Ep. 1607 - Democrats Are Gaining Ground With One Key Demographic: The Mentally Ill
01:02:26 Share

This is Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Watch Parenting, available exclusively on Daily Wire Plus. We're dealing with misbehaviors with our son. Our 13-year-old throws tantrums. Our son turned to some substance abuse. Go to dailywireplus.com today. Today on Matt Walsh's show, Democrats are losing support in nearly every demographic, but they are gaining support with one group, the mentally ill. What does that tell us? Also, speaking of losing support, the Democrat Party was once the party of the middle class, but is no longer. What happened there?

And a prominent Bible scholar and alleged Christian leader comes out in favor of abortion in many cases. We'll talk about all that and more today on The Matt Wall Show. Being a husband, father, and host of my own show means life never slows down. Imagine trying to eat 31 different fruits and vegetables every day. Sounds miserable and time-consuming. And frankly, I just don't want to do all that. But with Balance of Nature Fruits and Veggies, there's never been a more convenient dietary supplement to ensure you get a wide variety of fruits and vegetables every day with 31 different whole fruit and vegetable ingredients.

Balance of Nature takes fruits and vegetables, they freeze dry them, turn them into a powder and then put them in a capsule. You take a fruit and vegetable capsule every day and then your body knows what to do with them. Go to balanceofnature.com and use promo code Walsh for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer. Plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com promo code Walsh.

In just the last six months, a socialist torched the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania. A trust fund psycho stalked a healthcare CEO and then shot him in the back. An illegal alien from Egypt named Mohammed threw Molotov cocktails at a group of Jewish demonstrators.

Mobs of visibly unhealthy Antifa activists attacked a Christian concert in Seattle, injuring several people and sending one police officer to the hospital. The attackers effectively received an endorsement from the mayor of Seattle, as you recall. A man from Massachusetts was arrested at the Capitol after admitting that he planned to set fire to the Conservative Heritage Foundation and murder Pete Hegseth, whom he called a Nazi.

An assassin who complained about white people on the internet murdered two diplomats in Washington shouting "Free Palestine" as he was dragged away by police. A pro-abortion extremist blew up a car outside of a fertility clinic in California causing the single biggest explosion that Southern California had ever seen in its history. Now, every single one of these acts of terrorism was committed either by an avowed leftist or by somebody acting on behalf of left-wing causes.

So it's a far cry from the greatest domestic terror threat that Merrick Garland and Joe Biden repeatedly warned us about, which was supposedly white supremacy. And this is just a sampling of what these people have been up to over the past six months. All of these incidents, keep in mind, happened after they tried to assassinate Donald Trump twice last summer.

And by contrast, you won't find a single comparable example of right-wing terrorism in the same time period. I mean, not a single one. There are no roving mobs of angry Christians throwing objects at self-identified trans people who are attending a concert. There are no right-wingers detonating car bombs at abortion facilities or walking into the Capitol and announcing their intention to murder prominent Democrats. For all intents and purposes, this is a tendency that is...

nearly entirely unique to the left. Now, it's not to say that no conservative has ever committed an act of violence, but if you look at the trends, especially in recent years, it's a very stark disparity.

And everybody knows that's true. And yet, despite how obvious this trend is, nobody on the left has even attempted to provide an honest explanation about what exactly is going on. Instead, when they're not blaming Donald Trump for everything, prominent figures on the left are pumping out some of the most vapid and irrelevant content that you can imagine. Michelle Obama is doing podcasts with her brother where they debate whether a hot dog is really a sandwich.

They've also argued about whether Beats should come with a warning label when they appear on restaurant menus because, you know, a lot of people hate eating them. So compelling stuff for their 40,000 viewers, most of whom aren't even watching the videos. They're just popping into the comments section to call Michelle Obama a man. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom, the presumed frontrunner for the Democrats presidential nomination in 2024, is hosting his own podcast that is bombing terribly because, predictably enough, it's an extremely insincere podcast.

phony production. Newsom will interview conservatives, but he won't actually engage with anything they're saying. And he certainly won't offer any kind of genuine explanation of the current state of the Democrat Party. In other words, Newsom's podcast is as phony as he is. And so it's basically a flop. But, you know, recently there was one notable attempt on the left to try to explain from a dispassionate perspective,

What exactly is wrong with their whole movement? Now, I'm talking about a recent Substack post by Nate Silver. And in case you're not familiar with Nate Silver, he's the data guy who's famous for constructing an extremely elaborate computer model that crunches data from a wide variety of political polls, runs them through a highly proprietary and complicated algorithm, and then tells you that the election is basically a toss-up.

He ran the website 538 back in the day, and even though it was either wrong or useless most of the time, it was still pretty successful because in general, people love to hear about the odds that something will or will not happen.

Doesn't matter if the odds are made up. People just love hearing the odds. For example, nervous liberals loved hearing from Nate Silver that Hillary Clinton had an 85% chance of winning shortly before the 2016 election, whether or not that figure had any basis in reality, which of course it didn't. But in this particular case, Silver has written a breakdown of data that's actually worth looking at and talking about. And I'm referring to his article entitled

Why Young Men Don't Like Democrats. And in this article, Silver includes this chart, which we'll put up on the screen right now. You can see it right there. This is data from the Cooperative Election Study at Harvard. And as you can see, the chart is entitled, Higher Self-Reported Mental Health Correlates with Conservative Political Views. And as you'll see, that turns out to be actually kind of an understatement. Specifically, the data show that when you look at voters who report that they have poor mental health,

liberals outnumber conservatives 45% to 19%. That's a 26-point swing. And then if you look at voters who report having excellent mental health, you'll find that conservatives make up 51% of those voters, while liberals make up just 20%. That's a 31-point differential. And here's how Silver interprets these results after saying that he was surprised by the numbers somehow. He says, quote,

The young men that Democrats have trouble with aren't necessarily the ones who have been captured by the conservative manosphere and who are looking for a helping hand. Rather, it's those who report relatively high mental health and see Democrats as being too neurotic and perhaps constraining their opportunity to compete and reap the rewards of their work. Now, as far as I can tell, as mild as this observation might seem, it's the first serious effort on the left to understand why voters are rebelling against the Democrat Party.

And the more blunt way to put this, of course, is that, you know, Democrats have gone insane. The violence that we're seeing all over the country from Pennsylvania to California isn't the result of one or two lone gunmen. It's the natural byproduct of a political party that now caters almost exclusively to people with serious mental health conditions. And a lot of voters, particularly young men, are tired of associating with this nonsense. So they're voting Republican in greater numbers than ever before.

But while that's obviously true, it's also an oversimplification. It's important to point out that among Democrats, you know, it's fashionable to say that

you're suffering from some kind of mental health problem. This is like a, this is a, this is a trend, you know, this is a, they wear it as a badge of honor. It's an easy way to gain some victimhood currency while also excusing your own antisocial behavior. So it's kind of like a, it's, they get a two for one special on that. They become victims and they also get to

have an excuse for when they behave in a deranged and narcissistic way. And therefore, many of these people who self-report having poor mental health in reality aren't completely insane. They could probably become 10 times happier if they ditched their 200 square foot studio apartment in New York City and stopped obsessing over Donald Trump and decided to start a family and live a real human life.

But that would require some introspection on the part of these disaffected liberals. It would also require breaking away from the mold and rejecting the comfort of conformity, which is the hardest thing for a liberal to do. It's a lot easier to say that you suffer from a mental health disorder and absolve yourself of all responsibility for your own life. And unquestionably, that's a big part of what these numbers reflect. Now, if you drill down a little deeper into the numbers, you'll see exactly which demographic is prone to this kind of thinking.

And Nate Silver doesn't get into this, but many of these supposedly troubled Democrat voters are women. This is a survey from Pew from a few years back, and we'll put that up on the screen as well. Pew asked a series of different demographics whether a health care professional had ever told them that they had a mental health condition. And the results are even harder to believe than the figures that Nate Silver cited.

Harder to believe anyway, if you're a bit naive. It turns out that more than half of white liberal women age 18 to 29 answer in the affirmative that they've been told they have a mental health problem. More than half, specifically 56 percent of them said yes, that they have been told by a mental health professional that they have some kind of mental disorder.

Meanwhile, only around 28% of white moderate women and white conservative women in that same age group said yes to that question, which is still an extremely high number, but nowhere near what liberal women are reporting. And if you look at liberal men in the 18 to 29 age group, you'll see that the numbers aren't much better. 33% of white liberal men said that they'd been told they had a mental health condition, but only 16% of conservative white men said that they had been told the same thing.

So that's yet another very big disparity. And to be clear, this data says that liberal men are diagnosed with mental illness at a much higher rate than conservative and moderate women. And then liberal women are on another planet, essentially. Again, this data doesn't necessarily mean that most liberal women and men do, in fact, suffer from mental health conditions, although many of them clearly do.

But it does mean that they're seeking out therapy to deal with their problems, which almost always results in a diagnosis because that's how therapists make money. This is the doom loop that Democrat voters have found themselves in. They recognize that they have a problem, but because they're told to trust the science and listen to the experts, they don't try to find a solution on their own. Instead, they pay someone to find that solution for them, even though the therapist they're paying has a clear conflict of interest.

and doesn't have any actual financial incentive to help them get over whatever their problem is, because then the therapists lose money. They want to keep the people coming back. They want repeat customers. Now, a couple of more data points are worth talking about, especially if you're tempted to chalk all these differences up to biology. Here's a chart showing how many men report having good mental health. That's the blue number. And as compared to the number of women who report having good mental health, that's the red number there.

The data goes all the way back to the 1920s, and as you can see, men have always reported having better mental health than women, but the disparity is far larger now than it's ever been. Quoting again from the article, "The gap is much bigger for Gen Z than for earlier generations, responding with a widening gender gap among young voters in the United States and other countries. Indeed, in the United States, higher self-reported mental health is strongly correlated with holding conservative political views."

Now, this is a phenomenon that's happening all over the world, although it's especially pronounced in this country. Liberals are increasingly reporting that they're losing their minds at a higher rate than ever before. And liberal women are particularly affected. So what exactly is going on here?

For Democrats, it's kind of a classic chicken or egg problem. People like Nate Silver are trying to figure it out. Is liberalism simply attracting crazy people or is liberalism making people crazy? And the answer, of course, is both. Now, on the one hand, liberalism is clearly the ideology of choice for misfits who already suffer from mental illness. They'll find affirmation on the left as well as encouragement to pursue whatever depraved course of action they're thinking of.

Additionally, liberalism and the indoctrination and propaganda that millions of young people are forced to endure starting at a young age is creating new mental patients or at least people who think they're mentally disturbed. It's turning otherwise healthy people into neurotic, unpleasant and unhinged activists. This is the inevitable consequence of embracing an ideology that's completely divorced from reality. And that's exactly what Democrats have done.

The effect is particularly pronounced among young women who are now more bitter and unhappy than ever before relative to men, even though feminism promised the opposite result. In the end, as it turns out, women aren't happy with, you know, when they're encouraged to murder their children or pressured into working 80-hour weeks for a Fortune 500 corporation. They're not actually thrilled at the prospect that womanhood is a completely arbitrary and meaningless concept. But the leaders of the Democrat Party don't care about any of this.

Because when it counts, women have been reliable voters for Democrats. So whether they're miserable or not, Democrats don't care. Actually, they prefer for them to be miserable because that's the state that Democrats want voters to be in because it makes them more likely to vote Democrat. Like miserable, unhappy with yourself, self-loathing. As we've seen, the more people are feeling that way, the more likely they are to vote Democrat.

And this analysis by Nate Silver suggests that at some level, liberals are finally starting to recognize that this is an unsustainable approach. When you invent an alternate universe and then bombard everybody with obvious lies, then you've created a very fragile and unstable coalition. And with every act of terrorism that the left commits in broad daylight, that coalition is becoming smaller and smaller because moderates and sane people in general realize what's going on.

The last election didn't simply reflect Kamala Harris's lack of political talent, although that was certainly a big factor. It also reflected the public's disdain for political terrorism and mental disorder. And in the seven months since that election, Democrats have only offered more of the same, more violence, more attacks, more intimidation. Two assassination attempts on Trump, though unprecedented, were just the opening salvo for these people. And now we're hearing about a new assassination every other week because for an increasing number of Democrats,

That's their preferred way of expressing themselves. Yes, one Nate Silver article at a time, this sad reality is finally dawning on the supposedly intellectual wing of the Democrat Party. But Democrats still don't have any solutions, probably because they don't want any. And that means inevitably that left-wing terrorists will continue to attack many more people on a regular cadence. They'll continue to become more violent and brazen as we approach the midterm elections. This is the party that Democrats have created. This is the constituency they've cultivated.

It's far worse than highly credentialed experts like Nate Silver ever imagined it could possibly be. But it's what the leaders of the Democrat Party wanted. They sought out the least happy, most deranged people they could find. And precisely because their constituency is so unstable, no one, including these Democrat leaders, truly has any idea what's coming next. Now let's get to our five headlines. ♪♪

Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose. GCU equips you to serve others in ways that promote human flourishing and create a ripple effect of transformation for generations to come. By honoring your career calling, you impact your family, your friends, and your community.

Change the world for good by putting others before yourself to glorify God. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online, on-campus, and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique,

academic, personal, and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs, as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private Christian affordable. Visit gcu.edu. All right, let's begin here. We've got some more bad news for Democrats, and we'll let CNN break this difficult news. Difficult for them, anyway. Here it is. Watch.

- When after the last few months, the first five months of the Donald Trump presidency, right, the first four months of the Donald Trump presidency, that you expect that Democrats would have this massive lead on the economy. It ain't so, it ain't so. The party that is closest to your economic views, in November of 2023, it was the Republicans by 11 points. Now it's still within that range, still within that margin of error, plus eight point advantage for the Republican Party. How is that possible, Democrats? How is that possible after all the recession fears?

after the stock market's been doing all of this, after all the terrorists that Americans are against, and Republicans still hold an eight-point lead on the economy? Are you kidding me? If it was just this one CNN poll, that would be one thing. But take a look at Reuters' Ipsos. What do we see here? Party with a better economic plan. Well, in May of 2024, just before Donald Trump was reelected president, Republicans had a nine-point advantage. Look at where we are now in May of 2025.

The advantage actually went up by three points. Now Republicans have a 12-point advantage when it comes to the party with a better economic plan. And again, this is after months of supposed economic uncertainty in which the stock market's been going bonkers, in which the tariff wars that Americans are against have been going on. And yet, despite all of that, the Democrats are down by 12 points on the economy. This speaks to Democratic problems on the economy better than basically anything.

anything that you could possibly look at. The Republicans still hold an advantage on the all-important key issue of the day, which is the party of the middle class has been a huge advantage for Democrats. I have polling from NBC going all the way back since 1989 when Democrats had a 23-point advantage. 2016, a 17-point advantage. But by this decade, we already started seeing declines back in 2022 where you saw that Democrats led, but only by four points, well within the margin of error,

And now in our latest CNN poll among registered voters, which is the party of the middle class? It is tied. This, I think, speaks to Democratic ills more than anything else. They have traditionally been the party of the middle class. No more. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have taken that mantle away. So it's all pretty striking. You know, I'm not as shocked by it as CNN is, but it's still surprising in a way to see that trajectory on the question of which party is the party of the middle class.

Have we ever seen a political party self-destruct to this extent? Have we ever seen this kind of sustained cataclysmic nuclear meltdown by a political party? I mean, it's pretty amazing. It's amazing, like watching the Titanic sink. It's kind of an awe-inspiring sight. It's not, however, mysterious. It's like it's not mysterious why the Titanic sunk. It's the big chunk of ice. And it's the same with the Democrat Party. It's lost its title as the party of the middle class because...

It's spent the last 30 years, longer really, but certainly the last 30 years doing everything in its power to make life worse for the middle class and for normal Americans of any economic class. And this is what happens when you support illegal immigration, when you facilitate and promote the replacement of American workers with foreigners.

when you take the side of violent criminals over law-abiding citizens, when you deliberately try to break down law and order, when you deliberately try to make communities less safe, when you demonize the police, when you make our schools into left-wing indoctrination centers, when you start shoving sexual degeneracy into our faces, when you make transing the kids into one of your top priorities, when you take down the American flag and replace it with a pride flag, and on and on and on.

All of this stuff obviously alienates normal Americans because it's either irrelevant to their lives or it's designed to make their lives worse. And most of it makes their lives. In fact, actually, all of the things I just mentioned actively makes the lives of Americans worse. And this is the fundamental problem the Democrats have. The fundamental problem is it's not anything to do with optics or anything like that.

The fundamental problem is that all of their policies, their entire platform, their entire political program actively makes life worse for normal people. Now, this politician should be trying to increase the well-being of citizens, but they are decreasing our well-being. And, you know, it's really that simple. It's the simplest concept of all. And when I say that politicians should be trying to increase well-being, I don't mean that they should be giving out free stuff or they should be trying to be our parents or anything like that.

That actually decreases our well-being. But they should be concerned with improving the lives of the citizenry rather than making life worse. Like I said, it's pretty simple. And really, the thing that alienates normal people from the Democrat Party the most is that normal people, normal American adults are most concerned with their families. That's the thing that most...

adults wake up worried about. As a husband and father, my greatest concern in life is my wife and kids. Any loving father or mother, that's going to be the case. You're most concerned about your family. You're most worried about what's good for your family. And, well, the Democrat Party hates the family. It wants to dismantle it. It wants to destroy it. It sees the family as a patriarchal construct that must be undermined and ultimately erased. And

Any analysis of the downfall of the Democrat Party, any analysis of the problems the Democrat Party has had that doesn't include this point is going to be a worthless analysis, which is why almost all the analysis that Democrats and liberals are doing, all the attempts on their own side to diagnose their own problems. That's why all of that is ultimately fruitless, because none of them are going to point to this.

none of them are going to say, oh, well, you know, the Democrat Party is an enemy of the of the family, of the nuclear family, because the moment that as a Democrat or as a liberal, the moment you recognize that fact, well, that's the moment when you're no longer a Democrat, you're no longer a liberal. The moment you recognize, A, that leftism attacks the family and sees the family as the enemy and B,

The moment you recognize that that's a bad thing, it's bad to cast the family as the enemy. Well, the moment that you've done both of those things in your head, you're no longer a liberal. You're no longer a Democrat. So by sort of by definition, any liberal, any Democrat is trying to analyze their own problems. They're not going to be able to. They just they don't they won't land on this, which is the core issue.

is that when you cast the family as the enemy, as the problem, it's unsustainable. It's just an unsustainable approach. All right, the Postmillennial has this headline, NYC mayoral candidate Scott Stringer proposes social media surveillance to predict and prevent anti-Semitic attacks.

The article says Scott Stringer, former New York City comptroller and current mayoral candidate, announced a plan Saturday to combat anti-Semitism using technology that would predict and prevent attacks before they happen. Speaking to members of the congregation in a synagogue on Manhattan's Upper East Side,

Stringer outlined an initiative that would involve partnering with the Anti-Defamation League, ADL, and employing advanced technology to track social media activity, particularly during international emergencies involving Israel or Jewish institutions. The ADL has developed what it describes as a first-of-its-kind interactive and customizable map known as the HEAT Map, which allows users to examine specific incidents of hate, extremism, anti-Semitism, and terrorism, both by state and nationwide.

Stringer says it would flag content that incites violence or signals coordinated threats. It would provide the tools for law enforcement, community leaders, and institutions like this one to act before tragedy strikes. Well, I don't like this idea at all. Probably won't surprise you to hear me say that. You know, the minority report was not supposed to be a blueprint. And I'm always going to be extremely skeptical of any new strategy or any new plan or new system for preventing so-called hate crimes.

We shouldn't need any new plan for doing that. I mean, I object to the category of hate crime to begin with. I think the category, I think that as a legal category, it shouldn't exist, but it does. So let's just take that for granted for now, for the sake of conversation. And here's the thing. If somebody is making violent threats or actually planning some kind of attack, then yes, we should absolutely prosecute them and throw them in jail, obviously. But

That doesn't require any new law or approach or anything. It's already illegal to do that. It's already illegal to make violent threats or to plan violent attacks, simply enforce the laws that are currently on the books. And that's all you have to do. It's not that difficult. And we know it's not that difficult because what do we almost always hear after a mass shooting or some kind of terrorist attack? What's the phrase that we almost always hear?

The phrase is known to law enforcement. This person was known to law enforcement. We always hear that. And that tells you that the people who are planning and threatening attacks are not hard to track down, not hard to keep tabs on. It's just that very often the laws are not enforced against these people. So that's an enforcement problem. That's not a lack of laws or a lack of the right tools. And I'll tell you what we definitely don't need. We definitely don't need the ADL involved.

I mean, the moment I hear ADL, I already know that it's a horrible idea. The ADL is a far left activist organization. There's no good reason to have them involved in any capacity with law enforcement or with trying to track down potential terrorists or whatever. They should have no involvement. There is nothing of value that a far left activist group can bring to that effort. And because here's what will happen when you get someone like the ADL involved. I mean, going back to the article, reading this again,

ADL has developed what it describes as a first-of-its-kind heat map, which allows users to examine specific incidents of hate, extremism, anti-Semitism, and terrorism. Okay, so now we're relying on the ADL to tell us what kind of content counts as hate or incitement. And first of all, we don't need the government tracking down incidents of hate because hate is not illegal. People are allowed to be hateful. I got news for you. It's not good. I mean, you shouldn't be hateful.

As a Christian, I would say you shouldn't hate people. You shouldn't hate any group of people or any person, but you're allowed to. It's a free country, supposedly, and that's free speech. So now if somebody is hateful and then goes out and commits a violent attack, well, that's a legal issue. But the legal issue there is the violent attack. It's not the emotions they were experiencing at the time. It's kind of irrelevant.

Hate in and of itself is not against the law, and it's not something that the government needs to keep track of or do anything about. That's an unfortunate reality of living in a fallen world. We are a fallen species, and so people will sometimes have hate in their heart. Greed, pride, I mean, all these things are deadly sins, but you can't criminalize them in and of themselves.

You can't criminalize a state of mind. But this is what you get when you involve an anti-American organization like the ADL. I mean, if you want to just track down actual violent threats, which again, you should, you don't need the ADL for that. Law enforcement can do that. The ADL is not a law enforcement agency.

Once you involve the ADL, that means that you're expanding beyond what the area of focus should actually be. It means now you're looking not just for threats, for actual crimes, but now you're looking for speech that the ADL doesn't like. You're looking for speech that makes the ADL sad.

And the idea is that like the minority report, we're going to predict that if somebody says something hateful, it means that, you know, they might commit some sort of attack in the future. So the ADL, the ADL will will perform the function of those. It's been a long time since I've seen the minority report. But what did you have? You had like the psychics in like a vat of jelly or something with the tubes connected to their brains in the minority report.

which I always found kind of funny that this is a futuristic movie. It's set, you know, whatever, hundreds of years in the future. And they figured out how to predict if crime is going to happen. And so you assume that, well, it's the future. They must have some kind of technology that allows them to predict. But then you find out that, no, they just have magical psychics, which is like, well, if you're going to use the magical psychic thing, then it doesn't need to be set in the future.

It could be said 100 years ago. If you have magical psychics who can predict it. Anyway, so that's what the ADL is going to be now. They're going to be that for us. And I think that's just a terrible idea all around. All right, let me mention this briefly, only because I've never had a chance to defend this person before, and I probably never will again. But Joni Ernst is a Republican senator. She's a squishy, milquetoast, liberal Republican type. I've never been impressed by anything she's done or said.

But broken clocks, you know, are right. Once a career, as they say. So I will defend her on this one. Ernst is the target of a lot of outrage this week after a comment she made at a town hall event over the weekend. And somebody called her out at the town hall event because of alleged cuts to Medicaid and food stamps that Republicans are supposedly trying to make.

And the supposed cuts to Medicaid are, of course, just about rooting out fraud and abuse. And there's a lot of it. Getting illegal aliens off of the program, for example. But somebody called her out for it and said that people are going to die as a result of this. And here's what Ernst said in reply. Listen. People are not, well, we all are going to die. So that upset a lot of people, as you can imagine.

She said, we're all going to die. You know, someone shouted, people are going to die. And she said, well, we're all going to die. I love that answer. I know everyone's mad about it, but even a lot of Republicans would say, oh, you can't, that's bad optics, whatever. I think it's a good answer. That's what I would have said. And, you know, you could argue that if it's what I would have said, then it's a good indication that you shouldn't be saying it as a Republican politician. I don't know. But who cares?

I think it's a good answer because first of all, again, the Medicaid cuts are cutting illegal aliens off of the program, which of course is the right thing to do. And as for SNAP, the idea that anyone's going to die because of minor cuts to food stamp, the food stamp program is just ludicrous. It's totally asinine. It is not an idea worthy of seriously engaging with. It deserves to be mocked and dismissed as Joni Ernst does here, surprisingly. Um,

It's just not going to happen. Like, they're going to cut food stamps and what, people are going to starve to death? Come on. I challenge anyone to provide an actual real world example of somebody starving to death in modern America because they didn't have enough food stamps. Show me an example, just one anywhere, of somebody starving to death in America in modern times because of a lack of food stamps.

Show me an example of somebody starving to death in this country, period. Like, I mean, unless we're talking about some really heinous, terrible case that you hear about sometimes of child neglect, you know, where there's severe malnutrition and even resulting even in death in some cases. Obviously, in those cases, the problem is not a lack of food or lack of food stamps in the home. It's that the parents are monsters from hell and should be charged, convicted and

uh, executed by hanging the next day. I mean, that's, so I'm not talking about those kinds of cases. I'm talking about a case of somebody who starves to death in modern America because they aren't able to access food, you know, because they don't, there's, they, they don't have enough food stamps. It doesn't happen. And it certainly isn't going to happen because of minor cuts to snap. So, uh, that's just ridiculous. It's a, it's a ridiculous idea. And, uh,

And anyway, in general, Joni Ernst is right. We're all going to die. And I think, I think, and I know I have a bit of a morbid streak, you might say, but I think that it's a very important thing to point that out. That's a perfectly valid answer. And we should be giving it as an answer more often. I think the politicians should be saying that more often as an answer. I mean, not all the time. And I don't mean it in like a nihilistic way, like nothing matters. That's not my point at all. It's actually kind of the opposite.

But it is true that we're all going to die. And so every once in a while when someone's, oh, if you do this, people are going to die. Yeah, well, you know, people are going to die. And it was like, everyone's going to die anyway, first of all. So keep that in mind. And I just think it's good. It's good to be reminded of our own mortality in that way. It's a healthy thing. It's a healthy thing. So I'm of all the Republican politicians to give an answer like that. I would not have thought that Joni Ernst would be the one, but

She is. And so I give her credit. This will be the first time. And like I said, probably the last time, but there it is. Let's get to the comment section. Let's be honest. I have a long list of things I'd rather do than maintain my gutters. Cleaning gutters rank somewhere between, you know, sitting through a DMV line or filing taxes, but there's an easier way. Leaf filter.

so you never have to clean out your gutters ever again. Right now, get a free inspection, free estimate, and save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com slash Walsh. You know those cheap plastic gutter guards that they sell at hardware stores? Spoiler alert, they're about as effective as using a

paper towel as an umbrella. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for, and I'd rather pay once for something that actually works than repeatedly for something that doesn't work. An investment elite filter is an investment engineer to protect your whole home because nothing says I've made poor life choices quite like watching water cascade down your interior walls from clogged gutters.

Every Leaf Filter installation comes with a lifetime no-clog guarantee. Their patented technology keeps out everything but water, no holes, gaps, or large openings for debris to get through. It's almost like they actually thought about how gutters work, unlike those DIY contraptions you've probably considered. Plus, a Leaf Filter Trusted Pro will clean out, realign, and seal your gutters before installing the system. Protect your home and never clean out gutters again with Leaf Filter, America's number one gutter protection system.

Schedule your free inspection and take advantage of the spring spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com slash Walsh. It's a free estimate, free inspection at 30% off at leaffilter.com slash Walsh. See your representative for warranty details. Okay. Well, I wasn't sure if I was going to get into this, but before we get into the comments, I do have to complain about something. And...

I mean, as if that's a change. For a change of pace, I'm going to complain about something. That's the whole show. But I have to tell someone about this. I just do. And so I'm going to. You know, I've complained many times on this show about bad drivers. And there are a lot of bad drivers out there. There are a lot of them in Nashville. It's the bad driving hub of the country. And I know everybody likes to...

claim that they have the worst drivers in the country. It's this weird competition we all do. And so anytime I say this, I go, have you ever been to DC? Have you ever been to Chicago? Yeah, I've been, I've been to all those places. I've been all over the country and I'm telling you the drivers are worse here than anywhere, period. And basically every driver on the road is bad except for me and like five other people. And you know that one of the bad driving infractions that annoys me the most is when people stop on the highway

come to a dead stop on the highway, which is something I see all the time. And they do this often because they're trying to merge, but they get nervous. So they stop dead in the merge lane, even though they got a lot of runway in front of them. They stop dead and wait for a break in traffic, which is not how you merge. That's how you merge if you want to cause a 15 car pileup and murder seven people at the time. That's what you do if you want to kill people. So you've heard all that.

Well, I don't have much new to add, but I witnessed the worst example of this that I've ever seen. And I saw this in real life over the weekend. And I have to tell you about it. And in fact, I'm hoping that maybe whoever did this maybe listens to the show, although I'd be ashamed. I'm ashamed if this person listens to this show. So in Tennessee, there's a law. And I think there's a law like this in every state.

But in Tennessee, there's a law that it says that if you're on the highway and there are emergency personnel on the side of the road, like a police officer pulling somebody over or something, then you're supposed to get over to the left as you pass by. If you're in the rightmost lane and you come up on the shoulder of the road, you see a cop car or an ambulance or something, you're supposed to get over to the left. And the reason that you do that, obviously, is for safety.

Now, of course, on occasion, you'll come up to a police car on the side of the road really quickly. Maybe you come around a bend. There's a police car there. You're in the rightmost lane. And maybe there's not enough time to get over. Like, it's a lot of traffic in the left lane. And you can't, so you can't merge safely. And in that case, you know, so you stay in the right lane. And it's not ideal, but it's okay. In fact, the law in Tennessee specifies that you should move over to the left if there's a

you know, emergency personnel on the shoulder of the road, you should move over safely. But if you can't move over safely, then just pass in the right lane at a reasonable speed, right? That's what the law says. Okay. So that's the law. On Saturday, I'm driving down the highway. I come up on a police car pulled over. Looks like he's giving somebody a speeding ticket or, you know, or something like that. I'm already in the left lane, so I don't have to get over. But then I see it. I'm not making this up. I promise you. I see a car.

Right. In the right lane. So that so the cop is like over here in the shoulders up a bit. I see a car in the right lane stopped, stopped dead in the middle of the right lane, about 10 feet, like before the police car on the shoulder of the road. And it's got its left turn signal on.

So what's happening here is that this absolute brain dead moron in that car came up on the police on the shoulder of the road, knew that they were supposed to get over to the left lane because that's what the law says. But I guess they couldn't get over in time because there's a lot of traffic in the left lane. So they stopped in the right lane, just stopped dead like they're at a stop sign in the middle of the highway.

And they just put their turn signal on and they're sitting there in the right lane waiting to get over. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen anyone do on the highway. I mean, this person, in order to, in their mind, follow a law that's supposed to make everybody safer, they were doing something that could very easily cause a major accident that could easily kill several people. Stopping on the highway is one of the most dangerous and reckless things you could ever do.

I mean, you could easily kill someone, including yourself. But I'm a lot more concerned about the other people. And she was doing this. I assume it's a woman. She was doing this right in front of this police car. Just sitting there. Just sitting there on the highway. Stopped. And you know the thing that really gets me? Is that I doubt she even got a ticket. Like, she's right in front of the cop, sitting on the highway. I doubt she even got a ticket.

And if she did, she didn't get her license revoked permanently, which is what should happen. We need to be doing this a lot more. I mean, the bar to get your license revoked, even not even permanently, but just for a period of time is pretty high. Like you've got to you have to really try to get your license revoked. And we need to bring that bar down like 20 notches because this is the kind of thing whoever was in that car, I don't care who it was.

I don't care. I don't care if this is an elderly person, a person who just got their life. Whoever it was, you're doing something that could easily kill someone. You have no understanding of even like basic safety measures on the highway. You should not be allowed behind the driver's wheel probably ever again. So that's it. Don't stop on the highway. Let's see.

Go to the comments. I can't wait for Matt to hit 60 and to put on the inevitable weight that comes with age and life circumstances. Many people get injured and gain weight during a multi-year recovery, which is then all but impossible to take off. Not all overweight is the result of gluttony. Grow up, Matt. Your anti-fat karma is likely to hit you hard when you're a portly 65-year-old.

Oh, no, look, I fully intend to be fat when I'm 65. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm in pretty good shape now. I'm only keeping this going for another 15 to 20 years. I'm not doing this for the rest of my life. Sometimes I wonder why I even do it now. But, you know, I'm 30, almost 39. So, but I'll give it 15 to 20 years of me actively trying to stay in shape. And then I'm out. I'm done. I mean, I'm not going to, you know, I hope to continue living.

But what do I care about being in great shape after that point? I mean, after that point, you want to be in good enough shape that your heart doesn't give out. But it's like you're a little overweight. I mean, I don't know. So but when that happens, I will. So what you're saying, what you're predicting that, yeah, when Matt's 65, he's gonna be overweight. Yeah, probably, probably. But when it does happen, I will fully admit that that it's because I'm not putting in the effort to stay in good shape. I'm not going to make any excuses about it.

So if my anti-fat karma ever does catch up with me, as you say, well, here's my... Everything I say about the fact that if you're overweight, it's because you're lazy and you don't want to put the effort in to get into better shape. That's just a fact. I'm sorry. That's a fact. Because you could eat less, but you don't feel like doing it. And you could get some exercise. You don't feel like doing that either. And so that's why you're overweight because you're kind of lazy. And if you're really overweight, it's because you're really lazy. But when I say all that, that's not me...

declaring that I will never be overweight in my life. I might be one. In fact, I probably will be one day. But so I'm not pledging that I'll never be overweight. What I am pledging is that when I am overweight, when that day comes, I'm not going to make excuses for it. And if somebody says, oh, well, you know, you're just being lazy. Like you could put some effort in and lose some weight. If somebody says that to me, I'll say, yeah, you're right. Yeah. But I just, I don't feel like doing it. So this is it. This is what, this is what, this is where we're at now.

I'll go to the doctor. The doctor will say, you know, if you change your diet a little bit, you could get rid of that, get rid of that, uh, that belly you got going on. And I'll say, yeah, I know, but like, I don't feel like doing that. So this is it. This is it doc. I'm 65. I'm eating Cinnabons. Okay. That's what I'm doing. Uh, so don't, you know, this is, this is where we're at. Um,

I listen to Matt every day and agree with him on most things. He nails the big issues. One small disagreement, his take on anime. With Hollywood full of leftist ideology, anime stands out as good alternatives. Most of it avoids that agenda because Japanese audiences won't watch it. Add in creative stories, stunning animation, and unique characters, and it's worth a look. Matt should give it another shot. I recommend he try the anime saga of Tanya the Evil. I think he would enjoy it.

I guarantee I would not enjoy it. I guarantee I wouldn't. I just don't like cartoons. That's it. I don't know why this is so upsetting for people. I just don't... I don't know why I'm a 39-year-old man and I have to continue to justify the fact that I don't like cartoons. It's just not my thing. I can't get into them. That's it. That's all. I can enjoy watching them as... I can enjoy watching a well-made animated film with my kids...

But the enjoyment in that case is mostly spending time with my kids and sharing a quality piece of art with them. Because, yes, I do believe that animated films and animated shows can be quality art. Of course. Yes, it's art. It's storytelling. And also there's the art of the animation. So it's a very legitimate form of art and it can even be beautiful and moving if done well. But I'm not going to sit around and watch it by myself. That's it. It's just not it's not my thing.

My wife and I are currently in marriage therapy. I'd love for you to be our counselor, Matt, although I would need some popcorn as I'm watching that interaction between you and her, LOL. You know, I've really been thinking about this, and I wonder what it would take to become an unlicensed counselor. Obviously, I don't want to go through all the BS to be a licensed one. That's too much effort. Could I open an unlicensed practice? Is that even legal? I don't know. I have to look into it. But I have thought about it. I've actually thought about it. Because I can tell you this. If I was a couples therapist...

then like 95% of my advice would just be like me saying, will you two shut up? You're both acting like, will you just shut up, both of you? You're both acting like children. You're both acting like children. Get out. That's it.

I would listen to the couple squabble and tell me their stupid problems for about five minutes. And then I would say, this is dumb. Like you, you know what? Stop having these problems. That's my answer. Just cut it out. Both of you. No, you're both. No, but she does this, but now you're both wrong. You're both equally wrong. Get the hell out of my office, but you're going to pay for the full price. I'll tell you that right now. It's $600 an hour. Give $600 to my secretary out there and get out. So that would be, that'd be 95% of it.

And then the other 5% would be people with like real serious problems. And I don't think I would know what to do for them, just to be honest. So they would get shut down after about five minutes also, because I would just say, well, crap, that is that. Okay, that one's pretty serious. I don't know what to tell you. Have you tried chat GPT? I don't know. So that would be my whole practice. I'll have to look into that.

Pure Talk, my wireless company, a veteran-led company, believes every man and woman who has faithfully served this country deserves to proudly fly an American flag that was made in America. And that's why Pure Talk is on a mission to give an allegiance flag, the highest quality American flag, period, to 1,000 U.S. veterans in time for the patriotic holiday. Just switch your cell phone service to Pure Talk this month, and a portion of every sale will go to provide these high-quality flags to deserving veterans

with plans for just $25 a month for unlimited talk, text, and plenty of data. You can enjoy America's most dependable 5G network while cutting your cell phone bill in half. The average family saves over $1,000 a year. Now, I've been using Pure Talk phone for a while, and I've enjoyed the reliable coverage for work here at The Daily Wire. Just go to puretalk.com slash Walsh to switch hassle-free in as little as 10 minutes. Again, that's puretalk.com slash Walsh to support veterans and to switch to America's wireless company, Pure Talk.

Every day it seems like the world is going off the rails. This weekend, Ukraine took out over 40 of Russia's strategic bombers in a single drone operation, risking a major escalation if Putin retaliates. Meanwhile, the UK is responding by increasing military spending to their highest level since the Cold War. And Iran immediately rejected the latest US proposal for a nuclear deal while continuing their influence operations in Africa and the Middle East. The Daily Wire, you'll get the truth about what's happening in the world and what it really means

not to spin the mainstream media is trying to spoon feed you just the facts. Become a member now at dailywire.com. Get the truth you deserve. Now let's get to our daily cancellation. Today we have a first timer on the daily cancellation. We'll be canceling the New Testament scholar, famous theologian, and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright. Wright appeared on the YouTube channel Premier Unbelievable, where he spent several minutes grappling with the issue of abortion.

And as a prominent Christian leader and teacher, you might think that he'd be able to handle this question pretty well and easily. But if you think that, then you obviously aren't very familiar with the current crop of Christian leaders and teachers. Wright did not handle it well or easily. Instead, he talked around the topic for a while before finally settling on the answer that abortion is okay in many circumstances. Watch.

When it's presented as you are killing, you are murdering an unborn child, I think we do have to be very, very careful. And I've had personal experience of this with a close family member where soon after the couple discovered that they were pregnant or the wife was pregnant, then it also became apparent that the wife had been unborn.

accidentally exposed to German measles, rubella. Now, as we know that exposure to German measles can result in serious deformities in the womb, et cetera, et cetera. And the GP in that case, who was a Christian, a devout Christian GP,

said we are going to do the tests and if she has been exposed to rubella, if there's a threat of serious defamation or whatever, then we will recommend termination. And I remember my heart in my mouth when I heard that and thinking, do I really agree with that? But at the time it was

absolutely clear for the mental health, never mind anything else, of the mother and the potential father as well. That this was the way to go. In fact, all was well. The rubella had not actually done what it sometimes might do. And that child was born perfectly healthy and has grown up now, etc. This was a long time ago.

So that's the charming story that N.T. Wright begins with. A family member thought that her child might be disabled and had planned to kill the child, but it turns out that he wasn't disabled, so they allowed him to live. And Wright, a Christian, does not see any major moral problem here. And also note the excuse he gave for this would-be abortion. He said that it would have been the right thing to do for, never mind anything else, the mental health of the mother.

I said a minute ago that Wright had endorsed abortions in many circumstances, and some people will read the headlines about this story, about N.T. Wright's comments, and they'll say that I'm mischaracterizing him because he only endorsed abortions in cases of rape, incest, or where the health of the mother is at stake. And so to say that he endorsed it in many cases is wrong, I'll be told. Now, that still would not be a justifiable position, as we'll discuss.

But it's important to note that for Wright and for most everybody else who talks about these health of the mother exceptions, health includes mental health. And considering that literally every abortion could be justified as a mental health intervention, he is indeed excusing many abortions, if not all of them. But let's listen to a little bit more of his comments. Cases where...

It is about the mother's health versus the health of the child or whatever. And particularly that, as you cited in cases of rape or in cases of incest, there may be a very, very strong argument for saying this ought never to have happened. And with sorrow, because we do not want to do this in principle, but with sorrow and a bit of shame, the best thing to do is as soon as possible.

to terminate this pregnancy. This is not something which we should welcome. It is not something which we should collude with. At the same time, there may be certain exceptions of which severe deformity might be one of which certainly incest and rape would be others. And in those cases, I would say,

the sooner the better, because at a certain point, and I am not medically qualified to say at what point I would draw a line, then this is a viable human being that should then be cherished. So the whole debate about the woman's rights, it's very difficult. It's very hard for a man to talk about this. And indeed, one of the problems has been, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, when women

Particularly, say, a girl who's been raped or who's had incest committed on her, then discovering that unmarried men from the Catholic hierarchy are telling her what she can and can't do. You know, as people now say, the optics of that are pretty bad. That's part of the same system of male bullying, which we have to avoid like the plague.

So N.T. Wright is disqualified from ever being taken seriously about any theological or moral issue ever again. As a Christian, you know, you really shouldn't buy his books or listen to him or consult him or take his advice at all, ever. You're free to do that, of course. I can't tell you what to do, but in my opinion, you would be making a mistake. Because if a Christian, especially one who purports to be a leader in the faith, gets this issue this disastrously wrong...

then he has discredited himself permanently. Abortion is one of the great moral issues of our time, if not the greatest. And all N.T. Wright can say is that abortion is sad, but he's okay with it if it helps the mother's mental health. And any man who says otherwise is engaged in male bullying.

I mean, this is rhetoric from the gospel of Gloria Steinem, not the gospel of Jesus Christ. But perhaps the most grotesque thing that Wright says in his long, rambling, morally incoherent answer is that he isn't medically qualified to say when exactly a human is viable and, quote, should be cherished. Well, Mr. Wright, if you really feel that you are not qualified at all to speak on that subject...

then why the hell are you speaking on the subject? If you truly don't know when precisely human life should be cherished, it seems that you have no basis to claim that abortion can be permissible in certain circumstances. By your own admission, as far as you know, the baby should actually be cherished and respected as a human life, even in those cases that you would say are exception. You have no idea. You just admitted that yourself. You're not qualified.

But you should have some idea. I mean, you should be qualified to speak about when human life should be cherished because you are supposedly a Christian.

You are indeed a scholar of the Bible, which means you should know that the Bible teaches that unborn babies are formed in the womb by God, that he knows us before we're born and even before we're conceived. You should know that God creates every human life from the moment of conception. Every human life is a distinct, unique creation by God. That should give you all the qualification you need to say that all unborn children must be cherished at all stages of pregnancy without exception.

I mean, there is no Christian argument for directly and intentionally killing a child that was created by God and sent into the world by his hand. In order to make that argument, you would have to claim that God makes some children with the intention that we will violently destroy them before they have a chance to be born. But that's not just an insane thing to suggest. It's also blasphemous. And it makes no sense logically.

Now, there are only two options when dealing with this issue. Either abortion is the murder of a human child or it isn't. And if it isn't, then there's no reason to put any restrictions on it. And there's no reason to say, as N.T. Wright says, that abortion is sad or shameful or that we should try to avoid it. I mean, Wright is trying to thread some kind of needle by supporting abortion in many cases, but also saying repeatedly that it's a sad and shameful thing. Well, why is it a sad and shameful thing? Why exactly?

Abortion could only be morally permissible if it isn't destroying innocent human life. But if it isn't doing that, then what's sad or shameful about it? I mean, it's only sad and shameful if and because it destroys innocent human life. But if it does that, then it cannot possibly ever be morally permissible.

If abortion kills a human child, it is always wrong. It is always evil. It is always immoral. There could be no more. There could no more be an acceptable reason to abort an unborn child than there could be to kill, you know, in an 18 month old baby. And these are the two options. Abortion kills a human child or it doesn't. But the latter option.

that it doesn't kill a human child, is ruled out scripturally, as the Bible makes very clear that God makes us and imbues us with human dignity in the womb. It also is ruled out scientifically, as unborn babies fit every scientific requirement to count as living human beings. And it's ruled out logically, as an unborn child is in one stage of human development, which means that he must be a living human. It's not possible to be in a stage of human development and yet not be human.

What other species could the child be? And that leaves us with the reality that abortion kills a human child. And that means that it's always wrong in every case, no matter what. That should not be difficult for a noted Bible scholar to figure out. And it certainly shouldn't be difficult for him to express. But there are a lot of Christian leaders who seem to struggle with this basic thing. And N.T. Wright is just one of them. And that is why he is today canceled.

That'll do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed.