Matt Walsh and @LibsofTikTok Creator Chaya Raichik On Being Attacked By Leftists
Chaya Raichik joins Matt Walsh to talk about their experiences while battling leftist keyboard warriors.
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I just delivered an ethics complaint to your office because you lied about me being a committee member.
There's so much more and I was like I just I need to disseminate this like this it's just so bizarre and dangerous.
You have the strength within yourself to stand up for the truth and just about the time that you feel like giving up is exactly the time that you need to fight back harder.
All right, happy to be joined today by Chaya Rejcik, who, of course, runs the account Libs of TikTok.
And Chaya, I know that I am definitely mispronouncing your name, aren't I, to start with?
It's pronounced Chaya, but whatever works.
Chaya?
So is Chaya fine?
So it's from the spro, it's like... It's Chaya.
But I'm not a Lib, I'm not going to have a breakdown if someone done names me, so don't worry.
Okay, and don't take it personally.
Infamously, I am too stupid to pronounce almost anyone's name at all.
Now, we've communicated behind the scenes quite a bit over the last couple of years.
It's the first time that we've done any kind of interview, so I'm interested to kind of I want to talk about things that are happening, obviously, right now, but I'd be interested to go back first to get a little bit of your background.
Like, how did you, you know, you started, of course, with the account Libs of TikTok.
Why did you decide to first open up that account and what did you envision it would become?
I can't imagine that you thought it'd be as big as it turned out to be.
No, I never envisioned this, that's for sure.
So I started during COVID because I couldn't work anymore at my job.
We were locked in our homes, basically.
I was in California at the time.
So it was pretty, pretty draconian.
We literally, I did not leave my house for weeks on end.
And I was never really into politics so much.
And that's when I started getting interested and paying attention because There was people making decisions for us, telling us we can't leave our homes or work, and I'm just like, what's going on?
So I opened a Twitter account then, and I started just paying attention, reading up, listening to podcasts, and watching the news, and reading books, and all that stuff.
And then I started noticing that all of these videos would go viral on Twitter, About COVID, mainly.
So it was, like, those people singing about the vaccines.
I'm sure you remember those.
The dancing nurses.
The people who were basically idolizing Fauci.
And I thought it was really funny, obviously, entertaining.
So I decided to just start sharing those videos.
And, I mean, I noticed they were from TikTok, and I realized they were libs.
So I was just like, oh, these are, you know, libs of TikTok.
That was it.
And that's how it was born.
Just one day out of the blue.
And how long did it take before the account really kind of caught on and was going viral consistently?
Or was it sort of right away?
Because to me it feels like you just kind of popped on the scene and were viral almost immediately.
Is that how quickly it went?
Yeah, literally within a couple months, because I started sharing other types of content.
So while I'm on TikTok, and I'm trying to find those funny COVID videos, I started seeing these videos of these like teachers who are talking about grooming their students and telling toddlers that they could be another gender.
These doctors were bragging about giving surgeries to young people who thought they can be the opposite sex.
And I was just like, this is like really, this is wrong.
So I knew I wanted to share that.
I didn't think at the time, I felt like Americans weren't really aware of how bad the situation had become
with the trans movement.
So I started sharing those, and that's really when it started going really viral.
It took a couple months.
It was pretty quickly.
You said that you back in COVID, What was your job?
So I was a real estate agent, part-time, and then I also worked in an office in Brooklyn, and both of those were just shut down.
And at this point, I guess for a while now, you've been a full-time journalist, essentially, right?
Yeah.
And this, I guess it was over a year ago now when you were first doxed by, that was the Washington Post, right, that doxed you initially?
Yeah, Taylor and the Rams.
Yeah.
What was that like behind the scenes?
Because you, you know, to go from, many of us, myself included, of course, have dealt with being, you know, attacked by the media.
But I imagine it's got, it's a different experience when you're anonymous.
And then sort of suddenly that's taken away from you in this really malicious doxing attempt.
So what was that like for you?
Yeah.
So not just was I anonymous for about a year doing this, but me personally, I'm also a very private person.
And that's why they weren't really able to find information or photos of me online because I never shared that.
In my private life, I'm very private.
I don't share a lot of personal things.
And that's how I grew up.
And to suddenly become... Have my name I mean, I never would have wanted to be famous or to be someone who's spoken about in public or in the media.
It's not in my nature at all.
And I will say, though, that probably a couple of months or weeks before I was doffed, I I kind of started getting the feeling I'm like, I think I'm like making a difference.
And there are some big people who are noticing what I'm doing.
So it's probably a matter of time till till someone tries to track down who I am.
So I kind of was like dreading when that was going to happen.
And then, of course, it did.
It did happen.
And I mean, it was the most chaotic week of my life.
Obviously, I had to go into hiding.
There was also a lot of uncertainty, like...
Were people going to show up to my door?
Were they going to try to come hurt me?
Would they go hurt my family, my parents?
What would they find about me online?
I had no idea what was going to happen.
And of course, there was no photos of me until months later.
So it was like that constant living in suspense.
What's the first photo going to be?
Are they going to find me?
Are they going to find pictures of me?
Are they going to follow me, reporters?
Who knows?
So it was really scary.
Since that time, have you been able to kind of get back to living a somewhat normal life, or has this totally changed your life on a day-to-day basis?
I would say I live a pretty normal life.
I pretty much do this all day, every day, 24-7.
I get recognized sometimes in public, but I don't make a big deal of it.
I never tell people who I am unless someone knows or mentions it.
I don't go around talking about it all the time.
So I try to live a normal life and kind of separate lives of TikTok from my personal life.
Have you had any negative in-person interactions with anybody?
Anybody that knows who you are, doesn't like you, and yells at you or anything like that?
Actually, not really.
No.
Yeah.
People think that... For me, it happens... It's happened, like, not counting college campuses, it's probably happened three times in my whole career, so it's... Yeah.
Which I guess... Which just kind of shows you that these people are, you know, cowards, obviously.
Right, I was gonna say.
Yeah, they're keyword warriors and especially, I mean, you go out, like you said, college campuses, there I know there's always a lot of protesting and really hateful people there who are opposed to any kind of other opinions.
But I've actually never spoken on a college campus.
But yeah, I think people have this like notion that You know, we go to the store and we're just harassed always, and we go, we live our lives and we're just harassed constantly by leftists.
But the reality is that these people are cowards.
Have you thought about doing any college speaking?
I have, yeah.
I've gotten, I've been in touch with a couple different organizations and campuses.
It just hasn't worked out yet, but I think hopefully soon I do plan on doing that.
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I think for people, especially someone on the outside, maybe if they're just becoming familiar with you and what you do, they might be surprised that you attract As much vitriol as you do from the left, given that most of what you do is simply you're taking content other people have already posted publicly online and you're sharing it.
It's already been shared and you're just saying, hey, look at this.
Why do you think the left views you in particular as such a threat?
So there's a few reasons.
Number one, obviously, they understand and they realize that their views don't hold up to scrutiny.
And when you're just sharing it in their own words, like, this is what they themselves are doing.
This is what they're saying.
These are the beliefs that they hold, you know, without really any commentary or opinion.
And they realize that they sound insane.
And like I said, they don't hold up.
So it's a really big part to them.
The other thing is, I think there's this The way that most journalists and commentators have done things, maybe up until recently, is I feel like they try to keep it more polite.
And this is what I appreciate about you a lot, Matt, as well.
I feel like both of us, we just don't care what they think of us.
We will just say exactly what we want and we'll say it as we see it.
We're not afraid to be called names.
We're not afraid to be trolled or to troll them.
And I think that Um, that really bothers them a lot.
Because, like, they called you, like, Transfer of the Year, right?
You won Transfer of the Year.
I was kind of jealous, by the way, but hopefully all in it is there.
And it's like, and what do they want you to do?
Like, they want you to just, like, shut down your operation?
Like, I'm so sad, I'm going to cry.
I was called Transfer of the Year.
But, like, no, we don't respond like that.
Like, we just hit right back at them.
And I think they're not so used to that.
You said, you know, we don't care what people say.
I'll say for me, certainly at this point, and for a while now, that that is certainly true of me, that I quite literally don't care what any of these people say about me at all.
Well, that wasn't always the case for me.
I mean, I think when I first got into any position of like, Presenting my ideas in public, at first, getting dogpiled by people and being accused, called all these names that aren't true, it did bother me.
I think it's a natural human reaction to be bothered when people hate you, I think.
For me it seems like over time it's just been this, it's just kind of this numbing effect.
It just doesn't matter anymore.
So, have you got, are you that numb now to it?
Or did you immediately jump in and you didn't care?
Was there any kind of similar process of having to learn not to care as people say?
Yeah, I think for a lot of people, there probably is a process of learning how to deal with all the hate.
I got over it very, very quickly.
Maybe it was unnatural.
I guess I just realized right away that these people were insane.
I also, like I said, I was never really involved in politics.
So I didn't, I'm like, I'm kind of like an outsider.
And I just come in, I'm sharing videos, and these people are hating on me, and I'm just like, I don't know what you're doing, I don't care about you, I don't care what you say, I know what I'm doing is right, and that's just what keeps me motivated, and what enables me to just continue doing it without thinking of what the haters are going to say, and how they're going to react.
Do you think that's the health?
Because this is what I'm always trying to figure out about myself, because people always ask me, how do you deal with all the hate?
And I kind of give the answer I just gave.
But I'm not sure.
I don't know.
I don't always know what to recommend to other people, but how do they deal with it?
Because I don't know that simply not caring what anyone thinks is the healthiest psychological state for a human being.
There's something about it that feels kind of But at the same time, I don't know how you function these
days if you do care, because that will be used against you and you'll be easily
manipulated.
So is it?
I mean- What do you say to people when they ask you a similar question?
If they ask for a recommendation, like how do they deal with it?
What do you tell them?
I tell them to ignore it.
And if we're being really honest, there obviously are some days that are difficult.
And there are times where sometimes it could get to me, which is normal.
If that wasn't the case, then I wouldn't be human.
My policy, generally, is to ignore them.
If there's something, like, especially egregious, then I'll respond to it.
Or if it's someone who... someone, like, tailored to run.
Like, I'll never care what she says about me, ever.
Will never bother me, and I'm always happy to troll her and to... and to have back-and-forth with her on Twitter.
But... yeah, I would say just ignore it.
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And when it comes to the things that might, for me even still, if there is anything that could still bother me a bit, it's, as you say, it's not names or you're a bigot or transphobe, who cares about that?
But it's when you're accused of something that just simply isn't true.
That can still, I think if you're a human being, that bothers you because you value integrity.
And when you encounter people who don't have any integrity, it's frustrating, even still, no matter how used to it you are.
So on that note, you know, you've been blamed, including recently, but many times over for bomb threats and death threats and so on to schools and hospitals that mutilate kids and all that.
Well, first of all, in general, how do you respond to those sorts of accusations?
Yeah, so I was just going to bring that up.
Even when they blame us for things that are just completely not true, right, like just malicious lying, it doesn't bother you when it starts getting to the point of where it's like you're getting blamed for this just like constantly, you expect it already, you know what's going to happen, and that's kind of what happened with the mom grubs.
The first time I got blamed for bomb threats was over a year ago about that was with Boston Children's Hospital.
And I remember that day, it was actually the day I met with Tucker and I was, I was with Tucker and I was really stressed out.
And it really bothered me because I was like, I obviously bomb threats are horrible.
Anyone who calls in a bomb threat should be arrested and charged.
And I would never, I would never condone any type of violence or threat.
And I was getting blamed for this threat at a children's hospital.
And it was just, it was horrible.
And I was feeling very anxious about it.
And obviously, now looking back, I realize it was just one of their tactics to try to
undermine me, right?
And to destroy my credibility.
Because if they're able to kind of frame you as this violent, dangerous person who loves violence and bomb threats, then that's how they could try to, like, censor you, silence you, and cancel you.
So at this point, it does not bother me at all.
I mean, they blame me for bomb threats probably weekly, or multiple times a week sometimes.
And I'm just like, I know what they're doing.
I know what their strategy is, and it does not bother me in the least bit.
I know that I've never called for violence.
I know that I've specifically called for these bomb threats to be investigated, for people to be arrested.
So, you know, they can call me whatever they want.
They can make up whatever story they want.
But at this point, it doesn't bother me at all.
Isn't there also kind of a weird almost admission that goes on when the left says, well you can't talk about this because that's going to lead to bomb threats.
It's almost like what they are saying is that This thing is so horrific that if you talk about it, it will encourage people to lash out violently, even if you're not encouraging that.
I've always found it to be just the very, the whole talking point about bomb threats to me kind of carries with it this admission of the horror of what they're doing, for example, to children in these hospitals.
Yeah, and in general, the whole, like, stochastic terrorism thing, the whole charge, it just makes absolutely no sense, because they're basically saying you're only allowed to report or discuss certain topics that we approve of, right?
Because if there's anything, if you're discussing something that we don't like, then, you know, there's going to be There's going to be these threats, and then you're not allowed to talk about it.
They basically want to preemptively ban you from speaking.
And I actually spoke about this with a journalist at USA Today, and I asked him, I said, you know, you're going to publish an article about me, how I'm responsible for bomb threats.
And, you know, I'm going to get some death threats after that.
So is that your fault?
And he basically said no.
And he was trying to get me to agree to start putting disclaimers on all my tweets saying, please don't call in a bomb threat just because I'm posting about this.
And I said, well, will you put a disclaimer in your article not to send me death threats just because you're reporting on me?
And he said no.
So I found that to be very telling.
And I think, I mean, obviously, no matter how egregious the content is, bomb threats are bad.
But they, like you said, like, they're not even talking about the content.
They're not talking about what led to these bomb threats.
By the way, these bomb threats might not even be real.
I have yet to see, I mean, I think I saw one police report total from all these bomb threats they've laid me on.
We filed FOIAs, we haven't gotten anything yet.
So when I say bomb threats, it's really in like quotes, because we don't even know if they're real.
Yeah, they leave out the context.
They leave out the content, like, you know, what was the bomb threat in a reaction to, but they obviously never show that information.
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And that's a very good, that's a good thing to note that of course,
we're saying bomb threats, just imagine the air quotes around it because I mean,
I will not saying this is your view.
I don't know if it is or not, but I will go so far as to say that I'm quite sure in fact,
that a large number of them are not coming from the right.
And the reason that I know that is number one, the left has a very well-established propensity
for faking these kinds of things.
And number two, It obviously does not advance the right's cause at all.
Of course, morally, calling it a bomb threat is terrible.
That's why you shouldn't do it.
Also, if you actually are on the right and you're concerned about these things happening to kids, calling it a bomb threat obviously is not going to do anything but hurt your cause.
And so you might have people that are crazy and stupid enough to do it anyway, but anytime something is happening on like a general scale, you have to look at like, well, who does this benefit?
And so, well, probably they have something to do with it if it benefits them.
Yeah, 100% agreed.
So, you know, you seem, moving from there, talking about, you know, these hospitals and what they're doing to kids, you seem to focus, like I do, On culture issues, trans ideology being one of the big ones.
So I know you mentioned when you first got into it, you were kind of, a lot of the content was about COVID, obviously that, we're pretending that never happened now, the COVID lockdowns, but why do you focus on these issues?
Like trans ideology in particular, why do you think that that's such an important issue?
So, for starters, when I first started out, there was not really anyone talking about it.
I mean, you were speaking about it, Abigail Schreier had written a book about it, but it wasn't really something that was discussed daily in conservative news.
I started seeing it from the TikTok perspective, and I was absolutely horrified.
I mean, I think the shock factor of how far this actually went and how damaging it actually is, that really propelled me to start focusing on it a lot.
And the fact that no one in America even seemed to know So it was kind of like, uh, it was a, it was a massive shock to me.
Um, and like I said, I wasn't into politics before, so this was all new to me and I was just like, I can't believe this is happening and no one's talking about it.
So I started talking about that a lot.
And obviously now it's national conversation, you know, many bills being signed, um, all over the country to, to protect children.
Um, but I think, Also, if we don't, first of all, it is dangerous.
It's physically dangerous, what they're doing to children, obviously mentally, emotionally, they're destroying children.
And I think That when it comes to kids, obviously we need to do everything we can to protect kids.
That's something that everybody agreed on up until a couple of years ago.
So, you know, when you're going to come for children, there's going to be backlash.
You're not going to be able to get away with it.
So I think a combination of those things really got me to want to focus on it.
And then also the future of our country.
If we don't have, if our next generation is Completely messed up.
They're all just confused about their identity.
They're grooming our kids.
They're indoctrinating our kids.
They're teaching them to hate America, to hate themselves, to hate everything, to hate whites, to hate the West.
We're not going to have a future.
We're not going to have a country.
And that's scary.
You point out that it was only a few years ago that there were very few people on the right even talking about this.
I remember that quite vividly.
And then you had those on the right that if they did talk about it, it was only to say that we shouldn't talk about it because it's a sideshow distraction.
And now that has changed considerably.
So how do you assess the state of the culture war?
When it comes specifically to trans ideology and the trans issue, do you think that we are, would you go far enough to say that we're winning right now?
How do you score it?
I would say we are, we're winning more than we're losing.
There's so much more work to do.
So we're nowhere near done.
And we're also, It's not stagnant, right?
Because the left keeps making new things up.
They're moving over to the window, so we constantly have to keep up with it.
So I think this is going to be a lifelong project, a lifelong mission.
I don't think gender ideology is something that's going to be completely removed from society.
I think it's something that's going to require constant work.
But I am very hopeful at all the things we're seeing in America, where there's a bunch of states banning sex change surgeries for minors, removing gender ideology from schools, banning sexual adult-themed shows and public nudity in front of children.
So, you know, when that happens, I'm obviously very hopeful, but I mean, we're nowhere near done.
There's so much more to do.
What do you think the left gets out of this stuff?
Why are they so dead set on trans, LGBT?
Why is it so important to them?
I think that they, first of all, they hate America.
They hate our values.
They hate our tradition.
They hate what we were founded on.
And I always say this, I don't think that they actually have a plan for what happens next.
I think that they just are so anti-the West that they're going to be anti-anything that is normal, anti-anything that is traditional and conservative.
And they want destruction and chaos, because that's what they thrive off of.
And they are doing that through this whole trans agenda.
That's what I think.
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You'll often post videos of public school teachers like waving the rainbow flag and stuff like that and with a caption that says, this is an ad for homeschooling or this is why you should homeschool.
Obviously, most people know I'm a big advocate for homeschooling myself.
Do you think that the public school system, based on everything that you've seen, Is it hopelessly broken?
Is it salvageable at all at this point?
I don't think so.
I think it has to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground.
And I always say this as well in all my interviews.
It is so much worse than anyone realizes.
I mean, I'm one person.
I have an account.
I post a bunch of posts a day.
You post about this stuff.
There are other accounts that post about it.
But we're limited.
We can't be sharing every single thing we come across.
I have hundreds of messages that I was never able to share from parents across the country.
And I obviously do a lot of research into this topic.
And it is a thousand times worse than anyone even realizes.
It's worse than I can ever even have time to discuss and to post about.
So I think it has to be completely destroyed.
Speaking of things that are fundamentally broken, TikTok itself, obviously you rose to prominence by showing people what's happening on TikTok.
And first of all, why was this such a revelation to people?
Like, why are people still surprised by what you pull from TikTok, given that it's a massive platform, one of the biggest in the world?
Millions of our kids are on it.
Not my kids, but millions of kids are on it.
And yet, what's happening there seems to almost be a secret until someone reports on it outside of that platform.
How do you explain that?
I think it's probably just willful ignorance.
I think everyone is very well aware of what TikTok is and what it's doing, and obviously how I believe it's a Chinese spy op.
It's meant to destroy America, to destroy our youth.
Everyone's aware with their algorithms, how they feed anti-American content.
Just last week, they were promoting I'm sure you get this question from parents sometimes.
I know I get it all the time.
and where people were justifying 9/11.
So I think everyone is very well aware of what TikTok is, but they are choosing not to,
they are choosing to play dumb and to not address it.
How do you, I'm sure you get this question from parents sometimes.
I know I get it all the time.
How do you, how would you recommend a parent goes about, you know, shielding their kids
from this sort of toxic nonsense that they get on platforms like TikTok.
So, I--
I don't have children yet, so I don't know if I feel totally comfortable giving advice to parents.
But if I did have children, when I do have children, I would not let them have cell phones or social media until they're probably in their late teens.
I just don't think there's a reason for it.
And social media, as we see, is destroying children.
And what about, do you think TikTok should be banned?
Yeah, 100%.
What do you say to the counter arguments to that, that it's government overreach, so on and so forth?
I think it got to a point where it's It's actually dangerous.
And it will actually save lives if it's banned.
Besides for all the security risks, obviously.
I'm not even getting into that.
But, you know, the Chinese have all our data.
But just for our youth, I think it will actually save lives.
Do you think, going back to the, this applies to many of the issues, but going back specifically to the trans issue for a minute, We look at all the kind of delivery mechanisms for this social contagion.
There's the media, Hollywood, pop culture, you know, the school system, and then social media.
Do you think social media is the primary culprit?
Like if social media didn't exist, would we be looking at the same?
Would this issue basically not exist?
I don't think it wouldn't exist, but I don't think it would be at such a big scale.
I think It probably did exist before TikTok.
I mean, it did exist before TikTok.
It existed for a while before Instagram really got big and Snapchat.
I think it did exist and I think it always will.
But I think social media just makes it worse.
It also gives, I mean, right, like it gives kids, well, obviously it's a delivery mechanism for these ideas, but it also gives them This whole sort of world, this universe that they kind of have to themselves that their parents are not aware of and don't have access to.
It's kind of what I was getting at with the TikTok thing, that it's this massive platform, but most adults aren't on it.
And so there's this whole kind of culture on TikTok that kids are participating in and that their parents are completely excluded from.
Yeah, I think, and that's why, like, when I have children, I mean, who knows what's going to be in 20 years, but I would not allow them to have social media.
And I do think, though, that even without it, the left and these groomers and activists, they're so vile that they'll find a way.
I mean, just look at the schools, for example.
The stuff I'm posting about had been in schools for a long time.
It's just nobody knew because they didn't have TikTok.
They're always going to come after our children.
They're always going to have this agenda.
Even in schools, they are creating that same environment that you were just describing, where they're like, your parents are not here.
We have your child's attention for however many hours, and we can sort of impart to them whatever message we want.
Um, and so with social media, you have that kind of experience just on a phone.
But you also have that experience in real life.
Our kids are having that experience when they go to school, sometimes when they go to the doctor, or any kind of like, trust, you know, what they call like a trusted adult, because, you They could be anywhere.
That's what I wrote a book about this.
So I think, yeah, I think it will always be there.
And social media is just another avenue.
And it's definitely making it worse.
Well we're running out of time, but thanks for talking to us, but also for all the work
that you do.
As you know, I think you're one of the most important journalists in the country and have been for years now.
Before you go, how can people, aside from Twitter obviously, how can people find you and find your work?
So we are on liveswithtiktok.com.
We have some articles there and we have a newsletter.
And then I wrote a kid's book, which basically teaches children how to spot red flags from rumor adults who will try to cut out the parent and confuse their child.
