Ep. 1609 - How Biden’s Border Policy Turned Into A Child Trafficking Operation
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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 the Matt Walsh Show, you may remember the fake kids in cages controversy during the first Trump administration. The media panicked over Trump housing unaccompanied illegal alien children in detainment facilities. The Biden administration pledged not to use these facilities. Well, now we know what they did with those children instead, and it's truly horrifying. Also, Pete Hegseth announces that Harvey Milk's name will be taken off of a Navy ship, as well it should be. And Sesame Street hasn't gotten the memo that everyone is tired of the Pride Month theatrics. We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.

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It wasn't so long ago that the absolute worst thing the government could do to a child, according to pretty much every expert, NGO, and media mouthpiece on the planet, was to put that child in a quote-unquote cage. That was, as you probably remember, a major line of attack during the first Trump administration. The consensus was that Donald Trump was so evil...

so unhinged that simply for his own personal amusement, he instructed immigration officials to incarcerate children in the worst conditions imaginable, like they were animals. Things were so bad that AOC wept outside of an empty parking lot near an immigrant detention facility, as you probably recall. Lin-Manuel Miranda sang a lullaby for the Mexican children in cages. Oprah and Rihanna and John Legend and George Clooney, the luminaries of our time, came together to formally condemn the Trump administration.

Now, in response, conservatives made the case that children weren't actually being placed in, quote unquote, cages of any kind. They also pointed out that the alleged cages, which are not really cages, predated the Trump administration. And all of that was true. But the strongest argument was actually pretty simple, which is that Democrats couldn't answer the following question.

How exactly would a Democrat-run administration handle tens of thousands of children who are apprehended attempting to enter this country illegally at the border? If they weren't going to deport the children or use Obama's quote-unquote cages, which weren't cages, then what exactly would they do? I mean, what's the alternative when you have unaccompanied children?

We all knew that Biden couldn't use the quote unquote cages because now Democrats are saying that that's evil. So what would Biden's administration ultimately do with this influx of unaccompanied minors? And as it turns out, a big part of their solution was to place unaccompanied minors inside the homes of people they called sponsors.

So if a minor attempted to enter this country alone, or if their parents were being prosecuted for a serious crime, the Biden administration would try to find someone for these minors to live with inside the country. They wouldn't simply deport the children because they'd ruled that out. They wouldn't put them in any secure government facility that they'd been calling a cage because they'd ruled that out. And so instead, they'd house them with an adult.

Now, of course, the perverse incentives in this situation are off the charts. The Biden administration was effectively encouraging children to cross the border without a legal guardian, or rather, I should say, encouraging adults and parents to send their kids across the border without guardians.

Because then they'd be allowed into the country instead of being deported with their families. And predictably, foreigners caught on to the situation. The number of unaccompanied minors attempting to enter this country increased by more than 100% under Biden to more than 130,000 children per year. But it was all necessary, the Biden administration said, to avoid placing children in cages. Instead, they'd all be going to sponsors.

Well, a year ago, the HHS secretary at the time was asked about this program, and he conceded that once children were handed off to sponsors, the administration had no idea what happened to them. They completely lost track of these children. And they knew this would happen because they understood that they didn't have any legal authority to follow up on the whereabouts of the kids. It's almost as if they intentionally pawned these kids off as quickly as they possibly could to make them go away.

And they said this was the more humane approach. We'll see how humane it actually was in a moment. But first, let's watch a little bit of this. We have a whistleblower that appeared before judiciary who stated that 85,000 minors are missing from your agency. Now, you say it's not 85. You say that it's somewhere around 25. Well, that's completely inaccurate. They're not missing from our agency. We no longer have jurisdiction over those children. You can't get a hold of these children. We don't have jurisdiction to get a hold of the children. Okay.

What authority do you have to place the children with a sponsor? We do have authority to place the child. So you place the children with the sponsor? Correct. How do you decide who they can be placed with? We usually work with the parents if they are in the home country. We work with the child, especially if they're older, and we try to work to find out who they know or who they consider to be close and could be protective of the child. We have tried to do what we can through the

post-release service calls to try to see if we can find out if they're doing okay to check in with them. But as I said, they have no obligation to answer the phone or speak to us once they are placed with their sponsor. Well, it's not exactly the most reassuring testimony. He's admitting that the federal government has handed off tens of thousands of kids to adults who in many cases are not even related to them. Then he's acknowledging that the government has no idea what happened next.

That's because the HHS, which is overseeing this whole program, is not a law enforcement agency. They have no power whatsoever. They're not remotely capable, legally or practically, of figuring out what actually happened to these kids that the government relocated. On top of that, Kamala Harris and other Democrats made sure to block HHS from informing local schools about the kids. In other words, because of the deliberate policy choices of the Democrat Party, there was no way for anyone, even school districts, to verify that the children were attending school.

Teachers couldn't check up on them or anything like that. So what were all these kids doing? What was happening to them? Thanks to new reporting from the group Illegal Alien Crimes, as well as The Daily Wire's Luke Rosiak, we now have some more clarity on this question. And the answer is far more horrifying than any quote unquote cage could possibly be. It turns out that, in effect, the Biden administration launched a human trafficking operation.

That was their solution to kids in cages. Instead, now we have kids being forced to live with sexual abusers. That was their better alternative.

Quoting from The Daily Wire, a 37-year-old illegal immigrant man was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing at least one teen girl who the federal government sent to live with him as part of the Biden administration's scheme to place unaccompanied alien children in the homes of unrelated, loosely vetted sponsors. Wilson Manfredo Lopez Carrillo was arrested by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in Florida on May 22nd and charged with three counts of sexual assault on a minor.

Now, this is the level of vetting that the HHS conducted during the Biden administration to make sure that the sponsors had the best interests of the child in mind. Of course, there wasn't any way to vet this guy or check his record, anything like that, because he was also an illegal alien. In other words, yes, the Biden administration housed a 16-year-old girl with a 37-year-old illegal alien man who had already broken our laws to enter this country. They put her with a known criminal who they could not vet in any meaningful way.

If you pull up the probable cause affidavit, you'll find that these alleged sexual assaults took place in February of last year. The victim arrived in this country in August of 2023. So within about six months, she was attacked several times in the home that the Biden administration set her up with. And the other thing you'll notice as you look at this probable cause statement is that at least a third of the document is redacted.

There's a lot of information that's not being disclosed here. Now, to be sure, there are probably legitimate reasons for these redactions in some cases. We're talking about a very sensitive case involving a minor after all. But it's enough to make you wonder whether we'll ever receive anything approaching a full accounting of what the Biden administration has done here. What we know for sure is that the scale of this particular human trafficking operation is staggering. Late last year, the DHS inspector general under the Biden administration

disclosed that something like 300,000 minors are unaccounted for. And even the minors who are accounted for in some cases are raising very obvious concerns. For example, the inspector general pointed out that quote, one ICE officer expressed concern with not being able to take action in a case involving an unaccompanied minor whose sponsor claimed the unaccompanied minor was in an inappropriate relationship with her husband.

So the Biden administration placed this unaccompanied minor inside of a household, and the husband started abusing the minor, allegedly, causing the woman to complain to federal authorities. And in response, federal authorities did nothing. And this kind of thing happens a lot. Quoting again from the report, ICE ERO enforcement and removal operations has no authority over unaccompanied children beyond managing their immigration cases.

Therefore, even if ICE were able to identify unaccompanied children in unsafe conditions, the agency has limited authority to respond. ICE personnel at two field offices affirmed this and explained that they had identified unaccompanied children in unsafe conditions but were unable to intervene. Now, unfortunately, the report doesn't go into any more detail on that point. You'd think that

If illegal alien children were suspected of living in unsafe conditions after the federal government placed them in a household full of other illegals, it would be pretty easy to kick the door down and investigate. But apparently these children have just fallen through the cracks. No agency wants to assert jurisdiction. And of course, whenever anyone in Congress tries to press for answers, the Biden administration stonewalled because in the end, all of this was deliberate.

Last November, for example, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy tried to conduct an audit into the status of these unaccompanied children. Quoting from The Daily Caller, HHS would repeatedly take months to respond to Cassidy's requests, and sometimes the department would not respond at all. HHS officials also stonewalled state investigators when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis demanded answers. DeSantis, in response to findings that alien children smuggled into Florida were being sexually exploited or used for trafficking in drugs and weapons, said,

petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to investigate criminal activity related to the smuggling of unaccompanied alien children from the U.S.-Mexico border into Florida. However, HHS allegedly refused to provide witnesses or documents to a grand jury, ignored subpoenas, and actively encouraged Florida entities that contract with federal immigration officials to not cooperate with investigators. Now, predictably, nearly a decade after the fake outrage over kids in cages,

There has been no concern whatsoever from any political figure or media outlet on the left about any of this. There's no outrage about the fact that the Biden administration, fresh off the moral outrage over the kids in cages, constructed an elaborate human trafficking operation with a code of silence that rivals any mafia. So keep that in mind the next time you're told that some policy you support is supposedly horrific or barbaric or racist or whatever. When people tell you that, ask them what the alternative is.

And if they can't answer that, it's a pretty good sign that in their quest to score some political points, they're willing to endorse evils beyond all comprehension. That's the bargain Democrats made under Joe Biden. And now locked away with sponsors who no one can track, there are tens of thousands of children who are suffering every day as a result. So if you needed another reason to support mass deportations, this is a pretty big one.

At the very least, deporting some of these sponsors would help break up one of the largest human trafficking rings ever created, the one the Biden administration spun up right here in the U.S. In the end, the only sustainable solution is a secure border, one that's ruthlessly enforced in a way that might make some liberal women uncomfortable. Unless we want tens of thousands more children to suffer untold horrors with their sponsors, we simply have no choice. Now let's get to our five headlines.

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ABC News reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to strike the name of pioneering gay rights activist Harvey Milk from one of its ships, orchestrating the change as Pride Month celebrations take place, according to sources. Defense officials said the timing of the decision was intentional. The order was first reported by Military.com, confirmed by ABC News. Milk was one of the first openly gay men elected to public office in the United States after winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was assassinated a year later.

before serving in public office, Milk, in 1951, enlisted in the Navy and attended Officer Candidate School in Rhode Island. And now they want to take, so they will be renaming the Harvey Milk ship. They chose to announce this during Pride Month, which they say is intentional. Of course it was. And all of that is great. That's an awesome move on both counts. I love that they're taking this guy's name off the ship. And I love that they waited until Pride Month to do it. That's great. But of course, the left is very upset about this. The media are outraged.

And just as one example of that, here's CBS News. The Trump administration has been changing the names of military bases and geographical landmarks, and now more changes may be coming. CBS News has learned that name changes are being considered for Navy ships. The Pentagon says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants the names to reflect the commander-in-chief's priorities, our nation's history, and the warrior ethos. Here's Tom Hanson.

Navy documents obtained by CBS News propose a timeline to the rollout of the name change of the Harvey Milk, a ship named after the first openly gay man to be elected to office in California. The proposal comes during Pride Month, the month-long observance of the LGBTQ plus community that coincides with the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. That's you. That is absolutely me. Mark Siegel was there when police raided the club. Protesters resisted.

It was a major milestone in the LGBT movement. We were a unified force, and that meant supporting our trans brothers and sisters. That history is preserved both here at the inn and a few steps away at the Stonewall National Monument, commemorating the birth of what ultimately became LGBTQ+.

But on its website, the National Park Service, without explanation, removed the entire back part, including T for transgender. I was part of that history. I know what my trans brothers and sisters did. And I'm going to continue telling that story with or without a government web page which erases that T.

What disturbs me is that I don't know that we're done yet seeing this effort to scrub and rewrite American history. - Alan Spears is the resident historian with the National Parks Conservation Association. - What's your biggest fear? Seeing what we're seeing today. - These things always start slowly. We're gonna remove a photograph from a website. We're gonna scrub some language. It doesn't make a great deal of sense to talk about the American Civil War and not talk about the issues of race and slavery.

Now, we should also note Harvey Milk was a Navy veteran who served during the Korean War. The documents obtained by- The absolute gall, the absolute gall of these people. It's amazing to behold. Totally shameless. Right. So now we're concerned about erasing American history. Now, now you're worried. Now you're concerned that we might be starting slowly and erasing American history. It starts with removing a photograph from a website.

No, actually, dummy, it doesn't start with that. Actually, it starts with tearing down historic monuments all over the country, as your side has been doing for years. It starts with renaming buildings and towns and streets and schools, as your side has been doing for years. These people tore down over 100 statues just in the year 2020 alone, and now they're worried about erasing history?

And let's remember, it was not just the Confederate names that they erased and Confederate statues they tore down, which was bad enough. That never should have been tolerated. But they also took down statues of Theodore Roosevelt and Columbus and the Founding Fathers and guys like that that we just saw, the dude with the dreads. Those guys were fully on board with all of that. I mean, they were excited about it. They were promoting. They were doing it. They were the ones doing it. And yet, taking a name off of a ship

is a big tragedy. Now we're erasing history. Ten years of pulling down every monument they can find. One name is taken off a ship. Oh no, history is being erased. And remember something else. Remember that when they were running around tearing down statues, they would often say, you probably remember this, that our complaints were unreasonable because when we would say, oh, when we said this, you're erasing history, they would say, well,

No, we're not because the statues are only 100 years old. They would say this all the time. Did you know? Oh yeah, we tore down that statue. But did you know they actually put it up only in 1930? What's the big deal? Okay, so it doesn't count as historic after a century. You could tear down a century old statue and that's not tearing down history. But a ship that was named after Harvey Milk in 2016, suddenly that is erasing history?

His name's only been on it since 2016. So after less than a decade, if you take it off, you're erasing history. And you're not getting rid of the ship, by the way. The ship will still be there. It'll just be named after a different historical figure, a worthy one. And so a decade, take it off, that's a history. Tearing down an actual historic work of art that's been there for 100 years, that's not erasing history. Okay, makes sense. Yeah, got it.

These people are just so shameless. And, you know, of course, the main point here is that Harvey Milk is not a man deserving of being remembered or honored. Harvey Milk was a bad person. He was just a bad person. He was a sex predator and a molester who preyed on underage boys. That's who Harvey Milk was. Harvey Milk got into, quote, relationships, big scare quotes,

with 16-year-old boys, with runaways. One of those boys, at least one of them, went on later to take his own life. So that's who Harvey Milk was. He was a predator and a creep. He does not deserve to be honored. And even if you were to somehow ignore this fact about him, which you can't, he still would not be worthy of any great honor because he didn't achieve anything.

So you could say, oh, well, what about there are historic figures that you think there should be monuments of and we should honor, and they did bad stuff in their personal life. Well, you're ignoring the other piece of this, which is when deciding who we're going to honor and remember and name ships after and build statues to,

Yes, you are doing an analysis of their virtue, of their, was this on balance a virtuous person? But before you even get to that, the only people who should be considered in the running are people who achieved historically significant things, people who helped to shape history in a positive way, people who helped to build our civilization and our country.

Um, those, those are our icons, our heroes, our forefathers, uh, those people, the pioneers, right? Those are the only people who should even be in the running. Well, Harvey Milk didn't do anything. He didn't achieve anything. Harvey Milk. Oh, he was, uh, what was he, what was his exact position? He was, uh, he won a seat on the San Francisco board of supervisors. Oh, wow. Great achievement.

Really? Like, even putting to the side the fact that he was sexually abusing 16-year-old boys, which is like, you can't really put that to the side. But even if we were to somehow find a way to do that, we're left with, okay, well, what did he do? What was his achievement? Oh, he was a San Francisco board of supervisors. So? Who cares? If Harvey Milk never existed, how is the world different today? In what way? Um...

you could argue it would be a little bit different, but in a good way. Because yeah, he was a champion of the quote gay rights movement. And what good has come of that exactly? In what way has the quote gay rights movement improved society? Look around at society right now. What area can you point to and say, oh yeah, that is better now, right? Like people's lives are better in this area because of this person and because of this movement. I don't think you can do that.

So he didn't achieve anything of significance. It's like these again, I keep like they're so shameless, the absolute gall of these people that they would tell they would tell you. I mean, this is what they really believe. Every single every leftist believes this. This is not a this is not a straw man. Every leftist will tell you that Harvey Milk deserves to be honored and remembered more than somebody like Columbus deserves.

Columbus, who is responsible for one of the great achievements in the history of Western civilization. Our entire civilization looks different in fundamental ways we can't even conceive of if Columbus didn't exist. In fact, Columbus is the kind of guy that if he didn't exist, that would have a ripple effect so significant that it's a very good chance that none of us would exist right now.

I mean, there would be people on earth, but not us. Like the particular chain of events that led to all of us existing in the first place was deeply affected by guys like Columbus.

Now, does that mean that Western civilization never would have made it into the new world? No, that was at some point that would have happened. But that whole story would have been so different that it would have fundamentally altered our lives. And to the point of probably we don't even most of us don't don't exist in the first place. So that's what that's what we're supposed to believe. And it's it's it's totally absurd. And.

And that's before you even, again, that's before you get to the moral, that's before you get to the moral and ethical flaws of this man, which were, which were, you know, quite significant. And, and something that leftists will just not contend with. Like they won't, they won't contend with that. They'll pretend they won't talk about that. There's no denying it, by the way. There's no, no one denies that.

Even Harvey Milk's most favorable biographers will not deny that the guy was, as they would say, in a relationship with a 16-year-old boy when he was in his 30s, which in any other context they would say is sexual abuse. But for Harvey Milk, somehow we're supposed to make some great exception. And we're supposed to understand it within the context of the times, right?

well, this guy lived a few decades ago, right? So understand him in the context of the times a few decades ago. But no, but when it comes to someone who lived 500 years ago, we're not supposed to understand them in the context of the times. So none of it makes any sense. Okay. A sheriff's deputy in Florida has been cleared of all charges after being initially charged with

assaulting a trans-identified male that he met at a nightclub. A lot of trans activists are upset about this case. And here's a local news report about it. We came back to my place of residence. Okay. And that's it. And what happened inside? Nothing. So you guys didn't argue? We aren't. No, we didn't argue. You just stated that you did. I just said throughout.

This is the moment Daniel Chala, Miami-Dade County Deputy of more than 30 years, is questioned by police at his apartment after a night out at 11. Why did you kick her out? Because I didn't care for her. Why didn't you care for her? Because I didn't like her. Okay. Did something happen inside that made you not like her or that made you kick her out? There was no violence whatsoever. Chala denies being violent to his guest.

A record show he went home with a woman who accused him of wrapping his arm around her neck tightly and refusing to let her go. The woman who eventually ran out to get help. Record show was seen by witnesses bleeding from the mouth and with marks. Represented at

all times that she was a woman when in fact she was a man meaning that she still had male anatomy. So the Rivero Ayala Chala's attorney says the woman lied to the officer about her gender and he wanted her out. You guys are like

standing here like if I assaulted her, I did not assault her. Chala was arrested for allegedly battering and preventing the woman from leaving. You seem intoxicated. I am intoxicated, but the thing is, is that

The thing is, is that I never assaulted her. But today, about a month after this arrest, prosecutors cleared Chala of any crimes. The state attorney's office tells NBC6 after numerous attempts to get the victim to cooperate, she refused to assist with the investigation. The right decision was made there.

Half of the right decision. Anyway, the deputy should have should have been cleared of all charges, which he was. The other part of this is that the quote unquote trans woman who's a man should be charged with a number of crimes. If he misrepresented himself as a woman, then he should be charged with attempted sexual assault. He should also be charged with crimes related to gaining entry into the deputy's home under false pretenses. I mean, there are several crimes committed here by by the trans identified individual.

But most of all, again, if you're a man and you're attempting to have a sexual encounter with another man without disclosing that you are a man, then that's assault. The deputy, if he did use physical force, was defending himself against an attempted assault. Now, I don't know how the deputy could have not known. I mean, the biological reality is always pretty obvious, especially in person, once you get past the filters and the Photoshop and all the rest of it.

But then again, the deputy was intoxicated. So maybe that helps explain it. But in any case, the trans-identified male was misrepresenting himself in order to have a sexual encounter. And that is, again, assault. So he's the one who should be charged here. I think pretty obviously. All right, here's an interesting article this week in the Financial Times. I don't know why the Financial Times is covering this exactly, but here's the headline. Finding their religion, why Gen Z are turning to faith.

So there's been a series of articles in different publications about this phenomenon. But let me read a little bit of this one. Slowly, slightly, faith is trickling back, at least into Britain. There's something in the water. Religion is civilized table talk. Even non-believers mourn the death of Pope Francis, with secularism yet to devise a credible alternative as the world's moral conscience. The pews are filling up, notably with young people. Gen Z's attendance at church has quadrupled in recent years, um,

which I didn't know that it was that high. That's pretty incredible. From a small base, but the significance lies more in the direction of travel. This is shaping up to be the first new generation in a very long time to be making the country more, not less religious. TikTok-ing digital natives for whom the old world is unfathomable, yet who retrieve now from its analog wreckage of all things, Bibles and hymn sheets.

Today's culture is certainly more sympathetic to faith than the noughties when the millennials like me grew up ensnared by the four horsemen of new atheism and their era-defining bestsellers, which was Sam Harris, Richard Hawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett. Dismissing religion as child abuse, mental illness, or terrorist propaganda, they seem now as dated as the Dead Sea Scrolls. And then it goes on. It's an interesting article. So it's another article noting correctly that there is a real revival of religious conviction today.

in our culture, not just our culture, but across the West. It's a real thing. We can officially say that now. I think people were noting this initially, cautiously optimistic, but not sure. Is this some sort of blip? Is this some sort of anomaly? What's going on here? You notice this anecdotally. A lot of us notice this anecdotally for a while, that when you go to churches, especially conservative, more conservative, reverent churches, that you walk in and

wow, there's a lot of young people in this church. And that's something that we've been noting for a long time anecdotally, but now there's a lot of data to back this up. So we can officially say it's not a fluke that Gen Z is the first generation in many years to be probably more religious than their parents. And now Gen Z is still in the majority not religious, but the trend lines are pointing in the right direction for the first time in many decades. And that's pretty extraordinary and heartening.

Now, the big question, of course, is why this is happening. And well, the real answer is that the Lord is working in the hearts of the younger generation and leading them back, leading them back home, back to the truth. And I mean, that's what's actually happening. Jesus is happening. But on a on a like a psychological level, what's going on? And I think I think it's a it's a deep yet simple truth, which is that human beings need and the article kind of touches on this.

which is that human beings need, not want, not just desire, they need meaning in their lives. Human beings need meaning in their lives. This is what's happening with Gen Z. They're searching for meaning. They can't live without meaning. And you cannot have a society that exists without meaning

for very long. A society without meaning will either collapse and be destroyed or it will be revived and it will rediscover meaning. What can't happen is that it just kind of lingers on indefinitely in this haze, in this zombie state without meaning. That just can't be sustained. So it's got to head one direction or another. And human existence without God, without faith, without religion is an existence without meaning, without purpose. There's just no way around that. There's no way around it.

This is why the article mentions the four horsemen of atheism, new atheism, right? And this was in the 90s and the early 2000s. There was a big surge of atheism and you had the Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins and those guys, Sam Harris. And they were very popular and they sold a lot of books, but they ultimately failed. And why did they fail?

Well, it's because they never solved this problem, which is the most important one, which is, okay, where's the meaning in it? And atheists, really for centuries, have been trying to find a way around this. They've been trying to devise all kinds of philosophies, all kinds of existential conceptions of life and existence that would imbue life with meaning and purpose without God. But it always fails. And I've read at least the...

the most famous anti-God book from each of those four guys. And I read all four books and it's repetitive after a while or redundant, they all make kind of the same points. But this is the area where they all failed. And most of them attempted to deal with this at least a little bit. They make all their same points, but then you get to the point of, okay,

Why does life matter? If you're right, why does life matter? What's the point of life? What's the point of any of this? Who cares? Why should we? It always fails because the stark reality is that if there's no God, then our existence is an accident. We were formed by blind chance and we will soon be obliterated into nothingness. That's our fate. It's the fate of everyone we know and love. The fate of the entire world. The fate of the earth itself is nothingness. And you can't escape that without God. You just can't escape it.

And this is a thing the atheists have never, they've never been able to grapple with it. They've never been able to find a way around it. They've never been able to come up with a coherent and believable and powerful argument for why life can have meaning in a world without God. Now, there have been some atheists who have basically admitted that.

But when they admit it, it gets pretty stark and depressing pretty fast. In fact, I remember years ago, I read an essay by a philosopher that very few people have ever read or ever even heard of because he's very obscure, a Norwegian philosopher from like the 20s or 30s.

And I think he only had one essay that was translated in English. It was called The Last Messiah. And the guy's name was Peter Wessel Zapfa, I believe. I think I have the name right. And anyway, Zapfa was a he was an atheist and he was like a pessimist and a nihilist. But he was honest, at least. And he thought that in a world without God, which is the world that he thought we lived in,

life just had no meaning. And not only did it not have meaning, but life is therefore a curse. It's an enormous error. It's a kind of cosmic joke. And he thought that human consciousness in particular was an accident of evolution. That was the only way he could sort of figure out like, why are we conscious? Why does life exist? Why are we conscious without God?

And he came to the conclusion, well, if there's no God, then consciousness is a product of evolution because that's all that it can be. But why would nature evolve consciousness of all things? Why would we evolve an understanding of our own meaninglessness and of the nothingness of our lives? How could that be an evolutionary adaptation? Right.

And his answer was, well, it's like a horrible accident. It's like a mutation, basically. It wasn't supposed to happen. And he compared it to like a species of deer where the horns grow too big. And so the deer has to chip off bits of their horns. Otherwise, the horns become so heavy that they'd be pinned to the ground by the horns.

And so he kind of compares that to that's what's happening with human beings, that we have our consciousness and we're sort of in effect metaphorically pinned to the ground by this enormous weight of our consciousness and our own awareness of the meaninglessness of our lives. Anyway, I stumbled across this essay and I don't remember how exactly, but I found it actually quite profound and powerful. Profound and powerful as an argument for God, which is definitely not how it was intended, right?

but it really just shows you that this is the other option. Either there is a God or we are walking accidents, our lives are a curse, our consciousness is a cosmic joke, and all we can do is just distract ourselves until we fade back into nothingness. That's the only other option. That's it. Those are your two choices. And I think that's become clear to a lot of people. I think that's why they're fleeing back to faith. Now granted, just because existence without God is a horror beyond comprehension,

which it would be, that in and of itself doesn't mean that, like that is not in and of itself proof of God. In other words, the fact that a godless universe is terrible doesn't mean in and of itself that we don't live in a godless universe. Because, well, you could say, well, maybe the truth is just, yeah, maybe that it is terrible, but maybe we just live, maybe our lives, maybe that's it. Maybe our lives are terrible, you know, terrible things happen.

But I think the point is that we all innately recognize that that isn't the case. We have an inherent recognition of the fact that life has meaning, that existence has meaning. We see that existence without God is not only a great horror, but also an absurdity. It's an absurd concept. It's almost like a

contradiction in terms. Our existence, therefore, testifies to God's existence. And I think people are seeing that. Gen Z is seeing that. And our consciousness is also a testimony to God's existence. And I think actually that's how I stumbled across this essay, because I was interested in how atheists deal with and explain consciousness.

Because to me, of all the kind of rational arguments for God's existence, the best one is not the origins of life or the fine-tuning of the universe, although those are both good arguments. But to me personally, I've always thought the best one is consciousness, the fact of human consciousness. Consciousness is itself proof of a transcendent, immaterial realm of existence. Consciousness, I think, is proof of the supernatural, I would argue, because consciousness

Otherwise, how is it possible that inanimate matter in a blind and dumb universe could have somehow become aware of itself? I mean, it just makes no sense. And as we said, it makes no sense. Then you would have to argue that it's some sort of blind, dumb evolutionary adaptation. And it makes even less sense in that sense.

In that version of events. And then you're left with what this guy was saying in his essay, which is that, yeah, it never should have happened, but it did. And it's a mistake. Like it's a big, it's a big, it's a big, something went horribly wrong. And now we have consciousness and the capacity for love and self-awareness. All of that never should have happened. It's all a terrible thing.

So that's like the honest atheist answer to the problem of consciousness. Although it's not really an answer at all because it still doesn't explain how that would be possible. How could that be? How could you have inanimate matter that accidentally assembles itself in such a way as to trigger an awareness of itself? To me, that just makes no sense at all.

And, um, is a extremely compelling argument for, for God. And so I think, you know, some of this now I'm off in the weeds, but, um, I think what it's, what it ultimately comes back to is meaning and, uh, and a lot of Gen Z, they, they, they were born into a culture where there was no sense of meaning and, uh, they are rebelling against that as well. They should.

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If you've been listening to this show, you already know we're in a cultural fight for the soul of the West. And now Ben Shapiro's back with his most important book yet. It's called Lions and Scavengers, and it hits shelves September 2nd. In it, Ben dismantles the myth that all cultures are equal and that success is something to be ashamed of. This is a rallying cry for those who build, lead, and refuse to bow. Pre-order Lions and Scavengers now at dailywire.com slash Ben Shapiro. Now let's get to our daily cancellation. ♪♪

we began the week by talking about the collapse of pride month as parades are cancelled due to low attendance and corporate sponsors drop out didn't happen by accident happened because conservatives organized rallies in defense of children investigated hospitals and medical providers that were abusing children boycotted corporations that promoted gender ideology and ultimately voted to elect politicians who recognized the reality of human biology and for the first time in many years conservatives rallied behind a worthwhile cause and secured meaningful change to american culture

As you can imagine, this effective campaign by conservatives, if only because it's so unprecedented, has led to sheer panic and confusion among many left-wing activists. They're really not sure what to do with themselves or how to explain their massive defeat. As recently as a few years ago, they seriously thought that they could convince people to celebrate International Pronouns Day and Gay Uncles Day and a hundred other fake holidays. They never imagined that their whole ideology would be so discredited and so universally despised that people would forsake Pride Month, their crown jewel.

This is a total shock to them, and therefore all over the country, dramatic meltdowns are currently in progress. To give one example that's making the rounds, here's a liberal woman who discovered to her horror that the local Target isn't selling trans t-shirts and chest binders or tuck-friendly swimsuits this year. Instead, Target has replaced its Pride section with patriotic clothing that says USA on it. The sacred Pride shrine has been defiled. This woman's not happy about it. Watch.

Happy Pride Month. In my Target that used to have the Pride section, it's now all USA. Yay. It's an American summer. Except for tourism, because tourism's down, because no one wants to come here. USA. Woo. And honestly, my dad served in the military, and I'd love to be really proud of this nation, but it's hard to be proud of it under Donald Trump. But hey, you know, while you're here, pick up a USA bikini. You know, why not?

Yeah, Target's really taken this anti-DEI thing to another level. Nobody wants to come here, she says as she smiles very angrily, which is always a big red flag. Of course, that claim would be news to the millions of foreign nationals who do everything in their power to come to this country every year, including committing felonies and risking their lives and their children's lives. Also, even if it were true that nobody wanted to come here, what does that have to do with Target selling American flag clothing?

Just because every single one of the 10 Canadians who can afford to go on vacation are boycotting America, we're supposed to somehow buy clothing with, we're not supposed to buy clothing with an American flag on it for that reason. This woman is fighting a battle that her side is losing. And at some level, she clearly understands that. It'd be hard to miss. For example, this is the first year in a long time where most corporations aren't even bothering to change their social media feeds to reflect LGBT logos. As you can see, um,

Companies like Apple, IBM, Paramount, BMW, Netflix, Disney, Spotify, and American Airlines are all sitting this particular Pride Month out, at least as far as the LGBT logos go. And that's some progress, obviously. At the same time, it would be a mistake to say that Pride has been eradicated because it hasn't been. There are still various corporations and nonprofits that are pushing the message, including the people behind Sesame Street, which targets children as young as two years old, if not younger.

Sesame Street has been bombarding children with propaganda for some time now. A few years ago, they pushed the COVID shot and endorsed the BLM riots. They also broadcast a spinoff show where a demonic-looking drag performer from Queer Eye tells children that he's going to show them his monster piece. Watch. Elmo, Cookie, are you ready to see my monster piece? Ready, Jonathan! Mama Bear, some runway music, please. Oh, yeah.

People and monsters alike, a round of applause for the not too late show's newest monster, Alan. Ta-da! Woo! Alan Monster is wearing the latest in high monster fashion with a set of sleek horns, fluffy fuzzy fur, all topped off with a monster honker.

Now, where most companies and nonprofits have scaled back this kind of overt propaganda, Sesame Street is doubling down on it. That's probably because they know that children are still extremely susceptible to it. So first of all, Sesame Street has invited that person back this season for an episode that's going to air later this year. Presumably, they're going to do more monster makeovers and show more children his monster piece, whatever that is. And secondly, just in time for Pride Month, they posted this message on social media.

It reads, quote, on our street, everyone is welcome. Together, let's build a world where everyone, every person and family feels loved and respected for who they are. Happy Pride Month. And they have the image of the people grabbing the furry hands and all the different colors of the pride flag. Now, if you wanted to protect children, this is the exact opposite message you tell them. You wouldn't tell them that every person should be respected because that's not true.

For example, if somebody working for Sesame Street was arrested for possessing sexually explicit images of young children on his computer, which happened a little over a decade ago, then it would be a mistake to tell children that he should be respected.

Some people are evil. They do terrible things and we shouldn't respect what they do or we shouldn't respect them either personally. And every reasonable adult understands that. But people who want to groom children push the opposite message. Again, fortunately, we're seeing fewer and fewer of these messages lately because most adults understand exactly what's going on. But children, as well as adults with the minds of children, are still being targeted with this kind of LGBT propaganda.

And it works particularly well on people whose brains aren't fully developed. For example, Canadians are constantly subjected to LGBT propaganda, even in 2025. Some of this propaganda takes the form of advertisements like this one from Air Canada. Let's check in with their priorities.

We are doing the first ever, let me get that one straight because a few letters have been added to this one, 2SLGBTQIA+ flight ever in Canada. I do identify with the progress flag. There is something in there that represents me as well. So it was a bit of joy having the opportunity to do this flight today.

Today is a very special moment. It's a time of visibility, of expressing ourselves to everyone. We feel really welcomed, really accepted for who we are. To celebrate diversity inclusion, we are happy to announce that today's flight features our very first all-2SLGBTQIA+ crew.

The safety and the well-being of all the passengers on board rests in our hands. So it doesn't matter who they are, what they represent, I'm equally responsible for all of them. We would like to highlight this significant moment in Canadian history. And want to celebrate not just our community, but our freedom to be who we are both at work and in society. Valuing people equally, both in the air and on the ground, and celebrating our identities, no matter what they are, with customers and our employees is important to us.

Chante, you all stay. Now, in case you couldn't make it out because some of it's in French, the captain says that this flight is a watershed moment in Canadian history, and that's what he tells the passengers. The first all-2SL-GBTQIA-plus flight, he says, was a major development for Canada as a country. Truly, Canada will never be the same after this moment. They got a bunch of two spirits, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queer, intersex, asexual, and plus sign people together, and

They flew the plane. It's like the Canadian version of the moon landing. Actually, it's less impressive than it sounds. As best I can tell, they didn't make sure that all the passengers were 2SLGBTQIA+. That would have been more impressive and probably very illegal and highly invasive. Instead, they're just referring to the crew. Apparently, every crew member falls into one of these letters or symbols. But that still raises the question of how exactly Air Canada determined the identities of its various crew members.

When they were signing this crew, did they look for someone who's intersex? Did they ask the captain who he likes to sleep with? Did they grill him about how many spirits he has? What if he said he had three spirits? Would he be disqualified because they're only interested in people with two? That seems like a pretty obvious safety risk. I mean, you want to pilot with as many spirits as possible, I would think. Sadly, though, even in Canada in the year 2025, three-spirit discrimination remains very real. But

We're picking on Canada too much. To be fair, there are a few other entities that are still continuing down this path. The New England Patriots uploaded some gay imagery, for example, so no surprise there. For their part, the Philadelphia Museum of Art decked out their famous stairs with various trans-colored flags. This is where the Rocky statue is located. You can see it here. And, you know, for a long time,

We've wondered how trans activists would up their game after painting flags all over the roads so that people would be forced to drive over them. And now we have our answer. They're going to put their flags all over the stairs that you're walking on. I guess the idea is that we're supposed to trample the pride flag under our feet. I mean, that would seem to be the obvious implication here. And if that's the case, I have to confess, I think it's a great idea. It's a much better idea than the pride flags on random roads because everybody wants to emulate Rocky and run up and down those steps.

So I'll book my flight to Philadelphia right now. I'll fly Air Canada if I can. Leave it to Philadelphia to construct the world's first Pride monument that's actually interactive and worth visiting. I have to admit, I didn't see that coming. Hats off to these brilliant innovators in this city of brotherly love, I suppose. As for everyone else who continues to push unironic and uninteresting Pride Month propaganda long after Pride Month has faded into irrelevance, the Sesame Streets and the Air Canadas of the world, I have a very different message.

Like Pride Month itself, you are all today canceled. That will do it for the show today and this week. Have a great weekend. Talk to you on Monday. Godspeed. John Bickley here, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief. Wake up every morning with our show, Morning Wire, where we bring you all the news that you need to know in 15 minutes or less. Join me and my co-host, Georgia Howe, for daily coverage of all the biggest stories on Morning Wire.