The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1527 - Why The Plane Crash Was Entirely Foreseeable And Preventable
Fri, 31 Jan 2025
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, it’s becoming more and more clear that the American Airlines disaster this week was preventable. It was also foreseeable, which is why many people, including myself, warned about it for months and years ahead of time. So, how did we see this coming, and yet the federal government under the previous administration did not? Also, the confirmation hearings this week prove why we should just stop having confirmation hearings. And, JD Vance sparks controversy with the provocative claim that we should prioritize our own children first and foremost. Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/4bEQDy6 Ep.1527 - - - DailyWire+: Now is the time to join the fight. Watch the hit movies, documentaries, and series reshaping our culture. Go to https://dailywire.com/subscribe today. "Identity Crisis" tells the stories the mainstream media won’t. Stream the full film now, only on DailyWire+: https://bit.ly/3C61qVU Get your Matt Walsh flannel here: https://bit.ly/3EbNwyj - - - Today's Sponsors: Balance of Nature - Go to https://balanceofnature.com and use promo code WALSH for 35% off your first order PLUS get a free bottle of Fiber and Spice. Fitbod - Get 25% off your subscription or try the app FREE for seven days at https://Fitbod.me/WALSH - - - Socials: Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Rv1VeF Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3KZC3oA Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eBKjiA Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RQp4rs
Today on the Matt Wall Show, it's becoming more and more clear that the American Airlines disaster this week was preventable. It was also foreseeable, which is why many people, including myself, warned about it for months and years ahead of time. So how did we see this coming if the federal government under the previous administration did not?
Also, the confirmation hearings this week prove why we should just stop having confirmation hearings. And J.D. Vance sparked controversy with the provocative claim that we should prioritize our own children first and foremost. All of that and more today on the Matt Wall Show. Being a husband, father, and host of my own show means life never slows down.
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That's balanceofnature.com, promo code Walsh. The more we learn about the mid-air collision involving American Airlines 5342 and a military Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday night, the more it's clear that we can now identify some reasons why this catastrophe happened. And this is something that in the mainstream press, You're not supposed to say out loud.
You're supposed to believe that we can't really know anything about what happened and that, at a minimum, we should allow a few years' worth of investigation to take place before we arrive at any conclusions whatsoever.
That certainly is the position of CNN, which sent a reporter to the White House briefing yesterday to browbeat Donald Trump because he cast blame on the Blackhawk pilots, DEI, and air traffic control. Watch.
We don't even yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed. And you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the US military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter. Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?
No, I don't think so at all. I don't think with the names of the people, you mean the names of the people that are on the plane? You think that's going to make a difference? They are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names, we can give you that. We'll be giving that very soon. We're in coordination with American Airlines.
We're in coordination very strongly, obviously, with the military. But I think that's not a very smart question. I'm surprised coming from you.
Now, we've talked a lot about how Trump is reforming Washington at a very rapid pace, largely with his steady stream of executive orders and executive actions. But one of the most important changes he's making is that he's introducing some accountability into the federal government.
He's demonstrating that he has no patience for the bureaucratic runaround that allows disasters like this to occur in the first place, and then also allows for no one to ever be held accountable for it, and no individual person to ever take any blame for anything. And the corporate media obviously participates in that by running interference.
And the idea is, well, now we're not gonna allow that to happen. So one of the reasons that's true is that in this case, we have primary sources that we can rely on. There are a lot of aviation enthusiasts on platforms like YouTube, and they regularly upload air traffic control data and audio. And those videos paint a pretty clear picture of what took place on Wednesday night.
So here, for example, is a reconstruction of the accident from the account VASA Aviation. And it combines the radar tracking data with audio from air traffic control. And in this footage, you'll hear the first relevant interaction between the tower at Reagan Airport and the Blackhawk helicopter crew. Listen.
Now, in case you couldn't hear what the tower says, it says, PAT-25, traffic just south of the Woodrow Bridge, a CRJ, it's 1,200 feet, setting up for runway 33. And then comes a response, PAT-25 has the traffic in sight requesting visual separation, and then visual separation is granted. This is a key moment. Contrary to what you may have heard in the media,
The controller tells the Black Hawk pilot exactly what plane to look out for and where it is at that exact moment. And the Black Hawk pilot states that he sees the plane at the bridge and will avoid it. At this point, everything's going normally. And then about 20 seconds later, an alarm goes off in the control tower because the two aircraft are on a collision course.
That obviously signals that the Black Hawk pilot may not have followed the instructions and listen to what happens at that point.
PAX25, do you have a CRJ in sight? PAX25, PAX behind you, CRJ.
PAX25, there's an aircraft in sight. Chris, there's a separation.
There's a separation. American 4782, my BAT is now firing a visual. American 4782, Washington Tower, one star, 3-2-0-1-7. Alright, this is Red.
Crash, crash, crash. This is Alert 3. Crash, crash, crash. This is Alert 3. Crash, crash, crash. This is Alert 3.
So this time around, the air traffic controller isn't very specific. He doesn't state where exactly the passenger plane is. He just tells the helicopter pilot to avoid a CRJ, probably because he assumes they're still tracking the same plane he mentioned earlier. He also doesn't give the helicopter pilots much time to respond. And then, as you heard, within seconds, the two aircraft collided. So...
Right away, there's reason to speculate that maybe the Black Hawk helicopter was somehow looking at the wrong plane, or maybe the Black Hawk lost sight of the passenger jet at some point and failed to tell anyone. Either way, it's clear that air traffic control's guidance in those final seconds was lacking, to say the least.
And on top of that, based on the radar data, the Black Hawk's pilots made a series of other mistakes in addition to failing to see the passenger jet that was right in front of them. As several aviation analysts have pointed out, the Black Hawk helicopter was supposed to be below 200 feet at this point.
That's a requirement for all helicopters on that route at that point right in front of the runway at DCA. The idea is that they'll pass below the arriving traffic at the airport. But in this case, according to the radar data, the helicopter was flying above 300 feet. And additionally, the helicopter appeared to be slightly off course.
According to the published charts for this area, the helicopter was supposed to be hugging the land. Instead, it was over the water. So here's how one aviation analyst described the problem. Listen.
This helicopter was operating on Route 1 coming down the Potomac River from the north and then transitioning to Route 4 and continuing the route to the south towards Davison Army Airfield. If we look closely at Route 1, the maximum altitude located right here is 200 feet, and this route is to hug the eastern shoreline of the Potomac River.
This route needs to be flown at or below 200 feet to stay below the arrivals into DCA. Not until you get below or south of the Wilson Bridge are you then allowed to climb to 300 feet maximum altitude. As we look at these two targets merge, check out the altitude. Pat 25 at 200 feet as required on the route. It looks like he's slightly to the right of the route. Now he's up to 300 feet.
He's 100 feet high. The CRJ descending to 500 feet, 400 feet, and then finally 400 feet. Pat 25 still at 300 feet. There the altitudes merge right at the collision.
Now, late last night, the New York Times confirmed this analysis, quote, the Army Blackhawk was supposed to be flying in a different location and lower when it collided with a passenger jet, according to four people briefed on the matter. So already we have evidence of serious errors by pretty much everybody involved in this crash, except the American Airlines flight crew.
They were apparently in the right place doing the right thing. The helicopter pilots were apparently too high and off course, and they clearly failed to spot the plane that was right in front of them. According to the defense secretary, they also had night vision on, which reduced their field of view. And the air traffic control also clearly failed to give all the guidance it needed to.
And that's not even scratching the surface of the extent of the failures here. NBC News reports that according to the FAA, staffing levels were not normal at the airport at the time of the accident. One controller was handling both inbound planes and helicopters, where normally two controllers split those responsibilities.
So this is some of the most congested critical airspace in the entire country. And we're evidently running it at half capacity. How exactly is that possible? As you might remember, a little over a year ago, I did a few monologues on the fact that a major aviation disaster was imminent in this country. We talked about it several times over the course of a couple of months, you probably remember.
And it got to the point where it felt redundant after a while because every week there'd be a new series of near misses. And every week the conclusion on this show would be the same, that something terrible is going to happen. And soon. It's just a statistical reality. You can't come that close that many times without something bad happening.
And really, we didn't even have time to talk about all the near misses. In one of these monologues, I specifically pointed out that TCAS, which is the onboard collision avoidance system in most commercial airplanes, doesn't help prevent midair collisions when aircraft are close to the ground. It's not designed to work below 1,000 feet.
So I made the point at the time, there's a very high risk of a midair collision near the ground, which is exactly what happened here. Let's go back and watch that again. Just this year, TCAS failed to prevent a mid-air collision at an international airport in this country, Houston Hobby.
And fortunately and miraculously, nobody died as a result of that collision, but it was very close to being disastrous, as you can imagine. And that incident illustrates the obvious, which is that a failsafe is just that. It's a failsafe. It's not capable of solving all potential problems. It's not capable of solving all mid-air collisions, nor is it designed to.
Especially when planes are close to the ground and covering a lot of ground very quickly in close proximity to one another, things can happen too quickly for the system to respond. We're closer than we've been in more than a decade to a disaster of truly historic proportions. Like it is going to happen and probably soon. And when it does, a lot of people will die.
So that was a little over a year ago. And Now, I'm not an aviation expert. I'm not even a hobbyist. I am a high school educated podcaster. But even I knew more than a year ago that this was a major risk. Our mid-air collision fail-safes simply do not work at low altitude. That's especially true given that some low-flying aircraft don't have TCAS at all, like military Blackhawks.
Now, with that information, you might think that the FAA would consider, say, banning helicopters from flying directly into the approach paths of major airports like Reagan National. But they didn't think of that, apparently. Instead, this is the chart that helicopters currently use to fly around. You can see it there.
And as you can see, they just put the helicopter routes right in front of the airport. Look at how close Route 1 and Route 4 are to the runway. And if there's any deviation from those altitudes whatsoever, there's a major risk of a catastrophe. I mean, there's almost no room for error here. Everyone has to be perfectly on their game at all times or else lots of people will die.
But as we know, very often air traffic controllers these days are not on their game. Almost all of the near disasters I've talked about over the years were potential mid-air collisions caused by, at least in part, incompetent air traffic control. Here's one of these near misses from Reagan National Airport, the same airport where the crash occurred on Wednesday. This is from last April. Watch.
JetBlue 1554, traffic pulls off your right. Wind calm, runway full. Clear for takeoff. Okay, so you can hear the controllers in the tower screaming once they realize their mistake.
And by the way, if you're listening just to the audio podcast, you'll understand what's happening there. The air traffic controller was guiding a plane on the runway directly into the path of another plane. Until at the last moment, they realized what they were doing. And again, there was new footage like this every week.
That's why in 2023, there were 503 air traffic control lapses that the FAA categorized as significant lapses. which was a 65% jump year over year. So I'll say that again, significant lapses by air traffic controllers increased by 65% in a year.
It's not hard to understand why this might be happening given all the evidence of declining standards at the agency, which is another thing that we're not supposed to talk about, but it's true. Last year, for example, I published footage and documentation from whistleblowers in the FAA and the aviation industry.
What these whistleblowers made clear is that the FAA and the airlines have drastically cut their performance expectations across the board. Actually, that's underselling what happened because the FAA specifically went out of its way to punish white applicants.
They introduced a biographical questionnaire that dinged applicants that had relevant education or experience, knowing that white applicants would be affected the most. And in one case, an FAA official was even caught helping black employees and only black employees to access inside information that would help them in the application process.
In the footage I reported on last year, a senior FAA official openly talked about the importance of reducing the number of white males in the aviation industry. So they want to reduce a certain huge category of people who work in air traffic control. And then we find out that in this case, air traffic control was understaffed.
Trying to reduce understaffed, and we're supposed to believe there's no connection between those two things. As increasingly underqualified air traffic controllers have been promoted, the situation has deteriorated further, and that's produced a constant stream of near misses that continued right up until this disaster.
As the Washington Post reports, quote, just 24 hours before the collision of American Eagle Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport on Wednesday, another jet trying to land there had to make a second approach after a helicopter appeared near its flight path. So And that's what we know. Airlines and the FAA deliberately lower their standards.
Near misses dramatically increase. No one does anything about it or takes any preventative measures of any kind. You've got people who don't know anything about aviation screaming from the rooftops that this is going to happen. And it does. Now, based on those facts, do we know for sure that if DEI were never invented as a concept, then this accident never would have happened?
No, we don't know that. You know, based on the information we have right now, we can't say that with certainty.
One of the Blackhawk pilots was reportedly, according to Fox News, a woman with just 500 hours of experience, but we don't yet know whether she was handling the controls at the time of the crash, although that seems likely since her male co-pilot was doing the radio calls, but we still don't know the full extent of her qualifications or anything else. There is still a lot we don't know.
At the same time, as Donald Trump outlined yesterday, that's not really the point. The point is that we shouldn't even have to wonder even for a second, if DEI played a role in an incident like this. But we do have to ask that question because any agency or organization that practices DEI cannot claim to be upholding the highest possible standards. That's the whole point here.
It's not about whether any individual person involved in this incident was a quote-unquote DEI hire. They may or may not have been. We don't know. We'll never know that. The point is the lowering of standards that happens And the inevitable results when you lower standards. And as Trump pointed out, it never ends well, particularly in an industry like aviation. Watch.
It's all under investigation.
I understand that. That's why I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.
Because I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately, a lot of people don't. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level. And I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one. The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing.
And then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce and they want them in and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so.
Now, if we want to avoid future disasters like this one, we have to address the problem that Trump's talking about there. We don't really have a choice. You simply have to establish high standards for jobs like this. That's it. You have to have high standards across the board.
And if you can't find enough applicants who meet those standards, if there's a shortage of qualified personnel, then the solution is to pay qualified applicants more so that you can attract competent people.
And if you can't do any of that for some reason, and you end up understaffed and with not enough people, well, then you need to drastically reduce the traffic and the amount of work these people are doing by, for example, not having helicopters flying right in the path of incoming planes.
At this point, we also need to take a full accounting of the damage that COVID lockdowns have done to this country, which is something that has never been done. And I bring that up because this is an interesting point that I haven't heard anyone else bring up. I received an email from a senior engineer at a major company in the aviation industry last night. And
This person brought up something, again, that I hadn't heard anyone else bring up, which is the effect of the COVID lockdowns on the aviation industry. This person wrote, quote, while nobody had it easy, the aviation industry was hit particularly hard.
The demand for air travel plummeted when the lockdowns took effect, resulting in massive attrition of experienced people out of every corner of the aviation industry. When demand came back about three years ago, these people were replaced by relatively young and inexperienced new hires. I'd be utterly shocked if this did not in some way impact the midair collision at Reagan National.
That's another aspect to this incident that I don't think anyone had actually considered, very few, I had. We have too few qualified people in part because of the devastation that the COVID lockdown has inflicted on this country. Which is yet another reason why we can never allow anything like that to happen in this country again. And the current White House seems to understand that.
Moving forward, the White House is now committed to rooting out existing DEI hires at the FAA so they can start recruiting competent employees. Speaking to Fox last night, senior White House official Stephen Miller said that's exactly what's about to happen. Watch.
It is a betrayal of the American people to say that you are going to prioritize the hiring of people with severe intellectual defects to serve at the Federal Aviation Administration. the entity responsible for ensuring that every single passenger over American airspace safely takes off, safely flies, and safely lands.
And President Trump's made clear that he is not only—and he issued another order today— he's not only installing the highest standards possible, but the order President Trump issued today— tells the Secretary of Transportation to review every hiring decision at the FAA over the last four years.
And where someone was not hired based on merit, qualification, or competence, then that person needs to be replaced.
This is the step we need to take. We have no other choice. Once an organization actually rewards competence, things start improving very quickly.
A competent FAA official might decide, for example, that it's a bad idea to have a helicopter route pass right in front of a major airport on the assumption that the helicopter will never make a mistake and go 100 feet above or below their assigned altitude. 100 feet of altitude should not be the difference between life and death.
And when you've decided to have helicopters in the vicinity of airplanes. Those are the kinds of practical life-saving decisions that get made when you're focused entirely on your mission and nothing else. They're the kinds of decisions that Americans just voted for in record numbers. And they're the kinds of decisions that need to be made immediately before a lot more people die.
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Try the app for free for seven days at fitbod.me slash Walsh. That's F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash Walsh. All right, more hearings on Capitol Hill yesterday. Lots of great hearing fun. And I got to tell you, and I know I'm not breaking any new ground here, but I'm so disgusted at this point by the farce of these hearings. Really, any hearing on Capitol Hill, it's also totally pointless.
Well, I should say there is a point, but the point is not to obtain information, which should be basically the sole focus of any hearing. The point of a confirmation hearing is to learn about the nominees and then to decide if they should be confirmed. But that's not what's happening here. The senators on the committee are not trying to find out any information. They aren't asking real questions.
And we all know that they have all or nearly all made up their minds before the hearing even started. So the whole thing's a joke. Yesterday was DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard and FBI director nominee Kash Patel who were on the hot seat. And we'll play a few clips. But the important point in all these clips, again, is that none of the senators interrogating them
None of the senators interrogating the suspects here are actually trying to figure out how they want to vote. They all knew long before they stepped into that room how they'd vote. In fact, they all knew at approximately 1 a.m. on November 6th, 2024, how they would be voting in this hearing on January 30th. They all knew.
The moment Trump was confirmed as the winner, they all knew, the Democrats knew, they'd be voting against whoever the nominee is for whatever position. So again, it's all a farce. It has all the significance and all the reality of professional wrestling. And they're not even trying to hide it. So I want you to watch this moment with Senator Michael Bennett and Tulsi Gabbard. Watch.
Do you believe, as the chairman of this committee believes, as the vast majority of members of our intelligence agencies believe, that Edward Snowden was a traitor to the United States of America?
Senator, if confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, I will work with you to make sure that there is not another Snowden-like leak.
This is not a moment for social media. It's not a moment to propagate theories, conspiracy theories, or attacks on journalism in the United States. This is when you need to answer the questions of the people whose votes you're asking for to be confirmed. as the chief intelligence officer of this nation.
As my colleague said, this is not about you, it's about the people that serve the intelligence agencies of the United States. Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.
Senator, as someone who has served in uniform.
Your answer, yes or no, is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?
As someone who has worn our uniform in combat, I understand how critical our national security is.
Apparently you don't. Apparently you don't. Let me ask you.
Okay, if you want her to answer the question, shut the hell up, Mike. Can you shut your mouth for two seconds? He doesn't give her even two seconds to answer. She doesn't even start answering. And he's already demanding the answer. And he has the gall to say, this is not a moment for social media. Well, your whole performance, Mikey, is about social media. What are you talking about?
You're worried about going viral. That's what you want. I mean, that's what all these, that's all they're trying to do. That's what every hearing is. Every hearing now is all these politicians who are glorified TikTok influencers now that just wanna go viral. That's all they're thinking about. The only thing they're thinking about is I wanna get a viral clip.
We shouldn't even have these hearings anymore. I don't know what the process needs to be to do this, but Just abolish the confirmation hearings. Just get rid of them. Seriously. The whole thing. The president won. He has the right to fill in his cabinet with whoever he wants. Okay, whoever he wants. I don't care who he puts in there. He won. It's his cabinet. So whoever you want to put in there.
That's what people voted for. The ability of the president to fill his cabinet and enact his agenda should not hinge on some committee of showboating grandstanding 90 IQ politicians who only just want to get that little 60 second clip that will go viral on X, okay? That's not what this should all hinge on. But that was the whole hearing with Tulsi. They didn't give her a chance to answer anything.
Just one more example of that. This is her being, I mean, you can't even say questioned. You can't even say interrogated because interrogated means like you're trying to pull information out of somebody. An interrogation is actually exactly what this isn't. But here she is with Senator Mark Warner.
attention to the egregious civil liberties violations that were occurring at that time. Ms.
Gabbard, I ask you a question. Please give me the courtesy of responding. You said the reforms now make you supportive. Can you cite which reforms? There are a number of reforms to include getting rid... In the new law, right? That all of you and your wisdom... Ms. Gabbard, my time is getting short. But I got to just tell you, after the reforms were passed into law...
In April of 24, you went on Joe Rogan's podcast in May.
Ms. Gabbard, I asked you a question. Please respond. Please respond. I'm not going to let you speak. But Ms. Gabbard, Ms. Gabbard, please respond with blinks and movements of your eyeballs. Respond in Morse code. Because she's not allowed to, she was trying to answer the question. He's like, well, what reforms do you want?
And she goes, well, for example, and then he jumps in again because he doesn't want her to get a chance to answer it. Just an absolute joke. The Kash Patel hearing was no better, actually worse in many ways. Here is Senator Alex Padilla questioning, or again, not questioning, but grandstanding, performing in front of Kash Patel.
Patel, do you believe that background checks for firearm purchases are constitutional?
I don't know the in-depth of it, but I think that's what the Supreme Court has said, Senator.
So the word would be Y-E-S, yes. Can you say yes, are background checks constitutional?
I can say whatever the Constitution the Supreme Court ruled is the rule of the land.
The word would be Y-E-S, yes. You condescending, pointy-headed prick. I wish Cash had said that. Cash should have said that. I understand why he didn't, but I wish he did. I actually think that all of the nominees, I think they've all performed very well given the circumstances. But the only mistake that all these nominees are making is they're too nice. They're still too nice.
You're in no obligation to sit there and take that from this guy. Y-E-S-S. Shut up, you clown. Who are you talking to? Who do you think you're talking to? Okay, I'm not a child. Have some respect. Address me with respect or I'm not going to talk to you. How about that? You can say that. You should say that. You're under no obligation. That's not what this is supposed to be.
The whole thing now, it's like, okay, the president has nominees, and so they have to run this humiliation ritual, is the idea now. The penalty of being nominated is that you have to just sit there and be condescended to for two and a half hours on national television. What? Why? Why is that the system? What do we gain from that?
Here is Richard Blumenthal, who looks like he was AI generated, doing his whole routine. Here it is.
You've committed that the FBI will not be politicized. So here's your first test. Will you commit that you will not tolerate the firing of the FBI agents who worked with the special counsel's office on these investigations?
Senator, I appreciate the time to visit with you.
It is a yes or no answer, and it is your first test.
Senator, every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for case assignments.
And I'm not going to accept that answer, because if you can't commit, that those FBI agents will be protected from political retribution, we can't accept you as FBI director.
All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.
They deserve, those individuals deserve to be protected from Trump retribution. That was your first test. You failed it.
By saying all FBI employees should be protected?
He can't accept that. He can't accept it. He won't accept it because he doesn't agree with it. He doesn't agree with the answer that he's been given, so he won't accept it. But isn't, wait a second, Richard, isn't the point of the hearing to get Kash Patel's answers? Aren't we interested? Or is Kash Patel supposed to just sit there and say whatever Richard Blumenthal wants him to say?
Is that the point of the hearing, Richard? Is to hear them like puppets repeat whatever your opinion is? Aren't we interested in his opinion, in his perspective? What do you mean you won't accept it? That's what he thinks. That's his answer. But the cringiest, most pathetic moment of the whole hearing came to us courtesy of, naturally, Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff, the human planter wart.
Here's his Oscar-worthy performance.
I want you to turn around. There are Capitol Police officers behind you. They're guarding us. Take a look at them right now. Turn around.
I'm looking at you. You're talking to me.
No, no, look at them. I want you to look at them if you can, if you have the courage to look them in the eye, Mr. Patel, and tell them you're proud of what you did. Tell them you're proud that you raised money off of people that assaulted their colleagues, that pepper sprayed them, that beat them with poles. Tell them you're proud of what you did, Mr. Patel. They're right there.
They're guarding you today. Tell them how proud you are.
That's an abject lie, and you know it. I've never... Never, ever accepted violence against law enforcement. I've worked with these men and women, as you know.
Turn around. Talk to them. What is this? Simon Says? Turn around. Stand up. Yeah, I didn't say Simon Says. Put your right hand up. Put your right hand in. You want them to get up and dance the hokey pokey? What do you want? Like, now you're giving him choreography to perform? I can't. I mean, Adam Schiff, he's like an old, irritable woman.
I mean, imagine being trapped in a room with this guy, listening to him nag. It's cruel and unusual punishment. It's unconstitutional. We should abolish these hearings on the basis that they are human rights violations. Nobody should be forced to listen to, much less look at, Adam Schiff. Um... That's my stance on that. All right, J.D.
Vance started some controversy this week by saying something obviously correct in an interview. Here he is talking about the hierarchy of love, the order of people that we are called to love and prioritize in our lives. Let's listen to that.
But there's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.
They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society. And I think the profound difference that Donald Trump brings to the leadership of this country is the simple concept, America first. It doesn't mean you hate anybody else.
It means that you have leadership, and President Trump has been very clear about this, that puts the interests of American citizens first. In the same way that the British prime minister should care about Brits and the French should care about the French, we have an American president who cares primarily about Americans, and that's a very welcome change. What is President Xi doing?
What is Vladimir Putin doing? He's looking after the Chinese. Putin is looking after the Russians. They're entitled to do that. Thank God we now have an American president who's looking after the citizens of his own country.
It really is amazing in all the best ways that we have a vice president who talks about the principles of subsidiarity, which is what this is. To have a vice president who actually says interesting, insightful things. When was the last time we had that? I mean, not in my lifetime, certainly. The vice president has always just been... In my lifetime, a blabbering bore.
And so here we have someone saying things that are true and interesting. The point is, again, obviously correct, which means just as obviously that people are upset about it. This was trending on social media, a bunch of people on the left saying that J.D. Vance's philosophy on love is cruel and bad and in contradiction to the gospel.
because, of course, a bunch of secular atheists really care about the gospel and know about it, so we should listen to them. But the point itself feels almost pointless to defend because it is so clearly, obviously, self-evidently true. Obviously, you're meant to love your family, your spouse, and your children first and foremost and prioritize them.
And you're supposed to love your nation before the nations of the world. Human society is built on this system. It's how every human being is naturally wired. Our legal system is built on it. which is why if you're fed and warm and comfortable and your child dies of starvation and exposure, you will go to prison forever, and you should.
But if a homeless guy across town dies of starvation and exposure, you're not going to go to prison. You'll be sad if you find out about it, but you're not going to go to prison for that, nor should you, because the law recognizes that you have a special obligation to make sure that your children don't starve.
You do not have a specific legal obligation to make sure that the homeless guy across town doesn't starve. And in fact, if you had to choose between the two, you'd choose your own children a thousand times out of a thousand. Helping the homeless guy across town is something that you only do after you've taken care of your own family.
And then, yes, if there's someone in need in your community, you should try to help them. And that person should take priority over a homeless guy in China, right? That's the way that it works. And again, it's so obvious. What's more interesting to me is why the left pretends to not understand this. That's the more interesting question to me. As J.D. Vance points out, they've inverted this.
They've totally inverted kind of this pyramid, this hierarchy. And so now they prioritize the world, the nations of the world, the global community over their actual community and even their family and certainly their nation. And why? Why? Because again, we're not wired that. It goes against our wiring as human beings. Everything about it makes no sense.
And I think there's a reason for it, which I also think that people maybe sometimes miss. Here's why, okay? The left likes to prioritize the kind of universal love of mankind and put it ahead of love of family and love of country, or at least on the equal playing field. And the reason that they do that is because loving the world is easy. It requires nothing of you.
You can just sit on your couch and love the world. What does it mean to love the world? What does it mean for me to love and care deeply about a homeless guy in China? I can't do anything about it. I can't really do anything for the world. So loving just means that you're just, you know, you could just, you can do that anytime.
You could sit on your couch and eat Doritos and watch TV and love the world at the same time. Because all that means really is that you just have sort of warm, general feelings about the world. And you want things to go well for people in the world. And you just kind of warm, well wishes for everybody is what loving the world means. That's easy. Great. Okay. Check that box.
I have warm well wishes for everybody. Check. That's it. Now I'm a good person. Right? Now loving your family, on the other hand, requires work. It requires you to do. It requires you to get up off of your couch and sacrifice. Loving your family requires It's an activity. It's a thing that you do. It's a sacrifice.
You cannot love your family and just sit on your couch the whole time because your family needs things of you. They need your help. They need your sacrifice. They need your service. They need your leadership. They need you to provide for them. If I'm just sitting on my couch and not getting off the couch, I cannot even claim that I love my children. What does that mean?
I can't say that I love my children and I'm neglecting them and not caring for them because to love my children is to care for them. And so loving the people closest to you is an obligation and a sacrifice. And even loving your country, which comes after loving your family, but even loving your country, there are things you can do for your country.
It's not as much of an all-encompassing obligation. I mean, for some people it is if you join the military, for example. But for most of us, it's not. But still, there are things you can do for your country. Right? Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And so there are things you can do for your country.
There's basically nothing that you can do for the world. There's almost nothing. There's a whole lot every single day you can do for your family, and there's less but still a lot that you can do for your country. And so those are the kinds of love that the left is not interested in and doesn't like and doesn't want to talk about and wants to de-emphasize because it requires them to do things.
And it carries with it an obligation. And the last thing that they ever want is an obligation. So I think that's what's happening here.
Let's get to the comment section.
No one ever asked why doctors prescribed SSRI drugs to people without ever testing their serotonin levels in the first place. Well, yeah, this is a question I've had about the many alleged mental disorders that doctors prescribe drugs for. I've had this question, you know, forever.
And they say that, well, it's strange that they assure us that all these things, depression, ADHD, anxiety, etc., all of these things are actually diseases of the brain, which is what they'll claim. Although they still call them mental disorders or mental illnesses. When really if they were clearly diseases of the brain, you would call them neurological disorders.
And there's a difference between a mental disorder and a neurological disorder. Because a neurological disorder is something that is in the brain. And yet they talk about mental disorders in the same way because they want to medicalize these things. And they want them to be on the same sort of playing field as physical illnesses. And yet...
In the vast majority of cases, they don't diagnose these things with brain scans. So they'll tell you that, oh yeah, you can totally find ADHD in the brain. An ADHD brain is different from a regular brain. That's what they tell you. Okay, well then why don't they ever do a brain scan?
Like, why is it then that you can go and get your kid diagnosed with ADHD without anyone ever looking at his brain? There's no brain scan. How's that? If it's clearly so evident in the brain. And that's a question they don't have an answer for. Hate to say it, Matt, but if you disqualified every teacher that's on SSRIs, you'd have to close every school in the US. I fail to see the problem.
That is a feature, not a bug. I'll have to tell you. Do you support these onesies? What a clown and what a silly time to be alive. If RFK Jr. resigned, what the hell does Bernie expect him to do? He has no control over what an organization. He's no longer a part of sales. Yeah, a lot of people were reacting to Bernie Sanders taking RFK Jr.
to task for onesies that were on sale by an organization that RFK Jr. is no longer affiliated with. And I think a lot of people felt that talking about onesies at a confirmation hearing in the Senate was a bit absurd, a bit asinine. I understand that feeling, but I will say this. I will say this about onesies since Bernie Sanders brought the subject up.
I think there is a conversation about onesies that we should be having as a country and that we're not. because I personally support only one kind of onesie, and that is the onesie with the zippers. And this is something I actually feel very strongly about. This is an issue that's really important to me and near and dear to my heart.
It's a big issue for me and for the nation, but I think that there's not been nearly enough conversation about it. The snap-on onesies are, okay, those things are ridiculous. The onesies with the snaps, And if you don't have kids, you don't realize this. The majority of onesies they sell have snaps. And not just like two or three snaps. But 50 snaps.
To the point where when the onesie is unsnapped, it doesn't even look like clothing. It's just a piece of cloth. It's a weirdly shaped piece of cloth. And you have to snap it up. It's like origami. It's an arts and crafts project all of a sudden when you're just trying to get your kid changed. And now you got this wiggling baby who's crying. And you want to get him to bed.
And you've got to do all the snaps. The whole snaps over the whole thing. This is so many of the ones. I'm telling you, it's most of the onesies. It's all just snaps. Meanwhile, you get a zipper, you just put the kid in, you zip it up and you're done. And I know what the answer is because this is a point of contention among some parents.
Well, you can't do the zippers because babies are all fat and you get their skin stuck in the zipper. That's not hard. Look, I've had six kids. I've zipped up many a onesie in my time. Okay, I've done the zip. I've probably done that 10,000 times. Never once did I get the skin caught in the zipper. It's not hard to avoid. So this is a real issue.
I think that the snap-on onesies should be federally banned. I don't know why they're still on the market. I don't know why we allow this. And I don't understand why the majority of onesies are that. It makes no sense. It's crazy. Let's see. Now that I got that off my chest. One other comment. I'm so disappointed that RFK Jr. acquiesced and said he's supportive of vaccines.
I don't think that he acquiesced. I'm pretty sure his position is that he doesn't have any kind of philosophical problem with the concept of vaccines. He's not saying that there's anything wrong with just like the idea of giving someone a drug to prevent a disease.
His point is that the vaccines have to be properly studied and tested and vetted, and they have to be safe and effective, which in his view is not the case for many of them. I mean, I think that's his position. I And that's the position he was articulating in the hearings. I have heard that a little bit, that he seemed to backtrack or whatever on vaccines. But that's not the way that I read it.
And I'll admit, I haven't tracked RFK Jr. 's career and everything he said about vaccines over the past 20 years as closely as apparently a lot of people have. But what I've heard him say about it in the hearing, to me, made sense. Where he's saying, no, I got no problem with the concept of it. It's not like some philosophical sort of like in principle objection that I have to the very concept.
It's that what he's saying is in his view, very often these vaccines are not properly studied and not properly tested and are sold as safe and effective when they aren't. immediately we could all think of one major example of that, which of course is the COVID vaccine. Hopefully by now you've joined millions in watching my movie, Am I Racist?
The box office hit comedy and number one documentary of the decade. Today I got something new for you. Clearing the air, the making of Am I Racist? The streaming exclusively on Daily Wire Plus. And that's me, director Justin Folk, and the whole movie crew showing you exactly how we put this thing together. And of course, if you haven't watched Am I Racist? You should probably start there.
But then you're going to want to watch the making of, because that's a whole movie unto itself. It's a whole story of how we actually pulled this off, which is a question, of course, we get all the time. And it's all streaming right now on Daily Wire+. Now let's get to our daily cancellation.
I was going to include this in the comment section yesterday, but I decided that's probably worth fleshing out in a monologue. So I'm going to close the show by answering not just one comment, but... A great many comments, all circling around the same theme.
And these are comments that I am always peppered with anytime I discuss, as we have this week, the issue of foreign aid or foreign policy in general. In fact, I've been trending on X this week, ended up in a Mediaite headline. because of this issue. And it's kind of funny seeing as I'm not all that interested in foreign policy.
I only talk about it sparingly because my focus is and always has been on American culture. That's what I care about the most. That's where I feel like I have the most to offer is with that. So my pronouncements on foreign policy issues, while they are, I believe, correct and I stand by them, you wouldn't think are terribly newsworthy, and yet apparently they are.
There's been quite a lot of conversation about it this week on the show and on X. I have explained, certainly not for the first time, my position on foreign aid. My position is that I'm against it in principle. I don't think we should be sending tax money to any foreign government. I've said that any country that can't survive without our aid actually has no right to exist.
If you can't exist as a nation without the indefinite support of another nation, you're not a real nation. And you should be conquered and ruled by a superior country. That's how the world used to work and, in my opinion, should still work.
rather than using foreign aid as this kind of backdoor way of colonizing, sort of bureaucratically colonizing a country, I would prefer it just be done directly. And I'm old-fashioned now. Now, my views are, In every sense, America first. You might call them isolationists. I think that label is often used as a pejorative, but it doesn't bother me. I mean, you can call me that if you want to.
My position is that our government has an obligation to our people. America should be America's priority. Americans should be the American government's priority. I'm a simple man, and that is my simple, but also, I believe, again, correct way of looking at it. And that brings us to the comments, which you'll find all over social media right now if you look for them, or even if you don't.
And they're all some variation of this one. I'll just read one as an example. Quote, Matt, you say you want to end foreign aid, but I bet you won't include Israel in that. This is the theme of many of these comments, accusing me of excluding Israel from my foreign aid position because I'm afraid that I'll get fired or whatever.
And I probably don't need to read every version of this tweet in my X-Feed, suffice to say that there are many. And they're all implying or outright stating that I'm a bought and paid for shill who would never have the guts to be consistent on this issue. I'm nothing but a pawn of the Israeli government, is the idea.
Now, of course, there's a faction of that group that will accuse me of this literally no matter what I say about anything ever. But there are enough questions about it and enough apparent interests, given the tens of thousands of people tweeting about my foreign policy and Israel stance this week for some reason, that I think it's worth addressing on the show. Granted, I have addressed it.
I've already answered this specific question multiple times, but I'll answer it here so that you have it in one convenient place. So the answer, of course, is that I do not make an exception for Israel. Yes, I want to end foreign aid to Israel. I want to end foreign aid to every nation on earth, and I would include Israel as a nation on earth.
I oppose, again, foreign aid in principle, and I make no exceptions.
I oppose foreign aid because it breeds dependency among the nations that receive it, and because there's no evidence that it actually helps any of these countries in the long run, and because the results of foreign aid have not been good historically, but mostly because I simply object to American tax dollars going to foreign governments. I object to that.
or going to NGOs and nonprofits that are then supposed to use it to help these foreign countries. The NGOs and nonprofits, by the way, are just as corrupt as the governments, if not more so, much of the time. So I object to all of that. The fact that foreign aid makes up a small fraction of the federal budget is irrelevant.
I don't believe that one single dime of tax money should go from your paycheck into the government's hands and then into some other government's hands. The fact that the government wastes much more money in other areas of the budget does not make this waste, this scam, any better. I also think, as I've said before, that there are some basic issues of taxation without representation here.
Taxation with representation, this is a basic concept. If a foreign government is using my tax money, I'm not represented by that. I have no representation. I have no say over it. I'm not benefiting from it. How is that not taxation without representation?
And so for those reasons, because my position on foreign aid is a position in principle, a fundamental position, obviously, I don't make an exception for Israel. Now, frankly, I would like to turn the question around on the 10,000 people tweeting at me about this, demanding to know whether my foreign aid position includes Israel. It does.
I'd like to ask those 10,000 people whether their foreign aid position includes any other country besides Israel. Because it seems that many in that crowd take exception to the foreign aid, but only ever complain specifically about foreign aid to Israel, even though dozens of other countries receive collectively billions of dollars. Ukraine, of course, right now is at the top of that list.
And I'm equally opposed to all of it. I don't think any of it should be happening. Now, is my position at odds with the position held by Ben Shapiro and by the CEO of this company, Jeremy Warren? Yes, it is. They, in fact, very heartily disagree, which is not a secret. We have debated this issue publicly and also privately a number of times. Am I going to get fired for doing this segment? No.
I really don't think so. Will my direct and explicit answer to these questions actually matter to many of the people asking the questions? Also, no, I realize that. In fact, after I said a very condensed version of this on X yesterday,
The comments started filling up insisting that I'm only saying that I also want to end foreign aid to Israel because Ben Shapiro told me to say it as some kind of ploy or cover story. So they went from Ben Shapiro won't let you say that you oppose foreign aid to Israel to Ben Shapiro is telling you to say that you oppose foreign aid to Israel in record speed.
It's almost as though there's literally nothing I can say that will move them off their preconceived conclusions. Nothing. It's almost as if there is no way to win when you're dealing with the social media mob. And yet here I am talking about this. If I can't win, if nothing I say is gonna matter anyway, if I'm a bought and paid for shill regardless, why bother discussing this?
Well, first of all, it's my job to talk about stuff. So that's really the main reason. I have no doubt that at least some of the people asking me about this are sincere, so I'm really talking to them, whoever they are. And finally, there's also this. There's another point I wanted to make, a slightly broader point.
Because one of the most frequent rejoinders that I will hear and always hear to any point that I make about anything ever goes like this. Yeah, you'll say that about foreign aid or fill in the blank random issue. But why won't you say this other thing that I also want you to say?
You'll say that about Israel or about whatever, but why won't you make this other point that may or may not be related to the topic? Sometimes I feel like that's 80% of the feedback I get, especially on social media, is why are you talking about this other thing? Are you scared?
Now, a lot of people seem to have this laundry list of things that they want me to say, opinions they want me to express. And my refusal to say those things and express those opinions is, they're quite sure, evidence that I am, again, a bought and paid for shill, a grifter.
There are a lot of other points surrounding foreign policy, Israel, et cetera, that people on the internet want me to make, things they want me to say. By not saying those things, I am providing evidence in their minds that I am deceitful and phony and insincere. Well, let me answer that whole category of objections slash accusations all at once, if I may.
And this, again, this could be a separate clip. You could post this around for anyone, anytime this is brought up. Here's my answer. If I have not expressed a certain opinion, it is for the very simple reason that I just don't happen to hold that opinion. I don't happen to agree with the proposition that you are insisting I put forward. I say the things I say because I believe those things.
I don't say other things because I don't believe those other things. I may be wrong, but if I'm wrong about something, it's because I'm wrong, not because I'm fearfully muzzling myself or cynically adopting a position I don't actually believe.
In the social media age, it seems like a great number of people assume that everyone else in the world must agree with them about everything so that if a man expresses an opposite view or even just fails to positively affirm their view on something, it's because he is a phony and a grifter. That's the only possible explanation. The idea that anyone might just sincerely disagree has been ruled out.
They live in a world where it's inherently impossible for anyone to ever have a different perspective. Everyone that claims to have a different perspective is automatically a liar, a con artist, and a fraud. I mean, this is really, truly how a significant number of people apparently see the world. Which is why I've been called a grifter for every opinion I've ever held on any side of any issue.
Even the smallest little opinions, even the most irrelevant, you would think, opinions, even the smallest. Someone, I'm not making this up, someone just the other day, because there was another round of outrage on the Internet. I'm not even sure why this time. There's another round of outrage where I found that I was trending this time, not Israel. It was because of anime.
Now, I haven't even said anything recently about anime. I said one thing about it. I think I've, really, it's one thing I said about it offhandedly two years ago, and it just continually comes up where the anime community on Twitter, they remember it, and they're so overcome with anger that yet again there's an outrage cycle anew.
And so in the middle of that, someone, not just one person, but someone called me a grifter. a grifter for not liking anime. They apparently believe that I really do like anime and I really do recognize its artistic merits, but I'm claiming that I don't as some kind of money-making grift. I'm just raking in all of those millions of anti-anime dollars.
The thought didn't occur to them that maybe I just actually sincerely don't like it. Maybe I should like it. Maybe I'm wrong for not liking it. Maybe I am uncultured swine who fails to appreciate the beauty and grandeur of this art form. That might be the case. But I will tell you this. If I am uncultured swine, I am at least sincere uncultured swine. Now, I have a dream, okay?
I have my own dream. My great dream for us all is that we might get to the point where we can argue with each other by addressing the points that are being made rather than what we perceive to be the internal and invisible motivations in the mind of the person making the point. I would love it if people presented arguments that began with the statement, you're wrong about that point because...
Instead of the much more common opening these days, which begins, well, you're only saying that because. As for me personally, the only reason I ever say anything is because I believe it to be true. And I've been in public life for a long time. And I've only ever been brutally honest about what I believe. To a fault.
I can't promise that I'm always right about what I think, but I can promise that you will always know what I think. Although I'm probably right also. It goes without saying. That'll do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. Talk to you on Monday. Godspeed.