offering nothing else, you're exactly right.
Because this kind of intersectional madness That's what it deserves.
Just our scorn and ridicule and sarcasm.
There is no way to engage with it honestly or coherently anyway because it's not put forward honestly or coherently.
Just starting with the first sentence, it says, about half of LGBT people behind on their rent fear eviction.
Well, yeah, and?
That's not the same thing as saying that half of LGBT people, period, fear eviction.
It's to say that half of the people who are behind on their rent fear it.
But shouldn't everyone who hasn't paid their rent fear eviction?
I mean, shouldn't the number be like 100%?
This is like saying that half of LGBT people who are currently speeding down the road without a seatbelt fear a fatal car accident.
Well, yeah, but that's good.
It's not good that they're speeding down the road, you know, recklessly, but it's at least good that they're aware of the consequences and they're mildly concerned about it.
So I have more questions about the other half, really.
Also, you could easily flip this around and you could phrase it the other way, and you could say, nearly 100% of LGBT people who pay their rent do not fear eviction.
So that's awesome.
Looks like everything is fine after all.
But here I am doing exactly what I said I wouldn't do, and we shouldn't do.
Engaging with the argument.
Because there's nothing really to engage with here.
The sexual orientation of people who haven't paid their rent is of absolutely no consequence or relevance at all.
There's no reason to even talk about it.
The wrongness or rightness of the eviction moratorium would not change one iota if 100% of all LGBT people would be evicted without it.
Why should it?
I mean, do the moral or legal facts change depending on what identity group the affected people belong to?
Well, yes, that's exactly what the people who do this kind of research and blast it out in their headlines want us to think.
The point for them is really twofold.
One, we're supposed to abandon our position at the behest of a protected class of people.
They say, oh, you're You want to get rid of the eviction moratorium.
Well, did you know that if we do that, there might be some LGBT people who are evicted?
And we're supposed to say, well, never mind.
And two, the main thing here is that this now enables the eviction moratorium advocates to claim that abolishing the eviction moratorium is homophobic and an anti-gay conspiracy.
That's the setup.
That's actually what they're doing here.
So look for that talking point to be rolled out shortly, if it hasn't been already.
Like clockwork, entirely predictable, but no less insidious, not to mention ridiculous, and annoying, and insane.
And for that reason, The Hill today is, of course, cancelled.
And we'll leave it there for today.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listening.
Have a great day.
Godspeed.
And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review.
Also, tell your friends to subscribe as well.
We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts.
We're there.
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, Michael Knowles Show, The Andrew Klavan Show.
Thanks for listening.
The Matt Walsh Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring, our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, our technical director is Austin Stevens, production manager Pavel Vydotsky, the show is edited by Sasha Tolmachev, our audio is mixed by Mike Koromina, hair and makeup is done by Nika Geneva, and our production coordinator is McKenna Waters.
The Matt Walsh Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2021.
Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, President Biden shows the world that his empathy is an act, with a blame-shifting, nasty, vindictive, bloviating speech championing his Afghanistan withdrawal, and the fallout will be toxic.
